Chapter 197: Chapter 196:Guess who’s back?

"So, old man, when are we leaving?" I couldn’t help it.

Hearing there was an S-rank dungeon break waiting for me to come run roughshod out there, had me jumpy.

"Easy young man." Valen’s voice had gone back to being indifferent, "you don’t even know what you’re going to face out there."

I paused, he was right.

"Hehehe.. yea, sorry, I just got a bit excited about the mission, that’s all." I couldn’t help chuckling slightly..

"It’s good to be excited, but never overlook the importance of being well informed, accurate information could save your life someday." The old man said..

I fell silent, I’d almost gone ahead and underestimated the danger once more..

"I’ll keep that in mind, old man." I nodded.

"Good, now, for what you’ll be facing out there," he adjusted the projection’s display, the picture finally moving to the culprits behind all the carnage and destruction.

....

A sea of corpses stretched across the ruined district, forming a grotesque carpet of broken lives and collapsed ambition.

Blood had long since stopped being liquid in some places, turning instead into darkened stains that clung to stone like memory refusing to fade.

And in the center of it all...

They stood..

The EXECUTIONERS, as the reports presented them.

...

The first was something the report had conveniently named "The Butcher".

It stood tall, broad, around nine feet of warped humanoid structure, its figure was slightly hunched as if the weight of its own self pressed downward on it.

One arm was grotesquely elongated, ending not in a hand but in a cleaver-like formation of dense, blackened bone layered over glowing white fissures.

Its "skin" wasn’t skin at all, but a hardened, obsidian-like casing split by faint lines of light that pulsed like restrained violence.

It didn’t move much.

It didn’t need to.

Every so often, its head tilted slightly, as if listening to the echoes of souls its merciless hand had departed..

....

To its left was something called "The Walker".

It stood still, perfectly still, yet its body still seemed to be in constant motion, not speed, motion, like it was skipping moments of presence.

Its body was thinner, almost stretched, like reality had failed to fully complete the image.

Limbs long, joints angled in ways that suggested no respect for anatomical correctness.

When it finally showed motion, there was no clear transition.

Only the afterimage of where it had been, and the unsettling certainty that it was already elsewhere.

Its feet occasionally touched the ground, but even that looked like something it decided itself.

Like contact with the world was a suggestion it sometimes accepted.

....

Opposite it stood one with the tag "The Choir".

The quietest of them.

Its form was slightly more intact, though "intact" was generous.

Its torso was lined with hollow cavities, each one faintly glowing as if something inside was trying to breathe without lungs.

Its head was smooth, featureless, except for a vertical slit that opened and closed slowly like a wound trying and refusing to heal.

From those cavities came no sound.

But the air around it shimmered every now and then, and I could hear echoes that seemed to originate from no where and everywhere at the same time.

...

Behind them lingered something called "The Collector".

This one felt the most wrong to look at for too long.

Its body was layered with irregular growths, as though pieces of other creatures had been stitched into it by instinct rather than design. Extra forearms hung loosely at its sides.

A second partial ribcage jutted from its back.

And in those limbs...

Fragments.

Bone.

Flesh.

Weapons.

Remnants of what it had collected..

It did not look like it was carrying trophies.

It looked like it was becoming a result of them.

Every few seconds, something within its structure twitched, adjusting, as if the body was reorganizing itself based on what it had recently consumed..

....

And at the center of the circle...

The corpse sea seemed to bow inward slightly, as though the world itself had sunk around him.

The King.

The moment my eyes landed on that figure, I felt it.

In my bones.

In my blood.

Every atom within me screamed only one thing.

STRONG!!

VERY STRONG!!

He stood taller than the rest, about ten feet, but the difference wasn’t just height.

It was weight.

Not physical weight.

Existential weight.

Even from across a screen, I could feel it, the weight of his existence!

His presence made the air feel slower, like reality needed extra time to agree that he was standing there.

Unlike the others, his body was almost eerily clean.

No chaotic additions.

No visible instability.

Instead, he looked complete.

A perfect, sealed form.

Blackened surface layered with faint, shifting pale lines that moved like thought trapped under skin.

His head tilted slightly, not scanning, not searching..

Acknowledging.

As if everything in the city, past and future, had already been registered under his understanding.

Around them, the corpse sea stretched outward in every direction.

Not scattered.

Not chaotic.

But arranged by impact.

Like the city had been gently pressed flat by something that didn’t need to hurry.

And in that silence between destruction and recognition...

The Executioners stood in their loose circle around their King.

....

A heavy silence filled the room as even I, seemed to register that this wasn’t just another "dungeon" encounter.

The old man didn’t shift his gaze from the ruined district as he spoke, his voice still carrying that indifferent robotic tone, unaffected even slightly by the carnage before him..

"This.." he paused.

"isn’t just a dungeon break."

"During the mutation event, the dungeon core didn’t stabilize into a higher rank like normal."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"It fractured."

A faint shift in the atmosphere followed those words, as if the world itself disliked the concept.

"At the moment of collapse, something inside the core, something close to a Law but not fully formed, broke apart."

He finally turned his head, attention focused on me and the monkey.

"A Proto-Law fragment."

A beat.

"Not a complete Law. Not stable enough to govern reality properly."

Here, his expression flickered, just the tiniest bit of annoyance leaking through.

"But still strong enough to imprint itself onto living beings that survived the eruption."

He gestured faintly toward the distant ruins.

"Those things out there... the Executioners... are what happens when that kind of fragment takes root inside a body instead of dispersing."

A slight pause again.

"They didn’t just gain power from it."

His voice dropped.

"They adapted to it."

The old man’s expression turned solemn, eyes sharpening.

"Which is why they feel wrong."

"Each one expresses a distorted aspect of that fragment."

He exhaled slowly.

"The butcher isn’t just strong. It treats destruction as a valid state of existence."

"The walker doesn’t move faster, it rejects the idea that distance must be respected."

"The collector... doesn’t kill. It integrates outcomes."

A final glance toward the center of the ruined city.

"And the one in the middle..."

My eyes followed his as they landed on the one with the distinction KING!

A short silence.

"He’s the anchor."

Valen’s tone turned colder.

"The King absorbed the highest concentration of that fragment during the collapse."

"Which means the fragment didn’t just influence him..."

He paused once more.

"It organized around him."

He finally looked back at me, our gazes clashing..

"That’s why this isn’t a normal S-rank dungeon break."

"You’re not fighting monsters that got stronger."

An anticipatory smile split my face, my excitement unable to be contained.

"You’re fighting beings that learned how to behave according to a broken rule of reality.."

...

I had to use every ounce of self control not to rush out of the place and get myself there this instant.

The moment I’d seen those abominations, I was already sold.

"Easy, young man.. I know you’re eager but there’s still someone left to join your little expedition." Valen’s voice made my excitement drop.

"What? I though it was only going to be the two of us?"

"Hah! Like I’d send my own godson to go face apocalyptic abominations by his lonesome? You’re going with back up and that’s nonnegotiable." It was the first time to old had used that term "godson" when using his authority..

He wasn’t using it as an instructor, but as a parent.

My chest warmed up, at least until I heard who was going with me..

"Leo!"

My expression soured..

"Fuck no!!"

SCREEEEEEEEEECHHHHHH!!!!!

"What’s up bitch!! Guess who’s back!!"

"Fuck my life.."

***********

A/N: those things looks scary, and it seems chicken-cat is back..

3/3

See you guys tomorrow..

************

Thanks for reading...