NOVGO.NET Chapter 602 - Capítulo 602: 602 - Taming the Swarm - 17 - End
Capítulo 602: Chapter 602 – Taming the Swarm – 17 – End
Ren closed his eyes, concentrating all the corrupted energy he had absorbed into a single point at the center of his chest.
The pressure was unbearable.
His ribs flexed, his lungs compressed, each heartbeat sounded like a war drum in his ears.
The energy coiled inside him like a living thing, fighting against containment, demanding release.
So he released it.
It wasn’t an instantaneous explosion. It was an implosion within the creature network followed by a slow explosion, as if the universe itself had taken a deep breath and then screamed.
The four-artifact creature, which had been desperately trying to free itself from the energetic connection Ren had established, froze for a fraction of a second. Its eyes widened as it comprehended what was happening.
The stolen energy was being weaponized, turned back against the very network that had shared it.
Then its body simply came apart.
Flesh, bones, corrupted fluids, everything dispersed like dew under the midday sun. The scale was horrifying, tons of organic matter destroyed in seconds.
The four artifacts fell to the ground with metallic resonance, their surfaces now opaque and lifeless. Whatever energy had animated them was gone, drained away through Ren’s impossible absorbed amount.
The thousands of small creatures that had been swarming around the abomination suffered the same fate. One by one, they disintegrated, their connection to the network filling them so abruptly that they couldn’t maintain coherence. The battlefield fell into absolute silence, broken only by the soft patter of dust settling where living nightmares had been moments before.
For a moment, everything was peace.
But when the smoke cleared completely, Julius felt his blood freeze.
Ren still stood there, but something was terribly wrong. His body was wrapped in dark energy that moved with its own life around him. Tendrils of purple-black power writhed like hungry serpents, occasionally lashing out to scorch the ground around his feet.
His skin had taken on an unhealthy pallor, almost translucent. The roots that had once been contained under his skin were now clearly out and visible.
And when he slowly turned toward where Julius and Selphira watched from atop the wall, Julius remembered the words Sirius had spoken to him hours earlier.
“The boy could end up being a bigger problem than any supposed solution he represents.”
In the distance, more mutant creatures ran toward here again.
The explosion had eliminated all those that were a few kilometers around, relatively close, but the pulse of corrupted energy now seemed to serve as a beacon for all abominations. Dozens, then hundreds of creatures converged along the same line as always toward this location.
But Ren wasn’t looking at them. His violet eyes were fixed solely on Julius and Selphira.
There was recognition there, but it was cold. The warmth that had always characterized Ren was gone, replaced by something… alien.
Slowly, he raised a hand toward them.
“GET DOWN!” Julius roared.
But Selphira’s response was negative and instantaneous. She extended both hands and channeled her power in a single desperate movement.
The air around Ren crystallized, forming an ice prison so dense it seemed more metal than frozen water. The formation was perfect, without bubbles or cracks. It was thick enough to contain a high Gold-rank creature.
It held Ren… for three seconds.
Then it began to crack.
The fissures spread across the icy surface like black spider webs, each one releasing purple vapor that smelled of ozone and desperation.
Julius reacted immediately, channeling his beasts’ power to create a second layer of containment. Silicon minerals sprouted from the ground, wrapping the ice prison in transparent, mana reinforced layers to give it diamond hardness.
“It’s not going to last long,” he grunted, sweat running down his forehead as he maintained the mineral formation. The effort was enormous, requiring precise control of multiple elements simultaneously. “Selphira, how long can you maintain this with my help!?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, blood running from her nose from the effort. Her face was pale, strained beyond her usual limits. “Maybe a minute. Maybe less!”
The ice prison groaned under the pressure from within. Cracks appeared in Julius’s mineral reinforcement too, spreading like infection through the crystalline structure.
“You have to get out of here!” Zhao shouted beside them. “You’re both at your limits and the creatures are coming back!”
“We can’t leave him!” Julius replied, adding another layer when he saw the previous ones beginning to break. “Maybe the creature network did manage to trap him in the end! If he escapes in this state…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Everyone could imagine what a completely corrupted Ren could do to a city full of defenseless civilians.
“Leave us… Evacuate everyone else,” Selphira said firmly, her eyes never leaving the prison that was beginning to shake violently. Ice fragments were already falling. “Zhao, take as many as you can. Julius and I will keep him here until…”
The boy who had always fought to protect people had become the very thing they needed protection from.
Zhao flew off from where he had been, evacuating soldiers.
“Julius, you’re still very young, go away too and…”
“No! You can’t stop him alone. Together maybe we can give him time to come to his senses and…”
Their words were interrupted by the sound of something breaking.
They pushed their strength silently again until the first mutant creature also reached the wall’s edge just as the prison began to collapse completely.
But instead of attacking immediately or fusing with the artifacts, the creature did something strange.
It approached one of the fallen artifacts and then began to dig.
“What is it doing?” Zhao murmured, confused. The behavior was completely different from what they’d observed before.
More creatures arrived, and each repeated the same behavior. Instead of forming new giant abominations with the artifacts, they were burying them, taking them underground. Their movements were urgent, almost panicked, as if they were trying to preserve something precious.
“Are they retreating?” Julius realized with amazement. “They’re truly in retreat?”
It was as if the creatures had decided to abandon their convergence plans. Was it the loss of the four-artifact creature? Was it Ren’s information? Something seemed to have broken their objectives and sent them scurrying back to whatever dark places they’d emerged from.
The initial problem seemed solved…
But the good news lasted only a few seconds.
The ice and mineral prison exploded outward with a force that sent sharp splinters in all directions. A mineral fragment the size of a spear head completely pierced Selphira’s shoulder, emerging from her back in an explosion of blood that painted the white ice crimson.
Sorry for the slight delay… actually, I already had it a few hours ago, but I wanted to finish the last part and a few other things before sending it out… and time just slipped away while I was editing some visuals.
Anyway, as always…
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