Chapter 220: Auction Crash
Down in the auction auditorium, the auctioneer tapped his staff against the timber stage with an echoing clack, flashing a triumphant smile.
"Sold to the distinguished gentleman in the second tier for four hundred and fifty gold crowns!" the auctioneer announced smoothly. He swept an appreciative bow as two burly handlers hauled the iron cage containing the snarling monster toward the subterranean freight lifts.
The auctioneer raised both hands.
"Now, my esteemed patrons, connoisseurs of the forbidden, and masters of sovereign commerce..." His voice dropped into a thrilling whisper that held a thousand wealthy spectators captive.
"We arrive at our grand finale. The final lot of this evening is an acquisition so extraordinary, so exceedingly rare, that perhaps fewer than a handful of living mortals have ever laid eyes upon its majestic, raw potential. I trust every discerning soul present will find tonight’s climax... unforgettable."
He took a dramatic half-step back, sweeping a deep, theatrical bow toward the ornate wooden double doors set into the fortified stone partition behind the main stage.
"Join me in welcoming our crowning jewel—"
BOOOOM!
The wall behind the podium detonated.
A shockwave ripped through the front rows, extinguishing crystal sconces and hurling the auctioneer face-first across the platform in a cloud of blinding dust. Screams erupted from the lower tier as shards of iron and brick rained down like shrapnel.
Then, the screams turned into shrieks of pure, suffocating horror.
Looming out of the pulverized partition came a towering, ten-foot-tall horror. It possessed the silhouette of a man, yet it was a grotesque mountain of swollen, vein-corded grey meat, with jagged black bone spurs erupting through its spine and shoulders.
Gold clung desperately to the monster’s left shoulder as she drove the blade deep into his collarbone with both hands, her teeth bared as she tried to sever the jugular.
Below them, tumbling out of the dust cloud and skidding across the stage floorboards, was Eren.
He rolled across his shoulder, popped casually back onto his boots, and brushed a dusting off his coat.
Looking up at the frozen, horrified aristocrats and elites staring down at him in frozen disbelief, Eren raised a friendly hand and flashed a radiant, apologetic smile.
"Terribly sorry for the sudden interruption, ladies and gentlemen! Slight administrative malfunction backstage! Today’s scheduled showcase has suffered a breach of workplace safety regulations, so this evening’s auction is officially canceled! Please collect your belongings and exit in an orderly fashion! Bye!"
ROOOAAARRR!
Branagh unleashed an ear-splitting roar that shattered the remaining crystal chandeliers overhead.
Panic spread like a wildfire. The aristocrats, feared cutthroats, and wealthy sycophants abandoned all pretense of dignity, screaming, shoving, and trampling one another in a frantic, stampeding wave toward the emergency exits.
"Well, that was quick," Eren observed, whistling softly.
"STOP YOUR CLOWNISH ANTICS AND HELP ME, YOU IDIOT!" Gold screamed in pure fury as she drove her sword an inch deeper.
"Little gnats... so excessively noisy!" Branagh rumbled.
With quickspeed, Branagh’s massive arm whipped upward. His clawed hand clamped around Gold’s torso like a bear trap, effortlessly ripping the steel blade out of his shoulder and he hurled her across.
Gold hit the wooden planks, tucking her shoulder to roll through the impact before sliding to a halt near the orchestra pit.
Branagh turned his gaze down toward Eren.
"Die, imperial nation’s trash!"
He leaped forward, raising both colossal, boulder-like fists overhead and bringing them crashing downward in a double-handed hammer strike meant to paste Eren into the floorboards.
CRASH!
Eren vanished.
The microsecond before the fists made contact, Eren dissolved into a wisp of swirling black smoke, and Branagh’s fists smashed through decking, sending tons of timber collapsing into the basement storage below.
Branagh blinked his glowing blue eyes, tearing his claws out of the splintered crater in feral confusion.
Twenty feet to his left, Eren materialized out of the shadows with a smooth, effortless stride. Reaching down with one hand, he effortlessly caught Gold by her cloak collar and hoisted her back onto her feet, steadying her trembling guard with a light tap between her shoulder blades.
"Careful on the landing, Goldy," Eren murmured with his signature unhinged smirk.
"Shut up!" Gold snarled, violently swatting his hand away as she scrambled upright.
Her eyes narrowed at the hulking abomination twenty feet away as his deep wounds were sizzling with dark, noxious steam. The torn grey flesh knitted together with sickening, squelching rapidity, the severed muscle fibers latching shut until not even a scar remained across his mutated skin.
"Rapid regeneration," Gold muttered, her voice tight with grim dread. "He hasn’t just ingested a dose tonight. He’s been steadily consuming The Substance for months—maybe years. His physiology has adapted to demonic corruption."
Eren dusted off his lapels, tilting his head with genuine curiosity as he watched the regeneration. "Fascinating. I was under the impression that The Substance turns people into mindless berserkers with zero awareness."
"It degrades the intellect of the weak," Gold rasped, backing away half a pace as the behemoth slowly turned his massive skull toward them. "Only subjects possessing immense mental fortitude and willpower can retain consciousness."
"Splendid," Eren drawled. "My day just keeps improving."
"You two... whisper too damn much!"
Branagh’s roar shook the foundations of the ruined auditorium. Reaching down with a clawed hand, the ten-foot monster effortlessly ripped a four-inch-thick, twisted iron support girder straight from the collapsed proscenium arch. With a chuckle, he raised the metal beam overhead and swept it horizontally across the platform.
Gold leaped backward, performing a clean, mid-air aerial spin that cleared the whistling beam by inches, landing lightly on the railing of an empty orchestra box. Eren dropped flat against the floorboards, sliding under the crushing sweep of the iron beam as it sheared through two massive timber pillars behind him, showering the pit in splintered oak.
Popping back up onto his boots, Eren looked at the masked woman across the stage.
"Alright, goldy!" Eren called out, cracking his neck. "How do we put this oversized piece of mutated pork out of our misery?"
"Standard decapitation won’t hold," she shouted back. "I have a secret plan, but I can only execute it if you can physically hold that ten-foot wall of meat in place!"
She glared at him through her mask,"Can your frail aristocratic body handle pinning this monster, brat?!"
Eren let out a theatrical sigh, rolling his shoulders as dark, crackling arcs of dark-blue mana began to spill from his fingertips, his blue eyes igniting with a feral, terrifying brilliance.
"Looks like I’ll just have to push past my limits."