CHAPTER 156: BROOD LORD RIFT

The shrieks did not stop. Even after Kelvin’s glaive split the air in a fiery arcs, even after Lyra’s bow was hissed with glowing shafts, even after Darius tore through the flesh and scale with his war-axe and the tide only thickened.

What had begun as a swarm of vermin twisted into something that is far more sinister. The creatures poured from burrows, trees, and the very shadows. Their forms blurred the line between insect, beast, and nightmare with hollow-eyed, bone-armored, with too many limbs scraping stone.

Kelvin felt it immediately: this was no random swarm. Something had driven them here. Something had sent them to test the intruders.

The path that had been merely a road to the zombies’ den was turning into a graveyard in the making, which was a sudden division.

The swarm surged forward in a new pattern, which is no longer crashing as a chaotic wave and they split, splitting the three into isolation pockets.

"Darius! Left flank!" Kelvin barked, it is too late. A wall of chittering, scale-covered vermin heaved between them.

The war-axe rose and fell, but Kelvin lost sight of the older warrior almost instantly. He pivoted, which is slicing low to clear Lyra’s back, but the elf was already gone that is hemmed in by a screeching net of creatures climbing trees, leaping down like a living spears.

For the first time since they set out together, Kelvin realized that they were fighting separate battles.

Her bow thrummed in rapid succession, but for every beast that fell, two more were pressed. She dodged, rolled and slipped through clawed legs but they adapted.

One pounced, while slashing across her thigh. Blood spurted. Lyra gasped, teeth gritted, and whipped out her short blade. No longer the distant hunter that she was in the crush, fighting tooth to tooth, steel to bone.

Her blade flicked in dancer’s arcs, precise but frantic. She cut a path toward higher ground, a slanted boulder. If she could get the elevation, she could thin them again. But a massive crawler was a centipede of the size of a horse—lunged across her path, forcing her down.

Elsewhere, Darius was drowning in bodies. His axe cleaved, each strike exploded chitin and black ichor, but his arms burned with the weight. The horde pressed tighter.

One leapt onto his back, with it claws scraping against his armor. He slammed against a tree, crushing it, then headbutted another, and skull cracked bone.

But numbers eroded even the strongest. His armor dented. His lungs screamed for air. His mind whispered: they are too many, too many.

And then came the heavy crawler like Lyra’s but armored, plated in obsidian shell. It rammed into him, hurling him off his feet, axe spinning from his hand.

The warrior crashed to the dirt, unarmed and creatures where closing in on them. Kelvin had no luxury of checking on them. The swarm circled him like a whirlpool of flesh.

Xerion, his beast, lashed out with black flame, burning clusters that were alive, but even Xerion staggered. "Hold on brother!" Kelvin cried to the beast and sweat was streaming down his brow.

He spun his glaive in defensive arcs, buying time. But exhaustion crept like poison. His strikes were slowed. His breath was tore in ragged gasps.

And then, the swarm’s next to the weapon revealed itself and it is a winged ones.

From above, a shrieking flock descended with talons raking and jaws gnashing. They were leaner, faster, and they ignored Xerion’s flames as if it was shielded by unnatural resistance.

Kelvin shouted, dropping into a roll, but claws ripped across his shoulder causing an opening as blood sprayed. Pain shot through him like lightning.

Three warriors with three different battles erupted. Lyra pinned against the boulder, with there thigh bleeding, fighting a centipede that threatened to split her in half.

Darius was disarmed and his armor was dented, pressed by a plated crawler and a dozen smaller beasts. Kelvin slashed upward at winged horrors, Xerion limped with flame sputtering under a sheer fatigue.

It was no longer a fight for victory. It was a fight not to die within the hour. Then an ear-splitting roar split the forest and the swarm recoiled, momentarily staggered. Even the winged ones paused in the air.

From the shadows that emerged something worse, which was a hulking matriarch, the queen of the horde. Twice the height of a man that is armored in layers of jagged bone, its skull-like head was crowned with writhing antennae that pulsed with red light.

It was not just a beast. It was a commander and with its cry, the swarm reassembled, more coordinated and more merciless.

Lyra cried out as the centipede lunged again, its mandibles clamped down on her blade. Sparks flew as steel screeched under pressure. She strained his arms shaking and the beast tried to rip weapon from her hand.

