No birds. No insects. Not even the whisper of wind.
It felt like the world was holding its breath.
Shivani walked at the front, her hand subtly resting on her blade's hilt, eyes scanning the fog-infested terrain. Behind her followed Goru, shield strapped to his arm, moving with the wary weight of responsibility. Miran, looking pale but steady, kept checking on the injured from Unit 3 earlier, making sure her healing reserves were still useful. Riku, calm but alert, maintained rear guard, fingers twitching above his weapon with silent readiness.
They had been searching for Arin for almost an hour.
No trail. No footprints. Nothing but a fading echo of mana that made Shivani mutter under her breath, "Even the forest swallowed him…"
"Captain," Goru said quietly, trying to hide the strain in his voice. "We need to quicken our pace. If he's wandered too deep, we may—"
His words cut off.
Because something moved.
A soft gurgling sound, wet and unnatural, slithered across the silence like a disease. Riku froze, eyes narrowing.
"Contact?" he whispered.
Miran's breath hitched. "No… I feel mana pressure. Tier… Tier 4? Maybe?"
Then the fog parted.
And it crawled out.
A monstrosity dragged itself forward—long, pulsating tentacles coated in moss-like rot, a centipede-like body twisted with bone protrusions, and multiple glaring red eyes blinking out of sync.
Its very presence felt wrong, like a painting smeared in blood across reality.
Shivani uttered a single command.
"Formation. Now!"
They moved instantly—
Goru stepped forward with shield raised. Riku circled right, blades drawn. Miran stayed back, gathering healing light for emergencies. Shivani charged.
The beast shuddered, and four tentacles cracked like whips through the air.
CLAANG! Goru's shield took the first blow, trembling in his grasp.
"Damn—heavy!" he snarled.
Riku sliced two tentacles, severing them cleanly. They wriggled on the ground before dissolving into black mucus.
Shivani's blade slashed across what looked like its main body—but the beast barely reacted.
Then—it grew louder. A horrible, low moan shook the ground.
From the surrounding fog, smaller versions—Tier 4 lesser spawn—emerged. Four of them.
Miran's eyes widened. "More incoming!"
"Riku, take left spawn! I'll handle right!" Shivani ordered. "Goru, hold central focus. Miran, keep everyone alive!"
The ground became chaos.
Tentacles whipped like whips of death. Spawns shrieked and lunged. Goru gritted his teeth, parrying blow after blow, shield cracking slightly. Riku danced through blades and gore, but he was slowing. Miran's hands, glowing with green healing energy, trembled as she healed wounds faster than she could breathe.
And Shivani—she fought like a storm, but for each cut she delivered, two more injuries appeared around her comrades.
Their breathing grew ragged. Their steps faltered. Their formation began to break.
And the main beast was only getting started.
Its central maw opened. A chilling roar shook them to their bones.
Miran cried, "This… this pressure… Tier 4?! No—higher…!"
Shivani's eyes widened.
"Tier A…" she whispered.
Goru's heart dropped.
"…We might die here."
The monster slammed four tentacles forward at once. Goru blocked—but the impact nearly shattered his arm.
He coughed blood.
Still, he stood.
Still… he stood.
"Goru!" Miran screamed, rushing to reinforce his back with energy.
He grunted. "Stay. Back."
But the second wave came faster.
Miran got hit. She screamed—thrown backward, rolling across the ground, blood staining her lips.
She still reached out desperately to heal Goru's back as the beast pressed forward, tentacles raising like spears ready to impale them all.
Shivani spun mid-battle, her voice cracking.
"Miran, MOVE!"
But Miran ignored it—her hands still glowing, still healing—
Then a tentacle lunged straight at her chest.
The tentacle shot forward like a spear of death.
Miran froze.
Her healing light flickered.
She shut her eyes—
THUD!!!
Goru moved first.
His shield intercepted the tentacle—but this time, it shattered completely.
CRACK! Wood. Steel. Bone?
No— That last sound was him.
"Goru!" Miran screamed, eyes wide with horror.
The force flung him forward, impaling him on three more tentacles that pierced through his abdomen and shoulder. He coughed, blood spraying like broken red petals, staining his cracked armor.
He didn't scream. He just… grimaced. Steadied himself on shaking legs.
Still stood like a wall.
His voice came out broken. "You… don't touch… my squad."
"GO BACK!!" Shivani roared, face pale with fury and fear. "Goru, fall back—NOW!!"
But he didn't move.
He couldn't.
The tentacles tightened, crushing his body further.
Miran, sobbing, crawled toward him with shaking hands glowing weakly. "D-don't… move… I-I'll… heal—"
"Stop… crying… Miran," he said, smiling with blood dripping from his lips. "It's… not… over…"
Riku, heavily bleeding from a torn arm, yelled through clenched teeth, "Captain! Orders! We can't—!"
