Vortex Origins
Chapter 79: The second creature wave - 8

Chapter 79: The second creature wave - 8

At the south quadrant, Team Galeforce moved like a single body. Wind howled—not from nature, but from them.

The short man danced between monsters, a blade barely longer than his hand flashing like silver lightning. Wind curled at his heels, twisting his dodges and sharpening his strikes. Each step was a gust. Each slash, a whisper of a storm.

Beside him, the other girl raised her arms. A wall of air slammed into a charging Grivehowl, sending it tumbling backward.

She spun, blades of compressed wind slicing out in all directions. The creatures tried to close in, but every breath of air turned into a weapon.

Hunter moved through them like a storm’s shadow—his hands crackling with wind, carving through flesh and bone with practiced fury. Every time a beast lunged, one of them was already there. Covering. Attacking. Distracting.

The Boneflayer shrieked and lunged forward, only for a sudden gale to shove it back into a waiting blade.

They didn’t need words. They fought like they’d done this a thousand times.

Not far from them, stone shook the ground.

Mia darted between golems twice her size, her body moving with unnatural rhythm. She sprinted up the arm of one—using its rising punch as a ramp—and launched herself from its shoulder.

She soared.

Both her arms were encased in stone, reshaped into hulking gauntlets. She crashed into a Grivehowl from above, her fists turning the beast’s skull into rubble. Before her feet even touched the ground, she was moving again, directing her golems with a snap of her fingers.

One of them slammed its fist into the eyeless face of a Rotback.

The hit was thunder.

A wall would’ve shattered.

The Rotback only staggered. Its head cracked, dust spilling from the fracture, but it didn’t fall. Its face looked like it had been carved from ancient stone.

It raised its head. And roared.

Mia didn’t flinch. She raised her stone-covered fists.

The Rotback’s mouth split open.

A gurgle. Then a surge.

From the wounds across its spine, streams of bubbling acid burst outward like geysers. The sizzling downpour hit the battlefield in an arc, drenching Grivehowls and bone-thin creatures alike. Screams rose as flesh melted and bones sizzled.

Mia leapt back in time, flipping off her golem’s shoulder as the acid rained down. Stone arms caught her mid-air, pulling her to safety. She landed on the ground, breathing hard, but untouched.

But the stone golem stood tall.

Steam hissed off its surface, but it didn’t move. Didn’t crack. Instead, it reeled its arm back—and struck again.

The Rotback reeled. Another punch followed. Then another. Its massive legs buckled. The beast hit the dirt with a thud.

Before it could rise, a second golem slammed into its side. Together, they drove the creature into the ground, crushing what was left.

Stone ground against bone. Acid hissed. The Rotback stopped moving.

Then came the wind.

Alex dropped from the sky like a blade. His feet hit the earth, a grin already on his face.

The Boneflayer turned its head.

Too slow.

Alex shot forward. His legs blurred. Wind coiled around him as he spun under the Grivehowl’s claws, slid between its legs, then slashed its tendon with a blade of pressurized air.

The beast stumbled.

He turned on the Boneflayer. It raised a skeletal hand, claws ready.

Alex ducked low and slammed his palm to the ground. A spiral of wind formed in his hand—tight, humming, dangerous.

He hurled it forward.

The spiral orb spun through the air, growing wider as it traveled, slicing clean through anything in its path.

A Grivehowl screamed as its torso vanished. A Rotback’s head was severed with surgical precision.

The spiral orb sliced the air, then vanished.

It struck the obsidian wretched.

At first, it looked like nothing happened.

Then, a thin scratch formed across the creature’s thick hide. Barely visible. A paper cut on obsidian.

The wretched didn’t slow.

It kept moving forward, massive and steady. Heat rolled off its body in waves, shimmering in the air. Its six heavy legs cracked the earth beneath each step, leaving molten impressions behind.

Its wedge-shaped head loomed, unnatural. No lips, no jaws—just a single, horizontal slit. The gap peeled open, revealing rows of jagged, glowing teeth that dripped lava.

Its tail sliced through the air like a blade.

Kevin jumped back just as the tail passed where his chest had been a second ago.

Ice arrows launched from his fingertips, sharp and fast, stabbing toward the creature’s exposed mouth.

They struck home.

Then melted.

The creature hissed—not in pain, but from the clash of cold and heat. Steam burst out with a screech as if the creature’s body rejected the very idea of freezing.

Still, it didn’t stop.

Kevin didn’t hesitate. He threw out both hands, and a gust of cold wind erupted from his palms. Ice spread over the wretched’s body in a blink, freezing it in place.

He turned to go.

Then heard it.

Crack.

He spun around.

The ice was breaking. Chunks fell away as steam poured out, curling around the melting shell. The creature pushed forward, slower, but still moving.

Kevin didn’t wait this time. He raised both hands and unleashed everything.

A storm of frost roared into the field, covering everything in sight. Snow fell thick, swirling until the battlefield looked like a mountaintop. The wretched disappeared under layers of ice and white.

Kevin breathed hard, eyes locked on the frozen mound.

Then the earth trembled.

A deep vibration. Too real to ignore.

His eyes widened.

"What is this—"

A beam of fire exploded from within the snow. It screamed through the blizzard, aimed straight at him.

Kevin’s wings flared wide. He dodged, just in time.

The blast singed the edge of his suit. He turned in the air.

Steam billowed off the mound. The snow atop the wretched’s head had melted. It moved again—alive, burning, relentless.

Mia’s voice cracked through the comms.

"The obsidian wretched are strong—but it has a major weakness. Its fire core. It’s inside its body. You’ll need more than just ice. You’ll need to hit it with everything. If the core stays cold, the rest will too."

Kevin scanned the creature.

No gaps. No wounds. Just stone and Lava.

He pressed the band on his wrist. His voice came out low.

"I don’t see an opening. Unless..."

Mia replied instantly.

"Yes. The mouth. That’s the only way in."

Kevin’s eyes locked on the slit.

It wasn’t just a mouth. It was a challenge. A target. An invitation to end this.

The core waited behind that jagged hole.

Kevin raised both hands.

The air thinned. Snow gathered between his palms, forming a single flake—huge, jagged, glowing cold blue.

It pulsed.

Then, with a sound like cracking glass, the snowflake burst into a focused beam. The blast tore through the air, straight into the creature’s gaping mouth.

The Obsidian Wretched screamed. Steam burst from its throat. Lava sizzled as frost bit into its core.

Kevin didn’t stop. The beam surged brighter, drilling deeper.

The massive body trembled. Then its legs buckled.

A deep, heavy thud.

The creature collapsed.

Kevin exhaled, his breath forming a mist. He lifted his arm again.

Wind coiled around his fingers. Another pulse of cold.

The Obsidian Wretched vanished beneath a shroud of thick, clear ice.

He waited.

The battlefield had gone silent.

A crack snapped through the air. The frozen shell shattered, raining down in glittering shards.

Nothing moved.

Kevin turned and flew back toward the wall.

Below, the teams had done their part. The horde had thinned. Boneflayers stopped twitching. Grivehowls bled out beneath shattered earth.

The battle was over.

Mia lifted a fist toward the sky, her voice carried by the wind.

"We did it!"

The team cheered. For once, the wind didn’t carry screams—only voices filled with victory.

Kevin landed by the wall, ice fading from his arms.

The guards at the wall watch the snow melt under the first rays of calm.

For a moment, no one did.

The second wave was over.

And they had won.