CHAPTER 49: [GROTESQUES]

"Caelen..." Eli’s voice was tight as his gaze locked on the twisted stone forms clinging to the high arches. "I sense danger."

Caelen didn’t hesitate. His stance shifted in an instant—weight forward, shoulders squared, the casual ease in his posture vanishing like it had never been there.

His hand dipped into his coat pocket.

Metal caught the dim light—then stretched, unfolded, and reshaped itself in a smooth flare of gold until a longsword gleamed in his grip, edges sharp enough to hum in the air. "Where?"

Eli’s pulse hammered in his ears. His eyes locked onto one grotesque in particular—its cracked stone lips curled into a jagged grin, its empty sockets tilted toward him in unnatural awareness. "Everywhere."

The air itself seemed to shift—thickening.

A sharp, invisible spike hit Eli’s senses from the left—fast, predatory, lethal—and heading not for him, but for Caelen.

"On your left, now!"

Caelen moved before the words had fully left Eli’s mouth. His sword snapped up in a golden blur, the motion clean and lethal.

From the shadows, a hulking grotesque burst forth, stone wings slicing through the air, claws stretched wide, maw yawning open in a soundless scream—

—only to meet the gleaming edge head-on in a bone-shattering clang.

The impact rattled the marble beneath their feet. Shards of stone teeth exploded outward in a cloud of dust, fragments skittering across the floor in sharp little avalanches. The monster’s momentum drove it deeper into Caelen’s guard, but the blade held, unyielding.

Eli’s breath caught. He’d expected a parry—maybe a sidestep—but the grotesque had practically impaled itself on Caelen’s sword.

Caelen’s eyes lit—not with alarm, but with something dangerously close to exhilaration. "Amazing."

’This is hardly the time to be in awe.’

The warning slammed into Eli again—harder this time. Not one, but two signatures, rushing in from opposite sides, low and fast, closing the gap in seconds.

"Two at the same time! Coming from above!"

Caelen’s head whipped toward his voice. His sword blurred into motion, tracing a sharp golden arc through the dim air.

The two grotesques dropped from the vaulted ceiling like living guillotines—only to be split clean down the center mid-descent.

The marble floor trembled as their stone halves crashed down, shattering into jagged debris that scattered at Eli’s feet. Dust plumed up in choking clouds, but Caelen stood unmoved, his blade already angled toward the next threat.

The sound of splintering stone barely cut through the pounding in Eli’s ears before another spike tore through his senses—hot, jagged pulses stacking one after another, each sharper than the last.

Two... three... no—four.

"Front and right—now! The other one’s coming from behind you!" Eli barked, sharper than he meant to, the urgency pushing his voice a notch higher.

Every grotesque in the hall had its gaze locked solely on Caelen. Not a single one even twitched toward Eli. The realization prickled cold along his spine.

’Why...? They’re ignoring me completely.’

Relief or dread—there was no time to decide. He just had to keep calling them out before the next one struck.

Caelen pivoted on his heel, golden blade carving the air in lethal, economical arcs—thrust, twist, slash—each motion crisp enough to look rehearsed a thousand times.

Stone wings shattered on impact, claws broke apart like brittle twigs snapping underfoot, but the swarm wasn’t thinning.

If anything... it was getting worse.

They came from everywhere—swooping down from the vaulted ceiling in blurs of jagged stone, lunging from behind splintered marble pillars, peeling themselves away from the crawling shadows along the walls.

The air filled with the grinding shriek of stone on stone, the heavy thud of shattered bodies hitting the floor, and the sharp rain of debris skittering across the marble.

Eli’s mouth had gone dry. Numbers like this could bury even an S-Class alive.

’Still, Caelen’s swordsmanship truly is amazing. Might be better than Kairo’s.’

It had to be—Caelen’s raw combat skill was carrying him through this chaos just as much as his ability ever could.

"Use your—" Eli cut himself off, the words catching in his throat. He didn’t know how to tell Caelen to use his abilities because of the nature of it. "...Just—just keep them off you!"

Another pulse—this one slammed into Eli’s mind like a warning siren screaming through his skull. It was heavier, deeper, and it didn’t fade. Seven. Seven closing in at once.

’Fuck. He really needs to use at least one of his skills.’

Eli’s jaw locked. "They’re coming—seven at once! Use Pain Echo!"

For the briefest heartbeat, Caelen’s gaze cut to him—golden brows arching at the unexpected command—before his eyes flared molten-bright, liquid metal catching the dim dungeon light.

Eli knew that look. Caelen had stopped holding back.

The grotesques hit like a siege wall collapsing, claws outstretched, jagged wings slicing the air. They crashed into him from all directions—

—only for every point of impact to erupt in searing gold.

It wasn’t light. It was agony—pure, condensed, and sharpened into a weapon—racing through their stone bodies in jagged lightning patterns.

The sound was deafening. Stone cracked, split, then shattered, the vibrations thrumming in Eli’s bones as if the dungeon itself had been struck.

One by one, then all at once, the grotesques detonated mid-lunge—exploding into clouds of dust and shards that spun through the air like shrapnel.

Fragments pinged off the pillars and clattered to the marble in a rain of debris. Eli threw an arm over his face, wincing at the stinging cuts against his cheek and forearm.

When the air finally cleared, Caelen was still standing exactly where he’d been—sword lowered, posture relaxed, golden eyes cooling back to their steady gleam. Not even a scratch on him.

’...Holy shit.’ Eli’s throat felt tight. ’That worked.’

Eli stood frozen amid the settling dust, eyes locked on the destruction. Shattered stone littered the marble floor in jagged heaps, fragments still skittering across the ground from the force of the blast.

Every grotesque that had lunged for Caelen now lay in pieces—nothing more than rubble scattered in a wide circle around him.

Caelen was breathing hard, chest rising and falling in sharp, controlled bursts. The golden light in his eyes had dimmed, leaving behind only that cold, steady gleam.

Even for someone at his level, an ability like that wasn’t without cost.

’So this is Pain Echo in person...’ Eli had watched Caelen fight countless times before—through videos, broadcasts, edited highlight reels—but none of that had prepared him for seeing it this close.

The precision, the sheer control, the unshakable stance even under a swarm... and the way his enemies had been erased in an instant.

As much as Eli loathed Caelen’s actual personality, it was impossible not to be impressed.

His senses stayed open, probing the dungeon’s oppressive air. Nothing. The prickling danger in the back of his mind had gone silent, and for the first time since they’d stepped in, the space felt still. Safe.

Caelen straightened, sheathing the golden blade with a smooth motion, though the faint strain in his breathing betrayed the effort he’d just expended.

His head turned, eyes finding Eli—and this time, there was no warmth in them.

Only sharp, narrowing suspicion.

"How," Caelen said, voice low but cutting through the silence, "do you know about Pain Echo?"

Eli’s mouth went dry.

’Oh.’