NOVEL WEB Chapter 28: Crimson Doom?
Eugene kept going to escape the beast tide that Sir Vonjo created; however, he immediately felt that something wasn't right.
Why does it feel like the whole place has become quiet?
Sensing with his fallen curse energy, he discovered that Sir Vonjo had disappeared.
"Huh?" He thought and slammed the brakes.
The van screeched to a halt on the charred obsidian highway, its engine idling with a heavy, rhythmic thrum that echoed faintly across the hellscape.
The orange glow of infernal lightning crackled in the far-off clouds, bathing the cracked landscape in flickering bursts of ominous light.
For a moment, Eugene just sat there, gripping the steering wheel with both hands as his chest rose and fell, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
The swarm was gone.
Thousands—no, tens of thousands—of beasts had vanished, dissolved into thin air as though the landscape had blinked. And then he saw it. A silhouette still standing, unmoving, in the distance.
Sir Vonjo.
The man stood proudly, his coat flapping loosely behind him, as if daring the world to attack again. Eugene threw the door open and stepped down, boots crunching over ashen gravel. His breath caught when he fully grasped the scope of what he was witnessing.
Vonjo wasn't fighting back.
He was standing amidst the tide of monsters like a mad prophet welcoming a divine flood.
Hellbeasts lunged from all directions—horned, clawed, fanged, dripping with curses and twisted energies—but not one reached him.
They flung themselves at his body, crashing like living missiles. But they didn't explode upon contact. They splattered. Evaporated. As if reality folded around him, shredding the monstrosities just inches from his skin.
And Vonjo… Vonjo was laughing.
His arms were spread wide, like a martyr welcoming martyrdom, or a conductor orchestrating a symphony of destruction.
Eugene swallowed hard. This... this is just like back then, he thought. Just like how he dealt with those two—the tall guy and the round-faced one. He didn't fight. He didn't dodge. He didn't strike back. He received.
And now?
Now he was receiving everything.
Thousands of beasts.
Tens of thousands.
And Eugene's gut churned in disbelief. How… how can anyone absorb this many? Plus what is his bloodline ability really? Devouring? This is too much.
The monsters kept coming. Crawling over the ridges, pouring like rivers of hatred and nightmares. Snarls, screeches, war cries—layer upon layer of sound filled the atmosphere like a choking fog. And Vonjo remained in the center of it, head tilted back, basking in their rage and bloodlust.
He screamed toward the sky, loud, manic, unhinged:
"COME ON!!!"
His voice boomed across the scorched hills, a crack in the very fabric of this realm.
"CURSE ENERGY! PHYSICAL ATTACKS! IT DOESN'T MATTER! AS LONG AS IT'S AN ATTACK—THEN THROW IT AT ME!!"
The sheer madness in his voice sent a ripple down Eugene's spine. That wasn't just arrogance. That wasn't bravery. That was domination.
Black claws raked toward Vonjo's head—gone in an instant.
A tentacle of bone and ash lashed his torso—dissolved before contact.
An infernal spike shot from the mouth of a ten-foot creature—annihilated mid-flight.
Everything that reached within inches of Vonjo disappeared like mist hitting a flame.
His body was glowing now—no, burning—with a faint red shimmer that seemed to pulse with the rhythm of his heart. It wasn't blood. It was something deeper, more primal. The curse energy wasn't just gathering. It was condensing—coalescing into something terrible and divine.
Then—
Suddenly, Vonjo froze.
All at once, he stopped absorbing.
He just stood there, arms still wide, chest rising and falling with slow, controlled breaths.
The monsters, sensing a shift, hesitated for a heartbeat—and in that instant, Eugene felt the world change.
A light—bright, fast, silent—flashed outward.
Like a blade of existence itself being unsheathed.
Everything in front of Vonjo disappeared.
Not just the beasts.
Not just the air.
The ground, the sky, the very space was erased in a clean, instant blast that vaporized everything without so much as a roar. A crater, vast and hollow, was carved into the cursed land, a perfect arc of red-tinged nothingness.
Eugene stumbled back, eyes wide, heart hammering. What… what is that?
His answer came not from Vonjo, but from the bullet comments exploding across the sky like neon graffiti:
[HOLY SHIT IS THAT CRIMSON DOOM??]
[Sutterfouse Family's TOP THREE BLOODLINE ABILITY??]
[NO WAY—LOOK AT THAT SCALE!]
[IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S STRONGER THAN ANY DOCUMENTED VERSION!]
[HE JUST COUNTERED THOUSANDS OF ATTACKS WITH ONE STRIKE—WAS THAT… A MODIFIED VERSION?!]
More comments spilled in, a digital torrent of awe and disbelief.
["Crimson Doom"—the counter-technique of the House of Sutterfouse—devours all absorbed force, energy, intent—then unleashes it as a blast shaped by those very concepts. The more you endure, the deadlier it becomes!]
[But Vonjo's version… why do I feel like it's more devastating? His danger level is still 17 but the Crimson Doom, why does it feel have more mysterious impact? ! It didn't even make a sound. It just deleted everything!]
[Yeah… I felt it too… why it looked different?]
Vonjo turned slightly, his smirk lazy and amused as the glowing fragments of comment text hovered in the sky. His lips curled, and with mock humility, he answered:
"Of course mine is stronger than the Crimson Doom of the House of Sutterfouse."
It was a direct jab.
And then, he casually waved a hand and acted like he hadn't said anything, strolling through the aftermath of annihilation as if he'd just finished a warm-up jog.
Eugene was still stunned as Vonjo approached the van again, brushing soot from his arm, eyes calm but gleaming with restrained energy.
"Let's go," Vonjo said with that familiar, confident smirk, as though none of that had happened.
Eugene blinked. "S-sir Vonjo… that…"
Vonjo raised an eyebrow, already climbing into the passenger seat. "What? That? That was just me saying hello to Hell."
Eugene sat back behind the wheel, glancing once more at the crater in the distance—a wound in the world that still sizzled with residual crimson light.
And Vonjo?
He was already relaxed, one leg crossed over the other, head resting against the side of the van.
But the smirk on his face remained.
Because he knew—Hell and bullet comments hadn't seen anything yet.