Published at 14th of May 2026 7:06 am

Chapter 204: Two Very Different Paths

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Chapter 204: Two Very Different Paths

About four feet at the tallest, the closest thing Seo-jin could compare the demons to were crabs, at least from the waist down. Their lower halves skittered on hooked, chitinous limbs, but above that, each one became a malformed wreck of flesh that only vaguely resembled something humanoid. Their skin hadn't fully formed, leaving wet muscle, exposed organs, and bleeding cavities swaying with every jerking movement. It looked less like a creature born and more like something ripped from gestation too early.

No intelligence showed in the gelatinous orbs they used for eyes. Their mouths spilled blood and raw screeches, and every twitching step came broken and erratic, as if their own bodies didnt function right beneath the tunnels wet pulse.

Judging by their auras, their strength ranged from C Rank to the lower end of B, which made them little more than exercise for Pain. Heat rolled off his body as claws tore through shell and flesh alike.

Shadows were already spreading from Snares feet across the slick ground, slowing the demons while sharpening his brothers movements. Pain had already killed two, and the second Panic joined in, the rising body count immediately began feeding both his and Snares classes.

Ignoring the hot frustration crawling under his skin at his own situation, Seo-jin decided to vent it the old-fashioned way.

Pain had just lifted one of the crab demons by its twitching legs, clearly about to tear it apart, when the thing was suddenly split clean in half. Another leaping for Panic lost the top of its skull in one brutal slice, while a third that slipped toward Snare had its spine crushed flat beneath Seo-jins foot.

Leaping from the pulsing corpse as blood splashed his leg, he pulled Butchers Wrath back into his grip and immediately began to thoroughly relieve some stress.

Pain roared a column of fire straight into another demons face, the smell of cooked meat flooding the tunnel before he tossed the blackened corpse aside. Turning for his next kill, he stopped when he noticed nearly every remaining demon swarming towards Seo-jin instead.

Dont intervene. Father can handle them.

Pain was already shifting forward, claws digging grooves in the flesh floor, but Snares voice stopped him. Stepping beside his burning brother, Snare watched his father carve through bodies with glowing eyes.

Killing helps him relax.

Relax, relax.

Beside them, Panic crouched low in manic fascination, tail twitching so hard it slapped wetly against the tunnel floor. He fought the urge to leap in by gnawing on his own arm, but even then, he couldnt stop staring at his fathers slaughter with deep admiration.

A severed face, sliced clean from scalp to chin, slapped down in front of him. In one quick movement, Panic snatched it up and began chewing on it instead.

Even Tiamat and Bahamut seemed to understand the mood. The twin serpents didnt interfere, only hissing through the carnage behind their master, feeding on corpses as he cut his way forward.

Butchers Wrath became motion the second Seo-jin truly got motivated.

He didnt rush. He walked forward through the tunnel like the slaughter had already been decided, his feet thudding heavy against meat as screeching crab demons threw themselves at him from every angle. The first one came in high, claws snapping, and a single cleaver split it open so fast its body kept moving before the top half realized it was dead.

Then the second blade moved.

Another body came apart.

A third launched from the wall, and Seo-jin threw a blade to meet it. The cleaver buried into its skull, and Seo-jin yanked hard enough to drag the thing shrieking through two of its own before smashing all three into the ground. Shell cracked. Organs burst. He kept moving.

That was the pace.

No wasted motion. Just constant, brutal advancement as the tendon chained cleavers spun, whipped, buried, and returned like they had been starved as long as he had. One blade punched through a demons chest and dragged him forward. The other snapped behind his back without warning, splitting open something trying to pounce from his blindside.

Blood fanned hot across his coat.

A demon latched onto his arm, its claws digging through fabric, but Seo-jin barely acknowledged it. He grabbed the thing by its malformed face and drove his forehead straight through its own. Bone gave way instantly. He tore free and swung again before the corpse hit the floor.

Left. Right. Hook. Rip.

One lost its legs and collapsed screaming. Another had its upper body removed so cleanly its lower half kept twitching in place. They came in numbers, but numbers only helped when fear existed, and Seo-jin felt none.

That made them easy.

A chord of tendons wrapped around one shrieking throat, and Seo-jin planted his feet before ripping it backward hard enough to bulldoze through the swarm. He met it halfway, drove a fist through its torso, and pinned it to the tunnel wall with enough force to make the flesh around them ripple like a shockwave.

Seo-jin finally smiled, sharp and ugly.

More!

He pivoted hard, both flesh chains shrieking as they tore outward. One blade caught a ceiling crawler and ripped it down in a spray of black blood. The second carved through another before the first body even hit the ground. Pieces rained around him.

Behind, Panics laughter had turned feral. Pain answered with fire, but even he held position. Snare didnt need to say a word.

They all understood.

This wasnt normal combat.

