Chapter 83: The Entire Swamp Is Part of the Monster

Burst Step.

Raven reached the soldier before he disappeared into the water.

Stonehide spread across both hands as Raven grabbed the filament. The texture was worse than expected—warm, wet, and pulsing beneath his fingers.

He pulled upward while the soldier dug both hands into the mud.

Valeria formed a blood blade.

"Raven!"

"Do it."

The blade struck.

The filament split.

Raven fell backward with the soldier as Predation reacted to the contact.

[Hollow Broodmother Biological Extension Detected.]

[Mana Transfer Pathway Active.]

Raven released it immediately.

"Don’t touch those with bare skin."

Roland looked at Raven’s mineralized hands.

"That seemed fairly obvious."

"Now it’s confirmed."

They continued retreating.

The Broodmother didn’t pursue them directly.

It didn’t need to.

The swamp did.

Membranes split open around them, bodies rose from the mud, and filaments emerged from the water and trees.

Raven was beginning to understand the real problem.

The Level Twenty-Seven creature wasn’t particularly impressive on its own. The Blackmaw could probably have torn through much of its body in direct combat, and Valeria could likely destroy large sections of it from range if she had a clean line of attack.

But they weren’t fighting a body.

They were fighting territory.

Every yard inside the colony was part of its defensive system. The water carried its parasites. The membranes detected movement. Hosts blocked routes. Filaments attacked from places Raven couldn’t watch simultaneously.

That made a relatively low Elite far more dangerous than its Level suggested.

A mediocre soldier behind a fortification could kill someone better trained.

Raven respected defensive architecture.

Even when it was made from corpses.

It took nearly fifteen minutes to clear the membrane-covered zone.

Two soldiers were injured.

Predation found no infection in either of them.

One had a nearly dislocated ankle. The other had a wound across his back from one of the hosts.

Raven made both men stop for examination.

Garran didn’t argue.

It was the first time Raven had seen the captain this quiet.

Maelor collected samples whenever the situation allowed. Valeria was covered in mud and several splashes of blood that didn’t belong to her.

"I hate Mirevale," she said.

Raven drank from his canteen.

"Sablewood tried to kill us more often."

"Sablewood was honest about it."

"That’s true."

Roland dropped onto a thick root.

"Does someone want to explain what the hell we just found?"

Maelor answered first.

"An organized parasitic colony centered around a primary organism."

Raven added, "Using the entire swamp as an extension of itself."

Roland stared at him.

"I preferred not knowing."

Garran finally spoke.

"Can we kill it?"

Raven looked back toward the ruins.

"Yes."

The captain seemed surprised by how quickly he answered.

"You’re sure?"

"Nothing I saw was invulnerable."

"That wasn’t what I asked."

Raven considered it.

"Yes. But not by going in the way we did today."

Valeria sat on a stone.

"It has hosts everywhere, filaments beneath the water, and it probably senses movement through those membranes."

Raven nodded.

"And if we attack the core without controlling the colony first, it may release Hollow Threads into every nearby channel."

Maelor went pale.

"That could make the outbreak worse."

"Much worse."

Garran looked down at the map.

"Then we isolate it."

Raven started working through the variables.

Channels. Fire. Barriers. Water flow. Hosts. Temperature. Mana. Natural predators.

And the Deepwell Toad.

Raven looked up.

"Where’s the toad?"

No one answered.

They had lost sight of it during the retreat.

FORGE could solve that.

Raven opened the project interface.

The signature was still there.

It wasn’t moving away.

It had gone back toward the ruins.

"It’s still inside."

Valeria stared at him.

"It went back?"

"Yes."

"Why the hell would it do that?"

Maelor answered before Raven could.

"Food."

Everyone looked at him.

The alchemist pointed toward Deep Mire.

"To us, that’s a parasitic colony. To the Deepwell, it’s probably the largest concentration of edible mana anywhere in the swamp."

Raven smiled slightly.

"Exactly."

The Deepwell Toad wasn’t trapped.

It was hunting.

The Broodmother had created ideal conditions for its development, and the animal had probably spent months circling the colony and consuming entire generations of Hollow Threads.

Valeria crossed her arms.

"So we have a creature that wants to eat the problem we want to kill."

"Yes."

"And you also want to kill it."

"Yes."

"Your objectives are impressively uncooperative."

Raven couldn’t argue with that.

FORGE displayed the Deepwell data again.

[Deepwell Crystalline Reservoir]

[Estimated Prototype Rifle Compatibility: 94%]

[Stable Mana Storage Requirement: SATISFIED if Harvested at 85%+ Integrity.]

Predation still retained the Broodmother analysis beneath it.

[Hollow Broodmother]

[Level: 27 — Elite]

[Multiple High-Value Traits Detected.]

[Predation Interest: HIGH.]

Raven closed both interfaces.

Two targets.

One could provide the second rifle component.

The other possessed Traits capable of significantly changing his future abilities.

But he couldn’t simply kill both and decide afterward.

HARVEST.

DEVOUR.

Integrity.

The colony.

Mirevale.

The ward.

The disease.

And behind them was a town full of people who might already have Hollow Threads inside them without knowing it.

Garran stepped closer.

"I’ll come back tomorrow with more men."

Raven shook his head.

"More bodies just give it more potential hosts."

The captain frowned.

"Then what do you suggest?"

Raven looked at the map.

"Small team. Heavy terrain control. We cut off the water routes before killing the core. Burn the peripheral membranes, not the forest. Force the colony to concentrate. Extract living hosts if possible. If we can’t, keep the bodies away from the water after they die."

Valeria studied him.

"That sounds like an operation."

"It is."

"And the Deepwell?"

Raven marked another section of the map.

"Broodmother first."

Garran looked surprised.

"I thought the toad was your priority."

"It is."

"Then why not hunt it first?"

Raven looked toward Deep Mire.

"Because it’s using the colony as a food source. If we try to kill it while the Broodmother is still active, we’ll be fighting both of them inside her territory."

Valeria smiled.

"A reasonable decision."

Raven looked at her.

"We already discussed commenting on that."

"I can’t help it. They’re becoming more frequent."

Garran folded the map.

"We’re going back."

This time Raven didn’t argue.

They had gotten what they needed.

Information.

A target.

A structure.

And confirmation that Hollow Fever wasn’t some random disease.

It was the visible result of a colony that had been growing beneath Mirevale for months.

As they made their way back, Raven looked toward the sunken ruins one last time.

He couldn’t see the Broodmother from here, but Predator’s Instinct still tightened whenever he thought about returning.

Beyond it, FORGE continued tracking the Deepwell Toad’s reservoir.

The epidemic hadn’t created the evolutionary path Raven needed, but it had accelerated one specimen into exactly the kind of creature his rifle required.

Now he would have to destroy the thing feeding that ecosystem before he could claim it.

For the first time since beginning the rifle project, the next component wasn’t simply a corpse waiting for a good hunt.

It was part of an entire ecosystem that was devouring Mirevale.

And Raven had just decided to rip out its heart.