Chapter 426 The Breaking World

Suzuka stepped out of the shadows with a long, exaggerated sigh, rubbing her temple like a babysitter dealing with a particularly unruly toddler.

"Ah-ha. There goes the whole 'sneaky and silent' idea," she said, shooting Hermit an unimpressed look as he sniffled and hiccupped on the ground.

  "Are you sure about this, choom? Because once I start, I’m not stopping. And if you cry me a river later about how ‘ohhh, it was too much, ohhh, I didn’t mean like that—’ I’m kicking your teeth in. Okay?"

She cracked her knuckles, rolling her shoulders as dark energy flickered around her fingers.

  "You asked for it. Demanded it, actually. So, no take-backsies. And honestly?"

A slow, wicked grin spread across her face. 

"I’m just glad to oblige."

She turned toward the cavern entrance to look outside, where the rest of the breeding farm sprawled in all its wretched glory. 

"Alright, you disgusting little meat sacks—"

She raised her hands, magic swirling like a gathering storm.

"Time to be crushed."

The moment Suzuka stepped into the dim torchlight, Butcher’s grin died on his face.

His beady eyes widened, his nostrils flaring like a panicked beast catching the scent of a predator. His primitive, violence-tuned instincts screamed at him—this wasn’t just trouble.

This was death.

A thick, suffocating aura seemed to cling to her, darker than the cave’s shadows, heavier than the mountain itself. The air around her warped, as if reality itself recoiled from her presence. Butcher had spent his life drowning in cruelty—he knew monsters. He was a monster.

And Suzuka wasn’t one.

She was whatever monsters feared.

His cleaver clattered to the ground. His bowels loosened. For the first time in his miserable life, Butcher felt true fear. Not a word escaped his lips. No taunts. No curses. Just a whimpering, choked gasp as his stubby legs finally moved—not toward violence, but away. He ran.

His chubby frame wobbled, his breath coming in ragged, piggish snorts as he fled like a boar fleeing a wildfire, his survival instinct overriding every sadistic impulse he’d ever had.

 Butcher stumbled out of the cave, his chubby legs pumping wildly, his breath coming in panicked snorts. His beady eyes darted around the camp, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as he tried to scream a warning—but his terror-dumbed mind could only produce garbled, nonsensical shrieks.

"G-gah! F-flee! Th-the bl—! The bl—!" His tongue twisted uselessly, his voice cracking into a high-pitched whine.

Then—impact.

Hermit launched himself at the Butcher's legs, his claws sinking into the goblin's greasy flesh. Butcher yelped, his stubby limbs flailing as he tripped over his own panicked momentum, crashing face-first into the dirt.

When he lifted his head, his blood ran cold.

The world was breaking.

Giant, writhing arcs of black energy tore from the cave mouth like the claws of some primordial beast, ripping the very ground apart. Stone peeled upward, tents disintegrated mid-air, and wooden sheds exploded into splinters as the gravity magic shredded everything in its path. The arcs slammed into the cliff face with the force of a falling star—BOOM!—blasting colossal gashes into the mountain, sending boulders the size of houses crashing down onto what remained of the breeding farm.

But it didn’t stop.

More arcs erupted, twisting the landscape into a nightmare of inverted physics—chunks of earth floating upward, debris sucked into spiraling vortices, even the air itself distorting as if space were folding in on itself.

Butcher’s mind short-circuited.

Was the ground rising? Were the rocks falling up? Why was that goblin stuck to the ceiling of a collapsing shed?

His primitive brain couldn’t process it—he could only shake, his bladder emptying itself as he stared at the walking apocalypse stepping out of the cave.

Suzuka.

Her eyes glowed with unholy light, her hair floating as if underwater, her very presence warping reality. She raised a hand—

And the mountain screamed.

The ground beneath her rippled like liquid, then exploded upward in jagged spikes of rock, impaling fleeing goblins mid-stride. Tents crumpled inward, their fabric and frames compressed into dense, bloody cubes the size of fists before imploding with wet pops. The very air warped, creating pockets of crushing vacuum that sucked in shrieking goblins, their bodies flattening into grotesque pancakes before splattering across the distorted landscape.

Then she swiped her hand.

A tidal wave of black energy erupted from her fingertips, shearing through the mountain itself. The cliff face peeled apart like rotten fruit, revealing layers of stone that twisted inside out, their jagged edges grinding together in a deafening chorus of shattering earth. The breeding pens collapsed in on themselves, their wooden beams splintering into dust, the cages folding like paper around the slaves still trapped inside.

Evil goblins floated, suspended in mid-air, their bodies stretched and compressed in impossible ways—arms elongating like taffy, ribs protruding through skin, jaws unhinging silently— Suzuka’s gravity magic played with them like a child torturing insect.

