CHAPTER 202: UNBOUND

The rift was close, so close, to devouring him entirely, but it lacked just a little more force, just that last surge of power needed to tip the balance.

I could feel it in the tension of the air, in the half-second delay before victory.

I clenched my jaw, drawing in a breath so deep it burned, and then I moved.

One step forward. One swing.

I poured the last dregs of my energy into [Gravefang], void light crawling along the blade as the skill ignited to life.

"[Rift Slash]!"

The air screamed as the slash tore free, slicing through space itself with a sound like splitting thunder.

WHOOM!

"Just die already!" I roared, hurling every ounce of rage, exhaustion, and desperation into the strike.

The violet arc struck the entity square in the chest.

For a moment, everything froze, the rift, the wind, even the light, and then the impact detonated like a compressed bomb.

The force hurled the creature forward, the last of its tendrils snapping in unison.

It let out a guttural, distorted roar that shook the valley as its entire mass was pulled in, dragged screaming into the collapsing void.

As soon as the entity vanished into the rift, the pressure within spiked violently.

The air around me distorted, rippling like heat haze as the dimensional layers inside began to collapse on themselves.

I could see it—fragments of space folding, imploding, compressing inward with enough force to shatter mountains.

The rift was devouring itself from the inside out, crushing everything trapped within.

I stood at the edge, breathing hard, watching through the distorted veil as the void tore itself apart.

The creature writhed within it, the black mass twisting violently as the gravitational force intensified.

The sound that followed was indescribable—a deep, resonant groan that wasn’t quite noise, more like existence itself grinding against the edges of reality.

For a fleeting moment, I believed that was it.

That this—this unimaginable pressure—was finally enough to destroy it.

But then I saw it.

Through the swirling distortion, its shape didn’t disintegrate or collapse. It endured. Completely unscathed.

The spatial layers folded around it like paper, crushing in from all directions, yet the entity stood firm in the center of the chaos, motionless, untouched. The rift consumed everything except it.

My pulse spiked.

"No... no, no, no—"

This wasn’t working.

The sweat on my forehead rolled down in heavy beads, the heat of strain burning beneath my skin. My mana was draining fast, my control over the rift slipping by the second, and still...still...it refused to die.

"What do I have to do to end this?" I hissed, half in rage, half in disbelief.

The thought came suddenly, desperate and reckless. If it couldn’t be crushed, maybe it could be contained.

If I closed the rift now, while it was still inside, I could trap it between collapsing layers of space, seal it there, buried in the void where not even light could reach.

I lifted my hand.

But just as I began to deactivate the rift, just as the dimensional layers started to fold in on themselves for the final collapse, something went wrong.

The air split with a sickening crack.

From within the vortex, dozens of tendrils erupted outward, black and wet and alive, bursting through the rift’s surface like spears of living tar.

They slammed into the ground with enough force to crater it, anchoring deep into the earth.

Then, with a guttural pull that sent vibrations through the mountain itself, they wrenched backward—holding the rift open.

"What the hell..." I breathed, disbelief freezing my thoughts.

The spatial seal shuddered violently, fighting to close, but the tendrils refused to let go.

They stretched wider, defying the impossible, prying reality apart with raw, brute force.

The edges of the rift flared white-hot under the strain, space itself screaming as it resisted.

And then, with one final, violent pull, the creature ripped itself free.

The sound it made wasn’t a roar—it was the tearing of existence itself.

The moment it emerged, the rift collapsed behind it, snapping shut with a thunderous boom that echoed through the valley like the sky breaking apart.

The shockwave hit me hard enough to make me stumble backward, boots dragging trenches through the dust. I raised my arm against the blast, blinking through the haze.

And there it stood.

The entity of death—unharmed, towering, drenched in that writhing, black ink that now dripped and hissed where it touched the ground.

The air around it shimmered like oil, thick with decay and silence.

For the first time since I’d arrived on this cursed mountain, something primal inside me stirred—terror.

Not fear of dying. I’d faced that countless times.

This was deeper.

It was the realization that I was staring at something that should not exist.

Something far beyond me.

My grip on [Gravefang] faltered for just a second.

My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat loud enough to drown out my thoughts.

It took a step forward. The ground beneath it wilted instantly.

I couldn’t move.

My body shuddered, frozen between instinct and disbelief.

"What... what do I do?" I whispered, the words dry on my tongue.

I could do nothing to harm it. Nothing I’d tried so far had even made a dent.

And I couldn’t run—not this time. If I left it here, if that ink kept spreading unchecked, it would consume everything. The mountain, the forest, the clan... everyone.

My hands trembled around [Gravefang], slick with sweat. My mind spun in circles, desperately searching for a plan that didn’t exist.

What could I do?

The black tendrils slithered across the ground, spreading faster now, eating through soil and stone as if the world itself were nothing but paper.

I took a step back without meaning to, my breath shallow, the air thick with the stench of decay.

What do I do?

The question looped in my head, useless and panicked.

The creature moved closer, its footsteps slow and deliberate, each one leaving a crater of ash and rot in its wake.

Its presence pressed against my chest like a physical weight, suffocating, overwhelming.

What do I do?

Another step. The ink crept closer to my boots, sizzling against the dirt.

What do I—

The thought broke off as a tendril lashed toward me, slicing through the air with terrifying speed.

I barely had time to react.

My blade came up instinctively, but before steel met shadow, a voice cut through the chaos, and everything...