Chapter 186: Righting my wrongs.

Chapter 185: Righting My Wrongs

The corpse of Verne moved at an impossible speed — far beyond what a master was capable of — and attempted to impale Sunny.

Sunny gritted his teeth and a moment later, dark tentacles sprouted from his legs, lifting him into the air and evading the deadly blow.

He quickly composed himself and the black mass of [Shadow Symbiote] encased his body in a dark mantle. At the same time, dozens of tentacles shot from his arm as he fell down, grabbing Verne’s body and locking him in place.

The entity wearing his body struggled against the dark mass but it could not escape the tenacity of the Shadow Symbiote.

Sunny hesitated for a few moments, and peered into Verne’s soul using [Blood Weave]...

There was nothing there but six oceans of corruption, belonging to a corrupted terror.

’I’m sorry...’

The tentacles turned into sharp knives and tore apart Verne’s body, leaving nothing but a bundle of meat.

Sunny and Saint turned to the hollow minions of the terror and raised their weapons, heading to clash with the abominations.

’... This is bad.’

Sunny and Saint were capable of holding down the minions... But not for long. They were both exhausted and tired from the previous battles.

The terror likely had more minions, as well.

And more importantly, it could enthrall more nightmare creatures and the members of the first evacuation army.

Across the city to the south, the majority of the First Army forces were finishing off the Devouring Cloud. Even directionless, the gluttonous swarm still posed an existential threat to Falcon Scott — the sky was torn asunder by fire and explosions, countless brood beasts melting in that inferno as they threw themselves against the siege capital’s defenses.

Somewhere further south, far away, Sky Tide was once again engaged in a dreadful battle against the Corrupted Titan, Winter Beast.

And yet, here, on the shore of the dark ocean, a new threat appeared... one that was perhaps no less dangerous than the Devouring Cloud.

Worst of all, no one except for one Master seemed to be aware of it.

...Or so Sunny had thought.

The moment the hollow horde surged forward, the port fortress finally came alive. Numerous turrets turned their barrels, unleashing an onslaught of bullets at the thralls of the Terror of the Depths. Bright beams of light once again shone on the shore, and several rail guns thundered, cutting rifts through the horde. Arrows and magical projectiles fell down like rain.

The thralls had turned out to be too powerful to be obliterated by the sudden assault, but they did slow down for a moment.

And shortly after that display, a red blur hit the shore, landing beside Sunny and causing a small crater.

He backed up and raised his weapon, expecting it to be another abomination but after expanding his shadow sense, Sunny recognized the newcomer.

It was Hugo, who was still in the form of a four armed red giant

More importantly, he was riding on Zed, who was transformed into a gigantic sabertooth, as if she was a horse which was... An odd but intimidating picture.

Hugo turned to Sunny with an urgent look and got off Zed.

"Are you alright?"

Sunny groaned slightly and nodded.

"I’ll live... But how did you know about the terror?"

"Something was trying to crawl into my mind and I also saw that you were nowhere in sight so I decided to investigate now that the horror was dealt with." He paused and took a look at the army of thralls which was being stunned by projectiles. "It seems our little terror is expanding its influence... Sunny, you didn’t say its influence was this powerful."

Sunny paled slightly, processing his words and coming to a startling realization.

"I didn’t... And its ability was never this powerful before which could only mean that it had evolved..."

A corrupted terror evolving was a death sentence for all of them. Either it would become a great terror or a corrupted Titan.

Both options bode them no well.

"It seems that it turned into a Titan or at least it’s in the process of becoming a Titan... Either way We don’t have many options right now besides killing it, so go find Saint Bloodwave, I’ll see what I can do here."

Sunny gave him a nod and disappeared into the shadows, but he made sure to leave Saint there as backup, as well as another strange shadow hidden in the shadows.

Hugo allowed his own shadow to manifest into a physical form and told it to assume a combative transformation.

Naturally, it became a stone saint.

Sunny’s onyx saint and Hugo’s shadow stared at each other for a few moments... The ancient stone saint knew the shadow was not born a member of her kind but she accepted his comradery nonetheless.

They raised their swords in unison and hit their shields with it, making a loud and powerful sound.

Shadows rippled beneath Saint and manifested into a mighty steed made of darkness, with two crimson red eyes. That was Nightmare, her loyal companion entrusted to her by her master.

Hugo’s shadow looked at Zed for a few seconds and mounted her in response.

The two riders looked at the army of thralls who was no longer being held back by the projectiles and rushed towards them alongside their trusty mounts with their dark blades raised.

’... That’s certainly a sight.’

Hugo leaped off the ground, leaving the thralls to Saint, Nightmare, his shadow and Zed.

He dove towards the ocean and slammed his Omnitrix. In a flash of blue light, his body shrunk down and metallic crimson plates formed over him.

His very blood became water, and he gained an affinity to all bodies of water.

This was Water Hazard.

He dove into the dark ocean and made his way into its depths, swimming past the thralls and impaling some of them using water spears along the way.

Due to his short but eventful time in the House of Night, Hugo has grown accustomed to fighting underwater.

His experience from the forgotten shore helped, as well.

As for the terror’s influence, he did not have to worry about it too much.

