Jinn BLADE
Chapter 83 | Prelude to Gluttony

Chapter 83: Chapter 83 | Prelude to Gluttony

*Bang! *Bang! *Bang!

The sound of bangs echoed through the camp, deep and thunderous. The very ground shuddered beneath their feet as the land beasts hurled their monstrous bodies against Biyo’s walls with primal ferocity.

But the walls did not yield.

Not ever.

Biyo had formed it just like before, when Jinn’s group were chased around by a horde of beasts, and when they first made came.

Beasts tried to break it.

Giants tried to crush it.

But it is unbreakable.

Something eternal that could never fall as long as its creator breaths—or wills it to disappear.

Biyo’s eidra, like those of the other warriors of Skjöldheim, pulsed with an ancient power.

Permafrost.

The frostbound eidra of eternal cold.

Cold and unrelenting.

It did not bend.

It did not crack.

It endured.

And so the beasts hurled themselves again and again against it, their corrupted limbs crashing against the glittering surface of the frozen barrier—but nothing gave.

Frost spiraled along the impact points, singing through them, as if whatever they were doing was useless.

For now, they were safe from the maws of the land beasts.

But the skies offered no mercy.

The sky screamed.

The shriekers above dove and spiraled, their cries piercing the air as energy tracers lit up the darkness in streaks of blue, crimson, and gold arcs.

Every few seconds, another beam tore across the sky—some striking true, others missing and fading into the dark sky.

"Continue firing!" Beren roared, his voice raw from shouting, but firm.

His arms pulsed with fiery eidra as he launched wave after wave of blazing beams into the air, each strike engulfing several shriekers in searing explosions.

*Bang! *Bang! *Bang!

"There’s no end to them!" cried one fighter, his hands trembling as he discarded an overheated blaster and grabbed another from a nearby pile.

"They just keep coming!"

"They always do!" Beren snapped. "Now aim and fire, dammit!"

Above, Verkaryon hovered like a god of decay—arms outstretched, grin widening with every second.

His voice carried across the winds, sharp and cruel.

"Struggle, worms! It’s futile! All shall be consumed!"

His laughter echoed, cruel and childlike in its tone.

Seconds bled into minutes.

Minutes into nearly an hour.

And still, they held.

Wave after wave of shriekers descended from the sky, only to be torn down by coordinated fire, enchanted blasts, and sheer desperation.

Yet they never seemed to run out. No matter how many fell, more screamed through the skies to replace them.

Bodies littered the ground outside the wall—blackened, broken, twitching.

Then Verkaryon’s tone changed. The playful madness slipped away, replaced by something hungrier.

"Mhm... Let’s not waste any more time," he said softly.

He raised his hand and flicked it.

*Snap!

The sound was sharp and deliberate.

The air froze.

"The Lord... hungers."

The flick echoed louder than it should have, slicing through the roar of battle like a blade of silence.

Then the chaos resumed—only worse than before.

Each shrieker—every last one in the sky, began to convulse violently, wings spasming, bodies twisting unnaturally mid-air.

From the ground, the land beasts began to shake, slamming their heads into the dirt, clawing at the frozen walls not to attack—but in agony.

*SHRIEKK!!! *ROAR!!!

"W-What the hell is happening!?" Orin shouted, clutching her ears.

The sound, the screams—they were different now.

"Does it look like I know!?" Verhedyn snapped, his own hands over his ears, gritting his teeth. His ice shards fell from the air, concentration shattered.

Jinn’s eyes shot up. His mechanical eye whirred from behind the eye-patch.

The shriekers were flying in random, chaotic patterns, slamming into each other in mid-air.

One clipped its wing on another and spiraled into the trees with a wet crunch. Another exploded in a burst of black fluid.

Then

BOOM!

One exploded midair.

BOOM!BOOM!

Another.

BOOM!BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Then another.

Dozens detonated in unison, the black eidra inside them rupturing like corrupted bombs.

The air was filled with shrieking, not from the creatures—but from the sheer pressure of their demise.

The sky turned black.

Eidra—thick and malevolent—rushed out in clouds, staining everything it touched.

It poured through the skies like ink, like smoke, like a living corrupted storm.

Then came the land beasts.

They too began to burst, one after another, as if something inside them had detonated. Their flesh cracked. Their limbs spasmed.

And then—release.

Jinn’s cloak whipped violently in the gusts as he raised an arm to shield his face.

Around him, others did the same. Hair whipped wildly. Eyes squinted shut.

The air was choked in black eidra.

And then Verkaryon moved.

He raised his arm again and clenched his fist.

Instantly, the black eidra in the sky and on the ground stirred.

Like a wave pulled back before a tidal crash where to happen, the smoke twisted violently and raced toward two points—one in the sky, one on the ground.

It was gathering.

Condensing.

Forming.

The gusts intensified, forcing many to drop to their knees or brace against the wall. Some screamed. Others simply stared, helpless.

Jinn felt it too.

Not just the pressure, but something else.

His eye.

His mechanical eye whirred—forcing him to finally remove his eye patch.

It was spinning faster, narrowing its focus—not on the eldritch forms materializing, but on the object in his hand.

The obsidian stone.

It was reacting.

Cracks spidered across its surface, more than ever before.

From within, a radiant golden light bled through, tracing the fractures as if they were molten veins.

Golden arcs of lightning wrapped around the stone, humming, alive.

Jinn’s breath caught.

"What’s happening...?" he muttered, staring at it, his voice barely audible through the gale.

Then came the sound—two distinct screeches.

One was high-pitched, razor-sharp, slicing through the chaos.

The other was low, guttural, filled with an ancient rage.

Jinn’s head snapped up.

And his eyes widened.

Towering above them, just beyond Biyo’s walls, stood a giant.

A hulking, malformed beast—larger than anything they had faced.

Its body was twisted sinew and armored hide, draped in chains of black eidra that pulsed with every breath.

Its shadow cast darkness over half the camp.

Horns from its skull protruded like broken monuments.

And beside it, flying—was another.

This one had wings—large, skeletal, lined with corrupted membranes.

Its frame was the same as Verkaryon, but stretched unnaturally tall.

Horns curled from its head like Verkaryon’s.

Its eyes glowed with burning voidlight, and in its hand, it held a sword, a greatsword—wreathed in black eidra that hissed and crackled like lightning.

Together, they radiated a suffocating aura, so thick the air itself bent.

Verkaryon hovered above, arms wide in triumph, grinning madly.

He had killed the beasts—only to rebirth them as something far worse.

Jinn’s grip tightened around the hilt of his sword.

The energy rifles, the blasters—they had served their purpose.

But this?

This was no longer a battle for such weapons.

He unsheathed his blade.

*Shkkk!

Steel sang.

The light from the golden stone in his other hand grew brighter.

The wind howled.

And Jinn knew,

The real battle had just begun.