Chapter 91: The New Entity: Chains of Gold and Teeth

Jagger snapped open his eyes, a violent breath ripping through his lungs. He wasn’t on the floor. He was back in the void. The blackness stretched endlessly in every direction. He looked around, frantic and anger burning inside him. He took a step, and the ground was solid and cool beneath his feet, like polished obsidian.

“You’re awake.” The voice was Ophilia’s. Smooth, calm, utterly in control.

Jagger spun around, his body feeling like it was moving at a million miles per second. Then abruptly stopped, and the familiar vast and enormous bars of light stood in front of him.

She was there.

No longer a shadow or a whisper. Standing before him was a woman impossibly tall, her presence alone bending the space around her.

Her skin was pale, almost unnaturally so, smooth like porcelain but lacking any warmth. Long white hair fell past her waist in a straight, unbroken sheet, framing a face that was sharp, delicate… and completely devoid of softness. Two black horns curved upward from her head, jagged and uneven, as if grown rather than shaped. Her eyes burned a deep crimson, steady and unblinking, like embers that had never known how to die.

A thin, black four-pointed star rested at the center of her forehead, small but wrong, like a crack in reality itself.

Her body was wrapped in something that looked like living venom more than clothing. It clung to her form in uneven patterns, like fractured scales or hardened veins spreading across her skin, leaving parts of her exposed in a way that felt deliberate, controlled… predatory.

“Calm down, guardian… angel,” she said, her lips curling into a small, knowing smile. “Activating Corrupted Surge and Frenzy has a taxing effect on a host’s mental fortitude.” She tilted her head slightly, her crimson eyes glowing softly. “Especially one as… fragile as yours.”

Jagger clenched his fists hard, trying to steady his breathing. He just stared at her, every muscle in his body coiled tight. He remembered the fight. He remembered the rage. He remembered blood covering his hands and Soo-min begging, and then… he remembered nothing after that.

“You’re staring,” she said calmly.

Jagger let out a slow breath, forcing tension out of his body. “What happened?”

Suddenly, the system’s panels appeared before him, glowing brightly against the darkness.

–

[Warning: Host’s mental clarity is compromised.]

[Corrupted Surge has been deactivated.]

[Frenzy has been deactivated.]

[Stamina has been severely depleted.]

[Health has been severely depleted.]

[Severe Bleeding has been inflicted on the Host.]

[Regeneration has been activated.]

[Bleeding has been neutralized.]

[Health is slowly regenerating.]

[You have leveled up! lvl 12 ↑]

[You have leveled up! lvl 13 ↑]

[+10 Stat Points Available]

[All Core Attributes +2]

[Pain resistance has leveled up to 6]

[Regeneration has leveled up to 4]

[Corrupted Surge has leveled up to 4]

[New Entity has been absorbed!]

–

Jagger watched as the last line glowed briefly before it vanished.

“New Entity has been absorbed,” he repeated aloud, a dangerous quiet in his voice.

At first, there was only silence.

Then he heard it.

Footsteps.

Fast.

They came from somewhere deep in the void, pounding against the obsidian ground in a rapid, savage rhythm. Jagger’s head snapped toward the sound, his entire body tensing as it grew louder and louder, closing the distance with impossible speed.

“Ah, yes,” Ophilia said, her smile widening slightly. “A… gift, from me to you. A little bonus for your fine work.”

A figure burst from the darkness.

He did not run like a man.

He came low and fast on all fours, his body eating up the distance with animalistic bursts of speed, claws scraping sparks from the black surface beneath him. Then he launched upward in a violent leap, body twisting through the air like a beast pouncing on prey.

“I, Zumthor of the Red Maw, will tear out your entrails and feast upon them!” he roared.

Jagger barely had time to brace before the man came fully into view.

He was tall and broad, with a powerfully built frame and long hair split between black and white, falling wildly over his shoulders. His skin was tanned, his chest bare beneath a loose drape of dark cloth, and around his neck hung a heavy necklace of bone and metal charms that clinked as he moved. A short beard framed his mouth, and two sharp fangs showed when his lips peeled back in a savage grin. His eyes burned a vicious red.

He came straight for Jagger with both hands raised, fingers curved like claws, murder written plainly across his face.

Then the void erupted.

The vast and enormous bars of light surrounding Ophilia flared with sudden violence, their glow surging outward in a blinding wave that split the darkness apart. For a heartbeat, the entire section of the void where Zumthor charged was drowned in radiant gold, as though the prison itself had awakened to deny him.

Golden chains of light shot from that eruption with merciless speed. One wrapped around Zumthor’s right wrist. Another coiled around his left. More came an instant later, binding his arms, his waist, his legs, locking around him in flashing loops of radiant gold. The force of it yanked him backward so violently that the obsidian ground cracked beneath his feet.

Zumthor stopped dead.

For one heartbeat, his body strained against the bindings, every muscle in him flexing hard enough to look carved from stone. The chains groaned. Light rippled violently across their length.

Then Zumthor threw back his head and roared.

The sound shook the void.

It was not a human roar. It was too deep, too savage, too full of hatred to belong to anything ordinary. It rolled across the darkness like a shockwave, making the bars of light hum and the ground beneath Jagger’s feet tremble.

Zumthor snarled and yanked against the restraints again, his lips peeled back over his fangs. “A cage?!” he thundered. “You bind me with chains, Saint? When I tear free, I will crack his skull open and drink from it!”

