Chapter 48: | Coward?
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Hours ago, after finally calming myself down, I plunged into the ocean's depths.
My compound eyes flicked and flared, scanning the mountain-ringed seabed for signs of ambush, any hidden beast lurking just beyond the ridgelines, coiled in the dark.
I found nothing.
Yet my thoughts couldn't let go of that earlier failure.
Ashin Sae Acoustine's skills… they were more refined than I'd realized.
Enough to render my devouring useless.
A complete failure.
And that final battle, something about it was wrong.
It wasn't just that my body was seized, overtaken.
It was what came after.
My mana hadn't been drained, it had been replaced.
By omething darker, something older, surged through me.
Primal and cold.
It didn't just fill the void, it became my power.
My limbs moved like they weren't mine.
But the strength… the strength was real.
And I want it.
No, I need it.
Whatever that power was, it elevated me far beyond what this current form should allow.
I felt like a god cracking the shell of a world.
I want that sensation again.
I want it so I can erase everything that dares to stand in my way.
Still… something doesn't add up.
Ashin Sae wasn't the floor's Overseer.
I gained no level, no system response.
If I'm right, the true boss still awaits, nearby.
My gaze shifted toward a hulking brute a few hundred meters ahead.
It hovered in the water like a bloated nightmare, vaguely shaped like a grouper, but far more monstrous.
I could feel it before I saw it, its muscle density screamed of an orc champion, taut and unnaturally compacted.
Its body was wrapped in thick exoskeletal plating, layered like the ancient armor of a Dunkleosteus.
I let out a low hiss.
Killing it in this state should be easy.
Bloomcore Leviathan.
Bloomcrown Cataclysm Form.
Imperial Bloomcore Reign.
My already activated transformation skills, adjusted my body on all of its mutation.
Lighter.
Sharper.
Every limb humming with overpressure and intent.
The sea itself recoiled around me.
Blur-Lance Execution Drive.
My body blurred.
When I reappeared, I was directly in front of it, face to face.
Our eyes met.
I opened my Maw wide and roared, a bellow that trembled the depths.
The grouper instinctively reacted, lunging forward with a massive ram.
Its own Maw crashed against mine in a brutal headbutt, but it was far too slow.
My newly regenerated tentacles were already in motion.
They pierced through its skull like spears.
Its brain split apart before the beast even knew it had lost.
The moment its jaw slackened, a hologram flickered into view.
I ignored it.
One of my stingers curled and split open, gulping the corpse in one smooth movement.
I didn't even glance.
My attention had shifted to something else.
Beneath my body, embedded in stone, a vast mural spread across the floor.
I didn't bother reading the whole scene, but the craftsmanship was deliberate.
Ancient.
My tentacles writhed and curled, gathering together until they formed a massive serpentine fist.
I slammed it down.
One strike, cracks bloomed.
Second, sparks lit the water.
Third and fourth, fractures screamed through the stone.
On the fifth punch, the seal broke.
A portal surged open.
Pale light and pressure rippled outward, and then it emerged.
A humanoid figure drifted upward from the opening.
Fish-like in shape, elegant in posture.
Its eyes were shut, but even in slumber, it radiated pressure.
That aura... it wasn't just strength.
It was history.
For a moment, my gaze flicked to the hologram again.
As I nodded with approval
---
[You have slain the Overseer of this floor.]
• [Abyssal Orc-Grouper 5★]
[Flawless victory achieved.]
[You have gained 10 levels.]
[Access to the next floor unlocked.]
---
[You have successfully devoured]
• [Abyssal Orc-Grouper]
---
[New Skills Acquired:]
• Abyss-Plated Heart
• Orc-Metal Density
• Prehistoric Armor Hide
---
[Your grotesque physique would like to devour]
• Abyss-Plated Heart
• Orc-Metal Density
• Prehistoric Armor Hide
[Would you allow it]
[Yes] / [No]
---
Grotesque Physique absorbed the enemy's skills in silence.
The hologram flickered once, then vanished with a ripple of my tentacles.
