Chapter 43: Weakness
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It had been weeks since I'd gone to ground, lying low to recover.
Spores poured from my gills, coalescing into soldiers, silent, obedient, born from my image.
But the scent of weakness never goes unnoticed.
Monsters stirred in the deep, drawn like sharks to blood.
They came in waves, fangs bared and eyes wild, thinking they'd found an easy kill.
Then came the sound.
A wet crack, tentacles slicing through water, through bone, straight into skull.
Abominations, no, not mere beasts, but the guards I had forged, stirred.
The ones shaped by my will, now encircling me, stirred to life as my body began to recover from the backlash.
A mountainous pressure erupted from me.
In an instant, everything within twenty meters was pinned to the seabed.
The ocean itself seemed to tremble.
My creations bowed, every grotesque limb folding in reverence.
Their master had returned.
My eyes opened.
Intriguing… indeed.
I had only been dormant for a few weeks, no, nearly a month.
And these pitiful bastards thought they could feast on me?
Intriguing, indeed.
How... amusingly intriguing.
I laughed with insanity.
My howl echoed across the deep like a curse.
The current recoiled.
The pitiful mongrels scattered.
My creations surged forward on twitching limbs and impaled the intruders, devouring them while they still writhed.
Still, I laughed.
These damn hyenas dares to mock me?
Fury boiled over.
My voice thundered inside my skull.
Are you... MOCKING ME?!
Unrestrained, my pressure exploded again, slamming every living thing to the seafloor.
I lashed out, tentacles snapping like whips, wrapping around the rotting carcasses and constricting like serpents.
Stingers erupted, burrowing into flesh, hollowing them from within.
My anger boilded as it erupted.
I slammed my tentacles into the ground. Once.
The murals cracked.
Again.
And again.
Not enough.
Nowhere near enough.
Damn it.
I am too weak.
I'm still far from invincible.
Damn it all!
The ground beneath me finally gave way.
It crumbled into darkness, and I fell with it, down to the next floor.
I barely glanced at the flickering hologram.
---
[You have successfully devoured]
• [Horned Abyssal Orca 5★]
• [Aureate Fin Lord 4★]
• [Fishbound Mawler 4★]
• [Gem-Encrusted Mithril Crab 4★]
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[New Skills Acquired:]
• Combat-Adaptive Musculature
• Crown Resonance
• Crystalburst Spikes
• Devour-Rebirth
• Flesh Echo Body
• Gemcore Amplification
• Mana Pulse Crush
• Mana-Reactive Jaw Structure
• Mithril-Reactive Plates
• Orebound Carapace
• Predatory Finesse
• Predator's Pressure Field
• Pressure-Bound Lungs
• Regal Scale Coat
• Royal Summons
• Twin Abyssal Horns
---
[Your grotesque physique would like to devour]
• Combat-Adaptive Musculature
• Crown Resonance
• Crystalburst Spikes
• Devour-Rebirth
• Flesh Echo Body
• Gemcore Amplification
• Mana Pulse Crush
• Mana-Reactive Jaw Structure
• Mithril-Reactive Plates
• Orebound Carapace
• Predatory Finesse
• Predator's Pressure Field
• Pressure-Bound Lungs
• Regal Scale Coat
• Royal Summons
• Twin Abyssal Horns
[Would you allow it]
[Yes] / [No]
---
I couldn't help but smile.
My loyal guards had utterly destroyed the Lord-class monsters I'd devoured in my sleep.
A quiet sigh escaped me, less from relief, more from pride.
They were my creations, after all.
And they had made me proud.
My grotesque physique coiled, feeding on the skills.
I clenched a tentacle, testing.
Some strength had returned, enough to move.
Enough to fight lesser threats.
But not enough.
Not yet.
Bloomrage Apex... No.
Using it now would cripple me further.
That power strained my body too much, and I am currently weakened to even dream of using it.
If I used it, I wouldn't survive the next encounter, especially not against a King-Class beast.
In this state, I wouldn't even reach them, let alone triumph.
My tentacles drifted over the hologram again.
Detached, clinical.
My other eyes scanned skill descriptions.
Some caught my interest.
