Published at 25th of September 2026 8:25 am

Chapter 253: Pain Comes First

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Chapter 253: Pain Comes First

Pain. It was what he was named after. The Firstborn. The Flame of the Broodfather. He should be by his father's side, defending him, waiting for him to wake. Instead, he was stuck here dealing with a humanone who seemed to be getting stronger.

Ivan Cho. Pain knew little about the man, and basically all of it could be summed up in a single sentence: he was A rank, and the human called Gregor hated him. That was it.

For the first time, Pain was starting to think knowing a bit more about something might actually help.

"You got big, but slow!"

Two streams of red and blue flame slammed into his side. The heat was a non-issue, but the impact rocked his massive frame, and that was starting to hurt.

Twisting toward the attack, he swiped at Ivan with a flaming claw, but the human slipped out of reach. His swing had barely stopped before Ivan attacked again. Over and over, the man's smaller body was proving to be a nuisance against Pain's current form, forcing him to turn and adjust his weight just to keep up.

After absorbing Ivan's flames, his bloodline had been further refined. He was more bear than broodling now, his body immense, with his chest, arms, and shoulders grown especially wide. He was still fast, but all that mass limited how quickly he could maneuver, and Ivan had enough experience to keep taking advantage of it.

The human's flames were tricky. Their nature felt familiar, but something about them was different, something Pain couldn't place, and it was starting to piss him off.

Rearing back, his chest tore open and hundreds of white-hot chains shot out, barbed ends cutting through the air toward Ivan. The human managed to evade most of them, but Pain only needed one

"Got you!"

One of the barbs seared into Ivan's arm and hooked into the flesh, but before he could drag him in, the human's free arm blurred. The chain snapped.

Roaring in frustration, Pain pulled the remaining chains back into his chest as his throat swelled. A second later, flames screamed from his mouth and flooded the area.

Ivan leaped into the sky, red and blue flames gathering around his hands before he brought them together in front of his chest, forcing the two colors into one.

Cutting off his breath attack, Pain stomped down and ripped a chunk of street free. The broken pavement began melting in his grip, and before it could collapse completely, he hurled it like a cannonball.

Facing the oncoming mass, Ivan's flames shifted from red and blue to a pale purple. He threw both hands forward just as the molten chunk was about to hit.

His attack moved slowly, but it ate through the molten debris, reducing it to ash like paper in a fire. The ball of purple continued forward, its course knocked aside just enough to miss Pain.

The street where it struck vaporized instantly.

"I acknowledge your strength. Tell me your name, demon."

Still floating in the air, Ivan had already begun forming another attack, red and blue flames twisting together between his hands.

Pain had felt the last one as it passed. Even without touching him, the heat had been enough to burn his flesh in his current state.

"What is that flame?"

Ivan smiled as the two colors continued to mix between his hands, bleeding together until only that same pale purple remained.

"Do you know how many kinds of fire there are? Most burn, but some freeze. Others poison or curse. This flame is more unique than any of them. I call it Planck."

Pain's nose scrunched at the name. Some of his enthusiasm for the flames died immediately.

"Planck temperature is the theoretical highest temperature in the known universe. Anything beyond it would collapse space and create a black hole. Too much energy, or something like this. When I combine my Oni fire correctly, I can approach that temperature."

Pain nodded as if he understood, then focused on the flames. He watched how they moved and drew their scent through his nose. He closed his eyes, felt the waves rolling from them and tasted each shift in temperature against his tongue. For a moment, he almost forgot about the human entirely.

"I have told you its name. Now tell me yours. I would like to know it before I kill you."

"Kill me...?"

The broodspawn opened his eyes after one last sniff and locked them on Ivan.

"My name is Pain."

Ivan frowned, then slowly shook his head before a small smile returned.

"No. You would not lie about this. Pain... your flames are the greatest I have ever faced. I will remember your name."

Sitting back on his haunches, Pain calmly looked toward the sky.

"I will forget your name by tomorrow."

With that, he closed his eyes.

"What are you doing....? Have you given up? No. This is unacceptable! You cannot ruin our fight this way! Get up! Get up now and face me!"

Ivan's shouting fell on deaf ears. Pain did not so much as flinch, sitting motionless and seemingly unconcerned with what happened next. From the outside, he looked like he might have fallen asleep, but within him, a different battle was already ragingone Ivan could not see.

