Chapter 142 ‒ The Devouring Chains
Chapter 142 ‒ The Devouring Chains
A suffocating silence pressed against the charred plateau, heavy as a coffin lid. The shattered stones glimmered faintly under the wan moonlight, each fissure glowing with the last embers of battle. No wind stirred, even the air felt shackled, as if the world itself awaited a final verdict.
At the heart of this graveyard of ash and ruin stood Yandeon. His cloak — now little more than burnt tatters — clung to his skeletal frame, flickering like a dying flame. Around him sprawled a vast lattice of cracked, glowing runes. Each line pulsed a deep, sickly ethereal, writhing like veins under translucent skin.
His arms were raised high, clawed fingers spread wide as though cradling an invisible sphere. From his mouth spilled low, guttural incantations — each word a black seed that sprouted into the night, coiling and twisting above his head like an unseen parasite.
Tyler approached slowly, each bootstep sinking into the scorched earth with a soft crunch. The twin swords at his sides hummed with restless energy, edges quivering in anticipation. Sweat slid down his temples, stinging the shallow cuts across his cheek. His breath moved like broken glass, catching and scraping in his chest.
As he drew closer, Yandeon’s head snapped upward. A grin split his face — a jagged, predatory rictus that gleamed in the moon’s pale glow.
“You’re too late, [Player],” Yandeon hissed, voice echoing across the plateau like an ancient bell tolling doom. “While you wallowed in that pitiful illusion, I completed my masterpiece! My [Soul Augmentation] is perfected — witness it with reverence and despair!”
A grotesque shudder rolled through Yandeon’s body. His back split open with a wet, tearing sound as a cluster of black, oil-slick tentacles burst forth, writhing and coiling like serpents starved for blood. Their hooked tips gleamed, each movement leaving small pockmarks of acid that smoked and bubbled in the earth.
Before Tyler could move, a sickening crunch resounded. Yandeon’s arms fractured and tore, revealing leathery, webbed wings. Each wing twitched violently, lined with black veins that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. They unfurled fully, stretching wide enough to shadow the entire ritual circle.
Tyler’s eyes widened, mouth set in a thin line. “Tentacles… and now wings? How—”
Yandeon let out a distorted cackle, eyes blazing with sick glee.
“Humans… pathetic in their ambition. They fused two souls to create their precious ‘hybrids,’ playing at gods with mud and bones. But why stop at two? Why chain yourself to such feeble limits? In the archives, I unearthed their discarded failures — the forbidden research that dared to question: Why not three? Or five? Or as many as flesh can endure?!”
He rose into the air with a great beat of his wings, the wind from the ascent nearly toppling Tyler backward.
“My [Soul Augmentation] makes me the embodiment of evolution! Wings of the night bat, claws of the tundra tiger, the whip-lash tentacles of abyssal beasts! I am a god born of your ancestors’ cowardice!”
Tyler spat blood to the side, narrowing his gaze.
“So this wasn’t about souls at all… just a mad patchwork of monster limbs. A grotesque collector’s trophy…”
Suddenly, the tentacles lashed forward, carving paths of smoking ruin through the ground. Tyler snapped his body sideways, swords glinting under the moon as he severed three tentacles in a single, savage spin. Black ichor sprayed into the air, burning craters wherever it touched.
He lunged forward, a roar tearing from his throat as he aimed a thrust for Yandeon’s neck. But Yandeon’s wings snapped downward, propelling him backward in a blur, vanishing in a haze of distorted moonlight.
Tyler slammed to a halt, feet digging furrows into the stone.
He squinted into the dark, heart pounding like war drums.
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A sudden shadow loomed overhead. Tyler looked up — too late.
A colossal elephant-like foot, gnarled and clawed, plummeted from above, crashing into his chest with the force of an avalanche. The impact sent him hurtling across the ground, shattering stone and tearing open deep gouges in the earth.
Tyler groaned, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. His fingers clawed into the rock, each breath searing like molten iron in his lungs.
No… I can’t underestimate him. Even if he looks like a stitched-up carcass, he’s more dangerous than any beast I’ve faced.
Veins of crimson lightning snaked up his arms. A deep, primal snarl crawled from his chest as [Berserk] roared to life. His aura erupted outward, a howling tempest of scarlet fury that made the ground quake in protest.
