**
Ten ters... and nothing.
Aeloria was pale. But not from fear—he was straining. His skin looked like cracked porcelain from within, glowing blue lines pulsing along his veins. Dália wasn't any better. The girl, usually so sweet-faced, now looked like a war goddess bathed in blue and pain.
Twenty ters... and still nothing.
The mire fought back with resistance. The red, viscous water twisted as if it had a will of its own. It wasn't just density—it was sothing alive, trying to close every centiter they forced open.
Thirty ters... the shockwaves.
The crocodile's body thrashed furiously on the other side, and each twist of its torso generated acidic ripples that broke the two mages' progress. Aeloria gritted his teeth. The cold he unleashed was so intense that tiny crystals ford on his eyebrows.
Forty ters... nothing but that damned sludge.
Dália was panting. Her prana leaked in spasms, dancing around her arms in desperate choreography. Water magic shimred unsteadily in the air.
Fifty ters...
And then the roar.
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"
A grotesque, pain-filled sound cut through the air like an inverted thunderclap. I raised my head and saw—despite the distance, despite the distortion and the red mist—Seraphine and Dórian had joined the fight.
"Shit," I muttered.
"How much more?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the battlefield.
Dália, between one wave and another, gasped in reply, "At least double that. Around a hundred ters..."
I huffed in frustration. "Tch..."
"A hundred ters of hell broth... Fine. I'll help and be right back."
With a downward slash of my hand, I tore open a rift in the air like slicing through invisible fabric—and stepped through it.
On the other side, chaos.
The crocodile, now fully aware of the rising threat, focused everything on Dórian.
Its tongue erged again—more barbed and revolting than before—accompanied by the sa black suction that had devoured two grasshoppers with ease.
Dórian tried to resist, planting his feet into earth molded by his own affinity. But even the stone seed to crumble under the creature's power. His armor creaked, the ground trembled, and he could already feel his body lifting off.
That's when the sky split open.
Literally.
A spatial rift opened above the crocodile, and from it erged Glenn, eyes crackling with electric mana, his body cloaked in violet prana, a colossal lightning bolt pulsing in his right hand.
"EAT THIS, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!"
The lightning descended like a divine hamr, straight into the beast's gaping mouth. The impact was so violent that its jaw snapped shut instinctively... on its own tongue.
There was a wet crunch, then a roar of pure agony. The tongue was torn out in an explosion of pus, blood, and black sli.
I landed awkwardly but safely beside Dórian. "You in one piece?"
Dórian just coughed. "More or less."
While the monster scread, the grasshoppers—showing rare collective intelligence—charged together. In a synchronized attack, they lunged at the creature's exposed tail. Jaws and blades vibrating in unison, they shredded half of the grotesque appendage with a sound like tree trunks being sawed apart.
Seraphine ca next.
She spun like a tornado, her feet barely touching the ground. Her spear glinted with wind, and the blade-arm had beco an extension of her fury. With each step, another crocodile leg was severed. One, two, three, four, five... limbs fell—enough to prevent any escape.
The monster roared again.
But this ti, it wasn't just pain—it was the beginning of despair.
From the open wounds, black light began to seep.
Like corrupted magma. Beams of pure darkness started forming, bursting in every direction like erratic lances. They weren't aid attacks just uncontrollable destruction.
One of the grasshoppers took a direct hit. Its body was torn in half midair, evaporating before it hit the ground.
Glenn, Dórian, and Seraphine leapt back, dodging by re inches. The cave turned into a storm of chaotic blasts and toxic smoke. The crocodile, limping and mutilated, began dragging itself back toward the mire. A desperate survival instinct.
In the distance, the mire... was still opening.
"Don't let that fucker escape!" I shouted.
The last standing grasshopper moved first.
With a shrill screech, it drove three blades into the creature's tail and another three into the dungeon's viscous ground, becoming a grotesque living anchor. Its limbs trembled with the effort, the muscles beneath its exoskeleton spasming wildly. It was a tug-of-war between death and desperation.
I understood instantly!
"PUSH!" I yelled, no explanation needed.