Butcher vomited, his tiny mind unable to comprehend the violation of physics unfolding before him. A goblin guard near the edge of the camp suddenly inverted, his skeleton punching outward through his skin in a spray of gore before snapping back inside, only to repeat the process like a macabre yo-yo. Another tripled in size, his bloated body bursting like an overripe melon, then shrinking back into a dense, screaming meat marble.

Suzuka raised her palm—and everything stopped.

For one heartbeat, the ruined camp hung in perfect silence, a grotesque still life of floating debris, frozen screams, and suspended blood droplets.

Then she clenched her fist.

The entire breeding farm imploded.

Stone, flesh, and wood crushed together in a single, deafening CRUNCH, compacting into a sphere of pure devastation no larger than a wagon wheel. For a moment, it hovered, dripping thick, syrupy remnants of what used to be a thriving den of suffering.

Then it dropped, hitting the ground with a squelch.

Nothing remained. No walls. No cages. No survivors.

Just Suzuka, Hermit, Butcher—and a very large, very deep crater.

Butcher didn’t scream. He couldn’t. His jaw hung slack, his beady eyes bulging from their sockets as he stared at the nothingness where the breeding farm—where everything—had once been. His chubby fingers dug into the dirt, clawing mindlessly at the ground like a dying animal, his entire body vibrating with primal, incomprehensible terror.

A wet, warbling whine escaped his throat—less a sound, more the death rattle of his shattered sanity.

Then, slowly, his gaze dragged upward—to Suzuka.

She stood at the edge of the crater, her silhouette framed by the swirling dust of annihilation, her expression bored, as if she’d just tossed out the trash instead of erasing an entire slaver stronghold from existence.

Butcher pissed himself again.

Not metaphorically. Literally. A dark stain spread across his ragged trousers, steam rising in the cold mountain air. His lips moved, trying to form words, but all that came out was, "P-pe… pe…pepe... pepepe..."

The same broken, mindless chant as the hatchling he’d tortured.

His remaining brain cells had fried. Butcher—the monster who’d laughed while skinning slaves alive, who’d bred prisoners until their bodies split open, who’d made Hermit watch as he murdered Lyn and his hatchlings—was now just a drooling, twitching husk, reduced to parroting the very victims he’d broken.

Hermit let go of his leg, staring at the ruined creature before him. His entire body shook, not with fear, but with the unfamiliar fire of violence burning in his chest. His claws—never meant to harm—curled into fists so tight his palms bled. His breath came in hitching, childlike gasps, snot and tears streaking down his face as he slapped Butcher across the face with a weak, clumsy swing.

"T-to the pit! Now!" he stammered, his voice squeaking with the strain of words he'd never spoken before. 

"I-I'll k-k-k-kill you! With m-my own h-h-hands!"

Each syllable hurt, like vomiting up glass. He was a creature of peace, a slave who'd spent his life cowering, nurturing, weeping at the sight of blood—but now, staring into the Butcher's empty, drooling face, he felt something snap.

"You hurt them! You hurt Lyn! You hurt the hatchlings! You—you—!"

Butcher just giggled, a dull, wet sound, his broken mind stuck in a loop of "Pepe… pepe…" as Hermit's soft, goblin hands—never meant for killing—tried in vain to strangle the life out of him.

Butcher's mindless babbling cut off abruptly as Suzuka's shadow fell over him. Her presence was like a bucket of ice water dumped over his shattered psyche—for one terrible moment, his sanity snapped back into place.

His beady eyes widened, his breath coming in short, panicked bursts as he finally understood what was happening.

The farm was gone. Hermit—the pathetic, sniveling slave—was on top of him, hands at his throat. And Suzuka—oh gods, Suzuka—was standing over them both.

"Well, hurry up and finish him off," she said, nudging Hermit with her boot.

  "Before he pisses himself to death. Then you won’t get your revenge."

She leaned down, her grin sharp enough to draw blood.

"And oh, let me tell you something about revenge," she purred, her voice sweet as poisoned honey. 

"It’s sweet. It feels great. When you show them—when you make the ones who hurt you feel it—ohhh, you’ll feel so much better after."

Her fingers twitched, and Butcher felt his own arm jerk unnaturally, his hand rising—not by his will—to grip his own throat.

"Just make him feel it," Suzuka whispered.

Hermit’s hands trembled as he tightened his grip on the Butcher’s throat. He didn’t look away from the monster beneath him—not even as Suzuka loomed over them both, her magic humming in the air like a storm waiting to break.

Then, suddenly, he shouted, his voice cracking with emotion—

"Master Helen!"

The name tore from his throat like a prayer, a plea, a vow.

"I will kill him for what he did! But please—! Do not interfere! Promise me you won’t! This… this has to be me! My hands! My revenge! This is my burden. My sin to carry. And I need to do it myself. Promise me. A promise not to be broken."