Chapter 727: They Prey Is Back Even Stronger

Along the riverbank, the eight-foot-tall Berserker slowly strolled beside the water, moving downstream while its dark red eyes never left the river itself.

The demon’s gaze remained fixed on the exact point where it could feel Liam’s presence drifting beneath the surface. Even through the brownish water, even through the rushing current, the Berserker could still sense him.

That strong prey.

That strange prey.

That dark-scented prey.

Liam’s presence moved slowly with the river, carried downstream bit by bit beneath the surface, and the Berserker followed from the bank with controlled patience.

It could have rushed into the river.

It could have leapt in, plunged its claws through the water, dragged Liam back out, and continued tossing him around until the human’s bones shattered beyond movement.

However, the Berserker wanted nothing to do with those brownish waters.

It knew what lurked beneath them.

Even though the Berserker was a Sync-class demon and the creature that ruled this section of the river was only an Advanced Horror, it still understood the difference between strength and territory.

On land, the aquatic demon would have been nothing more than prey.

A large one perhaps.

An annoying one, possibly.

But prey all the same.

Within the river, however, that same demon possessed the ultimate advantage. The current belonged to it. The depth belonged to it. The mud, the pressure, the blind angles beneath the surface, and every vibration passing through the water belonged to it.

The Berserker was powerful, but it was not stupid.

It had evolved too far and survived too long to throw itself into an enemy’s strongest environment without reason.

So the demon walked along the riverbank instead, calmly and patiently.

Waiting for the strongest prey it had encountered so far throughout its evolution to crawl out of the river so they could continue.

So they could fight again.

So it could tear Liam apart with its own hands.

But after a while of simply walking and waiting, the Berserker’s patience began to thin.

Its claws flexed slightly at its sides with dark red lightning flickering once along its shoulders.

The river kept carrying Liam’s presence farther downstream, and the longer the human remained beneath the surface, the more irritated the demon became.

Then, all at once, the Berserker sensed something else.

A familiar presence.

One it hated.

The aquatic demon.

The Berserker halted immediately, its head snapping toward the river.

Beneath the water, something large was moving fast.

Very fast.

And worse, it was heading straight toward Liam.

The Berserker’s eyes widened with sudden fury.

A roar tore from its throat, violent enough to shake the nearby trees and send birds fleeing from the canopy in a frantic burst of wings. The sound rolled across the river like thunder, sending ripples racing across the surface.

It was not roaring out of concern for Liam.

Not even close.

The Berserker did not care whether Liam lived for Liam’s sake.

It roared as a warning.

A threat.

A command.

Stay away from its prey.

But the warning fell on deaf ears.

The aquatic demon did not slow down.

If anything, it accelerated.

The river surface rose violently where its massive body surged beneath the water, creating a long swelling wave that cut against the current as it headed straight for Liam.

The Berserker lowered itself onto all fours.

Dark red lightning began crackling violently across its body, gathering along its limbs and spine as its claws dug into the riverbank. The ground beneath its hands cracked. Its muscles tightened. Its tail dragged behind it, carving a line through the dirt as it prepared to launch forward.

The rage inside it intensified.

Its prey was being stolen.

By a mud-dwelling worm.

By something that belonged beneath murky water and rotting river weeds.

The thought alone made the Berserker’s lightning flare brighter.

Then, before it could explode forward, the river lit up.

A blinding light erupted from beneath the surface.

For a split second, the entire river turned white-orange from within, as if a miniature sun had been born under the water itself.

Then the explosion followed.

The river burst upward in a massive, violent fountain. Water, mud, stone, shattered branches, and boiling steam erupted into the night sky with terrifying force. The shockwave slammed into the riverbank, tearing grass from the soil and bending the nearby trees backward.

The Berserker remained crouched in place, completely still for the first time since Liam had encountered it.

Its glowing eyes stared at the eruption in surprise.

Water rained down across the riverbank in heavy sheets. Steam rolled outward over the ground, thick and hot, drifting around the Berserker’s legs.

For a brief moment, the demon did not move.

It simply watched.

Then chunks of flesh began falling with the water.

Heavy, dark pieces of flesh dropped onto the riverbank and splashed into the shallows. Some were still twitching faintly. Others smoked from heat, their surfaces charred black and split open.

One large chunk landed directly in front of the Berserker with a wet impact.

The demon lowered its head slowly.

Its nostrils flared once, then twice.

Then its cracked mouth widened.

It recognized the scent immediately.

The aquatic demon.

The hated river predator that had dared to approach its prey had been torn apart beneath the water.

Delight spread across the Berserker’s grotesque face.

But then it noticed something else.

Something far better.

The Myst lingering in the air.

The heat.

The flame.

The dark, chaotic scent woven through the steam rising from the river.

Liam.

The Berserker’s smile widened further, its dark red eyes brightening with violent thrill.

The prey was alive.

Alive, and stronger than before.

Immediately, the Berserker snapped its head around, searching for him.

