Chapter 76: What Lives in Breaches

Auryn had been falling for approximately two minutes. The darkness pressed against him like tar, thick and viscous, except he could breathe.

The air tasted sulfuric and meaty, like something had been rotting in secret and nobody realized.

His territorial awareness was gone. Completely severed the moment he’d jumped through that well of corruption.

This meant he was definitely not in the Northern District anymore. Possibly not in the physical world at all.

This was his first breach and experiencing it now, nothing in the novel had prepared him for this feeling.

The novel only focused on aftermath descriptions, the people that died inside, the usual surface-level worldbuilding that never explained real details that he was experiencing in real-time.

’Just great,’ he thought. Then he sighed

“Time to improvise.”

Since he couldn’t use Territorial awareness. He activated the original sensory skill of his. His Author’s Eyes activated and the darkness changed.

The darkness was still there, but was suddenly visible as something with structure and outline instead of just endless void he had been experiencing.

Massive crimson borders pulsed around him like a slow longing breath, the edges of something alive.

The breach wasn’t a tear in reality. It was an organism. A living space with interior walls that he was currently trapped inside.

“Interesting,” he muttered to himself as he stretched his right hand out.

Auryn summoned Cinderfang from the Gates of Avarice. The violet-flame blade materialized in his hand and immediately started burning.

It was the usual clash, the dragon-slaying properties versus dragon blood. It felt like gripping a hot coal but he’d dealt with worse.

He swung the sword in a wide arc through the darkness. The blade caught something. There was a resistance and then sudden release, like cutting through meat.

The entire space convulsed and pressure built from every direction before erupting through the tear Cinderfang had made.

The breach spat him out violently. Auryn flipped mid-expulsion, gaining control through pure reflex, and landed in a crouch that cracked the stone beneath his boots.

He dismissed Cinderfang immediately. His palm was already healing, his dragon constitution handling the burn damage like it was nothing.

He straightened slowly and took in his surroundings.

It was a cavern, except every surface said otherwise. The walls were black, not normal stone-black but void-black, the kind that didn’t reflect light.

Pillars rose throughout the space, each one glowing faintly from within. The ground beneath his boots was moist and sticky like he was walking on something organic.

The smell didn’t hold back now that he wasn’t falling. It was rot and sulfur mixed with musk so thick he could almost taste it.

His partial transformation activated automatically. Scales rippled across his forearms, claws extended from his fingertips, canines lengthening as his body prepared for whatever came next. The heat of dragon fire built in his chest, ready to be released.

He drew his regular sword and consecrated it through Dragon Flame Sword technique. The blade glowed faintly as draconic essence reinforced the steel with distinctive sigils on its spine.

He was about to go further in and explore then he heard the growls.

They came from multiple sources. Different directions. Something was hunting him and they’d been waiting for him to land before attacking.

Author’s Eyes picked them up immediately they entered range.

Humanoid shapes glowing with the distinct auras of antagonist entities, moving through the darkness with coordinated intelligence.

They flickered as they moved, activating some kind of innate invisibility that made them vanish even in this lightless space.

But that didn’t matter. As long as they existed as narrative elements, as long as they played roles in the story’s unfolding events, Author’s Eyes could see them.

Invisibility was a physical trick. His skill was narrative perception. They were in different leagues.

The first demon lunged from his left. Auryn pivoted and drove his consecrated blade through its chest before it realized it had been seen.

The creature shrieked and collapsed into black, thick mucus that evaporated before hitting the ground.

Two more attacked simultaneously from different angles. Auryn reacted accordingly, he ducked under one’s swipe and brought his clawed hand up in a vicious uppercut that tore through its jaw sending it crashing into the roof of the cavern.

The other caught a controlled blast of dragon fire from his mouth, the concentrated flame incinerated it mid-leap like it was never there.

More emerged from the darkness. They came in droves as they realized their invisibility was useless and as such abandoned stealth for overwhelming numbers.

Auryn smirked as he noticed the expanding wave of crimson auras accompanied with hungry growls.

