Chapter 45: Grim Return
Hellfire crawled across Butcher's Wrath. His skin thickened. Bone ridges rose. His eyes lit like embers as he growled—
"Time to eat."
Hundreds of glowing eyes stared back. Green souls, thankfully. Not red. But there were too many. Even with Wohan Seo-jin's memories, it didn't help. Elderwarren Rabbits were one of the worst.
The one he saw earlier was just a kit. Barely a threat. Looked like a normal rabbit: brown and white fur, tall ears, soft-looking. Cute. Wouldn't guess they'd chew your eyes out.
But the adults?
Different story.
Five feet tall. Legs built like iron springs. Arms shaped like a human's but longer, corded with muscle, claws hooked and fast. Jaws like saws. Teeth like steel. They ate meat. They bred in hordes. During the early Convergence, packs of these things leveled entire cities in days.
Didn't matter.
He dealt in swarms. Gnashing teeth. Claws. Screams. That was his specialty.
He didn't wait. Back to the blocked entrance, he could've run. But he didn't want to flee. He wanted blood.
Ahead, the tunnel leading toward the horde forked—one main path, one narrow offshoot between them. That was his target.
He launched forward. Speed over caution.
The closer he got, the more the shadows broke apart. No adults yet. Just wave after wave of them, young but lethal, stretching down the tunnel like a tide.
He veered. Cut the corner and sprinted full tilt into the side path. Screeches and clicks erupted behind him.
The dungeon fought him too, strange flowers opened and spit spores. Vines whipped from the walls and grabbed at his limbs.
He didn't stop.
He hacked through a thick cluster of twisting roots, carving his path through the choking foliage. He needed to find an open place to fight, if he confronted them in these tunnels, he would be overrun in seconds.
"Any suggestions would be nice!"
[Follow your pet.]
"Stupid fuckin'—I don't have time for your glitchy—!"
He stopped mid-sentence. Mid-step. Slashed without thinking. The cleaver passed clean through something floating in front of him.
A skull.
Small, cracked, and grinning. A tiny spine dangled beneath it, with a few limp strands of intestine swaying like ribbons. No body. Just a drifting, half-visible head and guts, floating like a ghost.
[This is your pet. System repurposed excess soulmass from the Soul Stone to create it. It will guide you to an area suitable for combat.]
His initial reflex faded. Now that he was still, he could feel it...a tug in his core. A thread linking him to the thing. It tightened when it drifted closer. Slackened when it floated away.
"So that's what you—shit!"
The horde. He'd almost forgotten.
He turned and bolted. The rabbits were gaining.
The ghost bobbed beside him.
"Lead the way!"
The skull grinned wider. Its dangling guts fluttered once before it shot ahead, trailing cold blue light as it darted down the path.
'I really need to go through my notifications...'
It had been non-stop chaos, but the grin on his face said it all. Earth was strange, but definitely exciting.
He ran hard, trailing his new pet. His little ghost.
He couldn't remember the moment it formed. Just a blur in the haze of pain and light. But some part of him knew, this was the grey smoke that had torn itself from his chest during evolution.
A stray thought surfaced.
'What should I name it?'
The floating skull spun ahead, intestines twitching like streamers.
'Smile? Grin? ...Grimm. Yeah. Grimm fits.'
[System // Notification]
[Pet Name // Grimm // Registered]
Up ahead, Grimm's glow pulsed bright. A wave of warmth hit him...gratitude. From a skull with no heart.
Grimm twirled mid-air in celebration, then zipped sideways through a collapsed section of wall and vanished.
The imp followed.
Then stopped cold.
"Whoa..."
The ceiling stretched far above, so high it hurt his neck to look. He'd thought the surface was close, he was wrong. This wasn't the sewers anymore.
It was a chamber.
Wide, natural, and soaked. A few inches of water coated the floor, broken by raised platforms and rocks. Waterfalls bled from cracks in the walls. Plants he didn't recognize—thick, bright, too colorful—lined the stone edges.
