Chapter 185: Divine One & Escape

เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มี.ค. 2569 03:12

Chapter 185: Chapter 185: Divine One & Escape He felt a cold, jagged resolve beginning to form in the pit of his stomach, replacing the hollow dread. If the world was this cruel, if it could tear a man like Korg apart without a second thought, then "Overlord" wasn’t a title to be enjoyed. It was a necessity for survival. He didn’t want to be the hero who died with a tragic smile. He wanted to be the one who built a wall so high and a weapon so terrible that no Grey Monster would ever dare to look at his heart. And even though, he wanted to get off the girl, he knew that doing so would be more disadvantageous than not, and it would even break her rhythm, shatter her momentum, and endanger them both. Survival, in this moment, meant clinging to her for dear life while the world burned red behind them. He looked at the Lanky yellowish-brown monsters chasing them. They were running on all fours, their long arms acting like extra legs, covering ground with a terrifying, twitching speed. He realized that even with his "triple human speed," he would be a sitting duck, leaving aside the fact that the girl was much faster than him. He couldn’t move like these people. He couldn’t jump thirty feet. He didn’t have a glowing ghost-wolf to protect his back. He was a "Divine Mortal," but in this arena, he was a toddler in a lion’s cage. "Keep running!" a man’s voice roared from the flank. A warrior with a glowing bear paw phantom smashed a Grey Marauder into a tree, the impact echoing like a falling mountain. He glanced at the girl carrying Sol. "Get the ’Divine One’ to the perimeter! Don’t let them touch him!" Divine One? Sol thought. Is that what they think I am? The girl didn’t answer, she wasn’t a normal human either. She just grunted, her muscles corded with a strength that felt like it was humming. As she ran, a faint, translucent pair of feline legs flickered around her own, and every time her feet hit the ground, a small shockwave of dust erupted. Every stride she took covered ten feet, her feet barely touching the ground. But she was carrying Sol’s new, dense weight, and it was slowing her down. She was burning her own energy just to maintain this pace. But the lanky monsters were still gaining on them. There were dozens of them, their lanky bodies twitching through the trees, their long fingers reaching out to snag anything in range. One lunged from a branch above, its yellow skin a blur against the green canopy. WHISH. A spear tipped with a glowing blue crystal whistled past Sol’s ear, impaling the lanky monster through the throat. The monster screeched, its body dissolving into a pool of acidic yellow bile. "Don’t stop, Kira!" a voice roared from the front. A group of human warriors had formed a wedge, their phantoms clashing against a wall of monsters to create an escape path. Sol watched as they moved through a forest of blood. Every blow on the ground left a crater; every scream was cut short by the wet sound of tearing flesh. Behind them, the jungle was being torn apart. Trees were being uprooted, the air was thick with the smell of iron and toxic musk, and the screams were constant. The girl... Kira... leaped over a pile of corpses, her breath coming in ragged, desperate hitches. Sol could feel her heart hammering against his side. She was pushing to her absolute limit. The jungle roared with the sound of the pursuit. The human line was breaking. The phantoms were flickering out as the warriors were giving their all to battle the monsters, and the monsters were moving in for the feast. Sol watched a Lanky monster leap from a branch, its fingers extended like whips. It aimed for the girl’s head, its black nails glistening with poison. His eyes narrowed. His dynamic vision, enhanced by the crimson shade of his new eyes, saw the trajectory. If that thing hits her, we’re both dead. He couldn’t use a phantom. He couldn’t jump thirty feet. But he wasn’t useless. He had the Silver Liquid. He reached out his hand from over the girl’s shoulder. He didn’t need to aim; he just needed to will it. He pushed the silver liquid from his core, focusing it into his palm. Unlike before with charcoal mist, the energy didn’t just glow, it screamed. He didn’t fire a beam, not like he could. He randomly grabbed a thin branch and focused on the monster’s long, multi-jointed arm mid-flight. Attribute Exchange. Property: Hardness. Exchange. For a split second, the monster’s arm... flexible and organic... became brittle as a thin branch. The creature’s own momentum was its undoing. As