Chapter 348 — Cute

Around them, the Murdock family forces were rallying. With Elizabeth saved and with Vermont and Bella engaging the S rank enemies, the surviving Murdock awakeners found renewed determination.

But the masked enemies outnumbered them three to one.

More attackers poured toward Damian, recognizing him as the immediate threat. Twenty... Thirty... Forty masked figures converging on his position, their weapons gleaming, their Auras forming a collective pressure that should have crushed any B- rank awakener.

Damian smiled wider.

"Good... Come die faster."

His Obsidian Hide activated.

Black liquid erupted from his pores, spreading across his skin like living armor. It hardened into jagged plates that covered his arms, chest, legs, everything except his head. The obsidian caught the firelight, gleaming like polished volcanic glass.

He charged to meet them.

The first blade that struck his armor shattered against the obsidian coating. The attacker’s eyes went wide with shock. Damian’s axe took him through the sternum, splitting his ribcage, destroying his heart.

Second blade scraped across his armored shoulder, leaving a scratch but no real damage. The counterattack removed the attacker’s head with a backswing.

Third attacker tried a kick enhanced with Aura, the impact cracked part of Damian’s obsidian armor but the protection held. Damian’s axe severed the leg at the knee and the follow-up split the man’s skull.

He moved through them like a reaper harvesting wheat.

Sonic Blink created impossible angles of attack. Macro Vision predicted every strike before it landed. Telekinesis hurled enemies into each other, created openings, grabbed weapons mid-swing and turned them into projectiles that skewered their former owners.

Blood flew in arcs, limbs scattered across burning ground and screams cut off wet and sudden.

Damian’s Self-Healing worked constantly in the background, his Aura knitting torn flesh, repairing cracked obsidian, keeping him functional despite accumulating damage. A slash across his ribs sealed within seconds, a stab through his shoulder closed before the attacker could withdraw his blade.

He was a machine built for slaughter.

Behind him, Kuro spread his wings wider over Elizabeth and Adrian, the raven’s death energy creating a protective barrier that repelled the Domain’s flames. His crimson eyes tracked the battlefield with predatory intelligence, watching for any threat that got too close.

But Kuro wasn’t just defending.

Death energy swirled around the massive raven as he absorbed the residue from Damian’s kills. Each corpse released its lingering life force, dark wisps flowing toward Kuro like rivers finding the ocean. The raven’s form pulsed, growing marginally larger, his power increasing with every death.

’More... need more to advance... C+ to B- requires massive amounts...’

Kuro’s instincts drove him to efficiency. When three B rank enemies broke away from the main battle, trying to flank Elizabeth, the raven moved with predatory speed.

His beak speared through the first attacker’s eye socket, puncturing brain. His talons tore open the second attacker’s throat, severing arteries, blood gushing. The third managed to raise his sword before Kuro’s wing buffeted him with force that snapped his neck.

The raven’s beak opened wide, impossibly wide, and he swallowed the first corpse whole. Bones crunched, flesh tore and death energy concentrated and pure flooded Kuro’s system, making his feathers glow with dark light.

The other two corpses followed.

Around them, the battle continued to escalate.

****

Damian carved through another group, his axe never stopping, his movements fluid despite the carnage. Blood soaked the ground so thoroughly that his boots splashed with each step. Body parts littered the area like macabre decorations.

Then he felt it.

A presence touching his mind, cold and invasive, pressing down on his consciousness with suffocating pressure.

The Domain of Hopelessness had found a new target.

Chains materialized in his peripheral vision despite knowing they weren’t physically real. Whispers started, suggesting surrender, hinting at futility, eroding his will to fight with insidious persistence.

’Give up... Everyone dies here... Fighting is pointless... You can’t save them... You’ll watch them all die anyway... Why struggle?’

Damian’s movements slowed fractionally as the Mental Domain attacked, as invisible weight settled on his shoulders, as his thoughts became sluggish and heavy.

From somewhere in the battlefield, a hollow voice echoed.

"You’re strong, boy... But strength means nothing when hope dies first."

The masked figure who’d created the Domain stood forty meters away, his Aura radiating outward, his hands forming complex gestures that deepened the Mental assault.

The chains in Damian’s vision wrapped tighter, the whispers grew louder, the pressure intensified, crushing down on his consciousness with force designed to break wills and shatter determination.

A normal B rank awakener would have collapsed already.

Even some A ranks would struggle against this level of Mental Domain mastery.

Damian stopped walking.

His head lowered slightly, crimson hair falling forward to obscure his face. The translucent flames of his Slaughter Intent flickered, seeming to dim under the Domain’s assault.

The masked figure’s voice carried satisfaction.

"That’s right. Accept it. Fighting is–"

Damian’s head snapped up.

His crimson eyes blazed with such intensity that the air around them distorted. His lips curved into a smile that held no warmth and no humor, only absolute conviction.

"Hopelessness?"

His voice came out quiet, almost conversational, but it carried across the battlefield with terrible clarity.

"You think you understand hopelessness?"

The Slaughter Intent around him pulsed, growing brighter instead of dimmer, the translucent flames blazing with renewed fury.

"Let me tell you something about despair... About true and absolute hopelessness."

His Will stat blazed at 400, reinforced through breakthrough and understanding, far exceeding most Awakeners.

"Hopelessness is just one tiny fragment of despair... A single facet of something far deeper, far more crushing, far more absolute."

The chains in his vision began to crack.

"You’re trying to make me feel hopeless? Make me believe fighting is pointless?"

His smile widened into something terrifying.

"I’ve LIVED in hopelessness. I’ve drowned in it. I’ve let it consume me completely, let it tear apart everything I was, let it reduce me to nothing... and I came out the other side."

CRACK

The chains shattered like glass, fragments dissolving into nothing, the Domain of Hopelessness recoiling from Damian as if burned.

"Your Domain is cute."

The word dripped with such venom that several nearby fighters flinched.

"Really... It’s adorable. Like a child showing me a crayon drawing of darkness while I’ve spent lifetimes swimming in the abyss."

The Mental Domain user stumbled backward, his Aura flickering as feedback from his broken technique hit him.

"W-what–" His voice cracked behind the mask. "What are you?"

Damian took a step forward, then another.

His crimson eyes had gone cold and empty. The eyes of someone who’d stared into depths that broke lesser minds, who’d touched the bottom of human suffering and found it familiar.

The eyes of someone who understood despair so completely that weaponizing it was as natural as breathing.

"Let me show you the difference between us."

His voice came out barely above a whisper, but it carried absolute authority.

"Domain of Despair."