The Humanoid Terror

"The Celas is our strongest, but we too are here." The mysterious Titan Aberrant said. It reached a height of almost twenty metres, the largest of its kind, possessing a body akin to steel as each of its thunderous footsteps caused craters to form on the ground.

Swoosh!

Suddenly, hundreds of feathers slammed into it, raising a lot of smoke. But with a wave of one of its hands, the Titan Aberrant casually brushed away the smoke, emerging unscathed. It then inched closer towards Yulna when another stream of feathers slammed into its three faces.

A figure brushed past, carrying Yulna away.

"Felix! What the heck's this one? Another Celas?" Yulna asked in shock upon seeing that it was Felix that had saved her.

"It's not a Celas, but it's strong enough to be known as a Humanoid Celas. It's called the Keras, a troublesome Titan Aberrant that can wield weapons." Felix said in a hurry, "It's equivalent to someone at Stage 8 on our side."

"Stage 8…" Yulna hurriedly looked around, intending to search for one of their few Stage 8 experts, noticing that they were helping Rhizen resist the corruption in his body.

"I'll take care of it." Suddenly, a figure ran on the ground, speeding towards the Keras.

"Dwun! You're injured. It's too dangerous!" Yulna shouted in alarm.

"It's fine." Dwun grinned as he flashed a thumbs up, "At worst, I'll just die. But, ensuring this Aberrant doesn't disturb Rhizen takes the utmost priority."

Saying so, Dwun rushed straight at the Keras, clacking his gauntlets that unleashed bursts of shockwaves, slowly building up a charge as he arrived before the Keras, punching forth with all his strength.

Boom!

The shockwave coursed through the body of the Keras that defended with its hands, causing its muscles to hum sonorously as the shockwave rattled it, causing it to tumble backwards.

But immediately after, it extended its hand, grabbing hold of a Titan Aberrant before clenching its hand into a fist, shattering the Titan Aberrant's head before pulling out its spine, wielding it like a whip.

The whip curved in the air, lashing out at Dwun that pierced through the shockwave barrier he had erected, sending him flying away.

Cough!

He coughed out blood, gazing at the searing gash on his stomach, turning left to see his arm lying there, severed. His figure was bloody as his armour was destroyed, revealing the countless injuries riddling his body.

He had been fighting all along to prevent the Society Members from being overwhelmed, taking all the load onto himself. So, a lot of corruption had invaded his body through the wounds, with him not having the time to treat them yet.

"Hah!" Raisha shouted, aiming at the Keras as she launched the bullet into its face, not even managing to scratch it.

The Keras glared at her once when she collapsed to the ground, hallucinating a sea of blood, of Aberrants using human skulls to scoop out the blood from the ground to drink.

This was a result of the sheer corruption built up in the Keras, causing her to hallucinate as such.

Before, when Rhizen was facing the Celas, everyone else was protected by the barrier. But now that it had been breached and the enemy made its way inside, she faced the brunt of its mental impact.

Boom!

Hundreds of feathers covered their line of sight as Felix picked her up and retreated to the terrace of a building farther away, shouting in alarm, "Stay here!"

He then flapped his wings and took off to the skies, sensing the feathers on his wings regenerating rapidly as he aimed at the Aberrants that had begun to gush in through the breach, targeting them nonstop.

But suddenly, just as the Keras took a step forward to approach the wounded Dwun, a mysterious force sent it flying, causing it to fly through the breach like a cannonball, slamming into all the Aberrants along the way, sending them all flying out.

"Hah…haaah…gah…" Rhizen gasped for air, barely managing to unleash an attack as he said weakly, "Get up…Dwun. Don't you love to fight?"

"Yes…" Dwun spat out blood as tendrils streamed out of his arm socket, entering the severed arm before joining together into one. Slowly, his injuries recovered as he got up, coughing out murky blood from time to time that was full of the corruption, "My abilities have been nerfed by the corruption."

Roar!

The Keras bellowed in anger, getting up as it crunched onto a nearby Aberrant, absorbing its corruption to regenerate its wounds as it sprinted towards the safety zone, rushing through the breach.

