Chapter 263: Last Stand
Min's charge didn't slow as her body began to expand. Her spine stretched, forcing her forward as her legs bent beneath the sudden increase in weight. Thick black fur spread across her swelling muscles, and with every stride, her paws grew larger, her claws tearing deeper into the broken ground.
The transformation was happening so fast that she barely had time to adjust. Her remaining arm lengthened into a powerful foreleg, her shoulders widened, and her face pushed outward into a massive wolfish snout. By the time her front paw struck the ground again, she was running on all fours as best she could while still missing an arm.
And she continued to grow.
Concrete shattered beneath her as she charged, her body rapidly expanding into a monstrous black hound. The surrounding ruins seemed to shrink, and the heat from Pain's flames barely registered beneath her thickening fur.
"HOLY FUCK!"
Someone shouted from below, but she was focused on Blight.
The demon turned toward the approaching thunder of her footsteps, his smile widening as he looked up.
"Oh, now this is interes—"
Min lunged.
Her enormous jaws snapped shut around him, cutting off whatever he'd been about to say. The impact lifted Blight clean off the ground as Min's momentum skidded to a stop.
She didn't give him a chance to recover.
With a furious growl, she whipped her head from side to side, shaking him like a rabid dog tearing apart a chew toy. Her massive neck muscles strained, while Blight's body was jerked back and forth between her teeth.
Black smoke poured from his horns, gathering into a dense barrier that barely kept her fangs from crushing into his flesh. Every time her jaws tightened, the smoke compressed beneath the pressure, forcing Blight to pour more of it into his defense.
She could feel the resistance, and it only made her bite harder. Then, with Blight still clenched between her jaws, she activated her howl. The sound erupted from deep within her chest, traveling straight through her throat and into the demon trapped inside her mouth.
There was nowhere for him to dodge.
The concentrated shockwave struck Blight directly in the face, tearing through the smoke protecting him. His body thrashed between her teeth as the force of the howl battered him at point-blank range, the pressure so intense that even Min could feel it vibrating through her skull.
Still, she refused to release him.
Her paws struck the ground, cracking the street beneath her enormous weight, and she immediately began shaking him again. Another howl exploded from her throat as her jaws clamped down even harder.
Blight's smoke continued to hold, but only barely. Between her teeth, the black barrier buckled and thinned with every violent movement.
Min's yellow eyes narrowed.
'Come on, you fucker.'
She tightened her jaws.
'Fuckin' break!'
Her jaws felt ready to shatter, but stopping never crossed her mind. Little by little, centimeter by centimeter, her teeth were closing through Blight's defenses. The pressure was working, but she knew her skill wouldn't last forever.
Finally stopping the violent shaking of her head, she turned her gaze toward Pain, then Tomb.
"Ahttacgk!"
Inside her mouth, she could feel Blight's body pressing against her teeth. His defenses were almost gone, with barely anything left separating him from her fangs.
The two Broodspawn exchanged a glance, then moved without hesitation.
[Are you crazy?!]
'Yes!'
Bracing herself, she squeezed her eyes shut just as Tomb's massive fist slammed down onto her upper jaw, while Pain struck her lower from below.
The impact was so violent that Min barely registered the pain. There was only a sudden rush of cold, accompanied by the sickening crunch of breaking bone and the wet sound of tearing flesh.
"MMIIIIINNN!"
Teal's anguished scream reached her from somewhere above, barely audible as her enormous body crashed into the ground.
Her face was completely ruined. The bone and flesh of her jaws had been crushed into a bloody pulp, and both eyes had ruptured from the force of the impact.
[Min! Deactivate Ragnarok! You need to heal—!]
Her system's frantic voice struggled to reach her through the numbing fog, but none of its words could drown out the laughter.
She felt her head move, though she hadn't tried to move it herself. Blight's laughing filled her ears, growing clearer as everything else faded, until finally...her world went black.
----
Teal felt like vomiting. Watching Min's face get crushed sent a sickening chill through her stomach, leaving her struggling to keep down what little was inside it.
"Go down! We have to save her!"
Spitting stomach acid from her mouth, she pounded against Grimm's jaws and pointed frantically toward the ground.
"I can't. Snare said to stay back—"
"I don't fucking care what Snare said! She needs our—!"
"Look!"
From below, the sound of Blight's laughter finally reached her. The moment she heard it, whatever she'd been struggling to hold back came rushing up. The noise sounded nothing like joy, instead, it filled her with an overwhelming feeling of disgust. She vomited violently, barely able to believe the demon was still standing after everything they'd thrown at him.
