Chapter 335: Fight Against Abominations
Even then, the Holts kept coming.
Lyrate’s body dissolved into a rush of crimson mist, surging forward like a flash of blood-stained wind. The first sword master barely had time to blink before her blade passed through him, splitting his body clean down the middle, from crown to waist.
Before the second could react, a burst of energy shot from her sword, a focused crimson beam. It struck his head with pinpoint precision.
Boom.
His skull exploded in a flash of red and white, fragments scattering as his body crumpled lifeless to the floor.
The mist swirled again as Lyrate reformed, standing calm and silent between the two corpses.
North was panting now. Blood streaked her shoulder. Steve had a shallow gash across his side, but he didn’t seem to notice it.
"We’re not far from the prison," North said, stepping over the remains of a Holt soldier.
"Yeah," Steve muttered, "but this is too many for just coincidence."
"It’s a stall," North said through clenched teeth. "They know we’re coming."
Suddenly, another heavy gate slid open ahead with a metallic grind.
From the doorway stepped another squad of Holts. These weren’t reckless. They moved like one unit. Their auras were heavier, thicker. The ones who stayed hidden until now.
Steve tensed, raising his sword. "Looks like the elite elite."
Lyrate stared with the same unimpressed eyes, her hand already on the hilt.
North exhaled and dropped into a stance, the wind around her already beginning to rise.
They were almost at the prison.
But the final guards had just arrived.
And it took them another intense battle to finish of the unit.
The last of the elite Holts they’d just finished off collapsed to the ground, blood pooling at their feet. Their breaths were heavy, clothes torn, blades slick with gore when a deep, guttural rumble echoed through the stone corridor as large thunderous footsteps echoed in the corridor.
Steve and North froze.
Then the sound came again.
A vibrating thud ... followed by a sharp crack in the stone walls nearby.
Lyrate’s eyes snapped toward the eastern wing of the underground structure.
Suddenly, a sharp scent hit their senses—burned flesh, rot, and something unnatural. It slithered into their noses and clung to their throats. Steve gagged and wiped his mouth.
"That’s not human," he said.
It wasn’t.
The wall burst open, and what stepped through was a monster twisted from nature itself.
It had the hulking frame of a crocodile, twelve feet tall and standing upright on two powerful legs. Its dark, decayed scales were cracked and mottled, leaking patches of black fluid that sizzled against the stone floor.
Its spine jutted out in sharp ridges, crooked and exposed like broken stone columns, and parts of its body showed signs of rot, flesh hanging loose in some places, fused to metal in others. A sick stench of death and chemicals rolled off it in waves.
Its long snout split open with a slow hiss, revealing jagged, uneven teeth and a tongue that squirmed like a separate creature.
[Envy Croc - Level 199]
And it wasn’t alone.
Two more followed.
One had the hunched, bristled form of a mutated boar, dragging twin spiked chains behind it, each clink of the metal leaving a line of corrosion on the ground.
The other was a mangled spider-monkey hybrid, bloated and warped, with six limbs.
A few tense seconds passed and then the fight began.
North cursed and kicked forward first, her blades lighting up with [Dual Cleave] as she aimed for the neck of the lead creature. But it moved—faster than it had any right to—and blocked her strike with a twitch of its scale-covered arm.
The force threw her back.
Steve activated [Storm Laceration], arcs of lightning rippling from his blade as he cut forward in a blur. Sparks and blood flew as the edge grazed one of the monsters, tearing through its outer layer but the wound stitched back before it even staggered.
"They’re regenerating!" he shouted.
Lyrate slammed her sword into the ground, and a surge of thick black roots erupted upward, writhing like serpents.
They coiled around the legs of all three Abominations, binding them in place. The creatures screamed and thrashed, snapping their jaws, dragging their limbs but the roots held firm, anchoring them to the stone.
Lyrate rose into the air, her expression unreadable, eyes glowing faintly. She watched from above as Steve and North dashed forward to engage the restrained monsters.
North activated [Two Step Edge], blinked to its side and slashed a dozen times in a flash of wind. But the croc twisted again, catching her mid-move and slamming her into a wall with a sickening crack.