Shivani's blade trembled.
Her breath was ragged. Her eyes were wide. For the first time, there was fear.
"Are we… going to die here…?" Riku muttered.
The Tier A beast roared. The shockwave knocked Miran flat and forced Shivani to her knees.
Goru tried to lift his shield—forgetting it was gone.
One last tentacle shot downward to finish him.
"GORU!!!" Miran screamed.
Everything slowed.
Her scream echoed. Goru's dimming gaze reflected hopeless acceptance. Shivani bit her lip until it bled—rage building but body refusing to move.
Then… the world shook.
A wave of pressure, thick and violent, surged like a thunderclap.
A presence.
Wild. Untamed. Furious.
All tentacles froze mid-air.
The monster recoiled as if slapped by an unseen force.
Footsteps approached.
Step.
Step.
Step.
He emerged from the fog.
Neck slightly tilted. Eyes shadowed—but burning.
Jaw clenched so tight his teeth might break.
Expression unreadable, but his aura screamed one thing:
Rage.
Arin.
When his gaze fell on Shivani's blood-soaked form, something inside him snapped.
"...Who," he whispered, voice low and trembling with something feral, "did this?"
The beast screeched.
Arin didn't look at it.
He just took one more step forward, Perin perched on his shoulder—fur puffed, eyes glowing in violent warning.
"...I said…" His pupils narrowed, Echoform flickering like unstable lightning.
"WHO. DID. THIS?"
The air thickened, as though the world itself hesitated to breathe.
Even the monster shivered.
The forest shook.
A roar—deep, wet, and monstrous—ripped through the trees like thunder tearing reality apart. The ground cracked. Birds fled. A heavy, rotten stench of corrupted mana spilled through the air.
And blood—so much blood—painted the battlefield.
Miran was on one knee, breath shaky, desperately trying to channel healing energy through trembling fingers. Her spirit energy flickered, weak and unstable. Tears mixed with dirt on her cheeks. "P-please… just a little more—!"
A massive tentacle whipped toward her like a jagged spear.
Goru moved without thinking.
"MOVE!" he shouted, slamming his cracked shield forward.
The impact shattered everything.
CRACK.
His shield split in half. The tentacle pierced through, stabbing Goru's stomach like a cluster of twisted blades. His eyes widened—but he didn't scream. He pushed forward anyway, stopping it just inches from Miran's heart.
Blood dripped from his lips as he forced a grin. "N-not today…"
Riku was already down, coughing and barely breathing. Two other soldiers lay unconscious, their bodies barely holding together.
Shivani—
She stood in front of them all, covered in wounds, her breathing ragged. Her sword hand shook violently, knees buckling.
Still—she glared at the monster with unfaltering will.
A Class A-tier abomination. Crocodilian jaw with tentacles coiling across its spine. Blood-red scales. Eyes that devoured hope.
It screeched again, raising a tentacle twice the size of a tree, ready to crush them all.
Miran screamed, "CAPTAIN, WE CAN'T TAKE ANOTHER HIT—!!"
Shivani stepped forward anyway, sword raised with broken strength. "As long as I stand… you will not—"
But her legs gave out, crashing her to the ground.
The monster lunged.
Miran cried, "CAPTAIN!!"
And then—
The tentacle froze mid-air.
As if gripped by unseen dread.
A heavy pulse of energy vibrated through the forest.
Thump.
The monster hesitated.
Thump.
A breath… heavy, uneven, but getting faster.
Thump.
Footsteps approached.
Someone was walking toward them—slow, calm… wrong.
Out of the shadows emerged Arin.
He stood still for a moment, eyes wide, breath trembling—not in fear, but in a growing, twisting storm of emotions he couldn't understand.
He saw Shivani—bleeding, collapsed.
Something inside him cracked.
His heartbeat raced faster than his breath could keep up. His hands shook. His vision blurred into a haze of red and black.
He whispered, voice shaking: "…They hurt her."
A whisper. But heavy.
They hurt her.
His chest twisted violently. Breath grew harsh. He gripped his own shirt over his heart as if trying to hold something inside from tearing out.
Images flashed—fire, blood, corpses, screams.
And a throne in hellish red water.
A calm figure sitting there.
A name. Kalkin.
A voice slithered through his skull like liquid darkness: "Back again so soon?"
Arin coughed blood—his entire body reacting.
"I… I need it." He clenched his teeth, veins in his neck bulging. "Power… give it to me."
Kalkin chuckled. "So you're begging now?"
"I SAID GIVE IT TO ME!!"
The words tore from his throat like a wounded beast.
Silence.