it tried to swing its arm to hook the girl’s neck, the limb simply snapped. CRACK. The Lanky monster let out a confused, warbling shriek as its arm shattered into three pieces, the momentum sending it tumbling into a thorny thicket instead of its target. The girl didn’t see what happened, but she felt the shift in the air. She didn’t ask questions. She just pushed her body past its limits, her boots carving deep gouges into the earth as she sprinted toward the rocky ridge that marked the edge of the breach. "Nice save, whatever you did!" she panted, her heart thudding against Sol’s chest. Sol didn’t respond. He looked at his hand, which was trembling. That one-second exchange had drained a noticeable chunk of his Silver reservoir. He realized then that "The Law of Exchange" was a tool of precision, not a weapon of mass destruction. He couldn’t kill a hundred of them, at least not yet. He could only tip the scales. He looked back at the retreating war zone. He saw a man with a full hyena phantom get surrounded by five Grey monsters. The man was a blur of motion...claws flashing, phantom jaws snapping, his movements wild and desperate. But the monsters pressed in, they didn’t care about injuries or dead comrade, eventually, the sheer numbers of them wore him down. He was buried under a pile of grey muscle, and the sound that followed was something Sol hoped he would forget. Sol didn’t close his eyes this time. He watched the horizon, his crimson gaze unblinking, marking every horror he saw. Further across the battlefield, he even saw a human who looked like a commander... a man encased in the radiant avatar of a Golden Lion. The lion roared, its mane blazing like sunlight...standing his ground against a dozen Brutes, as he bravely gave orders. He was a beacon of light, and defiance in the sea of grey and yellow, each strike shaking the earth. Yet even he was being pushed back. The sheer numbers of the monsters were overwhelming. The humans were overwhelmed, yes... but not broken. Their posture was still firm, their eyes still sharp. They fought with the desperation of men who knew the cost of failure, but also with the conviction that they had not yet reached their end. Sol’s gaze shifted between the monsters and the humans with their glowing ghosts. The clash was titanic, primal, and merciless. This is the world, Sol thought, his crimson eyes cold. The jungle back home had been nothing but a nursery, a place for children to stumble and scrape their knees. This battlefield was different. This was the crucible. This was the real game. Sol looked back one last time at the clearing where Korg had fallen. He saw the Grey Monsters already moving on to their next target, their double jaws dripping with the blood of a man who deserved better. I’ll remember that smile, Sol thought, a dark, silent promise echoing in the hollow of his chest. And one day, I’m going to find the thing that made you have to wear it. And I’m going to tear its heart out while it watches. Kiral cleared the ridge, leaping over a pile of dead Lanky monsters, and finally, the sounds of the battle began to dim, replaced by the howling wind of the heights. He wasn’t a god yet. He wasn’t an overlord. But he was a scavenger in a world of gods, and he was going to eat until he was the biggest monster in the jungle. And for now, he would be a "Divine One" until he figured out how to get his own phantom. Suddenly, Kira launched herself into the air, her feline phantom screaming with effort. Sol held on for dear life as they soared over the abyss, the sounds of the war fading into a dull, bloody roar behind them, a bloody testament to the world Sol had just been "vomited" into. He closed his eyes for a second, the image of the second set of jaws burned into his mind. Stronger he reminded himself. I need to get stronger before these things eat my face. She didn’t stop until they hit the treeline of a different, more managed-looking forest. She finally skidded to a halt, her chest heaving, and dumped Sol unceremoniously onto the grass. "We... we’re clear," she wheezed, falling to her knees and coughing up a bit of blood. "You’re so heavy!" the Kira panted, "What are you made of? Stone?" "Something like that!" Sol whispered, as he stood up, his celestial tunic surprisingly unsoiled. He looked at the girl, then back at the horizon where the sky was still a bruised, angry red. "Where are we?" he asked, his voice steady, but laced with an edge of suppressed rage. The girl looked up at him, her stormy eyes narrowing. She wiped the blood from her lip and stood up.

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