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"WHOA!"

BOOM!

The cauldron erupted. Steam, flames, and potent essence blasted the heavy cover towards the ceiling. It crashed with a thunderous sound as a brilliant vertical column of energy, mixed crimson and gold that pierced even her Hive's outer layer materialized before those shocked bloodthirsty faces, causing many to shield their eyes for it was like gazing on an exploding star!

The air pressure intensified!

"W-WHAT?" Kwan Yuu watched in horror as that geyser subsided and a silhouette was revealed to be rising from those depths. It's essence far, far stronger than before.

"No way…" She'd never imagined… not even the strongest entities…

The silhouette slowly materialized into something her ancient eyes had never seen.

"Damn! That's a…"

It was the bull.

Raphael roared with such power, as golden waves reverberated outward with potent force! It knocked those smaller Vampsquitoes away and made their Empress stumble a bit as if he were standing on their very souls.

"RAGING BULL ROAR!"

He floated momentarily, seemingly weightless within the air above. This wasn't his doing, rather, an innate force that rejected those confinements. He'd broken through something he didn't truly comprehend yet.

"I'M FREE!" He was truly alive. Then a thought had his golden hoof tapping impatiently against thin air, for he needed to check.

"But… what happened in there…? I…"

As his blurry eyes adjusted. He then noticed that those deep cuts, his missing horn tip, the tattered wing that bore those scars of battle were all gone!

His hide had a new brilliance. It radiated pure might!

"Hmm, how peculiar! How? I…"

He looked below and noticed the steaming cauldron, no longer an instrument of his torment, but something different.

"Is… Is it… EMPTY?!" It couldn't be!

That intoxicating scent of blood and soul essence was almost overpowering. It swirled above its surface but with an emptiness that made Kwan Yuu stumble once again, but for an entirely different reason this time.

Her blood was running cold!

Her banquet, her divine soup! GONE!

The realization that her prize meal had feasted upon her essence concoctions filled her with a rage no words could truly convey, for those dreams of becoming even more potent, of becoming almost god like in Yama Yaguai and those lands beyond, they'd been destroyed. By that BULL!

"YOU!!!"

Her piercing scream had Raphael's attention. Those violet rays from her narrowed eyes targeted the bull with chilling resolve.

She had a very, very gruesome fate in store. But today's ordeal, wouldn't simply be about satiating her blood lust or pride, she wanted that bull gone from reality. His mere presence was an eyesore. For his stupidity and gutsiness and such audacity he bore… she'd teach him!

"You insect! I'll rip apart every atom of your damned existence from this plane of reality! For this trespass you will pay! How dare you! HOW DARE…" Her words didn't need any additions because what followed her insults were truly terrifying!

With lightning-fast speed, she darted downwards, plunging her proboscis at him with the force of a meteor, the sound so sharp, so sudden. It shattered every glass and crystal surface in her chamber.

It was a fatal attack.

However, as fate would have it…

"Hm! I was JUST GETTING WARMED UP!"

With a mighty kick to her proboscis, Raphael sent her reeling into her horde with a bloodthirsty smile as he then unleashes the full power of the newly acquired potent essence that she had meant for herself!

WHOOSH! CRACK!

"Helios Stream!"

A blast that was more golden now and twice the size, struck his former tormentor and sent her sprawling onto the piles of bones with a yelp of pain that seemed utterly out of place from a being so massive and arrogant only moments before. This twist in events was more amusing than that prior beating he got from Lu Ignis' tail!

He laughed hard. It was now his turn to dish out payback, but alas, the feast of suffering wouldn't simply have one guest today.

"MY QUEEN!"

Thousands upon thousands of those loyal, bloodthirsty Vampsquitoes converged! They surged towards Raphael in an angry, buzzing wave of teeth and legs, their wings beat with the sound of an eternal nightmarish thunderstorm!

