Chapter 28: Elite – Gatekeeper Aldrich (4)

Rena was still just a child.

A twelve-year-old girl, far younger than the rest of us.

Like many children her age, she believed that kindness would always be repaid in kind.

Like many children her age, she naively applied lessons like ‘good friends should always help each other’ from her teachers and parents to every situation.

She would always try to see things in the best light. She sincerely believed everyone could live happily ever after. She saw risking her life to save a companion as the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps she didn’t even understand what ‘risking her life’ truly meant.

And so she acted.

She stepped forward against a raging monster, without a second thought for her own safety, to come to my aid.

And so—I lived.

And she…

She…

“Ugh… ngh… ah…”

Those small hands weakly pawed at me. Her face twisted in agony. Her lips, stained with blood, murmured to me, “It… hurts… it hurts so much… Brother Yuhong… Why? I…”

She looked like she still wanted to say something.

Maybe a final message. Maybe just the raw instinct to cling to life.

But it was all futile.

A tentacle had pierced her from the lower back through to the chest. Nearly all her vital organs had been catastrophically damaged.

From the moment pain hit to the moment she slipped into eternal rest, barely any time at all.

And then, her body began to dissolve.

Skin, flesh, bone, blood—all of it faded into a shimmering pink mist, like dry ice sublimating into air.

In just a few seconds, Rena’s body vanished completely into fog, and my outstretched hand grasped nothing.

An innocent, naïve, radiant, small girl.

Gone just like that.

Ah…

Rena…

Why…

Why was it…

Just to save me…

Just for something like this…

You had to…

I…

I…!

***

“Aldrich!!!”

The first to hear the roar was Booker, limping from a twisted ankle and nearly struck by a tentacle.

Then Felice, exhausted from her relentless skirmishing, heard it too.

Her clothes were in tatters, her exposed skin crisscrossed with bloody cuts. Her rapier was visibly bent. She had held out this long against Aldrich, but now, with her stamina almost gone, she was down to her last reserves.

Both of them had already accepted their defeat. Even the chance to escape alive seemed unlikely.

But then—

Clang!

A long, thick, flexible object slammed into the ground. It was a severed tentacle. Even after being cut off, it writhed violently on the stone. The remaining stump on Aldrich’s body sprayed filthy, murky blood.

“Roarrr!?”

Aldrich’s grotesquely mutated form trembled, its remaining tentacles twitching as if it couldn’t believe what had just happened.

And then—there he was.

“Aldrich… huff… huff… haa…”

His blood-soaked body radiated with a lingering golden glow—the residue of some powerful healing miracle. His wounds were visibly closing at an astonishing rate.

“Blood… for blood.”

He stood, swaying unsteadily—thin, weak, barely upright—but emanating a cold, chilling pressure that sent shivers through the air. Though the wounds were healing, half-dried blood still caked his face, hands, and tattered clothing. He gripped the gleaming runic dagger in his right hand. He casually brushed aside the blood-matted strands of hair with his left hand. His eyes blazed beneath his bangs—not with rage or hatred as one might expect, but with soul-deep sorrow.

“I won’t… let you do whatever you please… anymore.”

Zhou Yuhong spat the blood from his mouth. His recently healed right arm rose.

The blade tip of the runic dagger pointed straight at Aldrich.

Then, he flicked it slightly.

A clear, unmistakable provocation.

“Come on!”

And Aldrich—

“Roooahhhhh!!!”

Two tentacles wrapped around its legs and fused with them. Its previously ill-proportioned limbs thickened and lengthened, turning into massive columns like temple pillars. The newly formed legs shattered the ground beneath them as Aldrich’s colossal body launched forward like a living battering ram. All ten remaining tentacles gathered at the front of its body, forming a hammerhead of flesh and bone—combining with the charge, it resembled a siege ram from ancient warfare.

As for Zhou Yuhong—

“Haah… haah… haah… ahhh…”

He panted heavily, chest heaving. Though Rena’s miracle had pulled him back from the brink of death, the pain was still wracking every part of him. Blood still coated his face, hands, and garments; his grip on the dagger was unsteady. The runic dagger that once shone brilliantly now shimmered faintly, its glow dimmed.

