CHAPTER 349: INSATIABLE

Author’s Note: Do Not Unlock Yet. Chapter Is Still Under Construction.

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Victor reacted instantly, shielding several children with a burst of wind qi, pushing the debris away before it could hit anyone. But the little girl beside him had already been knocked over and scraped by the shockwave.

Blood trickled from a cut along her arm.

The hall fell into terrified silence.

Someone screamed, "The child is hurt! Fetch a healer!"

"No need," Victor murmured, already kneeling beside her.

Her eyes were wet with tears but she tried to be brave. "D-Don’t worry, Victor. I’m okay..."

Victor shook his head softly.

"You don’t always have to be strong."

Before anyone could protest or panic further, he grabbed her arm, inspected the wound, and then...

He licked his thumb, gathered a bit of saliva, and rubbed it gently across the injury.

The healing light was near instantaneous.

Flesh knitted. Skin sealed. Blood evaporated like steam.

The girl gasped. The other Kahr’uun practically froze in awe.

"He... he healed her."

"With saliva?"

"That—That was divine healing..."

"Impossible... even our greatest healers cannot mend wounds instantly!"

Victor stood and dusted his hands casually.

"It’s just something my body can do."

The crowd backed away reverently.

Rhozan himself bowed deeply.

Victor groaned loudly. "STOP. BOWING."

But they were far too stunned to obey.

---

Growing Attachment

As the day continued, Victor found himself unable to stay annoyed. The Kahr’uun were strange, yes. Overly reverent, yes. But they were also warm, curious, and full of life. They treated him not as a burden or a monster... but as hope.

And for someone like Victor—constantly running, constantly surviving—that meant more than he wanted to admit.

The little girl clung to his arm afterward, proudly showing her completely healed injury to everyone. Victor couldn’t shake the smile from his face.

They’re... good people.

---

Day Three & Day Four

The next two days passed just as lively. Victor joined more games, tried more bizarre foods (one tasted like sugary snow mixed with lightning), and participated in crystal hunts in the deeper caverns. Everywhere he went, whispers followed:

"Great Iruhun..."

"The chosen one..."

"The protector..."

Victor gave up correcting them. He just sighed and learned to live with it.

The more time he spent in the underground city, the more interesting he found their customs, their humor, their unity. They were fragile, yet brave. Peaceful, yet constantly threatened.

And they adored him.

---

Akaruun Appears – The Ancient Ritual

On the fourth night, the city bells rang with deep, pulsing resonance. Thousands gathered around the central ritual platform—massive, circular, carved from glowing ice runes older than the Kahr’uun civilization itself.

Rhozan stood at Victor’s side.

"It is time," he said solemnly. "My brother has returned from his preparations."

A tall figure emerged, draped in dark blue ceremonial robes lined with crystal threads. His eyes glowed faint silver.

Akaruun.

The High Priest.

Rhozan’s brother.

He stepped forward, and every single Kahr’uun bowed instantly.

Victor sighed helplessly.

"Yeah, I know. You’re all going to ignore me."

Akaruun didn’t bow—he simply studied Victor in silence, as though peering straight into his soul.

Then he raised his staff.

The ground trembled.

Several elders gathered behind him, forming an intricate formation. The entire city began chanting a haunting, melodic phrase—rising and falling like waves of frozen wind:

"Iruhun na’vala... Iruhun na’vala... Iruhun na’vala..."

Victor held the little girl’s hand tightly.

"What are they saying?"

She looked up at him.

"They’re praying for the great Iruhun," she whispered. "So he can finally bring us peace... and save us from the bad thing."

Victor’s brows furrowed.

"Bad thing?"

She nodded, voice trembling.

"The bad thing killed my big brother... I hope great Iruhun kills it before it kills anyone else."

Victor froze.

The chant continued, echoing through the cavern like the cry of a dying world.

When the ritual finally ended, Victor found Rhozan.

"What is this bad thing the little girl mentioned?" Victor asked quietly.

Rhozan exhaled heavily.

"A corrupted being from the other world. A monster that slips through the cracks between realms. Each time it appears, we defeat it... but not without paying a price."

Victor clenched his fists.

"So even if I don’t help... you’ll just fight again?"

"We will." Rhozan nodded. "But even if we prevail, Victor... there will always be casualties."

---

Victor’s Heavy Night

Victor lay in his crystalline bed that night, staring at the glowing ceiling.

He wasn’t obligated to help.

He wasn’t their chosen hero.

He wasn’t some ancient savior.

He was just Victor.

But the little girl’s trembling voice replayed in his head.

Her tiny hand in his.

Her brother’s death.

The fear in the people’s eyes.

Their hope in him.

Victor swallowed deeply.

For the first time in a long time... he didn’t know what he should do.

And sleep refused to come.

----sss

Victor had barely slept, but for once, it wasn’t because nightmares gnawed at him.

It was because he was thinking.

Even after all the years of hatred carved into humanity—anger, grief, decades of blood—he found himself pacing around a Kahr’uun dwelling, staring at the pale glowing walls, asking himself questions he never imagined he would.

And by the next morning, he had an answer.

He exhaled slowly as he rose from the icy stone slab that served as his bed. The air was cold enough to freeze mist in the lungs of an ordinary human. But Victor had trained under harsher storms, cultivated through harsher nights. The cold only sharpened him.

His mind replayed the truths he had been raised with:

The magical humanoids from beyond the Rift are humanity’s enemies.

Not stories. Not propaganda. Facts proven by history and the stains of blood across nations.

The Drakenar, the scaled horrors who descended in storms of black fire.

The Sylrith, the silver-skinned manipulators who twisted mana currents and entire cities.