"If you intend to end it this way, I will make sure nothing remains!"

The temperature spiked.

Steam began lifting from every surface, thickening into smoke as the entire block began to scorch, buckle, and melt. Between Ivan's hands, the purple flame swelled from the size of a head to something larger than a car in seconds.

The strain showed immediately. His face twisted, veins bulging along his neck as his arms began to tremble. Merging the two flames already demanded everything he had; forcing that much power into the mixture was pushing the human even harder.

And Pain could smell it.

Every degree the temperature climbed, every shift in the wind, every change in pressure as the fire displaced the air around him. He tasted the heat on his tongue and felt it prickling across his skin. He didnt need to see.

Inside his chest, the wailing returned as the souls trapped within pulled against their chains and screamed through the opening. Ivan paled at the sound, his concentration slipping for an instant before he forced the growing flame back under control.

Then he released it.

A sphere of pale-purple fire three times his size hung above him for a fraction of a second. With a shout, he hurled it down, the force nearly folding his body in the air.

"Disappear! Everything about you will be forgotten!"

His words rang out as the attack plunged faster than the one beforeuntil blue light flashed from Pain's forehead.

His chest split open, exposing the endless furnace within. Blue fire poured into the flames already churning inside him, and where Ivan had struggled to force his two together, Pain's merged almost at once, darkening into a deep purple.

"Impossible!"

His attack was almost on top of the broodspawn when Ivan watched the demon rise, purple fire packed inside his open chest. The massive sphere crashed into him, blasting smoke and molten debris outward as the street buckled beneath his feet. For an instant, the flames swallowed Pain completely. A second later, the fire twisted. The entire mass stretched toward the opening in his chest, compressing as it poured inside. The pull ripped loose chunks of pavement from the street and dragged smoke and embers after it until the last of Ivan's attack disappeared between his ribs.

Heat flooded from the inside. Blood boiled beneath his skin, pressure swelling through his veins as his Scorchclaw Sentinel Mutation strained against something hotter than anything it ad endured before. Heat bled through the cracks in his body while the ground beneath his claws softened, but Pain never doubted. He was Pain. He was fire itself.

His chest strained around the captured inferno, barely managing to close over it. The instant the fangs sealed, Pain's eyes snapped wide and his jaws tore open

Dark-purple fire ripped into the sky in the blink of an eye, swallowing Ivan completely.

The force blasting from Pain's mouth wrenched his head back and drove his massive body across the street, his claws carving molten trenches through the ground as he fought to hold himself in place. His roar rode the torrent upward, tearing through the clouds and clearing the darkness above.

He could feel the power. The sheer amount of Planck fire had surpassed anything he expected, and by now his throat felt like it was melting as his insides emptied. A full ten seconds passed before the torrent finally weakened, sputtering as the purple began to break apart.

Red and blue peeled away from each other until only red remained. Pain clamped his jaws shut, steam bursting from his body as his limbs seized and his flesh darkened.

Cracks followed as his massive body began to shrink. Chunks of charred flesh broke loose and tumbled from him, scattering embers across the ruined street until his body returned to its previous form.

He dropped to one knee as embers drifted around him and the cracks in his skin began to glow. Slowly, he pushed himself upright, molten ground pooling around his calves while the surrounding heat pulled toward him, cooling and solidifying the street with every breath.

Yanking his feet free, Pain cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders.

"I win."

Smiling, he started toward his prize.

Ivan Cho lay steaming on the ground, no longer recognizable as the man Pain had fought. Both legs were gone, ending in blackened stumps of meat and bone. Only one arm remained, and even that had been stripped down to scorched bone and gristle. His face had melted into itself, one eye sealed beneath bubbled flesh while the other stared milky white. His nose was gone. So were his lips, leaving blackened, cracked teeth exposed to the air.

Somehow, he still breathed.

Moving to finish his kill, Pain stopped as a familiar aura reached him through the heat. He turned left and spotted a lone figure approaching through the haze.

"The kill is mine. Get lost."

He snorted and turned back toward his prey, only to hear the unwanted guest continue approaching.

"Da. He is yours by right. But he is still mine."

Gregor stepped through a wall of steam with his twin pistols in hand. His chest was bare, his pants torn, and he looked thinner and paler than Pain remembered. He felt no sympathy.

"Leave. Now."

"No."

