Sign In To The Body Of Chaos At The Start-Chapter 83: The Betrayal!

The Next Day!

The sun had not even fully risen into the sky when the group began their descent into the mines. It was a journey on jagged terrain, where they had to be careful every step they took, especially as they were on guard for Abyssal attacks.

Combined with the terrain was the thick mist that blocked them from seeing far ahead. Still, even through all of this, the group could sense the air that was thick with ambient mana, fluctuating with residual pulses from whatever mining operations had once gone on here, before the Abyss had consumed it.

Damon was at the rear of the entire group, his attention wasn’t on the dangerous path or the mana-rich elements in the air glittering around the mine walls, it was firmly locked on one person.

Ila Venshar.

He wondered what was her motivation for the betrayal? Was she frustrated with how she was treated? Or was she just extremely power hungry. Either way, it didn’t matter now, as he’d strike her down soon.

She walked just ahead of the mapping team, her spatial compass spinning lazily in her palm, gloved fingers occasionally flicking over runes like a harpist strumming her strings.

But Damon had seen the way her mana moved, coiled and controlled like a strangler vine, leaking only what she permitted. The spatial beacon she’d released the night before still resonated faintly, an echo embedded deep into the stone and air. An Abyssal flare.

They reached the mouth of the mine by dawn. The structure loomed like a gaping wound in the earth, arched and reinforced with ancient Mana-infused alloy, cracked and partially collapsed from old Abyssal incursion.

Yet it still pulsed faintly with mineral life. The Mana Crystals that could be mined here would be pivotal in keeping the power running in the fortress.

Bren held up a hand, "Hold positions. Check for residual mana traps."

Two surveyors stepped forward. Damon kept his position, letting his shadows slither forward, unseen by anyone.

His patience was rewarded.

Just before the surveyors placed their instruments to the stone, Ila subtly flicked a spatial glyph from her sleeve. It was masked as a minor amplification sigil, meant to stabilize equipment.

But Damon caught the flare beneath it. A trigger. Laced with Abyssal rune-sequence.

His eyes gleamed coldly.

He didn’t wait.

"Bren," Damon called sharply, his voice cutting through the early morning haze.

The team paused. Even Ila flinched when she heard him, wondering what he wanted now.

"What is it?" Bren asked, irritation evident.

Damon didn’t answer with words. Instead, he raised his palm and summoned the echo of the beacon she’d released. It hovered in the air, raw, violet, and Abyss-touched.

Ila stiffened instantly, her eyes narrowing as she instantly knew her cover was blown, her mind racing to think of potential ways to cover herself and turn the team against Damon.

But then, Damon snapped his fingers, causing the earth beneath Ila to pulse, one of the hidden shadow soldiers exploded upward from the stone, grabbing her by the leg and yanking her down.

She cried out, but Damon was already moving, shadow-blinking forward in a blur.

Before anyone could react, he slammed her spatial compass from her hand, catching it in midair. A ripple of Abyssal magic burst from the device before he sealed it with a containment rune.

"ABYSSAL MAGIC, LOOK OUT." The group was in chaos as Bren roared, splitting apart quickly to avoid the Abyssal aura from contaminating them. Getting abyssal contamination in a place like this might as well be a death sentence.

"What the hell?!" Hargo shouted as he saw what happened.

"She’s the traitor," Damon said coolly, pressing a foot to her chest as the shadow held her down. "She’s been marking our coordinates with Abyssal glyphs, encoding them into the terrain, and sending silent signals since we left Bastion. Last night she used the cliff to broadcast another tether point."

"Lies," Ila hissed, struggling, "You have no proof, "

"The beacon was embedded in your spatial compass. And the moment we reached this mine, you attempted to activate another gate using our team as bait."

Bren moved forward slowly, his eyes dark as he thought of the potential ramifications. All the allies they had lost in the past during scheduled resource runs, "Is this true, Ila?"

"I, I was scanning for instability!" she protested, her face pale now, "He’s lying. He’s using trickery—"

"Enough," Damon said, stepping off her chest, "Then you won’t mind if I disable your mask enchantment?"

She froze and without wasting another moment, Damon held his hand over her forehead and chanted a short nullification phrase in Ancient Sovereign Tongue.

The air shimmered, and her disguise peeled away.

Beneath her fair exterior, faint black veins etched across her temple, trailing down her jaw. Abyssal corruption, so faint it had gone unnoticed until now. Her eyes gleamed briefly with a sickly violet before she looked away, shame or fury twisting her features.

Bren’s face contorted in betrayal, "You..."

"I did what I had to!" Ila snapped, "We can’t win this war! We’ve been abandoned! If I didn’t strike a deal with the Abyss, Bastion would’ve fallen months ago!"

She never finished.

~RUMBLE~RUMBLE!~

An intense, violent rumbling spread throughout the environment, making all their expressions go cold as they realized what was happening.

"She activated the trap," he said.

The shadow binding her quivered. From beneath, Damon sensed it,space rupturing. Something massive, ancient, foul pressing through.

"Everyone, fall back!" Bren bellowed, quickly sending a binding spell towards Ila that stopped her from running away in the chaos. In his mind, no matter what, he was either taking her with him back to Bastion or letting her die alongside them.

~BOOM!~

The mine entrance exploded outward in a scream of black light. The rock face cracked like shattered glass as a rift burst open, and from its heart came an Abyssal beast that defied logic.

It was colossal, twenty meters tall, half-spider, half-serpent, with a burning maw of interdimensional teeth and limbs that flickered in and out of spatial alignment.

And behind it... more. Swarms. Crawlers. Spined horrors. Winged aberrations.

