Chapter 974: Sealed Spring [Part 3]
Chapter 974 – Sealed Spring [Part 3]
Lux’s fingers tightened.
"Sovereign compression. Now."
[Compression Attempt Failed]
[Target Has Established Core Contact]
[Warning: Entity Control Over Spring Core Increasing]
The Devourer lifted the glowing core toward its mouth.
Sira bared her teeth. "Stop it!"
Lux lunged.
Yue moved with him.
But the creature did not eat the core.
It crushed it.
The orb shattered in its claw.
For one impossible moment, everyone froze.
Blue-white fragments burst outward like glass stars. Sacred mana spilled into the air, not flowing upward, not returning to the spring, but breaking apart into countless shards of living hunger.
Ely whispered, "Did it just..."
"Suicide?" Gula finished, voice thin.
Lux’s eyes sharpened. "No."
Each shattered piece hit the ground.
Each one sank into stone, root, moss, ash, or water.
Then they grew.
Small forms rose from the fragments.
Not as large as the Devourer.
But many.
Too many.
Root-bodies. Stone masks. Water-filled torsos. Branch claws. Hollow eyes glowing blue-white. All of them opened cracked mouths at once.
"Food..."
"Food..."
"Food..."
[New Hostile Entities Detected]
[Name: Devourer Spawn]
[Class: Mana-Root Devourer Fragment]
[Level Range: 212 - 284]
[Count: 23]
[Shared Trait: Mana Consumption]
[Shared Trait: Fragmented Regeneration]
[Source: Broken Spring Core]
[Threat Level: Extreme]
Ely’s voice trembled. "How are we supposed to fight them without mana?"
Lux stepped in front of her.
Both hands lowered.
Dark metal shimmered into existence.
His twin daggers formed in his grip.
One black-gold with a hungry edge.
One crimson-silver with a shimmer that made the air around it distort.
Lux’s voice came calm. "You stay behind me, Ely."
She swallowed.
"But—"
"No mana. No spell. No healing unless I say so."
Ely nodded, fear in her eyes, but she obeyed.
Because among them, she was the only one who could fight with mana only.
And that made her the most vulnerable person in the chamber.
Sira glanced at Lux, claws extending from her fingers with a metallic hiss. "Just curious, Lux. Can you use your Absorb skill on it?"
Lux smiled faintly. "I don’t know."
Sira’s eyes gleamed."But?"
"That’s the plan."
The Devourer roared, and its spawn surged forward.
Lux lowered his stance. "I want to know which of us has the better absorb."
The first spawn leaped.
Lux lunged to meet it.
The Greed blade cut first.
The blade bit into bark-stone flesh, and the creature shrieked as black-gold veins spread from the wound.
[Drain Attempt: Initiated]
[Resistance: High]
Lux’s arm shook once from the backlash.
Then other blade struck the creature’s mask.
The spawn froze for two seconds, its hollow lights flickering wildly as distorted sensation overloaded whatever passed for its instincts.
Lux twisted, kicked it back, and smiled sharply. "Workable."
Then the others moved.
Sira didn’t use spells.
She didn’t need them.
Pride had always known how to make the body itself into a declaration. Her claws fully formed over her fingers, black-silver and elegant, curved like noble execution blades. She stepped into the first swarm with a dancer’s arrogance, ducking under a root lash and carving upward through the joint. The spawn tried to absorb her aura, but she kept it sealed inside her skin, fighting only with speed, steel, and insulted dignity.
One claw ripped across a stone mask. Another hooked into bark ribs. She spun, kicked one into a pillar, and hissed, "Touch me with dirty roots again and I’ll prune your bloodline."
Lullaby moved slower.
Or at least, she looked slower.
That was the trick.
She held her pillow in both hands until it unfolded into a strange heavy weapon, half war hammer, half soft shield, wrapped in dull gray fabric and weighted with ancient Sloth metal hidden inside.
When a spawn rushed her, she simply lifted it with sleepy annoyance and let the creature collide with the pillow’s broad side. The impact should have thrown her back. Instead, the spawn slowed, its momentum sinking into the weapon like energy falling asleep.
Lullaby yawned, stepped aside, and bonked the creature’s head with one lazy swing. The stone mask cracked. "Too loud," she mumbled.
Gula fought like hunger given manners.
Barely.
From somewhere inside her sleeve, she pulled out a massive fork-like spear with three black prongs, each edge serrated like it had been designed by someone who believed cutlery should threaten kingdoms.
She did not release Gluttony mana. Not outwardly. Instead, she used the weapon to pin, twist, and tear. A spawn lunged at her stomach, trying to pull on her appetite.
Gula’s eyes sharpened, and she stabbed the fork through its shoulder, anchoring it to the stone. "No," she said, voice suddenly colder. "You don’t get to be hungrier than me." Then she kicked its cracked chest and ripped the fork free.
Yue’s weapon appeared without flash.
A long spear of dark jade and old bronze, physical, ancient, and heavy with history rather than loose mana. She held back her cultivation aura, compressing it deep into her body, allowing only technique to move.
Her footwork was clean enough to embarrass armies. One step carried her past a root strike. The spear butt shattered a knee. The blade tip pierced between stone plates and twisted, separating root fibers with surgical precision.
When two spawn attacked together, she turned the spear horizontally, caught both claws against the shaft, then drove them apart with pure strength. Her face was calm, but her eyes were dragon-bright. "Do not let them surround Ely."
Lux heard her.
He was already moving.
A spawn tried to slip past his left side toward Ely.
Lux vanished.
He reappeared between Ely and the creature, daggers crossed. The spawn’s mouth opened wide, sucking at the mana in the air. Ely staggered behind him, her breath catching as the pull brushed her body.
"Mine."
The Greed blade plunged into the creature’s chest.
The drain backlash hit harder this time.
His arm trembled.
The creature pulled.
Lux pulled back.
For a second, it became a tug-of-war between hunger and Greed.
[Drain Contest Initiated]
[Enemy Skill: Universal Mana Consumption]
[User Skill Interaction: Dominion Drain]
[Conflict State: Unstable]
[Warning: Reverse Absorption Possible]