The dust settled in the crater. Barek rested his massive iron rod on his shoulder, his chest heaving not from exhaustion, but from the sheer thrill of the impact. He looked over at Krog.
The silent giant stood amidst the bisected remains of the second beast, his chain-scythe dripping with red gore. Krog looked back, his eyes wide and unblinking.
They shared a look. A grin. Pure, unadulterated satisfaction.
Crack.
The sound wasn't a branch snapping. It was the sound of the forest itself breaking.
From the swirling red mist of the Zone, they emerged. Not two. Not ten.
Hundreds.
They poured out like a landslide of muscle and obsidian looking beasts that defied classification. Some looked like rhinos with skin made of jagged rock; others were multi-limbed horrors that skittered on the ceiling of the forest canopy. Every single one of them had eyes that burned with that same uniform, intelligent violet light.
The aura they exuded hit the squad like a physical wave. It wasn't the raw aggression of a BloodWrought. This was heavier. Denser. It felt of more powerful, pressurized deep-earth magic.
"Those ain't BloodWroughts," Tag whispered, his voice trembling as he stepped back, dreadlocks swaying. He gripped his knuckles, his dark skin almost pale. "I never seen half these things in the Bestiary nor ma entire life. That pressure… they're unclassified, class x beasts."
The Virefang knights shifted nervously, their perfect formation wavering. Their instincts were screaming at them to run. These creatures were walking natural disasters.
"You two wanted a fight?" Skarrin yelled over the rising roar of the horde, clicking his metallic coils into a combat array. "Congratulations! Now you can savor it till you no more breathing!"
Zorr stepped forward. His single eye scanned the tide of monsters, then darted to the shadows behind them.
'Where is he?' he thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. 'The Silhouette. The Entity. He leads them, but he isn't here'.
A cold dread settled in Zorr's stomach. If the Entity wasn't leading this assault, where was it? Fifty years ago, if it had been testing its limits. If it had spent half a century growing, planning…
'The Village?'
The thought terrified him more than the monsters in front of him.
Zorr drew his Greatsword. The metal scraped against the sheath, a harsh, commanding sound that cut through the fear.
"FORM UP!" Zorr roared. His voice wasn't just loud; it carried the crushing weight of a Vampire Lord. His aura flared, a red intense storm that pushed back against the violet pressure.
'None of y'all are dying on ma watch!' He looked at Valera. "Captain! Defensive Circle! Ironkongs will take the outer ring, Y'all Virefangs take the inner ring and pick off leakers! We are leaving, and we are fighting for every inch!"
Valera didn't argue. She didn't hesitate. She recognized the hierarchy of power instantly. Zorr was an evolution tier above her, a Vampire Lord and right now, it didn't matter if they had the same rank, he was far more suited to take charge.
"You heard the Commander!" Valera shouted, her obsidian rapier humming. "Formation Alpha-Defense! Move!"
The squad snapped into place just as the wave hit.
CRASH.
The impact shook the earth.
Tag took the first hit. A massive, armored lizard-beast rammed him. Tag blocked with a cross-arm guard, using a standard Ironkong brace, but the force launched him backward. He plowed through the dirt, spitting out blood.
"Heavy!" Tag he wiped off the blood with his hand, and scrambling up just as another beast snapped at his head. He had to burn stamina instantly, dodging with desperate speed. "These things hit like mad hard, y'all stay on guard!"
Skarrin wasn't faring much better. He unleashed his coils, the metal tips seeking soft spots, but they sparked harmlessly off some of the class X hide.
"Yo some of these beasts are far stronger than some, ma blades ain't cutting!" Skarrin shouted, panic edging his voice. A claw raked his at his chest plate, tearing through the tempered steel like paper. He grunted in pain, forced to retreat and switch to blunt force strikes just to keep the beast at bay.
The Virefang knights were struggling to maintain their elegance. Their precision strikes, usually fatal, were glancing off rock-hard skin. One knight was knocked flat, his guard shattered, only saved by a teammate's desperate intervention.
