Internet Mage Professor-Chapter 63: High level spawn

At first, the Mana Knights stood frozen—not by strategy, not by calculation, but by fear.

Their confidence, once so deafening, now thinned to silence.

The massive, hunched creature loomed before them, its grotesque form framed by the broken tunnel behind it, still slick with fresh slime.

The floor beneath it was wet, and where it had emerged, something else lingered—a thick, ruptured cocoon. Steam rose from its surface. The slime glistened like oil in the dusk light.

It looked like it hadn’t simply walked out, it just went there naturally and stood there, not moving.

"This... this thing is still wet," Caven whispered with a trembling voice.

One of the knights stepped forward. "Then it’s fresh. Weak. We strike now before it matures."

They rushed, swords out, runes glowing.

Their blades arced, stabbing downward—one after the other.

Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!

They struck its shoulders, sliced across its back, impaled what they assumed was its head.

Each strike landed with a thick, wet squelch, meeting with little resistance. The creature didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. Didn’t even bleed in the way they were used to. Its flesh sucked around the blades like a sponge soaked in oil.

All attacked—except one.

Caven hesitated, his boots frozen to the blood-soaked cobblestone. His breath hitched in his throat.

"Stab it!" one of the others shouted.

But Caven shook his head, his eyes wide. "It’s unknown. We don’t know what it is. It could be—"

"It’s just a goddamn embryo!" another yelled, slicing through the side of the creature’s torso. "Freshly hatched. Look at it—it’s hunched and can barely stand. Kill it now before it grows!"

"I’m telling me it’s wrong!" Caven shouted. "Something’s off!"

But they ignored him. Their blades kept slashing. Kept thrusting. They cut at its ribs, its sides, its oddly pulsing spinal hump.

Then the hump twitched.

Not like a muscle spasm. Not a death throe.

It expanded—bulged like a rising blister. Veins swelled beneath the glistening black flesh. And then, from a slit that tore open in the middle of its back, it sprayed.

A torrent of black sludge erupted, thick and pressurized, aimed directly at one of the knights who had impaled its neck.

The liquid hissed through the air like acid steam.

It hit him square in the chest.

At first, he gasped. Then he screamed. And kept screaming.

His armor melted.

Not corroded.

Liquefied.

The steel plates collapsed, the glowing runes fizzling into sparks. Beneath them, flesh began to heat up and bubbled, until it looked like it was boiled.

"No...No...No - no - no - NOOOOOOO!!"

The knight flailed, trying to tear off his gear, but his hands were melting too. Black steam poured from his throat as he tried to inhale, only to choke on himself.

"Gahack!"

His screams turned wet. Rattled. Until he fell onto his knees, and even then, his bones collapsed under him.

They watched, horrified, as his body transformed into a black-red sludge, bubbling with half-dissolved teeth, armor fragments, and twitching nerves.

Nothing remained but a foul puddle that reeked of rotting meat and molten metal.

The knights panicked.

And they didn’t realize—their fear wasn’t just emotional. It was parasitic.

The moment terror clenched their hearts, their Mana pools began to wither.

The once-mighty Initiate Knights dropped down, drained with every passing second. From Seventh Stage... to Fifth... to Third—without realizing it, they had already fallen below the creature in front of them.

It was now stronger.

Much stronger.

The creature twitched again. This time, its legs straightened. Its arms, once loose and limp, now coiled with slow, predatory tension.

"Fall back!" one of them shouted, but it was too late.

The creature moved.

It didn’t run. It glided. Its limbs flickered between motion and stillness, like frames skipping out of sync.

One moment it was ten feet away; the next, it was beside them.

A tentacle shot out, catching another knight around the waist.

There was a horrible crack.

The knight folded in half. His upper body whipped over his lower spine with a bone-popping snap before he was dragged violently through the air, his corpse used like a flail to knock another off his feet.

Panic became chaos.

Swords swung blindly. Shields raised too late. Their formations collapsed. No longer a disciplined unit—they were prey.

One by one, they were taken apart.

Skulls were crushed into the pavement with sickening crunches. Limbs torn free and tossed like garbage.

One knight tried to cast a barrier spell, but halfway through the incantation, his head vanished—bitten clean off, blood geysering into the air.

The creature didn’t roar. It didn’t laugh. It didn’t speak.

It just killed.

Effortlessly.

Until only one remained.

Caven.

Covered in sweat and blood that wasn’t his, legs barely holding him up, sword trembling in his hand.

The creature lunged.

But something was wrong.

It stumbled. Twitched. Slower than before.

Its tentacles dragged behind it. Its movements no longer clean and seamless.

Caven didn’t wait. He turned and ran, sprinting through alleys, leaping over corpses, his mind spinning. It was weakening. But why? Why now?

He didn’t look back. Didn’t dare.

And the creature didn’t chase.

Not because it couldn’t.

But because it wouldn’t.

Two figures emerged from the mist near the tunnel’s edge, standing calmly amidst the carnage.

One was tall and broad, wrapped in ragged robes that hung loose around his shoulders, his face partially veiled beneath a hood.

His eyes, glowing crimson, narrowed as he watched Caven disappear into the distance.

Beside him stood something else.

A creature. Not human. Not even close.

It resembled a demon born of the deep ocean. Its skin was scaled, deep navy blue and wet with brine. It had long fins that curled from its back and elbows, sharp and frilled.

Gills opened and closed along its ribs. Its face—elongated and angular, with eyes that shimmered like abyssal pearls—turned lazily toward the human beside it.

The demon’s voice was smooth and low, with the cadence of shifting tides. "We cannot chase that one. If we do, we’ll leave the boundary of the Blood Water Territory we’ve formed and his strength will recover."

The man in tattered clothes smirked. "Let him run. He’s not the problem. In fact, I’m sure those bastards will come crawling here again, especially since one of them survived. And when they do..."

He gestured around the blood-drenched streets.

"We’ll be ready. With all this blood, we can stretch the boundary even wider."

The demon smiled, revealing needle-like teeth that glinted in the murky dusk.

"That’s true," it said. "Though... another two of my underlings—lesser spawn I summoned earlier—were destroyed permanently."

The man’s expression darkened.

"Three of them now? What happened?"

"I do not know," the demon replied, glancing toward the rooftops. "But it wasn’t one of ours. If it had been another demonspawn or slave, I would’ve sensed it. This... this was something different."

"You mean..." The man’s face paled. "An aboriginal?"

"Possibly."

"That’s impossible. I thought no one could hurt you in this realm."

"So did I," the demon murmured. "But Mana here is no longer constant. It was mixed from several realms higher than this. It’s fluid. Corrupted. There are gaps—ancient threads woven into the earth. And the longer Mana invades this realm, the more unpredictable it becomes."

The man’s eyes flickered, unsettled. He looked at the sludge that used to be one of the Mana Knights. "So... even in this broken world, something still resists?"

"Something... or someone."

They stood in silence, the wind picking up, carrying the scent of charred meat and iron through the broken village.

Then, the man in tattered clothes stepped forward, extending a hand toward the ground.

"Enough speculation. Let’s begin."

The demon tilted its head. "Begin what?"

The man grinned. "The ritual. To expand the Blood Water Territory."

And behind them, the sludge began to boil.