CHAPTER 39: DEVOURING A LORD

The creature that was once Lord Alaric was a monument to his own hubris. A Monstrous caricature of power. A man who had been given a sliver of the abyss’s strength. And whose mortal mind had shattered.

He called himself "faithful." A "rewarded" servant of the Core. But the agony in his shrieking voice told a different story. Not a gift. A curse. A monstrous cancer of power. And he was its first and final victim.

Edward and Fenris stood before him. The shimmering outline of the real world was tantalizingly close. They were a study in contrasts. Fenris, the "beast-girl," was a picture of savage, controlled fury.

Her knuckles cracked. She settled into a low, brawling stance. Edward, the "monster," was a pillar of cold, calculating calm. His eyes narrowed. He assessed this new, Monstrous foe.

"He’s unstable," Edward said. His voice was a low, quiet murmur. Almost lost in the mutated Lord’s insane laughter. "The genesis energy is still tearing him apart from the inside. He’s powerful, but he’s a glass cannon. Hit him hard enough, and he’ll shatter."

"I like hard," Fenris grunted. A feral, bloodthirsty grin spread across her face.

They didn’t need a plan. Didn’t need a strategy. Their synergy was now so profound, so instinctual, they moved as two parts of a single, predatory organism.

They charged.

The mutated Lord Alaric met their charge with a roar. He swung his massive, stone club-arm in a wide, horizontal arc. Meant to turn them both into a red paste. The attack was unbelievably powerful. The force of it created a miniature sonic boom that cracked the air.

But it was also clumsy. Predictable.

Fenris slid low. The club passed harmlessly over her head. She drove her fist, empowered by the raw energy Edward had fed her, directly into the creature’s malformed knee. Not the clean snap of bone. The wet, sickening crunch of mutated flesh giving way.

Simultaneously, Edward leaped high. He used the Lord’s own swinging arm as a ramp. He ran up the pulsating, rocky limb. His movements were light and impossibly fast. A shadow. His Shadowfang Dagger was a sliver of perfect blackness in his hand.

The mutated Lord shrieked in pain and rage. His leg buckled. His attention was now on the savage brawler at his feet. He had completely forgotten about the second, more silent threat.

Edward reached the creature’s shoulder. He drove his dagger deep into the pulsating joint where the stone arm met the mutated torso. He twisted the blade. Severing tendons of pure, chaotic energy.

The creature roared. Its writhing tentacle-arm lashed out to grab him. But Edward was already gone. He leaped from its back. Landed with a soft, cat-like grace.

The battle became a brutal assault. Fenris was the anvil. A relentless, ferocious force that kept the monster’s attention. Her powerful, close-quarters blows shattered its unstable form.

Edward was the hammer. A flitting, untouchable phantom. He would appear from the shadows to deliver precise, crippling strikes to its weak points. Before melting away again.

They were systematically, brutally, dismantling him.

The mutated Lord, in his agony and madness, began to lose what little control he had. His form grew more unstable. His flesh bubbled and contorted.

Chunks of his stone armor sloughed off. He was a dying star, collapsing in on himself. And he was determined to take them with him.

"You will die with me!" he shrieked. His voice was a gurgling, inhuman sound. He stopped trying to fight. He began to gather his power.

A terrifying purple light building in the center of his chest. He was going to self-destruct. Unleash all the raw, unstable genesis energy.

A single, final, apocalyptic blast.

Fenris, seeing the danger, tried to charge in. But the sheer, radiant energy pouring from his chest was a physical wall. Pushing her back.

There was no time. No way to stop it.

But Edward saw an opportunity. A terrible, monstrous, and necessary opportunity. The Lord was a lesser System Avatar. A direct, if flawed, conduit to the Hades Core itself.

His soul was not just the soul of a man. It was a soul infused with a piece of their true enemy’s power.

He had to do it.

"Fenris, get back!" he commanded. His voice was sharp and absolute.

He sheathed his dagger. He walked forward. Not with a cautious, predatory grace. But with a slow, deliberate, and unstoppable stride. He walked directly into the face of the building, world-ending blast. The purple energy washed over him. Tearing at his clothes. His skin. His very being.

He reached the creature. His face was a mask of pure, unyielding resolve. He looked into the melted, horrified face of the man who had been Lord Alaric. He saw a flicker of the arrogant nobleman still trapped within. A final, terrified ghost in the machine.

He raised his hand.

And he performed his most daring, most terrifying act of assimilation yet.

He plunged his hand directly into the glowing, pulsating heart of the creature’s power. His fingers closed around the screaming, chaotic soul of the mutated Lord.

He did not just drain it. He did not just consume it. He devoured it whole. Absorbing not just the man’s bitter, hateful spirit. But the raw, unstable genesis energy. The connection to the Hades Core. All of it.

The world went white.

The assimilation was not the cold, icy rush he was used to. It was a supernova in his soul. A torrent of pure, unadulterated chaos. He screamed.

A raw, ragged sound of pure, unimaginable agony. A billion contradictory sensations flooded his being.

He felt the burning, arrogant pride of the Duke bloodline. He felt the cold, cruel satisfaction of a slaver. He felt the terror of a man being consumed by a power he could not control.

And beneath it all, he felt the cold and utterly inhuman touch of the Hades Core itself.

His mind was flooded with fragmented, disjointed visions. A cascade of pure, unfiltered data.

He saw a vast, cosmic entity. A being of impossible scale. Made not of flesh or light. But of chains. Of gears. Of a billion starving, screaming mouths.

He saw the intricate, terrifying architecture of the System. A web of pure, logical code that bound his entire reality. He saw the dungeons, the "farms," from the Core’s own perspective. Nothing more than entries in a grand, cosmic ledger.

And he heard a single, terrifying command. A broadcast from the Core itself. An order sent to its new, now-devoured "Avatar." An order that now echoed in the deepest, darkest corners of his own soul.

[Find the other anomalies. Consume them. Assimilate for the Core.]

The system, his sworn, secret enemy, was trying to co-opt him. To turn its greatest threat into its most efficient tool. A violation so profound, so absolute, that his very sense of self began to splinter.

He fell to his knees. His body convulsed. The scream still tearing from his throat. The purple light of the Lord’s self-destruction was gone. Consumed. Drawn into the singularity that was now Edward’s soul.

His HUD, a silent, impartial observer, recorded the monumental event.

[High-Tier Corrupted Human Soul ’Lord Alaric Duke’ consumed.]

[You have reached Level 10!]

[System Override Detected: Unique Assimilation Event.]

[Reward for consuming a nascent System Avatar: +10 All Stats. Faction Standing with ’Hades Core’ has become Hostile.]

[New Title Acquired: Anomaly.]

The assimilation was too much. The power too vast. The experience too traumatic. The last thing he saw before the world dissolved into a welcoming, merciful blackness was the horrified, terrified face of Fenris.

Her golden eyes were wide with a fear that was not for herself, but for him.