Chapter 497 - Clash with the Devourer

All the sounds vanish, replaced by a silence unlike anything I've ever experienced. I can't hear my heartbeat. I can't hear my breathing. Nothing. Every color fades to black and white, except for the vibrant blue of mana.

In that world, the crown above my head appears darker than even the deepest shades of black around it.

My domain, enhanced by the additional effect of the Pride subclass, envelops me and the crown as I focus with absolute intensity. The crown absorbs all my mana, and I allow it—but in return, I bend it to my will. Every ounce of my effort and experience is poured into making that happen.

I’m far stronger than I was before, and for that brief moment, the crown permits it. Because it’s my mana. It’s my skill.

The crown´s effect expands even more, and the ambient mana gets pulled in from the air around me, the crown hungrily taking it all like a whirlpool devouring everything. The shield around the eye breaks into mana particles, and even these get siphoned away.

The inscriptions the eye attempts to activate fail to materialize as the crown begins drawing in all the mana the monster produces. The sheer volume of mana is staggering, increasing as the monster steadily regains its original strength, yet the black crown above my head absorbs it effortlessly.

No skill powered by mana is able to manifest within its reach.

The eye starts falling down, unable to keep itself flying, and as it passes by me, multiple javelins trailed by lightning pierce through the eye, only for it to regenerate. Its fleshy veins suck on the flesh from the golems to make it sizzle up around the wounds that heal.

All of the golems on the ground grow wings and head towards me. Already hundreds of them, each at least as tall as a multiple-floor building.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Wait a bit longer, let your new passive and strengthened trait apply just a tiny bit more, just a little bit.

Good.

I reach toward the crown, drawing on its overwhelming power to fuel my skill. A single pulse of [Resonance] radiates outward, crackling with the immense mana contained within the crown. The pulse surges through the area like an unstoppable tide.

In an instant, the hundreds of flesh golems closing in on me are obliterated, shredded into countless fragments, each reduced to nothing more than grains of sand that scatter in the wind.

The pulse continues, slamming into the giant eye. The attack digs into the eye, tearing it apart, layer by layer, with a ravenous hunger. Half of the eye is obliterated under the relentless onslaught.

Then the backlash strikes, hitting me hard—the skill, the crown, the trait's application, and the passive all at once. For a moment, I falter, dropping slightly before regaining control of my kinetic energy and lifting myself back into the air.

Three javelins of black mana take shape above me, hurtling toward the damaged eye and piercing deep into it. Blood pours down in torrents like waterfalls, glimmering as it cascades through the sky. Yet, even as it suffers, the remaining fragment of the pupil fixes its gaze on me, emanating an inhuman, emotionless intelligence.

All the remaining fleshy veins move, forming even more intricate inscriptions. Just looking at it makes me want to vomit, and my eyes become hazy and the edges of the inscriptions blur.

Even without mana, the veins form another inscription and it activates.

No, only the tiniest fraction of mana the monster generates—escaping just before my crown can absorb it—is enough to activate them. The monster calmly works to bypass the threat my crown presents, as if it’s nothing more than an obstacle to be outmaneuvered.

The effect of that inscription is directed at the monster itself and the entire eye becomes blurry, the javelins stabbed inside it falling towards the ground and the monster turns transparent and immaterial.

Another pulse of [Resonance] passes through the monster as if it's not there. The same goes for the other attacks I try in quick succession, each fueled by that powerful mana and my body’s ability to channel vast amounts of it.

The eye activates another series of inscriptions, its wounds sizzling and sealing until it is fully healed. Its mana surges, growing stronger with each passing moment, inching ever closer to its original power—a level where I won’t stand a chance against it.

But the same goes for me. My Mana Wavelength Iris pierces through the veil and sees the place where the monster shifted itself.

The crown fights against me but I use its mana, and I resonate with it, adapting the frequency to the same space where the monster is. The crown then starts absorbing the eye's mana.

Behind me, threads of mana form, moving like the eye’s fleshy veins, shaping into inscriptions. I try to mimic and adapt one of the monster’s previous attacks, and when the preparations are complete, a pulse of mana from the crown is sent through the dense mana threads.

The threads snap, crumble, and disintegrate, unable to withstand the immense amount of mana. The backlash is worse than I expected, and the difficulty of forming and activating the inscriptions is far greater than I thought.

Excitement stirs inside me as I make adjustments. I adapt the inscriptions to myself, replay what the monster did, channel mana differently, and alter the frequency and amount.

Then, I start creating the lines, the inscriptions, again—this time using Ley Lines. The pain grows, and the eye increases its efforts.

Another inscription formed by fleshy veins activates, and a huge part of the sky turns dark red. The entirety of it becomes covered, interwoven by those veins, forming more inscriptions. The usage of the eye’s mana changes as well, constantly deploying that field that makes the monster shift. All the while, that eye stares at me, a calm, alien intelligence glowing within.

My attempt collapses under the crushing weight of the blood-red sky's oppressive force.

Then the monster avoids my another attack by shifting its position and turning transparent, all while generating more mana and letting it be absorbed—amounts I haven’t felt in a long time.

I know what it’s doing, but I can’t stop it. Even with the crown under my control, even with the monster aware of it, I can’t do more. Right now, I lack the ability to use it to its fullest, the capability to face an opponent this powerful.

Finally, it reaches the point where I can't hold onto anymore, and the incredibly charged crown slips from my control, not absorbing any mana anymore. Immediately the cracks of white appear on its surface.

(You can throw the box at the eye.)

