Eater Blade: Grinding in Apocalypse
Chapter 63: LEVEL 1 ABNORMAL EATER: STONE BEASTS — PART 2.

Chapter 63: LEVEL 1 ABNORMAL EATER: STONE BEASTS — PART 2.

The fighting had barely started and already, the trio was surrounded. Abnormal Eaters they’d never seen before closed in fast.

One of them charged Johnquis: thick-bodied, heavy steps cracking the stone. Its arms were lined with jagged amethyst plates.

It swung wide, like a battering ram built to kill.

Johnquis raised his chains and crossed them into an X, catching the blow.

"Fucker—shit! This freak’s got stone boxing gloves!"

The Eater slammed forward, trying to pin him down.

"Enough of you! I’m not dying by your fists—I’m dying from your corpse-stinking breath! Argh!"

He kicked it back with all his strength. The Eater stumbled, shoved several feet away. Johnquis uncoiled his chains and cracked them hard, trying to land a follow-up hit.

"God, you’re hard! Just die already!"

The chains barely did any damage. Its amethyst-plated arms deflected each strike with a dull clink of metal on crystal.

Then Dancer moved.

She shot toward it in a blur, vanishing mid-run—reappearing behind it in a blink. A flash of silver arced through the air. Her heel blade sliced through its neck clean.

The Eater’s head hit the ground a second before the rest of its body followed.

[Feed Count: +500]

[Feed Count: 57,500 / 70,000] – Johnquis

She dropped low, landing on one knee—but the ground rumbled.

Five more crystal-armored Eaters closed in on her fast.

Johnquis shouted, "Dancer—get out!"

But she didn’t run.

She let them close. Then, as they lunged, she spun on her palms, legs cutting through the air like blades.

[Skill: Breaker Sweep – Blood Cost: 5%]

Activating...

"Breaker Sweep!"

Her legs swept wide. Heel-blades carved deep into ankles and knees, slashing in a tight circle. The Eaters crumpled, stumbling over each other and she followed through with a rising spin-kick that crushed a jaw and sent one slamming into the wall, twitching.

[Feed Count: +1,500]

[Feed Count: 58,000 / 70,000] – Johnquis

Johnquis blinked, stunned. "What the hell was that?!"

Savier whooped from across the room. "That was the sickest breakdance I’ve ever seen! She’s got secret skills!"

Johnquis just stared, breath caught. The flickering stone-light cast Dancer in silhouette. For a split second, she looked like a myth come to life.

"You always surprise me... Thank God you’re on my side."

Then another wave surged into the chamber—ten, maybe more.

Crystals cracked under their feet as the ground shifted again. Veins of blue mineral pulsed, throwing off their balance. One Eater burst from a wall like a missile—Johnquis caught it mid-air with his chain, twisted it, and smashed it into another.

"This damn quest’s working every muscle I’ve got!"

[Feed Count: +500]

[Feed Count: 58,500 / 70,000] – Johnquis

Savier rotated his blade to shotgun and blasted into the chest of an Eater with black crystal armor...no damage.

"Freakin’ obsidian?! Harder than hell!"

He leapt and used DASH SLASH again.

[Skill: DASH STRIKE – Blood Cost: 3%]

Activating...

"DASH STRIKE!"

Zipping behind it, slashing its exposed back.

BOOM.

It staggered.

[Feed Count: +500]

[Feed Count: 11,300 / 20,000] – Savier

But the pressure wasn’t letting up. One Eater pinned Dancer’s leg, another raised a spike-covered fist.

Johnquis whipped a chain, wrapped it around the fist, pulled it mid-swing. Redirecting it into a crystal wall.

Dancer used the momentum to flip up and land heel-first on the thing’s neck.

CRACK.

[Feed Count: +500]

[Feed Count: 59,000 / 70,000] – Johnquis

They regrouped in the center. Backs together, bloodied and breathing hard.

Savier said between pants. "They just keep coming! This is a damn spawning floor!"

Johnquis growled, "We hold the line. No retreats. And if we die here, I’m blaming you. You’re the dumbass who picked this mission."

"Nope—you accepted it. So, duh, that’s on you!"

Dancer didn’t stop. She surged forward again

One dropped from above—Johnquis caught it mid-air with his chain, pulled hard, and slammed its head straight onto a jagged stone spike jutting from the ground.

Another lunged from the side—Dancer was faster. She dashed in low, heel-blade slicing clean through its gut.

[Feed Count: +1,000]

[Feed Count: 60,000 / 70,000] – Johnquis

Savier whirled, slashed, then DASH SLASHED through another cluster.

[Feed Count: +1,500]

[Feed Count: 12,800 / 20,000] – Savier

Bodies piled. Crystals cracked. The air was a haze of blood and dust.

A hulking Eater, one covered in sapphire spike. Charged Johnquis from behind.

"DANCER—!"

She saw it, leapt off a broken pillar, and used her Pirouette Slash mid-air—

[Skill: Pirouette Slash – Blood Cost: 2%]

Activating...

"Pirouette Slash!"

She sliced clean through its eyes as Johnquis finished it with a chain neck crush.

[Feed Count: +500]

[Feed Count: 60,500 / 70,000] – Johnquis

Another broke through the ground, lunging at Savier—he rolled, point-blanked it with a shotgun blast, then slashed its spine.

[Feed Count: +500]

[Feed Count: 13,300 / 20,000] – Savier

They were slowing... but the end wasn’t here yet.

The final wave hit.

Savier glanced at Johnquis, panting, blood dripping from his chin. "You see that? That wave’s thicker than my ex’s attitude."

Johnquis’ eyes stuck on the final wave. "Focus, idiot. If we screw this up, we’re Eater chow."

"Then let’s not screw it up. Hey... if we die here—"

Johnquis cut him off. "We won’t."

"...but if we do, I want you to lie and say I died cooler than you."

"Not a chance."

And then—

Johnquis activated HELL’S SNARE again—

[Skill: HELL’S SNARE – Blood Cost: 10%]

Activating...

"HELL’S SNARE"

Chains erupted, catching ten of them—just enough delay for Dancer to launch a massive Breaker Sweep—

[Skill: Breaker Sweep – Blood Cost: 5%]

Activating...

"Breaker Sweep!"

The shockwave crippled them all. Then Savier dashed through the stunned pack, blade flashing—slicing three down in one smooth rush, a wild grin on his face.

[Feed Count: +1,500]

[Feed Count: 14,800 / 20,000] – Savier

Dancer leapt from one to another, each kill clean and brutal. A savage twist of her heel blade through their skulls.

[Feed Count: +3,500]

[Feed Count: 64,000 / 70,000] – Johnquis

And finally... silence.

They stood amid cracked stone, twitching bodies, and the glow of dim crystals. The cavern was still again.

Johnquis exhaled. "That was..."

"A massacre," Savier finished.

Dancer stood quiet. Blood dripped off her blades like rain. She looked deeper into the cave.

And the glow ahead... was getting stronger.