The pressure inside the ruined chamber vibrated. Nauseating hum that crawled beneath skin and lodged itself into bone.
The black veins spread across his neck pulsed like living circuitry.
Several marks burned beneath his skin, flickering in unstable patterns as if something foreign had synchronized with the architecture of his body itself.
The sheer density of Runic Flow around him distorted his own vision.
Collin attacked first.
His body blurred through shattered debris. Boots grinded sparks across broken steel as he lunged from Alfred's blind spot, blade drawn for the spine.
"Don't let him st—"
A shadow appeared? No, manifested.
Something impossibly massive unfolded behind Alfred like darkness remembering shape.
A crown of frozen night.
Horns jagged like mountain graves. Eyes resembling dead stars staring through existence itself.
Chernobog.
The chamber temperature dropped so violently frost crawled across exposed metal.
Collin halted for half a second. Half a second too long.
Alfred slowly turned his head.
"You really thought I would synchronize with divinity and not become dramatic?"
His grin widened. "Come on, Collin. Villains deserve presentation."
Every vibration in the room warped under Alfred's command.
His fingers twitched lazily as the invisible force kept surrounding them.
"I can hear everything now. Breathing. Blood flow... trembling muscles... even the far cry of the newborn baby two continents away."
His smile twitched unnaturally.
"Even fear has rhythm."
His left eye spasmed violently. The cost had already begun.
Madness threatening the edges but he ignored it.
Brunhildr's expression hardened instantly.
"Shieldmaiden's Resolve!"
Light exploded outward.
Golden runes spiraled across everyone's bodies, not merely shielding them this time but fusing with their very essences.
Like spirit reinforcing spirit, soul interlocked with protection itself.
Yet... Alfred laughed in pity.
"You still don't understand."
His fingers snapped. It was smooth sound.
Collin's body suddenly unmade.
Flesh ruptured outward in a catastrophic bloom of red. Scattering all organs and intestines with floor on the floor
A severed hand struck the wall with a sickening slap. Leaving a bloody mark on the wall.
The smell hit instantly.
"Anywhere sound exists, I can plant rot or perhaps explosions."
His grin widened unnaturally.
"Even the smallest sound… a heartbeat is enough."
Collin's remains steamed against the shattered floor.
Nobody even breathed properly.
The chamber had become something wrong. An environment stripped of normality.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Henry stood frozen for only a second.
But for Henry, that second felt endless.
His jaw clenched hard enough to hurt. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his Astra until his knuckles whitened beneath trembling skin.
One moment Collin had been alive, reckless and loud and still fighting and the next he was dead meat.
Henry forced oxygen into his lungs despite the nausea clawing up his throat. His body screamed at him to panic, to recoil, to look away.
He refused.
Because if he broke here, everyone else would too.
Avery stood several feet behind him, completely motionless. His pupils were wider than usual.
"No…"
Her voice sounded detached.
"What…"
His eyes remained fixed on the gore spread across the ruined floor as though his mind physically refused to process what stood before him.
"…What just happened? Collin's dead… like this...?"
Alfred sighed dramatically, rolling his shoulder as if mildly inconvenienced.
"God."
He rubbed his temple.
"You people really know how to ruin atmosphere."
The synchronized Runic markings crawling beneath his skin pulsed violently as Chernobog loomed behind him like an omen of extinction itself.
"I will be generous." Alfred said, raising one hand lazily. "I won't kill all of you immediately."
His grin widened. The air vibrated around his voice.
"I wanna see what kind of guts you have got left after watching that."
He gestured vaguely toward Collin's remains.
"Fight. Cry. Beg. I will wait."
BOOM!
A gunshot hit.
Alfred's body jerked forward.
Blood erupted from his left shoulder.
Thin black-red branches spread instantly from the wound site like invasive roots crawling through flesh.
Alfred dropped to one knee.
Everyone's eyes snapped backward.
Shams Raye.
His Astra writhed in his hands.
A shotgun formed from gummy blood, pulsating tendrils coiling around the barrel like living veins.
He exhaled slowly. "…Took long enough."
Alfred stared at the spreading branches.
"My healing factor is decreased. Haha... Hahaha!! Doesn't matter!"
He rose halfway, wiping blood from his mouth.
"You understand something, right?"
All sound belonged to him. Brunhildr's golden barrier flickered weakly in reflected resonance.
Alfred glanced toward it with open amusement.
"That shield is now useless. I manipulate all sound now! I can kill every single one of you whenever I feel like it!"
Avery's body stood rigid as though reality itself had briefly disconnected from meaning.
Her hands trembled at her sides, mouth slightly parted but unable to fully form words.