But amidst the struggle, two figures stood apart.
Zorr met the tide head-on. He didn't use a technique; he used raw strength. He swung his Greatsword in a massive, flat arc. Three armored behemoths were cleaved in half mid-air, their bodies separating in a spray of red blood. Zorr didn't stop. He stepped into the horde, a whirlwind of charcoal steel, anchoring the center of the line.
To his right, Valera was a blur of lethal grace. She was nearing the evolution of a Lord herself, and it showed. She didn't hack; she dissected. A multi-limbed stalker lunged at her. She side-stepped, her rapier flashing three times in a microsecond.
"Virefang Blood Art: Crimson Needle Rain."
The beast collapsed, its brain stem, heart, and spinal cord severed instantly. She moved like liquid, her blade finding gaps in joints that shouldn't exist, covering the retreats of her struggling squad.
But on the left flank, madness reigned.
"HAHAHA!"
Krog had lost his mind. He wasn't holding the line; he was doing his own thing. He spun his chain-scythe overhead, the massive blade creating a "zone of death" ten feet wide.
"Reverse Ironkong Blood Art: Reaping Cyclone!"
A beast bit into his shoulder, teeth sinking deep. Krog didn't even flinch. He just laughed harder, wrapping his chain around the beast's neck and crushing its windpipe. He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, but the pain only seemed to fuel his frenzy.
And beside him was Barek.
Barek wasn't laughing. He was grinning, his teeth gritted in intense focus. A massive, horned bear-creature swiped at him. Barek blocked with the Landmauler Iron Rod, which he decided to call Skull-crusher after his earlier feat.
Clang.
The impact vibrated through his bones, rattling his teeth. His feet slid back a foot. It hurt. It hurt good.
"Solid," Barek grunted, spitting blood. "Y'all gonna make me go crazy with excitement here!."
His grin grew wider and wider as he swung Skull-crusher like no problem at all.
Smash. Recover. Smash. Recover.
Every hit sounded like a thunderclap. He crushed skulls, shattered ribcages, broke spines. But he wasn't untouched. Claws tore at his uniform; impacts bruised his ribs. He felt the strain of the Class X power, the way they forced him to exert more effort than he ever had.
But something was happening.
Barek didn't feel tired. The exhaustion from the first Heaven Smash was gone, replaced by a burning, feverish heat in his marrow. His blood felt like it was boiling.
More, his instincts screamed. Harder.
He pushed. He accessed the Original Ironkong Blood Art, pushing the output past his safety limit. 65%... 68%... 70%.
His muscles bulged, tearing the sleeves of his uniform. Veins glowing with bright crimson light snaked up his neck. The air around him began to warp, bending under the density of his presence.
He swung the rod at a charging armored bear.
BOOM.
The bear didn't just break; it was launched backward, crashing through several other beasts like a bowling ball on fire.
Zorr, in the middle of decapitating a lizard-horror, glanced over. His eye widened.
'That aura… Zorr thought, stunned. It's denser. It's compressing. He ain't just fighting. He's evolving. Right here? In the middle of hell?!'
Bronx, fighting nearby with heavy, seismic stomps, looked at Barek with pure amazement. "Yo! Lil' Man! Watch how you swing that thing will ya?!"
But Barek didn't hear him. He was locked in. He wiped red blood from his eyes, looking at the wall of monsters not with arrogance, but with hunger.
"Strong," Barek muttered, tightening his grip on the iron rod until the metal groaned. "Y'all are actually making me work for it. I am so moved"
Valera drove her rapier through an eye socket and looked at the boy. For the first time, her look wasn't critical. It was impressed.
'Boy is reckless, just like the lot of them', She thought 'but — '
"Keep moving!" Zorr bellowed, snapping them back to reality. "Don't let them bog us down! Push toward the exit! PUSH!"
The squad moved as a grinder of meat and steel, carving a path through the violet tide, desperate to escape the trap before the master of the house returned.