Chapter 238: War
The severed, colossal skull of the B-Rank Calamity Lord hit the pulverized asphalt with a concussive, wet thud, sending a tremor vibrating through the cracked foundations of the surrounding high-rises.
Black, acidic ichor gushed from its gaping neck, sizzling violently as it melted the scorched concrete into bubbling tar. The beast's four twisted horns—each as thick as an iron beam—shivered once before the volatile crimson mana radiating from its core flickered, died, and dispersed into the smog-choked air before moving towards the human who had killed him.
Around the fallen sovereign, the carcasses of three C-Rank Calamity beasts lay dismembered across the intersection, their shattered armor plating and torn leathery wings smoldering in heaps of dark slag.
Hide Volter slowly exhaled, lowering his dual blades as wisps of dark, corrupted mana retreated into the pores of his skin. His breath came in heavy, rhythmic clouds that misted against the cool, ash-laden wind.
Beside him, Gideon Vance let out a guttural, exhausted groan and drove the butt of his colossal warhammer into the pavement, leaning his broad, muscular frame against the haft just to stay upright. Gideon's armored chestplate was dented inward from a concussive tail-swipe, his face streaked with sweat and black dust, but his grip remained stubbornly firm.
The two-week nightmare in the western continent's Sector 9, 4-Star One-Way Gate was finally over.
When the massive dimensional tear had ruptured open without warning fourteen days ago, it hadn't spewed out ordinary feral packs. It had deployed an organized vanguard led by an apex B-Rank Calamity Lord and flanked by three distinct C-Rank lieutenant beasts. For two agonizing weeks, the sector had devolved into a meat grinder of urban attrition.
Hide and Gideon had been deployed two days ago to the Western Continent as auxiliary reinforcements to support the Yellow Horizon Exterminator Agency. Yellow Horizon was not an ordinary private firm; it was the undisputed titan of the western territories, possessing vast military resources, private fleets, and elite divisions valued on equal footing with the National Exterminator Agency itself.
Even with Yellow Horizon's full regional mobilization, the battle had cost an unthinkable amount of blood. Hide and Gideon had personally hunted down and butchered two of the C-Rank beasts over the course of the grueling campaign, buying the main vanguard the precious time needed to corner the B-Rank lord in the commercial plaza.
Heavy, uneven footsteps dragged across the gravel behind them.
Hide turned his head, his ocean-blue eyes—faintly ringed with predatory violet—softening as he saw the figure limping toward them through the clearing smoke.
It was Nathan Cross, the 2nd Commander of Yellow Horizon.
Nathan was a young man, barely in his late twenties, possessing a naturally charismatic presence that had rallied hundreds of terrified soldiers over the past two weeks. But today, the charismatic commander looked like a ghost walking out of an execution yard.
His immaculate golden-trimmed agency coat was torn to ribbons, soaked through with blood. A crude, field-dressed gauze wrap covered the left side of his face, where a jagged claw-strike had permanently torn away his left eye only three hours prior during the final clash with the Calamity Lord. His left leg was heavily braced with emergency splints, forcing him to lean on a battered greatsword as a makeshift crutch.
Behind Nathan, there were no cheers. Out of the elite five-man strike unit Nathan had led into the plaza this morning, three of his closest companions—men and women who had fought beside him for nearly a decade—lay buried beneath the rubble of a collapsed bank, their bodies crushed beyond recognition.
Nathan stopped in front of Hide and Gideon. His remaining amber eye was bloodshot, heavy with unspeakable grief, but his lips curled into a faint, exhausted smile.
Raising his trembling, blood-stained hands, Nathan placed a firm, appreciative palm on Hide's shoulder, then on Gideon's.
"You two are so young... and still so formidable," Nathan said, his voice raw, hoarse from hours of barking orders. He lowered his gaze to the cracked ground, his shoulders shaking with a quiet, suppressed tremor. "I am glad you came here. If not for you two... we would have lost many more innocent lives."
Neither Hide nor Gideon spoke.
Gideon merely bowed his head in somber respect, his knuckles whitening around the haft of his warhammer. Hide kept his eyes fixed on the commander, feeling the heavy silence settle over the plaza.
There was no pride to be found in this victory. There were no medals, no celebratory broadcasts, and no triumphant parades waiting for them. The surviving Exterminators scattered across the street—veterans who had once walked with arrogant swagger in the pristine arenas of the central cities—were slumped against overturned armored transports, quietly bandaging severed limbs and weeping silently for fallen squadmates.
It had been exactly one month since the world shattered.
One month since the simultaneous, coordinated opening of thousands of anomalous gates across all six continents. One month since the global hierarchy fell apart.
The world had officially descended into what historians and surviving broadcast stations were calling the Dark Era of Mankind—the dawn of the Final War.
Life before this month seemed like a distant, absurd fairy tale of rainbows and sunshine. Back then, Exterminators complained about rigorous ranking examinations, squabbled over corporate endorsements, and trained in pristine, controlled loop gates where medical teams waited outside with high-grade potions. Civilians lived in blissful ignorance, complaining about transit delays and municipal taxes.
Now, reality was a perpetual slaughterhouse.
Gates materialized anywhere, at any second, with zero seismic or atmospheric warnings. They opened inside residential apartment complexes, inside bustling subway stations, inside hospitals, and in the middle of agricultural fields. Exterminators fought until their muscles tore and their mana channels burned, only to be deployed directly to another burning district without an hour of sleep.
