Chapter 81: Clash Between Muscle Mommies

The structural division of the muscle mommy sisters did not occur with a tactical deceleration.

When Regel’s newly unsealed, colossal fist connected with Egel’s stomach, the physical laws governing structural thresholds simply ceased to function.

The ancient, three-foot-thick granite wall dividing the boss chamber from the unmapped subterranean sectors did not crumble; it exploded outward in a pressurized cone of grey dust, gravel, and shattered reinforcement iron.

Egel did not have the frame data to react. Her massive, scar-tissue-lined shoulders hit the secondary masonry of the auxiliary corridor with enough kinetic velocity to trigger a localized seismic notification on the dungeon’s lower levels.

BOOM.

The impact carried her straight through the auxiliary hallway, through a vertical ventilation shaft, and finally down into the deep, echoing hollow of Sector 5—a massive, abandoned logistics repository that the Ravenloft Holdings’ janitorial crew had not yet scheduled for standard debris clearance. To be specific, that was a hidden part of the dungeon.

The air here was heavy with centuries of stagnant moisture, dust, and the faint, bitter tang of oxidized iron.

Egel hit the stone floor, skidding, her feet tearing two jagged, white grooves into the ancient masonry as her [Chi Fortification] flared in a desperate attempt to stabilize her center of gravity.

Her teeth were bared, a thin, dark line of crimson seeping from the corner of her mouth where her own jaw tension had punctured her lip.

"Regel...!" Egel choked out, her breath rattling as she forced her gaze upward through the descending cloud of plaster dust.

The dust didn't settle. It was violently repelled.

A towering, colossal silhouette stepped through the shattered gap in the high wall. Regel was completely different. A totally beautiful and defined muscle mommy who had pushed her body to the limit for 3000 years.

A Greek statue, no... something even better. A literal goddess.

Her transformation was a grotesque, beautiful insult to the Holy Kingdom's standard character templates, considering how timid and cute her normal look was.

And yet, despite the overwhelming, monstrous density of her physical evolution, she was still gripping that simple, highly polished silver serving spoon with both hands, her massive, thick knuckles white around the handle.

"You're slow, Big Sis," Regel rumbled. Her voice was no longer the soft, hesitant whisper that Egel used to defend during guild evaluations. It was a deep, guttural vibration that resonated directly in the marrow of Egel's bones. "You always told me that my reaction speed was three frames behind the competitive average. What happened to your reaction speed today?" She then smirked, putting the spoon away. (Probably into the void.)

"Regel, listen to me!" Egel roared, her sharp blue eyes widening as she pushed herself into a wide, low martial arts stance. Her wild hair bristled as she circulated her remaining bio-energy, her hands glowing with a dense, stable azure flame. "Everyone told me that you were dead! I didn't know—"

"You didn't look! You didn't even try to come back for me!"

Regel vanished.

There was no motion blur, no standard animation transition. The stone floor where she had been standing simply deflated, the masonry pulverized into fine grey sand by the sheer, unmitigated force of her launch velocity.

Egel’s instinct—honed through a hundred high-tier dungeon clearances—saved her life.

Instead of dodging, she threw her scarred arms upward, crossing them in front of her face as her [Chi Fortification: Celestial Shell] erupted in a solid, faceted dome of crystalline azure energy.

But that clearly wasn't enough.

Regel appeared directly in her blind spot, her definite, muscular frame twisting with the terrifying efficiency of a hydraulic piston. She brought her right fist down in a brutal, horizontal hammer-fist strike, using a [Dark Chi] Enhancement to amplify the surface area of the impact.

CRACK.

The crystalline azure dome didn't shatter; it parted like wet paper. The sheer, dense mass of Regel’s strike slammed directly into Egel’s left forearm, the sound of bone compressing echoing through the massive repository like a cracking whip.

Egel grunted, her knees buckling as she was driven sideways into a massive row of rusted, iron storage lockers. The heavy metal structures collapsed under her weight, folding like accordion paper as she rolled across the stone, her azure aura flickering violently as her system parameters experienced a massive, localized disruption.

[WARNING: PSYCHOLOGICAL DEBUFF ACTIVATED]

[TRAUMA MATRIX: FIRSTBORN'S REMORSE']

[EFFECT: COUNTER-ATTACK POTENCY REDUCED BY 30%]

[ADMIN NOTE: THE TARGET'S GUILT IS ACTIVELY IMPEDING BIOMECHANICAL EFFICIENCY. HER SYSTEM REFUSES TO ALLOCATE OPTIMAL KINETIC ENERGY FOR FRATRICIDAL DEFENSE.]