The golden links tightened with a sharp flash, forcing his limbs wider.

He laughed.

It was a vicious, bloodthirsty sound.

“You hear me, vessel?” Zumthor spat, crimson eyes locking onto Jagger with pure hatred. “I will wear your ribs as a crown. I will split you open from throat to belly and feed your guts to the dark.”

He jerked again, trying to lunge forward despite the restraint, only to be violently dragged back as the chains bit deeper into his wrists and ankles.

“Cowards!” he roared into the void. “Let me at him! Let me see if this flesh can survive my jaws!”

Jagger’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is that?”

Ophilia did not look surprised. If anything, her expression turned faintly amused. “That,” she said, her voice calm as ever, “is your new problem.”

Zumthor thrashed against the chains again, the golden restraints tightening with every violent pull. His fangs were fully bared now, lips curled back in pure fury, red eyes fixed on Jagger with the kind of hatred that felt old. Personal. Hungry.

“I should kill you!” Zumthor roared, his voice raw enough to scrape the void itself. “I should rip your spine out through your throat!”

“A new entity, but how? I killed…” Jagger said, trailing off as realization hit him.

“Soo-min,” Ophilia finished smoothly. “Yes. That is what was in Soo-min.”

Jagger’s face changed.

It happened in stages.

First, confusion flickered through him as the memory connected itself. Then came recognition. Then horror. Then a kind of rigid, absolute refusal, as if his mind had reached for the truth, touched it, and recoiled so violently it tried to throw the whole thing away.

“No,” he said flatly.

Zumthor’s lip curled, still straining against the chains. “No?”

Jagger pointed at him. “Nope.”

Ophilia’s expression sharpened with quiet interest, already knowing where this was going.

“That was not you,” Jagger said, firmer this time, like saying it harder would make it real. “That was Soo-min. That was her body. Her face. Her voice. That was not…” He stopped.

Not you.

The words refused to come out.

Ophilia smiled.

A slow, beautiful, infuriating smile.

“Oh,” she said softly, almost sultry. “Guardian angel~.”

Jagger turned on her instantly. “Don’t!”

“But it was him,” Ophilia continued with infuriating calm, glancing toward Zumthor’s chains. “He had full control, not like us. Which means, by extension, that your little moment of tenderness was not with the frightened human girl cozying up to you.”

Jagger’s face went still.

Then red.

Not crimson. Not Corrupted Surge. Actual human embarrassment, hot and humiliating and immediate.

“That is not what happened,” he snapped.

Zumthor blinked.

Then blinked again.

For the first time since bursting into the void, his murderous expression faltered into something almost blank. He looked between them, his brows drawing together.

“What?” he said slowly, “Saint what are you two talking about-”

“Wait a minute,” Jagger interrupted, the gears grinding too fast for him to stop them.

Ophilia’s eyes gleamed. “Jagger kissed you.”

Silence.

Then Jagger moved.

He strode across the obsidian in three violent stops, boots striking hard, fury radiating off him in waves. He stopped directly in front of the bar of light, so close that the golden bars hummed between them.

“I did not kiss you,” he shouted.

Zumthor stared at him.

Jagger jabbed a finger through the air between them. “That was not you. That was a trap. That was manipulation. That was… That was not some mutual, meaningful, whatever the hell you think it was.”

Zumthor’s head tilted slightly.

Then, incredibly, his expression turned from murderous rage to baffled offense.

“You put your tongue in my mouth,” he said.

Jagger froze.

“PFFT!” Ophilia made a small sound behind him. Not quite a laugh. Worse. The beginning of one.

Jagger wheeled on her. “Do not.”

She did laugh then. Quietly. Smoothly. Almost musically.

“Guardian angel,” she murmured, trying to hold back a laugh. “I believe pfft… he has a point.”

Jagger looked like he wanted the void itself to crack open and swallow him whole.

“That was not him,” he said again, but the words had lost some of their force now, dragged down by the weight of memory. Soo-min’s body is on his lap. Her breath against his mouth. Her hands in his hair. The warmth. The softness. The way he had actually leaned into it.

Then the sickening snap of realization.

His stomach turned.

“No,” he muttered to himself this time. “No. Absolutely not.”

Zumthor stared at him as though this reaction was the truly insane thing happening here.

“What is your damage?” he demanded. “You are screaming as though I bit your cock off.”

Jagger’s head snapped back toward him. “What is my damage?”

“Yes.”

“You possessed a girl, pretended to be human, climbed on top of me to seduce me, and now I have to live with the memory of making out with whatever the hell you are!”

Zumthor frowned deeply.

“I was infiltrating.”

“That does not help!”

“It worked.”

“That also does not help!”

Zumthor looked over to Ophilia, breathing heavily. His gaze dragged over Jagger with open contempt. “This skinny little thing? This was your plan, saint?”

Jagger’s jaw tightened.

Ophilia’s smile sharpened, crimson eyes glinting with malicious amusement. “A beast like you should keep its head down, and its claws sheathed, or you’ll be scrubbed with the rest of the vermin.”

For the first time, something other than blind rage surfaced in Zumthor’s expression. He stared at Ophilia. The glowing gold chains around him flickered as if sensing the shift in the void’s atmosphere.

“Leave us,” Ophilia said.

Before Jagger could respond, the world dissolved.

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