This was their Broodfather venting.

Seo-jin pushed deeper into the swarm, his cleavers moving like old hatred given shape. He didnt posture. Didnt waste strength. Every swing killed, crippled, or created another opening. Bodies piled. Shells split. Wet chunks slapped against the walls.

The floor beneath him turned slick enough to slide, but that only made his movement meaner. He adapted without thought, chains lashing wider, using momentum instead of fighting it.

By the time the next wave realized what it was charging, the tunnel was already filled with death.

A claw tore into his side, cutting cold and deep enough to slice through fabric and metal, but the pain barely registered beyond the sharp rip of his coat.

Little cunt!

His jaw snapped wide, bones shifting without hesitation, and he bit the crab demons head clean off. Blood flooded his tongue for half a second before he spat the still-twitching skull hard enough to crack another charging demon in the face. Using that brief opening, he kicked off the slick floor and leapt back.

Pain, hold them.

His firstborn moved instantly. A flaming wall of muscle, horns, and rage crashed into the charging demons, fire bursting from his maw while claws hacked through shell and exposed meat. The tunnel lit orange as bodies piled against him.

Store these.

Seo-jin immediately started stripping off what remained of his suit, wincing as torn fabric peeled from his side. Seeing the shredded state of it only made him curse harder as he ripped off his armor too. Inside this place, anything tied too closely to the system was dead weight.

Panic swallowed the last of the ruined suit, then punched himself in the gut like he was making room. Looking down at the heavier chestpiece and gauntlets, he hesitated, shook his head, and jabbed a claw toward Snare.

Too full, your turn.

Snares expression tightened with pure annoyance, but he stepped forward anyway. With a dry crack of bone, he unhinged his jaw and began somehow forcing Seo-jins armor down his throat piece by piece.

Seo-jin had fully intended to transform immediately, but for one brief, deeply distracting moment, he just stood there watching Snare accomplish soething so physically wrong it nearly overrode the battlefield.

As his skin blackened and spread, and bones cracked, stretched, and reformed beneath flesh, he made a quiet promise to himself. At some point, he was absolutely creating a broodling purely for dissection.

Thats enough, Pain.

Pain obeyed immediately, finishing by slamming two half-crushed demon heads together in a burst of gore before stepping back. Smoke rolled from his jaws in thick waves as Azakh-Tur surged forward to replace him.

Pain stopped beside his brothers, licking boiling blood from his claws

Then he froze.

Panic froze.

Even Snare stopped breathing for half a second.

All three brothers stood locked in place, their glowing eyes fixed ahead as their fathers full form waded into battle.

Their skin prickled instantly. Blood hammered through their bodies so hard it bordered on painful, every instinct screaming at once. Pain even got hard.

If Seo-jin had been lethal before, then thisthis was something else entirely. In his Imp Tyrant form, with blackened flesh, monstrous scale, and violence rolling off him like heat, the brothers didnt feel like they were watching a fighter anymore.

They were watching a god of war.

Tears of blood slid down Panics face.

Its...perfection.

Both Snare and Pain snapped toward him in open surprise. Panic barely formed coherent sentences on a good day, and hearing that word come out of himclear, reverent, almost sanehit strangely hard. For one brief moment, the madness in his twitching body seemed to vanish, leaving behind nothing but pure admiration.

Just as shocked as his brother, Snare lost himself for a second, his glowing eyes fixed too long on the slaughter unfolding ahead. That single lapse nearly cost him. A sharp pulse of aura caught the edge of his vision, and he stiffened hard enough for his claws to dig into the fleshy floor.

Fool!

He cursed himself. They had unintentionally advanced deeper while fighting, and only now did the tunnel ahead fully open into view. Flesh walls split into three separate tunnels, each one vomiting out bloodlust, the sound of scraping limbs, and surging hostile aura.

Broodfather! More are coming! A lot!

Snares warning came a fraction too late.

Seo-jin was already mid-swing when the wall beside him exploded inward. Meat and flesh ruptured in a wet blast as something massive burst througha crab demon the size of Painand slammed into Seo-jin with enough force to shake the tunnel.

Both bodies disappeared into the wall.

The impact hit like artillery. Blood, shredded flesh, and chunks of pulsing tunnel sprayed outward as the entire section cratered under the collision.

All three brothers launched forward instantly, killing intent overriding everything. They didnt get far.

Every remaining crab demon in the chamber moved at once, and with such sudden coordination it was almost unnatural. The brothers were intercepted from every side, their path to Seo-jin choked off as claws, shrieks, and bodies crashed into them.

They were surrounded.

Impact after impact thundered from the collapsed wall where their father and the larger demon had vanished, each hit wet and brutal. Bone cracked. Meat burst. The sounds alone were enough to make the tunnel feel alive with violence.