"GET UP! NOW!" Regel screamed, her face twisting into an expression of raw, agonizing pain that entirely contradicted the monstrous power of her body. Tears were flowing freely from her large, round eyes, leaving clear tracks through the soot on her cheeks as she raised her foot and brought it down toward Egel’s chest like a pile driver. "Get up and fight me! You’re the legendary Vanguard of the Chosen Party! You’re the one who told me that weakness is a failure! Show me your true strength, Egel!"

In that moment, Egel threw herself backward, her body rolling across the debris just as Regel’s boot connected with the floor.

The five-inch-thick solid stone block beneath them didn't just crack—it was instantly displaced, a cloud of jagged rock shards flying into the air like shrapnel. One of the sharp fragments caught Egel across her scarred cheek, adding a fresh, bleeding line to her already weathered skin.

She scrambled to her feet, her breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. Her left arm was hanging slightly loose, the muscle tissue deeply bruised, but her core framework was still holding.

"I was told you were dead, Regel!" Egel bellowed, her voice cracking with an emotion she had spent her entire professional career suppressing behind her identity as the party's unyielding wall. "I swear! Believe me, please!"

Regel stopped. Her massive, muscular back rose and fell with a heavy, mechanical rhythm, the white-hot steam escaping her lips hissing against the cold air of the repository. She looked down at her massive, scarred sister, her eyes wide with a deep, hollow disappointment that cut far deeper than any physical strike.

"That's funny, considering that you never trusted anyone and always wanted to see with your own eyes, sister," Regel said. The words were flat, devoid of the previous rage, carrying only the absolute finality of an ancient ruin. "It was convenient, wasn't it, Egel? It was so much more efficient to believe I was dead so you could continue your high-tier progression without the dead weight of someone who couldn't keep her view-count up."

"No... no, that's not true—"

"It is true!" Regel roared, her aura exploding upward in a blinding pillar of white-hot kinetic light that illuminated the entire multi-tiered repository.

[SKILL ACTIVATION: ABANDONED IN THE DARK]

[EFFECT: ABSOLUTE PHYSICAL PAIN IMMUNITY AGAINST MEMBERS OF PREVIOUS NARRATIVE UNIT]

[NARRATIVE SENSITIVITY: HIGH. VIEWERSHIP MULTIPLIER: x2.5 (THE REVENGE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT IS TRENDING)]

"Do you know what happens to someone who refuses to die, Egel? To someone who always wanted her sister to come back for her?" Regel asked, her voice dropping into a terrifyingly soft register as she slowly began to walk toward her sister, her massive boots crushing the metal lockers beneath her feet like dry leaves. "The mold doesn't care about your character class and the monsters don't care about your backstory. I spent the first forty-eight hours hiding inside a rusted drainage pipe, using my lowest-tier water conjuration just to wash the acidic blood of the monsters out of my hair. I cried until my mana pool was completely dehydrated, waiting for that azure light... waiting for your fists to make their way through those monsters..."

Egel’s blue eyes filled with heavy, uncinematic tears, her powerful shoulders trembling as she looked at the monster her neglect had created. "Regel... I’m sorry... I am so, so sorry..."

"I don't want your data-driven apologies!" Regel screamed. "I WANT YOU TO FEEL MY PAIN!"

She lunged forward, her massive form cutting through the distance like a localized sonic boom. She prepared a vertical strike with her kick, the compressed air ahead of her boot forming a physical wave of pressure that threatened to flatten Egel before the strike even connected.

Egel didn't retreat. Something inside her hardened—not out of anger, but out of a desperate, final realization that the only way to save her sister from her own consuming wrath was to take the full weight of her ledger.

"[Chi Manifestation: Great Horizon Wall]!" Egel roared.

She threw her right hand forward, her remaining bio-energy reserves erupting into a massive, flat wall of solid azure light that stretched across the repository's width.

It was her signature defensive skill, the technique that had stopped dragon fire and mountain-tier earth elementals.

Then, Regel’s right kick hit the azure wall.

BOOM!

The concussive shockwave blew the remaining iron lockers completely off their hinges, sending them flying into the distant darkness of Sector 5 like matchsticks. The ceiling of the repository groaned, several massive, two-ton supporting pillars cracking down the center as the structural load of the dungeon shifted under the sheer, unadulterated mass of the impact.

The azure wall held for exactly one frame. Then, with a sound like a cathedral window shattering under a hammer, it disintegrated into thousands of useless blue sparks.