"He's wounded!"
Grimm had good reason to sound excited. Looking down, she could barely make out the massive puncture wounds scattered across Blight's black skin, leaking a thick, oily substance that fizzled and popped as it ran down his body. Yet the smile that stretched across his face made it difficult to enjoy their first visible success. Her relief vanished almost entirely when she saw Min's enormous body begin to shrink, transforming all the way back into her regular human form.
When Blight finally spoke, Teal was grateful there was nothing left in her stomach.
"I've grown tired of this. Toys are supposed to be fun."
All around him, the Brood were taking position, their new armor gleaming beneath the bloodlight as they surrounded him. Even from above, she could feel the bloodlust radiating from them. Her attention naturally settled on Pain, whose flames burned brighter than the others auras, though Blight's gaze had settled on him as well.
"That was surprisingly brutal. I could tell you did not hold back at all. If this is how you treat your allies, it's no wonder humans hate our kind so much."
"You talk too much. Stalling for time?"
Stepping forward, Pain's aura swelled as the maw in his chest began to open. Dozens of chains emerged from the furnace within, accompanied by the agonized screams of tortured souls. Even from so high above, the sound sent a chill across Teal's skin and drained the color from her face.
Stepping behind his brother, Snare glanced over his shoulder and grinned.
"He's trying to heal, but don't worry. He will find it very hard to do that."
Blight's smile twitched. He glanced around the surrounding Brood before lowering his gaze to the wounds still leaking down his body. When he looked back up, his smile had noticeably diminished, and his featureless face turned directly toward Snare.
"Is this your doing?"
But instead of Snare, it was Sin who answered.
"By the sacred will of the Broodfather, I am the keeper of flesh and the judge of its restoration. Through my faith, wounds shall close only with my blessing, and blood shall flow until I command it to cease. Your flesh is no longer yours to mend, wretched creature. You shall find no healing here, for I have not granted you permission."
Bloodlight rose from Sin, and even his words seemed to carry power. Teal felt it so strongly that she genuinely believed if Sin forbade it, not even a god could heal Blight.
The demon Warlord didn't seem nearly as impressed. Running a finger along one of his wounds, Blight tilted his head toward Sin.
"Playing with you all has been entertaining, but it's time I showed you. Your faith has been misplaced—"
The moment he finished speaking, every wound on his body healed instantly, and his aura surged with terrifying force.
Even from where she stood, Teal felt as though hell itself had crawled inside her. Her legs gave out, sending her to her knees as a scream rose in her throat, yet she couldn't force herself to look away, and not a sound leaked from her mouth.
Just above Blight's head, a pitch-black crown materialized. A thick substance began spilling from it, so foul in appearance that Teal was certain nothing more disgusting had ever existed.
Allowing some of the liquid to drip into his outstretched hand, Blight smiled as black smoke began billowing around his body.
"I am going to enjoy this."
Turning his head, Blight lowered his gaze toward Min.
"No—"
Teal reached out helplessly, knowing there was nothing she could do. Blight's tail began to rise, and although the Brood immediately moved to attack, she could already tell they wouldn't reach him in time.
"DON'T YOU TOUCH HER!"
Teal's head snapped toward the shout, and she nearly cried with relief when she spotted Borvavich. He stood atop a massive pile of rubble, with something resembling Bigger Min positioned beneath him. At least, part of it was still recognizable as the tank.
It looked as though the professor had fused every puppet on the battlefield into the machine. Limbs were twisted together into thick, glowing tubes that ran throughout its enormous body, while hundreds of hands and faces covered the barrel. At its opening, a massive concentration of mana was already gathering.
"FIRE!"
The instant the cannon fired, the colors around Teal seemed to reverse, and for a brief moment, everything stood still. Then the blast tore through the air, crossing the distance in a blink before striking Blight square in the chest.
Two explosions followed. The first came from the attack continuing and eventually striking the ground somewhere in the distance, while the second erupted from Bigger Min itself.
Whatever the professor had fired, it was more than the tank could withstand. Teal watched its entire body begin to glow, growing brighter by the second. Borvavich barely managed to leap away before the machine exploded in a violent burst of multicolored light.
She threw an arm over her eyes as the deafening blast shook the air around her. The vibrations were so intense she could feel them deep in her stomach. When more explosions followed, accompanied by screams and roars from below, her heart seemed to leap into her throat.
"What's happening?!"
"I don't know! I can't see!"
Blinking against the lingering sting in her eyes, she finally managed to make out the battlefield below. Dust and smoke covered the entire area, hiding everything beneath a thick cloud. She strained to see through it, searching desperately for any sign of movement—
"Can you see anyone?!"