Gregor walked straight past him as if he didnt exist, his attention fixed on Ivan. Pain nearly attacked, but the human's behavior caught his interest. If Gregor was willing to risk offending him for this kill, Ivan must have done something horrible.

"Tell me your reason. Or I will kill you if you take another step."

Flames surged around the broodspawn as he spoke. Gregor finally stopped, standing silent for a moment while his hands tightened around the grips of his pistols. Without taking his eyes off Ivan, he answered in a voice that stirred Pain's bloodlust.

"He raped and tortured my sister because she stole food. Food meant to feed me. To me, she was my Broodfather. My world. So what do you say now, Pain?"

Gregor turned his head and met the broodspawn's eyes.

"Who deserves to kill him?"

For a moment, Pain did not feel like he was looking at a human. That was the face of a demon.

With a single snort, he turned away and started toward where Seo-jin had fallen.

"A debt will be owed."

Gregor faced Ivan again without argument.

Satisfied, Pain's thighs swelled before he launched himself into the sky. In the end, it probably wouldn't matter. He was pretty sure he would still get the experience for the kill, and besides, he had more important things to deal with.

The Broodfather needed him, and through the broodlink, Pain could feel something elsehis siblings were having fun without him.

Especially Panic.

----

As the temperature dropped, Gregor wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up at the multicolored sky. The shifting auras reflected across his eyes as he stared upward without blinking.

"I am sorry it was not me. I was not strong enough."

Drawing a slow breath, he lowered his gaze to the ruined man below and found Ivan's milky eye staring back at him.

"I am glad you survived. Do you know how happy that makes me?"

Kneeling, he placed his pistols on the warm ground beside him, then carefully slid one hand behind Ivan's head. He lifted it with surprising care as a flash of gray system light filled his free hand.

"Do not worry. I will not let you die. Not yet."

Gregor flicked the cork from a muddy-blue vial and tilted Ivan's head before pouring the potion into his mouth, angling him so it could spill back out. Another flash of gray light followed, and Gregor emptied a second vial across Ivan's burned chest.

"Not too much. Just enough to keep you breathing. Good...good..."

----

A scream tore from The Bound as he staggered several steps back. His body hung in ragged strips, lengths of chain severed short while others dangled loose and sparked against the ground.

"What are you?!"

The Bound threw his arms back and released his aura. Dark-red lightning ripped across his body, snapping through the air as hundreds of chains burst forward.

"And why won't you stop laughing?!"

Panic danced through the rushing chains, giggling wildly as links whipped past his face. Rather than avoid the lightning, he deliberately leaned into some of it, his body twitching each time the current grazed his flesh.

"More! More and more and more and!"

His chant continued as he closed the distance. The Bound's sparking eyes widened, and with a violent pull of both arms, he recalled his chains and spread them into a massive web.

Panic caught one of them. Electricity ripped through him, locking his muscles and jerking his limbs, but his laughter only climbed as he hauled backward and ripped The Bound off his feet. Panic spread his arms as the demon flew toward him, and they collided hard enough to kick dust from the ground before the entire web of chains collapsed over them both.

Electrified chains and bloodlight-covered tendrils disappeared into a churning mass, whipping, cutting, and tangling together as blood sprayed from within and spattered the ground. The Bound's roars punched through Panic's laughter while their thrashing bodies churned up enough dust to swallow them from sight.

The fight collapsed into something primal and violent. Panic's tail slashed out through the dust, followed moments later by an arm wrapped in chains. Lightning flashed inside the cloud, bloodlight streaked through it from different angles, and then a ragged scream cut above everything else.

The chains suddenly accelerated, lashing through the dust before all of them froze. In the next instant, every length snapped backward toward The Bound at once.

Everything stilled...

Loose rubble toppled across the street. Stray sparks cracked through the thinning dust as it slowly began to settle...

Until a small giggle slipped out.

The air cleared, and Panic sat smiling in a pool of blood, jerking and twitching as the last currents worked through his body. One hand remained buried inside The Bound's chest, and as his arm spasmed from another shck, system light suddenly erupted around him as he leveled up.

"Th-AT...was...f-UN!"

Rolling his head to the side, he spotted the shadowed demon in the distance, still floating high in the sky.

"He l-OO-ks funner."

He ripped The Bound's heart from his chest as he stood, raised the black organ to his mouth, and bit down. Electricity immediately surged through him, making his entire body jump.

Manic laughter filled the air again.

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