Chapter 730 - Feral animal

POV Nathaniel

The secret base isn’t as populated as I thought it would be. I think the number is around fifty people, or at least that’s how many of the Eternal Court remain. Everyone else is either dead, left the guild, or scattered across the other floors. Even from these remaining numbers, only around ten percent are what I’d guess are Locals, with most Locals being smarter and likely leaving in greater numbers.

But Morwag doesn’t let that fact stop him at all, and doesn't differentiate between them or the attendees. None of it can even be called a fight, since he just gets rid of everyone. But the longer it goes on for and the lesser the challenge, the more I can sense him glancing my way.

Meanwhile, I point out directions, sometimes toward the treasury from where I either take the most valuable and smaller items for myself, or send them outside through one of the many Ley Lines I have stretched there.

There are some interesting low-arcane ones we find, but I don’t pay them as much attention as I would have not that long ago. Unfortunately, so far, I’ve seen nothing higher ranked than that. Well, at least not in the treasury. We found some better items on one or two bodies. But even with mid-arcane items, these people didn’t last more than a few seconds, surprised by intruders in their own base. Though some of them sensed us from further away, causing more racket before they died.

Funnily, the part of the base that shields it from being found from outside also makes it difficult for detection-type skills to work within all these strange shielding alloys. I can tell by how much trouble they give my senses, especially my mana ones. There are protections against thermal or kinetic scanning, but not to the same extent. I'm not that surprised by the lack of shielding against primordial senses. After all, most of the primordial energy experts are in our guild.

So we move, swift and deadly. I try to avoid touching anyone with my mana, other than to sense them, to avoid shared experience for any kill, and Morwag just kills his way through.

Before long, we reach the most heavily shielded part. It almost looks like a second, smaller hideout within the larger one as we stop in front of the circular metal door. Morwag doesn’t wait for me to try opening it. He slams his fist against the center, sending a burst of binding energy through and turning the door into shavings of metal that scatter across the floor.

This time, an alarm rings out, and I raise my attention, quickly cutting off new attempts at teleporting away and sending more scans inside, this time not caring about being sneaky at all.

Both me and Morwag realize at the same time that this is the only entrance into the place, now with the arrays disabled. As we pass where the door used to be, Morwag turns back to the entrance he made and spreads his arms wide open before slapping his hands together in a single sharp motion.

The metal of the walls reacts to his gesture and, like squeezed tinfoil, bends and seals shut, sealing us off from the outside.

This time, I keep a bigger distance between us and follow behind, sometimes leaving him to go into rooms to loot them while Morwag fights, this time against more feisty opponents.

The metal around us creaks as shockwaves in the tight space tear apart my eardrums multiple times. Explosions bounce off the walls only to grow stronger, while I loot private rooms, worktops, and storage, finding much better materials now, which I send out. I also don’t forget to keep cutting off any attempts at teleportation outside.

Multiple defensive arrays activate, too, but all of them turn against Morwag, allowing me to move around with relative freedom.

A couple of times, someone tries to burrow through the walls to dig their way out toward the surface, but each one is swiftly hunted down by the most demon demon to ever demon.

The explosions intensify, and the waves of binding energy from Morwag do as well, signaling that the fights are coming to an end.

At that time, I turn to my Ignition Heart and start transferring more thermal energy into mana. I also separately gather a good amount of kinetic energy and thermal as well. I decide not to risk it and don’t use the Thermal Cycling I have started developing, and instead stay with my old ways of handling it.

While doing these preparations, I still make sure to send all the valuable items out of the base. I find what seems to be the guild master’s private treasury, with its wall broken by the fight and the inside exposed. From there, I gather all the items, among them multiple mid-arcane and even a few upper-arcane items as well. As much as I want to start examining them right at the spot, I leave it for the next time and send them out before heading to where the fight continues.

A barrier flickers around me while debris and wildly swirling energies inside clash against it, and I walk around the corner to look there.

It is a mess, with Morwag facing that guy who seemed so charming during the Beyond event in the Armory. Now, even though he is just an A rank, he faces Morwag pretty well, though I think all of it can be attributed to the low pristine item he risked so much for. An item that could have helped him destroy the competition after his tutorial ended and become an Absolute by being the only strong person remaining.

The low pristine item he is wearing is an armor that seems to be made from a transparent white plastic-like material. Inside the chest plate, there is a thicker spot where three hearts are set in no particular pattern. There are a few more hearts, one in the leg part of the armor, another in the shoulder, and even one on top of the helmet. I don’t even bother to count them.

These hearts are all covered in blood that contrasts strikingly against the transparent white of the armor. They continue pumping blood that moves in channels through the armor, as well as some escaping from the top of the helmet and forming long horns that just seem to be made of blood.

Weirdly, as much as I expected it, the hearts don’t seem to generate any primordial energy, confusing me as to why it even needed real demon hearts. It makes me think he might not be using the armor to its full potential.