’My [Omni-Mind] trait is protecting me from its mind attack... But the closer I get to the terror, the stronger the influence is becoming...’

It made him question if the [Omni-Mind] trait had given him full immunity to mind attacks, or if it simply offered him a firm protection that can be broken by powerful beings...

More importantly, he felt that the trait did not extend to his spirit body, which made him wonder about something else.

What would happen if a devious entity enthralled his spirit body, which was his spirit?

The spirit was the core of all beings, their personalities and the soul of the mind... So any being who manages to enthrall his spirit body could wrap a collar around his neck, one that he did not even know about.

As he thought about it deeper, Hugo suddenly found himself in a blank state.

’What was I thinking about?...’ he shook his head ’Focus Hugo.’

He was in a battle against a horror of the corrupted rank. Such thoughts could easily lead to his death.

Finally, after a few minutes of diving down... Hugo found his target.

..Hidden in the depths of the lightless abyss, an eerily beautiful creature floated in the vast and silent darkness.

From a distance, the Terror looked akin to a strange, ghostly flower... a lily, perhaps, or a white lotus. Its pallid petals flowed and danced slowly in the darkness, some stretching for hundreds of meters into the empty abyss, some swirling around the small nebulous shape hidden in their center.

The sight of it was both breathtakingly beautiful and deeply terrifying. The wide ribbons of white looked both like the petals of a flower... and like the long tentacles of an ethereal creature, too alien to be described with words.

It was glowing with an ethereal, enchanting white light, which signaled the fact that it was evolving.

’So you’re the bastard who killed all of them people...’

He raised his hands and used Water Hazard’s ability to control and generate water to create a terrifying vortex undersea, sucking in the thralls of the terror and eventually the terror itself.

Hugo might not be able to kill it, but he could at least stop its influence and destabilize its evolution.

But the terror was not as defenseless as he thought. Its graceful petals extended like tentacles of a white colossus and fell upon him in the middle of the Vortex, denting and scratching his crimson body.

A spear made of water tried to cut the petals but it barely had any effect due to the rank and class difference between them.

’I can’t afford to use Omni-Enhanced or Fusion again... Omni-Kix won’t do me any good, too.’

Only a Transcendent being could do something right now and so Hugo swam inside the vortex and stalled for time, attempting to dodge the petals, but just then, vaguely familiar abominations that resembled grotesque mannequins of flesh jumped at him driving him towards the terror.

Those were its thralls, who seemed to be fallen beasts.

There was about seven of them, and before they could take him to the maw of the terror, Hugo quickly drove his fist into the chest of the first horror and ripped it apart.

He used its body to propel himself away from the abominations and put distance between them.

His water spear manifested once again, this time becoming a Trident which reminded him of an old memory he used to possess in the forgotten shore.

Hugo waited for the abominations to engage and skillfully parried their blows, using quick but lethal killing blows to decapitate each beast.

He poured soul essence into his legs and arms for better movement and at the same time, he made sure the water around him pushed their bodies away.

His spear flashed twice, thrice and a fourth time within the span of seven seconds, turning the beasts into bloody smithereens and showcasing the prowess of his battle art.

But just as he was about to make another move... Something pierced his metallic chest.

A long white tentacle in the shape of a petal spread through his insides and destroyed his flesh.

’...’

It pulled him deeper into the ground, and there was suddenly nowhere to go.

He tried to hit his Omnitrix but more petals grabbed onto him, leaving no room for escape...

Before he could be dragged towards the terror, a roar split the ocean, and something fast and deadly pierced the vortex he had created.

It dove down and left a trail of blood behind it, cutting down the petals grabbing into Hugo, before carrying him away.

It was a monstrous killer whale. The eyes of the great predator remained clear and blue, but the water itself seemed suddenly tinted dark crimson around them.

That was Saint Bloodwave, who had quickly detected him and the terror.

Nearby, Sunny and Neave could be seen fighting off the thralls and taking them down one by one.

He smiled briefly and looked at the terror beneath...

It was still dormant, yet somehow its influence was active and its petals were moving as if they had a sentience of their own.

It could not have remained dormant in here for days—Hugo had grown increasingly paranoid ever since the Malware incident so he was certain he would’ve detected it earlier —so the logical conclusion would be that it came here and then went into a state of hibernation to evolve.

The reason was simple...

Terrors needed to consume their minions to become titans, but the abomination likely did not have enough minions to evolve so it came here to enthrall as many people as it could get while it was in its dormant state, wanting to use them for its dark ascension.

Hugo’s mind raced as he separated himself from Bloodwave and regained his composure.

He had been in a similar situation before, fighting a corrupted terror who had sought ascension, a different kind sure, but still an ascension that cost the lives of countless people.

Now he had the help of a saint, a divine aspect wielder and a powerful master carrying the lineage of storm god.

But still... Bloodwave was not resistant to its influence, so even if he could damage it, the terror would still enthrall him after a while.

’The only one capable of handling this is me...’

He knew what he had to do and what he needed to become.

And so, Hugo closed his eyes and created a bubble of thick black and blue substances around his body using the [Mechamorphic Asura].

At the same time, he dove into his soul sea and went to the deepest part of his soul...

Towards the third DNA chamber.