Chapter 169: Back To Himself
Cold. That was the first thing Seo-jin registered.
Water pressed against him, leeching heat through torn flesh and bruised muscle, while something rigid cinched tight around his limbs and torso. Though the deeper chill came from inside, spreading slow and heavy through his chest as the last echo of Butcher's Wrath's words settled into place.
He was still weak.
In more ways than one.
Memory pushed through the haze without permission. The horned man. The system's designation: Shard Entity. That fist had not simply struck him; it had detonated against his abdomen, canceling his skill mid-activation. He could still feel the impact, the split-second where he had stood undefended and been punished for it. The recollection warmed him for a moment, anger stirring where cold had settled.
Then the warmth thinned.
That blow had been ruthless and clean, but he could feel the truth now with clearer senses. It had not carried the weight of an A-rank. Not even close.
[How long are you gonna lie there?]
'I'm not lying here. I'm thinking.'
[What's taking so long then? That poison wore off a while ago.]
'I needed to talk to someone first.'
His eyes opened slowly, lids dragging. What came next was expected. Armor taken. Chains ran from wrist to wrist, from ankle to ankle, and across his chest and neck in layered loops, each link thick as a finger and sunk tight against his skin. When he flexed, the metal bit down harder.
[Talk to someone? He hit your stomach, not your head.]
Coral walls curved around him, rough and uneven, bleached white in some places and dark in others. The structure felt hollow and unfinished, little more than a chamber carved into the reef. No windows broke the surface. A slab of stone had been wedged into the doorway, sealing it from the outside and leaving only a thin seam where murky water filtered through.
'How long was I out?'
[Just under four hours.]
His brows lifted. Without moving his body, he pushed a controlled pulse through the broodlink. Pain's presence flared close and steady, while Synapse and Snare remained absent. The moment the pulse touched, Pain answered.
'Broodfather, what's happening?'
'It's only temporary, but I've been captured.'
Heat and violence surged back through the connection, a spike of anger that carried with it a noticeable rise in water temperature.
'This happened because of me.'
'No. This happened because I allowed it to, which means I will be the one to correct it. I'll contact you shortly with the plan.'
'Yes, Broodfather.'
The link severed. Exhaling slowly, he let his body rest against the pull of the chains and closed his eyes. Slowly, he started replaying every exchange in precise order: the feeling, the timing of the strikes, the force, the angle of each blow. Each movement of Butcher's Wrath followed, cataloged and fixed in place, layered with the weapon's words and the intent behind them.
Those words remained.
They no longer scraped.
No more collecting. No more spreading himself thin across goals and people and promises. His strength had grown, but so had hesitation, and that split focus had dulled him. He had drifted from origin and instinct, from the simple rule that once governed him without debate.
That ended here.
But before he could act on any of it, another realization hit like a wet blanket.
'Shit! Four hours?!'
[Was waiting for you to realize. This is gonna reeaal fun.]
'This is why I didn't want to do it in the first place!'
He shut his eyes again and reached inward, past surface thoughts and active skills, feeling for what had been set in motion hours ago and left unattended. The moment his awareness brushed against it, the answer came without delay.
He had fucked up.
Rage and terror churned through the Twinback Growths, rolling along the inner membranes and echoing back into him. From Big Min down to the lowest no-name, every human sealed inside was reacting to [Madness] induced by his [Corruption], their pulses spiking, muscles tightening, minds grinding against visions they couldn't escape.
'She's gonna come out like a bull. I really need to figure out some other way to deal with this. Fuck!'
Forcing the connection to dim, he cut his focus away from the humans, shoving the feedback down before it fed his own temper. There was nothing he could do now, so he redirected everything forward and fixed his attention on the problem in front of him.
Still in his demon form, he went with the most direct option first. Muscles swelled under blackened skin as he braced his shoulders, planted his claws against the coral floor, and pulled against the chains until links ground against each other and bit into his wrists. The strain carried through his back and into his jaw, tendons standing out along his neck as he forced more power into it, but after several tight seconds he let the tension bleed out and exhaled.
'What kind of metal is this? They didn't even budge.'