The entire 'Corpse Hive' was buzzing! Their wings echoed his fall, but not in gratitude, those were chants of vengeful intent.

Raphael roared once more, this time his intent was less aggressive, more pragmatic.

"How annoying… must silence them!" He needed to think, escape even…

"BE QUIET!"

WHOOSH! CRACKLE!

From his golden hide came a powerful wave of golden-yellow lightning that vibrated outwards like an electric shield!

Thousands of Vampsquitoes were instantly paralyzed. They dropped from the sky with stunned whimpers of shock, "That power…"

But that was just the opening he was crafting, for those closest to him found the ground vanishing beneath as those hooves slammed again with a bloodthirsty chant, "GOLD PRESS BLIZZARD!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

"SCREEECH!"

"RUN!"

"He's crushing ussss!"

This time, it wasn't a mere three hooves like back in that hellish landscape of the Blood Forest.

Hundreds upon hundreds of golden phantom hooves, larger and far more potent descended. They stomped those insects flat, cracking bones, crushing those fragile wings, even turning the very earth beneath into a paste of blood, guts and chitinous matter. Those lucky enough to fly high and survive this onslaught now question their Queen's invincibility as the tremors reached even her.

Such power!

…

Kwan Yuu watched this carnage. Her rage knew no bounds. She struggled back to her feet with her proboscis throbbing with indignation, the humiliation!

And just when it seem as though that night was about to be hers.

"My loyal subjects! You fools. How DARE they?!"

"I shall…" She inhaled deeply as those words of what she would do, her punishments that were far deadlier than simply eating them faded away from those echoing calls now shaking the 'Corpse Hive!'

From the ground, those pulsing arteries that covered the walls and ceiling throbbed erratically as Kwan Yuu's power spread out, and on those purple bloated veins…

WHOOSH!

Thousands of 'Circular Spell Diagrams' began to take form. Each one radiated immense power before solidifying into new Purple Blood Nests.

Their murmurs of new lives growing intensely loud was merely a prelude to the terror being unleashed from their inner layers that were as grotesque and sticky as the inside of a spider's lair. And as the drums beat, she danced.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

They began to eject something more chilling and powerful.

Millions of Blood Sucking Vampsquitoes flooded her domain! A writhing tide of chitinous hunger, they'd now consume everything!

Their buzzing drowned out all other sounds as those blue pulsating bellies reminded those unfortunate to have witnessed its like before, "A Calamity!"

This wasn't about individual strength now! This was the true terror!

"WHAT?!" Raphael quickly activated his senses and was stunned, "So many! Millions… if not… billions?! They are… Calamity Stage? EVERY single ONE?! This…"

His legs, accustomed to stomping and crushing lesser insects found it difficult to move, what to do?

"Such a pitiful existence," Kwan Yuu laughed at his horror and desperation with those piercing screams causing tremors. "You can't possibly withstand those mighty mandibles! My lineage… We were meant to SUCK! Chew! CRUSH and…" She watched Raphael's struggle against her might as that bull back away with frantic shouts.

"Wing Slashnado!" It decimated several hundred but they were just too many!

"Condensed Blood Barrier!"

His defenses had barely been erected and it was overwhelmed in an instant as cracks began appearing from those mandibles piercing through with sharp sounds, "Crack, Crack…"

Raphael retaliated by activating that whip once again, he loved how elegant but effective Lu Lingxue's strike were back in Ho Eastern, "Lightning Tail Lash!"

WHOOSH! CRAACK!

Another hundred found their wings shattered, mandibles broken and hopes turned into dust!

"Heliosphere Hazzard!" It was a mighty attack of those golden balls that unleashed potent energies, even the 'Corpse Hive' felt that force that mirrored the fury from their queen moments before, obliterating thousands this time.

But still,

They kept coming!

He then realized something dreadful…

"The Fog…" He was starting to see that faint haze rise from those heaps of corpses. It grew, moving and swirling in an ominous pattern he recognized too well!

