NOVEL NEXT Chapter 160: Into The Divide [VI]
It took several minutes before they dared crawl out from the shrubbery.
The air around them still carried the faint echo of wings, the aftershock of the swarm's passage.
Snowflakes drifted gently, disturbed only by the hiss of melted patches where poison had spilled earlier.
Azel pushed branches aside and rose, brushing frost from his shoulders.
He wondered — truly wondered if he could have taken the swarm on his own.
A single Dreadhorn had nearly gutted him, and that was with Medusa's overwhelming spider assault and Veyra's killing blow.
Against twenty?
Thirty?
An entire flock?
His jaw tightened.
If it was just him, perhaps he could abuse his healing factor, endure the attacks long enough to unleash Dragon Claw.
Maybe he could burn through them.
But there was no guarantee.
Not when those creatures had reflexes sharp enough to dodge sword strikes, venom potent enough to melt stone, and regeneration that bordered on absurd.
It was like facing fucking calamities of nature.
And this wasn't just about him.
His gaze flicked sideways.
Medusa leaned against a tree, her expression calm but her breathing still faintly labored from the exertion.
Veyra, by contrast, looked pale.
Sweat plastered her silver hair against her forehead.
She was trying to look strong, but Azel could read the exhaustion etched into every line of her face.
Unlike him, neither of them could heal wounds instantly.
Unlike him, venom would eat them alive.
There were too many factors stacked against them.
"Fuck…" Veyra muttered.
She collapsed against the trunk of a jagged tree, chest rising and falling rapidly.
Her scythe rested across her lap as if it had grown heavier than iron.
She pulled a potion from her belt, Medusa had drank from it and it was only her half remaining so turned it over without drinking.
Her fingers trembled slightly.
She could drink it, restore stamina, banish the fatigue clawing at her muscles.
But instead, she let it rest there, uncorked.
At this moment, she wanted the exhaustion. It reminded her she was alive.
'What the hell are we supposed to do here?' she thought bitterly.
They had barely survived a single Dreadhorn.
Now they knew there were hordes of the damned things.
It was like being asked to kill death itself.
Finally she raised her head, silver eyes catching the faint glow of sunlight through snow-heavy branches.
"I think…" Her voice cracked, but she pushed forward.
Both Azel and Medusa turned to her, listening. "Our trial is to defeat that horde. After that, we can get out of here."
Azel paused. Her reasoning wasn't flawless but it was close.
Close enough to make him smile faintly despite the cold knot in his stomach.
"Same here," he said.
His tone was steady, confident, though his eyes flickered with grimness. "But it'll be hard. Very hard."
He wasn't lying. It was going to be insane.
Impossible, even.
Because those weren't just obstacles — they were their enemies.
The very trial demanded they pit themselves against living calamities.
Azel crouched beside a blackened patch of snow.
The ground sagged around a shallow hole, its edges still sizzling faintly.
Poison.
The same venom that had nearly pierced his shoulder, now eating away the frozen earth as if it were wax under flame.
He frowned.
'System. Tell me about Dreadhorn poison.'
[Processing…]
[Dreadhorn Poison is a highly volatile substance secreted from specialized glands within the Dreadhorn mutation. Exposure results in corrosive breakdown of skin, organ failure, and death.]
[Warning: substance can melt through natural skin and the toughest alloys. Direct contact results in gruesome death.]
Azel closed his eyes briefly.
'Fucking hell. Just another thing to worry about.'
The thought of Medusa or Veyra being splashed with that toxin churned his gut.
He couldn't let it happen.
Straightening, he turned back to them.
His expression was cool and focused. "Let's go find another one," he said. "I want to test something."
Both women blinked.
Veyra scowled, incredulous. "Another one? We barely survived the last bastard—"
Medusa placed a hand on her arm, silencing her with a quiet look.
"He's not reckless," she said. "He wants to learn its patterns."
Veyra's lips pressed tight, but she said no more.
She rose unsteadily, tucking the potion away again.
If Azel had a plan, she would trust it.
…
Finding one, however, was easier said than done.
The forest felt… wrong.
Unlike their first frantic minutes in the trial, where monstrous ambushes struck them without warning, the woods now fell into a deep, unsettling quiet.
The snow crunched beneath their boots, but beyond that, silence reigned.
The air tasted metallic, heavy with decay.
Everywhere they went bore signs of destruction.
Azel's eyes flicked from tree to tree.
Some had been cleaved in half, others melted from the inside as if devoured by acid.
Entire swathes of the forest looked hollowed out, consumed.
Blood stained the snow in frozen sprays.
Corpses littered the ground.
The first was familiar — the twisted rabbit-thing they had slain earlier.
But this one was worse, its skull drilled through with surgical precision.
The body sagged open, venom still bubbling in its chest cavity.
Another lay further on, something unrecognizable.
Maybe it had once been a Frost wolf, or a Arctic bear.
Now only corroding bones remained, coated in black slime.
Its skeleton cracked apart as snow settled over it.
Veyra's throat tightened.
If Azel hadn't told them to hide, if they had fought the swarm head-on, that was what they would look like right now.
Piles of bones picked clean, rotting into nothingness.
Azel narrowed his eyes. "Those things… caused this."
The swarm had cut through everything.
Nothing in the forest had been spared.
Monsters, trees, land — all mutilated in their path.
And that was the true danger: not just the Dreadhorns themselves, but the devastation they spread.
For a long while they walked without confrontation.
The silence gnawed at Azel's patience.
He tightened his grip on his blade, his senses stretched thin.
Part of him wished for another enemy already, if only to confirm his suspicions.
'Come on, bad luck,' he thought, biting his lip. 'For once, give me something good.'
Then he heard it.
Buzzing.
His head snapped up.
Unlike the overwhelming roar of the swarm, this one was small.
Through the trees, faint sunlight revealed a clearing.
At its center crouched a lone Dreadhorn, its wings folded tight.
Its mandibles clicked hungrily as it feasted upon the corpse of some unidentifiable beast, tearing strips of steaming flesh into its jagged maw.
Azel's hand slid to his sword.
His heart steadied, his mind sharpening.
'Good. Time to make the tests.'