195 Dread

Eren’s mana sense sent him warning signs just when he was about to change the battlefield. A projectile was being aimed at him from a distance.

Blitz Steps

Eren disappeared from his position just when the projectile was about to hit him. But he soon found out that it was a homing type and could follow him.

Eren looked back as the projectile pursued him relentlessly. He soon found out that it was a sound-element arrow that was gaining on him at breakneck speeds.

Eren was about to use his limited teleportation runic imprint to get away from the arrow’s trajectory. But it was too fast for him to dodge it. And since it was a homing-type, it was unclear if he would have been safe even after using the teleport.

Swoosh. Boom. Ohm!

“Aaaargh!”

Eren’s mana circuits went haywire when the sound element arrow hit him. The impact created high-frequency sound waves that were almost enough to knock him out. The sound-element mana also entered his system, wreaking havoc inside him by rupturing his tissues.

‘Got him! Go.’

Viyu spoke to Shima through voice communication while dealing with her share of summoned creatures. Viyu was one of the Spiders’ rangers. She was an elf with an affinity for the sound element.

Viyu was a tall and slim elf who had stoic expressions on her face when she hit the bull’s eye against Eren from a relatively large distance. She was happy that she could target Eren. But something about the way Eren was using his spells felt weird to her. And for some reason, she didn’t look too excited about engaging with him.

The elves were known to be more sensitive toward the subtle intricacies of mana fluctuations. As such, she could feel that Eren wasn’t using the array to support his powerful spells.

One had to note that Viyu was using the sound-element runes stored in her scroll to make her sound-element arrows homing-type and make them more lethal than they already were. She only had two more runes stored in her scroll. It meant that she could fire the arrows she had just used on Eren two more times.

The Spiders were congregating towards each other. They had come to realize that no matter how many times they fought with the summoned creatures and killed them, more were ready to take their place. As if Eren was constantly supplying his spells with an abundance of mana.

Thus, the Spiders could open a joint front against the summoned creatures while some of them focused on the root cause behind their current suffering. Shima was able to break free from her siege of summoned creatures because of the team efforts done by other Spiders. Viyu was also able to target Eren because she could have breathing room provided by her team members.

Shima was a lizard-type beastkin who had a water-element affinity. She was an assassin by profession. That’s because she could camouflage herself with her surroundings and turn invisible. Even her mana signatures would almost disappear whenever she turned invisible.

Shima hadn’t used this bloodline power in the current conflict because she didn’t want Eren to know about it beforehand. But when she saw that Viyu’s sound element had affected Eren so much that he was brought to his knees, she decided that now was the right time for her to use her bloodline powers.

Eren’s condition was not too rosy after suffering from such an intense invasion of foreign mana in his system. His ears were still buzzing. He had a nosebleed from both his nostrils. And even his tear ducts had been affected, making him shed tears unintentionally.

The battlemage’s muscle coordination had also been affected because the sound waves had done a number on his central nervous system. His vision was compromised. And he felt like he had eaten iron because internal bleeding of his internal organs had made him have blood in his mouth.

He recognized immediately that the sound-element ranger he had zeroed in on was the most dangerous of all the Spiders for him. If she hits him with that projectile one more time, it would be game over for him. While he might have dodged the arrows, he didn’t know the extent to which the ranger could control her projectiles or what her shooting limits were.

Eren did not underestimate the ranger because despite wearing bear armor, she was able to affect him. It couldn’t provide viable protection against something as intangible as the sound element. It only reduced its impact and lowered the amount of foreign mana invasion he had to face to some degree. Eren could only blame the ranger’s element as the bane of his armor.

As such, Eren knew that he was prone to attacks in his current situation. He forced his mana circuits to perform and cast his AoE spell. He had to split a mouthful of blood because of the stress his internal organs were feeling.

“Aaaaaargh! I’ll fucking kill everyone here!”

Eren screamed in pain and agony as he tried to launch his Area of Effect spell that he hadn’t used for a long time. A dreadful atmosphere was created within the isolated space as his mana-infused voice mixed with his will.

Shima had just reached Eren from behind. She was about to launch a mortal strike on him by driving a knife through the bone cavity between his jaw and his neck joint. But just then Eren screamed and she was hit with the most intense form of dread and vileness coming from him.

Shima was brought to her knees when she felt Eren’s sinister aura wash over her. She couldn’t believe that a Meta ranker like her could have such a sinister presence. As if he had killed countless numbers of people without batting an eye.

‘This man is… bad news. Forget fighting with him. We should run away from him as soon as we can.

There’s no fighting with this devil.

Shima had to sit on the ground to stabilize her condition. Or to be more precise, her legs had given up on her. And she was glad they did. Otherwise, she would have lost control over her bladder and bowel movements after getting so close to the source of the dread.

‘Run… Shima. Run away from him.’

Shima tried to self-motivate herself while somehow maintaining her camouflage spell. A task she was failing consistently.

Eren was on his knees not too far away from Shima. He had his hands clutching his ears. He had his eyes closed.

Eren was still screaming to deal with the excess amount of pain he was being subjected to by the sound-element rune Viyu had used on him. His mind was not entirely under his control. His instincts had taken over him and his will had seeped into all his active spells.

Every person present in the isolated space felt gripped by dread. Nobody was spared from feeling the need to question the life choices that had led them here.

***

Eren’s summoned creatures stopped attacking the Spiders when Eren screamed in pain. But they didn’t disperse. Instead, they started morphing into something more sinister.

The firebirds grew in size and started growing horns on their foreheads. Their previously indiscernible eyes started elongating and it looked like the firebirds had been injected with a breath of life.

The firebirds’ bodies started changing as well. Apart from growing big, they began displaying fire-element runes on their bodies. Their beaks were elongated as well. Furthermore, they started exuding more sinister vibes.

The lightning hounds had even more drastic transformations than the creatures of Alfem. Their bodies became even larger and more solid-like. One could see the muscular definitions on their mana bodies as the lightning streaks danced all around them.

Lightning hounds’ heads looked nothing like those of hounds. Instead, it turned more wolf-like with lightning fangs jutting out of their mouths. They also started displaying sawtooth-like dentures.

Their limbs became fuller and lightning cracked on each of their feet. Their tails grew as well and it looked like they had turned into lightning whips.

‘What… What in the world is happening? Why am I feeling shakes like these?’

Roko, who was a former demonic ranker, was shaking after feeling the dreadful aura generated by Eren. He hadn’t felt anything like what he had just experienced.

Roko had dealt with or met up with his share of some of the evilest demonic rankers of their generation. But he could tell that Eren’s aura was the vilest evil presence he had felt in his lifetime.

The Spiders started looking at each other with horrified expressions as they watched the summoned creatures proceed with their sinister transformation. They had come to realize that they had greatly underestimated the situation they were in.

Eren was still clutching his head while releasing the dreadful aura around him. The pain he felt was too unbearable for him. As such, he couldn’t speak or even form coherent words.

However, the Spiders in the surroundings suddenly heard a deep voice in their minds that prompted them to give up on fighting with Eren.

‘As their dried and dead blood

Paint my skin merlot

My calluses are chipped away

And liberated are my thoughts…’