Regel’s final follow-up fist, carrying the unmitigated velocity of two months of solitary confinement, smashed straight through the residual defense and connected directly with Egel’s right shoulder, shattering her clavicle. The little sister was way too strong, and Egel couldn't hit her. She didn't want to.

All she wanted to do in that moment was to hug her.

Egel flew backward, her body slamming into the central stone pillar of the repository. The ancient column cracked under the impact, a heavy shower of grey plaster dust and pebbles cascading down over her wild, blood-matted hair. She slid to her knees, coughing violently, her right shoulder completely ruined and her right arm hanging useless, her breath shallow and erratic as her health bar dropped into the critical, flashing red zone.

[CRITICAL DAMAGE RECEIVED]

[HEALTH POOL: 14%]

[VANGUARD DEFENSIVE COEFFICIENT: SYSTEM FAILURE]

Regel stood five meters away, her massive, muscular arms trembling as the white-hot kinetic light around her began to flicker.

Her breath was ragged, her face entirely wet with tears that mixed with the grey stone dust. She clenched her fists, but her posture hesitated. The small, timid girl with the neat ponytail was still hidden deep within that colossal, mutated engine of destruction, staring at the shattered, bleeding form of the sister she had once idolized above all else.

"Why... why aren't you fighting back properly?" Regel sobbed, her deep voice cracking with a child-like desperation. "Use your skills, Egel! Use your ultimate combo! Show me that strength that was more important than my life! Prove to me that abandoning me was the correct tactical decision!"

Egel slowly looked up through the curtain of her tangled hair. Her blue eyes were clear, devoid of the previous panic, containing only a profound, bottomless sorrow and an absolute, unyielding clarity.

Using her remaining leg strength, she dragged her shattered, heavy frame up from the base of the broken pillar. Her right arm hung completely dead at her side, the band on her chest ruined, her skin covered in blood and masonry dust. She didn't look like a legendary vanguard anymore; she looked like an old, discarded weapon that had outlived its script.

She took one slow, agonizing step forward, her left boot squelching in a puddle of her own spilled blood.

"I won't fight you, Regel," Egel whispered, her voice low but entirely steady, carrying across the silent, ruined repository. "I won't allocate a single point of mana to defend myself against my own failure. If my deletion is what is required to make you happy... then take my life. You earned it, I finally see that you were always stronger than me. You survived the dark that I was too cowardly to face."

Regel let out a sharp, choked gasp, her shoulders tensing as she adjusted her fight stance for a final, terminal strike. "Don't... don't look at me like that! I hate you! I hate your guild! I hate everything about the Chosen One's party!"

"I know," Egel said, taking another slow, limping step forward, closing the distance between them until she was standing directly within Regel’s colossal reach. "You have every right to hate me, Little sis. But I am not going to let you face the dark alone anymore."

Instead of raising her left fist into a defensive guard, Egel moved her arm outward, opening her chest entirely to her sister's final attack.

Regel's body was trembling; she wanted to attack, but she hesitated.

Egel lunged forward—not with the explosive velocity of a combat skill, but with the simple, heavy weight of an older sister reaching across a long-empty room. She threw her left arm around Regel’s massive, muscle-bound neck, pulling the colossal girl’s head down against her broken shoulder in a tight, unyielding, desperate embrace.

In that moment, Regel completely froze.

Her right fist was inches from Egel’s exposed temple. Her massive frame was rigid, her veins pulsing with white-hot energy, but she couldn't bring herself to hit her beloved sister. The absolute, physical warmth of her sister’s blood soaking on her was a parameter that her system’s wrath could not compute.

"Let go..." Regel whispered, her voice dropping from its monstrous rumble back into the high, trembling register of the timid little sister. "Let go of me, Egel... I’m going to kill you... I have to..."

"Go ahead if that's what you want. I won't fight back," Egel choked out, hot tears falling into Regel's hair as she tightened her one-armed grip, ignoring the searing pain radiating from her fractured clavicle. "Just know this: I'm not letting go of you again, Regel. Not for the guild, not for the kingdom, not for anything else. If the floor collapses, then we go down together."

Then... the white-hot kinetic light around Regel’s body suddenly wavered.

The colossal, hyper-densified muscle groups that had transformed her into a titan began to twitch, the systemic rage losing its narrative fuel in the face of an authentic, non-transactional human connection. The system notifications began to flash across their vision in a chaotic, erratic rhythm.

