Chapter 397: Forging and the Onslaught of Parasitic Ethereals
Dan Heng narrowed his eyes, his gaze sharp and piercing as it locked onto the pale, pulsating giant cocoon. Deep within the spatial rift behind it, a faintly discernible, oppressive presence loomed. He tightened his grip on Cloud-Piercer, his voice dropping to a grave murmur. "The flow of Ether has completely shifted. Bringer was dominating the current just moments ago, but now... a colder, entirely alien will is forcefully intervening. It feels as though it is 'pacifying'or'correcting' Bringer's berserk state."
Miyabi's ice-blue pupils contracted into pinpricks. Her knuckles turned a stark white as she gripped the hilt of her katana with crushing force. This freezing, absolute, utterly inhuman will... she would never mistake that suffocating presence. It was the exact same source of power that had attempted to corrupt Sarah's blade, yet the form it took now was far more direct. It clawed at the edges of her mind, deeply unsettling in its purity.
"It is The Primordial One," Miyabi's clear, frigid voice rang out over the chaotic winds, decisive and unyielding. "It is taking direct control of him."
As if to validate her judgment, the violent, thrashing struggles from within the pale giant cocoon wrapping Bringer rapidly subsided. The frantic tearing noises were replaced by a deep, resonant humming, vibrating through the air like high-pressure energy surging through heavy industrial pipes. Across the fleshy surface of the cocoon, dozens of palm-sized single eyes snapped open. Their sickly light flickered rhythmically in perfect, terrifying synchronization, as though performing some grotesque, ancient ritual.
Simultaneously, a peculiar, alien power surged into the physical realm, pouring like a waterfall from the connection point between the giant cocoon and the spatial rift. This force was fundamentally different from the chaotic Ether naturally found inside the Hollows. It was infinitely purer, colder, and ruthlessly efficient. It forcefully organized and suppressed the disorganized energy ravaging Bringer's body—energy that had grown chaotic from his blind hatred and excessive consumption. Now, this alien will was attempting to brand a brand-new, terrifyingly ordered structure directly onto his soul.
The physical changes were immediate and horrifying. The massive, jagged wound on Bringer's waist—a devastating injury grazed by Stelle's Golden Light Demon Subduing strike that had previously refused to heal—was now being forcibly constrained. Under the cover of that sickly pale light, the wriggling flesh and bleeding Ether were molded back together. Muscle fibers and bone solidified at a visible, sickening rate, knitting shut a wound that should have been fatal.
Bringer's fanatical, distorted voice echoed from the depths of the giant cocoon, dripping with desperate reverence. "The Primordial One... I beg you! Forge me!"
The aura emanating from his mutating form rapidly shifted. The extreme, chaotic madness that had defined his earlier attacks evaporated, replaced by a freezing, mechanical order that felt infinitely more dangerous.
Yet, this unholy metamorphosis clearly could not be completed in a single breath. The pale giant cocoon pulsed with a slow, heavy heartbeat, expanding and contracting like a leathery egg incubating a world-ending monster. It required time to finish its work.
"It is forcefully 'repairing'and'upgrading'Bringer!" Dan Heng's stoic expression cracked, instantly calculating the catastrophic severity of the situation. "We cannot allow this'Forging' process to reach completion! Interrupt it now!"
Before the last syllable even left his lips, two figures had already shot forward, carrying a sharp, fierce momentum that tore the air apart.
Stelle acted purely on her finely honed combat intuition and her absolute trust in Dan Heng's judgment. Her chaotic mind was driven by one straightforward, obvious urge: hit the enemy while he was down.
A blinding flash of crimson-gold light ignited in her eyes. She charged forward, a blur of lightning against the ruined landscape. The blazing lance in her hand gathered the dual authorities of Destruction and Preservation, transforming into a roaring crimson thunderbolt. It tore through the heavy atmosphere, stabbing directly toward the most conspicuous, pulsating single eye on the surface of the pale giant cocoon.
Miyabi's simultaneous assault was born from her deep vigilance regarding the essential nature of The Primordial One's power, coupled with her absolute resolve to eliminate the threat. Her katana hummed a clear, deadly note in her hands. An ice-blue blade light flashed with absolute zero coldness, appearing to freeze the very fabric of space and time around it. She slashed with flawless precision, aiming directly for the connection point between the pale giant cocoon and the spatial rift, determined to sever the continuous transmission of energy.
One blazing red, one freezing blue. Two devastating strikes, swift as falling stars, arrived at their targets almost simultaneously.
However—
Clang! Clang!
Two deafening explosions of kinetic force erupted instantaneously, sending shockwaves rippling across the battlefield.
The two massive, purple giant hands that had been hovering silently nearby—constructs originally controlled by Bringer's chaotic mind—suddenly shifted. Their control had been entirely transferred to the alien will, and their movements became terrifyingly precise and efficient. Massive wrists flipped with impossible agility. The Demonic Blades, stretching dozens of meters long, traced mathematically perfect arcs through the air. Dark purple and pale light intertwined, flowing like liquid metal across the massive blades, managing to firmly block the combined, guaranteed-kill attacks from Stelle and Miyabi right at the critical millisecond of impact.
