Chapter 345: Broken limiter

Words : 2736 Updated : Oct 7th, 2025

Chapter 345: Broken limiter The blade was millimeters from her skull, void energy crackling with enough destructive potential to erase her from existence. And for the first time in their entire encounter, she had nowhere to go. But just then, something really odd happened. Her tail moved faster than thought itself. The appendage whipped forward in a silver blur, intercepting Excaliburn’s descent with surgical precision. But instead of the metallic clang Noah expected from a blocked strike, there was a wet, organic snap that echoed through the processing center like breaking bone. ’She blocked it,’ Noah’s mind registered with grim satisfaction. It didn’t matter what part she intercepted it with, the erasure effect would kick into full swinge either ways. But it didn’t. The detail wasn’t...cancelling, erasing, seizing to exist like most objects, matter that came into contact with his null effect would. Not immediately though. But what happened was equally disturbing. The severed tail section tumbled through the air, void energy starting to consume it in purple flames that left nothing behind. That was when Noah realized what she’d done. Not blocked. ’Severed,’ She had cut through her own appendage with such force that the detached portion had absorbed the full brunt of his Null Strike, taking the erasure effect that should have ended her life. For exactly two heartbeats, the Widow stared at her deliberately mutilated tail with clinical detachment. Then something shifted in her expression—not pain, not shock, but a creeping realization that made Noah’s enhanced perception scream warnings. Her face began to change. The maternal warmth evaporated like mist before a hurricane. Elegant features contorted into something predatory and alien, muscle fibers visibly tensing beneath scaled skin. Her eyes, which had held condescending affection moments before, now burned with fury so pure it seemed to heat the air around her. "You..." she whispered, and her voice had become something that belonged in nightmares. "You actually tried to hurt mother." The processing center’s temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. Her presence shifted from dangerous to apocalyptic, and Noah finally understood why his system had lifted combat restrictions. This wasn’t the same creature he’d been fighting. This was something infinitely worse. "I was being gentle with you," she continued, her voice climbing in pitch and intensity. "I was showing you affection. And you—you—" She exploded forward like a living missile. The concrete where she’d been standing didn’t just crack—it vaporized. Chunks of pulverized stone and twisted rebar erupted outward in a perfect sphere of destruction as her legs drove down with enough force to fracture the facility’s foundation. The shockwave sent industrial equipment tumbling like toys. Noah’s void blink barely saved his life. He materialized fifteen feet to her left, but she was already there, having adjusted her trajectory mid-flight with impossible precision. Her fist carved through the space his head had occupied, and the displacement created a sonic boom that shattered every remaining window in the building. ’She’s three times faster than before. This isn’t anger—this is pure, weaponized fury.’ Her follow-up came before he could even process the near-miss. A spinning kick that would have bisected him at the waist whistled past his sternum as he contorted backward, spine creaking under the stress. The missed strike continued its arc, pulverizing a support beam that brought half the ceiling down in an avalanche of concrete and twisted metal. But she was already moving again, her speed increasing with each exchange. A combination of strikes that turned the air itself into a weapon—left hook that shattered the sound barrier, right cross that left vacuum trails, an uppercut that would have launched his corpse into orbit. Noah flowed between the attacks like water, survival instincts overriding conscious thought. Duck. Weave. Sidestep. Roll. His enhanced reflexes were the only thing keeping him alive, but he could feel his reaction time degrading as the sustained battle pushed his body beyond its limits. