Rampage of the Abyss
My blood-boiling roar surged through the Mark of Subjugation, gouging into her mind. A grotesque spark of life flickered in Rubia's eyes, which had been crumbling under the weight of terror. She bit her trembling lips at Ignis's feet and staggered to her feet. Mana, freed from her shackles, enveloped her entire body, and Elise burst from the darkness behind her, channeling her own power to bolster it. As the sisters chanted desperately, the mine floor split open, and colossal guardians forged from mud and rock erupted toward Ignis.
"You pathetic worms! You think those lumps of dirt can block my flames?!"
Ignis snorted derisively and unleashed a barrage of 5th Circle infernos at the guardians. They should have melted into ash at a mere gesture from the domain lord's overwhelming blaze. But things unfolded far differently from his arrogant expectations.
Not a single drop of mana could flow through my flesh, linked to the sisters' brands. The vast mana pouring into me from them transformed instantly into savage, viscous demonic power the moment it touched my torso, boiling up in a frenzy. That transmuted crimson-black demonic energy then flowed back through the brands' conduits, grotesquely merging into the bodies of the guardians Rubia had summoned.
Whoosh!
Ignis's flames pierced the guardians' torsos, but instead of collapsing, crimson-black demonic flesh and tentacles erupted from the severed mud and rock, sealing the wounds in an instant and regenerating them hideously. They were aberrant immortals born from mana converted into demonic power.
The guardians melted horrifically in the flames only to regenerate again and again, roaring monstrously as they loomed massively before Ignis, blocking his path.
"W-what the hell is this foul energy?!"
As Ignis panicked and poured out flames madly, Elise seized the chaos. In her hand gleamed the lustrous core gem salvaged from the wreckage of Rubia's red staff, which Ignis had shattered. She sprinted toward me—panting on my upper body alone, sustained by demonic power—with every ounce of her strength.
But Ignis's bloodshot eyes, tearing into the guardians like a beast, caught her movement.
"Elise... you ungrateful wretch, forgetting the grace I bestowed upon you... all because of this traitor bitch!"
Reason obliterated by rage, Ignis condensed eerie flames at his fingertips. Swinging his arm through the air, he launched a sharp flame spear wreathed in azure light, roaring toward Elise.
"Elise! Dodge!"
Seria's desperate scream came too late. The flame spear mercilessly gouged Elise's shoulder, severing her right arm clean off.
"Aaaarghhh!"
A fountain of blood sprayed into the air. With her agonized scream, Elise's body crumpled wretchedly to the floor. Right before my eyes—reduced to a torso—her severed arm, clutching the gem, rolled helplessly across the blood-soaked dirt, spraying crimson.
The lustrous gem tumbled from Elise's severed arm onto the dirt. In that brief, chaotic moment as the guardians drew Ignis's gaze, a child from the mining village—trembling in the corner after being freed from bonds—leaped forward. It was the very kid I'd risked my life to smuggle out of this hellish mine.
The child crawled through the ashes, snatched the gem in tiny hands, and bolted toward me—gasping on my torso—with full speed.
"You filthy maggots, to the bitter end...!"
Ignis roared in fury, piercing the guardians' regeneration and grasping the situation. An overwhelming flame storm erupted from his massive palm, engulfing the child's back.
Rubia and Seria screamed and threw up barriers to shield the child, but it wasn't enough against Ignis's dominant firepower. The barriers shattered like glass, and scarlet hellfire mercilessly devoured the child's small frame.
"No...!"
In my anguished groan, the ferocious blaze began melting the child's flesh horrifically. But on the face burning before my eyes, there was no resentment or fear. Even in that hellish agony as skin burst and bones showed, the child flashed me a pure smile.
"Thank you..."
With that final word, the child's tiny body oxidized into formless ash. As the ashes scattered into the air, the red gem clutched to its chest sliced through, landing right beside my face in the pooled blood.
My vision blurred red with beastly tears. The child's smoldering ashes brushed my cheek.
Originally, not a drop of mana could flow through my flesh. All external mana was perfectly transmuted into savage, cruel demonic power, forcibly regenerating my broken body and nothing more. This massive mana crystal, delivered by the child's sacrifice, would awaken the abyss within me, becoming the perfect fuel for endless demonic might.
Blood-tears streamed between my crushed jaws as I muttered low.
"This... is enough."
Dragging my torso across the floor, I crawled toward the gem like a beast, mouth agape. I savagely snatched the hard mana crystal with my teeth, ignoring the agony ripping my esophagus, and swallowed it whole.
The gem sliding down felt like gulping raw molten lava. The child's lingering warmth mixed with ash and blood for a metallic tang, but I chewed and devoured it like a beast.
The moment the gem plunged deep into my guts, an eerie silence fell—even the roaring mine flames seemed to hush. Ignis, mid-maniacal laugh as he ravaged the sisters, faltered at the unnatural quiet.
His fraudulent lower body clanking, he glared piercingly at my bloodied torso.
His smug triumph evaporated, replaced by inexplicable unease creeping over his massive frame.
"You damned vermin... scraping at my nerves to the end."
Ignis's eyes twisted. Something was wrong. His instincts screamed it. From that torso lump rose a viscous, savage abyssal aura incomparable to before.
"This time, I'll burn you to dust—not even bones left!"
Roaring to shake off the dread, Ignis condensed overwhelming flame magic surpassing 5th Circle, nearing 6th Circle, in both hands. Crimson runes flared across his body, the gems on his smith-forged prosthetic pulsing madly to amplify it.
Blood-red flame spears filled my vision, thundering toward my head.
Kwaaaaang...!
The mighty flame storm struck my flesh dead-on. But in that instant, a colossal abyssal vortex whirled around my torso.
"Ka... haha... Kahahahaha!"
I burst into beastly laughter. Ignis's overwhelming spell didn't incinerate me—instead, it screeched grotesquely upon hitting the vortex and got sucked in.
My body was an alien vessel rejecting mana at its core; Ignis's potent influx transmuted into boiling demonic power the instant it touched my abyss.
It wasn't just Ignis's flames pouring in. Trailing the gem's pulse, the vengeful spirits of the dead villagers and vast mana swirled in a massive vortex down my throat, mercilessly into my depths.
Those who trusted me—the monster doomed to die—to the end, their anguished souls surged toward my abyss with ferocious momentum. Every ounce of that immense mana and resentment was violently repelled upon contact, brutally crushed and transmuted into the most savage, cruel demonic power.
That hellish conversion wracked my severed nerves with scorching agony, forcibly rewiring them. Crimson-black demonic flesh writhed, spasming to grotesquely regenerate my incinerated lower half. Snapped spinal nerves fused with the flesh in horrific friction, new bones and hideous muscles sprouting madly to tangle in the void below.
I endured that infernal torment, chewing through it with blood.
The gem's madness, the innocents' grudges, Ignis's blaze, my bone-deep hatred—all fused into a body forged solely of demonic power, savagely overwhelming beyond compare.
Regeneration complete. Beastly might gripped my hands pressing into the blood-and-ash floor. Legs perfectly reborn in demonic muscle stomped the earth, and I slowly rose.
A suffocatingly heavy, oppressive abyssal aura exploded from me, enough to crush Ignis's vaunted flames. Bloodshot beast-eyes glared coldly at his massive, flustered form, fraudulent finery clanking.