Blackout Ascension: Return of Primordial Heir-Chapter 41: Calamity Anomaly

The Whispering Hollows was noted in the Solaris Hunters Guild as a safe, boring C-Rank dungeon. It was supposed to be filled with slow, mindless cave trolls and weak rock slimes. It was supposed to be an easy afternoon stroll for three elite generals.

"I still fail to understand why we are walking through mud," Ignis complained loudly, kicking a small rock across the dark cavern. "We are royalty. Terravarous and I are respected cousins of Princess Seyana. We have a royal allowance! We could easily just buy mana crystals from the local merchants instead of getting my expensive boots inviolably ruined."

Terravarous walked in front of them, using his hardened hands to wipe the spider-webs away.

"We are not buying our power, Ignis," Terravarous rumbled slowly, his voice echoing loudly in the hollow cave walls. "Our royal uncle, King Raezon, ordered us to train our physical limits. True strength is turbulently forged in dungeons, not bought comfortably with shiny gold coins in the sunny market."

Kairos walked slightly behind them, keeping his right hand resting on the silver hilt of Asteria. He smiled a little at their constant bickering.

"Besides," Kairos continued after Ignis and Terravarous, "If we just bought all the crystals, people would think you two are just spoiled royal brats who can’t actually fight."

Ignis turned around and directed a red-hot finger at Kairos’s chest.

"Watch your mouth, lucky boy," Ignis grunted, with an arrogant smirk on his lips. "Just because you got miraculously lucky and somehow managed to land a strike on that Demon-Tier Algreth, does not make you our boss. If I genuinely wanted to, I could easily burn this entire C-Rank cave into a grave puddle in three seconds."

"Then please do it," Kairos laughed softly. "It is annoying here."

They walked into the dark, howling cavern. The shimmering blue moss clinging to the wet stone walls provided a dim, eerie light. But as they walked further down the tunnel, the joking atmosphere vanished.

Kairos stopped walking, his dark eyes narrowed sharply.

"Hey," Kairos whispered quietly, raising a hand to signal them to halt. "Do you guys notice that?"

Ignis stopped complaining. Terravarous tightly clenched his heavy fists.

"Notice what?" Ignis asked, his voice dropping to a serious, low whisper.

"Exactly," Kairos replied, his heart racing suddenly. "Nothing. There is absolutely nothing."

The dungeon was utterly silent. There was no sound of footsteps of cave trolls or the wet, squishing sound of rock slimes. There wasn’t even the annoying scurrying sound of cave rats. The entire cavern was dead.

Suddenly, an incandescent red light vehemently flashed obscuring the Kairos’s vision.

DING!! DING!! DING!!

A thunderous, blaring alarm screamed loudly inside his head.

[CRITICAL SYSTEM ALERT! CRITICAL SYSTEM ALERT!]

[HOST IS ENTERING A HIGHLY LETHAL ZONE. MIASMIC MANA LEVELS ARE RAPIDLY EXCEEDING NORMAL PARAMETERS.]

[SCANNING ENVIRONMENT... SCAN COMPLETE.]

[WARNING: AN SSR-RANK CALAMITY ANOMALY DETECTED IN THE VICINITY.]

Kairos’s breath hitched in his dry throat. His eyes went wide with pure shock and disbelief.

An SSR-Rank? Kairos shook, panicking inside. Blackout, are you prolly sure?! This is just a C-Rank dungeon!

[INVIOLABLE. THE GUILD INTEL IS FATALLY INCORRECT. THE MONSTER HAS SLAUGHTERED AND DEVOURED EVERY SINGLE C-RANK DEMON IN THIS CAVE TO FORCE AN RAPID EVOLUTION. EVASION IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. YOUR CHANCES OF SURVIVAL ARE CALCULATED. IT WAS APPROXIMATELY AT 4.2 PERCENT.]

"Get back!" Kairos shouted loudly at his friends, drawing Asteria from its leather sheath. "Right now! Get back to the entrance!"

Ignis and Terravarous were genuinely startled by his sudden panic.

"Kairos, what is wrong with you?" Ignis asked, looking confused. "It’s just a dark cave..."

BOOOOOOM!

The stone ceiling above Terravarous shrouded and exploded inward. A scary blur of dark purple and jagged black metal crashed into the cave floor, shattering the solid rock into a million tiny, wavering pieces, sideways. The sheer impact instantly blasted all three boys backward into the muddy cavern walls.

