Apocalyse: Marked by Chaos
Chapter 55 Monsters Don’t Stay Dead (2)

Chapter 55: Chapter 55 Monsters Don’t Stay Dead (2)

NOTICE: please skip the next Chapter as it is an accidental publishing of Chapter 57 and it cannot be deleted. So, please move to the next Chapter. I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Klaus’s arm shot out, pressing the beast’s ribcage down. "It’s still reacting. Hurry."

She dug deeper, hands trembling. The core glowed faintly—a pale orange, unlike the typical fiery red.

No... not a core. A gland?

It pulsed as if alive.

The system buzzed again:

[Gland identified. Chaos origin confirmed. Warning: volatile.]

"Olivia..." Klaus’s voice dropped. "You see that too, don’t you?"

Before she could answer, another student screamed across the room.

The beast on their table had opened its eyes. Chaos broke out. Screams reverberated through the walls.

One student backed away from their table, eyes wide with terror. "It moved—IT MOVED!"

The creature on their table jerked violently, its ribs cracking as the beast’s body convulsed. Its stitched mouth bulged, as if it was trying to roar from the grave.

Verax didn’t flinch. He simply raised a single hand, and a glowing rune flared beneath his feet. The floor pulsed with pentagram, sending chains of light spiraling up around the twitching beast. It froze mid-spasm, steam curling from its flesh.

"The residual nerves sometimes resist death," Verax said calmly. "If you let fear guide your hands, your corpses will respond."

Olivia barely heard him. Her eyes were locked on the faintly glowing gland buried deep inside the beast’s chest cavity. It pulsed—like a second heart—and the system’s voice echoed in her head again.

[Chaos Gland: Detected. Volatile. Do not puncture. Do not inhale aura. Do not hesitate.]

Klaus leaned in. "We need to seal it off. Now."

"No," Olivia whispered. "We need to take it."

Klaus turned his head sharply. "Are you insane?"

"No." Her fingers moved on instinct. "I’m just done hesitating."

She reached in with a pair of reinforced tongs, her hand steady despite the thick heat radiating off the gland. As soon as the metal touched it, a wave of dizziness crashed through her skull. Whispers slithered in the edges of her mind—half-formed thoughts, twisted memories, things that weren’t hers.

"Consume... "

Her vision blurred. For a second, she wasn’t in the room anymore.

She stood in a dark void. Eyes—thousands of glowing eyes—watched her from the shadows. A massive claw reached out from the dark, brushing against her chest like a brand. Her heartbeat synced with it.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"OLIVIA!" Klaus’s voice cut through the fog.

Her knees buckled. She snapped back into the room, the gland held tight in the tongs, now glowing brighter—pulsating like it recognized her.

Klaus shoved a reinforced containment jar toward her. "NOW!"

She dropped the gland inside. The moment the jar sealed, the pulsing stopped.

The room went silent, the students stared in confusion.

Even Verax had paused.

"What... did you just extract?" he asked, walking toward them.

Olivia opened her mouth, but the system was faster.

[SYSTEM LOCK: Gland identity hidden from external detection.]

"It was just reacting. We subdued it," Klaus said flatly, stepping between Verax and Olivia.

Verax stared at them both, then at the jar, then back at them. "Interesting."

He walked away without another word. Olivia’s hands trembled now that the adrenaline had left her veins. She looked at Klaus.

He didn’t say anything. But his eyes said everything.

Klaus finally swallowed. "What the hell just happened, Olivia?" he couldn’t help but ask.

"I don’t know. I think it was just a trance," she muttered as she eyed the jar. But there was no pulsing from the gland. A crease formed on her head.

"You shouldn’t pull a crazy stunt like that again, okay?" Klaus warned, his eyes locked on the jar.

Crash.

"Oh my god!" A scream from a girl made all heads turn towards her.

Olivia’s gaze shot toward the girl, and her heart went still. The girl... she was in Lucian’s arm, she clung around his neck.

An unexplainable feeling of bitterness surged through her chest, her hand unconsciously tightened around the tong.

Meanwhile, Lucian was trying to get the girl off him, but she was sticking like glue. Then, he suddenly went still.

"Stop moving." Lucian gritted his teeth. If not for this situation, he would have thrown her off. He felt wet, slimy—like a vine wrapping around his leg. The further it went up against his body, the less space it had in between.

Gasps echoed in the room, as panic set in. The vines began to spread across the room. Most of the students climbed up their chairs. But the more sound they made, the faster it moved.

"Nobody moves," Verax ordered, his voice thundering in the room. Cold shivers of sweat ran down his face.

The students stood still, most of them shaking in their pants. Olivia closed her eyes, as she tried to relax. ’Anything you do, Olivia, don’t move," she chanted in her mind.

"This is a Wailroot," Verax began. "It is a monster vine that grows from the corpse of monsters as its last means of defense." He gritted his teeth, fear and concern contorted his face.

"Nobody should try to talk or make a sound. It can detect motion and sounds, so try to relax and calm your heartbeat. Don’t worry about me. I have a spell so they can’t hear my sound."

"These monsters drain your essence once they discover you’re a living thing. Their thorns can cause paralysis, numbing their victims. This monster is at level 12. I know you might be wondering, ’I am stronger than them. Why can’t I do anything?’ That is because it is already wrapped around me. We just have to wait for it to die. If it doesn’t feed, it will die in approximately... 12 hours."

The air grew thick as worry etched on the students’ faces. How the hell were they supposed to survive 12 hours without making a sound?

"If you make any sounds, your essence will only make it stronger and harder to die. It gets to live longer," Verax added. He had overlooked the monster’s corpses.

One of the female students who climbed on a chair trembled as the vines slithered towards her. A cry formed in her throat, cold sweat dripping from her body. The slimy veins curled around her feet, a scream erupted from her throat.

Then... all hell broke loose.