The demons came in waves. Some rushed directly with claws and teeth.

Some others hung back, opening their mouths to release sonic screeches that shattered pillars and sent black fumes billowing into the air.

The system acknowledged it immediately.

[Poison Detected]

[Lethality: Extreme]

[Effects: Nullified]

He smirked. This breach was designed to kill intruders through environmental hazards as well as with numbers.

Too bad he was completely immune to poison.

Auryn cracked his neck slightly with a smirk.

“Time to actually try.”

His hand opened as he formed the Fire Lance technique. Concentrated fire shaped into a spear-like projectile.

Crimson draconic scripts appeared in the air around his clawed hand, ancient symbols that rotated and interlocked as the technique took form. The lance materialized, hot enough to warp the air around it.

Evidence of his evolution and magic training.

Auryn didn’t linger and threw it. The lance spun through the space with telekinetic guidance and impaled three demons in sequence before detonating in an explosion of crimson flame.

While the first traveled, he was already forming a second one but while his created magic. His sword work continued simultaneously.

A demon lunged from behind. Auryn pivoted without looking and slashed clean through it from the torso.

Author’s Eyes gave him three-sixty awareness. Nothing approached unseen. His entire visual field was red and he was deleting it without remorse.

Another tried to grapple him from the side but he drove his clawed fist straight through its torso, then used the embedded corpse as a bludgeon to smash two more demons into a near-by wall.

When they tried to recover, he released dragon fire that reduced all three to ash instantly.

The Fire Lance technique was also devastatingly effective. He threw them and guided them with subtle adjustments, detonate them on command.

The demons weren’t stupid, they scattered, trying to dodge or shield themselves with other bodies.

But none of it mattered. The lances tracked until impact, then exploded with enough force to obliterate anything nearby.

A demon attempted a desperate tackle. Auryn sidestepped and kicked it into a pillar so hard the impact cracked both stone and demon in one go.

They kept coming until they didn’t. The survivors recognized the slaughter and froze.

Fourty demons. Maybe more. They’d thrown themselves at him thinking numbers would overwhelm. Instead they’d just lined up to die like they were donating themselves to a slaughter house.

Auryn stood among black ichor and corpses, breathing steady, scanning for additional threats.

Then something massive whistled through the air behind him.

Moving on pure instinct. He spun and raised his blade to block. The impact drove him back considerably, boots skidding across moist ground, his sword screaming under pressure it wasn’t forged to handle.

What he blocked was a massive spear formed from solid darkness.

Auryn held for a bit then disengaged and dove sideways as the deflected spear slammed into the ground where he’d stood.

The weapon didn’t just crack stone. It corroded it. Darkness spread from the impact point like acid eating through matter.

The ground dissolved, leaving a gaping wound that exposed deeper darkness beyond.

This wasn’t normal demonic strength.

“Prince Auryn,” a voice said from behind him. It was smooth and slid through his ears like a soothing lubricant.

“What a surprise.”

Auryn spun with blade raised and Author’s Eyes flaring. But nothing was there. Just empty space and shattered pillars.

“You would do well as part of my army.”

The voice from the direction he turned away from. Auryn snapped his gaze forward and there, he found a figure standing ten meters away, positioned as if he’d always been there.

The Demon-knight was humanoid but it’s form was structured in ways that suggested humanity was something he or she has left behind.

The body was covered in black wrappings that shifted like living shadows clinging to flesh.

His hands ended in fused black masses like clotted blood that had solidified into razor-sharp claw-shapes.

His feet were worse. They dissolved into jelly-like tendrils that merged with the ground itself, as if he was rooted to the breach or perhaps existed as part of it.

But his face made Auryn’s dragon blood curdle. He had male human features, preserved enough to show he’d been a person once.

A massive scar ran across his face, His eyes were open but showed nothing human. They were solid white from edge to edge.

He was blind. Completely blind.

And yet he smiled directly at Auryn as if he saw him perfectly.

A/N

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