Danmachi: The Multiverse Portal

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The moment the colossal monstrosity revealed itself—

"Hestia!" August yelled without a second's hesitation.

"Got it! Leave her to me!" In a flash, Hestia scooped Artemis up in her arms and bolted toward the exit.

"Wait, hold on, Hestia!" Artemis gasped, caught off guard. She never thought Hestia would grab her and run just because someone called her name.

They moved fast. But the monster was faster.

Antares was a living weapon built to hunt and eat gods. It survived by consuming divine flesh. It didn't just go after Artemis—it also chased the fleeing Hestia and Hermes, who had been nearby.

Even after being sealed away for thousands of years, it was still as fast and terrifying as when it first appeared.

"OPEN FIRE!" the commander roared, instantly ordering the vanguard to light it up.

A torrential hail of bullets poured out, tearing through the cavern.

"Fire!"

The twenty-man rear guard fired their anti-tank rocket launchers. Explosions rocked the cavern at point-blank range.

ROAR!

The rockets ripped a huge chunk from its upper body and blew off one of its legs. Antares let out a deep, deafening sound. It wasn't a cry of pain, but a scream full of pure malice.

Its single eye stayed locked on the three gods. Even badly injured, its scorpion-like lower body kept moving forward, chasing its divine prey without pause.

"Like hell I'll let you," August sneered.

Several massive steel anchor chains, like the ones used to moor heavy battleships, shot out from his [Spatial Backpack].

August controlled the huge steel links, making them lash out like living vipers. The heavy iron anchors at the ends slammed into Antares, wrapping tightly around its neck and stopping it in its tracks.

August vaulted backward, putting distance between himself and the rest of the squad.

"Fall back! Its hide is already resisting the shrapnel! Small arms fire isn't going to cut it anymore!" August barked, waving the troops away.

He quickly saw this beast was nothing like the one from the movie timeline. It hadn't even absorbed Artemis yet, but it already had the power of a deep-strata Floor Boss. This was a whole new threat.

"Copy that! Cover fire! Fall back!" the commander shouted. He knew their weapons were useless against something this tough. They needed heavy ordnance, the kind that solved problems with sheer force.

"Yes, sir!" The infantry executed a tactical retreat.

"What about you?" Rethusa asked, looking at August, who was currently locked in a deadly game of tug-of-war with the monster.

"Don't worry, Lord August can get out on his own. We need to move!" Liliruca Arde urged.

Rethusa gritted her teeth. She knew her [Level 3] status was useless here. This thing was at least [Level 5]—maybe even [Level 6].

"Let's go!" she ordered, dragging the rest of the Artemis Familia away.

Meanwhile, Asfi Al Andromeda grabbed Hermes by the collar. "You're coming too. Don't be a liability."

Hermes clearly wanted to stay and watch August fight, but getting eaten would ruin everything. He deployed several divine mirrors to monitor the room remotely and allowed himself to be dragged to safety.

With the others retreating, August sprinted along the cavern walls, staying mobile. The anchor chains connected to his spatial inventory dragged violently behind him, pulling taut and locking Antares in place.

Antares thrashed, completely caught off guard by the human contraption strangling its neck.

Could it break free?

NO!

These were reinforced, battleship-grade anchors strong enough to pierce a skyscraper. More importantly, the chains were anchored directly to August's spatial dimension and strengthened by his mental control.

But this was only stalling for time.

During the stalemate, the gaping wound where Antares' leg used to be began to writhe. Flesh and muscle fibers rapidly knitted back together as its hyper-regeneration kicked in.

"Think I'll just let you heal?" August racked his weapon, ready to blow the leg off again.

Suddenly, a scorpion spawn jumped from the shadows, lunging straight for his face. August was forced to redirect his aim, blasting the bug to pieces with a heavy shell.

More scorpions swarmed him, pouring out of the cracks. They rushed forward, not caring about the deaths of their kin.

"Trying to drown me in bodies?" August muttered, putting the pieces together.

Smart bastard...

He was truly surprised by the creature's intelligence. It wasn't a Xenos, but it was very cunning. It had planned the attack on the military camp while hiding its real breeding nest somewhere under the temple.

To August, the small scorpions were nothing but garbage, but they did their purpose perfectly—they were distracting him just long enough for Antares to recover.

Once its leg was fully healed, Antares fought back. It dug its huge claws into the stone and pulled on the anchor chain, trying to drag August in with its colossal strength.

But against the unmovable anchor of August's spatial gate, the monster's strength was almost nothing. The chains strained, but August didn't budge an inch.

"If you were really that strong, you wouldn't be a God Eater," August mocked.

The beast's entire physiology and defense mechanisms were tailored to nullify divine power. Any attack imbued with even a trace of Arcanum was useless against its hide. It was the ultimate anti-god weapon.