‘He’s lost his mind… overcome by emotion,’—this thought shot through Booker’s mind.

To face such a monstrous, berserk beast head-on in such a state—this wasn’t bravery. It was suicide. A quiet form of surrender. Booker couldn’t bear to watch. He instinctively wanted to leap up and scream, “Idiot, get out of the way!”

But a slender hand pressed gently against his shoulder.

“That’s not it.”

Felice’s voice was quiet and unsteady, but carried certainty.

Her gaze on Zhou Yuhong held no fear or doubt.

“He knows exactly what he’s doing.”

At that moment, Aldrich had already closed the gap. Its massive bulk charged straight at Zhou Yuhong like a freight truck barreling down on a human body. Booker nearly shut his eyes, but then Zhou Yuhong did something completely unexpected.

He didn’t block. Didn’t dodge.

He bent low, knees flexed, his body compressed into a near-crouch.

That was all.

And in the instant the hammer-like tentacles brushed past his hair, he dove forward, slipping between Aldrich’s legs like a lithe predator, a flash of silver trailing behind him.

“Roarrr!?”

The two passed each other in a blur. All that remained were shattered tiles in Aldrich’s wake and a splatter of blackish blood from its severed Achilles tendon.

The flow of force was instantly disrupted. The sudden loss of strength in its right leg caused Aldrich to lose control.

Boom!

Its massive body slammed into the ground, crashing through a line of statues at the plaza’s edge. New tentacles wrapped around its right leg to support it, others bracing against the earth to flip its bloated body upright again. Its gaping maw, lost in its twisted form, roared in fury, sending a tentacle hurtling straight at Zhou Yuhong, only to freeze less than half a meter from his chest.

Not because it was blocked.

But because—

“I already estimated your maximum reach earlier.”

The limit of its tentacle extension.

The safety distance.

After passing by Aldrich, he’d sprinted forward just a few extra steps—just far enough to place himself beyond that limit.

Shlick!

Another silver flash. The runic dagger sliced cleanly across the tip of the tentacle, leaving a neat cut. Aldrich, whose pain sensitivity far exceeded any other fog fiend, shrieked in agony. Driven to rage, it withdrew the injured limb and thrust forward three more tentacles to strike in unison.

Clang!

“Anger makes you predictable,” Zhou Yuhong whispered.

Just as they were about to strike, he sidestepped, and with one sweeping arc of the blade, two tentacles were cleanly severed, the third left with a deep gash.

His body was still battered, his strength and speed greatly diminished.

But if he could strike at the enemy’s weak points with a weapon this sharp, then strength wasn’t necessary.

If he moved at precisely the right moment, even speed didn’t matter.

He conserved his dwindling strength, saving it for the perfect moment, for the perfect blow.

“Let’s go.”

And as Aldrich’s wounded tentacles recoiled in pain, Zhou Yuhong launched his first full-speed charge. He had conserved his remaining strength for this moment. Now he unleashed it. Like a leopard, he surged forward, sprinting toward Aldrich, who was still struggling to rise.

Now was the perfect opportunity.

Twelve tentacles in total—two had been fused into legs, two were badly injured, three had been severed, and the remaining five were all busy propping up Aldrich’s bloated, bulky body as it struggled to rise. In a panic, Aldrich coiled two of them around its shriveled right arm, reinforcing it again and swinging it at Zhou Yuhong like a flail. But in the end, it was nothing but a desperate lunge.

Yuhong ducked, sidestepped, and struck—the dagger slicing a clean, straight gash across Aldrich’s right arm.

It was wide open now, completely defenseless. And Zhou Yuhong—

“Raaahhh!!”

—slammed his body into it just as it began to rise, driving the runic dagger deep into its flesh, burying it all the way to the hilt.

Aldrich shrieked, trying to throw him off with sheer bulk, but Yuhong had already gripped one of its tentacles and pulled himself up onto its body. Anchored by the dagger still embedded in its side, he clung tight, refusing to be shaken off. In a flash, he was atop its upper body—what was once its massive mouth now served as the base of its tentacles.

