Free Web NovelChapter 184: Back Up?
Hajin slammed into the pit wall, cratering the rock behind him, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. The spider’s first blow had caught him clean across the chest, and it had hit like nothing else in this gate had managed.
He had blocked most of it on the chain, and the strike had still thrown him clear across the pit. He shoved off the wall, blood in his mouth, and his eyes snapped straight to Juna.
She was still down where the aura had dropped her, moving too slow, her body wrecked from the rabbit and nowhere near healed. The spider was turning on her now, one leg lifting high to spear her where she lay. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Hajin moved before the leg started its drop, the chain snapping out of his hand in a streak of gold. It wrapped around Juna’s waist and yanked her clear of the strike, dragging her across the floor into his reach.
The leg came down where she’d just been, punching straight through the rock.
He unsummoned her the instant she reached him, her body breaking apart into gold light before she could get a word out.
"Vella, back to the ring, now," he said, not taking his eyes off the spider.
She opened her mouth to argue, caught whatever was sitting on his face, and shut it again. A second later she dissolved into a thread of light and slipped back into the ring on his hand.
"Loccy." He jerked his head toward the unconscious trio by the wall. "Grab them and get them out of here. Don’t stop for anything."
She gave a single nod and scooped all three limp bodies up under her arms like they weighed nothing at all.
The spider lunged to cut her off, legs stabbing down to wall off the path to the trees. Hajin threw himself between her and every one of those stabbing legs. The chain lashed out in gold arcs, batting each strike wide before it could land, buying Loccy the lane she needed to run.
He wasn’t trying to hurt the spider, only to keep it off her back, trading ground for every second she bought. Loccy hit the treeline at a dead sprint with the three of them bundled against her, and then she was gone into the dark.
That left just the two of them standing in the wrecked pit, Hajin and the monster the whole gate had been built around.
He rolled the chain back into his grip and let out a slow breath, finally free to stop holding back.
"Alright," he said, turning to face it head-on. "Just you and me now."
Far outside the corrupted dimension, the gate pulsed with a violent, erratic rhythm.
The two demons sat on the edge of a high ridge overlooking the gate, waiting in total silence for the battle to end.
They had watched Hajin step through that barrier hours ago, tracking the wild fluctuations of corrupted mana spilling out into the world.
"Do you think he can handle this one," the demon girl swung her legs over the drop, the tip of her tail twitching against the rock.
"I do not know," the demon boy replied, keeping his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the gate.
They were not just here to monitor his growth this time. They had come to confirm a lingering suspicion about his power. Every gate the human cleared did not just close, it vanished from existence, leaving behind zero trace of the original corruption.
"If the gate disappears the moment he kills the mother," the boy said, his expression giving away nothing, "then we will know for sure."
The girl leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands as she kept her eyes locked on the gate, "and if he dies in there instead," she asked, a small frown pulling at her face.
"Then we are fucked," the boy answered, refusing to turn his head.
The girl dragged her claws across the rock, carving a shallow groove near the edge of the drop, "this mother is nothing like the Beast King."
"I am aware."
"That abomination was an experiment," she said, her tail swishing behind her in short arcs, "but this gate has been sitting out here in the dark for years, growing all on its own."
The boy kept his gaze fixed on the erratic pulse of the gate, "she is a natural apex."
"Exactly," the girl gave a short laugh, leaning forward to watch the mana flare up from the valley, "all we had to do was promise her something strong to feed her children."
She tilted her head to the side, a thin smile spreading across her face as she watched the gate.
"I had no idea it would be our target walking into that pit," she said, "but it works out well."
"Assuming she does not eat him," the boy said.
The smile vanished from her face, her tail dropping flat against the rock as she stared down at the gate.
"Should we go in," she asked, her voice pulling tight, "if she kills him, the King will hang our heads from the throne room ceiling."
"No," the boy answered, keeping his arms crossed over his chest.
"Why not," she pushed herself up into a crouch, her claws digging deep into the rock, "we can pull him out before she finishes him off."
"Going in now is too risky," he said, turning his head to look at her, "forcing our way through the barrier will only make her turn on us."
"Who cares if she turns on us," she shot back, her tail lashing through the air, "we are stronger than her."
"She has grown since we last checked," he said, keeping his tone dead even, "she is sitting at ten shards now."
The girl froze, her claws stopping their steady drag across the rock.
"If the two of us go in there right now," the boy continued, "the sheer volume of power clashing between all four of us will overload the dimension. The gate will shatter and kill everyone inside."
She let out a frustrated breath, her tail dropping back against the rock. She hated admitting he was right, but she knew the unstable mechanics of corrupted gates better than anyone. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
"However," he shifted his stance, his eyes narrowing as he watched the gate pulse, "one of us could go in."
"The threshold for dimensional collapse relies on total mana density," he continued, turning to look at her, "if one of us suppresses our core down to—"
He stopped talking in the middle of his sentence, realizing he was already speaking to empty space.
The girl had no intention of listening to his lecture, her presence vanishing from the ridge to reappear right in front of the gate. Without wasting another second, she stepped straight through the barrier and disappeared into the gate.
The boy stared at the where she had been crouching, letting out a slow, tired sigh.
"I hope you know what you are doing," he muttered, turning his focus back to the gate.