[NARRATIVE INTERFERENCE DETECTED: UNCHRONICLED EMOTIONAL INPUT]

[VIEWERSHIP ENGAGEMENT: CRITICAL LEVEL (THE AUDIENCE IS CRYING)]

[CLASS EVOLUTION ENCOUNTERING PARADOX — SYSTEM OVERLOAD]

When the absolute fury of her abandonment had overtaken her system parameters, her subconscious had refused to defile the one symbol of genuine kindness she possessed. She had fought with nothing but her own flesh, channeling the raw, compressed agony of a discarded soul into her bare, bleeding knuckles.

Now, those hands were no longer colossal.

As the monstrous, hyper-densified muscle tissue rapidly receded, the systemic heat radiating from her body gave way to a cold, trembling chill.

Her skin, which had pulsed with the blinding light of an unsealed catalyst, returned to its normal, soft hue, looking incredibly fragile. Even her hair had shortened.

"You left me..." Regel repeated, her voice shrinking with her frame until it was nothing but a fragile, broken whisper. Her fingers, small and trembling once more, dug desperately onto Egel’s chest, searching for a physical anchor in a world that had treated her like an expired asset. "The darkness... it didn't have an end, Egel. Every time new monster appeared, I kept waiting for you to save me. I kept telling myself you were just running late... because you were part of the hero's party..."

Egel let out a ragged, whistling breath, her left arm tightening its single, desperate embrace around the girl’s shoulders.

The absolute, crushing weight of her elder sister's remorse was a physical debuff that no amount of Chi Fortification could clear. She didn't care about the flashing red critical warnings in her vision, or that her health pool was sitting at a catastrophic fourteen percent, or the fact that her right clavicle was entirely pulverized beneath her leather straps.

"I know, Little sis... I know," Egel choked out, her sharp blue eyes completely dull, flooded with thick, uncinematic tears that washed through the grey plaster dust on her scarred cheeks. She buried her face in Regel’s soft hair, the familiar scent of her sister hitting her with the force of an unmitigated system error. "I'm not going anywhere now. I need to be punished... so do it now."

Regel’s shoulders hitched violently. She tried to pull away, to look into the weathered, scar-lined face of the veteran who had been her idol, her standard of measurement, and her ultimate betrayer. She wanted to summon the cold, administrative detachment that Lord Mordecai used to protect his sanity.

But as she looked at the deep, ancient scar running across Egel’s right shoulder—the one her sister had received three years ago while shielding her from a rogue high-tier mimic—the structural foundation of her hatred completely collapsed.

"I can't do it..." Regel wailed, a fresh torrent of hot, disobedient tears spilling from her wide eyes, splashing onto Egel’s blood-stained collar. She dropped her forehead back into the hollow of her sister's neck, her small fists turning white as she clung to the ruined fabric. "I can't hate you... I’m so stupid... I’m such a pathetic girl.. After everything you did... I still can't hate you..."

"You're not stupid, Regel," Egel whispered, her voice cracking as her own energy reserves began to hit absolute zero. The azure flame around her hands flickered one last time, then dissolved into the damp air, leaving nothing but the raw, vulnerable weight of two human beings who had outlived their script. "You're the only one who survived hell. I’m the one who was blind. I’m the one who believed him."

Regel didn't answer. The total exhaustion of the [Hidden Potential Unlocked] parameter was finally executing its mandatory post-activation sequence. The explosive, catastrophic power output that had allowed her to break the structural boundaries of the dungeon had consumed every single point of her latent stamina pool. Her muscles felt like heavy, leaden weights, her cognitive interface turning into a dull, unresponsive grey grid.

Her grip on Egel’s waist slowly relaxed, her fingers sliding off her chest as her head grew too heavy to hold up.

"Egel..." Regel murmured, her eyes half-closed as the darkness of a natural, un-systemic sleep began to pull her under. "Don't leave me alone, again..."

"I won't, Lil Sis," Egel muttered, her own vision turning into a blur of dark vignette and flashing red warning frames.

The structural damage to her chest was compressing her lungs, and the sheer emotional exhaustion of the confrontation had drained the final drops of her Chi reserves. She couldn't maintain her low martial arts stance anymore. Her knees, scarred from a hundred defensive stands, simply refused to lock.

With a soft, synchronized thud, both sisters collapsed completely forward onto the cold stone floor.

They rolled sideways into the debris, their bodies settling together in the dust. Regel’s head remained tucked securely beneath Egel’s chin, her small face pressed against her neck, while Egel’s left arm remained draped over the girl’s back like a broken but unyielding iron gate. They lay there in the dark, motionless, breathing in the heavy, silent rhythm of total physical and emotional bankruptcy.

