Chapter 61 Predator Toying with Prey

Like dragging a corpse, he seized Verron by the neck and sprinted with impossible speed, carving a lava trail across the cave floor. Sparks and dust ignited behind them, the walls shattering as Hans slammed Verron into the far wall.

The stone burst like glass, a scar ripped into the mountain itself.

Hans leaned in close, his grotesque face inches from Verron’s.

“I told you, boy… don’t get cocky with me.”

Verron staggered out of the wall, coughing blood into his palm. But Hans didn’t give him pause. He disappeared in a shockwave of shattered stone.

Verron’s eyes darted—too slow. Hans reappeared behind him and drove a knee into his spine. CRACK! Verron spat blood, launched forward before Hans caught him mid-air by the throat.

“You’ve grown soft, boy! This is the end your arrogance has earned you!”

He slammed Verron down again—BOOM!—the crater growing deeper with each slam. Over and over, like a beast pounding meat against the floor, until Verron’s arms barely lifted to guard. His once-dominant strikes, his elegance, his composure—it was crumbling under Hans’s relentless beat down.

Hans finally lifted him with one hand. From the other fingers hardening into a blade.

“I had my fun, boy. I think it's time to end you. Now… any last words before I pierce that treacherous heart?”

The blade thrust forward—

But before it could land, the chamber erupted with light.

And then—A voice.

“Tier Five Magic—Inferno Burst!”

A jet stream of fire and lava ripped through the cavern like a dragon’s breath. It wasn’t a blast—it was a continuous beam, a torrent of hell itself pouring forth, so hot the stone beneath instantly melted into glowing rivers.

Hans barely had time to turn. He threw up his mutated arm as a shield.

The firestorm met him head-on.

SSHHHHHKKK! Flesh boiled. Bone hissed. The torrent didn’t relent, driving him back step by step as the cavern filled with blistering heat. His grotesque arm began to warp, flesh dripping in steaming clumps, the bone beneath blackening before snapping. Finally—with a sickening crack—the entire arm burned away, falling in chunks to the stone floor.

“You want to tear apart my friends, you wrinkled freak?! Then you’ll have to burn through me first!”

Hans stumbled back, clutching the stump of his shoulder, smoke rising from the charred wound. 

“Y-you little brat…”

She jabbed her finger forward, eyes blazing with mana.

“You lay one more finger on him, and I’ll roast what’s left of you into ash, old man.”

“You little brat. So, you want to be the first to die? So be it!”

Mari blinked, in an instant, he vanished.

Instinct screamed at her, and she cast a barrier spell. The shield flared to life—

—and shattered like glass.

Her breath ripped from her lungs as Hans’s massive hand slammed into her from the side. Her body bent with the impact, blood spraying from her lips before she was launched like a bullet across the cavern. She struck the wall with an earsplitting BOOM, stone cracking and dust exploding outward.

Selene lunged, spear glowing white-hot, driving it straight through Hans’s shoulder from behind. The blade punched through flesh and out the front with a wet crunch.

At the same moment, Kaia blurred past in a flash of silver, her twin daggers biting deep into the back of Hans’s knee, carving tendon and muscle. The abomination staggered, one leg buckling, forced down to a knee.

But he didn’t fall.

“Not… ENOUGH! You brats!”

 His one remaining arm whipped around in a wide arc, a monstrous swipe carrying the force of a runaway train.

Selene was torn from her footing, her spear ripped free from his shoulder as she was hurled across the chamber, smashing through stone like brittle clay. Kaia too was caught in the same sweep, her small body slammed into the wall with bone-cracking force. Both crumpled to the ground. 

Hans rose back up on his ruined knee.

“Come at me, all of you! I’ll break every last bone in your bodies!”

A low, sadistic laugh echoed from behind as steel slashed through flesh—twin blades carving deep lines across his back. Blackened blood sprayed in an arc, sizzling on the molten rock Mari’s flames had left behind.

“Mmhmhmhmhm… You’re loud, Hans… but I wonder—can you scream even louder?”

From the darkness, Silvia stepped into the light, her blades already dripping red. 

Hans snarled, whirling to strike, but before he could lunge—

Verron rose from the crater Hans had slammed him into earlier, his obsidian-black tuxedo torn at the shoulder but still immaculate. Calmly, almost absentmindedly, he dusted a streak of ash from his sleeve, straightened his collar, then adjusted his cufflinks as though the carnage around him were nothing but an inconvenience.

Silvia twirled her scimitars and licked a smear of Hans’s blood from one edge, giggling. 

“Shall we carve him together, Vex? I’m curious how long he can last once we really start cutting.”

Verron exhaled softly, the faintest of nods.

“Don’t make it too messy. I intend to end him cleanly.”

Hans roared, the sound more beast than man, veins bulging black under his pale skin. With his one remaining arm, he swung wildly, smashing chunks of stone aside, his movements still strong enough to split the ground with each blow.

Silvia met him head-on, laughing like a woman drunk on violence. Every shove, every slam that sent her skidding back only made her smile. She licked blood from her split lip, eyes glowing with mania.

“Yes! More! Push me harder—show me what’s left of that strength, old man!”

Hans backhanding her into a stalagmite. Rock shattered, but Silvia only sprang out of the rubble, scimitars flashing, dancing around his slowing movements like a predator toying with prey. Each time she struck, another gash opened, blood spraying, until Hans’s body looked more carved than whole.

Verron was the blade Hans could no longer escape. Hans tried to outpace him, but his ruined leg dragged, slowing him. His missing arm left openings he couldn’t guard. Verron exploited each one without hesitation—blade cleaving shoulder, elbow, thigh.

The once-towering master who had seemed unstoppable only minutes ago now bled, staggered, and reeled like a wounded beast cornered by its hunters.

Still, Hans spat blood and defiance at Verron’s shoes, sneering through broken teeth.

“Don’t… think you got me, boy… I still got tricks up my sleeve…!”

Silvia’s blades crossed in front of Hans’s throat, her grin wide and wicked.

“No, Hans. You’re just meat on its last breath.”

 Hans was fading. Missing an arm, his movements grew sluggish. The cut through his leg made his foot drag, robbing him of the speed he showed earlier. 

Then—Verron stumbled. A crack in his guard, knees buckling, his body finally betraying him under the punishment he had endured.

Hans saw the opening.

“You’re mine, BOY!”

His clawed arm swung down, every ounce of his monstrous strength behind it—

CLANG.

Chains coiled wrapping his arm mid-swing, locking it back. The impact was halted inches from Verron’s chest. Hans’s eyes darted to Silvia, as the restraints bit into his flesh.

"You damn demon h—"

Verron moved like a bullet, his sword thrust forward, piercing Hans’s chest. The blade burst out the other side in a spray of black blood, the sound of steel through bone echoing like thunder in the cave.

 He looked down at the blade buried in him, then up at Verron.

“You… damn… brat…”

Verron leaned in, his voice low and final.

“Rest, old man. Your sins end here.”

Hans’s knees buckled, his monstrous strength finally leaving him. 

Verron twisted the blade, black blood spilling from the wound. With one sharp pull, he ripped the sword free, stepping back as Hans staggered.

“Your evil ends here, Master. All that you’ve built, all the misery you’ve sown—it dies with you.”

For a second, silence.

Then Hans laughed. Blood spilled from his mouth with every cough.

“You… fool… you think… this is the end? I will have the last laugh… Even in death… I’ll take you all with me! If I fall… you’re coming to hell with me!”