Chapter 68
Conflict (3)
The next day, an accident happened.
His team leader was missing an arm… and it was all Ryan's fault.
To put it simply:
He had fucked up.
It was just another mission. Routine, on the surface. Another deep run a few miles into the Deadline. The same territory IAM and his team had passed through not long ago, where Kepa had gotten injured.
But this was not the same.
This time, the numbers were overwhelming. Over twenty of them, twitching and shrieking, crawling along the walls like a seething web of legs and clicking.
And unlike IAM's squad, they had no ascender like Jason. No one to anchor the field, to control the chaos. No solid wall to trust when the creatures leapt in from every direction.
So the fight became what it always became without someone like that—unpredictable. Brutal. Loud. And far too fast.
The spawnlings swarmed like shadows—blind, but reacting with an unnerving precision to sound and vibration. Their rapid, high-pitched clicking echoed through the air, bouncing off ruined stone and hollow trees. They skittered along the sand, launching themselves in long arcs, dragging their sharp limbs against the ground with grotesque glee.
They were forced to fight in the chaos, dodging erratic leaps and holding their breath against the hiss of the spawnlings' gas.
Ryan had already spent most of his mana through his Avien, trying to thin the swarm. Now he was tired. His breathing was uneven, sweat burning into a shallow wound near his neck.
Four spawnlings were around him, circling like wolves.
He kept his movements tight, relying on training. Relying on structure. The plan. The formation. They had practiced this together. Countless drills. Everyone knew their role.
He fell into the team's formation protocol, retreating in time, signaling for a swap. He stepped back—flawless, trained.
His voice did not waver. "Switch!"
He looked up—and the one who was supposed to take his place was the co-leader.
The man hesitated.
Just for a second.
A pause. A flicker of doubt.
But in a battlefield, a second was everything.
Ryan saw it a split second too late—the sudden burst of movement. One of the spawnlings lunged, the clicking intensifying into a scream as it sprang forward like a trap snapping shut. The timing was perfect. The moment of transition—between defenders, between roles—was the gap it had waited for.
It landed on Ryan's face.
Eight legs—hooked, barbed—dug into his cheeks, his forehead, his jaw. Chitin scraped against bone. Its body was cold and wet like a pulsing tumor.
He stumbled back, arms flailing—but from that close range, there was no dodging. No bracing.
The spawnling's head expanded slightly—and then he was staring into the gaping pit of its inner mouth. A hiss. A release.
Gas.
It exploded into his face point-blank, flooding his nose, his mouth, even as he clamped them shut. It didn't matter. The poison had a will of its own. It slithered past his clenched teeth, crawling into his nostrils, seeping into his bloodstream through his Avien like it belonged there.
Then—
Darkness.
His vision cracked like glass.
The world tilted sideways as whispers from the past poured into his skull, not from outside but from inside.
"Ha ha ha, I can't believe a useless shit like you even exists."
"Don't worry, she's mine now. I'll take care of her for you… ha ha ha."
"What!? Seriously? How did he fall for that?"
Voices layered atop voices. Mockery. Betrayal. Cruelty from another life. Laughter echoing down the long, dark hallway of his thoughts.
"No…"
Ryan's throat rasped. His voice came out garbled, twisted. He clutched at his skull as the hallucinations grew louder, crawling up the walls of his mind.
"No. No. Not me. Not again."
He ripped the creature off his face—screamed as its barbs tore flesh from his cheeks, ripped chunks of skin like tearing off a rotten mask. Blood sprayed the dirt. But it was too late.
You can't rip off the past like a mask.
The past had already taken hold.
A final voice whispered.
The one that shattered him.
That voice.
The one that mattered.
The one that never left.
The one that never forgave.
"To let yourself be scammed like that… you must be a fool. Yes, that's it. A fool. Ryan the Fool."
Laughter, again. From all the voices. Surrounding him. Filling the walls. Ripping into the soft spaces of his mind.
Fool.
Fool.
FOOL.
His body jerked.
His hands twitched, then clenched into claws. His breath came in ragged bursts.
Rage.
All he could feel was rage breathing in his lungs, exhale, inhale.
The world turned red—not metaphorically. It turned red.
Blood ran down his face. It blurred his vision. Or maybe it didn't. Maybe the red was coming from somewhere deeper.
His eyes.
Those beautiful red eyes.
They glowed like burning rubies. They blazed against the grey fog of the battlefield, shining with something not quite human.
Hen finally killed the spawnling that had infected Ryan to lift the effects. But It was too late.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
DO NOT CALL ME A FOOL.
I AM A GENIUS.
I AM BETTER THAN YOU.
I AM MORE.
I AM JUSTICE.
"IF THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD…"
"THEN I SHALL BECOME JUSTICE!"
Someone approached—his leader. She thought he was injured. Thought he was shaking in shock. Thought she'd seen this kind of poisoning before.
The sword came down wild, vicious, slicing through flesh like paper.
She didn't even realize it had struck until the weight shifted.
She looked down.
Shock froze her.
Blood sprayed from her shoulder, warm and red and steaming in the cold air.
Slowly, she looked up at Ryan.
And her heart stuttered.
Because what she saw… was not a man.
It was a monster wearing rage like a crown.
As she looked into Ryans eyes.
The poison was long gone.
But something had stayed behind.
A scream tore through the fog—raw, human, horrified.