Chương 89: Primal Rage Mode

I forced my battered chin up out of the toxic purple sludge to get a proper look at the mysterious powerhouse currently standing between my teeth-depleted face and Kullervo's petrified oak carcass. It was undeniably Aiko, our resident hyper-anxious berserker, except her entire genetic blueprint had clearly undergone a massive, high-budget cosmetic overhaul.

The familiar, messy, shoulder-length black bangs that usually shielded her face from basic human eye contact had transformed into a vibrant, blazing shade of crimson that looked like it was fueled by pure, liquid adrenaline. Even more terrifyingly, her wide, shy dark eyes were completely gone, replaced by a pair of glowing red irises that radiated a deeply sadistic, incredibly prideful energy, looking exactly like a final boss who had just successfully hijacked the body of an innocent bystander.

"Aiko-chan?" I wheezed out through the heavy smoke, my remaining teeth chattering in total psychological confusion at the sudden, extreme shift in the local power dynamic. She casually turned her back on me, tossing her freshly minted crimson hair over her shoulder without breaking her stance for even a single fraction of a second.

"I am afraid that your sweet, trembling little Aiko-chan is entirely unavailable to take your call at the moment, Arthur-sama," she shot right back over her shoulder, her high-pitched voice dripping with a terrifying blend of absolute confidence and playful mockery. Across the clearing, Kullervo scrambled heavily back onto his bipedal wooden limbs, his advanced tactical awareness clearly screaming that he was no longer dealing with a squad of low-tier insects.

The fifteen-foot bipedal colossus flexed his upper torso to initiate yet another catastrophic helping of his signature Thorn-Burst Pulse, causing hundreds of jagged, razor-sharp wooden splinters to ignite across his ancient oak armor plating in a desperate bid to clear the field.

"You are dealing with Rekka now," she proudly announced, completely ignoring the impending organic shrapnel storm brewing right in front of her face. With absolute, terrifying physical ease, she effortlessly hoisted the massive, fossilized black-iron weight of her Spine-Breaker's Reaver greatsword straight up into the air using only a single hand, ready to turn our giant wooden landlord into immediate, unscripted kindling.

What came out of her mouth next was a deeply unhinged, cackling laugh that sounded like a hyena that had successfully broken into a premium energy drink stash. Before the echo of that terrifying chuckle could even clear the toxic air, she launched her body forward into a lightning fast, gravity defying leap straight toward Kullervo, cutting through the purple gloom like a homing missile wrapped in a crimson wig. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She slammed down hard and aggressively drove her massive black iron greatsword directly into the center of the giant wooden colossus's chest cavity, delivering a brutal horizontal slash that instantly short-circuited his entire spellcasting animation and completely shut down his highly anticipated Thorn-Burst Pulse.

"Perish! Perish! Crumble into dust! Experience the absolute maximum amount of agony possible!" Rekka shrieked into the smoke, completely abandoning any resemblance to a polite human being. She began to wave that fossilized Spine-Breaker's Reaver back and forth with a manic, blur-inducing physical velocity that was so remarkably fast and violently messy it looked like a blender trying to process a forest.

During the absolute height of her furious chainsaw routine, the shifting fog parted just enough for me to catch a brief, clear glimpse of her actual face. Her features were stretched into an expression of pure, unadulterated, sadistic happiness as she systematically tore Kullervo apart piece by microscopic piece, physically separating his petrified oak armor plating from his trunk like an overly enthusiastic kid ripping open presents on a holiday morning.

It was a completely surreal spectacle to witness from the mud, and she was an entirely separate, hyper lethal creature from the quiet, stuttering little Aiko I had been traveling with down the road. I happened to catch a brief, mud-splattered glimpse of the deep crater where Fiona had been buried alive under that horrific torrent of weaponized sludge.

Instead of a thoroughly dissolved pile of bear bones, our resident nature lover managed to successfully crawl her way out of the pit, having wisely downsized back into her default human form to wiggle through the gaps in the root tomb. She looked like an absolute disaster, completely drenched from head to toe in that bubbling, toxic purple goo and sporting a rather graphic collection of fresh chemical burns, but her baseline vital signs were clearly holding up perfectly fine through sheer druid resilience.

Without wasting a single millisecond on a dramatic wardrobe change, she immediately initiated her high-tier Wildheart Surge skill to bail us out of our collective medical bankruptcy. She gestured with her hands, sending a soft, rhythmic hum vibrating straight through the polluted air as a soothing wave of glowing spores and iridescent spirit-light drifted outward in a massive, sweeping radius.

The restorative mist seeped directly into our skin, and the physical sensation of having my entire anatomical structure violently reassembled in real-time was a complete psychological trip. I could literally feel the severed, bloody stump of my right arm rapidly knitting flesh and bone back together, sprouting a brand new set of functional fingers right before my eyes like a high-speed nature documentary.

Even my facial department received an immediate dental upgrade, as those four pearly white teeth I had previously lost to Kullervo's club arm aggressively popped right back into their designated sockets with a satisfying internal click. Over on the sidelines, June hauled herself straight up onto her boots, her elegant profile completely restored as the glowing green spores effortlessly erased her ugly shrapnel wounds and ironed out her wrinkled royal dignity.

Right on cue, the massive, unmistakable silhouette of Dimitri cast a giant shadow through the dissipating fog, our favorite wholesome powerhouse triumphantly rising from his puddle of crimson blood to hoist his blunt, nicked Notched Iron Slab sword high into the sky with an unwavering grin.

"Alright, crew, the medical intermission is officially over, so let us roll out and turn this overgrown piece of kindling into permanent garden mulch," I announced, flexing my freshly grown fingers with a thoroughly amused smirk as our synchronized party synergy came roaring back online.