Chapter 596: Chapter 596 - Taming the Swarm - 11

"It’s looking at us," Zhao murmured, his wings deploying instinctively. "No, wait. It’s looking at you, Ren."

It was true. The dozens of eyes covering the scorpion-creature were fixed on Ren with sickening intensity. There was recognition in that gaze, a familiarity that shouldn’t exist between a human and a corrupted abomination.

"What does it want?" Julius asked, but his voice sounded distant, as if he were asking his own memories rather than expecting an answer.

When the creature was about fifty meters from the wall’s base, it stopped again. Its pincers rose toward the sky. Its segments tensed, every piece of corrupted flesh straining against itself.

And then it opened what might have been its mouth.

The shriek that followed wasn’t simply sound.

It was the same type of sonic attack that Ren had experienced underground and again not long ago with Julius, but amplified until it became something far more potent.

Ren doubled over, his hands flying instinctively to his ears as the world filled with pain that couldn’t be located in any specific part of his body. It was as if every cell was vibrating at a discordant frequency.

"Ren!" Julius’s voice came like a distant echo, barely audible above the roar that filled his head.

But this time, his body’s reaction was different. The last time he had faced this type of attack, the seed in his chest had been easy to control, providing him with strength in measured doses.

Now, the response was explosive.

The seed wasn’t completely purified... and it didn’t limit itself to receiving the sonic attack. It absorbed it, processed it, and transformed it into chaotic energy that shot through his system like liquid electricity.

Ren felt the exact moment when he lost control of it.

The roots he had kept carefully contained in his chest extended suddenly, but not with the gradual, controlled expansion he thought he had learned to manage. They burst outward like a dam breaking, spreading through his body with violent urgency.

Black lines sprouted beneath his skin, branching like an alternative circulatory system that extended from his heart toward every extremity. The patterns were intricate, almost artistic in their complexity, but completely alien to any normal human anatomy.

The roots branched through his arms, creating designs that seemed to combine arcane runes with organic growth patterns.

"What’s happening to him?" Zhao shouted, but there was no answer. Nobody had seen anything similar to what was happening with Ren.

The pain from the shriek faded abruptly, replaced by something completely different. Ren could feel... everything. Every vibration in the earth, every fluctuation of mana in the air.

But more disturbing still, he could feel the scorpion-creature. Not as an external entity, but as something familiar, something that resonated with the energy now coursing through the roots in his body.

It was like looking into a dark mirror and recognizing features he didn’t want to acknowledge.

When he finally raised his head to look at the abomination, his eyes blazed with the same purple light he had seen in the corrupted systems of the artifacts.

The same light that now pulsed through the black veins spreading across his skin like living tattoos of power and corruption intertwined.

♢♢♢♢

In the northern sector of the wall, the situation had ended completely differently.

Luna, Liora, and Larissa held their positions atop the wall while observing how the combined forces under Luna’s new command executed a strategy that had proven surprisingly effective.

Unlike the massive bombardment approach used on the main front, here they had developed something more elegant. Something that showed how their individual strengths work in perfect harmony.

Liora and Luna had activated their complete fusions, their combined beasts creating synergies that exponentially amplified the power of the spiritual black fire. The flames fed not only on their own energy, but drew strength from the common fire of allied soldiers below.

The sight was mesmerizing. Dark flames danced with ordinary fire, each type of energy making the other stronger.

Larissa had chosen not to fuse, maintaining her support based entirely on her fairy’s elemental control. Her role was subtler, using her evolved Lynx stealthy only to direct wind currents when needed.

And really, nothing more was necessary...

Had Ren thought of the girls’ synergies as more than individual when he’d helped them develop their techniques? Because what they achieved together transcended anything they could accomplish alone.

The four beasts worked in perfect synchrony: Liora’s fusion of her Demonic Bashe and Will O’ Wisp generated the spiritual black fire, while Luna’s fusion of her Elemental Devourer Wolf and Light and Wind Tiger created shadow soldiers that concentrated and directed the flames with intelligence.

Each shadow moved following Luna’s purpose, positioning themselves to maximize the fire’s impact, creating channels that funneled the spiritual flames toward the most vulnerable points of their massive enemy.

"Now!" Larissa shouted, directing the final wind current that channeled Liora’s black fireball directly toward the exposed core within the giant creature.

The resulting explosion was spectacular.

Black fire vaporized corrupted flesh like paper in a furnace. The creature’s roar cut off mid-scream as spiritual flames burrowed deep into its organic structure, consuming it from within.

Soldiers from both factions erupted in cheers. Even Aldric’s troops couldn’t help but be impressed by the effectiveness of the combined attack.

"Excellent work, Lady Luna!" shouted one of the local Starweaver captains, his voice carrying genuine admiration. "The creature is falling!"

Lord Aldric maintained his neutral expression, but Larissa could see the frustration in his eyes as he forced himself to appear pleased with Luna’s success.

"Send a message," Liora murmured to Larissa, already thinking ahead to the political implications. "We need official record of this achievement for political effects."

Larissa nodded, already scribbling on a parchment that would be sent by messenger eagle. The victory wasn’t just military, but political. Each success under Luna’s command strengthened her territorial claim, making it harder for her uncles to dismiss her.

But their celebration was premature.

While they watched the giant creature collapse in a heap of smoldering flesh and bone, the hordes of lesser mutants that had been attacking in scattered formations suddenly changed behavior. Instead of continuing their random assaults against the wall, they began converging specifically toward the charred remains of the fallen abomination.

"What are they doing?" Liora murmured, watching as hundreds of small creatures swarmed around the exposed artifact.

The answer came when the first lesser creatures threw themselves directly into the black fire that still burned. Instead of being consumed by the flames, something else happened.

Each mutant that sacrificed itself extinguished more of the flames. Slowly, horribly, the giant arm began to regenerate.

But it didn’t regenerate in the same place.

"It’s moving!" Luna shouted, pointing toward where the artifact’s partially reconstructed carrier began sinking into the earth like a massive, corrupted mole.

Larissa immediately extended her earth control, trying to track the underground movement. Her beasts provided her with sufficient power to sense vibrations through the ground, but what she found alarmed her more than the creature’s regeneration.

The artifact wasn’t just fleeing. It was moving with purpose.

"It’s heading south," she murmured, her voice tight with growing dread.