Grand Ascension-Chapter 67: Unsatiated

Zack was dead.

He died in a city he was not familiar with, against someone who had no business defeating him, for a book he could not use.

He died a sad death.

Thump!

Zack body hit the ground as Makun pushed it away. It layed there, in the dark alley lifeless.

more! more! more!

Makun raised his head, a smile on his face.

He felt good after having destroyed what came after him, He felt liberated. But, he wanted more.

He had sworn to destroy everything. He could not stop after killing just one person. He had to kill more, his rage burned, it has not still been satiated.

Makun looked around, searching for anything he could destroy.

His gaze turned to Elias who laid down unconscious. How could a merchant route initiate take the full brunt punch of an adept warrior. He had been incapacitated by Zack.

Elias was the perfect prey for the berserk Makun. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Makun took a step forward, his glowing eyes locked on the unconscious man, his hand still dripping with Zack’s blood, still saturated with chaotic Ashe.

But then he felt it.

A shift.

A shift that came from the Deep.

The breach had been small. A crack the size of a football. But cracks were all they needed.

Entities that existed in the outermost layer of the Deep had felt the disturbance and had felt the chaotic Ashe pouring from the Deep into the physical world and they had been attracted by it.

They swarmed.

Aiming for Makun similar to how they had swarmed him during his initiation.

Makun had always wondered how Mark, Ryan and Celine had known his sub route even before he knew of it. How they were so sure he was a berserk warrior.

One could only be berserk if they entered an extreme stage of rage after losing themselves. A particularity of being berserk was attracting entities of the outermost layer.

A berserk was different from most Initiates, as it was less of an aptitude and more of a state of being. Once the Deep recognized that the rage bubbling up in an individual had passed the threshold of normalcy, it would automatically force that state of berserk upon them—for those who descended into the warrior route.

As such, when the trio had seen the amount of entities attracted by Makun during his initiation, they had concluded he was a berserk.

However, not all berserks had the same comprehension pattern. Some could go down the way of being swallowed by entities. Others could go down the way of corrosion. Others still could channel destruction through raw force, or decay, or burning entropy. All a berserk needed was destruction and chaos, no matter how it was achieved.

WOOOSH!

The entities moved through the Veil like sharks through water, they were hungry and relentless, while being drawn to the source of the chaos like moths to flame.

And the source of that was Makun.

He felt them before he saw them.

He could see shapes move in the corners of his vision. Screaming exactly how they did during his initiation.

They flooded his body, the chaotic Ashe in his body responding to them, recognizing them, it began to resonate with their frequency.

His Route Core pulsed erratically, and he felt something inside him start to slip.

They were trying to possess him.

He was familiar with the feeling of these entities, of being possessed by them. He knew what they wanted. He knew they wanted his body.

Just like during his initiation or when he had swallowed the pills to end his life and drifted through the layers of reality.

But this time was different.

Makun was awake and had sworn he was going to be no one’s play thing. This time, he was angry, angry at anything that wanted control over him.

"No," Makun growled, his voice low, guttural.

As if in act of defiance, the entities pressed harder, their weight increasing.

"NO!" He commanded.

"GET OUT!"

he imposed his will to his Route core. A will full of rejection, rejection of the entities that swarmed his body.

His route core flared.

It flared following Makun’s will, the will of unfiltered rejection.

Makun had no Idea how to fight these entities, no idea how to destroy them, no Idea of the comprehension needed to battle them. He knew only one thing, and that thing was, he was done being a puppet of someone else.

Get out! Get out! Get out!

This is MY body.

MY power.

Makun’s hands clenched into fists. The chaotic Ashe inside him surged, inward, pulling hard, It contracted and condensed around his Route Core like a shell. He forced his will onto it, with pure, desperate defiance.

The entities recoiled.

Makun could feel it, it had an effect. He did not stop, flooding his will onto his Ashe, into his Route core and that only made the resistance grow larger.

One of the shapes lunged at him, a shadowy limb reaching for his chest, trying to pierce through the spiritual shell he had formed. Makun lashed out instinctively, his hand swinging through the air, and to his shock, his Ashe connected.

The entity shrieked.

Upon witnessing this, every other entity hesitated.

Makun grind, his expression growing wilder.

"HAHAHA! Come on then," he snarled. "If you want me, come and GET me. COME GET ME!"

He was losing himself even more to his rage.

The entities hesitated for a single instance then flash! they came.

A dozen shapes surged forward, aiming for his orifices as Every opening was a doorway to his body. Makun swung again, his fists lashing out in erratic, chaotic arcs, each strike saturated with raw Ashe full of his will.

Some missed, others connected and each time one connected, an entity dissolved, shrieking, torn apart by the very chaos they had tried to feed on.

But there were too many.

One latched onto his shoulder, another onto his leg. A third tried to sink into his chest, aiming for his Route Core. Makun roared, flooding his body with even more Ashe, and the entities burned. They could not hold on and could not feed.

His Ashe was too wild, too unstable, too hostile.

Slowly, one by one, they pulled back.

they were neither destroyed nor killed, but repelled.

some retreated into the edges of his vision, into the shadows, while others retreated into the crack returning to the deep.

Makun stood in the middle of the alley, gasping heavily for air while bleeding from everywhere.

His body trembling from all the effort he had exerted today.

He had won.

Won against those entities who wanted his body.

But he was not done. He wanted more, he was still unsatiated.

He turned back toward Elias.