Chapter 148: A Joining Of Fates
"What are they? They smell tasty."
Widow's tongue dragged across his teeth as he peered past Bile's shoulder. Three blocks out, four shapes moved through the dark. Trained steps. Quiet. Clean. They would have passed unseen to anything else. Not here. Not to eyes that cut night into daylight.
Concrete bit into Bile's claws as he pulled in a long breath of cold air.
"Don't know. Not human. We end it fast. If Synapse gets clipped, the Broodfather will—"
"He's in position! Look."
Widow snapped the words out, arm jerking forward. There. A shape clung to the bottom of a slab of wreckage that had fallen across the street like a bridge, limbs spread wide, body pulled flat.
"This better not go bad."
Bile edged forward without meaning to. The tremor crept back in. His focus locked on their youngest.
At the end of his sight, above the street, Synapse had gone still. All fours. Hidden. Muscle drawn tight as wire while he read the movement below.
'Similar to humans. Bone density higher. Frames appear taller on average. Movement shows training; they know how to fight—'
His train of thought snapped. Replaced.
'Strange. It appears I was given knowledge at birth. Pre-existing, but incomplete. Not enough. When we return, I will request resources from Father. I need to study—'
The moment stretched too long. Snapping out of it, he cut the thought dead and refocused. Timing was slipping. Straightening, Synapse tilted his head. Blank face. Breath steady. Heart calm.
Then he let go.
The fall was effortless. No hesitation. No fear. Just motion. His legs set as he dropped, body aligning for impact. Below, the group never looked up.
Not until a slab of black meat slammed into the street a few strides in front of them.
Raspy, hollow replies snapped back at him, clipped and urgent. All four figures brought their weapons up together, tools more than arms, rough blocks of steel lashed to wood, edges hacked into shape rather than forged.
At this distance, Synapse absorbed everything at once, thought accelerating to seize detail in the narrow window before motion took over. Skin ranged through dull greens, scarred and weathered. Hair hung long and braided, threaded with bone shards and crude carvings. Tribal markings covered nearly every inch of exposed flesh, thin red lines half-lost beneath grime and old blood.
Their faces were angular and hostile by nature, jaws set to snarl, yellowed fangs bared beneath eyes of vivid sapphire that clashed violently with the rest of them. Ears tapered to points.
He drew in a sharp breath and answered with a piercing shriek, tail snapping, saliva stringing between bared fangs, then turned and bolted.
'That should be sufficient.'
He didn't bother to glance back. The scrape of steel and the sudden rush of pursuit told him all he needed. Judging the weight of their steps and the pressure they bled into the air, he read them quickly; stronger than they looked, but not by much. Close to Widow's level. E-rank. Dangerous only if they closed the distance, and they clearly thought they could.
That assumption worked in his favor. Broodlings were built for places like this, closer to engineered vermin than proper demons. Ordinary imps already thrived in cluttered ruins and broken terrain. An evolved strain, even fresh-born, was worse. Synapse was not fast in a straight line; he was impossible to corner.
He cut hard left, then right, slipping through gaps as they appeared, compressing through cracks and broken seams that no pursuing body could follow. Distance stayed precise, never widening, never collapsing, the chase held on a knife edge as he led them deeper.
Ahead of him, the positions of his brothers burned clear through instinct alone. Idiots, both of them, but predictable, and that made them useful. He cut the corner at speed, already aligning the timing in his head, when from out of nowhere, the pursuit behind him died all at once.
He slid to a halt, claws screeching against broken asphalt. Leaning over the husk of a crushed car, he drew in a slow breath, sniffed again, head canting to one side, then lifted a shoulder in a small, careless shrug.
From above, Bile saw the whole thing unravel. Synapse drew them in clean, right up to the edge of the kill zone, and then the four figures stalled. Heads came up together. Noses worked the air. Their eyes swept the ruin in tight, methodical passes until one of them barked a sharp command. In the next breath, all four turned and fled, scattering into the streets with alarming speed.
"He fucked it!"
Widow snarled and started down without hesitation, claws scraping as he descended.
Bile's first reaction was relief. Synapse was intact. That mattered. But relief didn't solve the problem, and they still needed levels. Less furious than Widow, he followed, slower, already weighing what the youngest might have seen that they hadn't.
"Thought you were smarter than this. Get over here. Head down!"
As Widow laid into him, Bile watched the exchange with growing irritation. His brother was flailing, posture rigid, voice strained. First time out without the brood, first time being the oldest in the dark, and it showed. Too much noise. Too much ego. No plan beyond teeth.
Bile stepped between them before it spiraled further, blocking Widow with his shoulder. His eyes stayed on Synapse as he spoke.