Clang!

Clang!!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

He slashed and stabbed at the roots of the tentacles, striking over and over again. Foul black blood sprayed across his body, but he didn’t flinch. His eyes saw only one thing—his target. Not the tentacles themselves, but something deeper, something inside.

“Chiiiiiyaaaaaaa!”

Wracked with pain and driven to the edge of madness, Aldrich erupted with a sudden burst of monstrous strength. It flailed and rammed into everything around it—statues, gazebos, the surrounding ruins of the plaza. Debris and shattered masonry exploded in all directions, slamming into both of them, slamming into Zhou Yuhong. But he held firm, gritting his teeth through the agony, refusing to stop. He drove the runnic dagger deeper, deeper, piercing toward Aldrich’s core with blind, unrelenting fury.

“Roooooaaahhh!”

Aldrich let out its loudest, most violent roar yet. Then suddenly lunged toward the ruins of the academy gate.

That rubble pile was packed with metal beams and stone. If it smashed into it headfirst, Zhou Yuhong would be crushed into paste.

Booker’s heart dropped. He tried to scream for Yuhong to jump, to get out of the way—but before he could even shout, Aldrich had already hurled itself toward the wreckage.

“Found it!”

Yuhong’s expression changed.

With a horizontal slash, he widened the mouth’s remnants into a gaping wound—and there, finally revealed, deep inside, pulsating violently—a heart-shaped tumor.

Right in the center of its bloated torso. This was it.

Felice’s earlier thrust through the head hadn’t killed it because the real core was hidden elsewhere—buried within the body, at the very center of its mass.

“Rooooooohhhhh!!!”

“Dieee!”

Shinggggg!!

Booooommm!

…

…………

………………

The clash of blade and beast echoed for only a heartbeat, then the impact swallowed it whole.

Stone fragments, shattered rubble, choking smoke and dust—all billowed out like a death shroud, enveloping them both.

And then—silence.

Booker and Felice couldn’t see what had happened.

“Hey… hey…”

“Yuhong…”

They stared into the settling dust, wide-eyed. They didn’t dare to blink. Didn’t dare to look away for even a second. They tried to call out his name, but their throats were blocked by something heavy. Only a faint whisper escaped.

Time crept forward.

One second. Five seconds. Ten. Twenty…

A full minute passed in complete silence.

“Cough… ah…”

Just as the two of them were about to rush forward, a silhouette rose from the haze.

Hunched over, one hand braced on his knee, the other barely holding onto the dagger, he staggered toward them.

His face, streaked with blood, emerged from the smoke. One eye was completely bloodshot. His nose, bent at an unnatural angle, dripped red. His lips were split and swollen. Most of his clothes had been torn away, revealing skin covered in gashes and abrasions. The wound on his arm gaped open like a child’s mouth, raw and horrifying. His legs, trembling violently, had long since passed their limit. His pants were shredded. His calves were lacerated, small shards of stone embedded in the flesh. Those legs could barely carry him any farther.

Behind him, Aldrich’s massive corpse lay slumped over the rubble of the academy gate. Its tentacles and bloated flesh were slowly dissolving into blackened blood. Its upper body—once its mouth—was torn wide open. Deep inside, its central organ had been pierced through by the dagger. There was no saving it now.

“It’s… over.”

Yuhong mumbled with broken lips, staggering toward Felice and Booker.

“If I’d been faster… she wouldn’t have…”

Thud!

Before he could finish, he collapsed.

The moment his nerves finally relaxed, exhaustion and pain overtook him like a tidal wave. Only the silent tears spilling from the corners of his eyes remained, dripping quietly onto the ground.

~~~~~

Zhou Yuhong & Felice Dispera & Booker Winter & Rena Dubois vs. Gatekeeper Aldrich
Zhou Yuhong, Felice Dispera, and Booker Winter – WIN
Achievement Unlocked: “Invaders of the Academy”

Zhou Yuhong
Enemies Defeated: 34
People Rescued: 11
People Killed: 0
Total Score: 820
Rank: 5 / 98,087