CH476 The Storm II

***

The Dune Wolf King was faster.

It burst forward in a blur, claws slashing down—each one dripping with viscous, corruptive berserk energy—at a speed Azgrug should not have been able to evade.

However, Azgrug was a veteran.

The moment he realised he couldn't match the wolf's speed directly, he stopped watching its limbs and focused instead on its shoulders.

The instant its shoulders showed the wolf committing to its attack, Azgrug skidded to a halt—pausing just outside the range of the claw swipe.

The strike passed so close to his chest that he could almost smell the berserk energy coating its claws.

Azgrug reacted instantly.

He drove his spiked warhammer into the wolf's side.

The impact sent the beast flying.

Once again, [Ammos Hide] absorbed most of the damage, but not all of it.

The Dune Wolf King staggered as it regained its footing.

If it had been in its right mind, it would have recognised the danger. It would have retreated.

But berserk corruption had clouded its instincts.

Snarling, it lunged again.

Claw after claw after claw.

Azgrug moved pre-emptively, reading the attack before they arrived, and narrowly avoiding each strike.

Then—

One claw came in at an unexpected angle.

Azgrug had no room to dodge.

So, he chose to parry instead.

The shaft of his hammer slammed downward against the claw, forcing it aside. In the same motion, he drove the hammerhead's body into the wolf's exposed midsection, knocking the wind from it, and pushing it back.

Before the beast could recover—

Azgrug brought his weapon down with all his might.

Boom!

The strike narrowly missed—but the shockwave did not.

The Dune Wolf King was blasted backward like a ragdoll, spinning and smashing across the ground, scraping and tumbling before finally coming to a stop more than twenty metres away.

It tried to rise.

It failed.

Azgrug approached the fallen beast, his steps heavy.

"This is for my disciple, for my brother, and for my sons."

His hammer fell.

Crunch!

The wolf king's skull shattered like a smashed watermelon.

"ARGHHH!!!"

Azgrug roared into the sky.

The cry carried grief, rage, and a deep, aching melancholy that words could not contain.

The mighty orc dropped to one knee before the corpse of his fallen enemy.

Though no tears fell, the pain radiating from his back was unmistakable.

Although he had killed the one responsible, it did not bring back those he had lost.

Still, Azgrug did not linger in mourning.

Leaning on his trusted warhammer—an heirloom passed down through generations of his tribe's Orc Tribe Chiefs—he pushed himself back to his feet.

His grief had not vanished.

It had merely been pushed down—compressed and buried deep within his soul. Not to shackle him, but to drive him forward, just as those he lost would have wanted.

'I have honoured you by putting down the one who killed you,' he thought.

'Now I honour you by living on, using your memories to keep moving forward, as I must.'

'Until we meet again.'

Something within Azgrug seemed to lift.

And as if to mirror that change, his body shed the last remnant of all that had come due to his desperation—

The Strength Rune Tattoo.

The spent tattoo finally reached the end of its lifespan. Its light fractured, then shattered entirely, disintegrating into fine dust that was carried away by the desert wind.

As the glowing particles vanished into the horizon, leaving his back bare again, Azgrug felt a change within himself.

The door to Combat Saint—which had seemed impossibly distant just the night before—now felt close enough to touch.

A complicated smile tugged at his tusked mouth as he turned away from the corpse of the nest ruler.

Below, the battle had ended as well. The last Sand Ants still above ground were swiftly exterminated by the combined Orc and adventurer forces.

Azgrug raised his warhammer, ready to declare victory—

Then the world changed.

In the final moment before its death, which Azgrug hadn't seen, there had been a crazed look in the Dune Wolf King's eyes—one that promised mutual destruction.

Even in death, the beast was not finished.

Crack—!!

A pillar of potent baleful energy erupted into the sky, tearing through the fabric of space itself. A massive rift opened overhead, and from it poured an overwhelming torrent of berserk energy.

Space rippled violently.

The nest trembled.

It felt as though the entire spatial phenomenon or structure—whatever this nest truly was—was on the verge of collapse.

Azgrug turned sharply.

Before him stood the source of the calamity—

The corpse of the Dune Wolf King.

His expression hardened.

'If this much berserk energy continues to flood the nest,' Azgrug realised grimly, 'then not only will every creature—beast or otherwise—be corrupted… but the nest will break.'

'And when it does, this filth will spill into Camp Red Rock… and beyond.'

His grip tightened around his warhammer.

"I cannot let that happen."

Azgrug tried to move toward the Dune Wolf King's corpse.

However, no matter how much strength he exerted, he could not move any closer.

It was as if the wolf's body no longer existed within the same space—positioned instead in another layer of reality entirely.

"No…!" Azgrug roared inwardly.

He roused every last remnant of energy left in his body, forcing himself forward, determined to reach the nest ruler's corpse and stop whatever was happening.

Alas, it was futile.

His feet would not advance.

A tremor of dread ran through him.

For generations, the copper-skinned Orcs had protected Camp Red Rock. Countless settlements and travellers relied on their tribe to survive this stretch of the unforgiving wildlands.

Yet before the phenomenon unfolding before him, Azgrug could do nothing.

Skree—!!!

Just as despair threatened to claim him, an eagle's cry tore through the sky.

Azgrug looked up.

There, framed against the heavens, he saw a human youth riding atop a massive eagle—that radiated a terrifying duality of majesty and savagery—as they dashed straight toward the spatial tear.

"Alex!!!"

Cries of shock and horror rippled across the battlefield.

Once again, Alex had chosen the most dangerous path without hesitation.

The moment the spatial tear had opened, Alex had noticed Berserk energy and spatial energy were flooding in from a higher dimension, pouring violently into the nest.

And he could guess what would happen if left unchecked.

If you pumped too much air into a balloon, there is only one outcome— It would burst.

And in this case, before the balloon—the nest itself—could explode, the sudden change in the ambient energy composition would kill everyone inside it first.

'We need to channel the energy somewhere else,' Alex realised instantly.

There was no time to hesitate.

He reached into the Sanctuary Pocket Dimension, pulling out a single object.

Then he gave the order.

"Senu—dive."

Without the slightest hesitation, Senu obeyed.

Her trust in her master was absolute.

Man and eagle plunged into the abyss of the spatial tear together, racing headlong into the unknown.

Their bond was so complete that they moved as one.

Senu's innate spatial coating expanded and fused around them, enveloping Alex entirely as they entered the turbulent rift.

This violent spatial turbulence was the very reason Azgrug had been unable to approach the wolf king's corpse.

Yet for Alex and Senu, protected by her spatial nature, it posed no immediate obstacle.

The real challenge lay ahead.

They reached into the heart of the storm.

And there, Alex revealed his final trump card.

Contingency #Omega_Parasite...

The Voidheart Core.

***

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