[Metal from the Abyssal realm is extremely rare, but all are said to be some of the best in existence.]
'I don't even feel any mana or anything from them. I'm definitely bringing this back to Thragdur.'
[Well stop experimenting and let's get out of here. Wait any longer and shit might get worse.]
Rolling one shoulder, he shifted his focus inward and began to alter his form, flesh rippling as bone tried to redistribute and joints prepared to compress—then he cut the process short and forced everything back into place. Pale skin darkened, horns pushed back through his scalp and locked into shape just as the stone sealing the entrance scraped against the floor.
A grinding vibration ran through the coral walls before the boulder rolled aside completely, letting a shaft of pale light spill into the chamber and rake across him.
The sudden brightness made him narrow his eyes, vision adjusting as three overlapping silhouettes filled the doorway. For a breath it looked like a single three-headed shape, then the forms separated into the three dwarves he had greeted earlier, urgency written in their posture.
One of them, dark-skinned with forearms thick as a man's thigh, stepped forward and ran calloused hands along the chains, testing each link while speaking in dwarvish.
'We have to hurry. They'll smell the blood soon.'
'I didn't mean to kill 'em, why's his head so squishy?'
'Shut it, just keep an eye out.'
Keeping his face neutral and his breathing steady, Seo-jin watched their hands instead of their eyes.
'Why are you doing this?'
The dwarf working at the restraints paused long enough to meet his gaze, teeth flashing in a hard grin.
'You are forgebrothers with one of our most respected forgemasters, how could we stand by and do nothing? The shame would be too much.'
[No wonder they were so formal. Didn't realize Thragdur was so popular.]
'Neither did I.'
'Ha! There it is.'
A hard click snapped through the room, metal shifting as tension released, and the chains slithered off his limbs in segments, striking the coral floor with dull weight. Rolling his shoulders as he paddled upright, Seo-jin rotated each wrist and flexed his claws.
'You wouldn't happen to know where—'
'Your armor is?'
The one-eyed dwarf drifted forward and held out a pouch, keeping his body between Seo-jin and the doorway as he did.
Taking it, Seo-jin felt the pull immediately, a familiar pressure against his palm, and when he opened it the response was instant. Armor surged from him and locked into place, sealing over his torso and limbs as numbers ticked upward in his periphery, the weight settling across his frame in a way that centered him.
With restraints gone and armor restored, he moved to the first step of his plan and sent a brief pulse through the broodlink, then updating Pain before turning back to the dwarves.
'Besides Liao Tzu, is there anyone else I should worry about?'
All three went still at the name, then shook their heads in unison.
'With your strength, I doubt it. But even you can't face them all alone. I suggest you leave behind whatever that bubblin thing is and get scarce. We can provide a distraction—'
'Don't bother. The distraction's already on its way.'
The dwarves looked at one another, confusion tightening their faces.
The one-eyed one leaned toward the doorway, glanced out, then snapped back in.
'Whatever you're doin', better decide quick. We've got guests comin'.'
Letting his vision shift, Seo-jin activated [Soul Sight], and the familiar red aura burned through the coral walls, ringed by a dozen yellows cutting straight toward them, their movement direct and fast.
'By Drom's balls, these bastards have been pushing their weight around long enough!'
As he turned back to the three dwarves, Butcher's Wrath began to peel from his flesh in thin ribbons of bloodlight, and through his sight their auras showed green, steady but shallow, bodies that would fold the moment that battle reached them. If they charged out, they would die within seconds, and nothing would be gained.
'Alright, you get ready to come behi—'
[+39EXP]
[+9SM]
[SM // 29/52]
Steel flashed once, a clean arc through water and bone, and the dwarf's words cut off mid-breath as his head separated.
'What?! You—!'
[+36Exp]
[+8SM]
[+40Exp]
[+10SM]
Two more strokes followed, fast and efficient, each cleave finding a neck, resistance giving way under force as blood spilled and their bodies went limp, three headless corpses bleeding out and rolling slowly in the current.
Now their deaths had use.
[Brutal.]
'I don't need anymore allies.'
