Chapter 45: | Ghost
---
Minutes passed.
Then hours.
Blood and spores drifted through the current, not the blood of my enemy's.
But mine.
Wounds, some as deep as three meters, marred my body.
It was not deep enough to expose my insides.
Not grave enough to stop my regeneration.
But deep enough to grind against my nerves.
To make me suffer in pain.
My tentacles writhed, coiling around something in the dark.
As I unleashed a flood of toxic spores, waiting for the hallucinations to claim my foe quickly.
But its resistance… was higher than I anticipated.
Too high.
The battle dragged on, far longer than it should have.
My flesh was tattered.
My mind?
Was nearing its collapse.
Not from fear, but from pain.
It was unrelenting, excruciating pain.
That bastard's toxin had spiked my pain receptors.
Every time I breath burned.
Every muscles in my body screamed.
My body struggled to regenerate.
Each new gash tore itself open before the last could close.
My thoughts blurred, dimmed at the edges.
I was breaking.
Mentally… I was weak.
Too weak.
And I hated that truth.
I must train my mind.
Harden it.
Burn it into something stronger.
Until one day, this kind of pain will mean nothing to me.
So I endured.
I endured.
The drumming of my subordinates echoed through the currents, pounding, vibrating, calling out with fanatical rhythm.
Their zeal stirred the water like a prayer.
Some of them collapsed from exhaustion... yet they rose again, again, and again.
Unwavering.
Their faith in me did not falter, not once.
And because of them… I saw it.
Again.
And again.
The glimmer of its body.
That elusive specter.
But I could never reach it.
My attacks fell short.
It always did.
Even if Bloomrage Apex remained, no, even if I stacked it, layered it until my perception warped and time itself seemed to halt, my speed in that frozen instant wouldn't be enough.
I couldn't even graze it.
My Blur-Lance Execution Drive was worthless.
Truly inferior.
I had faced countless speed-based foes, across this life and the last.
None were like this one.
Its speed was beyond all of them.
Worse… its body vanished.
Not through magic.
Through stealth perfected to the point of horror.
Invisible.
Undetectable.
Even my compound eyes, designed to read heat, motion, pressure, failed me.
No heat.
None.
As if it was dead.
Yet I knew it was alive.
What living thing exudes no heat?
It was like a ghost.
A perfect assassin.
A perfect being.
A master of the unseen.
But even perfection... can fall.
My tentacles had already caught it.
Minutes ago, it had finally succumbed.
Now, I was merely recounting how I endured, how I won, against the perfect predator.
Call me cowardly.
Say what you will.
But the victor always reigns supreme.
The victor is always hailed as hero.
The victor rewrites the truth.
And I was the victor.
Yes, I used cowardly means.
I let the spores do the work.
But it took too long.
Its resistance made the process agonizing.
I bled.
I waited.
I suffered.
Like a patient predator that knows its prey is already doomed.
In time, it was.
The illusions finally took hold.
Reality bent in its mind.
It faltered.
Not visibly, no grand misstep.
Just… a twitch.
A hesitation.
Enough.
It was over.
I laughed.
Long and bitter.
The irony gnawed at me even as I wrapped tighter around its fading body.
My stinger opened, revealing the horror.
It devoured the assassin.
The one who inflicted hours of torment upon me.
A hologram blinked to life before me, declaring victory.
My victory.
I smiled at my skill grotesque physique waiting.
The system awaited my command.
I smiled.
And approved the devouring.
---
[You have slain the Overseer of this floor.]
• Abyssal Serpent Wraith
[Victory achieved.]
[You have gained 5 levels.]
[Access to the next floor unlocked.]
---
[You have successfully devoured]
• [Abyssal Serpent Wraith 5★]
• [Mythplated Dunkleosteus 4★]
• [Spinebloom Treant 4★]
• [Adamantgill Grouper 4★]
• [Hellmaw Abyssal Eel 4★]
---
[New Skills Acquired:]
• Adamant-Mythril Scale Blend
• Anchor Mass Core Density
• Barkbone Carapace
• Cavernflight Wing Flexors
• Dungeon-Tuned Spatial Memory
• Echoless Reposition
• Flicker Maw Lockdown
• Ghostlight Optical Conduction
• Hollow Pulse Core
• Hyper-Oxidized Pressure Pulse Core
• Jawlock Shatter Mechanism
• Mana Conductive Armor Veins
• Mythcarapace Convergence Core
• Reflexive Impact Adaptation
• Reinforced Gill Vent Channels
• Resonant Jawline Lock
• Spine-Tentacle Bloom Cluster
• Subdermal Tension Latticing
• Symbiocorruption Bloom Core
• Toxin-Sap Regulation
• Void Horn Resonance
---
[Your grotesque physique would like to devour]
• Adamant-Mythril Scale Blend
• Anchor Mass Core Density
• Barkbone Carapace
• Cavernflight Wing Flexors
• Dungeon-Tuned Spatial Memory
• Echoless Reposition
• Flicker Maw Lockdown
• Ghostlight Optical Conduction
• Hollow Pulse Core
• Hyper-Oxidized Pressure Pulse Core
• Jawlock Shatter Mechanism
• Mana Conductive Armor Veins
• Mythcarapace Convergence Core
• Reflexive Impact Adaptation
• Reinforced Gill Vent Channels
• Resonant Jawline Lock
• Spine-Tentacle Bloom Cluster
• Subdermal Tension Latticing
• Symbiocorruption Bloom Core
• Toxin-Sap Regulation
• Void Horn Resonance
[Would you allow it]
[Yes] / [No]
---
Twenty-one skills.