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’VE DONE?" she screamed, her voice cracking windows three floors up. A devastating overhand right missed his skull by millimeters, the impact crater in the floor extending down through multiple sub-levels. "MOTHER WAS TRYING TO LOVE YOU!" The wall behind Noah exploded outward as her missed punch continued through reinforced concrete like it was tissue paper. Daylight streamed through the massive hole, revealing the barren landscape beyond the mining facility. Without conscious decision, Noah threw himself through the breach, desperate to find terrain that might give him some advantage. He hit the rocky ground outside in a controlled roll, Knight Grace’s void shell absorbing most of the impact. But she was already behind him, having leaped through the hole with predatory grace. Her landing sent shockwaves through the hardpan soil, creating concentric rings of fractured earth. "Diana!" Noah called desperately, spotting his ally struggling to her feet near the facility’s main entrance. Blood streamed from a head wound, but her ice-blue eyes were alert and tracking the threat. "Momentum lock! Whatever you’ve got left!" Diana’s response was immediate and professional. Her Dead zones erupted outward in overlapping patterns, creating a three-dimensional maze of frozen space between Noah and the advancing Widow. The alien hit the null fields like a freight train striking a mountain. And tore through them like tissue paper. Diana’s constructs, which had held him in the past motionless, simply broke under the Widow’s assault. Not overwhelmed or bypassed—broken. The laws of physics she manipulated couldn’t contain fury of this magnitude. "PATHETIC!" the Widow snarled, backhanding Diana with casual contempt. The impact was horrific. Diana’s body ragdolled through the air, trailing blood, before slamming into the facility’s outer wall with enough force to leave a human-shaped crater in the reinforced concrete. She hit the ground and didn’t move, her limbs twisted at angles that spoke of multiple fractures. "...." Noah stared in shock. And shock was quickly replaced with something else. He felt something cold and murderous building in his chest. Not tactical analysis. Not calculated responses. Just raw, protective fury that demanded blood in return for blood. [Storm Fall activated - Maximum yield] [Null Strike activated] [Phantom Step activated ] This was it. Every hour of training that had left him bleeding and broken. This was it. Everything he’d suffered for, everything he’d lost—it all came down to this moment. And just then, it rained down lightning. The air itself seemed to tear apart as ten million volts erupted from every direction simultaneously, answering Noah’s desperate call. His teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached, sweat and blood mixing on his face as he poured everything he had into the attack. "Come on, come on!" he snarled through gritted teeth, his vision blurring from the strain. The barren landscape transformed into a vision of electrical apocalypse. Void energy decoys materialized around the Widow’s position—dozens of them, each one a perfect copy crackling with the same reality-ending power as Excaliburn itself. Noah’s arms shook with the effort of maintaining them all, his body screaming in protest as he pushed his abilities beyond their limits. Each decoy exploded on contact in brilliant flashes of annihilation, releasing concentrated void energy that could unmake matter at the quantum level. The very air around the Widow began to dissolve, reality itself starting to fray at the edges. Noah’s knees nearly buckled, but he forced himself to stay upright, pouring his rage, his pain, his desperate need to *finally* win into the assault. This had to work. It *had* to. "Die already!" he roared, his voice cracking with exhaustion and fury. For the first time since her transformation, the Widow actually staggered. Electrical trauma overwhelmed her nervous system, causing her to convulse as synthetic lightning coursed through alien biology. Burns appeared across her scaled hide, and her movements became sluggish as her enhanced reflexes temporarily short-circuited. Noah was there before she could recover, Excaliburn driving toward her heart with surgical precision. The blade’s void edge carved through her defensive positioning, seeking the killing blow that would end this nightmare. Contact. The longsword’s tip punched through scaled hide, void energy beginning to pour into the wound like liquid entropy. For one perfect moment, Noah thought he’d won. The Widow’s eyes went wide with what might have been surprise. Then her hand shot out, iron fingers clamping around the blade just inches from her chest. "Did that feel good, precious?" she asked conversationally, her grip stopping Excaliburn’s deadly advance