Chapter 144: Ratatatatatat!
Yxthul cut through the woods like a phantom of the deep, gliding between tree trunks as though swimming through water. Grass didn’t bend. Branches didn’t snap. His body flickered between material and immaterial, his form half-mist, half-muscle. To any bystander, he was a ripple of shadow sliding through the world, neither touching it nor truly part of it.
He did not breathe. He did not sweat. But his mind was a tempest.
Georan must be dead by now, he thought. Eaten, like the fool he was. He bit down a twisted smile. He had warned him, hadn’t he? Said it clearly—"Trust me, it won’t hurt you." But of course, it would. That was the whole point. The second version of the spawn, that hideous bloated creature, was not a tool. It was a tide. Something that couldn’t be commanded, only unleashed.
He was getting stronger.
Yxthul paused, his translucent feet sliding across a patch of moss. His fingers twitched. He could feel it—like a silent roar within his bones. A surge. The monster was killing. That much was obvious. And with every kill, something inside Yxthul uncoiled further. The connection between them wasn’t just magical—it was ancestral. Eldritch. Spiritual. A tether forged not in spell circles, but in shared lineage. The spawn was his kin, even if corrupted. Its victories were his nourishment.
He licked his teeth, sharp and silver-lined, and closed his glowing blue eyes.
Stage eight. No... Nine.
It was happening faster than he predicted. That creature’s rampage was accelerating his ascension. He could feel the mana channels in his body writhing open like cracks in a dam. Soon, he would burst into the tenth stage again. The moment he arrived at the heart of Silver Blade City, the very ground would tremble.
He opened his eyes again, slowing his stride only briefly as a memory washed over him. His father. A dark, ancient creature with the head of a fish and the gaze of a god. He sat upon a throne carved from shipwreck bones and whispered doctrine into Yxthul’s young mind like venom.
"Water is dominion," the old one rasped. "Land is rebellion. The surface must drown. Begin from the lowest, and flood upward. Make the weaklings of the shallow world choke on their lungs. Only then shall the Deep awaken."
Yxthul had believed it then. He still did.