Gathering Wives with a System

Chapter 538: Crack

Beroga suddenly froze. His gaze snapped toward Isaac and genuine panic appeared on his face for the first time since the battle began.

”Shit! Stop that guy! He is calling something dangerous!”

Ki Beli moved alongside Beroga, dashing towards Isaac. The Third Priest followed a beat later, abandoning all hesitation.

Whatever Isaac was trying to summon had already triggered every danger instinct they possessed. They didn’t know what was coming, but they knew they couldn’t allow it to appear.

Sera, Oz, and Ezekiel immediately moved to intercept them.

Sera’s spear descended toward Beroga while Oz unleashed another barrage of attacks. Ezekiel stepped directly into the Third Priest’s path.

Their goal wasn’t to defeat their opponents. They only needed to buy a few seconds.

Every second Isaac gained increased the chance of whatever he was attempting actually succeeding.

Isaac paid no attention to the battle unfolding around him. His gaze remained fixed on the pod floating beside him. Inside it, Selene remained unconscious, completely unaware of the chaos surrounding her.

”Can you help us?” Isaac asked.

There was no response.

Isaac stared at her for a moment before speaking again. ”Your contract with Selene dictates that you must defend her when she’s in danger. Right now, the entire city is in danger. Everyone inside it is in danger.”

Even then, nothing happened.

For a brief second, Isaac wondered whether he had made a mistake. Perhaps the Spirit of Machines couldn’t hear him. Perhaps it simply didn’t care. Perhaps he had risked everything for nothing.

Then Ki Beli acted.

A long-range attack shot across the battlefield toward Selene’s pod.

The attack crossed hundreds of meters almost instantly, carrying enough power to obliterate the pod and everything around it.

Isaac immediately moved. He prepared to intercept the attack himself.

He was already calculating which skills to use and how much damage he would have to endure to protect Selene.

Before he could act, however, something happened that caused the entire battlefield to freeze.

A giant mechanical hand emerged from empty space.

The attack never reached its destination. Massive metallic fingers closed around it and crushed it effortlessly, as though the devastating attack was nothing more than a pebble.

The destructive energy vanished between the fingers without leaving behind the slightest trace.

Isaac froze. Slowly, he turned around and saw space itself splitting apart behind Selene’s pod.

A crack stretched through reality, growing wider with every passing second. From that crack emerged the enormous mechanical arm.

The arm alone was larger than entire buildings, covered in incomprehensible machinery and countless moving components that continuously shifted across its surface.

Gears turned where no gears should exist. Metallic plates rearranged themselves endlessly. Strange symbols flashed across the structure before vanishing again.

It looked less like a machine and more like a concept that was never meant to be understood.

Beyond the crack existed only darkness. Not ordinary darkness, but an endless black void that seemed to stretch beyond reality itself.

Something existed within that darkness.

Isaac couldn’t see it clearly, yet he instinctively knew it was there. Something enormous. Something dangerous. Something so far beyond him that merely sensing its presence caused fear to spread through every part of his body.

The deeper he looked into the darkness, the smaller he felt. Breathing became difficult. Every breath felt heavier than the last.

A crushing pressure descended upon the battlefield. Buildings trembled. The air itself seemed to freeze.

Almost everyone present sensed the presence. They felt small in front of it. Sera was the only exception.

Ki Beli’s face turned pale. Beroga’s expression stiffened. Even the Third Priest could no longer maintain his composure. For the first time since the battle began, genuine fear appeared in his eyes.

Isaac felt it as well. The thing beyond the spatial tear had noticed him. At least, that was the only way he could describe the sensation.

The being never revealed itself. It never spoke. Yet Isaac knew with absolute certainty that something was looking directly at him.

His soul felt as though it had been placed beneath an unimaginably heavy weight. Every instinct within him screamed that he was standing before something infinitely beyond his understanding.

The pressure continued building, growing heavier with every passing second until Isaac thought his soul might shatter beneath it.

Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the pressure vanished. The being had looked away. Isaac nearly stumbled as the weight disappeared.

The enormous mechanical arm slowly shifted.

One finger extended outward and pointed directly toward Ki Beli, Beroga, and the Third Priest. The simple movement caused everyone’s attention to lock onto it. Then a single word echoed.

”Die.”

The voice only appeared inside everyone’s minds. Yet that made it infinitely more terrifying. The moment the word was spoken, Ki Beli’s body suddenly sagged. His legs gave out beneath him. The Third Priest suffered the same fate. Even Beroga stumbled. At first, nothing appeared unusual. Then their bodies began to fail.

Muscles stopped responding correctly. Arms jerked uncontrollably. Legs twitched and locked in unnatural positions. Their movements became erratic and broken, like complex machines suffering catastrophic system failures.

Ki Beli attempted to raise an arm. The muscles contracted incorrectly. Bones shifted out of alignment. The arm folded inward with a sickening crack before hanging uselessly at his side.

The Third Priest attempted to circulate mana, only to discover that his body no longer obeyed him. Mana surged through the wrong pathways. Channels collapsed one after another. Flesh tore from within as nerves and organs began malfunctioning. His body shook violently as systems that had functioned perfectly moments ago started shutting down in sequence.

Beroga fared no better. His body convulsed as entire groups of muscles ceased functioning altogether while others spasmed uncontrollably. One leg stopped responding completely. The other moved without his command. Tendons snapped. Joints locked. Bones fractured beneath stresses they should have easily endured.

It looked less like an attack and more like a machine reaching the end of its operational life.