Showers of golden sparks and shattered ice crystals flew wildly into the air! Stelle gritted her teeth as a cold, slick, yet mountain-heavy counter-shock force transmitted straight down the shaft of her lance. Her explosive forward momentum was abruptly halted, the sheer kinetic rebound leaving her hands entirely numb.
The very moment Miyabi's unmatched blade collided with the projection of the Demonic Blade, a familiar, sickening malice attempted to corrode her weapon's spirituality. The corruption traveled straight through the contact point. Her ice-blue eyes flashed with cold warning. Instead of forcing the clash, she expertly used the rebounding force to spin backward, retreating gracefully to a safe distance.
These two colossal Demonic Blades, now directly puppeteered by the will of The Primordial One, displayed defensive capabilities and threat levels that far surpassed Bringer's chaotic flailing. They guarded the pale giant cocoon flawlessly. Their blade momentum was as steady and immovable as a mountain range, perfectly sealing off every conceivable angle of approach and entirely preventing any interruption of the Forging.
"Fall back! You cannot break through that defense!" Seeing the flawless parry, Dan Heng immediately raised a hand, stopping Yanagi, Soukaku, and Harumasa, who were just about to charge forward to flank the enemy.
"The Primordial One is actively maintaining this transformation ritual. Leave those two giant hands to Stelle and Section Chief Miyabi for now. We need to analyze the energy flow and look for other structural weaknesses!"
The group quickly stabilized their battle formations, their expressions growing increasingly solemn as the oppressive weight of the Ether thickened. The situation unfolding before them was deeply bizarre. The cold, calculating will of The Primordial One didn't seem eager to launch a counterattack. Instead, it was methodically reforming Bringer right before their eyes, carefully shaping flesh and energy as if completing a flawless work of art. The heroes were entirely relegated to the roles of forced spectators, trapped outside the defensive perimeter of the giant hands.
Just as everyone focused their minds, rapidly calculating how to launch long-range harassment or break through the Demonic Blades' absolute defense to strike the vulnerable cocoon—
"Everyone! Can you hear me? Something huge has happened!"
Wise's extremely anxious voice suddenly crackled through the comms, transmitting directly from Eous's mechanical body. The sheer panic in the usually calm Proxy's tone caused everyone's heart to sink.
"The Ether concentration in the Hollow is skyrocketing wildly! The epicenter is your exact location! Lycaon, Koleda, and Nicole's groups, who just split up to secure the perimeter, are all experiencing massive Ethereal riots!"
"Those monsters are acting completely insane, and their numbers are terrifyingly high. The other teams are completely tied up in heavy combat. They won't be able to break through and support you anytime soon!"
Wise didn't stop to let them process the bad news, continuing with urgent speed. "And it gets worse! Fairy just monitored the energy signatures. The Spine King Worm that escaped from Hu Tao's group hasn't gone far at all. It's actively absorbing the skyrocketing Ether in the environment and is undergoing a rapid secondary mutation!"
"Its physical size and energy signature are increasing exponentially, and... it's charging straight toward your current coordinates! It's moving incredibly fast!"
As if to add the most terrifying footnote possible to Wise's desperate warning, the very moment he finished speaking, the environment reacted. Dense, scalp-prickling scraping sounds—like thousands of claws dragging against concrete—and the guttural roars of Ethereals echoed from the deep shadows of the ruins surrounding the group.
Pairs of glowing eyes, flashing with a frantic, starving red light, lit up densely in the surrounding darkness. The very air around them had turned a sickly, pale violet hue due to the dangerously excessive Ether concentration.
Immediately afterward, the Ethereal swarm emerged. Having undergone horrifying morphological changes from the ambient energy, they slowly crawled out from all directions like a turbid, rotting tide pouring straight from the deepest circles of hell. They completely surrounded the heroes, boxing them in alongside the strange pale giant cocoon and the two guarding purple giant hands wielding their Demonic Blades in the center of the plaza.
These Ethereals—the ionic Dullahan, the teleporting, bow-blade-wielding Thanatos, and the towering, heavily armored Farbauti—looked completely different from their usual, documented forms.
The back of every single monster was now covered in a thick, pale exoskeleton. It bore the ridged texture of a deep-sea shelled creature, as if the Hollow itself had grafted an extra layer of heavy biological armor onto their bodies. A massive, scorpion-like bone spur, razor-sharp at the tip and dripping with a faint blue, poisonous glow, swayed agilely behind each of them.
But the most deeply unsettling change lay within their exposed cores. The crystalline structures were now abnormally swollen, emitting a dangerous, overload-like pale light. They pulsed like dying stars, frantically drawing in the dense Ether from the corrupted environment.
This was the obvious sign of deep parasitism and synchronization achieved by the partially evolved Spine-Thorn Proto-Insects! These horrific parasites were actively using the drastic environmental changes triggered by Bringer's Forging ritual to undergo a simultaneous, violent reinforcement of their hosts. The battlefield had just turned into an inescapable slaughterhouse.
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