Extending his senses through the broodlink, he searched for the surge he'd been waiting on and felt it building, a pressure moving fast in his direction. The timing would be tight, margins thin, but it could work if he held long enough.
Needing to stall, he moved without hesitation. He had only unleashed himself like this once before, and that had been under different conditions, so he was curious how the weight of it would feel now, how far it would reach.
Just as the cluster of auras closed to within a few meters of the hut, Seo-jin let himself loose, every ounce of killing intent, aura, and bloodlust tearing free at once, bloodlight detonating from him in crushing waves that struck the coral walls and violently rolled out.
The auras outside halted, momentum dying as if they had run into a wall, even the red of Liao Tzu flattening for a fraction of a breath under the sudden pressure.
A few moments later.
'You have to realize there is no escape! Surrender now, and this does not have to end with suffering! You have to understand your death is unavoidable, the only thing you can do now is make things easier for yourself!'
Stepping slowly from the hut, water parting around him under the force of his aura, Seo-jin smiled as the bloodlight rising from his body thickened and spread, an ocean of pressure that bent the current and drove silt from the floor.
Besides Liao Tzu, the gathered abyssal prisoners gave ground, feet scraping over stone as they retreated step by step, even the elf stumbling back, shoulders dipping as the demon's presence pressed down.
[Two more minutes.]
The rush of releasing his full weight surged through muscle and bone, every fiber vibrating with the urge to tear into something, to close distance and test flesh against flesh.
'You shouldn't talk like you've already won. Did the User you came from teach you to talk like this, or is your arrogance an innate trait?'
The fluctuation in Liao Tzu's aura was subtle, a brief ripple along the red that tightened and sharpened, but it was there, and Seo-jin saw it.
'My User was an amazing man. He taught me many things, but what you see as arrogance is actually confidence. Are you too arrogant yourself to see the position you're in?'
Liao Tzu's aura detonated on the final word, red pressure bursting outward in a violent surge that churned the surrounding water and forced those at his back to brace.
But Seo-jin just laughed, shoulders rolling with it. Bloodlight coiled tighter around his body, fingers flexing around the cleaver hilts as if he would clap if they were free.
'Indeed, he must have been an amazing human! To teach you such amazing acting skills is impressive. To lie with such a straight face must be hard, how do you do it so effortlessly?'
At the insult to their commander, and sensing an opening to prove himself, the elf stepped forward, feet sliding across coral as he leveled a long wooden spear tipped with a flower, petals honed to a razor edge, its point fixed on Seo-jin's throat.
'Show respect! Weak prey speaks like woman! Make jokes instead of hunt!'
Seo-jin's smile vanished, jaw tightening as the bloodlight around him steadied and compressed.
[They're here.]
'Hunt? I don't hunt. My brood does that.'
'Brood? What br—?'
From nowhere, a deep note rolled through the city, reverberating through bone and coral alike, vibrating weapons and armor until faces drained and eyes snapped wide. Panic rippled through the ranks while Seo-jin and Liao Tzu held their ground.
The horned man kept his posture composed, shoulders square and chin lifted, though the tightening in his gaze betrayed the calculation running beneath it.
At his sides, the abyssal prisoners began to retreat step by step, heels scraping as they looked past Seo-jin into the dark beyond him, color leaving their skin.
Someone screamed.
'RUN!'
From the black beyond the hut, from every shadow threading the broken city, a wall of motion advanced, a living tide pushing through streets and over rubble.
Lesser broodlings flooded in from all directions, claws and fangs flashing as they swarmed, and behind them an endless wave of vent bugs churned forward in a seething mass, drawn and redirected under Seo-jin's command, their aggro dragged like a chain toward the cluster of enemies.
Raising Butcher's Wrath and leveling its edge at Liao Tzu, Seo-jin drew his aura inward until it wrapped tight along the blade, killing intent funneling down the metal in a focused line that cut through the water between them.
'Come! Let's see if your strength is real or not!'
This was the moment he had been holding for, the field set and sides drawn without pretense or delay.
No talking. No circling.
Just him, his blades, and something in front of him that needed to die.
Everything else narrowed and fell away.