WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom-Chapter 200: Crack On The Seal

Chapter 200: Crack On The Seal

The knight looked down, jaw clenched.

Apophis let out a laugh, rich with mockery.

“Oh, Ben. What have you done? Why would you remind the poor knight he’s nothing more than a tool?”

The knight said nothing. But it wasn’t silence by choice. Something inside him was clashing.

The moment Ben’s words sank in, that he was just another soul, bound by the system, a question took root in his mind.

A question he couldn’t ignore, and that question became a storm.

[Warning!!! Protocol 684 Initiated]

Ben squinted. The system interface glitched violently in front of his eyes.

Golden static cut across his vision. And then, The knight dropped to one knee, clutching his head. His roar echoed across the battlefield, his body writhing in pain as light and logic tore at him from the inside.

But Ben didn’t have the luxury of worry.

Because within his own soul, the system was beginning to fight back.

Golden chains exploded outward from the depths of his spirit, snaking toward his core. They moved fast, too fast, latching onto his soul like venomous wires.

Outside, the chains manifested physically. They wrapped around his body, around his appendages, forcing him to the ground. But Ben gritted his teeth, and pushed back.

Dark aether pulsed through him, surging from the energy he’d devoured from Apophis.

The chains hissed. Some shattered. Others held.

Apophis watched, and laughed.

A heartfelt, breathless laugh that echoed across the crumbling sky.

“I invited you to work with me,” she said, amused. “You rejected me. Fought me. And yet, here you are… still using my power to fight your precious system.”

Ben’s lips curled into a grin, even as the chains bit deeper.

“You’re right,” he growled. “That’s why you’re going to help me with this too.”

“Why would I,-“She stopped .Her eyes widened. She felt it.

Despite all the chaos, despite the battle and the system’s bindings, Ben had maintained control over one of his separated appendages, hidden from view, wrapped in dark aether to mask its presence. And that appendage had slipped inside the cracks of her seal core.

“You…” she breathed.

Ben’s grin widened through the pain.

“I couldn’t do this before. But now? With your power… I can separate and control each tendril over distance.”

He raised his head, eyes burning.

“Thanks to your gravity and space-warping abilities, my reach has evolved. And now?”

His eyes narrowed.

“Now a part of me is inside your core.”

“You bastard!” Apophis shrieked. “Coming inside a woman without permission?”

She forced a crooked smile, voice turning sultry.

“If you wanted in that badly, Ben, you could’ve just asked. I would have said yes.”

Ben barked a laugh, even as he strained against the golden bindings constricting him.

“Stop dodging the point, Apophis!You sealed away your true body so you could survive, keep just enough ego awake to stand here in front of me. And that’s exactly why you’re going to help.”

Deep in her core, the hidden appendage flared with power. It morphed. It became a massive, gaping maw, and it bit down.

CHOMP.

“ARRRRGHH!!!” Apophis screamed in agony.

Her face twisted ugly. Her body cracked, shimmering with unstable power as her connection to her sealed self was violently disrupted.

“You maniac!” she howled. “Do you even realize what you’re doing!?”

Ben’s grin turned savage.”I do. You think I don’t realize what’s happening?”

All this fighting had cracked the space around them, making the seal weaker with every clash.

“With a few more nudges, you could probably break free… but why would I let you do that?”

Apophis’s body twisted, then collapsed into dark liquid that splashed across the broken ground.

Ben called the hidden appendage back. It was already distorting, resisting as Apophis’s ego pushed back, but it returned to his body, carrying more than just her energy.

The dark liquid followed, merging into his form like ink into water.

Inside his soul, Apophis stood beside him, silent and whole.

“Now help your new master,” Ben said with a grin, even as golden chains from the system coiled tighter around his soul.

Apophis stared at him with a dead glare, unmoving.

Ben laughed through clenched teeth.

“Watch all you want. If I die, you’re next. Maybe the next host becomes the real Devourer of Light.”

Her lips twitched, as he consumed her ego Ben learned more about her. In her old world, that title, Devourer of Light, wasn’t a warning, It was a truth.

Utilizing her ability, she could block out all light, turning the world into pure darkness. Long ago, she created this power to defeat her greatest enemy, a kingdom known as the Kingdom of Ra.

Their emperor wielded the power of the sun itself. So Apophis forged an ability that could swallow light whole, plunging the land into endless night.

As for the reason behind their war?

That’s a story for another chapter. For now, both she and Ben had a more pressing enemy, the system.

The chains cracked, Light flared. Ben roared, breaking free from the golden bindings just long enough to move forward.

Beside him, Apophis stepped through the rift in his soul, her body reforming, darker and more refined than before. She didn’t say a single word, but she know what to do.

They moved as one.

Ben raised his arm, gravity spiraling like a collapsing star. Apophis lifted hers, and darkness spread outward like wings, consuming every trace of light.

Together, they faced the core. A massive construct suspended in the void of Ben’s soul space, made of layered circuits, shifting glyphs, and spinning geometric seals. The heart of the system.

It pulsed with golden light, rejecting them, resisting change.

Ben smirked. “Let’s break it.” He threw his appendae forward.

Apophis followed, launching a blade of dark liquid wrapped in gravitational force.

Their combined attack struck the system’s core. Glyphs burned away. Layers peeled back. Cracks spidered across the surface. And inside it, something began to awaken.

The sphere of light at the center started to spike with unstable energy. A distorted voice followed, broken and mechanical.

“Host Number 9,878 is deemed unusable. Marked as dangerous.

System Code 8465,468 is at high risk of being consumed.

Initiating self-destruct protocol.”