Then a beam of crimson aura ripped outward from the wreckage, carving through flesh, shell, and bodies in a straight line.

Everything in its path came apart.

A second later, a roar detonated through the tunnel so violently even the broodlings flinched. It wasnt rage alone. It was hunger. Authority. Something primal enough to shake marrow.

Panic, halfway through tearing apart the things blocking him, froze. The massive torso of the larger crab demon flew past him, spinning end over end.

Ripping himself free from the cratered wall with wet flesh tearing around him, Seo-jin rose through drifting blood-mist. Steam poured from his mouth with every breath, and bloodlight bled off his body in thick waves. Behind him, Tiamat and Bahamut were carrying the larger demons remains, tearing through the crab half in savage chunks.

Seo-jin turned toward his sons. Blood covered his face. So did his smile.

Not enough.

He tilted his head toward the surging flood of demons pouring from deeper tunnels, then launched forward without a second of hesitation, his claws gouging the fleshy ground hard enough to spray meat behind him.

Watching their father charge ahead alone, the brothers answered immediately. Whatever crab demons still blocked them died fast, ripped apart, burned open, crushed, or devoured as all three doubled their violence just to catch up.

As Panic sprinted, he suddenly sniffed hard once...then again.

His eyes went wide.

So did his grin.

Endless...

Pain felt it too through [Heat Sense], the sensation crawling across him from every direction like standing inside a furnace surrounded by sparks.

Thousands.

Ahead. Behind. Above. Side tunnels. Walls. Everywhere. And somehow, that only made it better.

In that dark, pulsing hell of flesh tunnels and blood-soaked ground, as each brother threw himself deeper into the oncoming slaughter and Seo-jin carved straight into the largest concentration like a beast starved, they all shared the same expression.

They were smiling.

It was going to be a long, beautiful day.

----

Raising a hand to shield his eyes from the glaring sun, Ash groaned as he stared up the steep hill everyone was dragging themselves over. Sweat clung to his neck, and his legs already hated him. A nudge from behind from Widow got him moving again.

Its so hot! Anyone got any water?

A canteen suddenly smacked into his chest. Catching it, Ash looked up and grinned greedily at Lynn, followed immediately by a huge gulp.

Dont drink too much, youll get a stomach ache.

Shaking her head, Lynn turned away and kept climbing, one hand steady on Teals exhausted back as they pushed uphill through dry brush and loose dirt.

Thanks big sis!

Ash jogged ahead a few steps, then grabbed Teals hand and tried helping pull her upward.

Come on, every adventure has some hardship. Ya gotta struggle through it.

Teal slapped his hand away without missing a wheezing breath.

Youshouldshutthe

Teal!

Lynns sharp jab cut her off before she could finish, though the glare Teal shot Ash made it clear she was mentally burying him somewhere unpleasant.

You all talk too much. Here

Widow bent down without ceremony, scooped up the startled woman like luggage, and set her atop her thorax. Then she raised a finger to her mouth and shushed both Lynn and Ash.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Both of them hunched slightly like scolded children before getting back to the miserable climb.

Looking higher up, Ash spotted Min and Bile already standing near the crest, both silhouetted against the sun. They seemed deep in some heated discussion, though the wind and distance kept the words from carrying.

Go eavesdrop.

With a quick purr and a brush against his leg, Triss bounded off ahead through the grass.

Grinning to himself, Ash kept climbing, focusing hard on each step. His shard may have boosted his stats, but that didnt mean tumbling backward down a hill sounded remotely fun.

It had been hours since they split from Seo-jin, and in all that time, they hadnt seen a single monster. Not one. No beasts. No foreign races. No wild animals.

The Freelands, usually crawling with danger, felt wronglike the life had been scraped out of it. The silence was starting to wear on everyone, turning nerves into irritation.

Then Mins voice suddenly rose up ahead. Ash looked up sharply. She was gesturing hard at Bile now, while the broodlings tail lashed behind him with eough force to cut weeds flat.

Whats going on?

Triss didnt speak in words, she spoke in images. The second the thought hit, Ash froze so hard his sneakers slid in the dirt.

Whyd you stop?

Lynn bumped into his back, wiping sweat from her brow as she looked from him to the hilltop.

Ashs breathing turned shallow. Every instinct he had was suddenly screaming at him to turn around and run.

Realmjunkies.

The word hit like ice water.

Lynn froze too.

Of all the things to encounter in the Freelands, Realmjunkies were near the top of the list for things you prayed never found you first. Shard Cults. Users who had hit their limit, betrayed humanity, and sold themselves to the foreign gods beyond the realms.

Fanatics. Murderers and rapists. There was no line they wouldnt cross, no act too vile if it honored whatever god theyd chained themselves to.

The worst of humanity.

And judging by the tension rolling off the hill ahead, this was about to become a really bad day.

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