Chapter 247: mob fight

"Rot in the deepest pit of hell, you filthy ass clown," Alice hissed through gritted teeth, her voice shaking.

The barely recovered divine mana in her chest surged into him.

"GURRRK—!" Vane convulsed, his hands clawing at the floor as radiant holy light poured out from the wound in his back.

"You guys planned to poison Violet," Alice snarled, her knuckles tightened around the hilt.

Holy mana treated The Substance in his body like dry brush in a wildfire. Golden lightning lanced through his veins, turning the black, squelching corruption into superheated steam. Vane’s eyes bulged, his mouth torn open in a silent, suffocating scream as his ribs, organs, and regenerative flesh began to dissolve into scorching, white-hot slag from the inside out.

"Burn," Alice whispered. "Burn until there’s nothing left for this wretched city to remember!"

**

At the far edge of the platform, a tall enforcer snatched the remote. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"I got it!" the brute roared with a triumphant smile as he held the trigger aloft. "The little freak’s bluffing! Kill them—"

The victory speech died in his throat as he felt Eren was already behind him.

Before the enforcer could even pull out his weapon, Eren’s hand clamped around the man’s wrist. With his free hand, Eren plucked the hatchet from the guy’s leather utility harness and gave two lightning-fast diagonal slashes straight across the enforcer’s chest.

In the same movement, Eren flicked the hatchet down and severed the man’s wrist clean at the joint.

The device fell from the grip.

Eren moved to catch it, but with the hatchet in one hand and the severed forearm in his grip, his reach lagged by a fraction of an inch. As the dying enforcer collapsed, his boot kicked outward reflexively, striking the remote mid-air and sending it sliding across the slick floor toward the outer railing.

A rat-faced mercenary lunged forward, scooping the trigger off the stone.

"Mine, you little bastard!" he shrieked, spinning on his heel to sprint toward the rear scaffolding stairs.

Eren didn’t waste a second. He hurled the hatchet across the platform with terrifying, whistling velocity.

The blade buried three inches deep between the runner’s shoulder blades, severing the spinal cord with an audible snap.

Yet pure panic carried the dying mercenary’s arms forward. As he folded in half, his fingers hurled the device in a desperate, spastic toss into the air.

"Catch the damn thing!" a third guard howled, leaping off a crate near the iron railing and catching the trigger with both hands.

Down below, the sea of cutthroats let out a hungry, deafening cheer as the guard secured the remote.

BAM!

Out of nowhere, Baron Killiyan with his chains collided straight into the guard’s back.

"GET AWAY FROM MY RESCUE, YOU SCUM!" Killiyan shrieked in unhinged self-preservation.

The guard lost balance and fell off the railing, the brass remote slipping from his fingers and tumbling toward the packed plaza below.

Eren snatched the black sword off the ground, not breaking stride as his boots slammed onto the top of the iron railing.

Looking down at the flailing guard and remote, Eren’s blue eyes flashed with delight, a wide grin splitting his blood-stained face.

"Appreciate the hustle, fatty!"

Eren kicked off the iron rail, diving headfirst into the sea of blades below.

The thrown enforcer hit the plaza stones with a wet crack, but not a single cutthroat spared him a second glance. Their hungry eyes were glued to the tumbling remote trigger.

It bounced off an iron pauldron, slipped through greasy fingers, spun across a spiked shield, and landed squarely in the hands of a wiry, rat-faced scout.

"I got it!" the slim man squealed, holding the box against his ribs like he found a diamond. "I have the box!"

"Look up!" a mercenary roared, pointing a notched broadsword to the sky.

Eren was hurtling down like a falling comet, dark hair whipping in the gale. The front rank grinned with predatory malice, raising a forest of rusted pikes and serrated halberds.

"Let the little guy drop!" someone jeered. "We’ll carve the bastard up like a Sunday hen!"

CRACK-CRUNCH.

Eren didn’t land on their pikes. He adjusted his descent mid-air, slamming his right boot with concussive weight straight onto a pikeman’s shoulder. His bones shattered into powder under the impact, driving the man face-first into the dirt. Using the rebound momentum without pausing to absorb the shock, Eren’s left boot snapped out, kicking a second cutthroat square in the sternum.

The force sent the man flying backward into three of his comrades, clearing a patch of air as Eren hit the ground on light, spring-loaded knees.

Instantly, the ring snapped shut. Dozens of blades flashed inward, screaming for meat from every blind spot.

SWOOSH.

Eren ducked low beneath a horizontal broadsword sweep, lunged forward inside the arc, and drove the black blade straight up beneath the ribcage of a heavy mace-wielder. The steel pierced clean through armor, sternum, and heart, the tip bursting out through the backplate.

Instead of yanking the weapon free, Eren gripped the hilt with both hands and bodily hoisted the dying mercenary into the air.

"Pardon the intrusion, gentlemen!" Eren barked with an unhinged grin.

Using the impaled corpse as a battering ram, Eren charged straight ahead. He plowed into the defensive wall of cutthroats, knocking men off their feet, snapping spear hafts, and carving a violent corridor through the press toward the rat-faced runner.

"Stop him!" a scarred captain shrieked from the flanks. "He’s making for that thing! Don’t let the freak get his hands on that box!"

Two berserkers armed with dual hand-axes broke from the crowd, flanking Eren’s human shield. Eren released his grip on the black hilt, letting the dead man collapse into the front rank. Dropping flat onto his palms, Eren kicked both legs out like scythes, sweeping the first guy’s shins out from under him.

As the second guy brought his twin axes whistling down, Eren snatched a fallen dagger from the ground with his bare toes, flicked it up to his right palm, and rammed four inches of cold iron straight up through the man’s chin into his skull.

He wrenched his demon blade free from the corpse in the same breath, turning around.

Ahead, the slim man was scrambling frantically through the mob, clutching the remote. "Move, you idiots! Let me through!"

"Hey, buddy!" Eren’s voice cut through the chaos, smooth and terrifyingly close. "Drop the toy, or you won’t need to worry about the Lord’s seat. You’ll be auditioning for a cemetery plot!"

A burly hammer-wielder lunged between them, bringing a heavy iron maul down in an earth-shattering overhead smash. Eren didn’t dodge. He sidestepped by a hair’s breadth, let the hammer pulverize the ground, planted his boot on the weapon’s head to pin it, and ran up the man’s arm.

With a brutal, sweeping horizontal stroke, the black sword sheared clean through the giant’s throat.

Eren vaulted off the dying giant’s shoulder, flying straight over the flailing vanguard.

His hand shot out like an iron vise, fingers clamping around the back of the slim runner’s collar.

"Mine," Eren chuckled, dragging the rat-faced man backward into the dirt.