cold. "Did you think you’d finally hurt mother?" Noah threw his weight behind the weapon, muscles straining as he fought to drive the null strike home. The void energy ate at her palm where she gripped the blade, her alien flesh dissolving into nothingness—but she held firm anyway, even as her fingers began to erode away. "Such a cute little weapon," she purred, watching with clinical interest as the void consumed her hand digit by digit. "But mother’s reflexes aren’t quite what you expected, are they?" With casual contempt, she hurled both Noah and his sword backward. Her hand—what remained of it—was already regenerating, flesh and bone reforming from nothing as if the null strike had never touched her at all. "Now then," she said, flexing newly-formed fingers, "shall we try that again?" What followed was systematic destruction. She lifted him off the ground with one hand and proceeded to demonstrate exactly why humans were considered a primitive species. Her free hand delivered a combination of strikes that Knight Grace’s void shell couldn’t fully absorb. Each impact sent shockwaves through his enhanced physiology, breaking ribs, rupturing organs, scrambling his nervous system. But she wasn’t trying to kill him. She was educating him. "This is what happens," crack went his left arm, "when children," snap went two ribs, "don’t appreciate," his vision exploded with stars as her knee found his solar plexus, "mother’s affection!" [Health Points: 890/1750] [Health Points: 650/1750] [Health Points: 420/1750] [Health Points: 200/1750] Noah’s enhanced healing was working overtime, but it couldn’t keep pace with the systematic beating. His consciousness flickered as trauma accumulated faster than his biology could compensate. Through the haze of pain, he could hear the distant sounds of combat from inside the facility—Sophie’s team was still fighting, but against what, he couldn’t tell. Pierce was nowhere to be seen. The commanding officer who’d authorized this mission, who should have been providing backup support, had vanished when things got difficult. Typical. Noah was alone, dying by degrees, while his allies fought their own desperate battles. The Widow finally released her grip, letting him collapse to the rocky ground like a broken doll. Every breath sent agony through his shattered ribs. Blood pooled beneath him, painting the alien soil crimson. "Look at you," she said, her voice returning to that maternal tone that was somehow worse than her fury. "All broken and bleeding. This is what happens when you fight mother, darling." Behind her, her severed tail was already regenerating. New flesh grew at visible speeds, bone and muscle and scaled hide forming in perfect biological harmony. Within moments, the appendage was whole again, as if Noah’s desperate strike had never happened. She turned her back to him, raising the newly regenerated tail high above her prone form. The tip began to change, flesh reshaping itself into something harder, sharper. Organic spikes erupted from the appendage’s surface—not weapons exactly, but biological adaptations designed for a single, specific purpose. Execution. "Don’t worry, precious," she cooed, positioning the weaponized tail directly over his heart. "Mother will make this quick. You’ve learned your lesson about trying to hurt—" *Boom!!!* The ground shook as something massive impacted the hardpan soil thirty feet away. Dust and debris erupted outward as a single-horn Harbinger materialized from what must have been a terminal velocity drop. But instead of the aggressive posture Noah had learned to expect, this creature immediately prostrated itself before the Widow. "M-Mother," it stammered, its voice carrying shame and fear in equal measure. "Forgive the interruption, but—" "WHAT?" the Widow snarled, spinning to face the newcomer with killing intent radiating from every scaled inch of her form. "How DARE you interrupt mother’s discipline session!" The single-horn actually cowered, pressing itself lower against the ground like a beaten animal seeking forgiveness. "Kruel," it whispered, as if the name itself held power. "Kruel wants the boy alive." The effect was immediate and dramatic. The Widow’s expression shifted from psychotic fury to something approaching... not fear exactly, but cautious respect. Her weaponized tail slowly lowered, the execution spikes retracting as biological imperative overrode personal desire. "Kruel," she repeated, and Noah caught the subtle change in her posture. This wasn’t just acknowledgment—this was deference. "Kruel