Dórian charged, shield made from a grasshopper's carapace held out like a battering ram.
I channeled prana into my eyes, lit from within by lightning, unleashing my most powerful attack. Two colossal bolts.
It wasn't the ti for refined tactics. It was ti for brute force.
They struck the beast's flank with everything we had.
"BOOOOOM"
The impact reverberated through the crocodile's monstrous flesh, sliding it a few ters away from the mire. Not far, but enough to delay its escape.
Seraphine, relentless, danced around the creature like a silver storm.
Each step, another leg gone. Her spear was wind, her second blade vengeance. She slashed and slashed, but the monster regenerated. For every four limbs she cut, two grew back in their place. New flesh replaced the old with obscene speed, as if ti itself favored the creature.
The stalemate dragged on for an eternal minute.
And then... the first crack.
The grasshopper, silent hero of the standstill, scread.
"CREEEEEEEEEEEEEK"
A sharp, desperate sound. The blades lodged in the ground began to give way. The floor lted under the acid pouring from the crocodile's wounds.
With a tragic snap, its torso split in two.
The monster yanked hard, and the blades still stuck in its tail tore away the remains of the insect. Half of the grasshopper's body was ripped apart in a brutal dismbernt—the other half was dragged into the monster's mouth and crushed in fury.
"SHIT!" I cursed.
Before we could react, the creature's tail now fully regenerated and even stronger, whipped around with terrifying speed.
Seraphine didn't see it. The blow landed squarely on her side.
"BLERGH..." blood burst from her mouth.
Her body was hurled like a silver missile, straight toward the boiling mire.
I moved as fast as I could, lightning circled my body as I reached top speed and intercepted her tragic fall. Like a falling star, I appeared between her and the liquid death.
Gravitational magic stabilized us in midair, and opening a dinsional rift, I stepped through with her in my arms, back to the edge of the mire.
Seraphine collapsed, gasping, her face bloody. "Thank you..."
I nodded in response. My mind was elsewhere, my eyes searched for the runaway monster.
But the crocodile didn't wait.
As the two caught their breath, the creature's monstrous head rose above them. Its jaw dripped with black sli—the lack of a tongue only made its expression more grotesque.
Dórian charged.
Alone.
Shield raised, sword vibrating, he faced the beast like a warrior who knew he might not return. Each strike he landed shook the ground. Each block absorbed force that could crush an ox.
He roared. Once, twice, ten tis. But it wasn't enough.
The monster was determined—whatever it took, it would return to the mire.
And finally... it subrged.
Dórian dropped to his knees, panting.
The mire bubbled, as if mocking.
The beast had returned to its lair.
**
Ti seed frozen.
Aeloria and Dália, soaked in sweat with prana evaporating from their pores, had finally reached their limit.
A hundred ters of opening in the mire. A feat that defied logic.
The acidic, tallic stench burned the lungs.
The frozen walls groaned under the constant pressure. And down below, at the center of the newly revealed void... it pulsed.
The heart.
Deford. Colossal. As if several alien ats had been stitched together in a grotesque mistake of creation. Tentacles sprouted like spasmodic vipers, writhing in the empty space.
And at the center, a vertical mouth, filled with crooked, twisted teeth, vomited the red liquid of the mire in irregular spurts.
"There it is, the bastard..." Aeloria murmured, a mix of relief and nausea in his voice.
Dália nodded, trembling. "Finally... we can end this."
Without hesitation, Aeloria raised his arms and shouted:
"GLENN! GET READY TO END THIS SHIT!"
But victory smiled too soon.
On the far side of the mire, where the monster had subrged monts ago, sothing burst from the water like a bolt of pure hatred.
The crocodile.
Now covered in gaping wounds spewing black light, its mutating flesh bubbled and reford in real ti. With its jaw wide open, it leapt with a roar that sounded like thunder mixed with a thousand bones breaking at once.
And in that mouth, there were no teeth, only living darkness.
A black death that wanted to swallow the entire world—and its next course was Dália and Aeloria.
The heart pulsed ahead.
And the crocodile ca from above.
"FUC—"
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