Chapter 136: Erza, the Doll

The fortress was dying. The air trembled with the sounds of collapse—stone breaking, walls bowing inward, screams echoing through fractured corridors. Ash choked the upper halls, drifting like snowfall through flickering torchlight. Beneath it all, something deeper stirred. Not chaos. Execution.

A single scrape echoed like a blade drawn across steel. Claws against rock. Deliberate. Measured.

[Devourer Ant (Beast Captain) – Lvl 30]

It emerged from the dust and flame: a creature with four bladed limbs, each ending in a curved scythe nearly a meter long. Its black exoskeleton glistened with dried blood. From behind its jagged carapace, two red eyes burned like coals in a forge.

Erza Grimhart simply stared it down, without stepping back. No tremor touched her hands. No fear clouded her eyes. Her stance was low, deliberate, karambits reversed in each fist, sharp curves of steel that gleamed beneath the broken torchlight.

The air around them held still. Tense. That breath before the killing blow.

A silent moment stretched like pulled wire—charged, fragile. Then the creature roared and lunged.

Its first strike came like a guillotine, a vertical arc aimed to split her in half. Erza met it mid-swing, parrying with the edge of her left blade. The force sparked metal on metal, but she turned with it, redirecting the blow. The second blade cut toward her waist. She twisted, letting the steel pass inches from her skin.

She didn’t fall back. She advanced. Each step was calculated—blades low, eyes tracking the arc of every limb, her form coiled like a spring.

Two more arms came down in a cross-formation, deadly and precise. Erza leapt onto a fallen column, sprang from its base, and flipped over the creature’s head. She landed behind it, already moving. The ant spun with inhuman speed, its lower arms sweeping in a wide arc. She dropped to a slide beneath the swing, boots kicking up a trail of fine dust. Her body twisted mid-glide, shoulders low, as the blades screamed past overhead.

Her roll ended with a swift rise. She brought one karambit upward, carving a vertical line along the creature’s ribs. Sparks. Screeching metal. The blade barely scratched the surface, but the monster reeled. It turned, jaws opening in fury.

She was gone. A fractured pillar took her behind it for cover. The Captain followed.

She vaulted up again, appearing above the creature’s line of sight, and dropped hard. Her knee slammed into the back of its head. Both blades followed. A clean X carved downward. The monster managed to block, barely. But not without cost. One blade dug into its shoulder, cracking the shell and drawing blood like dark tar.

The ant retaliated, four arms crashing toward her. Erza caught two at the wrists. Used the momentum. Spun and flipped herself onto its back, stepped on its shoulder, and launched upward once more, this time landing atop a fractured pillar behind it. The creature looked around, hunting her. Its head turned in sharp jerks, red eyes scanning the ruin with growing frenzy. Dust clung to its carapace like a second skin.

She was already moving. From the top of the pillar, she vanished again, appearing behind the beast and carving deep into its back with pinpoint precision. The second strike caused it to stumble, and it ripped the nearest pillar free, hurling it at her in blind rage.

Erza moved before it hit. She sprinted sideways, weaving through crumbling debris, blades slicing in tight arcs. From the rubble, she launched herself again, one blade spinning through the air. The karambit found its mark, spinning end over end before embedding deep into the joint of one of its scythe arms with a dull, wet crunch. The creature let out a lower, more guttural sound this time. Pained. Desperate.

It swung hard, flinging her across the hall. She hit a wall, hard enough to crack the stone. The impact left her half-buried in dust.

The ant didn’t stop. It charged, fast enough to shake the ground. She emerged from the cloud just as it closed in, driving a blade deep into the side of its thigh. The impact jolted the creature’s balance, one leg buckling under the sudden rupture, its clawed foot scraping stone for support. Thick, black blood gushed out in pulses. Its movements faltered, just for a breath.

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Then it roared and kept coming.

She moved to dive away, but it was faster. One blade speared through her abdomen. Her body froze. Everything inside her went still. Her grip loosened. Another limb pierced her shoulder. A third rammed into her side. The fourth pinned her through the ribs, slamming her into the wall behind.