Primordial Awakening: I Breathe Skill Points!-Chapter 25: Battle For The Ring! (1)

Chapter 25: Battle For The Ring! (1)
The formation blazed to life with a sound like reality cracking. Light erupted from every carved line, filling the chamber with radiance so intense it hurt to look at directly.
The storage ring in the center began to vibrate, its surface rippling as the unsealing formation attacked the mana signature lock with brute-force decryption.
Zeph tensed, preparing for a lengthy wait. Most unsealing processes took—
The formation flared brilliant white and died.
Less than two seconds. The mana signature lock shattered like glass under a hammer, unable to withstand the overwhelming power Zeph had dumped into the activation runes.
The storage ring settled onto the floor with a soft clink, its surface now completely smooth. Unlocked. Accessible. His.
’That was almost too easy,’ some distant part of his mind observed, but Zeph was already moving forward, reaching down to claim his prize.
His fingers were inches from the ring when something glowed on its surface.
A bug.
Tiny, luminescent blue, with crystalline wings that refracted light in impossible patterns. It appeared from nowhere—not crawling onto the ring, but simply manifesting as if it had always been there and Zeph was only now noticing.
The creature’s multifaceted eyes locked onto his, and Zeph’s enhanced perception caught something that made his blood run cold.
Intelligence. Not animal cunning, but genuine awareness staring back at him through an insect’s face.
The bug performed what could only be described as a dance—a deliberate, mocking little movement of its crystalline wings.
Then it vanished.
And the storage ring vanished with it.
Zeph’s hand closed on empty air.
"Looking for this?"
The voice came from behind him, casual and amused. Zeph spun, his enhanced speed turning the movement into a blur, and found two figures standing at the chamber’s entrance.
They hadn’t been there three seconds ago. His soul-sense had detected nothing. His enhanced hearing had picked up no footsteps, no breathing, no heartbeat.
They’d appeared as suddenly and impossibly as the bug.
The speaker was tall and gaunt, with pale skin that had an unhealthy gray tint. His eyes were compound—literally insectoid, with thousands of tiny facets that caught and reflected the chamber’s residual light. The storage ring sat in his open palm, spinning slowly above his skin without touching it.
His companion was shorter, broader, covered in what looked like chitinous plates that grew directly from his flesh. When he breathed, Zeph could see mandibles moving beneath his skin, as if something was trying to push its way out from inside.
Both radiated power that marked them as high-level awakened. B-rank, maybe low A-rank.
And both were smiling with expressions that suggested they’d been waiting for this exact moment.
Zeph’s mind went absolutely still.
No panic. No fear. Just cold, analytical assessment of the tactical situation combined with a rage so pure and controlled it felt like ice in his veins.
’They knew I was coming. Deduced what I was after. Set a trap and waited for me to spring it.’
His external expression showed nothing. No anger, no frustration, no hint of the fury burning behind his storm-gray eyes. Just the same calm, calculated assessment he’d used to survive three years in the ruins.
"That belongs to me," Zeph said quietly, his voice carrying none of the violence coiling in his muscles.
The gaunt man’s compound eyes glittered with amusement. "Possession is nine-tenths of the law, anomaly. And right now, I’m the one possessing it."
"Besides," the chitinous one added, his voice buzzing oddly as if multiple throats were speaking in unison, "you’re not exactly in a position to make demands. Do you know how long we’ve been waiting here? How many failed attempts to steal from the Bazaar we’ve had to abort because those idiot merchants wouldn’t evacuate?"
"But then you show up," the gaunt one continued, still spinning the ring above his palm. "Marked by the System as an extinction event. Every awakened in the region fleeing in terror. The perfect distraction."
" We should thank you, really," the chitinous one said. "You gave us the exact conditions we needed."
Zeph’s enhanced hearing picked up movement throughout the chamber. Not visible to the naked eye, but there—hundreds of tiny clicking sounds, the whisper of wings, the scrape of countless tiny legs against stone.
Bugs. Everywhere. Coating the walls, ceiling, floor. Waiting.
’Summoners,’ he identified with cold clarity. ’Insect-type. Probably specialized in swarm tactics and area denial.’
The worst possible matchup for someone who relied on overwhelming single-target damage.
"Last chance," Zeph said, his voice still perfectly calm despite the tactical nightmare unfolding around him. "Give me the ring."
The gaunt man’s smile widened. "Or what? You’ll—"
Zeph activated Force and moved.
Swoosh!
The world slowed to a crawl as his already absurd stats doubled. His enhanced perception painted a three-dimensional map of every bug in the chamber, every possible attack vector, every weakness in his opponents’ positioning.