Tess does just that, the box of white sand crashes against the tentacles protecting it, and immediately charging it up to an incredible degree. It flies all around like an enraged swarm of bees, piercing through the monster with ease.

Even so, while bleeding and getting grinded down the eye starts to build up layers upon layers of barriers around my crown.

I know it shouldn’t be enough. I know exactly how much mana the crown has taken from both me and the monster. And yet…

(We are leaving,) I send another message to the ground.

As I land on the ground, my legs give up and I fall to my knees, but I push through it, reaching through Ley Lines and connecting to all of them.

Then I teleport us all away, to the point I set up near the abandoned fortress.

All of us appear here and check on each other, some carrying items from my room and others bringing additional loot from the city—the city visible in the distance.

Blood red sky stretching miles away and fleshy veins expanding further. And in all that red, over the city a black crown floats, veins, barriers, flesh surrounding it even while being constantly ravaged by wildly floating particles of white sand.

The dark red sky turns bright white for a moment. But there are no kill notifications.

Instead, all of my running skills become disrupted and a pull on my mana appears again.

At the place where the crown was, there is a black orb now, siphoning all the mana from the area, siphoning on the barriers the eye builds around it. There are more and more of them, creating a thick layer and inscriptions activated by these fleshy veins. Even through all these efforts, the black mana keeps pulling on the mana of the monster. Not as strongly as before when it was a crown, but it still does so.

I don't think that black orb will endure the monster much longer. Even now, the eye feels stronger than level 350, and my best, likely not too accurate, estimate is closer to 400. Still far off from the usual around level 500 of Champions, but I have no intention of staying here and waiting to see if the monster can regain its peak form.

With more of my mana regenerated, I force my mind to work again, pushing through the pain and reaching through my [Ley Line] to teleport us again.

A chill creeps up the back of my head, and I sense movement reaching toward me. But I’m too slow—far too slow to react.

An attack meant for me stabs into Lily's chest. A blood-red vein extending all the way here from the city miles away from us.

The eye fixes its gaze on where we stand, preparing another attack. Simultaneously, it forms barriers around the orb, even as it’s relentlessly worn down by the white sand.

"Oh, you won't," Lily whispers. Gray mana seeps from around her arms, and with a short scream she grabs the vein piercing her.

Immediately, that gray mana disintegrates the vein at terrifying speed, devouring it like a fuse and heading towards the source of the attack.

For a split second, the monster seems willing to let the gray mana reach it. But in the end decides to quickly it changes its decision, a few other tentacles moving and tearing it off.

I touch Lily's shoulder, replacing the [Ley Line] connection that the attack removed, and teleport our entire group before another attack hits us. Even so, mid-teleport, something crashes against us. It does so in a way I haven't felt before. It's not physical, and most of all it reminds me of when the thylarin brothers back on Deathtrap messed with my anchor.

Then it's followed by a second force that fights against it.

The [Ley Line] I'm teleporting us through threatens to snap, and within that short moment I once again force my battered body and mind into overdrive, my strengthened trait picking up the slack, just to keep it all together. Even now, I have no idea what could such terribly messed-up teleport do.

At last, we teleport, but instead of appearing near Hollowgate, we arrive in an unfamiliar place, scattered across the ground. Some are missing limbs, others have torn bodies, and a few are even unconscious. All my items, all the items they looted, our weapons thrown around the area the same way.

With a groan, I remove the damaged [Ley Line] that brought us here and form a small orb of black mana to remove the rest to reduce the risk of tracking us.

When it's done, I force myself to my feet and reach Lily, who lies on the ground, breathing heavily. The wound on her chest is covered by the red flesh of the monster trying to devour her, turn her into a fleshy golem or something worse. Her gray mana keeps firing up around her heart to defend it and stop the flesh from reaching towards her brain, but Lily seems to have trouble focusing on removing it thanks to something the flesh does. It spreads through her body, disrupting her mana, damaging her marks, and attempting to change her, to take control.

Lily meets my eyes and clenches her teeth, giving me a signal.

Kinetic energy collects in my body as I transfer all the little mana I have and let it generate a bit more. It all shoots in bursts at Lily, concentrated as much as I can, and turns her chest wound around the attack into a fleshy crater, evaporating a huge part of the red flesh.

Lily doesn't even groan in pain; instead, her eyes look scary as they are wide open, observing what I'm doing.

[Disintegration], now easier for her to use, activates, obliterating her own body. It takes her right arm, the right side of her chest near her heart, and even a part of her waist and neck, aiming at removing all the remains of the red flesh.

When she looks at me I shake my head and point higher at her neck.

She repeats it. Her eyes slowly hazing off with so big a part of her body missing, the open wounds, blood everywhere.

I shake my head again and point at her belly.

Another part of her disappears. Bloody foam forms around her mouth. She doesn't breathe ragged; she can't with most of her lungs and chest missing.

I get to my knees and move closer to her, and slap her cheek, forcing her dwindling attention back to me.

For a moment she closes her eyes.

Quickly I grab her head and shake it.

Lily opens her eyes, a bit confused but after seeing me she smiles and tries to say something.

The kinetic energy I was collecting after the last attack shoots with an accuracy I didn't even know I was capable of. It obliterates the tiny remains of red flesh on multiple spots, hurting Lily further and making her body twitch as the each attack hits her.

"Heal." I don't even recognize my voice as I say that and repeat, "Heal."

Lily takes a moment, as if she has trouble hearing me or as if she is trying to understand my words. Only after a while does she nod slowly, and both of her legs below her knees disappear in [Sacrifice]. Her neck, her chest, her arms, her blood, all regenerate at incredible speed.

Then she takes a deep breath.

***

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