CHAPTER 167: INSATIABLE

"He’d try."

The words left my mouth like an afterthought—calm, certain, final.

The general’s face twisted, his expression souring into something between rage and disbelief. He tried to speak again, to force out one last threat, but only a wet, broken cough escaped him. Blood spilled down his chin, dark and steaming against the frost. His chest heaved once... twice... and then went still.

Silence.

His eyes, once burning with hatred, glazed over completely, the last remnants of defiance frozen in place.

Then the familiar chime broke through the quiet.

Ding!

[You have slain one of Drugar’s Chosen]

[You have received 500 skill advancement points]

[You have inherited all of the Chosen’s skills]

[You have inherited the Chosen’s kill count]

I exhaled slowly, the tension rolling off my shoulders as I muttered under my breath, "Nice."

A small grin tugged at the corner of my lips as I clenched my fist and gave it a quick pump, the satisfaction brief but sharp.

Another power added to my collection.

Another piece of the puzzle that was slowly turning me into something far beyond what I’d been before.

I stepped over the shattered ice dome where the general’s body lay slumped, the surface slick with frost and blood. The heat from my earlier attack still lingered faintly in the air, mixing with the bitter cold of his magic.

Above, the fault I had created continued to churn—a gaping wound in the sky, swirling and crackling with raw dimensional energy.

Its pull hadn’t stopped; it was still feeding, still dragging everything caught beneath it upward.

There was no need for it anymore.

The battle was over.

I raised my hand toward the rift I had created, feeling the pulse of energy that tied it to me. The pull was still strong, still hungry, but at a thought—at the simple assertion of my will—it began to fade.

The distortion rippled once, like the surface of disturbed water, and then folded in on itself. The roaring hum quieted.

The light dimmed.

Within moments, the rift sealed shut, leaving only faint traces of heat and pressure in the air where it had once torn reality open.

And then came the aftermath.

A sound like rain followed—the heavy thud of debris falling from the sky.

I looked up just in time to see the remains descending: tree branches first, then bits of shattered ice, a knife glinting briefly in the light, and then heavier things. A limb. Half of a body. What was left of the army that had been caught too close to the pull.

They fell without order, landing with dull, wet thumps across the ruined field.

The stench of blood and burnt earth mixed with the cold air, and for a brief moment, the valley was silent again.

I exhaled slowly, lowering my hand.

The faint tremor of power lingering in my fingertips faded away.

My eyes swept across the battlefield, landing on the only figures still standing—or what was left of them.

A handful of goblins remained anchored to the ground by the thick ice their general had created.

The frost had saved them from being pulled into the fault... but not from death.

They were slumped forward, motionless, their skin pale and cracked from the cold. The ice still gripped their legs like chains, holding them upright in grotesque stillness, as if the battlefield itself refused to let them fall.

I studied them for a moment, then sighed.

Even in death, they were still prisoners of their leader’s will.

The force of the pull must have torn them apart from the inside.

The pressure alone would have crushed their organs before the void even claimed them.

Some were little more than broken halves scattered across the ice, while others remained grotesquely intact from the waist down—just legs frozen in place, everything above ripped clean away.

I pressed my lips together, a slow exhale slipping through my nose.

Yeah... my skill was terrifying.

[Event Collapse] wasn’t something to use lightly.

My eyes swept across the carnage, searching for movement. Most of the goblins were gone, nothing left but fragments and frost. But one of them—the archer—had slipped away. Ingrid.

The coward had bolted the moment he realized what the fault could do. I’d seen the panic in his eyes before he fled, darting into the treeline faster than any of the others. Smart, I had to give him that. Smart enough to survive... for now.

He wasn’t escaping, though. Just postponing the inevitable.

I was about to warp after him, my hand already rising as I summoned mana into my veins, when movement caught my ears.

I turned and saw Ariel step out, her fur glimmering like molten gold under the fading glow of the rift.

She strutted toward me with that same infuriating mix of elegance and attitude, each step deliberate, her tail flicking as though she hadn’t just fled to save herself minutes ago.

"You killed them all."

I turned to her, brows raised. Her tone wasn’t one of fear or anger—it was disappointment, like a child who’d just been denied dessert.

Wasn’t that the whole point?

"You didn’t leave any for me?" she asked, lips curling into a small pout. Her tails flicked behind her in irritation, embers scattering in the air with each movement.

I blinked at her, genuinely at a loss for words.

"I didn’t realize we were splitting the kill count," I said dryly, pointing toward the field of corpses still smoldering under the heat of the fault’s aftermath.

She huffed, the flames around her flaring brighter for a moment.

"What’s the point of bringing me with you if you’re not going to use me?" she snapped, her voice rising with mock outrage.

I rolled my eyes:

"I didn’t say I was going to use you."

"Yes, but I told you I was bored!" she yelled, stomping a paw against the ground. Sparks burst from the impact, scattering across the frost like fireflies.

I gave her a look:

"Weren’t the goblins you roasted in the cave enough excitement?"

Her expression faltered slightly, as though she’d just remembered that little incident. Then she narrowed her eyes:

"Barely. I need a stronger foe."

I couldn’t help but sigh, rubbing the back of my neck:

"How insatiable."

She wasn’t going to...