Bang!
He crossed the distance to the gaunt man in a single step that left a crater in the floor.
His fist drove toward the man’s compound eyes with enough force to liquify concrete.
The gaunt man’s body dissolved into a swarm of blue crystalline insects that scattered in every direction. Zeph’s punch hit empty air as the summoner reformed ten feet away, still holding the ring, still smiling.
"Did you really think it would be that easy?"
The chitinous one’s plates split open, and thousands of black beetles poured out like a living flood. They moved with coordinated precision, forming walls and barriers that cut off Zeph’s approach vectors while others swarmed toward him in chittering waves.
Swish! Bam!
Zeph’s axe came off his back in a smooth draw, the massive blade sweeping through the approaching swarm. Dozens of beetles were pulverized, but hundreds more simply flowed around the attack like water.
They reached his legs and began to climb.
Zeph felt their mandibles attempting to bite through his enhanced skin, failing against his 999 Vitality, but the sheer weight of thousands of insects was slowing his movements. More poured from the chitinous summoner’s body, an apparently endless supply that threatened to bury him completely.
’Can’t let them restrict my mobility!’
IGNITE!
Purple flames erupted from Zeph’s body, wreathing him in fire that consumed the climbing beetles in waves. The bugs died by the hundreds, but more replaced them instantly, the summoner’s ability was apparently capable of generating them faster than Zeph could kill them which was insane!
The gaunt summoner made a gesture, and the blue crystalline insects that had formed his body launched themselves at Zeph from every angle.
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
These were different from the black beetles—faster, more coordinated, and when they made contact with his flames, they exploded in tiny detonations that actually stung despite his enhanced durability.
’They’re coordinating,’ Zeph realized, his tactical mind processing the pattern. ’Black beetles for restriction, blue ones for damage. Classic area denial strategy.’
He spun, his axe creating a whirlwind of steel that pulverized incoming bugs in a defensive perimeter. But the moment he stopped moving forward, both summoners retreated further, maintaining distance while their swarms continued the assault.
The gaunt summoner’s compound eyes glittered with calculated malice. "You’re strong, anomaly. Incredibly strong. But strength means nothing if you can’t reach your target."
As if to punctuate his point, a new wave of blue crystalline insects materialized—these ones larger, the size of his fist, with serrated mandibles that glowed with concentrated mana.
They dove at Zeph in a coordinated strike pattern that forced him to actually defend. His axe moved in practiced arcs, destroying three, four, five of the enhanced bugs before one slipped through his guard and latched onto his shoulder.
The explosion that followed was significantly more powerful than the smaller variants. Zeph’s enhanced durability absorbed most of the damage, but he felt the impact ripple through his enhanced muscles, actually causing minor strain.
’They’re escalating. Testing my limits.’
The chitinous summoner’s body pulsed, and the black beetles covering the floor suddenly surged upward in a coordinated wave.
Not climbing individually anymore, but moving as a singular mass—thousands of insects acting with hive-mind precision to create a wall of chitin that rushed toward him like a tsunami!
Zeph planted his feet and swung his axe in a devastating horizontal arc.
BANG!
The blade, enhanced by Force, created a shockwave that obliterated the front ranks of the beetle wave. Thousands died instantly, their bodies exploding into black ichor.
But the wave didn’t stop. It crashed over him like water, and suddenly Zeph was fighting not individual bugs but a literal ocean of coordinated insect matter. They covered his vision, filled his ears with chittering, created a living prison that tried to crush him through sheer accumulated mass!
’Bad position.’
Zeph detonated his purple flames outward in an explosive burst. The beetles died by the tens of thousands, their bodies incinerated by fire that didn’t burn with heat but consumed souls directly.
The wave broke, giving him a moment of clarity.
He used it.
Whoosh!
Phantom Step carried him through the dissolving swarm in a burst of displaced space. Ten feet forward, bypassing the beetles entirely, positioning him directly in front of the chitinous summoner who’d been orchestrating the wave attack.
The man’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.
Zeph’s fist drove into his solar plexus with Force-doubled strength behind it.
Crack!
The impact was catastrophic. The summoner’s chitinous armor cracked like eggshell, and Zeph felt ribs shatter beneath his knuckles. The man was launched backward, crashing through his own beetle swarm and slamming into the chamber wall hard enough to crater the reinforced stone.
Black beetles poured from the wound in his chest, trying desperately to repair the damage. But Zeph was already moving, following up his advantage.
The gaunt summoner materialized between them, his body reforming from scattered insects into a solid barrier. "I don’t think so."