Most were trash.
A few, the classic type.
I dragged them into the fusion table.
Then another.
Removed it.
Added something else.
Dragged again.
Hours passed.
A cycle of selection and rejection, testing and rethinking.
Each time, the fusion table glowed faintly, like an ancient judge waiting for the right offering.
I didn't stop.
I couldn't.
Not until I found the one combination that would be a core skill to me.
Not until I became something... worthy.
---
[Would you like to combine these skills?]
• † Seraphic Coil Core + † Buried Presence
• † Berserk Vein Bloom + † Bloodhowl Surge
• † Tectonic Lungs + † Pressure-Bound Lungs
• † Lumen Scaleheart Core + † Kinetic-Mana Fusion Core
• † Wrathcore Instinct + † Rite of Drowning Mercy
• † Tectonic Shell Core + † Tectonic Shell Core
• † Obsidian Plating + † Distributed Neural Cortex
• † Frill-Sensory Crown + † Blood Veil Emission
• † Latch Chain Ballet + † Neuromuscular Lockstep
• † Sonar Wings + † Neutral Buoyancy Matrix
• † Mana-Refractive Shell + † Pressure-Fused Scales
• † Voltage-Threaded Scales + † Exoskeletal Ridge Plating
• † Royal Blood Resonance + † Royal Summons
• † Predator's Pressure Field + † Predatory Finesse
• † Wrathful Seraphim Core + † Draconic Lightning Core
• † Spiked Dermal Filter + † Reinforced Gill Cavities
• † Seraph's Last Bloom + † Royal Remnant Revival
• † Combat-Adaptive Musculature + † Flesh Echo Body
• † Gemcore Amplification + † Imperial Crestbone
• † Spinal Bloom Array + † Fluted Tail Spine
• † Neural Tentacle Ganglia + † Flexible Bone Knots
• † Neurotoxin Lattice + † Jaws of Recall
• † Serrated Beak Ridge + † Bonecrush Jaws
• † Scalebloom Filaments + † Crystalline Tentacle Plating
• † Crown Resonance + † Glare of Depths
• † Draconic Membrane Layering + † Abyssal Throne Physiology
• † Dual Lightning Rod Horns + † Twin Abyssal Horns
• † Regal Scale Coat + † Abyssal Hide
• † Mithril-Reactive Plates + † Orebound Carapace
• † Mana Pulse Crush + † Crystalburst Spikes
• † Draconic Core + † Crownheart Core
• † Devour-Rebirth + † Gluttonous Metabolism
• † Fin-Frame Exosurge + † Wing-Fin Undulation
[Yes] / [No]
---
[You're skills have fused]
[You have gained:]
• † Celestial Gravefield [Ascension I ]
• † Geostrata Heartplate [Ascension I]
• † Seraph's Last Mercy [Ascension I]
• † Prism-Break Reactor [Ascension I]
• † Abyssal Breath Core [Ascension I]
• † Howling Bloom Drive [Ascension I]
• † Riptide Seraph Frame [Ascension I]
• † Glutcycle Ascension [Ascension I]
• † Sovereign Pressure Engine [Ascension I]
• † Seismic Gemflayer [Ascension I]
• † Resonant Stoneplate Mantle [Ascension I]
• † Royal Abysshide [Ascension I]
• † Stormpiercer Helix Horns [Ascension I]
• † Sovereign Mantle Core [Ascension I]
• † Depth-Crowned Dominion [Ascension I]
• † Phantom-Gem Myofibers [Ascension I]
• † Guillotine Maw Ridge [Ascension I]
• † Requiem Maw [Ascension I]
• † Serpentine Reflex Spine [Ascension I]
• † Bloomcoil Fin-Spine [Ascension I]
• † Crown-Gem Conductor [Ascension I]
• † Echo-Weave Adaptation [Ascension I]
• † Sovereign Bloom Requiem [Ascension I]
• † Abyssal Inhale Reactor [Ascension I]
• † Divinity Surge Core [Ascension I]
• † Fluid Apex Dome [Ascension I]
• † Monarch's Pulse Choir [Ascension I]
• † Surgeback Rampart [Ascension I]
• † Mirage Bastion Hide [Ascension I]
• † Sovereign Drift Echo [Ascension I]
• † Anchor Waltz Engine [Ascension I]
• † Pulseveil Domain [Ascension I]
• † Core-Warden Protocol [Ascension I]
---
How intriguing.