They all flooded forward, ready to annihilate everyone in their path. Damon however, wasn’t ready to die here, he took a deep breath and stepped forward, not hesitiating.

"World Ender," he whispered.

His shadow burst into molten darkness. Wings unfurled from his back. His hair was engulfed in flames and his eyes glowed with Oblivion light.

Veins of divine darkness pulsed across his skin. BloodReaper transformed in his hands, growing, lengthening into a two-meter scythe crackling with spatial and shadow energy.

His presence slammed across the battlefield like a thunderclap. The Abyssal horde shrieked and charged forward....and Damon charged back.

He cleaved the air, and the scythe drew a crescent arc of annihilation, tearing five creatures apart in a single swing.

His shadow soldiers burst forth behind him, numbering in the hundreds now. Formless horrors met armored shadows in a cacophony of violence. Screams filled the air as black and violet clashed.

A tentacled monstrosity lunged from behind, but Damon twisted, vanishing mid-motion with a spatial blink and reappearing directly above its head.

"Perish," he growled.

He brought his scythe down in a meteor of darkness. The beast’s head imploded instantly, its blood painting the canyon.

~SWOOSH!~

One of the winged creatures swooped in, screeching with distortion magic. Damon raised a hand, snapped his fingers, and chains of shadow speared from the earth, dragging the beast down to where he could stab it with his scythe.

Another flick.

[Arise.]

It stood again. Reborn. Under his control.

Damon danced across the battlefield, cutting, summoning, bending space to his will. Every kill fed his army. Every fallen beast returned twisted into a soldier under his command.

Still, the traitor’s portal pulsed with more monsters.

Still, Damon kept fighting, alone.

Until Captain Bren Ardan saw it. From the edge of the battlefield, Bren knelt beside a wounded guard, blood slicking his gauntlet, lungs burning with dust. His grizzled face was streaked with grime, and his coat hung in tatters.

He watched Damon carve down a sky-drake with one strike, saw him bring an Abyssal Behemoth to its knees with a shout of [Arise] that summoned a tide of corrupted beasts reborn in shadow.

And still, it wasn’t enough. The army kept pressing in. And the others, they were just watching.

Frozen in fear, not knowing what to do or how to react.

Bren’s teeth ground together, "No..." he muttered. "No. Not like this. We don’t stand here while that boy saves our lives."

He rose, blood seeping from a wound, but his eyes burning with determination. He turned to the stunned defenders, all barely clinging to formation.

His voice tore through the chaos like thunder. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

"WHAT ARE YOU ALL STARING AT?!"

Heads snapped around.

"HE’S FIGHTING FOR EVERY ONE OF US OUT THERE!"

Bren pointed a bloodied hand toward Damon, who stood atop a mound of corpses, scythe buried in the skull of a writhing aberration.

"ARE YOU GOING TO LET HIM BLEED ALONE?! IS THAT WHO WE ARE?!"

Silence. Then, hesitantly, a single earth-shaper mage stepped forward, slamming his hands into the ground.

"NO, SIR!" he roared, and massive walls of earth surged up to block the side routes, halting some of the swarm.

A second followed. A flame-witch shrieked her incantation and bathed a wave of enemies in searing fire.

"THEN MOVE!" Bren bellowed. "EVERYONE WHO CAN STAND, FORM LINES! MAGES IN THE REAR! SWORD ARMS TO THE FRONT! SUPPORT THE SHADOWS! GUARDS, SHIELD THE INJURED!"

His voice was iron. Unquestionable, and they followed him into battle.

A fallen spearman picked up his blade with a snarl. Two scavengers launched potions of disruption into the heart of the enemy. A squad of elemental mages weaved an amplification circle to boost Damon’s next strike.

And Bren, old, broken, defiant, charged directly into the fray.

"FOR BASTION!" he roared, swinging his hammer into the side of a corrupted brute and sending it tumbling.

"FOR OUR HOME!"

Screams of battle answered him. Dozens more poured in.

Suddenly, the battle shifted.

Not because of Damon.

But because people followed him.

Because they rose.

And Damon... smiled.

Just faintly.

He whispered one word:

"Good."

Then his wings flared wide.

"Let’s end this." He said, cutting down another enemy and turning to face the colossal spider-serpent that was looming around.

It screeched, warping space around it, and a dozen defenders were almost crushed under a gravity well if not for Damon’s intervention, saving them barely.

"Your turn."

He launched upward. His wings shattered the air, carrying him skyward until he was level with the beast’s malformed head.

"World Ender Technique: Spacial Eclipse."

He raised BloodReaper overhead. Space fractured around him as a spiraling singularity of energy condensed above his blade.

And then he dove downwards, the impact tearing the mines apart.

~BOOM!~

The crater exploded in a shockwave, obliterating stone, rift, and monstrosity alike. A pulse of dark light flashed outward, burning through the enemy ranks.

Silence followed.

When the dust cleared, Damon stood in the center of the crater, wings slowly fading, BloodReaper resting on his shoulder.

The Abyssal army was broken.

Scattered corpses of twisted beasts lay across the battlefield. Those who remained were hunted down by his shadows, who moved with surgical precision.

Captain Bren, battered and bloodied, limped to his side.

"You... just saved all of us," he said hoarsely. "That was..."

"A warm-up," Damon said, his tone unreadable, "The real enemy’s still hiding."

He glanced toward Ila’s unconscious body, bound in shadow chains. The Abyss had failed its gambit today, but Damon knew better.

This was only the beginning.

He raised his gaze to the cracked sky, the taste of lingering corruption heavy in the air.

"Let them come," he whispered. "I’ll burn every one of them."

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