Above them, through the jagged, towering hole in the high granite wall, the silence of the surroundings was entirely contradicted by the cosmic violence of the main chamber. The deep, vibrating bass-baritone hum of Kaito's violet mana had reached a localized maximum, the air pressure dropping so sharply that a steady, cold wind began to howl through the structural fractures.

"What is happening there?!" Egel asked, still breathing heavily.

"Mordecai-sama... is angry. Something bad happened, I guess," Regel replied.

The purple light didn't just seep through the cracks anymore—it shot through them in jagged, blinding lances of absolute, un-debatable administrative fury. The faint, high-pitched screams of Nick's terrestrial panic were completely drowned out by the roaring, thunderous torrent of a Dark Lord who had officially closed the ledger on the Chosen One's portfolio.

The family drama of the Muscle sisters had found its quiet, exhausting resolution in the dust. But up on the obsidian dais, the final, un-skippable liquidation of the hero's estate was about to begin.

The dense, suffocating violet mana continued to vibrate through the shattered stone floor, but within the dim silence of Sector 5, the heavy breathing of the two collapsed sisters began to slow. They lay there, trapped under the crushing weight of their system-induced exhaustion and the raw, lingering trauma of their confrontation.

Then, the soft, rhythmic sound of a broom sweeping across loose gravel broke the quiet.

Through the settling dust and rubble, a lean, skeleton dressed in a perfectly ironed janitorial apron stepped into the cavernous repository. Larry looked around the destroyed sector, his white starred-eyes scanning the shattered lockers and the collapsed pillar with what could only be interpreted as mild, professional disapproval of the sudden mess. Yet, his movements remained fluid and efficient.

He walked over to where the two sisters lay tangled on the stone floor and stared at them for a few moments.

Scrik Scrik Larry scratched his skull, while the two sister looked at him with a smile.

Without a word, The skeleton Janitor bent down, his ancient, legendary [SSSSSSSSSSSS Ordinary Yellow Rubber Gloves] reached out and gently patted both Egel’s tangled, blood-matted hair and Regel’s red strands.

Pat. Pat.

It was a quiet, rhythmic gesture of absolute, untransactional comfort—the simple, grounding touch of a supervisor ensuring his staff was safe after a catastrophic shift.

Larry then gave them a 👍 and reached into his utility belt, pulling out a heavy, enchanted steel thermos flask and a large, gleaming silver serving spoon. With the practiced care of a head of logistics, he uncorked the flask, poured a dense, aromatic, glowing broth onto the spoon, and brought it to their lips, ensuring each sister received a concentrated dose of the radiant liquid.

Instantly, a warm, golden-white light rippled across their skin. The flashing red critical warnings in their vision blinked out, replaced by a smooth, rapid recovery log. Egel’s pulverized right clavicle knitted back together with a series of soft clicks, the deep gashes on her face closing into faint, clean lines, while Regel’s completely drained stamina pool instantly filled back to a stable baseline.

The pure, administrative healing of the soup didn't just mend their muscle fibers; it washed away the physical coldness of the deep dungeon.

Then, with a synchronized gasp, both sisters immediately forced their torsos upward, pushing themselves into a sitting position on the dusty floor.

They sat face-to-face, the sudden return of their physical strength making the emotional weight of their reunion even sharper. Egel looked at her younger sister, no longer masked by the wild, monstrous aura of the system, while Regel stared back at the veteran whose scars she had finally understood. Fresh, clean tears instantly cut through the soot on their faces.

Without another second of hesitation, they lunged forward, throwing their arms around each other in a fierce, desperate embrace, their loud, ragged sobs echoing off the broken granite walls.

"Stay here with me, don't leave me again..." Regel wept into her sister's shoulder, her small hands gripping Egel's back as if she were afraid the world might try to separate their roster files again. "Mordecai-sama is a very good man.. He's not like Nick... He gave us a real contract, free time, dignity... and there's also Larry..."

Egel tightened both arms around the girl’s back, her blue eyes finally finding a peaceful, unyielding focus amid the chaos of the collapsing raid. A soft, knowing smile broke through her tears as she looked down at the silver spoon Larry had left beside them.

"I know, at least now..." Egel whispered, her deep voice cracking with a mixture of immense relief and absolute, data-driven certainty. "I've already decided to follow him... and marry him."

"Big Sis... me too... I want to—" Regel tried to speak, but their sweet moment got interrupted by a big boom..