adbindia Chapter 920 - 916
Chapter 920 - 916
2-in-1 Chapter
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Akame's blade passed through tendons, hearts, and necks with trained precision.
The cuts were not flashy, but they severed everything that mattered.
Fine sprays of dark blood misted the air, quickly absorbed by the thirsty stone. A weaker Delver would have panicked at the smell, as the iron tang and the stench of ruptured organs triggered instinctive revulsion. Ron simply noted how quickly the liquid spread and how the ground here had darkened from countless similar deaths over time.
One Ripperbirds looked down at its injury, a trace of confusion in its eyes.
It did not understand why it was hurt. But soon, its body stopped responding. Sensory nerves failed first, then motor control, and the light in its eyes guttered out like a flame in thin air.
Bang!
One Ripperbirds dropped.
Then another. Then two more. Three.
One after another, they collapsed like dominoes.
Predators that had once ruled this section of the basin now formed an additional layer of meat and bone on the already uneven ground. Within a few hours, smaller scavengers would creep out of the cracks to feed, and within a few days, fungi along the rock walls would grow thicker from the influx of nutrients.
In the Abyss, even the fall of top predators simply fueled the next cycle.
Bessie's eyes widened.
"What's happening?"
The next moment, pain spread through her arm—and with it came a chilling sensation, as if her life had been drained all at once. Her strength ran out of her body faster than her blood. Fingers that had always been steady with a blade could no longer clench into a fist.
She realized that the Ripperbirds were not the only ones whose existence had been cut through in that short span.
Ron glanced at her coldly.
Just a look, then he turned away, stepping over the fallen Ripperbirds as he walked deeper into the Abyss.
From his perspective, this was only a minor encounter. It confirmed that Ripperbirds in this region clustered around human routes rather than deeper nests, and it showed that Bessie had compromised herself to survive among them.
That told him enough about both the local ecosystem and the psychology of certain Delvers.
Once, before he had grown used to the Zoldyck way of life, scenes like this might have left a stronger impression.
Now, for Ron, scenes like this were now just material for his Hatsu. Every movement, formation, and reaction of the Ripperbirds was quietly drawn into his observation sphere as data, refining the design of his future Nen beasts.
Bessie stared at his back, realizing now that both the Ripperbird's deaths and her own injury were caused by Ron. His power far exceeded her expectations. She couldn't even begin to understand the true nature of his abilities.
In her world, strength meant barely surviving a Ripperbirds ambush with half a party still alive. Ron's existence rewrote that standard entirely.
"What is this man?" she thought. "What kind of Delver is he?"
Countless memories flashed through her mind—like a spinning lantern reel. She remembered her dreams when she first entered the Abyss, the companions and friends she'd made along the way, and the fear she felt when watching them die.
At the beginning, she had still believed in the idea of returning to the surface with everyone alive, arms full of relics and stories. Later, she had settled for just herself.
It was fear that had driven her to this point. The fear of being eaten alive. The fear of being left behind by faster, stronger teammates. The fear of becoming one more nameless skeleton wedged between rocks.
To fall in with Ripperbirds.
She had done so many terrible things. Caused the deaths of countless Delvers. Lured the inexperienced down marked paths, whispered false warnings, redirected them toward lairs like this one, then watched from a distance as screams echoed through the stone.
"When… did I become like this?"
................
.......
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The waterfall crashed down from the sky.
It did not fall from any visible cliff. Instead, a river seemed to flow out of the empty air above, pouring straight down like a torn vein in the world itself. The water struck the mist-filled basin below with a deafening roar, throwing up a constant spray that turned the air cold and wet. The entire space smelled of stone, algae, and something faintly metallic, as if the rock itself bled slowly over time.
Suspended in front of the waterfall was a pirate ship.
It hung in midair, its hull tilted slightly, frozen as though time had stopped around it. Two massive masts extended like spears from either side, pierced into unseen anchors in the air, pinning the ship in place like an insect fixed to a board. The tattered sails stirred in a wind that came from nowhere obvious, catching the spray and scattering droplets like glass fragments.
Ron came to a halt.
He studied the scene in silence. The third layer did not just change the strength of creatures; it instead distorted basic rules. Water ignored gravity in odd places, air currents twisted unpredictably, and objects that should have fallen simply remained where they were.
For Delvers without strong balance or sharp instincts, one misstep here would mean an unrecoverable fall into unseen depths.
A figure emerged beside him.
In the next instant, Natsu leapt upward, vanishing and reappearing high above.
A red-and-white bird was seized mid-flight, its throat caught firmly in Natsu's grip.
The bird beat its wings wildly, feathers scattering droplets of water as it struggled.
Its body was lean and long, with red plumage around the chest and head and white feathers along the wings and tail.
It had evolved to live near the airborne waterfall, using the constant mist to hide from larger predators. Its hooked beak and strong claws suggested it preyed on smaller flying creatures that gathered around the strange water source.
Living in this unstable airspace meant it had to be agile and quick, but against Natsu, none of that mattered.
Flames burst from Natsu's hand.
Boom!
Heat washed through the damp air, and the lingering spray turned to steam. In an instant, the bird's feathers were burned away, leaving only clean, exposed flesh.
Natsu descended, gravity returning to him as if the world's rules simply chose to acknowledge him again. He dropped back down to the stone platform, dragging the carcass along.
With a thought from Ron, Natsu vanished, and Erina appeared in his place.
Erina moved with practiced familiarity. She set up a simple cooking station on a flat section of rock, using nearby dry stone and some carried tools.
The fire crackled softly as it took hold, orange light cutting through the blue-gray gloom. She butchered the bird with efficient strokes, separating meat, bone, and organs.
In a place like this, waste attracted scavengers quickly, so she set the offal aside in a tight pile, ready to burn it completely later.
Soon, the aroma of stew began to spread, cutting through the damp chill of the third layer. Fat sizzled, and the sound mixed with the distant roar of the waterfall, forming a strange rhythm that matched the pulse of this place.
At this point, Ron could clearly feel the difference. This layer was unlike the first or second. The air itself carried a subtle weight. Aura fluctuated in odd patterns, and the environment felt as though a giant, unseen creature was breathing slowly around him.
If one used game terms, the first floor was like a starter village: low difficulty, suitable for beginners. Some spots held stronger beasts, but in general, the structure was forgiving. There was room to adapt and retreat.
The second floor marked a clear rise in difficulty. Creatures were stronger, and human conflicts began to surface.
Food, relics, and safe zones all became reasons to betray or exploit others. Survival stopped being a matter of fighting beasts alone and started to depend on reading people correctly.
But the third floor was different. The atmosphere itself seemed abnormal. The terrain and water behaved in defiance of intuition. Natural formations resembled hallucinations more than ordinary geography.
The first two floors had the feel of typical fantasy.
This third floor leaned toward something more like a Lovecraftian landscape, where the rules seemed wrong in subtle ways....And in not-so-subtle ways, like the waterfall that fell from the air, the ship nailed to nothing, and the faint, low sounds that echoed from unseen caverns combined into an unease that settled in the back of the mind.
Ron frowned slightly.
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