"Screw you!" Dwun shouted in return, crouching low as a pair of boots formed on his foot. Immediately after, his image flickered, travelling the distance of a hundred metres in a second as he appeared right before the three heads of the Keras, condensing a spike on his right that he thrust into his opponent.

Boom!

His Nacre flowed through the spike, condensing an energy of explosion that latched onto the inner muscles of the Keras, causing one of its heads to explode immediately.

The Keras brandished the spines it held like whips, lashing out at him as Dwun defended himself. His figure flickered to and fro before transforming into a mongoose, clobbering the Keras in numerous places.

The two entities exchanged hundreds of attacks in a matter of seconds, causing their body parts to fly with every second, resulting in thundering shockwaves that blasted around.

One of the shockwaves slammed into the Aberrants, exploding them into mist instantly. The Titan Aberrants endured the shockwaves, gradually approaching Rhizen, planning to gobble him up.

Bang!

Followed by the sound of thunder, Dwun's figure was blasted away, crashing into a skyscraper as he flew through countless walls, falling out from the other side as a bloody mess.

But without a moment's hesitation, his legs touched the walls of the building as his figure flickered, appearing before the Keras once again, raining down hundreds of attacks.

The Keras too was a bloody mess now, having lost four of its hands already. And when it tried to eat the surrounding Aberrants to heal itself, the shockwaves resulting from their fight slammed them all away.

Moreover, they were fighting within the safe zone where the Nacre was present in the air. So, it wasn't able to heal as fast.

Though, the corruption was steadily gushing in from the breach, gradually overpowering the Nacre. So, it only needed to hold out for some more time before it would obtain a territorial advantage.

Moreover, Dwun was already severely injured before fighting it, so it was confident in killing him pretty soon, judging by how his limbs were being sent flying from time to time while his regenerative powers continued to slow down.

"Gah!" Suddenly, he gasped for air, collapsing to the ground as his body twitched nonstop, spasming as he frothed from the mouth. His eyes glazed over as his skin was slowly turning a murky shade of grey, a sign of corruption saturation.

His Nacre was unable to heal him fast enough anymore.

"You've hit your limit. Why resist so much?" The Keras finally opened its mouth, speaking derisively as it swallowed a bunch of Aberrants and began to slowly regenerate itself, "Your resistance is futile. You'll all be devoured by us pretty soon."

Bam!

It had just been talking when its second head shattered, startling it as it gazed in the direction of the source, noticing that Rhizen was slowly getting up.

"You…talk too much." He gasped for air, still injured, but the spread of corruption on him had slowed down. The gigantic snake slowly turned its head, gazing its way, making eye contact with the Keras.

Immediately, the Keras lost strength in its knees, experiencing a hallucination of a celestial hovering in the sky, bigger than a mountain, wielding a formless power capable of affecting cause and effect.

But its hallucination only lasted for a couple of seconds before Rhizen coughed out blood as the giant serpent—he had transformed into—collapsed to the ground with a thundering boom.

"Hah…haaah…that was…terrifying." The Keras gradually regained its bearings as it looked at the horde, slowly smiling as it noticed a couple more Keras making their way towards the safety zone, "There's two more of me."

It then turned around, staring in ridicule at Rhizen, "You're scary, I'll give you that. But it seems that enormous power in you cannot be used for some reason. And hence…"

"You'll die here."

"You'll all die here."

"You'll all be absorbed into us."

"You'll make us stronger and allow us to invade your home."

"S-Shit! What's happening?" A Society Member condensed a pocket watch, gazing at the rate of corruption before muttering in shock, "Wasn't the Celas defeated? Why is the corruption close to 99 percent now?"

[World Corruption: 98.91 %]

Both the Horned Humans and the Mystic Humans fighting for their lives gazed in shock as the two new Keras entered the safe zone, turning around as they approached the Celas. One of them fought the two Society Members intending to deal with its corpse while the other placed a hand on the head of the Celas, "As our strongest, you cannot fall here."

"Now…" The Keras grunted as a tremendous volume of corruption poured into the Ceras, causing its body to twitch in response.

"Get up!"