[06: 07: 01: 22]
...
{Zzzz... You havezzz angered Mother...}
The wet, guttural rasp slithered through the air, echoing off the walls, rippled through the shadows, and hissed inside Cassian’s own skull.
{Zzzzz… You will pay the pricezzz for that. I—her greatest priest—will make sure of it, inscetzzz...}
Cassian’s lips curled into a vicious grin, his fingers twitching toward the hilt of ?Sindivinity?. The dagger pulsed in response, its rhythm vibrating in tune with his heartbeat. “Yeah?” Cassian growled, shifting his weight forward. “Tell Mommy dearest I’m on my way… right after I fuck you up.”
{Zzzz... You vile insetzzz...}
The corrupted priest's misshapen head snapped toward him, twisting at an impossible angle as it let out a guttural shriek. Another wave of mental pressure slammed into Cassian’s mind. [Unwavering Mind] braced his thoughts like a steel wall, and ?Sindivinity? subtle resonance coiled around his psyche like a second skin.
? You have [Unwavering Mind] buff. The mental attack successfully countered ?
? You have [Unwavering Mind] buff. The mental attack successfully countered ?
Cassian laughed tauntingly. “What’s the matter?” he jeered. Do you need Mommy to hold your hand? Too bad...”
{YOU DAREZZz!!}
That did it.
The corrupted priest’s scream turned feral, splitting the air like a blade. Another barrage of mental attacks hit Cassian like hammers to the skull. His teeth clenched. The pain pulsed deep in his mind. He grunted, staggering half a step as his vision wavered.
? You have [Unwavering Mind] buff. Counter failed! Mental attack successful ?
? Debuff [Mental Dominance] placed... [Unwavering Mind] is reacting... Debuff dispelled ?
? You have [Unwavering Mind] buff. Counter failed! Mental attack successful ?
? Debuff [Mental Dominance] placed... [Unwavering Mind] is reacting... Debuff dispelled ?
? You have [Unwavering Mind] buff. The mental attack successfully countered ?
“Fuck...!” Cassian hissed through his teeth, shaking his head violently as if to dislodge the needles crawling through his brain.
Did I overdo it with the taunts? AAHH—I'm gonna go deaf at this rate...
His head pounded, but his eyes were locked forward, glowing with fury.
Pain be damned—I am not backing down now.
When the pain reached its peak, ?Sindivinity? pulsed. It was subtle like a faint heartbeat within his palm but the world around Cassian shifted in that instant. Time seemed to crawl. Every heartbeat stretched longer. Every breath, deeper. A powerful sensation rippled through his limbs, washing away the haze in his head like a cleansing flame.
He wasn’t alone.
Sindivinity—that cursed, half-living dagger—wasn’t just resonating with him anymore. It was part of him, surprising Cassian. Bound by blood and will. Strength surged through his body, raw and consuming. His muscles tensed, his nerves calmed, and his focus locked into place with terrifying clarity.
The system’s warning pings and the mental attacks, the screeching voices, and the claws scraping at the corners of his mind vanished.
Silence.
Perfect, blessed silence.
Cassian rose to his full height, his breath steadying. He spat blood to the side, tasting metal and dirt, but no longer caring. Across the battlefield, his behemoth still stood guard, its massive form swinging through Kalrachs like they were made of straw. Not a single monster slipped past.
Holy, what’s that…
The Behemoth’s spine split open slightly as writhing black tentacles burst from its back, lashing out like serpents. They wrapped around three Kalrachs at once, lifted them into the air—and crushed them into a paste. Cassian’s eyes widened. A chill crept down his spine.
"...Are those tentacles?" he muttered. "I’m really glad he didn’t use those when we fought..."
Then, glancing down at the blade in his grip, he frowned. “And what about you, Sindi? Well whatever that was I’m glad to have you on board”
The dagger answered in its own way—another faint pulse.
...
Damn!…
Cassian clenched his fist around ?Sindivinity?, whispering a quiet thanks to the artifact for the trust. The dagger pulsed once—quiet, satisfied. Almost like a nod.
His eyes snapped back to the Corrupted Priest. The monster was still hunched amid the horde, its grotesque form twitching, eyes glowing with a manic crimson light. And as he looked at the Corrupted priest at that moment, his mind raced through multiple possibilities.
Why in the fucking hell was it just screaming? It should be capable of more…
It had enough sentience to speak, form thoughts, and worship the mother of kalrachs… then why?
Something didn’t add up.
Cassian’s gut twisted with unease as he expanded his awareness, reaching out with every inch of perception. The battlefield came into sharper focus—the scent of blood and smoke, the sparks from shattered metal, the roar of his behemoth tearing into the swarm.
Wait.
The push from the horde… why is it so slow?
No. That shouldn’t be possible. Even with his behemoth summoned and powered up, the sheer volume of kalrachs should’ve overwhelmed them by now. They never stopped. They didn’t retreat.
So why—?
His gaze swept the battlefield again, and that’s when he saw it. Only a quarter of the Kalrachs were attacking. The rest were moving weirdly, twitching. Jerking like marionettes on broken strings. Their limbs spasmed unnaturally. Their heads lolled, jaws slack, eyes rolling into the backs of their skulls. Some were clawing at themselves, others scratching symbols into the ground with bloody fingers.