"What'd you see?"
Synapse's expression never shifted, not once, not even when Widow struck him, skin taking the blows without reaction. Only after a measured pause did he answer.
"I misjudged their awareness. Call it intelligence or instinct, the result is the same. They identified the trap. Their decision to disengage rather than test unknown variables suggests caution and tactical reasoning. I recommend pursuit and continued observation, if you will permit—"
"Stop talking like that! Makes my gut crawl. Talk like a broodling!"
Bile dragged a claw down his face, pressure blooming behind his eyes. The newborn was exhausting enough on his own. Widow posturing on top of it was pushing him past tolerance.
"He's saying they smelled us. That they're smart."
He turned back to Synapse and tapped a claw against the center of his forehead.
"Don't overthink when you hunt. You're smart, sure, but too much thinking gets you killed. That's Snare's job. You're not Snare. You're not clever. You're a broodling. Keep it simple."
Then he rounded on Widow.
"And you're shit at leading. When does the Broodfather hit us? Even Snare doesn't. Hitting's for fun, not command. I'm leading now."
Without waiting for an answer, he turned and moved off, angling away from the route the four humanoids had taken.
Widow and Synapse exchanged looks, heads tilting in near-unison, then followed. One fell silent, thoughts grinding behind his eyes. The other muttered under his breath, irritation barely contained. But both moved because Bile had spoken.
No one was more startled by that than Bile himself.
He glanced down at his hand, claws curling tight into a fist. Solid. No tremor. Lifting his gaze, he felt something settle into place. Away from the Broodfather's shadow, he was carving out space of his own. The realization carried weight, and with it, a future problem he would eventually have to face.
Whether he wanted to or not.
----
'How are they holding up?'
'Breathing. No bodies yet.'
The heat that had crept up Snare's neck was finally ebbing. From his perch above the street, he tracked the three shapes moving below, Bile's outburst still echoing in his thoughts. It had landed harder than expected. Enough that Snare decided, quietly, that he would start watching him more closely. Guiding him, when he could.
Irritation leaked from thr Broodfather through the broodlink, thin but threatening. Then it cut off, drowned by something else entirely. A sudden rush. Pressure. Heat slammed into Snare's chest without warning.
'Broodfather?'
'—Nothing! Keep tracking.'
The connection snapped shut. One moment there, the next gone. Snare paused mid-step, unsettled, the aftertaste of the sensation lingering just long enough to raise questions he didn't like. With no answers coming, he dropped from the ledge, hit the pavement in a controlled crouch, and resumed the trail.
Back at the makeshift camp, on a bare concrete floor, Seo-jin leaned back and stretched, hands braced behind his skull as his eyes slid shut.
"Thought you were sleeping."
The movement beneath the blanket faltered. Lynn's voice drifted out, low and breathless.
"I got hungry."
Seo-jin jerked as the rhythm resumed. He hadn't expected this kind of stamina. Not from a human. For a fleeting second, he wondered how Pain was faring. Then he let the thought dissolve and gave in fully to the offering Lynn pressed against him, eager and unrestrained.
----
Feet hammered broken asphalt, breath tearing from lungs, weapons clutched tight as the ruins swallowed them whole. The city thinned by degrees, collapsed walls giving way to cracked streets, then long stretches where buildings stopped altogether. They didn't slow. Panic rode their shoulders.
The four green-skinned humanoids fled through the night. Whatever had spooked them back there still lingered in the bones.
Stone became dirt underfoot. Rubble gave way to roots. The skyline fell behind them as trees closed in, thin at first, then tighter, branches knitting overhead. The air thickened. Sounds dulled. Even their breathing seemed to sink into the ground instead of carrying forward.
Then the woods began to change. Leaves sagged as they passed, edges curling inward like burned paper. Bark darkened in streaks, veins crawling across trunks where sap should have been. The smell crept in next...wet iron, rot, something sweet underneath that made the stomach knot. One of them gagged and kept running.
The soil softened. Too soft. Each step sank deeper than it should, feet pulling free with a sound that wasn't mud. The ground gave, rebounded, pulsed faintly beneath their weight. Roots bulged like tendons. Knots swelled into slick growths that twitched when brushed. Trees slumped inward, canopies drooping as if exhausted, their trunks bloated with tumors that split and wept.
By the time they noticed the ground was warm, it was already too late.
The forest had finished changing. The earth beneath them no longer felt like earth at all, but dense, living mass, pliant, resistant, aware. The trees were no longer trees, but pillars of warped flesh and bone, blackened and fused, rising from a landscape that breathed in slow, patient cycles.