He'd seen those ghastly purple clouds before!

It danced… as if mimicking Kwan Yuu's abdomen.

He quickly distanced himself, then turned to flee once more, however his movements weren't elegant. He shook his head trying to figure things out, for even with that speed he now possessed, he'd be soon engulfed.

"Kuahahaha! You have NOWHERE left to run, BULL! Once my 'Logia Mist' touches you…"

"Logia? Is that what it's called?" His curiosity outweighed his panic in that moment, before turning into pure rage! Those were her tricks?

"…you'll be plunged into an ENDLESS dreamworld!"

"What?" Raphael's glare wasn't simply about challenging another who tried to cook him, those feelings from earlier came back full throttle, he wouldn't be trapped again by dreams, not after what he'd just discovered about his desires and that hope for becoming human once more!

It had been her! "So IT WAS YOUUU! You were the cause for my dream? Those illusions? That of Tajmani?"

His pronouncements were a splash of cold water into Kwan Yuu's blood-filled eyes, for it seems those tricks she'd enjoyed using in the past wouldn't work now.

"Kuhuhu! Yes! Those screams! That fear was… divine. If I hadn't been so thirsty. Perhaps… those torments would still be ongoing! You won't escape now. No… your blood is too potent. My very cells desires to drink you!"

"In your dreams!" Raphael slaughter a few more insects, however, this caused the purple fog to spread faster.

"Kuhuhu! Futile!" She'd watched those millions of her children fall from the skies and yet, she didn't care. For as long as his blood, those essences flowed. She'd always have a way. They'd just be food, but this bull, its power was beyond what she expected!

"Prepare to BE FEASTED UPON, Bull." She licked her mandibles and began descending upon her prey with slow, deliberate, menacing strides. She truly enjoyed terrorizing.

But her meal wasn't interested!

"BLACK POOL!"

The moment he roared these words. A chaotic blackness exploded from his form and began absorbing the Logia Mist. It even swallowed the cauldron.

It wasn't merely that chilling red-and-black void that had crushed Lu Kimlung, or sapped the life essence from those thousand lesser Blood Sucking Vampsquitoes.

This… this was a torrent of annihilation.

"That what…?! How…" Kwan Yuu looked down at the growing darkness emanating with curiosity as her heart beat like an agitated wasp. She understood… It wasn't her domain he sought, but her very treasure! This wasn't allowed!

"YOU!"

She was about to stomp that Black Pool's growth with a thunderous rage, but alas… those black tendrils were sucking everything it came into contact with as it radiated.

"DAMN YOU, BULL! I won't…"

WHOOSH! CRACK! CRACK!

Raphael gathered himself and then unleashed that golden lightning energy once again before dashing! His hooves cracked those broken ossuary, as his horns brushed the Black Pool that now was gone as if sucked back into his existence.

"Where do you think you are going?"

Realizing she'd been outsmarted, Kwan Yuu was enraged once more! Her size, those dreams of unlimited power! They'd all vanish the instant that bull escapes with a belly full of her broth!

She moved instantly into his escape path.

"Kuhaha! Did you truly think you were the only one capable of utilizing those laws? Now taste despair!"

As her proboscis was centimeters away from puncturing his eyes, a truly impossible thing occurred right there in front of Kwan Yuu,

"SHADOW TELEPORTATION!"

With a pop of black and purple light and a sprinkle of gold and a very, very slight hint of lingering aroma of tangerine, he vanished from reality itself.

Then he reappeared in the same blink at the exit as if fate was rewarding his dedication to freedom.

"Catch him! DO NOT let that thief escape!"

Raphael wasted no time and flew out into the gorge with newfound vigor.

BZZZZZ!

Behind him those sounds were now closer. They wouldn't stop! Not until their queen's essences had returned, not without a feast! Not when his very blood could ignite a evolution their Queen would kill them to attain! This was vengeance, after all, and she was ready to SUCK!