CHAPTER 79: DEVIL BAT EXPEDITION [LAST PART]

"Hound!" Kaelor’s roar tore from his throat, raw and desperate, a sound that rattled the very walls of the cavern.

The sight before him warped and blurred, not with the chaos of battle, but with the memory of another loss.

He was back there again... the day his closest friend plummeted from the top of a five-storey building, the sickening sound of impact, the days and nights that followed when he drove himself to exhaustion just to provide for the grieving family left behind.

Seeing Hound’s body lurch beneath the barrage of crimson quills was like reliving that moment in brutal clarity.

Something inside him broke.

The stone beneath Kaelor’s boots, ancient, weathered, and hardened through centuries, could not endure the surge of mana flooding his veins. The ground buckled, sinking under him with a shattering crack that radiated outward like the spiderweb fracture of glass.

Black, jagged wings of shadow burst from his back. Kaelor shot forward with the speed of a loosed arrow, the air itself tearing around him in sharp, concussive snaps.

The five grey bats waiting ahead opened their jaws and unleashed a piercing, mind-rending screech. The sound was not merely noise, it was a weapon.

It stabbed into the minds of the Guardsmen and Bloodstone Archers, making them groan, clutch their ears, some collapsing outright. Weapons slipped from trembling hands, steel clanging against stone. Others screamed in agony before falling to their knees.

Even Titan, three-headed, flame-breathing terror of the battlefield, stumbled. All three heads shook violently, eyes clouded with disorientation. For one terrifying heartbeat, the great beast nearly fell before snapping its fangs in a furious snarl.

Kaelor’s body locked mid-flight, his wings seizing under the sonic assault. The world spun, then the ground slammed up to meet him, cracking under the force of his fall. Dust and bone fragments rose around him.

He pushed himself to his knees, head bowed, blood trickling warm down his cheeks from both ears. For a heartbeat, he was still, a warrior on the verge of collapse, appearing to surrender.

But the moment the five grey bats ceased their scream, his eyes snapped open, burning with cold, lethal purpose.

With a thunderclap of motion, his massive black wings unfurled, the gust they produced sending loose stones skittering across the cavern floor. Kaelor launched skyward, the air buckling under his ascent.

Arrows cut past him in sharp whistling arcs, loosed from the rear lines, but the white bat ahead, the snow-pale monstrosity with crimson quills, barely regarded them. A single flap of its massive wings swatted the projectiles aside, and then it surged forward to meet him in the air.

They collided mid-flight with a shockwave of force.

Keranous came down in a brutal arc, its golden edge trailing a flare of flames. The white bat ignored the fire entirely, but when the blade struck its left wing, it carved halfway through the membrane and bone.

The beast’s eyes widened in shock, the glimmer of cunning faltering. With a sudden, violent beat of its uninjured wing, it twisted away, retreating into the shadows of the cavern.

"You go nowhere!" Kaelor snarled, folding his wings tight around himself as dozens of quills launched toward him in a storm of crimson death. They punched through the shadowy wings, but in that instant, Kaelor’s body dissolved into mist.

He reformed a blink later, right in front of the creature’s face. Keranous rose above his head, and for a moment, it was as though he held a mountain poised to crush the world. Mana burned through every vein in his body, flooding into his arms until his muscles trembled with the weight of it.

The white bat’s eyes narrowed with calculation, it meant to dodge, to let him waste his strength on empty air.

Kaelor was ready.

The second rune along Keranous’s hilt flared with searing light, and molten chains of burning mana erupted from the wound in its wing. They lashed around the bat’s limbs and throat, locking it in place. The beast’s eyes widened in horror.

The sword came down.

The edge split flesh like wet parchment, opening a deep, wet gash across its neck. The bat reeled back, crashing into the cavern wall with a sound like an avalanche. Rock split and fell in an ear-splitting rain of debris.

From within the shower of stone, a barrage of quills shot toward Kaelor, almost a hundred of them, too close, too fast. He pivoted sharply, Keranous flashing up to guard his heart and head, while the rest of his body dissolved partially into black mist to let the projectiles pass through him.

He felt his mana drain in a sudden, sickening rush. Even cutting through the white bat’s hide demanded a monstrous expenditure of strength. Without Keranous, none of them would have lived to see past this moment.

The pale beast burst free from the rubble, its towering frame filling Kaelor’s vision.

Suddenly, it was struck with fire.

From the left, all three of Titan’s heads unleashed streams of blistering flame, converging in a single infernal beam aimed at the white bat’s skull.

Kaelor moved in tandem, lunging forward. Keranous drove deep into the creature’s chest, the blade humming with violent power. The bat screamed, thrashing, claws reaching for him, he slammed his boot against the sword’s pommel, forcing it deeper, until the hilt pressed against the pale hide.

Mana ignited along the blade’s length, and fire poured into the wound, consuming everything inside.

The bat’s scream warped into a death cry that rattled the stones. Its wings spasmed, then collapsed entirely as its massive body toppled sideways, slamming into the ground with an impact that sent a storm of dust into the air around Kaelor.

The pale giant lay still.

"System, fuse everything about this beast, except its hide, with me. Try your best to keep my human form."

[300 FP deducted!]

[1,100 FP remaining.]

Blue flames engulfed the giant white bat and Kaelor, merging them into one. A blinding blue light burst forth, so intense that the remaining bats attacking his soldiers shrieked and scattered into the depths along with three gray bats, for two had already been slain.