Darius roared, barehanded, tackling a smaller crawler and using its corpse as a bludgeon. But even he knew that it was only seconds before he was buried.

Kelvin swung wildly, with glaive splitting winged beasts in halves, but blood loss blurred his vision. Xerion staggered beside him, with his eyes dim.

The queen advanced but its antennae pulsed, and the swarm screamed in unison. They were not going to make it.

Kelvin bit his tongue, snapping himself back from haze. He forced a surge of mana into his glaive, while burning his reserves raw.

"Lyra! Darius!" he shouted, with his voice breaking. "Come to me—NOW!" His glaive erupted with black-and-gold flame, a storm of destruction. He whirled in a circle, cutting through a swath, momentarily while clearing a path.

Lyra leapt from the boulder, wounded but alive, rolling into the space he had cleared. Darius, with his axe that is finally retrieved, he barreled through, crushing bodies beneath sheer willpower, stumbling but unyielding.

The three regrouped in a battered triangle, backs to each other, facing the swarm and its queen. The queen shrieked again and the swarm surged.

The heroes stood, battered, full of blood and his weapons was shaking in their grip. They were not unscathed champions anymore and they were survivors clawing against oblivion.

"Lets move together," Kelvin rasped, while lifting his glaive.

"Till the end," Lyra whispered with her arrow nocked despite her bleeding leg. "Break their damned skulls," Darius growled, with his axe raised.

The swarm crashed into them and in that chaos, the steel, fire, blood, and sheer defiance held its breath, as though the forest itself wondered: would they endure, or would this be their grave long before the zombie den?

The fissures’ violet glow was intensified and their pulses was stinging the trio’s minds with visions of zombie hordes, their decayed forms was ravaging villages, their necrotic cores pulsed with Veil energy.

Kelvin’s fire lances seared through rogue zombies that lunged from hidden fissures, their decayed limbs were crumbled under his flames, Xerion’s vortexes burned through clusters of necrotic vines and his fiery hiss echoed through the desolate expanse.

Lyra’s shadow cages bound zombie scouts and their dark tendrils snapped shut with precision, Salaris’s talons rendered through their spines, her screeches was guiding the group through the haze.

Darius’s soulstone blasts stabilized the fissures’ chaotic energies, with their silver glow countering the Veil’s malice, Rhoam’s charges smashed through necrotic traps, his growl was a steady anchor that grounded the group.

The trio salvaged more necrotic essence, its violet glow kept pulsing in their hands, their runes were growing stronger with each victory, their synergy was a testament to their shared purpose.

The Plains’ desolation weighed heavily, the zombie groans was a constant reminder of the villages’ plight, but the Crest’s resolve burned brighter with their Veilbane Medals gleaming with purpose, their beasts’ bonds was a flame against the darkness.

By day seven, the Crest reached a rune-etched ruin, its stone walls pulsed with faint psychic runes and their soft glow was a rare safe haven in the Veilscarred Plains, with its crumbling arches offering shelter from the necrotic storms that plagued the region.

They refined their gear with meticulous care, Kelvin etched fire runes into his gauntlet and their ember glow was enhanced by the necrotic essence that salvaged from the ghouls, their heat was a counter to the zombies’ chill, their flames was sizzling against the practice targets.

Lyra wove shadow runes into her cages, their dark energy sharpened by the necrotic talisman’s power, as their tendrils snapped with lethal precision, binding rune-etched stones in the ruin’s courtyard.

Darius sealed soulstream runes into his blasts, while their silver glow was stabilized by the ruin’s psychic runes and the riftborn altar was shard in his pack pulsing faintly, while its energy was a key to countering the zombie den’s corruption.

They tested their synergies in the courtyard, Kelvin’s fire lances seared through mock targets with sizzling intensity, Lyra’s shadow cages binded stones with dark, with shimmering force, Darius’s soulstone blasts was stabilizing flickering runes, their beasts synchronized in perfect harmony.

Xerion’s fiery vortexes burned through debris, Salaris’s obsidian talons rendered through practice traps while Rhoam’s thunderous charges crushed stone, their attacks was a whirlwind of destruction that echoed through the ruin.

They studied Mealin’s map and its parchment was marking cult outposts ahead, their violet glow was a warning of ambushes to come, the Abyssal Hollow’s zombie den was a shadow that loomed closer with every step.