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But Kai hadn’t arrived at the carpenter ant colony’s tunnels as a planned hero or so gallant prince from the skies. He literally crash landed into a random corner of the southern forest. Pure chaos. And yet, fate had its own design... leading him straight to Akayoroi.
A few hours ago...
Inside the Rift Gate
Beneath a thunder-glass sky and above a lake that humd like a live wire, the system whispered its final warning:
[Alert: Hostile Entity Detected
Classification: Storm Myriad Beast – "Tesseral Seraphim" (Rank 5★, Aberrant)
Location: Underwater cave mouth at 2 o’clock.]
The mirrored lake bulged outward like a mbrane stretched from below. A serpentine skeletal head surfaced. It has teeth of raw ore, and twin globes of swirling plasma eyes. Lightning flickered inside its translucent neck, illuminating a segnted body that shifted between solid tal and liquid quicksilver.
The creature hissed with a sound like solid hitting water. Kai’s spear slid to his hand.
Predator’s Instinct mapped weak points: joint seams where tal plates overlapped; a pulsing core of molten ore behind the skull.
The Tesseral Seraphim lunged at him. The rcury lake did not ripple. It exploded.
Pillars of silver shot upward like inverted lightning, each spout arcing into the glassy air with concussive force. The blast sent razor droplets in all directions—each glob of quicksilver glowing with internal charge. Kai twisted sideways, Antenna Sensory Boost flaring at maximum. His body tracked every vibration in the molten lake and picked up the coiling hunger before it broke the surface again.
Sothing massive moved beneath. Then it erged.
A serpent, thirty ters long, wrapped in glasslike scales with raw lightning running between its segnts. The beast’s body was segnted and unnatural, as though star tal and thunder had been welded into one. Its mouth opened into a hexagonal split, each tooth a mirrored star-iron blade. Its roar was not sound—it was a pulse, a magnetic scream that numbed the teeth and made the teor crater hum like a tuning fork.
[Tesseral Seraphim – Aberrant 5★ Proto-Elental Beast Guardian.
Essence Saturation: 218% Instability Rating: 90% Danger Class: Critical Passive Effect: Aura Disruption Field
Special Ability: Electrostatic Domain – Lightning Loop Trap
Reward on Kill: 500 EXP | Rare Lightning Heart | Infused Ore Scales ×12]
Kai’s jaw tightened. This was no elental whelp. It was a storm-forged weapon. One born in the chaos of proto-elental lightning and teoric iron, grown fat on aura, and bloated with static fury.
It struck.
The first whip-like pass scythed through a ledge of fused glass behind Kai, reducing it to vapor. He activated Reflex Mode just in ti, sliding between a snap of its jaws. The world slowed to a breathless crawl. Droplets hung in the air like frozen stars, and the serpent’s fangs lood above him in slow motion.
Each tooth shimred with molten runes script ford through nature’s fury, not man’s design.
He pivoted, digging his foot into a divot of glass and drove his spear upward with surgical precision.
The blade punched through the soft joint beneath the serpent’s lower jaw, right where the ore hadn’t fully crystallized.
ScreeEEEee!
The beast shrieked, thunder vibrating through its coils. It thrashed, tail swinging like a war scythe, obliterating an entire ridge. Kai used Reflex Mode and rolled back, the speed of real ti slamming into his senses.
A thunderclap detonated behind him.
Adaptive Armor shifted instantly, hardening along his shoulders and forearms to resist slashing arcs. Lightning kissed the plates but dispersed, licking along his fra like angry snakes.
From the cliff above, Azhara watched.
She had followed Kai against all instinct. Her breath caught the mont the serpent erged, eyes wide, pupils trembling. Her entire predator-born body scread to flee. Her knees buckled. Her claws gripped the stone. But then she saw sothing that froze her more than fear.
Kai didn’t retreat. He stepped toward the lightning.
Her body shivered.
Pain, sharp and cold, crawled down her spine. Not because of the serpent—but because of him. This was the second ti.
The second ti that thing inside her stirred. That strange shaful joy curled under her belly like heat. Fear turned into craving. Terror twisted into admiration.
Her voice caught in her throat as she whispered with a lustful face, "Hurt again..."
Below, Kai didn’t hear. He was already moving.
The serpent coiled midair, its body shimring with lightning veils that lashed the atmosphere like godfire. Then it spun—its scales crackled, and arcs of electricity ford a cage around the entire crater.
[System Warning! Environntal Shift: Electrostatic Do Activated
Risk: Aura Burn – All entities exposed to passive lightning loops.
Counterasure: Grounding via teor fragnts detected.]
Kai’s eyes narrowed. He spotted the two exposed shards of teoroid star iron near the lake’s edge. His breath hissed between his teeth.
The serpent dove.
He sprinted.
One bolt clipped his shoulder, it seared but didn’t penetrate. Tiny Tank flared on contact, hardening every plate. His boots dug into cracked cobalt as he slamd his hand onto the first teor shard.
BOOM! 💥
Lightning hit and forks arcing from the sky into his back, but instead of lting him, the energy redirected. It bled down his arm and into the teor.
His teeth still rattled. His eyes burned. But he lived. The serpent shrieked in confusion, its trap had failed.
Kai moved before it could adapt.
He lunged, shoulder-first, into the serpent’s flank, letting Tiny Tank absorb the recoil. The impact staggered the beast. His spear danced in his hands. Within seconds three jabs, rapid and precise, into the shimring connective tissue beneath its right side. Molten iron burst from each strike, hissing and steaming across the crater floor.
Then ca the tail.
Whip.
Kai ducked. The blow shattered a wall of fused storm glass behind him.
He ca up under the creature’s belly. It’s the softest point. He dropped the spear, letting it clatter to the side. With a grunt, he opened his mandibles—those monarch-forged fangs that can shatter iron and sank them into the ore heart pulsing behind its jawline.
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