Instead, it seems like the armor might simply convert primordial energy into something else, or not use it at all, relying instead on the vitality of the hearts to power itself.

And power it does.

In the armor, the guild master of the Eternal Court is even slightly taller than Morwag, and each of his attacks throws the demon against the wall or easily overpowers him in raw strength. The speed is impressive, even though it might not seem like it, since the pilot simply doesn’t have proper instincts, perception, or experience to deal with such high speed.

Each attack Morwag lands against the armor only ripples the surface, causing the hearts to beat faster. Even his attempts at unbinding seem to do nothing, as if the primordial energies do not work properly either against the armor or the material it’s made from.

But each time, after every attack that throws him against the wall or sends him crashing through the rooms, Morwag just stands up, his smile growing wider and wider the longer they fight. His clothes are torn to shreds by now, leaving his upper body bare and revealing muscles that look like forged steel, and even after all that, there isn’t a single wound visible on him.

The demon screams something, the guild master shouts an insult back, and they crash against each other again, forcing me to put up a barrier to block yet another shockwave. The metal walls around us begin to crumble and groan like a submarine descending too deep, on the verge of being crushed by the pressure.

It continues for a minute before, after yet another punch, Morwag doesn’t stand up and lies in the debris where he flew into.

“Hahaha, that’s it? Is this really all the famous Morwag can do? DO YOU FINALLY UNDERSTAND YOUR PLACE, YOU FERAL ANIMAL?” the guild master shouts as he starts laughing, that is part excitement, part relief. He moves his hand and touches his forearm, as if typing something.

The hearts inside begin to beat faster, sending blood surging through the transparent white material, while the blood red horns lengthen and the pressure radiating from him intensifies.
“I will tear out your fucking heart and add it to the armor! It will be a fine addition to my collection...”

His words freeze as the dust from where he threw Morwag settles, revealing the demon buried in the ground, as if he were just sitting there lazily after a fall. There isn’t a single wound on him, but his expression is different now.

“That’s it?” Morwag asks, his red eyes glowing from behind the hair falling across his face. “I thought you said it would get stronger the longer we fought, but instead you feel weaker and weaker.” As he stands up, the debris around him crumbles and falls away. Gone is the maniacal grin. In its place is anger and disappointment that feel far more terrifying.

“You…” the guild master starts, but he doesn’t even get to finish before Morwag is suddenly in front of him, the air shaking with a heavy thump from his speed.

This time, the punch feels different. Morwag slams his fist into the chestplate, making the guild master stumble back. There’s still no visible damage, but a stronger ripple than before spreads through the armor, and one of the hearts in the leg explodes inside, splattering blood inside the transparent material.

Morwag punches again, sending the man reeling, and another heart bursts. Before the guild master can even react, Morwag pummels him relentlessly. Every attempt at defense fails as the demon catches his arms, twists them aside with ease, and drives his fists into him again and again. No matter how the man struggles or tries to strike back, Morwag controls every move, handling him like a toy in his grip.

He keeps slamming him against the walls and beating him without pause until every heart inside the armor detonates one by one, taking the damage in place of the armor or the man trapped inside it.

Only then does the guild master manage to mumble, “P-please, wait just a mom-”

He doesn’t finish. The demon’s massive arm punches through the chest plate and into the man’s body, then rips his heart out in one brutal motion.

In front of the dying man’s wide, disbelieving eyes, Morwag lifts the slowly beating heart to his face. He doesn’t give it a light sniff, instead, he takes a long, deep breath, even smearing the tip of his nose with blood as he presses it against the heart.

Then he smiles. “So weak,” he says, crushing the heart in his hand as he watches the man die, sink to his knees, and topple to the side. As Morwag looks down at him, his hair slips forward, hiding his face from my view.

Silence fills the room as I begin gathering more mana and partially activate several arrays while splitting my mind into combat-oriented subminds.

I can’t see his face, but Morwag’s voice is enough to tell what his expression has turned into.

“Nathaniel,” he says, “you would be more fun to fight, right?”

He still doesn’t look my way. His upper body shakes a little as a laugh slips out. “You wouldn’t let me down like this vermin, right?”

Finally, he turns to me, his face lit by the flickering light of the ruined base, and for a moment, his expression freezes when he sees mine.

I'm not sure what expression I'm wearing that makes him do it, but I answer, "What do you think, bitch?"

Before he can move, I hurl every scrap of mana I’ve been gathering at him. Morwag stands there for a moment before he is flung away at high speed, breaking through steel walls. Only later does the shockwave arrive, too slow to follow.

My raw mana surges out like a tidal wave, destroying everything in its way. The walls shatter, they cease to exist, torn down to nothingness. The air distorts from the sheer force as the shockwaves keep bouncing through the base until they start to weaken, and the view of the sheer destruction opens.

Then there is silence. The light dies slowly, leaving the base trembling and the air thick with the hum of fading mana.

Even then, I don't stop, not for a moment. More mana floods my body, coils around me, and I spin it, unleashing a barrage of attacks on the demon.