Brunhildr could feel it immediately. Shock crawled through everyone like poison. Henry was barely holding himself together through sheer force of will.
Avery looked one bad second away from mentally collapsing.
Then the chamber darkened.
The shadows behind Alfred thickened like oil swallowing light.
Chernobog finally stepped forward.
Its form no longer resembled a vague mass of darkness. It had shape into something more terrible now.
A towering figure draped in ragged black robes resembling funeral smoke. The fabric moved anyway despite no wind existing inside the room.
Its body beneath appeared skeletal yet impossibly broad, carved from charred obsidian flesh split by glowing crimson fissures.
A crown of twisted antlers rose from its head, resembling dead winter trees warped into thorned halos.
Its face was perhaps the worst part—half skull, half starving god, stretched skin pulled impossibly tight over sharp divine features, lips split too wide into something permanently resembling hunger.
Where its feet touched ground, frost and rot spread together.
"Blood... I smell terror. I smell opened flesh!"
Its head tilted toward Henry and Avery.
"I wish to peel them."
Brunhildr instinctively stepped forward.
Even she hesitated.
Alfred rubbed his forehead.
"Dude. Calm down."
Chernobog snarled softly. "You summoned famine wearing human skin."
"I summoned backup. Try not to eat the casts before the climax."
BOOM!
Another tendril-shot slammed through Alfred's side. He staggered.
Shams Raye dashed forward.
The gummy blood shotgun shifted mid-motion.
"Henry!" Shams barked without turning. "Move towards the upper floor! Backup's almost here!"
Shams fired again. "NOW!"
Alfred twisted his fingers. The sound of the gunshot bent. Literally.
The shockwave reversed direction, exploding sideways through pillars while hidden vibrations burst from shattered debris like invisible landmines.
A loose bolt on the ceiling suddenly detonated into fragmentation shrapnel. The ringing of falling metal transformed into concussive pulses.
Every sound had become a weapon. Brunhildr raised her spear.
"Siegrune of the Thousand Glories!"
Radiant light erupted outward, vast and warm. The oppressive pressure loosened.
Mental distortions weakened.
Runic interference lifted from muscles and nerves as invisible restraints shattered under divine restoration.
Avery blinked hard, regaining herself but the battle never stopped.
Shams moved through chaos. His Astra intercepted sonic detonations while deliberately carving openings between attacks.
Alfred laughed through blood.
"You think distance matters?"
The sound of Henry's heartbeat echoed and exploded the wall beside him.
"Run faster! I will make the opening!"
Henry ran.
He forced himself upward through the shaking staircase.
Shams Raye's voice came behind him with enough guts to force him move on.
Shams Raye fought like a professional.
His Astra shotgun pulsed grotesquely in his hands. He pivoted cleanly, firing with impossible precision.
BOOM!
A shell struck the wall beside Alfred.
The bullet fragmented mid-flight into smaller accelerated rounds that curved unnaturally through debris before puncturing Alfred's side and shoulder from blind angles.
Black branch-like growth immediately spread through the wounds, feeding into Alfred's Runic system like parasitic veins.
Shams chambered another round instantly.
This shot burst on impact into suppressive blood fragments that clung invisibly to surrounding vibrations, dulling nearby sound resonance.
Alfred staggered.
"Okay. You are very irritating as always."
He noticed Henry climbing. His grin widened.
"There you are. You are not going anywhere, kid."
Every tiny sound near Henry sharpened unnaturally.
The sound around Henry's chest compressed into an invisible point.
A sonic implosion. Directly toward his heart.
"Let's see what happens when your heart tu—"
Henry turned. Looked directly at Alfred and raised his hand.
"Spell: Last Suffer."
Something happened which Alfred clearly recognized. Alfred stopped.
The sound collapsed harmlessly. His expression shifted from murderous amusement... to realization.
"…You serious?"
Henry remained going upwards.
Alfred stared for half a second then barked out an incredulous laugh.
"Ohhhh boy, that's dirty."
BOOM!
Shams shot him through the ribs.
Alfred stumbled but pointed immediately toward Henry, grinning despite blood dripping down his mouth.
"You people hearing this? Kid just existentially handcuffed me!"
Another shot slammed into his shoulder.
He winced.
"If I blow up his heart the mine explodes too."
He jabbed a finger straight into his own chest without any thought.
"You linked our spiritual and existential state, didn't you?"
He shook his head in genuine appreciation.
"That spell—Last Suffer. Equal consequence. If somebody pierces him while we are bound, I get the same equivalent damage as him."
Another bullet staggered Alfred.
"Temporary trick but damn, Henry… that was actually clever."