NOVEL NEXT CHAPTER 161: CARNAGE
Greg found himself drowning in a deep yet shallow sea of confusion. He couldn't feel himself; it was as though countless invisible hands were clawing at him, dragging him deeper into an abyss he couldn't escape. His willpower was crumbling, his consciousness slipping away like sand through a broken hourglass, while a foreign will slithered into his mind, eroding what remained of his identity.
"Kill! Kill! Kill! Massacre them! Destroy them!"
The disembodied voices howled within his skull, an endless, maddening chant. Greg felt the urge to surrender, to drown himself in the violent whispers that beckoned him.
He had been careless. His dormant talent, which he once thought to be a passive shield against physical harm, had concealed a deeper truth. The Ex-rank ability — the 100% absolute dodge rate — had silently guarded him not only from physical attacks but from the subtle, corrosive mental assaults of the Sin of Wrath. He had been blissfully unaware. Without understanding the full scope of the protection it provided, he had lowered his defenses the moment he deactivated it.
Demons were beings of dual-edged power. The Seven Deadly Sins offered unimaginable strength but demanded submission in return. That was the reason demons trained tirelessly — not just to harness their powers but to resist being devoured by them. Only after fortifying their minds would they dare to purify their bloodline, piece by piece.
Greg had stripped the source bloodline of Wrath through Kyle as a vessel, seizing a fragment of ancient, primordial power. But mentally, he had been unprepared. His Ex-rank talent had been his unknowing safeguard all along, sparing him from the mental corrosion. Without it, and amid the wilderness's oppressive, chaotic energy, his suppressed anger and guilt opened the door for the bloodline to seize control.
"He's losing himself to the bloodline source... I need to escape before he fully demonizes," Ygrit muttered, dread gripping his heart. He turned to flee — but he was already too late.
The half-conscious Greg fixed his gaze upon him, and in a heartbeat, he was moving.
BOOM!
Ygrit felt a thunderous impact against his abdomen, the force rupturing organs and rattling his very soul. His body became a projectile, skipping across the barren ground like a stone skimming a stormy lake before finally crashing into the earth with a sickening thud.
[Your bloodline, Sin of Wrath, is igniting your latent potential and innate skills.]
[Your bloodline, Sin of Wrath, is seizing control of your body.]
[Warning! You are losing control!]
[Your concept, DEATH, is attempting to resist the takeover!]
[Warning! An unknown force is suppressing the intervention of DEATH!]
System prompts cascaded into his mind, alarms blaring uselessly. But Greg was no longer conscious enough to register them. His mind was no longer his own.
"Cough… cough..." Ygrit wheezed, blood pouring from his lips as mangled organs protested against the devastation. His vision blurred, but even through it, he saw Greg's horrifying transformation.
Two blackened horns erupted from Greg's forehead, sharp and menacing. Dark scales, a grotesque fusion of dragon and demon, crawled across his skin like a living armor, leaving only his face untouched. Razor-sharp claws extended from his fingers. The Heaven Defier blades slipped from his limp hands, forgotten.
Then came the wings — six monstrous wings sprouted from his back: two burning red from the Primordial Fire Dragon, Drakonix; two deep azure from the Primordial Water Dragon, Leviathan; and two black, twisted and demonic, bearing the mark of Wrath itself. A reverse scale, glistening like a miniature black diamond, shone ominously on his forehead, while his hair grew wildly until it cascaded down to his waist like a silken shroud of darkness.
His legs thickened, muscles bunching into lethal coils of power, every inch of him radiating a monstrous, unstoppable force.
"ROOOOAAARRR!"
The transformed Greg let out a deafening roar that shook the very air, and with terrifying speed, lunged at Ygrit.
He seized Ygrit's face in his clawed hand, slamming him viciously into the ground. The earth cracked and groaned under the sheer force. Before Ygrit could even cry out, Greg lifted him again, smashing him down once more, then flung him skyward like a broken doll.
Ygrit soared uncontrollably, the velocity so great he couldn't even unfold his wings in time. As he spiraled upward helplessly, Greg rose into the air, surpassing him easily. Waiting for the inevitable collision, Greg clenched his hands together and, with monstrous strength, hammered Ygrit back toward the earth.
CRACK!
Ygrit plummeted like a meteor, smashing into the ground with a seismic crash, carving a gaping crater into the wilderness floor.
Agony. Ygrit's nerves screamed. He couldn't move, couldn't even whimper. His limbs refused to obey; his mind struggled to remain tethered to consciousness. Terror seeped into his bones, paralyzing him even deeper than the injuries had.
He wanted to run.
He wanted to hide.
But his body betrayed him.
He could only lie there, broken and shaking, as the monstrous Greg descended like an executioner from the heavens.
Landing with a soft, terrifying thud, Greg stalked toward Ygrit with an almost casual cruelty. His black-scaled hand reached out and, with horrifying gentleness, gripped Ygrit's jaw, lifting him from the fractured ground as easily as one might lift a rag doll.
"Please… please, spare me! Just let me go! I swear I'll disappear! You'll never see me again!"
Ygrit begged, all traces of pride shattered, reduced to nothing more than a pitiful, whimpering wreck.
Gendry, who had once called Ygrit his doom and nightmare, stood frozen in place with the other surviving demons, their minds numbed by unfiltered terror. Survival instinct screamed at them to flee, but fear nailed their feet to the ground. None even considered helping Ygrit. The thought didn't even cross their minds. They were prey before a predator too vast to comprehend.
Monster Greg dragged his claws across Ygrit's chest, tearing through armor and flesh alike as though shredding wet paper.
Ygrit howled in agony, his scream raw, pitiful, and broken. He wished the pain would end, wished to awaken from this nightmare, but it only deepened. His body writhed, paralyzed by fear and mutilation, as he turned his eyes pleadingly toward Gendry and the others — toward anyone.
"Help me..." he croaked, his once lofty arrogance drowned in the blood and terror pooling around him.
But no one moved.
No one spoke.
Only the silence of horror answered him.