Published at 14th of June 2026 6:14 am

Chapter 215: Metal And Blood

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Chapter 215: Metal And Blood

He'd gone through something like this before. Growth and pain were nothing new, but this was the first time Seo-jin had heard the Network's voice during a transformation. It hit like a lightning strike through the fog of agony, sharp enough to cut through everything else. The pain, the pressure, the sensation of his class being pulled apart and rebuilt all dimmed as his mind latched onto the words.

King Shard.

Two thunderous roars cut through the chaos of bloodlight raging around him. Pain and Panic burst from their blood cocoons, crimson fragments spraying outward as their auras surged. They stepped free in their new forms, steam curling from their bodies.

As if answering them, unable to contain it any longer, a roar tore from Seo-jin's throat as his head snapped back. The pillar of bloodlight stretching into the sky suddenly reversed, collapsing from the clouds and crashing back into him with enough force to shake the air.

Light exploded. Dust, shattered stone, and broken remnants of the past blasted outward in every direction. What had once been an overgrown, ruined city block was flattened in an instant.

Several moments passed before the falling debris finally settled. The blood-red sky fractured overhead, beams of warm sunlight forcing their way through as the clouds rolled back and scattered.

At the edges of the flattened ground, Pain and Panic stepped into the light. Their eyes glowed through the drifting dust while steam billowed from their maws. Without hesitation, both bowed their heads and dropped to a knee.

Slowly, Seo-jin stood.

Bloodlight still leaked from him in slow waves while bones cracked beneath his skin and muscles settled. He drew in a long breath, filling his lungs with air carrying dust, smoke, and the corrupted scent of the Freelands before releasing it in a steady exhale.

His claws clicked together. The twin serpents on his back hissed softly. Black skin glistened beneath the sunlight while brief flashes of reflected light danced across his horns.

"I feel... whole."

A strange calm spread through him, settling over the rage and bloodlust like a heavy blanket. It didn't erase either. It simply sat on top. Though beneath that calm, killing intent still churned.

[I'm embarrassed.]

He rolled his shoulders, vertebrae popping one after another as a sneer pulled across his face.

'You should be.'

There was no humor in his response. He meant every word. Between remaining completely unaware of what the Cradlebloom had been doing and proving useless throughout most of the quest, the system had a lot of questions to answer.

[But to be completely fair, if not for all this happening, you would have had to wait much longer to fully unlock your shard. Not only did you recover what was stolen, but the increase was immense.]

Your shard. Seo-jin sometimes forgot the voice in his head wasn't the shard itself. It was more of a mediator. An administrator managing the system. After everything that had happened, he was beginning to realize just how much he had relied on that voice and how little authority it actually possessed.

'Later. I want a full report on what the Cradlebloom was doing behind your back. I want to know exactly how it manipulated the system.'

[Sure.]

His irritation was difficult to suppress, but overwhelming curiosity helped keep it under control. There was simply too much to process. Learning his shard was actually a King Shard was enough to consume his attention by itself, but that was only part of it.

His entire skill structure had been rewritten. Beyond that, the heat radiating from behind him demanded immediate attention.

Turning to face his two eldest sons, Seo-jin felt his remaining annoyance vanish completely.

It was replaced by a deep, steady satisfaction.

"Rise."

The two broodspawn stood immediately. The moment they did, the air seemed heavier, a faint pressure rolling off them that tugged at the skin and stirred loose dust across the flattened ground.

Stepping forward, Seo-jin circled them slowly, examining their new bodies. Even the serpents leaned close, tongues flicking as they tasted the heat and scent coming from the pair.

Pulling up Pain's profile, he read while continuing his inspection. The further down he went, the higher his brows climbed.

"Broodspawn?"

The word slipped from his lips, filled with wonder and curiosity, touched with a faint edge of annoyance.

'How is this possible? Broodlings aren't supposed to evolve.'

Several seconds passed before the voice answered. Those few seconds were enough for Seo-jin to recognize the hesitation behind them.

[The original class data was corrupted. Before, they couldn't evolve, but now that your class has been debugged, evolution is possible.]

If he could kill the damn thing a third time, he would gladly spend every dungeon point he owned to do it. The Cradlebloom had gotten over on him in more ways than he'd realized.

Stopping directly in front of the two broodspawn, his gaze settled on Pain's chest.

Although his body was larger, not much had changed about Pain at first glance. His skin was still black like cooled lava, with cracks of burning red glowing beneath the surface like veins. The bear-like maw, the horns, the broad frameall of it remained mostly the same, though parts of his body had become more jagged and uneven. The biggest transformation was his torso.

Covering his chest and stretching down to his waist in the shape of a massive T, oversized fangs overlapped one another like armor plating. Thin tongues of fire escaped from the gaps at random, carrying faint metallic rattles that sounded like distant chains dragging across stone.

