Chapter 287. The Last Member (4)
Chapter 287. The Last Member (4)
The 75th Floor Master, Vampire Lord, had a tricky ability. Though he was too weak and died before he could properly utilize his ability, I was different. Even with the same ability, I could show far stronger effects.
The Mistification skill I got from defeating him could be an excellent skill to some, but that didn’t apply to me. The skill I was talking about was his unique skill, Blood Curse.
Blood Curse was an extremely simple skill. It was similar to Deathblood Ring’s deathblood effect, but its effect was stronger.
It would use my health and splatter my blood onto him. Once the blood entered his body through his wound, its effect would activate. No matter how strong or weak the enemy was, it would decrease all of his stats and make him fall into massive hemorrhage status effect. As it wasn’t a normal hemorrhage, but one made from curse and magic, the only way he could break out of it was to kill me. In a way, it was similar to chaos flames.
[Kuk!]
After looking around for a while, he suddenly screamed. At the same time, a vast amount of blood shot out from the wounds Nandi created. It didn’t end with just a single explosion, as blood continued to shoot out like it was recycling itself like a fountain. Blood Curse was working perfectly.
[Cough! What is this…!?]
Sorry, but I’m not done yet. I smiled mischievously and activated the next move. It was Crimson Roar.
[Kuaaaak!]
That’s right! That’s the scream I wanted to hear! The Beast King couldn’t withstand the fierce flames in his body and jumped in his spot.
[You, you’re inside of me!]
Where? I murmured inwardly and smiled mockingly. The Beast King continued to jump around to get me off of him, but I was in a place he could never reach with such movements.
I was flowing through his blood.
[Where are you Hero!? Where!?]
Who in the right mind would tell you? You’re the one who set up this trap for me too! I swam through his blood stream and searched for my destination. Suddenly, he stopped jumping around and stood still.
[… Is this that ray’s ability?]
I flinched. Although the World Trickery skill I had wasn’t stolen from the Hermit King, its name and effect was the same one he had.
After murmuring those words, the Beast King snickered as he bled profusely.
[Foolish. He called himself king, but if his ability was invincible, we wouldn’t have been called the Five Kings! You want to use that lowly fish’s ability to defeat me?]
He shouted.
[Since you entered my body on your own, stay and become my nutrient!]
Immediately, his body began to boil. The first thing I noticed was that a strong acid began to flow in his blood. Almost like how someone with a cold would heat up to drive away the virus from his body, the Beast King’s body was changing to remove me.
[Did you think I would be defenseless, Hero!? I was expecting more from you, what a shame! Or will you try to change your body back!?]
His internal temperature skyrocketed, and an acidic mana that attacked all foreign substance began to fill up his body. It seemed he had to pay a price for this technique, as with increased blood flow, he began to hemorrhage even more.
[Kuhahahaha! Truly funny! To think the Hero would be such a coward! Who would have thought you were more like the Hermit King than the Lava King!?]
If the Hermit King transformed himself into a tiny monster and entered the Beast King’s body, he would have burned up by now from the temperature or melted from the acid. I was also struggling to withstand these two forces.
[Cough!]
At that moment, the Beast King suddenly coughed. It seemed Blood Curse was still working. Of course, Crimson Roar frying up his insides must have hurt too. No matter how big he was, he couldn’t be fine after all that happened. I had to thank Nandi for letting my Blood Curse have such great effect.
[… Not dead yet.]
He murmured.
[He’s not dead yet. He’s still inside me.]
I grinned. He realized it too late. I had finally arrived at his heart. Specifically, I was inside his heart.
[This isn’t the ray’s ability.]
In that instant, I detonated the power of Sky God’s Rage and drew out Lightning God’s power to the limit. My surrounding became dyed in gold. The Beast King let out a horrifying scream.
[Kuaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!]
I then canceled my transformation and looked around as I landed on the bottom of his heart. Lightning God’s power and Zeus’ power had mixed together and was destroying the Beast King’s heart.
This was probably not enough. I held up my Chaotic Spear and struck down with my remaining mana. I couldn’t help but marvel at how big the Beast King’s heart was, as it had more than enough space to fit my body.
[Kuhaaa! H-How!? How did you survive?]
“What do you mean, how?”
For the first time after I entered his body, I spoke. At this point, I was confident in my victory.
“I became your blood.”
Sky God’s Play was qualitatively different than World Trickery. Of course, World Trickery surpassed Sky God’s Play in its ability to hide my presence. That was how I could carry out this plan. Combining Sky God’s Play and World Trickery had formed a perfect skill.
World Trickery allowed me to transform into any monsters I defeated, and Sky God’s Play let me transform into whatever I’ve seen. The difference between the two was huge.
In Greek mythology, Zeus had once transformed into a golden shower to impregnate a woman trapped in a prison. The transformation power he used was available to me too under the name Sky God’s Play. With it, I could transform myself into liquid or even a single drop of blood. The Beast King’s response was within my expectations.
There was no way he would burn his own blood or melt himself with his own acid. While he raised his internal temperature and spread his acid, I leisurely swam through his blood stream. The only thing I had to worry about was making sure I wouldn’t leave his body through the wounds he was bleeding from.
“Wouldn’t this work on the Demon Lord too?”
After thinking about it for a bit, I shook my head. I felt like I wouldn’t be able to trick him. The fact that he had a world’s power was the biggest reason. Even if World Trickery hid my presence, there had to be a limit to pretending to be someone else’s blood. Just like how I noticed Hermit King’s presence at the end, the Demon Lord was sure to be capable of doing so.
[Kuk, kuaaaaak! I, I should have listened to him!]
