Eater Blade: Grinding in Apocalypse-Chapter 43: IT’S RAINING… COFFINS?!

The wind howled around the top of the crumbling tower. Shattered billboards rattled overhead, broken glass littered the old helipad where Johnquis sat.

Beside him, Dancer perched on a twisted beam, silent, her eyes catching the last glimpse of blue sky before a dark cloud swallowed it whole.

Johnquis tore open a blood pack with his teeth. The plastic peeled with a sticky snap. He lifted it to his mouth and sucked it down like a starving leech. Warm, copper taste coating his tongue, iron filling the cracks in his throat.

"God, that’s good..."

He mumbled between gulps. "Didn’t think I’d be this hungry. Should’ve known... all that mess down there... GOD! We’re damn lucky there was an untouched loot bag in this place."

The pack crumpled in his fist. He grabbed another — this one darker, thicker. He bit it open too, the rich organ slurry dripping down his chin. He didn’t care. He tilted his head back, throat working as he swallowed chunks that slid half-chewed into his gut.

Each mouthful made him shudder. His stomach twisted but he didn’t stop. He felt the new strength threading into his veins, blood turned to fuel.

He sucked the last bit, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then popped the seal on a hydration flask. He poured the clear liquid straight down, chasing the blood with something that tasted like bitter metal and old roots. It burned going down but left him clear-headed.

"Never gets pretty, does it?"

He looked over at Dancer, who just watched him with those pale eyes. "All that sweet dream back there, the perfect mall, the kids laughing, shiny glass... but underneath, it’s just meat. Meat and bones and sacks of half-born freaks."

He swallowed hard. "Who would’ve thought there was a fucking D-tier nest stuck and hidden inside that seaside mall? It only hit D-tier because it’s been rotting there so damn long."

He laughed. "When I stepped on that magic stair... I swear, Dancer, I almost felt like a kid. Just for a second. But that place, it was rotten through. Queen’s lullaby, huh? Almost had you..."

He licked a smear of blood off his thumb, then tore into a small pack of preserved organ bites. He chewed slow this time —tough lumps of processed flesh, salty and warm from his own heat. It felt good to bite down on something real, something that wasn’t whispering in his head.

He let out a low groan, rolling his neck. "I’m tired. So damn tired. Six hours in that hole, you almost snapped. I almost snapped."

He wiped the blood from his Eater Stone, the bronze gleam catching what little light the dark sky offered. "But seeing this pretty bronze... all that shit was worth it. But thinking about the cost... Rex and his squad..."

He held up the empty packs, letting the wind catch them. They fluttered like dead leaves off the ledge.

"This world is sick."

He leaned back on his palms, staring up at the cloud-choked skyline — broken towers, the faint glow of other nests waiting out there in the dark.

Johnquis smiled at Dancer. "Next time, you better not freeze up on me, Nemesis. I’ll chain you myself if you do."

Dancer gave a low, rumbling click in her throat, then turned her eyes to the horizon.

Above them, the sky sagged under storm clouds that smelled of rust and old blood. For a while, they both just stared up, letting the wind bite at their faces. Their thoughts drifted, back to the nightmare below, to the people lost, to how far Johnquis would push himself for this rotting world. No... not for the world.

Johnquis lifted a hand, palm open, like he could catch the clouds in his fingers. "Jiana..." he breathed.

A single drop of rain landed on his forehead, cold as a needle. Then another. And another.

Until the sky finally opened up and wept with them.

Johnquis let out a low laugh, almost lost under the rain. "It’s been a while since I’ve felt rain on my skin. Seems like the sky feels the same way we do right now, huh..."

The rain kept falling, washing the leftover blood from Johnquis’s hands, making little rivers that ran down the cracked concrete. He squinted at the sky, feeling the drops sting his eyelids. He almost let himself drift, just him, Dancer, and the storm.

Then a distant crack echoed across the clouds. A low rumble followed, but it wasn’t thunder. It was something heavier, something tearing the sky open from the other side.

Dancer’s head snapped up first. Her eyes narrowed to slits, pupils wide, every muscle coiling tight. She let out a sharp click and dropped low, foot-blade scraping the wet ledge.

"What the hell—?"

Johnquis started, but the sky answered for him.

Through the thick rain, shadows broke the clouds — shapes dropping, long and narrow, dozens, no... hundreds of them. They fell fast, cutting through the storm like black spears. When they hit the lower cloud cover, sunlight bled through behind them, turning the edges gold for a heartbeat.

Johnquis stood, boots skidding a little on the slick rooftop. His breath fogged in the cold wind.

"Are those...? No way..."

One of the shapes spun as it fell closer, slow enough for him to see the markings. A sealed black coffin, stamped with the Guild’s logo: a blade and a teeth. Reinforced plates welded tight, heavy chain clasps rattling in the wind.

Then another. And another.

"Coffins."

He let out a rough, shaky laugh. "Droppin’ ’em like goddamn candy."

Dancer hissed, claws flexing, her whole body low and ready to rip into anything that crawled out of one.

Johnquis’s smirked twitched, equal parts fear and thrill. "It’s the new batch. Fresh Eater Blades. The Southland’s getting its meat for the grinder..."

He licked rain from his lips, eyes never leaving the sky. The sun pushed through the torn clouds, casting streaks of sickly gold over the city’s broken bones.

He counted a dozen coffins just from where he stood, falling toward ruins, rivers, abandoned towers. Each one a seed of something dangerous or something already doomed.

He spoke low, almost to himself. "So that’s it, huh? Another batch to chew up the rot... or be chewed up themselves."

He turned to Dancer, eyes bright under the downpour. "A little scared, Nemesis? Or you hungry for new brothers and sisters to hunt with us?"

Dancer didn’t answer, but her eyes glowed like it knew they’d never be alone again. frёewebηovel.cѳm

Above them, the coffins kept falling, falling like black rain to feed the Southland’s endless hunger for blood.

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