WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom

Chapter 208: Cracked Vase

Ben fired a compressed vortex of crushing force, black energy collapsing into itself like a miniature black hole. It struck the Devourer’s core with a shockwave that bent the space into spirals and flattened the land below.

The impact pushed the beast backward, but not far. Its body shuddered… then corrected. The glyphs blazed brighter. The chest-ring spun faster. The charge was nearly complete.

From above, six golden eyes snapped open in unison.

“Get ready, !” Ben shouted.

SIX beams lanced downward at once, one for each direction. The knight flash-stepped to the left, barely avoiding a beam that vaporized the ridge behind him.

Ben folded gravity under his feet, diving through a spiral of collapsing space, dodging a beam that carved a gash in the sky itself.

Each beam was faster than before. Sharper. It wasn’t just firing, it was targeting, learning, adapting again.

“This isn’t just another attack!” Ben shouted over the roar of destruction. “It’s drawing power from the attack itself, each beam is feeding more energy back into the charge!”

Below them, the Devourer’s chest core spun like a dying sun on the verge of going nova.

Ben’s jaw tightened. “One more hit might push it over.”

The knight landed beside him, panting. “Then hit it harder.”

Ben’s appendages spiraled behind him, longer than ever, flaring with concentrated aether.

The knight pointed at the beast’s neck. “Strike low. Break its balance.”

Ben nodded. “I’ll take high.”

The two launched simultaneously.

The knight burst forward in a blaze of relic lightning, drawing a second sword from his back, smaller, sharper. He carved through the air, zig-zagging past two more descending beams, and struck for the coiling spine beneath the Devourer’s head.

SLASH!

Golden blood exploded as the sword bit deep, sending the monster’s head lurching upward.

Ben used the opening. He blinked forward, gravity tearing behind him like a meteor trail.

His aether surged, compressing into a spiral at his palm. He slammed into the exposed core, appendages first.

BOOOOOOM!!!

The entire sky lit up. For one blinding moment, the world turned white.

CRACK, CRASH, SHREEEEE!!!

The glyph ring at the Devourer’s chest exploded, shards of system code flying outward in burning arcs. The charge collapsed in on itself, backfiring with a surge of unstable energy that threw Ben across the sky.

He tumbled, skidding through the air, gravity reeling around him to catch his fall.

The knight crashed onto a floating rock, gripping his bleeding arm but still upright. And the Devourer, It reared back, shrieking in wordless rage, its chest mangled, but already begin to heal.

And now, its eight remaining eyes were turning, slowly, all toward Ben. Now it was angry.

“Ben!” the knight roared, blood trailing from his shoulder. “Here it comes!”

The beast struck. A torrent of light and claws descended, beams and limbs overlapping in a storm of golden storm. Space screamed as the laws of reality bent and shattered beneath its wrath.

Ben didn’t retreat. He roared, diving straight into the maelstrom.

Appendages surged from his back, reshaping into blades, whips, shields. Dark aether flared, spiraling outward in concentric waves. He twisted through a beam of law, letting it graze past him while smashing his fist into one of the monster’s arms, the impact cracking space.

The knight flash-stepped beside him, both blades drawn, lightning bursting from every step. He intercepted a descending claw, parrying it just long enough for Ben to slip through.

“On your left!” the knight barked.

Ben whirled and struck, his spear-tipped appendage tearing through a golden eye just as it began to charge. It didn’t shatter, but sparks flew, forcing the eye to flicker and recoil. A beam fired back in retaliation, point-blank.

Ben took it full in the chest.

BOOM!!

He was thrown like a comet across the battlefield, smashing through a floating stone and crashing into the ground in a crater of smoking debris.

The knight shouted, leaping after him, but the Devourer was faster.

A tendril of pure code wrapped around the knight mid-air, dragging him into a swirling glyph trap. He slashed desperately, cutting through the strands, but not fast enough.

The Devourer moved. Ben rose, coughing blood, his armor scorched, the aether around him sputtering. His body screamed in protest, but he pushed forward.

“Let. Him. Go!” he snarled.

He grabbed gravity itself, ripped it apart, and hurled it.

A spiraling lance of collapsed space tore through the trap, shattering the glyph lines and freeing the knight, who landed hard beside him, panting and bleeding.

The two stood side by side again. Burned. Bruised. Bloodied. The ground beneath their feet shook as the Devourer coiled again, readying another attack.

Ben’s voice was hoarse. “How long can you keep going?”

The knight grinned weakly, barely holding his blades. “Long enough.”

Another wave came. Ben jumped straight into it, appendages flaring behind him, his body wrapped in a barely held-together field of aether. He took two hits. Dodged one. Slashed through a fourth.

The knight followed, blades dancing like streaks of lightning, meeting the Devourer’s claws in midair. Each clash sent shockwaves rippling across the sky.

Ben yelled over the chaos, eyes blazing through the smoke.

“APOPHIS! NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME!”

Meanwhile Apophis tore through the air like a streak of black flame, wings spread wide as she flew toward the remnants of the seal. The wind screamed around her, space cracking and folding in unnatural angles as the battlefield above her echoed with the thunder of the Devourer’s wrath.

She dove low, through a rent in reality torn open by the last explosion, and passed through it.

Then she saw it. And her heart sank. The seal core was still there, floating, buried in the ruins of her prison.

But looked like a cracked vase suspended in light, thin fissures webbed across the crystal surface, some glowing with golden energy, others bleeding dark mist.

The structure were barely held together, suspended in place by the complex formation and ancient runes flickering like dying stars.