But August wasn't a god. He was just a human relying on raw kinetic force. Antares' anti-god armor was useless against modern military weapons.

The chain's intense pull began to tear apart Antares' tough outer shell.

ROAR!

Realizing it was losing the tug-of-war and would soon be decapitated by the anchor, Antares made a desperate and brutal decision.

RIIIIP!

With a tear of flesh, Antares literally ripped its own body in half at the waist, detaching its humanoid upper torso from its scorpion lower half right in front of August's eyes.

August froze for a split second. He hadn't expected the beast to be so ruthless to itself.

Once the body was cut in half, the anchor chain slipped free and fell to the ground. August quickly pulled it back. Seeing the monster was badly hurt, he got ready to fire a heavy artillery shell straight into its exposed torso.

But Antares ignored him. Its upper half grabbed the cavern wall and started digging frantically toward the ceiling. At the same time, its huge Magic Stone was already working to heal its split body.

"You're not getting away! Fire!"

August fired a barrage from a hundred rocket launchers at once.

But then something unexpected happened.

A huge swarm of scorpions jumped into the path of the rockets, forming a real meat shield. The explosions destroyed the swarm, but out of a hundred rockets, only two or three got through and hit Antares, not enough to stop it from climbing.

Antares bored through the ceiling, rapidly breaking through the ancient sealing barrier.

'Wait a minute…' August narrowed his eyes.

The seal wasn't holding it at all.

Has this bastard just been hiding here, using the ruins as a safe place while waiting for a god to walk right into its trap?

Son of a bitch. It really is that smart.

As the ceiling collapsed from the monster's digging, huge boulders crashed down. August had to run for the exit. Before leaving, he threw a drone into the tunnel to track the beast and shot down the scorpions chasing him.

As he sprinted through the collapsing corridors, he keyed his radio.

"Bad news. The big guy is breaking out. It's way smarter than we thought. It ripped itself in half to escape my snare."

"Also, the seal in the ruins is useless against it. My guess? It's been camping here on purpose. It was just sitting in its nest, waiting for gods to serve themselves up on a silver platter."

"Are you serious??" Hestia, who had regrouped with the main force outside, gasped. If August was right, their intervention had completely disrupted the monster's ambush.

"I'm heading to the surface now," August replied, picking up his pace.

August threw a high-explosive charge behind him, blowing up the tunnel to stop the scorpions from following. He finally made it out into the open air.

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At the same time, the ground violently erupted.

Antares breached the surface.

Major Jay saw it immediately from his tank line. "Target at one o'clock! All armor, load high-explosive! Fire!"

Dozens of 125mm smoothbore tank cannons fired in a booming unison—

Antares had just put its body back together and was caught off guard. It didn't expect a line of tanks waiting on the surface. The shells hit it hard, breaking pieces off its armor and leaving the monster raging helplessly against the heavy fire.

Commander James's voice crackled over the comms. "Target sighted! Adjust coordinates! Blow that ugly bastard to hell!"

He hadn't forgotten that this thing had tried to backdoor his base camp. If he didn't put it in the ground now, he wouldn't be able to look his men in the eye.

The MLRS and missile trucks unleashed a firestorm.

Antares looked up just in time to see fire raining from the sky. The attack tore apart its freshly repaired upper body, leaving it badly damaged before it could start healing. It scrambled across the ground, dodging what it could, but the explosions sent up huge clouds of dead, poisoned earth.

The empty ruined land made it easy for the soldiers to aim.

ROARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Antares let out an earth-shattering roar.

Suddenly, the crater Antares had just dug out of began to swarm with movement.

"Drone feed shows massive hostile signatures emerging from the breach! Hundreds of scorpion-types, pushing our position!" an aerial recon operator reported.

"A full-blown legion already?" Commander James cursed. "Fuck me, how many of those things did it breed down there? I thought it needed to eat a god first to start spawning!"

Thinking back to August's theory, James realized the awful truth: August was right. The monster wasn't trapped, it was nesting. It really was a biological factory.

"Stay sharp, boys! Here they come! They're pushing the support line!" James roared.

"Hooah!" The soldiers were fired up. After surviving the first wave, their morale was sky-high. They weren't about to let a bunch of giant bugs scare them.

At the tank line, August regrouped with Major Jay.

"Keep firing! Light 'em up!" Jay bellowed.

Heavy machine guns opened fire, cutting down the scorpions as they charged into the kill zone. This was the front line, the most dangerous spot, but the soldiers stood firm. Thousands of well-armed troops weren't going to back down from a swarm of weak enemies.

The battlefield was a symphony of rumbling engines, barking rifles, and shattering monster carapaces.

As August sprinted forward, laying down suppressive fire, a sound suddenly chimed directly in his ear.

DING!!

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