If Seo-jin had been there, he would have known the moment they crossed the threshold.
The Maw.
The entire area was corrupted by it.
The four kept running, lungs steady, legs refusing to slow. They veered around snapping mouths that burst from the ground and sidestepped swollen sacs that ruptured underfoot, spraying heat and rot. Only when the terrain thickened into something dense and oppressive, where the corruption pressed in from every angle, did they ease down to a walk, bare feet sinking slightly with each step.
Silence followed. Heads turned in short, sharp movements, eyes cutting across growth-choked walls and breathing earth as they advanced toward a squat fortress ahead. A towering black gate wrapped the structure, its surface slick and uneven, as if grown rather than forged.
The gate crawled.
Hundreds of imps clung to it, layered thick like insects on a carcass.
Ash-skinned bodies scrabbled over one another, teeth clicking, claws scraping, no order beyond hunger and proximity. The four snarled as they passed beneath them, shoulders tight. The gate peeled open on its own, flesh-metal parting without a sound, and they stepped through.
Inside, the infestation worsened. Imps coated the walls and ceiling in writhing sheets, hanging like spiders in a nest. Eyes followed the intruders. Drool pattered to the floor. The four did not break stride.
The hall widened into a throne room carved from black rock and bone. They stopped at its center and dropped to one knee, joining a cluster of other green-skinned figures already gathered there. Bodies packed close, heads bowed, weapons lowered.
Moments later, another quartet entered and took their place, completing the formation. As one, every figure pressed their foreheads to the floor. Voices rose together, harsh and rhythmic. The foreign language meant nothing to the ear, but the intent was clear. Submission.
At the far end, upon a throne stacked from corpses of mismatched races, sat their master.
He was green-skinned like the rest, but stretched thinner, taller, his frame long and wiry rather than squat. Muscle corded beneath his skin despite the narrow build, dense and deliberate. Massive tusks jutted from his jaw, curved and scarred, framing a mouth set in a permanent snarl. His ears were absurdly long, tapering to vicious points that swept back past his shoulders. White hair spilled down his back in a coarse mane, stark against his skin. In one hand, he idly cradled the severed head of a nine-eyed demon, fingers sunk into its sockets like handles.
To his side stood a woman. Human.
She wore rags that might once have been clothes, now stiff with grime and blood. Bruises mottled her exposed skin, cuts crossing her arms and legs in careless patterns. Brown hair hung to her shoulders in uneven clumps, and her body was thin to the point of fragility. Only her eyes drew attention...solid black, no white, wide with fear she couldn't hide.
She edged forward, shoulders hunched.
"Master, it's time. If we wait any longer, the opportunity—"
The beast rose.
The movement alone sent her stumbling back, knees buckling as the throne of corpses shifted beneath his weight.
Ignoring her entirely, he snapped out an order and raised one hand. The hall detonated into motion. Howls tore free. Roars slammed against the walls. Warriors, beasts, even the imps bled killing intent so raw it clawed at the air, the kind of murderous pressure even an infant would recognize.
Only then did he turn to her, leaning close enough that his sour breath washed over her face.
"You talk false—die slow."
A single green-skinned stepped forward and spoke quickly, voice harsh with urgency. One of the runners. One who had crossed paths with the broodling. As the report finished, the leader drove his fist down into the throne.
Flesh burst. Bone cracked. Blood and gore sprayed across the piled corpses beneath him.
He spun on the woman, tusks bared, breath ragged with fury.
"Imps walk free, how? You say all mine. You false? Speak now!"
Her skin went ashen. Hands came up on instinct, shaking, useless.
"I—I don't—! If there are, they're not yours! They must be from somewhere else! I swear! When you elves took this place, every living imp was bound here! You saw it! You watched me bind you!"
The slap came fast. She hit the ground hard, air ripped from her lungs. He turned away without another glance, barking orders in his own tongue. A section of his warriors broke off at once, a mass of imps peeling away with them, spilling out through a side passage.
The elf king paused at the threshold and looked back.
Green light burned behind his eyes.
"You live. For now. Follow."
His stride shook the floor as he left the throne room, elves and imps flowing after him like a living tide. They did not follow the first group. Their path cut through the warped forest, moving toward a lone mountain rising in the distance, its silhouette black against the corrupted sky.
The woman dragged herself after them, fingers scraping over wet stone. Something stirred in her chest...old, half-forgotten. Fear, yes, but layered over something worse. Hope.
Her focus narrowed to the image burned into her mind, the vision her ability had forced upon her the moment she heard imps still roamed free.
A man with red eyes.
Nothing else. That was enough. Someone was coming.
Someone powerful.