Then—
Kalkin's ghostly image materialized before him in his mind—facing him with a crooked smile, crimson gaze dripping with madness and glory.
"Very well."
Arin's chest violently jolted.
Then—pierced.
Invisible fingers plunged through his sternum, ripping into soul instead of flesh. His back arched, breath caught as agony and ecstasy fused.
Kalkin's whisper carved itself into his being: "Burn with me."
A glowing mark carved itself across Arin's neck—twisting like a curse awakened.
His hair flickered in phantom wind. His breath grew slow… but heavy. His wounds kept bleeding, but his body no longer cared. A deep crimson aura began seeping out like smoke in reverse, sucking hope from the air.
Shivani, barely conscious, trembled—not from pain—but instinctual fear.
The monster stepped back.
And Arin slowly lifted his face…
A faint, unsettling grin on blood-stained lips.
To be continued…
Chapter 18 – When Hope Bleeds (Part 2: Blood Crowned in Madness) The forest didn't breathe.
Everything seemed to pause under the crushing pressure radiating from Arin's body. The cursed mark across his neck glowed like burning coal carved into flesh. Blood trickled from his shoulder and chest—the wounds didn't close, they simply… didn't matter anymore.
He was breathing slow.
Too slow.
As if each breath soothed him deeper into something dangerous.
The monster recoiled instinctively, its instincts screaming to flee—but its rage forced it to attack.
BOOM.
The ground exploded as it lunged first, swinging a spiked tentacle faster than before, enhanced by panic.
Arin didn't dodge.
He stepped into it.
SPLAT.
The tentacle smashed into his side, tearing flesh. Blood splattered.
Arin laughed.
Not loud. Just a quiet, breathy chuckle that crawled under the skin of anyone still conscious.
He enjoyed it.
Goru, barely conscious, whispered with wide, trembling eyes, "H-He's… smiling…"
Arin twisted his neck—bones cracking faintly—as if relishing the pain like a warm welcome.
Then he vanished.
No, he moved. But so fast it felt like disappearance.
CRACK.
A devastating punch landed on the monster's jaw.
Its head whipped sideways as its massive body stumbled. Before it could recover—
BAM.
Arin slammed his knee into its gut. Something ruptured. The monster howled in agony.
Another tentacle speared toward him.
He let it pierce his left arm.
Blood gushed.
He didn't flinch.
He grabbed the tentacle still stuck in his arm, grinning, and yanked it out with a wet tear, then swung the severed limb like a whip straight into the monster's face.
CRUNCH.
The creature roared in pain, now stumbling backward in confusion and fear.
Arin walked toward it… slowly.
Steps calm.
Breathing gentle.
Eyes hollow—but the smile still lingered.
A soldier from Unit 4 watching from afar trembled, whispering, "T-That's not a hero… t-that's—"
He didn't finish his sentence.
BAM.
Arin jumped and planted his feet onto the beast's head, smashing it down with a brutal double-foot stomp that collapsed its jaw into the dirt.
Its body thrashed violently.
Arin's right hand glowed faintly crimson now. Not Astra. Not known Echoform. Something else.
Kalkin's influence.
He raised his arm.
For a second, time hung.
He whispered, voice soft yet chilling:
"Die for me."
And he slammed his fist into the beast's skull.
BOOOOOOM.
A localized shockwave erupted, blood and bone exploding outward. The monster's head detonated like rotten fruit.
Silence.
Nothing moved.
Then blood mist slowly drifted into the moonlight.
Arin stood there, bathed in red. His own wounds soaking his clothes. Yet he stood perfectly still—breathing quietly, like he had simply taken a walk.
Miran lay unconscious but safe.
Goru collapsed onto his knees, losing consciousness with a relieved smile.
Shivani… faintly opened her eyes. She saw him—just a silhouette against the moon, soaked in blood.
Her lips trembled silently:
"…Arin…?"
But he didn't answer.
More soldiers arrived, scouting units drawn by the shockwaves.
They stopped twenty meters away.
None dared step closer.
The pressure suffocated them. They dropped to their knees, trembling in primal terror.
Perin, normally cheerful, whimpered from behind a broken log, too afraid to go to his master.
Arin slowly looked at his hands.
Covered in blood.
His smile… faded.
His breathing changed—from calm… to confused.
Fear slipped into his eyes as the killing trance faded.
He whispered, barely audible:
"...What… did I…?"
His knees weakened.
He took one shaky step forward—
—and collapsed face-first into the dirt.
His eyes closed.
Still smiling faintly… but not like joy.
More like someone who finally stopped pretending strength.
His blood pooled around him as silence ruled.
No cheers. No victory roars.
Only fear.
And an unconscious boy lying in blood like a fallen god