CHAPTER 208: The Awakening-2 END

CHAPTER 208: The Awakening-2 END

Michael and Grunbak got to their feet almost simultaneously amid the dust and ice debris. Grunbak's body crackled briefly, and before Selene and Eva's eyes, his wounds began to close at an unnatural speed. Skin regenerated, muscles tightened again, and his smile returned intact.

"Come on, hybrid," he said mockingly. "Is that all?"

Michael roared and lunged at him with all his strength, but Grunbak was faster. He caught him in the air by the torso and hurled him against a rock wall. The impact was dry and brutal. Michael fell to the ground, leaving a trail of blood.

For a few seconds, he didn't move.

The collapse continued to advance, but time seemed to have stopped in that instant.

Michael placed one hand on the ground and raised his head with difficulty. His gaze was no longer fixed on Grunbak, but on something much deeper. His voice came out hoarse, laden with rage and exhaustion.

"Marius…" he murmured. "You were always a pawn. A strong body and nothing more."

Grunbak frowned, confused.

"What are you saying…?"

Michael continued, without looking at him.

"The vampires used you. Your own hatred used you," he breathed with difficulty. "And now something else is using you, something that doesn't even have a name."

His voice grew firmer, clearer.

"Tell me… how long are you going to let them keep manipulating you?"

At that moment, something impossible happened.

Grunbak's arm suddenly tensed. His fingers closed around his own neck, without him giving the order. His eyes widened.

"What… what the hell…?" he gasped.

The pressure increased. His feet dragged involuntarily backward as his own hand choked him. Grunbak tried to pull it away with the other, but his body didn't respond as it should.

"Let go of me!" he growled, fighting against himself.

Eva stepped forward, watching closely, surprised.

Grunbak fell to his knees, breathing with difficulty, his eyes full of disbelief.

"This… this isn't me…" he whispered. "They're… the body's reflexes…"

His gaze filled with genuine terror for the first time.

Marius's body was reacting.

And Grunbak knew it in that instant: he was not as alone inside that flesh as he had believed.

Michael did not hesitate.

Taking advantage of Grunbak being on his knees and fighting his own body, he lunged forward and pushed him with all his might. Grunbak lost his balance and fell backward just as a roar shook the cave.

A massive block of ice detached from the ceiling.

"Look out!" Selene shouted.

The fragment fell like a natural guillotine, crushing Grunbak's head against the ground with a dry, brutal sound. The impact was definitive. The body lay motionless, embedded between rock and ice, with no possibility of visible regeneration.

For a second, silence reigned.

Selene stepped forward, still in shock, trying to approach the body.

"Michael… is he…?"

Before she could finish the sentence, Eva violently pushed her, sending her several meters backward.

"Don't get close!" she ordered in a grave, ancient voice.

From the mass of rock, flesh, and ice, something impossible began to emerge. From the crushed remains arose a grayish, pulsating brain, from which several nervous tentacles sprouted. At its center, a single eye suddenly opened, observing everything with sickening speed.

"That's not…" Selene murmured, horrified.

"Step back!" Michael shouted, advancing toward the creature.

The brain reacted instantly. The tentacles contracted, and with a swift, unnatural movement, the thing slid toward a newly opened crack in the rock. Within seconds, it disappeared through a narrow hole, losing itself in the darkness of the cave.

"No!" Michael roared, arriving too late.

Then, the cave trembled again.

The collapse resumed with more force than before. Large blocks of ice began to detach from the ceiling, one after another, crashing to the ground. The walls creaked, cracking as if the entire mountain were about to close in on itself.

"We have to get out of here!" Selene shouted.

Eva looked one last time at the place where the creature had escaped, with a somber expression.

"It's not over," she said with certainty. "None of this is over."

The ice continued to fall relentlessly. Within moments, the chamber was completely buried. Rocks, snow, and ice covered everything, burying the bodies, the remains, and the battle beneath an icy tomb.

The cave fell silent.

As if nothing had happened.

But beneath the ice, something was still alive.

Enid Corp lay in silence, broken only by the constant sound of rain hitting the windows. The afternoon was gray, heavy, as if the sky itself carried the echo of what had happened days before. Enid Drakewood sat behind her desk, her back straight and expression serene, illuminated by the soft light of a desk lamp.

Two days had passed since the incident in the cave.

Before her lay an open report. Enid held a black fountain pen and wrote with a firm stroke, without hesitation, as if every word had already been decided in advance.

Operation Status:
Eva: captured.
Michael: captured.
Selene: captured.
Grunbak: deceased.

She set the pen down on the paper and leaned back slightly in her chair. A slight, almost imperceptible smile appeared on her face. Everything had gone exactly as she had planned. The unforeseen had been absorbed, the damage controlled, and the official narrative was ready to be filed away.

The rain intensified slightly.

"Perfect," she murmured to herself.

She calmly closed the report and placed it to one side of the desk, as if it were a matter already resolved, something belonging to the past. Now it was time to move forward. It had always been that way. Never look back.