Transmigrated as the Cuck.... WTF!!!-Chapter 176. Their... demise.

While the trio—Mia, Verena, and Kaelira—bickered among themselves with laughter, jabs, and exasperated sighs, something passed them.

A shadow.

Fast.

Silent.

Hungry.

It moved like a streak of warped night, the air around it folding with unnatural stillness.

But none of the girls noticed. Too preoccupied with mocking each other’s sanity and Cassius’s questionable virtue to register the faint tremor in the earth... or the sharp drop in temperature.

That was their first mistake.

The figure didn’t stop.

It blitzed past the trio and made a beeline straight toward the tent area—the so-called base of operations. Though most students had already left in search of rifts or to patrol the surroundings, a handful had been stationed there. The idea was simple: protect the rear, provide fallback, and keep the wounded safe.

But ideals don’t hold up when reality bites back.

Because the ones left behind... were the broken.

The limping, the trembling, the half-awake. Some were bandaged and quiet, rocking in the corners of the tents. Others sat in silence, barely speaking—shell-shocked.

And then it arrived.

« Spawn of Vorr’Kael »

Type: Thrall

Rank: ★★★★★

Alignment: Aggressive

Drop: N/A

« Close »

The monster.

It stepped into view on two elongated, gnarled legs that seemed almost comical in their absurd proportions. But there was nothing funny about it.

The creature towered over nine feet, its body a grotesque amalgamation of skeletal remains wrapped in writhing shadows. Miasma bled from its bones like black steam. Its ribs extended outward like spears, its spine jagged and too long.

Its face?

There wasn’t one.

Instead, its torso bore dozens of eyes—iridescent, ever-shifting, blinking with erratic, alien rhythms. Pupils twisted in spirals and slits, each glowing faintly with an unnatural purple.

It stared at the tents.

At the fragile humans huddled inside.

And it raised one of its spindly, clawed arms—thin as bone but somehow heavy with menace. From the tips of its skeletal fingers, a sphere of dense black light formed.

Then—

WHOOSH!

A pitch-black beam surged forward like a spear of death.

It struck the closest tent.

A student.

A girl barely sixteen—young, quiet, still clutching her healer’s staff.

"A-Ah—"

Her scream was cut short.

Not because she died instantly.

But because she didn’t.

Her body began to melt.

First her fingers. Then her arms. Then her face. It wasn’t fire or decay—it was necrosis, pure and wretched. Her flesh turned to a dripping, fleshy sludge, muscles like melted wax as her bones liquefied.

She collapsed in a disintegrating heap, her last scream a gurgling shriek of agony.

"AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!"

The entire camp jolted.

Panic erupted like a volcano.

Students scrambled—some bolting for the treeline, others diving behind supplies. No coordination. No logic. Just primal survival instincts kicking in.

Screams mixed with shouts. Bodies collided. One student even punched another to shove them aside for a hiding spot.

And the monster?

It advanced.

Slow.

Deliberate.

One more arm raised.

BOOM—

Another black beam. Another hit.

Another student fell, crumpling with half their torso gone, burnt away into bubbling flesh.

Then another.

Then another.

Some tried to run. Others cried out for help.

But none came.

Only the wounded, the terrified, and the damned.

Near one of the collapsed tents, a boy stood.

His right arm was gone from the elbow down—mangled beyond recognition from a past battle.

But his legs still worked. His heart still beat. And right now, as he watched classmate after classmate fall, something inside him snapped.

He clenched his jaw. Tears streamed down his face—not from fear, but fury.

He raised his remaining arm—gripping a short sword in a shaky left hand. Its blade was cracked, the hilt bent, but it still shimmered faintly with mana.

With blue light coursing over his body, he roared at the sky.

"FOUL BEAST!!!"

"DIE YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

And then he charged.

His left foot stomped the ground with desperation, his aura flaring wild and unrefined. Mana surged around him. For a single moment, he looked like a warrior—like someone refusing to go quietly.

CLANG!!

The short sword struck the creature’s leg.

A spark. A flash.

And that was it.

The blade bent backward on impact, the metal screeching as it twisted into an unusable shape.

He stared at the weapon.

At the useless lump of steel in his hand.

Then he laughed.

Not a happy laugh.

But a hollow, resigned one.

"...Heh..."

SMACK!

The monster’s arm came down in a flash—its bony palm slapping the boy with terrifying force.

SPURT!

His body burst like an overripe fruit. Blood splashed across the nearby tents, soaking the walls red. Pieces of him scattered—an arm landed on a crate, a shoe still attached to a mangled foot rolled to the side.

Just like that, he was gone.

Not even remembered.

Not even mourned.

The only sound left was the soft plop of blood hitting the earth... and the footsteps of the skeletal abomination as it moved forward, eyes glowing brighter now.

The air was thick with despair.

Students—once proud cadets of Rose Academy, bearers of the future—now stood frozen like glass statues on the edge of shattering.

