SWNOVELXO Chapter 27: The forgotten reward
The moment the tires of the van screeched against the jagged asphalt of the so-called Highway to Hell, Vonjo shifted forward, sensing it—like a pressure drop before a storm.
The atmosphere twisted into something darker, heavier, charged with violent anticipation.
Around them, the sky turned blood-orange, like a bruised wound stretched across the heavens.
The distant screeches of damned beasts echoed in the air, and the very wind felt sharp enough to cut skin.
A low, rhythmic thrum pulsed beneath the road, as though the ground itself was alive, hungry.
Without hesitation, Vonjo slid down from the roof and knocked on the driver's window. "Eugene," he said, voice cool but firm, "Take the wheel. It's showtime."
Eugene didn't argue. He knew that tone. Sliding over, he took control, while Vonjo climbed back onto the roof, the wind tugging at his coat like it was trying to pull him into the abyss.
The moment his boots hit the metal again, a familiar chime rang in his head.
Ding!
Additional Reward: High-Level Bloodline Ability of the House of Sutterfouse – Mount of Doom Unlocked!
Description: This bloodline skill allows the summoning of an ancient mount—infused with hellfire and malice—through a ritual of sacrifice.
Requirement: Kill multiple creatures of similar level within 10 seconds. The more creatures slain, the rarer and stronger the mount summoned. The time limit is absolute.
Vonjo narrowed his eyes, a slow smirk forming as he read the glowing prompt.
"Oh, I almost forgot about this thing…" he muttered.
The red letters burned behind his vision, searing themselves into his mind.
A high-level bloodline technique that no one else in his generation had awakened yet. It required timing, brutality, precision.
Exactly his style.
He exhaled slowly, then laughed under his breath. "Perfect," he muttered, brushing the stray strands of silver-black hair from his face. "They wanted a show and I would get a reward for it."
The bullet comments—normally chaotic and overflowing with chatter—were silent.
The stream was live.
Tens of thousands of people were watching.
Yet they waited, breath held, their virtual words hovering in pause.
Vonjo's previous feats had already blurred the line between the terrifying and the miraculous. But now, something in the air told them that this… this would be different.
Still standing tall on the van, Vonjo closed his eyes.
He let the world fall away—the wind, the wheels grinding over cursed gravel, Eugene shouting something about "incoming heat signatures," even the faint static in the system's audio overlay. All of it faded.
In the darkness behind his closed lids, Vonjo saw not emptiness, but blood. Rivers of it. Screaming spirits.
Chains dragging across molten stone. His soul surged through the lineage of the Sutterfouse—a house cursed by demons and feared by men, a line born from sacrificial pacts and sealed in war.
He could feel the ancient call.
The same call that had once birthed the original Mount of Doom during the legendary Infernal Crusade.
The bloodline thrummed inside him.
His heart matched the rhythm.
And then—he opened his eyes.
The irises had changed. No longer black, no longer human.
They had turned into burning crimson, with thin cracks spreading out from the pupils, as if his eyeballs were molten cores encased in fractured obsidian.
He didn't speak.
He clenched his fist.
In that instant, the world screamed.
A surge of energy—not merely mana or aura, but something twisted and ancient—exploded from Vonjo's clenched hand.
A pillar of Fallen Curse Energy erupted, a vortex of violet-black flames spiraling skyward like a demonic beacon.
The clouds parted in a circular halo around it, bleeding at the edges, and the land itself trembled in response.
The first wave of beasts responded.
From the charred woods lining the highway's edge, a pack of horned jackals burst forth, snarling and frothing, their red eyes glowing with hate.
From the skies above, crow-beasts with razored wings descended, screaming like banshees.
The ground cracked as molten hounds, dripping with lava and bile, surged up from beneath the asphalt.
They didn't hesitate. They charged.
But Vonjo didn't flinch.
Still standing on the roof of the speeding van, one hand in his coat pocket, he simply watched.
More came.
From every direction.
Horrors upon horrors.
Massive centipedes with faces like weeping masks slithered through the trees.
Apes made of bone and stitched sinew pounded their chests with fists that shattered the air. Mutated hyenas with fused heads howled as their flesh peeled back to reveal inner rows of teeth.
And behind them, something... else.
The ground bulged. Cracked.
From the fissure emerged a towering beast that walked like a bull but had no skin—only raw, exposed muscles and ribs that clicked together like knives. Its back was crowned with thorny black tendrils that dragged behind it like whips of retribution.
It saw Vonjo.
And it followed.
Then more followed it.
A wave.
No—a tsunami of hellspawn.
Beasts of every size, every scream, every impossible anatomy, crawling, limping, soaring, slithering, chasing.
All following him.
Vonjo's eyes sparkled with dark joy.
The van continued forward, but the world behind it was now a mass of churning horror. The highway quaked beneath their weight. Dust rose into the sky. Shadows blotted out the sun. It was a stampede of damnation—and Vonjo stood at the head of it like a herald of the apocalypse.
The bullet comments exploded now.
[WHAT IS THIS?!]
[Are those… thousands?!]
[Is he trying to some suicide shit again?!]
[No... wait, he's farming them?!]
[BLOODLINE RITUAL??!?]
[HE'S GONNA DO IT!]
[DO IT, VONJO!!]
Still calm, Vonjo turned.
He twisted his neck, cracked his shoulders, and finally—slowly—glanced behind.
The van shook beneath him, but he didn't waver.
He saw them.
All of them.
A tidal wall of monsters. Crawling over one another in rabid hunger. Every set of glowing eyes aimed at him. Every twisted, mutated body bent on slaughter.
He grinned.
His voice cut through the chaos like a knife.
"This will do," he whispered.
And then—without warning—Vonjo laughed.
Not a chuckle.
Not a smirk.
A full, manic laugh that echoed like thunder across the desolate hellscape.
He leapt.
A streak of black and red, a shadow plunging from the roof of the van into the incoming swarm.
The last thing seen before the screen exploded into chaos was Vonjo's outstretched arms and wide grin—like a god descending upon mortals.
Into the sea of monsters, he fell.