These outcomes... they reek of potential.
Just skimming their descriptions sent ripples through my body.
I laughed, quietly, amused, calculating.
Oh, how intriguing.
Yes... intriguing, indeed.
A few of these skills were pitiful at first glance, but might be worth watching.
Some could flourish under careful fusion.
My gaze narrowed.
Again, I dipped into the pile, sifting through mediocrity with cold precision.
Many were too common to matter.
Others, bizarre, malformed things, whispered of opportunity.
A dash skill fused with a bite skill?
It is unstable and Dubious.
But sometimes, grotesque combinations birthed something rare... something worth claiming.
Time passed.
Hours, maybe more.
I kept dragging fragments together, testing, rejecting, refining.
My Ascension I set hovered nearby, in a hologram waiting for my approval.
The selection demanded a creative and patient mind.
Focus.
Deciding which skill to drag was taxing.
My body still ached, barely held together from the last engagement, but I pressed on.
The results justified the cost.
My attention locked onto the hologram.
It shimmered with potential.
And I did not blink as I approved.
---
[Would you like to combine these skills?]
• † Royal Abysshide + † Riptide Seraph Frame + † Geostrata Heartplate
• † Stormpiercer Helix Horns + † Crown-Gem Conductor + † Stormpiercer Horns
• † Seraph's Last Mercy + † Abyssal Breath Core + † Bloomrage Apex
• † Frostjaw Shatterfang + † Guillotine Maw Ridge + † Requiem Maw
• † Toxic Gasp Sporelungs + † Anchor Waltz Engine + † Phantom-Gem Myofibers
• † Sovereign's Gaze + † Pulseveil Domain + † Depth-Crowned Dominion
• † Fluid Apex Dome + † Phantasmal Core Array + † Mirage Bastion Hide
• † Celestial Gravefield + † Abyssal Inhale Reactor + † Hallucinbloom Mist Veil
• † Sovereign Bloom Requiem + † Sovereign Mantle Core + † Howling Bloom Drive
• † Resonant Stoneplate Mantle + † Surgeback Rampart + † Core-Warden Protocol
• † Sovereign Pressure Engine + † Divinity Surge Core + † Prism-Break Reactor
• † Bloomborne Avatar + † Bloomcoil Fin-Spine + † Serpentine Reflex Spine
• † Monarch's Pulse Choir + † Sovereign Drift Echo + † Echo-Weave Adaptation
• † Seismic Gemflayer + † Clamplock Execution + † Thundercoil Descent
[Yes] / [No]
---
[You're skills have fused]
[You have gained:]
• † Crownbreaker Helix [Ascension II]
• † Abyssal Tectowings [Ascension II]
• † Thanatofang Choir [Ascension II]
• † Apex Ruin Ignition [Ascension II]
• † Bloomlock Mirage Core [Ascension II]
• † Abyssborne Thronefield [Ascension II]
• † Nullbloom Abyssveil [Ascension II]
• † Phantasm Drift Spire [Ascension II]
• † Crowned Bloom Exeunt [Ascension II]
• † Apex Bastion Matrix [Ascension II]
• † Crownpulse Dominion [Ascension II]
• † Godseed Bloomwrithe [Ascension II]
• † Echo-Throne Chorus [Ascension II]
• † Abyssal Crowncrusher [Ascension II]
---
I laughed, my smile stretching wider with every word that passed through my mind.
How delightful.
These skills… I could already guess their future path.
With this, I could finally fuse two Ascension III abilities.
Yes... this is what I wanted.
There was no need to explain why, I didn't need to.
The path ahead was clear to me.
It was mine, and mine alone.
Without hesitation, I dragged skill after skill into the fusion table.
Without any second thoughts.
Only the certainty of my next step.
My tentacles moved, swift and focused.
I approved of what I saw, without a shred of hesitation.
