Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 179: [Extra - ] Ch. 177. Aag’Rath - Daughter of the Crawling Chaos

Chapter 179: [Extra Chapter] Ch. 177. Aag’Rath - Daughter of the Crawling Chaos

Miles stepped forward, the whispering thick in the air like a mist he could feel against his skin. The shard atop the pedestal pulsed, its dark gleam casting jagged reflections against the walls. Rolf circled wide, fists raised loosely but ready, his body tense.

The closer Miles got, the louder the whispers became. They were not words anymore, but screams layered beneath ancient songs, memories buried under aeons of rot.

He reached out a hand, and the moment his fingers brushed the air above the shard, the chains binding it began to twitch.

A single snap rang out like a gunshot.

Then another, and another.

The chains, engraved with what seemed like glowing runes of suppression, began breaking apart one by one, each rupture sending a ripple of pressure through the room. Miles recoiled, recognizing the sensation immediately.

"It’s not just a fragment." He muttered, tightening his grip on the [Harbinger’s Scythe]. "It’s a seal."

Rolf growled low in his throat, stepping beside him, and then the shard cracked.

A web of fissures ran across its surface, leaking a dark ichor that evaporated into mist before it touched the ground. Then, with a deafening shudder, the shard split open.

And something crawled out from within it.

Twisting, slithering. A form that refused to resolve into anything human. Into anything logical.

When it finally solidified, standing atop the broken pedestal, it was a woman, but only in shape.

Her skin was pitch black, covered with countless eyes, her hair was a mass of writhing tendrils that whispered against one another. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, black without pupils. Her arms ended in jagged claws, and her mouth split open far too wide, revealing rows upon rows of needle teeth.

System windows exploded into their vision.

[Dungeon Boss]

[Lesser Demon: Agg’Rath – Daughter of the Crawling Chaos]

Miles’ blood ran cold as he remembered the fight against [Aardvark] inside the [Mouth of the Abyss].

The crushing feeling of being against something that should not exist, of a name akin to the one who had taken what was most precious to him.

But this time, he was no longer the same.

"Stay on your guard!" Miles barked at Rolf.

Agg’Rath screeched, a sound like tearing flesh and broken glass, and the ground cracked beneath her.

Miles moved first.

With a surge of energy, he activated [The One Who Fights Against All Odds], his body becoming a blur of energy and pure momentum. The [Harbinger’s Scythe] screamed through the air, trailing arcs of black-red energy.

Agg’Rath darted forward with impossible speed, her claws flashing.

They clashed in the center of the room, the shockwave flattening the dust around them.

Miles fought with feral precision, his strikes cold, measured, merciless. Every swing of his scythe was calculated to cut, to break motion, to cripple. He wasn’t trying to overpower her.

He was dismantling her.

Rolf circled to the side, throwing hammering punches whenever an opening presented itself, his fists leaving cracks in the demon’s strange flesh.

Agg’Rath howled again, her body warping, growing additional limbs in a desperate attempt to overwhelm them.

Miles didn’t falter, though, spinning low, using the momentum to carve one of Agg’Rath’s legs off at the knee. Black ichor sprayed, sizzling against the stone.

The [Lesser Demon] screeched, and Miles gritted his teeth, summoning the [Ender’s Mask]. The white mask snapped into place over his face, and Rolf braced himself, digging his feet into the ground.

After her screech, she released a pulse of raw, dark energy that exploded outward.

It hit them like a hurricane, but both of them stayed still, weathering the blast.

Miles moved again, faster now, after activating his second story, [Grief’s Anger]. Every strike he landed cut deeper, not just into Agg’Rath’s body but into her story. He could feel it fraying at the edges, her existence unraveling thread by thread.

But he didn’t go for the kill just yet.

Instead, he let the fight drag on a moment longer, dodging and weaving, forcing her into mistakes, even her own, demented intelligence failing.

Finally, when Agg’Rath staggered back, missing half her limbs and leaking shadows from dozens of wounds, Miles struck.

He summoned the egg from his inventory, still wrapped in shimmering silk, pulsating faintly with life.

"Lunchtime, Dee." Miles commanded under his breath.

The silk peeled back slightly, tendrils of light reaching out, drinking in the leaking story of the dying demon.

Agg’Rath shrieked, trying to pull herself away, but Miles pinned her in place with a brutal sweep of his scythe.

The egg pulsed brighter, absorbing the fragments of Agg’Rath’s existence.

[Story Fragment Absorbed]

[Development Progress: 19%]

Miles didn’t let up.

He drove the butt of his scythe into her chest, knocking her flat onto the broken pedestal.

Agg’Rath spasmed once, then began to collapse, her body disintegrating into motes of black light, sucked towards the egg.

When it was over, there was nothing left but a cracked pedestal and the low hum of dissipating magic.

Miles let out a slow breath, dismissing the [Ender’s Mask] in a shimmer of black sparks.

Rolf stumbled over, panting, bruised but grinning.

"Remind me," Rolf wheezed, "not to pick fights with you anymore."

Miles chuckled, a low sound that felt almost foreign after the intensity of the battle.

"You did great, Dee." He said, dismissing the egg back into his inventory. "rest and digest now."

The [Chamber of Whispers] fell silent, the oppressive weight lifting as the last of Agg’Rath’s influence vanished.

"What’s that egg you carry?" Rolf asked, but Miles paid no attention to him, having turned to the glyphs covering the walls.

Without the demon’s corruption fueling them, the glyphs began to dim down ever so slightly, but not entirely. Almost as if there was still a trace of whatever gave life to that place, still lingering somewhere.

Miles caught a glimpse of something carved deeper into the stone as the light of the glyphs dimmed down.

A sigil he had seen once before, after leaving the city and spending some time in the Archivist’s study.

The mark of the Crawling Chaos.

A thread that linked [Agg’Rath] and [Aardvark] not just to the random madness of the dungeon, but to something, or someone higher.

Miles narrowed his eyes, filing the information away with a feeling that it was not just a coincidence.

’Of course it couldn’t have been random...’

And below his feet, even though Rolf did not seem to be able to feel it, Miles could.

The faint thumping of a beating heart.