And the worst part—the part that carved hollow, aching voids into the chests of every warrior on the frontlines—was watching the children. In the old days, children were whisked away to reinforced subterranean bunkers within minutes. Now, the bunkers were breached before the sirens could even finish their first cycle. Exterminators were forced to watch small, terrified kids get crushed beneath falling concrete or torn apart by roving beasts simply because the response teams were too battered, too starved of mana, and too utterly exhausted to arrive in time.
Hide turned away from the plaza and began walking down the ruined avenue, Gideon falling in step beside him.
The city around them was a graveyard of twisted steel and shattered glass.
Colossal skyscrapers that had once pierced the clouds with gleaming neon displays were now hollow, blackened husks, their upper floors snapped off and leaning against adjacent buildings like falling dominoes. The sky above was not blue; it was a suffocating dome of pitch-black smoke, sickly yellow sulfur, and drifting ash that blotted out the sun, painting the entire world in an endless, gloomy twilight.
From several blocks away, the muffled, horrific sound of automatic gunfire, frantic shouting, and the distant, agonizing screams of civilians echoed over the desolate streets.
'It's hell,' Hide thought, his jaw aching as he clenched his teeth so tightly that his gums bled. 'This entire world is just hell.'
A bitter, suffocating frustration clawed at his chest.
He had unlocked the Universal Adaptation System. He had forged a Dark Abyssal Core. He had evolved his physical attributes past the boundaries of standard human limitations, and he commanded a court of phantom horrors that could tear through legions of beasts.
Yet, as he walked through the ash of this burning city, the same agonizing question echoed relentlessly in his mind:
Can anyone ever truly be strong enough?
Even with all his power, he could only be in one place at a time. While he swung his blades in this plaza, ten other cities were being leveled to the ground. While he saved fifty people here, five thousand were being slaughtered across the sea.
A sudden fury ignited, darkening the blue in his eyes into twin voids of abyssal malice.
He thought of the architect behind this nightmare.
Rosh.
The creature who had worn a porcelain mask, mocked him with the truth of their mother's death, and opened the dimensional floodgates to drown the human race in blood.
'He is not my brother,' Hide swore inwardly, every nerve in his body burning with unyielding, lethal resolve. 'I will never call that monster my family.'
When the day came—when they finally stood face-to-face on the battlefield—Hide would not hesitate. He would not offer mercy, nor would he demand an explanation. He was going to rip Rosh apart with his bare hands and feed the remnants of his corrupted soul to the waiting jaws of his phantoms.
"Hide..." Gideon's deep voice broke through his dark reverie.
Hide blinked, halting his steps.
They were standing near the blast-reinforced iron doors of a municipal underground shelter built beneath a shattered department store. The concrete ramp leading down into the darkness was crowded with soot-covered refugees, their hollow eyes staring blankly at the ruined street.
From the edge of the shelter entrance, a woman timidly stepped forward.
She looked no older than thirty, wearing a torn wool coat covered in grey dust. Her face was pale, her hands trembling violently, but her eyes carried a desperate, profound warmth as she looked at Hide.
She walked slowly up to the silver-haired young man, keeping her head low in deep reverence, and held out a small, carefully wrapped package tied with a piece of frayed string.
"Excuse me... young warrior," she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. "I... I saw you from the shelter two days ago. When those smaller beasts broke through the perimeter wall... you killed the beast that was about to drag my daughter into the alley. If not for you, we would both be dead."
Hide looked down at the package.
Through the thin brown paper, the sweet, rich aroma of caramelized sugar, roasted almonds, and honey drifted into the cool air—the distinct scent of Nougatine, a famous traditional delicacy native to the Western Continent. In a besieged city where clean water and dry rations were rationed like gold, a pristine package of sweets was a treasure beyond measure.
Hide's first instinct was to refuse. He was an Exterminator; he had rations in his dimensional storage, and these civilians needed every scrap of food they could hold onto.
He opened his mouth to decline, but the words died in his throat when he looked into the woman's eyes.
She wasn't offering food out of surplus. She was offering the best thing she possessed as an act of gratitude—a tiny, fragile ember of warmth in a world drowning in darkness.
Hide's cold, stoic expression melted. A faint gentle smile appeared on his lips.
"Thank you," Hide said softly, reaching out to take the package.
He untied the string and pulled out a small, golden-brown square of the honeyed pastry. Placing it in his mouth, he took a slow, deliberate bite. The rich, sweet honey and crisp nuttiness burst across his tongue, completely washing away the bitter taste of sulfur and ash.
"It's incredible," Hide smiled warmly at her, his voice sincere. "Truly. Thank you for this."
Tears pricked at the corners of the woman's eyes, and she bowed deeply before turning and scurrying back down the ramp into the safety of the bunker.
Hide stood on the sidewalk, holding the small package, the warmth of the sweet still lingering on his palate.
Then, without a single warning, the world violently tilted.
A sudden, icy numbness crept from the base of his neck straight into his brain.
Hide froze, his breath hitching in his throat.
The ruined skyscrapers, the smoke-filled sky, and the broad silhouette of Gideon beside him began to waver, warping into duplicate, jagged silhouettes. A strange, deafening high-pitched ringing pierced his ears, drowning out the ambient wind.
His knees suddenly felt weightless, as if gravity itself was unraveling beneath his boots.
'What... what is this...?' Hide thought frantically, his hand flying to his temple as the darkness violently bled across the edges of his vision.