It was beautiful. Wild. A proper kill zone.
"Perfect."
Grimm hovered near the center. The imp joined him, turning toward the sound of claws and screeches behind. The horde was close.
He flicked his eyes to his UI.
[Level 10]
[EXP // 2261/2614]
[HP // 300/300]
[SM // 29/36]
Hellfire still burned low, draining soulmass. Fiendskin had just run out. His ridged armor peeled back, leaving smoother skin underneath. The two-minute cooldown timer blinked. He'd wasted it.
Didn't matter. He had Butcher's Wrath.
And a better idea.
He scanned the chamber, spotted a jagged spire rising from the rock, and climbed. One leap, then a clawed scramble—until he stood high above the entrance, looking down.
He smiled.
"Transform."
[4th Weapon Effect // Activated]
[Slicing Damage Converted → Bludgeoning / Piercing]
The cleavers pulsed. Handles thickened as the blades curled inward. Metal cracked and folded. Spikes pushed through as the edge warped, reshaped.
In seconds, the cleavers were gone, replaced by twin spiked maces, still fused to his arms.
This time would be different. No spear to block or shield to deflect. No technique to overcome. Just carnage, and Butcher's Wrath agreed.
The beasts came fast. Wet paws slapped stone. Snorts and huffs echoed off the walls. They found him too late.
"Rend."
[Rend // Active]
[+15% Bludgeoning/Piercing Damage // 5sec]
He dropped in.
Maces swelled.
B-BOOM!
Dozens died.
Both arms swung. The floor broke. Fur, blood, bones... everything scattered. System light blinked through the gore.
[+33 EXP // +2 SM // -15sec]
[+31 EXP // +2 SM // -15sec]
[+35 EXP // +2 SM // -15sec]
[+31 EXP // +2 SM // -15sec]
...
...
Over twenty dead in a blink.
[Level Up +1]
[Level 11]
[EXP // 3053 / 3588]
[HP // 300/300
[SM // 36/36]
His heart slammed once. His grin spread. This...this was the rush. He hadn't even realized how much he missed it. He tore through this new swarm, maces splitting meat from bone.
They didn't die quietly. They fought hard. F-rank strength, but speed like arrows. Dozens, maybe more. Every breath brought a cut or a claw. It didn't matter.
[Fiendskin // Active]
[+5% Physical Damage Defense]
Skin hardened. Bites turned useless. His swings tore through them, every hit dealing over 80 damage, every swing ending something that once twitched.
He laughed. Loud. Sharp. The kind that stuck in your throat like shrapnel. Somewhere in the background, Grimm circled, eyes wide, intestines twitching.
"Rend!"
Again the maces grew. Again the bodies dropped.
[Recommendation: Seek elevated ground. Tactical window identified.]
"Why the fuck would I stop?!"
He didn't even hesitate. A rabbit lunged—he caught it midair in his teeth. It screamed. He bit down slower than needed. Deliberate. Messy.
[To choose your Class.]
His head snapped up.
System light pulsed.
[Level Up +1]
[Level 12]
[EXP // 3622 / 4610]
His pulse calmed. New AP. New stats. But if he waited, they'd possibly go to waste. He let a few claws scrape him, turned, and leapt for the wall.
Butcher's Wrath retracted.
"Fuck—shit—!"
Still in mace form, the retreat back into his flesh nearly dropped him. Searing, skin-splitting pain. He wouldn't forget that.
Wall Crawler kicked in. He scaled fast, leaving the horde below. He reached a ledge beside a waterfall mouth, water pouring past but leaving a dry edge.
He stepped up. Grimm followed. The pet hovered over his shoulder, intestines twitching down at the swarm like baited hooks.
"They're not going anywhere. That was just the start."
He spat.
"Fuck it. Let's see what I got."
Stepping back, soaked in blood and guts that felt like home, he cracked his neck and smiled.
"Display Class Choices."
[System // Notification]
[Class Tree Choices // 3]
It was time to choose a path.