Focusing for a moment, Seo-jin's eyes glowed. His gaze swept across their surroundings before locking onto a patch of broken ground roughly a dozen feet away.

With a thought sent to Tiamat and Bahamut, the serpents struck. Their heads shot forward like spears and punched into the dirt. A split second later they jerked back, dragging a squealing creature into the open between their jaws.

A Vore-rat. Disgusting creatures roughly the size of dogs. Blind. Hairless. Tentacle-like feelers sprouted from their toes and snouts, constantly writhing as they searched for food. Creatures of the Beast Realm, they were usually harmless unless they decided to nest beneath a structure.

During the Convergence, collapsed buildings had become a common sight wherever their populations spread.

Looking toward his firstborn, Seo-jin smiled as Tiamat tossed one of the struggling beasts high into the air. The creature spun helplessly, squealing the entire way.

"Show me."

Flames burst around Pain, heat washing across the ruined earth.

"Yes, Broodfather."

Tilting his body back, he threw his arms wide and roared.

The fangs covering his torso split apart like armored jaws, and the sudden surge of heat was enough to soften and melt the stones closest to the broodspawn. Waves of scorching air rolled across the ruined ground, carrying the smell of burning rock.

In the brief instant before his son moved again, Seo-jin's eyes narrowed as he looked inside his son.

What he saw resembled an optical illusion, but it was real. Beyond the wall of fangs lay a pocket dimension. Vast lakes of fire churned beneath a smoke-choked sky, and hanging overhead were thousands upon thousands of barbed chains swaying slowly through the haze.

The moment stretched as far as it could before reality caught up. Dozens of chains suddenly burst from Pain's body and shot toward the falling Vore-rat.

The instant metal met flesh, the air illed with the hiss of searing skin and the stench of cooked meat. The creature's screams became shrill and desperate as the glowing chains wrapped around its limbs and torso.

In the blink of an eye, the Vore-rat was ripped backward through the air and dragged straight into Pain. The fangs slammed shut behind it with a smoke-filled snap, muffling the creature's shrieks.

The screams echoing from inside his eldest son sent a pleasant chill through Seo-jin's body. The skill was called Furnace Maw, and besides the increase to Strength and Vitality, it was the greatest gain from Pain's evolution. More importantly, it was his first S+ ranked skill.

[Name // Furnace Maw]

[Type // Active]

[Category // Racial]

[Rank // S+]

[Evolve // No]

[Sub-Category // Soul Torture]

[Damage Type // Piercing / Fire / Soul]

[Effects]

[Furnace Chains // Manifest burning chains from within the Furnace Maw / Chains may seize living targets and drag them inside the Maw.]

[Furnace Bite // Targets pulled into the Maw suffer Bite Damage, Fire Damage, and Continuous Burning while restrained.]

[Soul Condemnation // The soul of a restrained or defeated target may be bound by the Furnace Chains / Bound souls are dragged into the Furnace Maw and imprisoned / Imprisoned souls suffer continuous Soul Damage and cannot naturally regenerate.]

[User may voluntarily release imprisoned souls.]

[Cost // Variable]

[Cast Time // Instant]

[Time Active // Variable]

[Cooldown // None]

[Restrictions]

[Souls possessing superior Rank or Willpower may resist imprisonment.]

[Some deaths end suffering. Others begin it.]

Seo-jin found himself imagining what the pocket dimension would sound like one day when it was filled with imprisoned souls. Countless voices screaming from within the fire, chains rattling through the smoke, suffering layered atop suffering. The thought pulled a grin across his face.

He couldn't wait to hear it.

Beside the burning broodspawn, his brother sniffed the air as if dinner were cooking, saliva streaming from the corners of his mouth. Leaning forward, his expression shifted into one of genuine longing.

"Me too?"

Pain merely snorted, smoke puffing from his nostrils, and ignored him.

Baring his fangs, Panic pulled back with an obvious look of disappointment.

Of the two, Panic had changed the most. He was practically a different demon.

Standing just shy of six feet tall, his body had become far more humanoid. No longer hunched, he stood upright. His skin remained a dark red, and his face was mostly unchanged aside from his horns, which now tapered sharply toward their tips. His tail had grown longer, the muscles within more defined, and with the barbed hook at its end, it looked more like a weapon than an appendage.

The biggest transformation, much like his brother's, was his upper body.

Panic now stood wrapped in what looked like a straightjacket made from his own flesh.

With a command to Bahamut, the serpent tossed the remaining Vore-rat high into the air.

"Your turn."

Snapping to attention, Panic's grin widened until it nearly split his face.

"My pleasure."

Wind buffeted Seo-jin as Panic's straightjacket unfurled. Multiple black streaks ripped through the air, followed by a series of sharp tearing sounds.

A brief rain of blood fell from above.