Dust and debris completely filled the air. Slowly, the thick dust settled. Standing in the center of the ruined cavern was a nightmare. It didn’t look like a normal beast. It looked like a massive, armored insect mixed with a lethal predator energy. It was nearly fifteen feet tall, its entire body was covered in dark, jagged purple armor plates. Instead of normal arms, it had four massive, incisive scythes that flowed constantly with a dangerous toxic, green acid. Its six glittering, bloody red eyes staring at three boys.

The suffocating pressure of its dark mana rigorously crashed down on them like a roaring ocean wave.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Ignis yelled in horror, his arrogant confidence vanishing in a single second.

"It’s a Calamity beast!" Kairos shouted back, his silver sword trembling slightly in his grip. "It’s an SSR-Rank! The Guild lied to us!"

Terravarous didn’t waste a single second talking. He was a proud royal General of Solaris. He stepped forward to protect his younger cousin and his friend.

"Earth Fortification: Diamond Skin!" Terravarous roared loudly. His hardened skin turned shiny, transmuting into unbreakable diamond armor. He lunged directly at the massive beast, thrusting back his heavy fist to deliver a mountain-crushing blow.

The SSR beast didn’t even flinch aside. It just moved its top right scythe. It was fast and it literally enshrouded.

CLANG!!

The sharp bone scythe struck Terravarous directly in the chest. The unbreakable diamond armor shattered like fragile glass. Terravarous screamed loud, a painful groan as the sheer force expelled his heavy body across the cave. He slammed grievously into the wall, spitting out a mouthful of blood, and stunned.

"Terravarous!" Ignis screamed in sheer panic. Ignis instantly ignited, his physical body spasmodically turned into a roaring tornado of blazing fire. The temperature in the cave proliferated, melting the wet rocks into hot slag.

"Hellfire Lance!" Ignis roared, an angry grin grazed on his face.

He hurled a massive, concentrated spear of fire with an atavistic ferocity directly at the monster’s head. It was a spell that could easily burn an entire forest. The SSR beast raised its two bottom scythes and swung them in a clean ’X’ pattern.

SWISH!

The sharp blades sliced through the devastating fire spell. The roaring flames were exactly split cleanly in half, hitting the cave walls behind the monster, passing sideways. The beast ignored the heat.

The terrifying monster vanished from its spot.

"Ignis, move!" Kairos screamed so loud, his voice distorted making his throat dry.

Kairos struck the muddy ground with legs, pushing his speed to its maximum limit. He instantly dashed in front of the royal fire mage just as the beast reappeared.

The razor-sharp bone scythe descended gargantuanly to cut Ignis in half. Kairos raised Asteria with both hands and blocked the lethal strike.

CLASH!

The heavy impact was crushing. Kairos’ knees buckled under the immense, ridiculous weight of the beast. The dark, toxic acid dripping from the scythe loudly hissed as it burned against his shimmering silver blade. His boots staggered backward through the thick mud, carving two visceral trenches into the floor.

He was struggling just to hold his ground, his muscles tearing apart with agonizing pain.

[SYSTEM OBSERVATION: HOST IS PERFORMING LIKE A CARELESS PERSON FIGHTING A HURRICANE.]

Not right now, you useless piece of junk! Kairos screamed inside his own mind, his teeth tightly gritted. Help me kill it!

[STRATEGIC ANALYSIS COMPLETE. THE SSR BEAST POSSESSES HIGHLY DURABLE EXTERIOR ARMOR. PHYSICAL SLASHING ATTACKS WILL YIELD A ZERO PERCENT SUCCESS RATE. HOWEVER, IT HAS A SINGLE EXPOSED MANA CORE. TARGET THE GLOWING PURPLE CRYSTAL IN THE CENTER OF ITS CHEST.]

Kairos desperately looked closely at the towering beast trying to crush him. Exactly in the very center of its armored chest, a dark purple crystal was pulsing with rigid mana.

"Ignis!" Kairos yelled loudly, straining to hold the massive scythe. "I need you to melt its chest armor! Don’t use a large blast! Focus all your fire into a single, tiny laser!"

Ignis wiped the streaks of sweat from his eyes and nodded his head. "Got it!"

"Terravarous!" Kairos tilted his head, and shouted over his shoulder. "I need three seconds of lockdown! Trap its damn legs!"