The Umbryx, shadow-walkers who infiltrated domed settlements and harvested humans like cattle.

Entire continents crumbled to their invasions. Humanity’s survival clung to mana cities, steel walls, arc defenses, and relentless soldiers.

Victor’s father had just been a miner and his life had been devoured by a Drakenar.

Victor clenched his fists. Even after all these months, the memory stabbed him sharply.

He hated them. Hated them with a clarity that burned brighter than his Dragon Breathing Technique.

Any human who had suffered losses hated them. It wasn’t an ideology—it was instinct.

So the idea of helping any species from that other world should have disgusted him.

Should have.

But the Kahr’uun were different.

He knew it the moment he arrived bleeding and half-conscious into their caverns. Kahr’uun did not strike. They did not imprison. They had sheltered him. Fed him. Allowed him to walk freely among them. Some bowed to him as the Great Iruhun; others merely smiled and treated him like a strange guest wandering their halls.

They had no ambitions for Earth.

No wars.

No expansions.

Just... survival.

Survival from a terror so ancient and so monstrous that even their warriors trembled at its presence.

Victor ran a hand through his hair, letting out a final sigh before stepping out into the crystalline tunnels of the underground city.

"If this thing wipes out the Kahr’uun," he murmured to himself, "what says it won’t come for humanity next?"

It wasn’t pity.

It wasn’t mercy.

It wasn’t diplomacy.

It was practical.

If he destroyed the threat here and now, it might prevent a future catastrophe.

And after everything the Kahr’uun had done for him, walking away simply wasn’t something he could stomach.

Decision made, he tightened his coat and started trekking through the tunnels.

Time to tell Rhozan.

---

THE SEARCH

Unlike human cities, the Kahr’uun’s underground dwellings didn’t follow orderly structures. They were a maze of glowing frost, towering pillars of ice, spiraling walkways, and chamber after chamber of carved runes that thrummed faintly with mana.

Victor stopped a young Kahr’uun woman carrying a bundle of azure herbs.

"Hey—have you seen Rhozan?"

Her antennae-like frost tendrils twitched in recognition. "The great Iruhun seeks Elder Rhozan? He has gone to the eastern sanctum."

"Eastern?" Victor frowned. "That way?" He pointed blindly.

"No," she said gently, redirecting his hand with a small, amused smile. "Farther. Beyond the lower rings."

"Right. Thanks."

She bowed. He waved awkwardly.

These people bowed too much.

As he walked, others he stopped told him the same thing:

Rhozan was in the east.

Deep east.

Past where the city’s carved light began to thin.

That alone was odd.

Victor had explored most of the Kahr’uun settlement since arriving, at least the parts they considered public. But the eastern sectors? He’d never ventured there. No one discouraged him—they simply had never mentioned it.

Ten minutes turned to twenty.

Twenty turned to almost forty.

The tunnels grew quieter.

Darker.

The soft luminous frost that coated the walls faded into deeper blues, then into near-black ice that reflected nothing.

Eventually Victor found himself standing before a structure unlike anything he’d seen in this world.

---

THE SANCTUM

The building was sculpted out of a single massive block of glacier stone—smooth, seamless, impossibly symmetrical. Its entrance formed a tall archway shaped like two crescent blades meeting at the top. Strange symbols glowed faintly beneath the surface, arranged in circular patterns that seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking directly at them.

"This place..." Victor whispered.

It didn’t feel like a residence.

It felt old.

Ancient, even by Kahr’uun standards.

And dangerous.

But Rhozan was inside, so Victor approached the archway and descended the stairwell that spiraled into darkness. The air grew colder—so cold frost formed on Victor’s eyelashes. At the bottom was a narrow corridor stretching straight ahead, utterly unlit except for a thin bar of light at the far end.

Victor slowed.

The last time he saw an unknown chamber with only a sliver of light at the end, he ended up fighting a corrupted Umbryx assassin.

So he approached carefully—shoulders low, senses sharp, hand near the ready position for Shadow Crescent Strike.

As he neared the slightly open door, a soft humming filled his ears. Not mechanical. Not electrical.

Something... alive.

Victor narrowed his eyes and peered through the gap.

A beam of bright, crystalline light shone from within—flickering like a pulsating star. He stepped closer, curiosity overriding caution. If the Kahr’uun were hiding something dangerous inside, he needed to know what it was, especially if his mission was about to involve whatever nightmare creature threatened them.

Just as he leaned forward—

A tap landed on his shoulder.

Victor spun instantly, qi surging, ready to unleash Frost Bloom Palm—

Only to freeze mid-attack.

Standing behind him was a tall Kahr’uun man wrapped in layered silver frost-cloth, his pale eyes glowing faintly. His posture was rigid with a mixture of reverence and shock.

When he spoke, his voice trembled.

"G-Great Iruhun."

The title echoed slightly through the corridor, swallowed by cold walls and silence.

Victor lowered his hand slowly, unsure why the man looked so startled—or slightly afraid.

Whatever lay inside that chamber...

Whatever that beam of light was...

It wasn’t something the average Kahr’uun was allowed to see.

And Victor had almost walked straight into it.

He exhaled, eyes narrowing.

"Take me to Rhozan," he said quietly.

The Kahr’uun bowed deeply—more deeply than any of the others had—and gestured toward the chamber door.

"Elder Rhozan awaits you within, Great Iruhun. The sanctum has been opened for your arrival."

Victor didn’t like the sound of that.

Not one bit.

But he stepped forward.

Because whatever lay beyond that door...

It was the next step in his decision.

And perhaps the beginning of something far more dangerous than he had been prepared for.