“Oh? And what did he say?”
Really, he was taking too long to die. I converted the remaining mana in my body into lightning and pushed it into my spear. Peruta Circuit roiled, and my spear immediately penetrated his heart, releasing lightning.
[Kuaaaaak!]
Damned guy, couldn’t he have said more before he died? In the end, the lightning from the spear burst his heart, and that was the end of the Beast King.
“Ku, I better focus, or I’ll get swept away again.”
I had to directly face the flood of blood pouring from his heart. Setting aside how dirty it was, did I have to travel through his blood again to get out? No, since he died, was his blood even flowing?
In any case, I had to get out and join up with the rest of the party as quickly as possible. It hasn’t been too long, so there should be no problem. I just had to quickly… quickly…?
“… Eh?”
I blinked. My body felt strange. Don’t tell me his acid was affecting me now? Or if that wasn’t it, did he leave a curse before he died?
The Beast King’s blood drenching me was boiling. Not only that, but the large amount of his blood I had no choice but to drink was boiling inside my stomach. It was almost as if he was roaring out.
“Is this dangerous?”
An alarm went off in my head. Did I cancel my transformation too early? No, if I didn’t, I would have had to wait dozens of minutes slowly releasing lightning. I needed to get out of here as quickly as possible, and even if I didn’t, I didn’t feel like it was a mistake to untransform as I initially planned.
Besides, didn’t his blood drench me after he died? Just what was going on?
All I knew was that this situation wasn’t something I could control. I couldn’t believe how helpless I felt without Sherafina’s messages telling me about my status.
‘Snap out of it, Kang Shin. You can’t rely on the dungeon forever.’
In the worst case, I just needed to use Overlord. That power was enough to get me through most situations. Not to mention, the Beast King was dead, so there was no one who could cause me harm. Even when the Hermit King died, I received his ability in exchange for his soul, and when the Lava King died… Wait.
“… Wow.”
I couldn’t help but speak even in this situation. I hadn’t noticed because I was too focused on myself, but now that I looked, the Beast King’s insides were letting out a bright golden light. He was certainly dead. This wasn’t done by him.
It was done by me.
“Right, it was then.”
When I obtained the Hermit King’s power, I had taken his power for my own. I still wasn’t sure, but perhaps when Peruta Circuit reforged my body, it may have taken this part of my memory and incorporated it to my instincts. Right, I knew instinctively that there was a better way to do it. Just like how the Lava King, Hermit King, and the Beast King had developed unique ways of defending themselves, my body had also developed a way to grow stronger!
If I were under the effect of the dungeon’s system, Sherafina would have surely told me about the method herself. But now that I was on my own, my body was looking for this method by itself. Its efficiency was incomparable to having it spoonfed to my body.
Peruta Circuit’s spin became fiercer. My body was burning up, and it felt like Peruta Circuit’s mana circuit was trying to burst out of my body. A whirlpool rose up around my body and began to slowly absorb the golden particles of light. The Beast King’s body slowly transformed into golden particles of light and began to slowly flow into me. The spinning whirlpool began to turn golden and created even fiercer rotational force.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
I shouted, unable to withstand the power filling up my body. With my shout, the process accelerated. The Beast King’s body completely transformed into mana and flowed into me, and I held my mind tightly to not waste a single drop of it.
Sorry, Daisy, it looks like you won’t get the Beast King’s corpse… Hopefully you’ll get the King of the Dead!
Some time later, I slowly opened my eyes. With how much mana flowed into me, I couldn’t turn them all into mine, but this wasn’t the first time I experienced receiving such a massive amount of mana. Just like before, I stockpiled the unprocessed mana in a corner of my body.
I looked around. I was still in the jungle.
“The corpse really disappeared.”
I was dumbfounded. Such a huge corpse that disappeared without leaving a trace. Now, he was inside me. I could feel it. Interestingly, the result of me entering his body was him entering mine.
“Huu… Sadly, it looks like I’m missing one of his abilities.”
The Beast King used his incomparably powerful body and his powerful acid as his main weapons. Additionally, he could add powerful physical force to his roars. I had received all of his abilities other than his acid ability. I could tell how to use them like they were mine to begin with.
Most importantly, even though my stats were still being restrained, I could tell how much stronger my bones, muscles, and skin have gotten. I grinned and smacked my body a few times.
“I heard there’s a hole to fly through even when the sky crumbles. To think Peruta Circuit would bring such a result.”
Perhaps, it wasn’t just Peruta Circuit brining about these changes. After all, Peruta had never told me about any of this.
It was entirely possible that another power was using Peruta Circuit as a medium to act… No, I was probably overthinking it. In any case, I could think about this later. What I was sure about was that starting with Radiance, I was slowly strengthening myself with powers that no one could take away. Knowing that was enough.
“Good, now if I hide his mana completely…”
I calmed the boiling Beast King’s mana. Then, the surrounding space began to distort. The Event Dungeon was disappearing, having lost its power to maintain itself. What filled my sight instead was Bordeaux’s sky. Coincidentally, I faced Licorice as soon as I left the Event Dungeon.
When she saw me, she hugged me with a happy face.
“Dear Husband, I knew you would be safe! Dear Husbaaaand!”
“Yeah, Licorice, I knew I would be safe too.”
I felt relieved and joked. Thankfully, everything seemed okay. Ciara had worried for nothing. Although the Beast King was troubling, I could kill him without much problem, and now that I had joined up with the rest, we could go kill the King of the Dead and the last remaining king together…
At that moment, Licorice tilted her head and asked.
“Where’s Hwaya? Why didn’t she come out with you?”
“… What?”
I froze.