From the corner of the cave, Terravarous slowly forced himself to stand back up. His chest was bruised, but his royal pride refused to let him stay down. He slammed both of his massive, bleeding hands flat into the hard stone floor.

"Earth Prison: Iron Vise!" Terravarous roared vehemently.

The hard stone floor beneath the SSR beast erupted with a loud clank. Four thick pillars of solid, compressed rock shot out of the ground. They wrapped around the beast’s four insect-like legs, trapping it tight to the floor.

SCREEEEEEEEEE!!

The massive beast shrieked loudly in anger, struggling to rip its trapped legs free. The trapping pillars started to crack under its raw, immense power.

"Now, Ignis!" Kairos yelled, parrying the heavy scythe away and jumping back to create clear space.

Ignis thrusted both of his hands, pressing his palms tightly together. All the roaring flame surrounding his body condensed into his single point at fingertips.

"Daylight Pierce!" Ignis screamed fiercely.

A tiny thin laser beam of concentrated, destructive fire shot from his hands. It struck the SSR beast in the center of its thick chest armor.

The focused heat was absolute. The thick, dark purple armor plates hissed, glowing bright red, and then melted away like wax, entirely exposing the hidden, thudding purple mana crystal.

"My turn," Kairos whispered coldly, gripping Asteria tight. He channeled every single drop of his remaining mana into his tired legs. "Wind Step."

Kairos lunged forward, moving so fast that he broke the sound barrier inside the enclosed cave. A loud sonic boom echoed off the walls. He was nothing but a silver blur.

He passed the frantically swinging, lethal bone scythes, stepping inside the monster’s tight guard. He thrust Asteria forward with everything he had.

CRACK!

The sharp, silver blade pierced the vulnerable purple mana crystal. The holy, warm light of Asteria rushed completely into the dark core, destroying the beast’s foul magic from the inside out.

The SSR beast instantly petrified, letting out one final, ear-piercing shriek of agony. Then, the glowing red light in its six compound eyes died out. The towering body suddenly went limp. It fell forward onto the muddy cave floor, completely dead.

Kairos pulled his silver sword out of the shattered crystal. He collapsed onto his hands and knees in the wet mud, panting like he had just run a marathon.

Ignis dropped to the floor, his fire flickering off. He lay on his back, staring at the dark ceiling, breathing heavily.

Terravarous slowly walked over, holding his bruised chest, and sat down on a nearby rock with a loud, exhausted sigh.

For a long, quiet minute, nobody said a single word. They were all trying to process the fact that they had just survived a brutal fight with the SSR Calamity beast.

"Okay," Ignis gasped loudly, breaking the irritating silence. "I take back the words that I said earlier. This dungeon is not boring at all. Let’s never, ever do that again."

Kairos smiled a weak, tired laugh. He slowly forced himself to sit up, resting his back against the dead monster’s armored leg.

"We actually did it," Kairos said softly, a proud smile touching his pale lips. "We actually killed the SSR beast. You guys are strong."

Terravarous nodded his head slowly. "We worked together as a team. You gave excellent orders, Kairos."

They all relaxed their tense muscles. The brutal fight was over. The terrifying threat was dead silent on the floor.

But entirely inside Kairos’ mind, the system did not stop blaring its bright red alarms.

[CRITICAL WARNING! CRITICAL WARNING!]

Kairos frowned. Blackout, what are you doing? Shut the fucking alarm off. The beast is dead now. We broke its core.

[NEGATIVE. THE CORE HAS BEEN BROKEN, BUT THE DARK MANA IS CURRENTLY SPIKING TO CATASTROPHIC LEVELS. THE ANOMALY IS NOT DEAD. IT IS USING THE SHATTERED CORE AS A CATALYST.]

Kairos’s heart dropped into his stomach. Blood drained from his pale face. He slowly looked down. The dead corpse of the SSR beast suddenly began to twitch on the muddy floor. Thick, suffocating black mist started leaking rapidly from its shattered chest.

[SYSTEM ALERT: THE CORPSE IS CURRENTLY UNDERGOING A FORCED, BERSERK EVOLUTION. A DEMON-TIER CALAMITY IS NOW MANIFESTING. CHANCES OF MORTAL SURVIVAL HAVE OFFICIALLY DROPPED TO ZERO PERCENT.]