The weight of my path, my power, was all that mattered now.
---
[Would you like to combine these skills?]
• † Apex Ruin Ignition + † Crownpulse Dominion + † Crowned Bloom Exeunt + † Crownbreaker Helix
• † Abyssal Tectowings + † Thanatofang Choir + † Godseed Bloomwrithe + † Abyssal Crowncrusher
[Yes] / [No]
---
[You're skills have fused]
[You have gained:]
• † Bloomcrown Cataclysm Form [Ascension III]
• † Imperial Bloomcore Reign [Ascension III]
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Name: ALISTER VON FAI
Titles: Kinslayer, Kin Devourer, Predator of the Impossible, Title is just a Word, Embodiment of Fear, Lord Slayer, King Slayer.
Race: [★] Whark
Stage: 0
Tier: 10
Level: 19/50
EXP: 147,000/303,000
Class: (Locked)
Subclass: (Locked)
Inventory: (Locked)
Equipment: (Locked)
-- -
Stats
Health: 100/100 (+1 per level)
Stamina: 100/100 (+1 per level)
Mana: 100/100
Physique: 1.00 (+0.1 per level)
Mystique: 1.00
Charm: 1
Luck: 1
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Bloodlines
mundane Bloodline
1. Harbinger of Myth (Sealed)
Lesser Bloodline
Normal Bloodline
Greater Bloodline
Noble Bloodline
Emperor Bloodline
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Bloodline skills
1. Myth Voracity (Weakened)
The core ability of the Harbinger of Myth, allowing them to devour the myth—skills and stats—of others. However, a powerful curse has severely weakened it. Now, rather than guaranteed absorption, it only grants a chance to consume these traits. Despite this, it still feeds on the myth of those the Harbinger consumes.
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Affinity
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Skills
† Seismic Weight [Passive]
This trait weaponizes the creature's body mass. Any movement—especially forceful impacts—transfers massive shockwaves through water and terrain. These seismic pulses can knock enemies off-balance, interfere with sonar, and destabilize nearby structures. Passive field pressure increases the longer the creature remains still.
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• Ascension III
† Bloomcore Leviathan [ ★ Ascension III – Active: 100 Per Activation]
Unleash your evolved form—a towering colossus of bloom-crystal and tentacled muscle. Your limbs house living cores—lightning, fire, crystal—each fueling a different surge. Fins slice air and sea; compound eyes lock onto prey from all sides. Thorned armor grows back faster than it breaks. Blooming from your flesh, spore-born creatures form mid-battle. Instinct guides every move. You don't just fight—you reshape the battlefield.
† Bloomcrown Cataclysm Form [Ascension III – Active: 100 Mana PerActivation]
You do not shift—you erupt. Upon activation, your body enters Cataclysm Form: abysshide plates bloom thorned vines and gem-spiked ridges, while fang-lined petals crown a fractured helm. Each motion tears air, each breath seeds ruin. Hits generate puppets grown from enemy biomass—coated in recursive venom, driven by your limb-thought. Horns surge volts through your core, while every leap craters reality and cloaks you in seismic bloomstorm.
† Imperial Bloomcore Reign [Ascension III – Passive]
You bloom, and the world recoils. Pain becomes crownfire—mana and blood spiral into a throne of moving ruin. Your body shifts mid-battle—crystal horns rise, bloom-veins flare, flesh hardens. Every strike blooms with shockforce. Every cast rules before thought. Near death, you twist—no form, just reign. You don't transform. You declare.
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• Ascension II
† Abyssborne Thronefield [Ascension II – Passive]
You do not enter the battlefield—you impose it. With each pulse of breath, scent, and gaze, a domain of warped perception unfolds. Blood-scented mist confuses the senses, illusions veil your form, and the weight of abyssal sovereignty compels obedience. Even the fierce hesitate, their instincts hijacked.
† Apex Bastion Matrix [Ascension II – Passive]
You are not merely armored—you are an ecosystem of retribution. Each strike upon you sings through ore-lined harmonics, dulling force and echoing violence back. Limbs move with sovereign autonomy, reacting before thought. Blade-scale ridges pulse with electric revenge, and the longer you're attacked, the stronger you become.
