Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls-Chapter 391: Something’s wrong…

Seraphyne's transformation didn't happen like a sacred ritual or the glamorous ascension she had always imagined for herself. The metamorphosis took shape as an aberration: a violent birth of white light, spasms, bones realigning, corrupted flesh being replaced by something older than flesh itself. Chaos expanded around her, pulsing like a living creature, and the entire hall vibrated in response—as if the castle itself were being tortured from within.

Kael watched, steady, but not unaffected by the scene. He didn't recoil, but his tense muscles betrayed absolute vigilance; his entire body was a blade ready to move at any moment. His mind, on the other hand, worked coldly, meticulously, registering each new mutation, each movement of Chaos, each structural flaw that temporarily appeared before closing like an angry mouth.

The white mass that had once been Seraphyne—and dozens of dark witches as well—began to rise, first as a shapeless column, then taking on grotesque contours. Legs emerged where before there had only been vapor. Multiple arms sprouted and retracted like fingers trying to grasp reality. White eyes opened and closed all over the surface of that body, blinking asynchronously, as if each one saw a different world.

And at the center of it all… Seraphyne's voice, now multiplied and distorted, echoed like a chorus of choked souls:

"Kael… Scarlet…"

He felt the vibration of the voice not in his ears, but in his bones.

A pressure effect that no known magic should cause.

The creature took a step—just one—and the ground around it exploded, as if logic had been crushed by something too heavy.

Kael held his breath for a second.

A thought licked his mind:

"This is no longer a witch. It's a hungry dimension trying to escape through someone's flesh."

Seraphyne advanced.

Not running.

Sliding.

Her body floated, but scraped the ground as if dragging pieces of space with her. White fissures followed her movement, opening where she passed and closing soon after with dry cracks.

Kael raised his blade the instant one of the creature's countless hands emerged like a white spear and pierced the air toward his head.

He dodged.

But not completely.

A sliver of Chaos touched his shoulder—and Kael felt an impact that shouldn't exist.

It was like being struck by a concept, not by something physical.

The muscle didn't tear, but burned from the inside out, a shapeless pain, as if a distant memory were being erased.

He rolled on the ground, using the shadow beneath his feet to cushion the movement, and immediately stood up, his eyes narrowed.

The creature—corrupted Seraphyne—let out a laugh that didn't belong to any known vocal organ.

It was a sound that vibrated in two directions at once, as if emitted from both inside and outside of space.

Kael tightened his grip on the blade.

The shadow reacted, oozing through his fingers like living ink, circling the metal.

"If she keeps absorbing… this is going to get worse and worse. She's not growing. She's collapsing."

One more movement.

Faster.

This time Kael couldn't anticipate it.

The creature vanished—it didn't teleport, it didn't run.

It leaped lines of existence, appearing beside him like an image that hadn't been there a second before.

A white hand, larger than it should have been, gripped his chest.

Kael tried to cut, but another hand appeared and grasped the blade, not forcefully, but with pure negation: the steel simply ceased to exist at that point, as if erased from a drawing.

A third hand gripped his mask.

He felt the world spin.

The impact came before perception.

Seraphyne hurled Kael against a wall as if his body were a piece of compressed smoke.

The impact cracked the stone and sank the wall inward; the sound echoed like muffled thunder.

Kael fell to his knees.

The shadow writhed around him, reacting like a wounded animal—protective, but unstable.

He looked up.

Seraphyne approached like a nightmare taking shape.

Each of her steps seemed heavier than the last, but not physically—it was the weight of laws breaking to accommodate her.

Kael sensed something strange: a miscalculation.

He couldn't predict her attacks.

He couldn't anticipate the movement of a creature that wasn't even confined to a single body.

This demanded quick, precise thinking from him:

"She doesn't have a pattern. I need to make her create one. Push her into a stable form. Something predictable."

Seraphyne raised her arms and the ceiling opened without touching anything—simply splitting in two, like a ripe fruit being torn apart by the hands of gravity.

White tentacles emerged, spiraling, contorting in impossible directions.

The creature advanced.

Kael did too.

The clash was violent and silent at the same time: two forces that shouldn't coexist, colliding like two ideologies trying to annihilate each other.

Kael slid along the creature's side and severed one of its legs with a precise blow.

The blade ripped through Chaos—an impossible feat—and the limb shattered like fractured glass.

