Chapter 222: True Eren
"Centuries!" Branagh's voice boomed demonically. "For centuries, the Grand Menagerie stood untouchable! The kings paid their tithes, the cartels bowed their heads, and not a single rat dared disrupt the trade! And now? My auction is in ruins! My prestige butchered! My goods are buried beneath stone!"
The twelve-foot titan of black bone and grey meat surged forward. The stones beneath his foot pulverized into gravel as he crossed the distance in an earth-shaking lunge, his right fist pulled back.
Eren planted his heels, his midnight-blue coat fluttering in the concussive wind of the beast's approach.
"Sounds like an administrative skill issue to me."
Eren didn't dodge.
Instead, he channeled his aura, coating his forearms in dense, crackling sheets of greenish-blue energy. He crossed his open palms before him, bracing his center of gravity just as the boulder-sized fist struck.
BOOOOM!
The shockwave blasted outward in a violent ring, blowing away loose debris and rattling the iron bars of every monster cage in the vault.
Eren's feet dug deep into the floor as he was shoved backward twenty feet. His wrists creaked. Hairline fractures shot through the bones of his palms. white-hot pain flared and surged through his forearms as he stubbornly locked his trembling fingers around Branagh's knuckles.
Veins bulged along Eren's neck with unhinged defiance through gritted teeth.
"Now, Goldy!" Eren roared.
From the blind spot behind Branagh, Gold launched herself into the air like a silver arrow. Her blade ignited with pure, blinding holy brilliance, descending straight toward the soft flesh around the base of his neck.
She was half a second away from severing the spine.
Branagh didn't turn around. Instead, one of the massive bone scythes on his shoulder blades whipped backward with blinding speed, a whistling arc of black chitin aimed directly at her waist.
'Fuck, I'm dead!'
Mid-air, Gold's survival instincts took over. Abandoning her strike, she twisted her torso violently, snapping the flat of her sword against the scythe to parry.
CLANG!
The force hit her like a siege ballista. The holy light shattered into sparks, and the sheer momentum hurled her backward across the vault; her boots skidded across the stones before she crashed hard against the rusted bars of an empty cage.
"Fuck!" Eren hissed under his breath.
With Gold gone, Eren gave a ferocious roar, surging forward with a burst of dark flame from his boots to push the massive fist back half an inch, locking the behemoth in a furious, bone-grinding grapple.
"Fascinating," Branagh chuckled. "A boy catching a blow that splits mountains... and a little slip of a girl who parries a reflex mid-flight. I haven't seen raw physical power like yours in fifty years. You truly impress me, boy."
"Trust me," Eren grunted through gritted teeth, his muscles tearing under the immense pressure, "we didn't crash your party just to make a mediocre first impression."
"A shame your flesh must spoil."
Branagh's eyes flared with boiling cerulean fire.
The titan's left hand's razor-sharp talons raked violently across Eren's torso, tearing through the coat, and flesh in a single sweep. Blood sprayed across the monster's chest.
Before Eren could roll away from the lethal blow, Branagh's massive foot crashed him directly onto Eren's chest, driving him into the floor, pinning him beneath the weight of the mutated Lord of Flesh.
The sight of Eren beneath that grotesque snapped something inside Gold.
The cold, detached professionalism of an assassin turned into pure rage. She didn't pause to catch her breath; she didn't check the blood dripping from her lips.
She moved.
SHING-SHING-SHING!
Her sword vanished into a storm, a blinding blur of thrusts and arcs that tore through the stagnant, sulfurous air of the vault. She attacked with feral, desperate persistence, moving with terrifying velocity that pushed her muscles past their limits.
Branagh turned his massive bulk to swat her, but Gold was already beneath his guard.
Sparks rained as her blade deflected a sweeping claw, redirected an arachnid scythe, and plunged two inches into the fleshy joint of his knee. Branagh bellowed, swinging his left arm in a vicious backhand. Gold dipped her torso at an impossible angle, the wind of the strike whipping her bangs, and carved a rising diagonal across his forearm, slicing through mutated tendons.
All around the underground room, the beasts in their iron cages went mad. Drakes hissed, hydra-spiders clicked their mandibles against the bars, and the Shadow Cat cub thrashed.
The attrition was merciless.
A sweep from a bone scythe ripped through her cloak at her waist and opened a jagged gash. Blood soaked her dress.
Another swipe grazed her shoulder, spinning her around.
A backhanded claw caught the left side of her face. The strike didn't take her head off only because she rolled with the impact, but the blow shattered the lower jaw of her golden skull mask, sending gilded porcelain shards exploding across the floor.
Her exposed mouth was smeared with blood, her teeth clenched. She spat a mouthful of blood spun on a dime, and drove her sword at his ankle, using the leverage to vault up his calf and unleash four lightning-fast stabs into his thigh.
"Die, you mutated piece of filth!" she snarled, her voice ragged and venomous.
Branagh caught her blade between his claws, snapping the steel in half with a crunch. His other fist smashed her in the chest, hurling her across the flagstones.
She skidded ten feet, coughing blood, struggling to rise on trembling arms.
"Futile," Branagh rumbled in mockery as he walked toward her, blood dripping from a dozen shallow cuts. "The boy's ribs are powder. He is dead, girl. And you are next."
He raised a massive foot.
"Once you die, we will trace and hunt down everyone who has given us a headache these past weeks in matters of The Substance."
"Like fuck I'll let you touch them!" she screamed, clawing at the stone.
"Thanks for the time, Goldy."
The voice made Gold freeze. Her amber eyes widened in disbelief as she looked at Eren.
He was drenched in blood. The front of his shirt was completely soaked with blood, three jagged marks carved deep across his chest. He was trembling.
Yet he was on his feet.
And in his hands, he clutched a ten-foot iron girder Branagh had hurled from the stage above. The metal was bent, weighing hundreds of pounds. Eren shouldn't have been able to lift it off the dirt.
He was barely holding it. His arms trembled, torn and screaming. Blood dripped from his chin, his fingers, his hair. But his blue eyes burned with something that wasn't quite human anymore.
"Fuck," Eren said, his voice rough, dragging the massive beam across the stone floor with sparks flying. "I've had enough of this."
He swung.
Gold threw herself sideways, diving clear, feeling the wind of the passing girder like a hurricane against her back.
Branagh turned and met the full force of Eren's fury head-on.
The impact was purely violent.
The shockwave detonated like an artillery shell. A concussive blast of displaced air flattened Gold against the floor, vibrating so violently through the cavern that the bedrock beneath them groaned in agony.