With a thunderous blast, Tyler shot forward. Each swing of his swords cut through tentacles like ribbons. He closed the distance in a blink, blades crossing in an X-shaped arc that severed Yandeon’s wings in one decisive heartbeat.
Yandeon howled, crashing to the earth with a crack that rattled across the plateau. But even as his body slammed into the ground, his elbows twisted and split, birthing massive tiger claws. He lunged forward, raking them at Tyler in a savage frenzy.
Tyler parried, sparks cascading in molten arcs. Each impact jolted his bones, but he held his ground, forcing Yandeon backward inch by inch.
Tyler stepped back to reposition — and felt it.
A subtle, almost delicate crunch underfoot.
He glanced down — a thin, faintly glowing circle beneath his boot.
Yandeon’s grin snapped open, all pretence of civility vanishing into pure predatory glee.
“Just as planned.”
[Soul Bind Activated]
Chains, shimmering and ethereal, erupted from the circle. They lashed around Tyler’s ankle, then his wrist, then another — tightening, pulling, crushing.
Tyler roared, muscles bulging as he strained against them.
[PE: 2/50]
The message glared blood-red before his eyes. No power. No skills.
Just… a few more seconds… just wait…
But the chains only tightened, each link biting into his flesh, siphoning not only his energy but his very spirit.
Yandeon stepped forward, claws glinting, tentacles quivering in delight.
“HAHAHAHA! Finally! Even without Shindeon, your soul is enough! Stronger than any beast, purer than any spirit! Once I graft it… this world and all beyond it will kneel before me! I will become the ultimate god!”
Tyler thrashed, blood splattering from reopened wounds. Every movement drew the chains tighter, each breath shallower than the last. His aura sputtered, flickering like a dying flame.
Yandeon’s laughter shrieked through the night — then slowly faded, dissolving into a low, echoing murmur.
---
Tyler’s eyes jolted open. He stood, trembling, in that endless black void once again.
He spun around, panic coursing like ice water through his veins.
“No… no! I can’t be here! My body — it’s dying out there!”
He clenched his fists so tight his nails cracked. His breaths came ragged, as if he were drowning on dry land.
The ghostly screen flickered to life before him. On it, he saw himself: chained, head slumped, aura draining away in wisps like fragile spider silk.
“NO! LET ME OUT!” Tyler howled, slamming his fists against the screen. Blood smeared across the glass, droplets floating in the void before dissipating into nothingness.
He pressed his forehead against the screen, sobbing so violently his ribs felt like they might shatter.
“Please… please… not again… I can’t… I can’t lose… please…”
Footsteps echoed — slow, deliberate, filled with silent scorn. Tyler didn’t need to turn. He knew.
“STOP!” he screamed, voice cracking, raw. “Why?! Why did you save me before? Why won’t you answer me? What are you?!”
The other self emerged from the dark mist — a silhouette that looked like Tyler, but taller, broader, seething with coiling red scars that glowed like molten cracks. His eyes gleamed with abyssal hunger, two blood moons in an empty sky.
He paused, head tilting ever so slightly as if hearing something only he understood. Then, without a word, he turned his back, stepping into the shifting black.
Tyler lunged forward, nearly slipping in his own blood.
“WAIT! You can’t keep walking away! You have to answer me! I’m begging you!”
The other self gave a low, dismissive scoff.
“Leave me alone.”
A massive iron door slammed shut between them with a clang that rattled the entire void. Tyler crashed into it, fists beating against the cold, unyielding metal.
“NO! NO! Don’t do this! You can’t disappear! ANSWER ME!”
His voice echoed and fractured, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces until it was swallowed by the darkness.
---
On the scorched plateau, countless new chains rose from the runes like a forest of metal vipers. They wrapped around Tyler’s limp, battered frame, each loop tightening with a low, predatory groan. His head hung low, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth as his life force was siphoned away in ghostly streams.
The ritual circles pulsed brighter, forming grotesque, spiderweb-like patterns across the ground. Yandeon stood above him, arms wide, head thrown back in ecstatic laughter.
In the distance, Nellisa and the others screamed, their voices muffled and small against the colossal machinery of Yandeon’s magic.
No one could reach him. No one could break through.
---
And in that abyss where hope was strangled and screams went unheard, Tyler’s fists pounded until his bones cracked — but the void only swallowed his cries in perfect, endless silence.