Chapter 62: Furnace Under Skin
The creature surged forward, its mass tearing the ground apart. Stone folded under its feet like wet clay, fragments screaming into the air. The pressure hit Junhyeok a heartbeat before the impact — a wall of killing intent that crushed breath from lungs.
He moved.
Not fast enough to escape.
Fast enough to survive.
The claw swept in low. Junhyeok jumped, the talons grazing beneath his boots, and came down hard, heel-first onto its wrist. Bone buckled. The arm slammed into the ground, pulverizing it.
The creature snarled and yanked back.
Junhyeok rode the motion, fingers locking into ridges of armor, forearms screaming as he was dragged forward. He twisted mid-pull, slammed his knee into the elbow joint, then pushed off, flipping backward as the arm tore free from his grip.
He landed wrong.
Ankle screamed. Dust flooded his mouth.
A shadow swallowed him.
Akeshi crashed in from the side, shoulder-checking the creature's ribs. The impact sounded like a collapsing building. Akeshi didn't stop — he ran along the creature's torso, boots carving sparks, and drove a spinning kick into its jaw.
The head snapped sideways.
Junhyeok used the opening.
He sprinted, pain forgotten, and punched upward into the creature's throat. The blow didn't break skin — it dented reality around it. The air warped. The creature gagged, staggering back, hands clawing at its neck.
Junhyeok felt it then.
The Source cracking open.
Heat flooded his veins, thick and heavy, like molten iron replacing blood. The world sharpened. Every movement left afterimages burned into his vision. Broken rubble around him lifted, edges glowing red, melting without flame.
The creature recovered and charged again, faster now, adapting.
Junhyeok didn't retreat.
He planted his foot, grabbed a floating slab of stone midair, and smashed it into the creature's face. The rock liquefied on impact, splashing across its skull like lava.
It howled and swung blindly.
The blow clipped Junhyeok's side, launching him through a steel support beam. Metal folded, wrapped around his body, and tore free as he hit the ground.
His ribs cracked.
He rolled, coughing blood, and forced himself up as the creature loomed, shadow swallowing the battlefield.
Ren tried to move in — took two steps — stopped. The space collapsed instantly, pressure snapping shut like jaws.
Junhyeok wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
The Source surged higher.
He ran straight up the creature's chest, boots digging trenches into hardened flesh. Halfway up, it tried to grab him. Junhyeok twisted, grabbed its finger, and snapped it backward until bone burst through skin.
He reached the shoulder.
Akeshi appeared beside him mid-air, having jumped from a collapsing wall, grin sharp, timing perfect. Together they struck.
Junhyeok drove his elbow into the collar joint.
Akeshi buried a condensed blade of force into the same point.
The shoulder exploded inward.
The arm tore loose.
Black blood sprayed in a steaming arc.
The creature screamed — not in pain, but rage.
It slammed its remaining fist into the ground.
The shockwave flattened everything. Buildings folded. The battlefield dropped ten meters as the earth collapsed beneath them.
Junhyeok hit hard, bounced once, then forced his feet under him, breathing fire. The Source stabilized — no longer wild, no longer resisting.
For the first time, it fit.
He stepped forward as the creature rose again, armor regrowing, muscles swelling, eye burning with focused hatred.
Round one hadn't weakened it.
It had taught it.
Junhyeok clenched his fist.
The air around it compressed, glowing white-hot.
This wasn't training anymore.
This was shaping something that wanted him dead.
Alright. I'll expand and elevate your paragraph, keeping it violent, cinematic, descriptive, and cleanly choreographed, without changing the events you specified.
Then, all of a sudden —
The Inhuman charged.
Not fast — violent.
Its shoulder slammed into Akeshi's gut with the sound of a collapsing wall. Air burst from Akeshi's lungs as his body folded, then launched backward, tearing through shattered concrete and steel before disappearing in a cloud of dust and debris.
Junhyeok barely had time to react.
The Inhuman pivoted mid-charge and backhanded him across the chest. The impact felt like being struck by a freight train. Junhyeok's feet left the ground. His body spun, slammed into the earth, and skidded across broken stone, sparks carving lines beneath him.
Ren moved instinctively.
Too late.
The creature's foot came down like a guillotine. It kicked, sending Ren flying sideways, body tumbling end over end before crashing into a collapsed structure.
Silence followed.
Not peace — anticipation.
The Inhuman straightened, breath steaming, black blood dripping from earlier wounds. It turned slowly, deliberately, toward where Akeshi had landed. Each step crushed the ground beneath it, fractures spreading outward like spiderwebs.
Junhyeok pushed himself up on shaking arms.
"Move—"
His voice didn't carry.
Akeshi lay half-buried in rubble, unmoving.
The Inhuman raised its arm.
The limb unfolded grotesquely, muscle tightening, bone shifting beneath skin. For a fraction of a second — a mistake — it hesitated. Its head tilted, as if sensing something it didn't understand.
Then it struck.
The world split gold.
A flash — not light, but judgment — tore through the battlefield. The air screamed as a golden arc carved straight through the Inhuman's body.
It didn't explode.
It was severed.
The upper half slid away from the lower, both halves hitting the ground seconds apart. The cut was impossibly clean, edges glowing, flesh cauterized by divine heat.
Dust hadn't even settled yet.
The golden radiance faded, condensing into a lone figure standing where the Inhuman had been.
Eiden.
Light bled off him like molten sunlight, pooling at his feet before evaporating. The battlefield bent subtly around his presence, as if reality itself recognized him as something above the violence.
Junhyeok stared, breath ragged.
The fight hadn't ended.
It had just been interrupted.
The Inhuman twitched.
Not dead.
Its severed halves shuddered, black muscle crawling, fibers stitching themselves together with wet, obscene sounds. Bone speared outward, reforming joints that should not exist. The air around it vibrated — instinct overriding damage.
Its remaining eye locked onto Eiden.
Hatred sharpened.
It lunged.
The ground detonated beneath its push. Its body stretched mid-charge, limbs elongating, mass compressing forward like a living projectile. Claws aimed straight for Eiden's chest — fast enough to blur, strong enough to erase buildings.
Eiden didn't move.
The Inhuman entered his reach.
Eiden raised one hand.
And clapped.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
Just once.
The space between his palms collapsed.
The Inhuman didn't get struck — it got folded. Its charge inverted instantly, momentum crushed inward. Its body compressed, flesh imploding, bones snapping into dust as golden pressure wrapped around it like a closing fist.
Then Eiden pulled apart.
The Inhuman was torn again, ripped lengthwise this time, strands of black matter unraveling like wet cloth. Golden light burned through every severed edge, sealing regeneration shut.
Before the pieces could fall—
A cylinder manifested.
Smooth. Vertical. Suspended mid-air.
Translucent gold layered over reinforced glass-like material, runes orbiting its surface in slow, deliberate rotation. The interior churned with condensed light, heavy and suffocating.
Eiden gestured.
The Inhuman's remains were dragged screaming through the air, forced together, crushed into a single writhing mass, and slammed into the cylinder.
The container sealed.
Light flared.
Runes locked.
Inside, the Inhuman thrashed, slamming against the walls, deforming its own body against the containment field. Each impact sent ripples across the cylinder's surface — absorbed, neutralized, erased.
Eiden lowered his hand.
The cylinder sank slowly, embedding itself into the fractured ground like a coffin being buried upright.
Silence returned.
Not relief.
Finality.
Dust drifted down.
Junhyeok stood frozen, chest heaving, the Source inside him simmering uneasily — not in fear, but recognition. Whatever Eiden was, he wasn't part of the battlefield.
He was above it.
The fight was over.
Because someone decided it was.