"Nothing!"
The explosions continued beneath the smoke, flashes of fire and darkness illuminating the clouds from within. When suddenly, without warning, the entire mass of dust and smoke was swept away in one enormous, unnatural motion.
A scream caught in Teal's throat.
Everywhere she looked, there were pieces of the Brood.
A head here, a torso there. Severed limbs and broken bodies lay scattered across the ruined ground, twitching in spreading pools of blood.
And at the center of it all stood Blight, his breathing heavy and ragged. His crown no longer dripped, no smoke rose from his horns anymore, and an entire arm was missing, along with a massive portion of his chest. The wounds were healing, but slowly, the damaged flesh was struggling to close.
Steam drifted from the Warlord's mouth as he moved. Gone was the graceful, almost casual way he'd carried himself before. To Teal, he looked more like a wounded beast, his head snapping from side to side as he sniffed the air and roared.
"Did you actually think me weak?! You are all specks of dust! Paltry distractions!"
Teal could hear the raw, animalistic rage in every word, making it all the more terrifying when Blight suddenly lifted Min's ruined body into the air. His tail was wrapped tightly around her throat, but it was the sight of her face that nearly made Teal faint.
Only the skin across Min's forehead remained intact. Everything below it had been crushed or torn apart, with splintered bone jutting from the ruined flesh and strips of meat hanging loosely from what remained of her jaws.
"Do something! Grimm! He's gonna kill her! Grimm!"
But no matter how desperately Teal screamed, the ghost didn't respond.
She began pounding her fists against him, her eyes never leaving the demon below.
"Grimm! Fucking do something!"
Her knuckles struck his jaw again and again, but the ghost didn't move. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
"YOU FUCKING COWARD! SAVE HER!"
She didn't care if he was scared. She was scared too. So fucking scared that she could barely breathe, but Min was down there, hanging from that monster's tail, and Grimm was just sitting there.
"FUCK YOU! FUCK HIM! FUCK!"
Her fists, bloodied and bruised, kept moving until she couldn't bring herself to hit him anymore. Grabbing at her hair, she bent forward, her whole body shaking as she struggled to breathe.
"Why...?"
She should have seen this coming.
All this time, she'd been terrified of the same vision. An angel standing over Seo-jin. That was what she'd seen, what she'd been waiting for since this whole nightmare started. Every time she closed her eyes, she could still picture it.
But it hadn't happened.
Instead, Min was going to die. Her friend was going to be murdered right in front of her, and Teal hadn't seen a fucking thing.
"What good am I?!"
Another sob broke through her words as she looked down at Min's ruined face.
"I can't even... I can't..."
She'd thought her visions meant something. That if she could see what was coming, she could help change it. But what good was any of that when the one person she needed to save was dying right in front of her?
And she couldn't do shit about it.
"Please don't kill her..."
She waited for Blight's tail to tighten. For Min's body to go limp. She couldn't look away, no matter how badly she wanted to...but nothing happened.
A few seconds passed before the confusion finally broke through her panic.
He wasn't moving.
Blight still held Min in the air, yet his tail hadn't tightened. Even his head seemed fixed in place, his attention no longer on the broken woman dangling before him.
"It's so quiet..."
The explosions had stopped. The screams and roars were gone, and even the fighting seemed to have come to an end.
Wiping at her eyes, she finally managed to look away from Min.
Below, the Brood had moved.
Those who still had the strength had dragged themselves up and onto their knees. Some had lost their legs entirely, yet they still lowered their heads, pressing themselves against the blood-soaked ground.
Every single one of them was bowing.
And they were all facing the same direction.
Teal's breath caught.
Almost afraid to look, she slowly followed their gaze...and the tears started falling again. Standing barely a dozen feet from Blight was Wohan Seo-jin.
His black coat billowed in the wind, its hem shifting around his legs as he stood among the broken concrete and scattered bodies. He wasn't shouting or rushing toward the demon. He simply stood there, looking at Blight.
Covering her mouth with both hands, another sob escaped from between Teal's fingers.
"Let her go."
The moment his words left his mouth, the ground answered.
Screams erupted from beneath the city, thousands of agonized voices rising together as the broken streets began to tremble. Concrete split apart, and thick veins of black flesh pushed through the cracks, spreading across the ruins. Shatterbay groaned as its foundations twisted, while the ground swelled and shifted beneath Blight's feet.
The screams grew louder as the transformation spread, swallowing the ruined streets and reshaping everything around them.
The Godsfall Kingdom was answering to its King.