wants him alive?" "Yes, Mother," the single-horn replied, still not daring to raise its gaze. "The boy’s abilities... they’re of interest to the Commander. He specifically requested that the asset be preserved for... evaluation." The Widow’s facade finally cracked completely. The maternal act, the psychotic affection, the predatory elegance—all of it drained away like water through broken glass. What remained was something infinitely more dangerous: a professional soldier receiving orders from a superior officer. "Of course," she said, her voice now carrying military precision. "Kruel’s orders supersede my... educational methods." Through the haze of pain and blood loss, Noah felt understanding dawn like ice water in his veins. The Widow, this creature that had systematically demolished him, that had treated him like a misbehaving child, wasn’t even the real threat. Somewhere out there was something called Kruel. Something that commanded creatures like her. Something that could override her desire for violence with a single transmitted order. And it wanted him alive. The implications were worse than death. Noah’s vision was fragmenting at the edges, darkness creeping in like rising tide. Each breath felt like drowning in reverse, air struggling to find purchase in his collapsed lung. The taste of copper flooded his mouth as internal bleeding painted his throat crimson. Through the haze of approaching unconsciousness, he heard the Widow’s voice shift to pure military efficiency. "Transport the boy to Commander Kruel immediately," she ordered, her maternal facade completely abandoned. "I want him unconscious for the journey—no opportunities for escape," "Yes, Mother," the single-horn replied, approaching Noah’s broken form with careful reverence. "The Commander specifically requested minimal additional trauma. He wants the asset’s abilities intact for evaluation." Asset. The word wiggled through Noah’s fading consciousness like a worm. Not prisoner. Not captive. Asset. Something to be used, dissected, exploited. His muffled hearing caught fragments of their continued conversation as his body began shutting down non-essential functions. Blood loss. Organ damage. System failure cascading through his enhanced physiology like dominoes falling in sequence. ♦️Ping!!! The sound cut through his dying thoughts with digital clarity. [QUEST COMPLETE: SURVIVE THE HARBINGER WIDOW] [CALCULATING REWARDS...] [REWARD PROCESSING...] [ERROR - REWARD SYSTEM FAILURE] [CRITICAL HEALTH DETECTED] [EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ACTIVATING] Noah’s vision blurred as system messages began flooding his consciousness. But something was wrong. The familiar blue interface was stuttering, glitching like damaged software struggling to maintain coherence. [WARNING: HEALTH CRITICAL - 47/1750] [WARNING: MULTIPLE ORGAN FAILURE DETECTED] [WARNING: BLOOD LOSS EXCEEDING SAFE PARAMETERS] [WARNING: CARDIAC RHYTHM IRREGULAR] [WARNING: RESPIRATORY SYSTEM COMPROMISED] [EMERGENCY - EMERGENCY - EMERGENCY] The messages were coming too fast now, overlapping and fragmenting as his system struggled to process the extent of his injuries. Lines of code seemed to bleed into each other, creating incomprehensible strings of data that hurt to look at. [ANALYZING SURVIVAL PROBABILITY...] [SURVIVAL CHANCE: 3.2%] [INITIATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS] [HOST’S BODY HAS BEEN PUSHED TO ITS LIMIT. HOST HAS BROKEN LIMITERS] [SPONTANEOUS MUTATION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED] [EVOLUTION MATRIX ACCESSED] [GENETIC TEMPLATE MODIFICATION AUTHORIZED] Noah’s heart stuttered in his chest, each beat weaker than the last. The world was going gray around the edges, consciousness slipping away like sand through his fingers. But the system messages kept coming, burning themselves into his fading awareness. [ERROR - STANDARD HEALING INSUFFICIENT] [ERROR - ENHANCED PHYSIOLOGY FAILING] [ERROR - CONVENTIONAL METHODS INADEQUATE] [ACCESSING RESTRICTED PROTOCOLS...] [EVOLUTION PROTOCOLS UNLOCKED] And then, just as his vision began to tunnel completely, one final message blazed across his dying consciousness in letters that seemed to burn with digital fire: [EVOLUTION BEGINS IN: 00:00:59] [EVOLUTION BEGINS IN: 00:00:58] [EVOLUTION BEGINS IN: 00:00:57] The countdown began as Noah’s world faded to black, his broken body about to undergo something that would either save him or destroy what little remained of him.

Chapter 345: Broken limiter

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