Moving erratically, twitching… like they are being possessed…
Cassian’s heart dropped. Goosebumps shot down Cassian’s body as one of the twitching Kalrachs screamed—a sharp, alien wail that echoed with unnatural resonance. Its body cracked as spikes burst from its limbs, its form bulging grotesquely.
Not only possession, the fucker priest somehow forcing them to evolve into elites!
“Son of a…”
Cassian dug into his second reservoir instead of emptying the first one and pulled his essence out, feeling the rush of energy tapping into his shield card.
“[Mana Shield].”
? You have cast [Mana Shield] spell, Gained a LVL 0 Mana shield 10/10 DMG absorption ?
? You have fed 10 Essence points to your mana shield spell, Current saturation: LVL 10 Shield 100/100 DMG absorption ?
The familiar hum of protective magic resonated as a translucent barrier wrapped itself around his form—an invisible shell woven from will and warding. Cassian took a second to scan the battlefield before sprinting toward his Behemoth. The hulking summon stood firm at the edge of the chaos, its bulk shielding him like a living fortress.
I can kill that priest right now, he thought, eyes narrowing. But that’s what they want. There’s no way that shade-assassin was the only one.
The Kalrachs were still swarming, relentless, and unending. His first reservoir was spent and there were signs of more elite evolutions sparking within the horde.
No point in getting into a fight with them
He clicked his tongue and reached out mentally.
Behemoth, back off and ready yourself for a charge.
The summon let out a ground-shaking roar, sweeping a cluster of Kalrachs aside with a crack of its whip-like tendrils. As it backed up, Cassian climbed up its spine and perched atop its massive shoulders holding tight. The summons's body pulsed and a crimson aura started forming around him, getting denser and denser.
At my command! behemoth
He inhaled sharply and reached deep into his second reservoir, channeling a storm of essence into his hand.
“[Gravity Well],” he commanded as he stretched out his hand, and as he did with the spiderworm, he pushed the spell card to change.
Rather than its standard fifteen-meter radius, Cassian forced his will into the card, compressing the effect, honing its small dense gravitational zone directly in front of him. He poured more essence, breaking the boundaries of the set parameters of the card.
His skull throbbed. Blood streamed from his nostrils. His eyes burned but with a roar, Cassian added a straight movement effect to the card.
?You have strained your mind and essence pathways, HP -100 ?
?HP → 790/919?
The reality was twisted and torn.
A dense, obsidian orb formed midair ahead of them, crackling with black lightning. The atmosphere warped around it as the orb pulled, crushed, and shredded everything within five meters. Kalrachs imploded into meat cubes before they could even scream as the orb shot forward.
Cassian sagged atop the Behemoth’s back, one hand clutching a spine for balance. “Now!” he barked.
The Behemoth roared and lunged forward like a living battering ram activating its mad charge ability. It tore through the battlefield, trampling over any monster left in the wake of the singularity.
The Kalrachs were swarming in like crazy now and Cassian spotted multiple of those amalgamation types in the horde and even more transforming. The path to the sinkhole was barely 20 meters now—but it might as well have been a mile.
Cassian hissed in pain as he wrenched more essence-free, the chaotic backlash from his earlier modification still flaring in his core.
“[Firewave]”
A roaring ring of flame erupted beneath him, sweeping outward like a wrathful tide. The inferno licked across the floor, vaporizing Kalrachs on contact. The corridor lit up in hues of orange and red, shadows dancing wildly across the walls.
Through that hellfire, the Behemoth thundered forward with Cassian hanging on to his dearest life.
Cassian crouched low atop its shoulders, essence flowing steadily, senses stretched to the brink… scanning for anything amiss. He wasn’t expecting this to go easy.
This is the last stretch… C’mon, just a little more.
Just then, instincts flared like a gunshot.
Dark tendrils erupted from the ground like living serpents, latching onto the Behemoth’s legs mid-charge. The creature's momentum stumbled. With a guttural roar, it reared back, muscles straining—but the shadows coiled tighter, binding, anchoring, dragging.
Fuck!
Cassian’s eyes snapped wide as the behemoth fell. But then—at the last possible second—the summon twisted its torso and hurled Cassian forward with all its strength.
“Whaaa—!”
He hit the ground hard, tumbling through scorched rubble. Pain lanced up his side as he rolled grit and blood in his teeth. But the motion broke the fall. Cassian came up on one knee, panting, eyes locked on his summon.
The Behemoth was almost entirely swallowed now—its limbs bound by chains woven from its own shadow. They pulsed with malicious intent, dragging it down into the dark.
The behemoth turned its head, its single glowing eye locking with Cassian’s.
A silent farewell.
And then it roared—a thunderous, soul-rattling roar as deep crimson energy began to condense.
"...You crazy bastard… you’re going to detonate yourself," he whispered, a smile forming on his face.
The behemoth nodded.
Cassian clenched his jaw, teeth grinding. “Then I won’t waste what you’re buying me.”
“[Blink]!”
The world warped. A sharp tug ripped him from the ground as he vanished—and reappeared mid-air, directly over the yawning mouth of the sinkhole, and then his body plunged downward just as the Behemoth erupted behind him in a blinding crimson explosion.
BOOM!!!
...
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