But before the demon could fully turn twice—

Something struck its face.

A long black bar with molten cracks across its surface slammed directly into the Berserker’s skull with horrific force.

The impact crushed the side of its face inward and launched the demon backward before it could even react.

The Berserker was sent flying through the forest far faster than before, smashing through the riverbank trees as the blackened weapon continued driving into it like a battering ram.

Its body tore through trunks, shattered branches, and carved a trench through the forest floor as it flew.

The demon snarled midair, dark red lightning flaring across its body as it tried to twist itself into position.

Then it saw the light above.

A bright beam descending from the sky.

No.

Not a beam.

A compressed orb of flame falling toward it like a star.

The Berserker’s eyes narrowed as it tried to move, but the impact from the blackened bar had thrown off its balance. Its body was still tumbling, still rotating through broken air and shattered wood.

It reacted too late.

The compressed ball of flame struck it directly in the midsection.

The explosion was violent.

Fire expanded outward in a concentrated blast, swallowing the Berserker’s body and tearing through the surrounding trees. The force blasted apart the ground beneath it and sent burning fragments of bark and stone scattering across the forest.

The Berserker crashed down hard, its body carving through the earth before coming to a stop in a smoking trench.

When the flames cleared, only the upper half of its body remained intact.

Its lower half had been blown apart completely.

Shreds of flesh, blackened bone, and pieces of its tail lay scattered across the ruined ground. Dark blood spread beneath it in thick pools while steam rose from the edges of the wound.

But the regeneration had already begun.

Dark red lightning dimmed slightly along the Berserker’s shoulders and arms as that energy pulled inward toward the ruined lower body. Bone began reconstructing first, snapping into shape with unnatural speed. Muscle followed. Dense strands of dark flesh crawled outward over the forming skeleton, twitching and joining together as the demon rebuilt itself from the waist down.

Halfway through the regeneration, the Berserker’s eyes sharpened.

Another attack was coming.

Fast.

A sharp glow pierced through the darkness ahead.

The tip of a hybrid javelin was already inches away from its chest, aimed straight for the exposed core region while the demon’s body was still incomplete.

This time, however, the Berserker reacted.

With only one newly regenerated leg, it twisted violently against the ground. Its claws dug into the dirt as it rotated its entire upper body sideways. The hybrid javelin tore past the core by a narrow margin, but before the weapon could disappear beyond it, the Berserker’s hand snapped outward.

It caught the weapon from the side.

The molten cracks along the javelin flared beneath its grip, burning into its palm, but the demon did not release it.

Instead, it snarled and hurled the weapon back in the direction it came from with monstrous force.

The throw bent nearby trees backward from pressure alone.

The hybrid javelin tore through the forest like a black and orange streak, ripping apart branches, splitting trunks, and carving through the air with a shrill, heated force.

Then someone caught it.

The weapon kept thrashing forward even after it was seized, dragging its holder across the ground in a long violent skid. Dirt split beneath his boots. Leaves scattered. Broken roots snapped beneath the pressure.

Eventually, the weapon stopped.

The debris began settling.

And there, standing within the fading smoke, was Liam.

He held the hurled hybrid javelin with both hands, his body leaned forward slightly from the effort it had taken to stop it. His boots had carved two long trenches into the earth before him, and water still dripped from portions of his clothes.

But something about him had changed.

His left arm, from shoulder to fingertips, glowed with a fierce white-orange radiance.

Heat poured from it in visible waves, warping the air around his body. The skin itself looked as though fire had settled beneath it, not burning him, but moving through him. Light pulsed along the muscles of his arm, bright and contained, while small embers drifted from his fingertips.

His crimson eyes glowed brighter than before. There was a sharpened stillness that made the air around him feel heavier.

The destructive aura rolling off him was impossible to miss.

The Berserker felt it clearly.

The heat.

The pressure.

The sharpness of his Myst.

The human’s power had changed.

The Berserker’s mouth widened into something that looked like a grin.

It was thrilled.

Truly thrilled.

Its lower body finished regenerating with a final violent pulse of dark red lightning. Flesh closed. Bone settled. Its tail lashed behind it once, scattering dust and loose stone across the ground.

Then the Berserker rose fully to its feet.

Dark red lightning crackled around its body again, crawling across its arms, chest, shoulders, and spine in unstable pulses.

Across from it, Liam lifted his gaze fully.

The hybrid javelin rested in his grip while white-orange flames continued radiating from his left arm.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

They simply stared at one another through the ruined forest between them.

The Berserker’s grin remained and Liam’s expression stayed calm.

"Good," Liam said quietly. "You’re thrilled."

His fingers tightened around the hybrid javelin, the air around his body heating up further.

"Then enjoy it while you can, ’cause this might be the last time you feel that way."

The Berserker’s eyes widened slightly.

Then the ground beneath both of them cracked.

At the exact same moment, Liam and the Berserker launched toward each other with terrifying speed.