"North!" Steve shouted.
She groaned, but got up.
The spider-monkey hybrid screeched, eight eyes flaring with a sickly yellow glow. Its wiry limbs jerked and spasmed as it strained against the roots, but they held.
Steve didn’t waste time.
He exhaled once and activated [Storm Laceration].
Lightning raced across his skin, crackling around his limbs and sword. His body blurred forward with a crack of thunder—one moment still, the next he was right in front of the abomination.
The hybrid shrieked and swung a bladed limb, but Steve ducked low. His sword flashed once, then again and then again. A rapid blur of cuts that shredded through joints and sinew.
In less than a second, one arm fell. Then another. Sparks and blood sprayed as Steve leapt up, twisted in midair, and severed two more limbs with brutal precision.
The hybrid toppled sideways, shrieking, three limbs gone in the blink of an eye. Its movements were frantic, but no longer dangerous.
Steve landed calmly, sword humming with power.
He pointed the blade toward the creature’s twitching form. Its mutilated limbs scraped weakly against the floor, still trying to rise.
"Pierce," he whispered.
A sharp white light flared at the tip of his sword—pure, focused Essence condensed to a needle point. It flashed forward in a blink.
The creature’s head burst apart with a wet pop, the white beam punching through skull, brain, and bone like paper.
While Steve was fighting his battle with the spider monkey, North was having a stare down with the boar.
Its tusks jutted out like spears, and rot ate away patches of its flesh. The moment she stepped forward, it bellowed, snapping the vines with raw force.
North scoffed as green light flared around her dual blades as she activated her blade art—wind wrapped around her body, flowing like a second skin.
Then she moved.
A blink, a step, and her short sword pierced its shoulder. Before it could react, she vanished again and stabbed its rib. Then its gut. Then its spine.
Each strike was precise, surgical, coated in slicing wind that cut deeper than steel.
The boar turned, howling in rage but its body was already bleeding from half a dozen wounds. It charged with reckless fury.
She sidestepped, dragged one blade along its flank, then spun and drove the second blade deep into the soft flesh beneath its hind leg.
Blood sprayed.
The boar staggered, its momentum failing.
North didn’t stop. She leapt over the beast’s body, spun mid-air, and whispered, "Swift death."
In that instant, multiple wind blades burst from her dual blades—sharp, curved arcs of green light that tore through the air like razors.
They rained down on the boar Abomination, slicing into its thick hide and muscle. Blood sprayed in every direction as the creature was cut into pieces mid-scream, its massive body collapsing in twitching chunks across the stone floor.
Both of them stood still panting, face to face with the last remaining beast.
The crocodile was the largest and most dangerous.
It towered above them even while bound. Its eyes glowed orange, locked on them as it roared and pulled violently against the roots. With a sickening crack, it broke one leg free.
North and Steve moved instantly.
Steve charged from the left, blade glowing faintly with lingering lightning. North flanked from the right, her dual blades coated in wind again.
The croc swung a massive tail, Steve ducked under it and slashed across its thigh. Sparks flew, but the hide held.
North struck next, her sword slicing at the exposed underbelly, finding a gap and drawing a long line of blood. The croc twisted and roared, snapping at her with jaws wide enough to crush stone.
She leapt back just in time.
Steve dashed forward again, planted his foot on the croc’s snout, and drove his sword into its eye. The beast shrieked and reared back, North blinked into the air above and came crashing down, both blades buried in the back of its neck.
Still it didn’t fall.
The croc spun violently, flinging both of them off.
Steve rolled to his feet and shouted, "Now!"
North flared her wind aura, and Steve’s lightning surged again. The two blurred forward in perfect sync.
Steve slashed across its chest, carving a deep, sparking wound. North followed, blades dancing, each strike deeper, faster. Her wind sharpened his lightning, and his pressure opened paths for her blades.
With a final cry, both leapt at the same time—Steve’s sword drove through its skull while North’s crossed blades pierced its chest.
The croc let out one last groan before collapsing in a heap of torn flesh and shattered bone.
The room fell silent, except for their breaths.