The creature stumbled, its structure swaying as if made of unstable columns.

But it soon regenerated—not as flesh, but as water instantly turning to ice.

Kael growled inwardly.

"Amputating won't help. I have to strike at the core. The consciousness. The Seraphyne that's left inside."

He lunged forward, cutting through space.

The shadow pushed him, accelerating him as if the world were being pulled backward.

Seraphyne sensed him and roared.

Tentacles crisscrossed toward him, forming a living wall of white fragments.

Kael didn't stop.

He plunged into the wall.

The black blade flew like a perfect arc.

Tentacles were severed, evaporating in white explosions.

Claws created from nothing tried to grab him, but Kael slipped, disappeared, reappeared behind them, moving like an intelligent shadow.

Still, he was injured—cuts appeared all over his body, some deep, others purely conceptual: a piece of meaning was lost in those blows, a sensation, a memory. But Kael continued.

The wall opened.

Kael reached Seraphyne.

And then…

He saw.

For a brief instant, amidst all the white mass and multiplied eyes, in the creature's heart—there was a face.

Seraphyne's terrified face.

He saw her trying to speak, but her mouth wouldn't move.

Chaos spoke over her, muffling her, suffocating her, using her as a conduit for its existence.

Kael hesitated for a split instant.

And that instant cost him dearly.

A white arm surged forward and pierced his side, cutting through flesh and shadow simultaneously.

Kael gasped, feeling warm blood trickle down his waist.

He tried to pull away, but another arm grabbed his face and slammed him against the ground with enough force to create a crater.

The creature lunged forward, roaring, all eyes fixed on him.

Kael coughed up blood—real, thick, dark.

He tried to stand, but a giant hand crushed him against the floor.

And another hand opened above him like a mouth.

Seraphyne—or what remained of her—screamed:

"DIE! DIE DIE DIE!"

The voice echoed everywhere, as if inside Kael's skull.

He felt his bones tremble under the creature's weight.

The shadow writhed desperately, trying to protect him.

"If I make a mistake now… I die. Simple as that." Kael clenched his fist.

And then, amidst the crushing pressure, amidst the chaos, amidst the pain…

…he smiled.

Not a smile of pleasure.

Not a smile of victory.

But an almost sad smile.

As if he had seen this before—or something even worse.

He raised his hand, even with the weight crushing his back, and touched the ground.

The shadow responded.

It opened like a black fissure.

And Kael simply sank into it.

The creature smashed the ground—but Kael was no longer there.

The shadow rose behind Seraphyne like a silent ghost.

Kael emerged from it exhausted, bleeding, but firm.

He raised his blade.

And, for the first time since the beginning of that fight…

…Seraphyne didn't turn in time.

The cut pierced its torso from left to right, exposing the white light within like a cracked glass heart.

The creature howled.

Chaos tried to recompose itself.

But Kael struck again.

And again.

And again.

Now he had a goal:

To cut Chaos until its inner core—the last piece of Seraphyne—was exposed.

Chaos roared, trying to close the fissures.

Tentacles struck him from all sides.

Blades surged from the air.

Kael was hit countless times.

Blood flowed.

Breath failed.

His vision blurred.

But he continued.

Blow after blow.

Crack after crack.

Until finally…

He opened a deep cut in the center of the creature's chest.

And saw Seraphyne's face inside—finally free enough to breathe.

She whispered weakly, unable to move:

"S-stop… please…"

But it wasn't a plea for her life.

It was a plea for him to kill her.

To end it.

Kael raised the blade.

Chaos roared, trying to close its body around her.

Trying to protect its puppet.

Trying to swallow Seraphyne back.

But Kael used his last strength, opened the shadow beneath his feet, and let the darkness engulf part of the creature, just enough to prevent it from closing.

Seraphyne looked at him, a white tear streaming from her eyes.

"Thank—"

The final blow wasn't brutal.

It was clean.

Quick.

Elegant.

The blade pierced the heart of Chaos—and struck Seraphyne's heart at the same time.

The entire hall fell silent.

The creature froze.

And then…

It collapsed into white snow, melting into the ground.

Kael fell to his knees soon after, breathing heavily, blood dripping from his mouth and armor.

The fight was over.

But only for now.

Because something at its core—now exposed and cracked—pulsed as if about to awaken.

And Kael felt one thing, cold as ice:

"It's not over. Something's wrong…"