Not a single piece larger than a pinhead remained of the Vore-rat before it could hit the ground.

Retracting just as quickly, the twelve flesh tendrils wrapped themselves back around Panic's arms and chest. Blood coating them began feeding upward toward the broodspawn's mouth, traveling through the glowing cracks in his skin like liquid moving through tubes.

They were called Flesh Restraints, and unlike Pain's Furnace Maw, they weren't a skill. They were Natural Weapons, no different than claws or teeth. Just like Pain's new addition, however, the Flesh Restraints carried an S+ rank.

[Flesh Restraints // S+ // Slashing/Binding Damage 397-435]

[Crit Chance // 35%]

[Bleed Chance // 50%]

Looking over his two sons, Seo-jin felt a surge of pride. Most of it was directed at himself, but there was some left over for the two broodspawn. Even so, something felt missing, and Seo-jin knew exactly what it was.

'Spit him out.'

With a low screech, Tiamat tilted its head back, opened its jaws, and spat out a steaming clump of flesh covered in chunks of solidified blood. The mass hit the ground with a wet slap.

While his class advanced, he'd felt a pulse through the broodlink when the system forcibly leveled and evolved the brood. The sensation had been drowned beneath the immense pain of the process, but he had remained clear-headed enough to recognize one thing. The connection felt complete. Nothing was missing.

A few breaths later, the lump of flesh twisted and reshaped itself. Bloodlight flowed from it in waves as Snare stood and roared, the sound carrying across the flattened ground.

His black robes billowed outward before settling around him along with his aura. He lowered his head, met his father's gaze, then dropped to one knee.

"Praise Broodfather."

During their fight with the Cradlebloom's crab demon, Snare had taken an attack meant for Seo-jin and, at the time, appeared to have died. Another one of the Cradlebloom's tricks. Though Snare didn't need to know that.

"I have brought you back to life. Do not think I will do this a second time. Stand with your brothers."

Chest swelling, Snare rose and moved into place. He was now as tall as Panic. Physically, the biggest difference was his posture. No longer hunched and crouched like a broodling, he stood straight. The feature that drew the eye most, however, was his horns. No longer dark, they looked forged from gold. Curling back like a ram's horns, they gave him an aura that felt almost regal.

What truly caught Seo-jin's attention, though, was the vertical slit running down the center of Snare's forehead. His new third eye remained closed, concealing the source of his new racial skill.

[Name // Strategist's Eye]

[Type // Active]

[Rank // A]

[Evolve // Yes]

[Sub-Category // Analysis]

[Effects]

[Tactical Assessment // Analyze all visible targets within range / Information revealed is determined by Rank Difference and Intelligence.]

[Battlefield Comprehension // Automatically identifies / Ambush Locations / Flanking Routes / Defensive Positions / Choke Points / Escape Routes]

[Priority Marking // Targets identified as critical threats are automatically marked / Marked targets remain visible to the user while within range.]

[Predictive Analysis // Continuously evaluates battlefield conditions / As new information is gathered, tactical recommendations are updated.]

[Rank Limitation // Targets of superior Rank may resist analysis / Severe Rank Differences may conceal all information except target designation / Unknown threats remain marked but cannot be accurately assessed.]

[Intelligence Scaling // Higher Intelligence increases / Information Accuracy / Information Depth / Analysis Speed / Simultaneous Target Capacity]

[Special Effect]

[Commander's Focus // All information gathered by Strategist's Eye may be shared with designated allies / Sharing range and clarity scale with Intelligence.]

[Cost // Variable]

[Cast Time // Instant]

[Time Active // Toggle]

[Cooldown // None]

[The strongest warrior sees the enemy. The Third Eye sees the battle already finished.]

The name felt a little lacking, but the effect more than made up for it.

In the future, Snare's potential would truly be realized once Seo-jin's armies had been built. The broodspawn would lead his legions in the most efficient, waste-free way possible.

Once again, he found himself looking toward the future with anticipation.

Breaking the brief calm, a noise began as a distant vibration before rushing toward them like a shockwave, rattling loose stone and shaking the ground beneath their feet.

The sound was instantly familiar.

Hex's music.

Ears perking, a grin tugged at the corner of Seo-jin's mouth. Something sounded different.

He could hear multiple instruments joining Hex's axe.

Closing his eyes, he reached through the broodlink, only to pause when he felt something new. It was like reaching into cold darkness and brushing against sudden heat. His brows tightened as he focused on it, and his vision abruptly exploded outward.

Even through his surprise, he felt the connection lock into place.

He could see through Hex's eyes now. And what he saw made his aura surge.

His brood was evolving.

Breaking from the connection, bloodlight leaking from the corners of his eyes, he looked over his three sons.

"Follow."

Without another word, Seo-jin walked forward, instantly joined by Pain, Panic, and Snare.

Toward the sounds of metal and blood.

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