I'd gotten twenty-one skills from a single floor.
My luck had spiked since I entered this dungeon… yet the level gain from this battle?
Was truly pathetic.
Only five levels.
Too low.
But understandable.
I bled too much.
Took too many hits.
If I'd killed that bastard before the fight began, maybe, just maybe, I would've earned ten.
But how do you kill something that slips through space like a phantom?
I was too slow.
My reactions, my reach, all of it.
I couldn't catch it off guard.
So yes.
Five levels.
That was fair.
I deserved it, for being weak.
How could I expect a greater evaluation when I haven't even earned it?
The thought stabbed deep, but I shoved it aside.
No time for self-pity.
My compound eyes swept over my creations.
Their bodies, humanoid, elegant, evolving.
I should've felt pride.
And I did.
But also disappointment.
Most had now reached three meters in height.
A few had broken past four.
One or two even reached five.
Yet still… it was not enough.
Not yet.
Then, my attention shifted to the mural, again.
This one was different.
Darker.
More dangerous.
It no longer depicted only vast plains of sea grass.
Now, jagged peaks had erupted across the landscape like teeth.
A labyrinth of stone, winding and brutal, overlaid atop the plains.
But it was still a plain.
Still… familiar.
There were no kelp forests.
No coral towers.
No other biomes.
Just endless grass and fangs of stone.
The environment hadn't transformed, only… shifted.
I was quite amazed yet...
I felt irritation twitch down my tentacle.
I didn't have the time to decipher it now.
There was no point in lingering on its history.
I moved.
Tentacles whipped outward, lashing, spiraling, coiling into each other like serpents until they folded into a grotesque approximation of a hand.
A tentacle-hand.
A fish with a tentacle hand.
Was quite disturbing even before.
But it was effective.
It was the best way to break this cursed mural.
I struck.
Crack.
Sparks burst across the surface.
Again.
Crack.
Again.
Crack.
My strikes blurred together, a flurry of blows ringing through the watery depths like underwater war drums.
Each impact heavier.
Each strike faster.
The pressure built.
The stone resisted.
But cracks webbed outward, fracturing across the hundred-meter mural.
A grin split across my face.
My tentacles bled from the strain, but I didn't stop.
Couldn't.
This mural was harder than the others.
Why?
I didn't care.
It would break.
AND IT SHALL BREAK!
The final blow detonated across the stone.
BOOM.
The mural exploded into fragments, cascading into the abyss like shattered stars.
And this time, the portal wasn't in the water.
But it hung above it.
And gathered below it.
Countless monsters.
Surrounding the ocean.
Claws ready.
Eyes gleaming.
Muscles coiled.
Waiting.
Then came the flash of light.
And I saw them.
Lord-Class.
No, multiple.
All humanoid.
All mermaids.
Tridents drawn.
Their silhouettes radiant, their forms lethal.
The mural shards never touched the water.
Their tridents struck, obliterating the debris midair, slicing them to dust.
Then my gaze locked on the one seated above them all.
On a throne carved of black coral and rimmed with obsidian barnacles…
The Overseer.
Was a queen.
But it didn't matter.
She lounged arrogantly, as if the abyss itself bent around her.
Her eyes glowed with a soft pink light, calm, cold… deadly.
Danger rolled off her like waves, crushing, invisible, electric against my shell.
My smirk sharpened.
My tentacles twisted and shifted, exoskeleton groaning, muscles expanding then compressing, as it shifted into a claw.
I raised it high above my head.
And then I pointed downward.
I didn't speak.
I didn't need to.
My thoughts echoed like a commandment across the link.
"Take care of the lesser beasts. I will deal with these fools."
My creations saluted as one.
Their tentacles gleamed with venomous hunger as they leapt toward the portal like soldiers charging into war.
I laughed, a low, rippling sound that rattled the stillness.
My gaze fixed on her.
The Overseer.
And I wondered…
How delicious are you?
I've never devoured a humanoid woman before.
And more than that, this would be my first mermaid.
Her guards tensed as my hunger rippled out.
Their tridents rose.
Their stances sharpened.
They knew.
They felt it.
But the Overseer… didn't flinch.
She looked at me with disdain.
And then, behind her, magic circles flared to life.
They spun like constellations.
Arcane glyphs twisted in fluid motion.
The water around her condensed, pulled and spiraled into a tight, gleaming sphere in her palm.
Dense enough to crack steel.
Heavy enough to crush a reef.
My instincts screamed.
MOVE.
Before the thought even registered, my body blurred.
Blur-Lance Execution Drive.
And I vanished into a blur.