† Bloomlock Mirage Core [Ascension II – Active: 12 Mana Per Activation]
You anchor yourself, then unravel chaos. Spore-glands erupt in a bloom of toxic mist, while crystal-thread limbs blur and flicker in layered illusions. You become an immovable storm—rotating, exhaling, striking in ghost parries and deceptive angles. Impact vanishes into false limbs. Vision fails. The air itself rebels.
In your zone, enemies choke, falter, and die—never certain what killed them first.
† Blur-Lance Execution Drive [Ascension II – Active: 18 Stamina Per Activation. 5 per chain)
You dissolve into a flickering blur—then erupt forward like a bolt torn from the abyss. Each charge is a chained phantasm of speed, laced with electric bloomspike energy and seismic force. You can redirect mid-charge, chaining Blurstep flickers into arc-lance strikes or pincer slams. Enemies caught in your path are stunned, crushed, or split open in a haze of distortion and aftershocks.
† Echo-Throne Chorus [Ascension II – Passive]
Your every pulse is a commandment etched in bloodborne frequency. Schools scatter or converge at your will, microfauna orbit as drones, and sonar pulses remake the battlefield into your echo-hall. You drift like prophecy, immune to drag or depth, twisting through perception gaps with adaptive elegance. Each blow against you rewrites your form—harder, sharper, smarter.
† Nullbloom Abyssveil [Ascension II – Active: 10 Mana Per Activation, 3 Mana to Sustain]
You vanish—and the world forgets you existed. A field of warped pressure and glowing hallucination spores erupts, cloaking you in pure unreality. Heat fades. Sound dies. You breathe toxins and mana alike, sustaining yourself while prey wander blind in dream-sick confusion.
Inside your veil, only death remembers your name.
† Phantasm Drift Spire [Ascension II – Passive]
You exist inside your own physics. A kinetic dome blooms around you, warping depth, motion, and intention. Limbs phase. Core organs blur. Your body reflects force like a living distortion—armor that glints and vanishes, movements that fracture the eye. To fight you is to flail in water that hates back. Spells miss. Blades waver. Instincts betray their owners. You are real only when it's too late.
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• Ascension I
† Glutcycle Ascension [Ascension I – Passive]
Consumption becomes conversion. Every corpse, fragment, or fallen cell fuels a surge—mass repurposed, muscle reborn. Hunger is no longer a weakness but a metabolic ritual. The more you feast, the faster you grow, the harder you fall—upon them. You do not eat to survive. You eat to evolve.
---
Unique skills:
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[Unique] Grotesque Physique
A twisted and corrupted trait originating from the Whark race's natural biology, reshaped into a grotesque vessel through the influence of an unknown force. This skill allows your body to consume and bind external abilities—skills not native to your race or class—marking them with a grotesque sigil that nullifies their original growth path. Once devoured, a skill permanently loses its level, tier, and evolution potential, becoming a static construct within your internal system.
Instead of leveling, devoured skills are categorized by Ascension, reflecting their fusion depth, integration quality, and overall combat utility. While each absorbed skill retains its base effects and identity, they now act as modular components within a larger chimeric framework. Through Grotesque Physique, compatible skills can be fused into stronger, layered mutations—forming powerful bodily constructs.
This physique is not a container but a living system—one that mutates, synthesizes, and redefines the body with every devoured skill. Each fusion brings you closer to an unnatural apex, sculpted not by nature or training, but by the deliberate harvest of foreign power.
You can no longer stack body mutation skill of the same type.
Skill Devoured:
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Normal Skills
1. Multi-Core Convergence
2. Rift-Shell Layering
3. Tanglejaw Structure
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Ascension III
1. Bloomcore Leviathan
2. Bloomcrown Cataclysm Form
3. Imperial Bloomcore Reign
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Ascension II
1. Abyssborne Thronefield
2. Apex Bastion Matrix
3. Bloomlock Mirage Core
4. Blur-Lance Execution Drive
5. Echo-Throne Chorus
6. Nullbloom Abyssveil
7. Phantasm Drift Spire
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Ascension I
1. Glutcycle Ascension
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