Chapter 977: First Song Spring
Chapter 977 – First Song Spring
Ely’s breath caught. The Devourer pushed harder.
Lux’s arms trembled more violently.
"Ely!"
She looked at the broken spring.
At the dead roots.
At the hollow mountain.
At the place that had been called sealed but had been forced to starve.
Ely didn’t know the spring’s true name.
She only knew what the book had called it.
The sealed spring.
That was all.
But somehow, deep inside her blood, something stirred. A name rose without thought, instinctive and ancient, like a newborn creature recognizing the first warmth before it as parent.
Then she said, voice shaking but clear, "The First Song Spring."
The chamber reacted.
The stolen fragments pulsed.
The Devourer roared.
[Owner Identification Shift]
[Spring Identity Reasserted: First Song Spring]
[Temporary Claim Conflict Detected]
[Devourer Claim: Corrupted Consumption]
[Ely Vireleth Bloodline Witness: Valid]
Lux smiled through gritted teeth. "There."
Sira’s eyes widened.
Now Lux had made Ely claim the spring.
Enough for the sacred place to remember whose blood had the right to speak. Enough to turn the Devourer from starving guardian into thief. What they needed now was simple.
Kill the Devourer.
Yue understood immediately. "Everyone, strike the fragments!"
Lux pulled the Devourer’s head lower with both blades still embedded in its mouth. The creature thrashed, but he held it through sheer vicious refusal.
Sira launched forward, claws tearing into the nearest spawn’s chest. Lullaby’s pillow-hammer slammed another down.
Gula’s fork-spear ripped open a third. Yue’s jade spear pierced through two in a single line. Each attack exposed blue-white shards inside their bodies.
Lux felt them.
Every piece of stolen core.
He yanked a blade free from the Devourer’s mouth and spun backward as one massive root-claw slammed down where he had stood. The dagger came out dragging a line of blue-white energy.
Lux hit the ground, rolled, and came up running.
The Devourer screamed behind him.
He didn’t look back.
A spawn tried to flee toward the pool.
Lux threw his blade.
The blade punched through its back and pinned it to the edge of the spring. He pulled with Telekinesis, ripping the creature backward while the dagger stayed lodged inside. The movement tore the core shard out through its spine.
Lux caught the blade as it returned to his hand.
He began cutting through the chamber like a debt collector possessed by violence and caffeine deprivation.
Slash the leg to drop.
Stun the head to freeze.
Drain the chest to seize.
Kick the corpse aside to clear path.
Dodge the drain field.
Compress aura inward.
Strike again.
His daggers became black-gold and crimson arcs in the dim springlight. The monsters’ hunger clawed at him from every side, but Lux didn’t feed them loose power. He gave them steel. He gave them impact. He gave them Greed so concentrated it stopped being mana and became law.
A root wrapped around his waist from behind.
Lux glanced down. "Cute."
He reversed his blade and stabbed backward without turning.
The root froze, shuddering in sensory confusion.
Lux grabbed it with his free hand and pulled.
Hard.
The spawn attached to it came flying toward him.
He met it with his blade through the face.
[Critical Strike]
[Power Stat Reduction Applied]
[Spring Core Fragment Seized]
[Stored Asset: Spring Core Fragment X6]
Gula stared, almost forgetting to fight. "He’s robbing them alive."
Sira’s grin was wild.
Lux vanished again.
Reappeared above another spawn.
Drove both daggers down.
The spawn exploded into ash and water.
Lux rose from the collapse, eyes glowing, breath steady, coat torn, face splashed with black water and silver-blue light.
The remaining creatures hesitated.
For the first time.
They hesitated.
The hungry things looked at him and understood something ancient, simple, and terrifying.
There was always a bigger hunger.
Lux rolled his neck once.
The main Devourer backed toward the broken spring.
Lux smiled. "Where are you going?"
His ring flashed again.
[Sovereign Event Horizon Ring: Spatial Lock]
The space behind the Devourer folded shut.
No retreat.
No return to the spring.
No more hiding inside sacred water.
Lux raised both daggers.
His voice was soft.
Cold.
Unhinged.
Beautifully Greed.
"You broke the spring into pieces."
He stepped forward.
"So I’ll take every piece back."
The Devourer recoiled.
Not much. Not enough to call it fear if anyone wanted to be generous. But the movement was there. Its massive root-body shifted backward against the folded space, branch-crown scraping the stone ceiling, hollow eyes flickering blue-white as the recovered fragments floated behind Lux like stolen stars locked inside dark-gold vault seals.
The Devourer understood.
Too late.
Lux was not trying to destroy it.
Destruction was cheap.
Greed preferred repossession.
The Devourer opened its mouth and roared, the sound dragging mana from the chamber again. The spring floor dimmed. The burned roots trembled. Ely staggered behind him, but Sira caught her shoulder instantly, claws still extended, pride aura flaring between Ely and the pulling pressure.
Lux did not look back.
His eyes were on the main body.
The large one.
The source.
The thief wore sacred water like a corpse robe.
[Target: Mana Devourer]
[Status: Core Link Damaged]
[Remaining Spring Core Fragments: 11]
[Combat Advisory: Continue Fragment Severance / Isolate Main Body / Avoid Direct Mouth Contact]
Lux smiled. "Avoid direct mouth contact," he muttered. "Cowardly advice."
[Correction: Practical advice.]
"Same family."
Then he moved.
Fast.
The Devourer’s root arm swept across the chamber like a collapsing tree trunk, heavy enough to crush stone pillars into dust. Lux ducked beneath it, not by much, his hair whipping from the pressure. The arm missed his head by inches and smashed into the wall behind him, sending chunks of old stone raining down.
Lux stepped onto one falling stone.
Then the next.
Then the next.
Upward.
His boots struck debris midair as if the collapse had become a staircase he personally owned. With every step, Telekinesis snapped stones into position beneath him, one after another, creating a temporary path through falling rubble.
[Telekinesis]
The Devourer’s hollow eyes followed him.
Too slow.
Lux launched himself from the final stone.