Chapter 232: Level 80 Void-Octopus

Green acid hissed through the rusted metal grating beneath their feet, sending up thin trails of foul smoke. The support beams below the platform groaned under the strain, and a two-foot section of walkway broke away, falling into the dark pool below with a loud splash.

Above them, dozens of Corrosive Trench-Stalkers scuttled along the crane rails, their mandibles clicking in rhythm as they prepared another volley of acidic bile. Their red eyes glowed in the dim green moss-light, watching the trio.

"We can’t stay on this platform," Amber warned, keeping her twin sabers raised. "The moment they spit again, the entire floor is going to collapse."

"They think they have the high ground," Evren said, a calm smile touching his lips. "Let’s change that."

He planted his boots firmly on the most solid section of the steel grating and expanded his Gravity Domain upward. Instead of spreading the force along the floor, Evren focused the entire fifty-meter zone straight at the ceiling and crane rails.

He dialed the downward pressure to ten times normal gravity in a split second.

A sound like cracking thunder echoed through the upper rafters of the cavern.

The sudden spike of gravitational force was overwhelming. The stalkers clinging to the ceiling pipes and rusted beams were ripped from their perches as if an invisible giant had swatted them down.

Dozens of the large, armored beasts plummeted through the air, flailing their legs in panic. They crashed down onto the already weakened catwalks with terrible force, punching straight through the melting metal grating.

The entire walkway network gave way. Rusted iron arches and screaming stalkers rained down into the dark water, creating massive waves that crashed against the concrete pillars.

Before the platform beneath them gave out, Amber let out her wings and shot twenty feet straight up into the open air.

Zephyra blurred into black mist at the exact same moment. She shadow-stepped across the falling debris, reappearing on a wide concrete buttress twenty feet above the water line.

Evren kicked off the falling metal frame and leaped across the gap, catching the ledge of a reinforced concrete intake pipe. He pulled himself up smoothly, standing beside Zephyra on dry stone.

Down in the pool below, all thirty of the fallen stalkers were thrashing wildly, trying to swim back toward the walls. Their thick armor plates weighed them down, making their movements clumsy and slow in the deep water.

"You’re in my element now," Evren murmured, raising his Frost-Bane Cleaver.

He channeled lightning into the weapon, coating the edge in crackling golden electricity. The arcs jumped along the steel, humming with enough high-voltage power to light up the dark cavern.

Evren pointed the cleaver downward and discharged a roaring bolt of golden lightning directly into the center of the pool.

The dark water flashed a brilliant gold as millions of volts surged through the lake. A blinding web of electrical current branched out across every inch of the surface, seeking out the submerged beasts.

Loud pops echoed across the cavern as the high voltage fried the stalkers from the inside out. Their armored shells couldn’t shield them from the current rushing into their mouths and soft joints, and their thrashing bodies locked up instantly.

Within seconds, the thrashing stopped completely. Dozens of charred, smoking carcasses floated up to the surface, surrounded by dead foam.

Evren’s Core Siphon activated, and the monster cores were pulled free from the dead stalkers, rising out of the water like red embers and streaming straight into his spatial storage ring.

Amber glided down through the air, hovering just above the concrete ledge with a relieved grin. "That was brilliant. Using their own weight to smash them through the floor saved our boots."

"Good timing," Zephyra agreed, sheathing one of her shadow daggers. "If we had stayed on that catwalk three seconds longer, we would have gone down with them."

Evren nodded, wiping a splash of water from his cheek. But before he could reply, a deep, low vibration resonated through the concrete ledge beneath their boots.

The vibration wasn’t coming from the walls or the ceiling. It was rising from the bottom of the flooded basin.

"Wait," Amber said, her smile vanishing as her golden wings flapped once to hold her in place. "Do you feel that?"

The surface of the dark lake began to swirl. The floating carcasses of the dead stalkers were suddenly dragged toward the center of the chamber, spinning faster and faster into a massive whirlpool.

Giant bubbles of dark gas broke the surface with deep, hollow booms, releasing a foul stench of brine and sulfur.

Evren’s Kinetic Flow flared in his mind with an intensity he hadn’t felt since their battle at the Void Singularity. Every instinct in his body screamed that something monstrous was ascending from the depths.

"Get back!" Evren shouted, shoving Zephyra behind him and bracing his stance.

The water in the center of the reservoir exploded upward in a towering wave.

Four huge tentacles rose from the depths, each as thick as a bus and covered in rubbery, dark purple skin. Roles of jagged bone hooks lined their suckers, glowing red as they whipped through the air.

Two of the tentacles slammed into the massive concrete support pillars on the left side of the room. The reinforced concrete cracked like dry chalk, showering debris into the churning water as the pillars collapsed.

Slowly, the gigantic head of the creature broke through the foaming surface.

It was a massive octopus with a bulbous mantle covered in thick armor plates that looked like black stone. In the middle of its moving limbs, a sharp beak snapped shut with powerful force.

A cluster of eight glowing crimson eyes fixed directly upon the three of them, burning with malice. Blood-red system text flared across Evren’s vision, far larger and more urgent than any monster prompt they had encountered today:

[WARNING: S-RANK ANCIENT CALAMITY BEAST DETECTED]

[LEVEL 80 VOID-OCTOPUS: SANGUINE KRAKEN]

[SPECIAL TRAITS: TIDAL RESONANCE, CORROSIVE INK VEIL, REGENERATIVE TENTACLE MATRIX]

"That thing is massive," Amber gasped, backing up into the air as the wind from the creature’s limbs whipped her black hair across her face. "It’s bigger than the entire platform we were standing on!"

"It made this entire flooded reservoir its nest," Zephyra said in a dead serious voice as she gripped her whip-blade tightly. "It’s the anchor holding this rift open."

The Kraken opened its beak and unleashed a deafening, sonic screech that tore through the cavern.

The high-pitched shockwave shattered the remaining glass fixtures along the ceiling, sending clouds of dust falling into the water. Even with their high-rank stats, the sound battered Evren, Amber and Z’s ears, making their heads throb with intense pressure.

Before they could recover, two massive tentacles whipped across the cavern like giant battering rams. One sliced through the air toward Amber, while the other crashed down directly toward the ledge where Evren and Zephyra stood.

"Scatter!" Evren roared, kicking off the stone just as the monstrous tentacle slammed into the ledge, obliterating the concrete into dust.