Their eyes were wide with terror, chests heaving, weapons trembling in limp grips. Tears ran freely—some silent, some sobbing, others too numb to even process their fear anymore.

They were staring at their death.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

That grotesque creature standing tall amidst them wasn’t just a monster. It was the end. Their end.

It didn’t need to roar, or threaten, or speak. Its very presence was enough. The slow, steady way it walked toward them—those purple, churning eyes embedded in its chest flickering with excitement. It wasn’t a predator.

It was death given form.

And death was patient.

Weapons clattered onto the soil as some dropped them, unable to hold on anymore. Knees buckled. A few just sank to the ground in slow motion—no strength left to even run. Their breathing grew uneven, and sobs filled the tense silence between each of the monster’s steps.

Then—

"STOP!!"

A voice tore through the weight of the moment.

All heads turned toward its source—a boy. His appearance was half-ruined, a survivor of battles already fought.

One eye was missing entirely, the other glinting with fury. A brutal scar carved diagonally across his face, down to his right arm—twisted and mangled to the point it was hanging by tendons.

He stood tall. Bloodied. Unyielding.

"How can we lose all hope when we haven’t even tried?" he barked.

His words were raw. Angry. Alive.

"Do you even see yourselves right now? Shaking. Crying. Collapsing before we’ve done anything! You look like corpses already—living corpses! Is that what we are? A bunch of pathetic, cowardly, wasted potential?!"

A boy sitting near one of the tents flinched, wiping tears from his face with trembling hands. "Yeah? So what?!" he shot back, voice cracking. "I’d rather be a living coward than die a dead hero. I don’t give a damn about fighting for pride or valor—I want to live. That’s not cowardice. That’s survival."

The one-eyed boy’s stare darkened.

"What could you possibly hope to achieve by surrendering? You think not fighting gives you a higher chance of living? If you haven’t even tried to survive—if you haven’t given your body, your soul, your last fucking breath to fight back—then what right do you have to complain?"

His voice rose, passion crackling in each syllable.

"Have you given your all? Have you fought with everything? With 200% of your strength, even when your body screams for rest?! No! You haven’t! So stop whining like brats and FIGHT!"

Silence returned.

Heavy. Hesitant.

Then, someone whispered weakly, "But... what if the others return? What if we can hold out just long enough? They must’ve heard our screams. Maybe they’re coming..."

The scarred boy let out a dry, humorless laugh.

"Do you forget where we are?"

He gestured around with his half-ruined arm.

"This isn’t just any forest. This is the Weeping Forest. Where the trees cry and the wind wails like dying children. Even if they heard us—even if they were right outside—they’d think this was just the forest playing tricks on them. No one’s coming."

He bent down, picking up a discarded saber, the blade chipped and dulled but still intact. freёnovelkiss-com

His lone eye examined it with quiet focus.

Then, he looked up again.

"If you don’t want to fight, fine. Drop your heads. I’ll grant you a quick death. You’ll barely feel it."

His tone sent a chill down everyone’s spine.

That wasn’t a joke.

He meant it.

One of the girls standing nearby clicked her tongue.

Her arms were crossed, her eyes sharp with spite. Her mana flickered faintly across her limbs—ready to be ignited.

"You wish," she spat. "I’d rather go down swinging than get carved up like a pig. If that monster wants my life, then it better be ready to fight for it. It’s not getting my corpse without a scar. I refuse to die hopeless."

Another girl stepped beside her, a cocky grin on her lips. Fire bloomed in her right palm, water sloshed and coiled in her left.

"Well said, sister," she said with fire in her voice. "Let’s give it a show. I want that bony bastard to feel every second of its death. I want it to scream louder than the ones it murdered. I want to grind its bones into fine powder and blow them across the damn sky."

She stepped forward, her aura flaring—a bizarre blend of heat and chill.

"Let’s see how it likes being on the receiving end."

Suddenly—

"Ahahahahahahahaha!!"

A thunderous laugh erupted nearby.

It came from a beast of a man—massive in frame, muscles like boulders beneath his uniform, his mana already crackling around his fists like coiled thunder.

He slapped his thigh, still chuckling as he stepped beside them.

"Damn, I must be crazy. Here I was thinking I’d wait for death, but now...?"

He looked at the monster, then back at the group.

"Now I want to go out in flames."

His expression shifted.

"I’m not doing this for glory. Not for school. Not for the Eastern Dominion or Cronica. I’m doing this for my family."

He clenched his fists.

"And if I die tonight... then I’ll die spectacularly."

More students rose.

One after the other.

Their bodies still trembled. Their tears hadn’t dried.

But their spines straightened. Their eyes narrowed.

They stood behind the scarred boy, behind the girls, behind the giant.

Small sparks of mana lit the air. Flames, bolts, ice, and raw elemental intent. They weren’t organized. They weren’t trained for this.

But they would fight.

The monster cocked its head slightly.

Dozens of its eyes blinked at once—slow, deliberate, almost amused.

It raised its arm again.

The students gritted their teeth, weapons raised.

This was it.

Their... demise.

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