Beneath me, the beast slept soundly, blissfully unaware of its doom.
My tendrils writhed and coiled, folding into a pair of knotted fists.
A grin stretched across my face.
Blur-Lance Execution Drive.
I vanished.
And in the blink of that breathless instant, I reappeared before the sleeping beast, fist already mid-swing.
The current tore apart like snapped sinew.
Impact.
A barrage erupted, my fists hammering down in a blur.
The seabed convulsed.
Cracks spidered across the ancient murals below.
Dust rose in a lazy bloom, drifting like ash through the water.
I retracted my arm and stared down, certain of my kill.
But.
The beast yawned.
Yawned.
It had blocked every strike, effortlessly.
How?
How could it endure those hits?
It opened its eyes.
Its spiral maw flexed.
Words spilled out in a low, amused drawl.
"Oh… a Whark? That's odd. I don't remember Wharks having tentacle fists. Has a new Emperor risen? That would explain the upgrades…"
Before I could process the insult, its fist blurred, disappeared, and reappeared against my chestplate.
Impact.
Pain bloomed like fire beneath my shell.
My insides trembled.
That humanoid bastard's punch... it hurt.
But I hadn't even begun to go all out.
I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes, delving inward.
Shards of memory swirled, fists, forms, killing arts learned and borned after countless battles.
Then came his voice, like a knife through the current.
"Arrogant, aren't you? Closing your eyes before me?"
He clenched his fist.
The water shivered.
Then he struck.
A single punch split the current and shattered my exoskeleton.
Sediments and bones alike scattered like shrapnel.
I smiled an impressive firepower.
Fine.
Let's see how you handle this.
Kung Barrage!
My fists vanished into motion, blurring into a storm of strikes that rattled the water itself.
He blocked them.
Barely.
His arms shook under the weight of the blows.
Tough bastard.
But let's raise the stakes.
My eyes flared, spilling killing intent.
Spores hissed from my gills, drifting into the water like venomous pollen.
My hand twisted, claws unfurling like blades.
I slashed.
The mural behind him tore apart, gouged by a single swipe.
The claw had nearly ripped the entire seabed in half.
His eyes widened as crimson cuts opened across his forearms, deep, ragged, raw.
"You... damned cowardly Whark! Using poison in a sacred duel?! You're no warrior!"
But the spores had already taken root.
His words slurred, then vanished, as the hallucinations dragged him down into dream.
I bared my teeth, fury surging behind my stillness.
Cowardly...?
Then let me show you how a coward fights.
My veins surged with adrenaline.
Muscles bulged.
My claw darkened, twisted, became something wicked.
And in a single breath.
I vanished.
Reappeared.
Slashed.
Thin red lines carved across his flesh, then bloomed.
Blood erupted in a graceful arc, spinning through the deep like a dying comet.
This was no ordinary strike.
It was a killing art I'd inherited from a savage long ago in the north.
Technique name: Kal Savagery.
Form: Savage Claw Decapitation.
The shark-man went still.
His body spasmed, then crumpled, life draining in silence.
A fresh hologram shimmered into being before me.
My tentacles slowly uncoiled, devouring his remains one nutrient at a time.
I gazed at my rewards.
And smiled.
---
[You have slain the Overseer of this floor]
• [Abyssal Shark Imperator 5★]
[Flawless Victory achieved.]
[You have gained 10 levels.]
[Access to the next floor unlocked.]
---
[You have successfully devoured]
• [Abyssal Shark Imperator 5★]
---
[New Skills Acquired:]
• Ancestral Combat Wisdom
• Hydraulic Reinforcement System
• Tidal Bone Density
---
[Your grotesque physique would like to devour]
• Ancestral Combat Wisdom
• Hydraulic Reinforcement System
• Tidal Bone Density
[Would you allow it]
[Yes] / [No]
---
I let the grotesque physique feed in silence.
The flickering hologram dissolved before me, its grandeur already obsolete.
My gaze dropped to the mural-carved floor, once divine, now fractured beyond recognition.
Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface like veins of a great tree through the marble.
The damage that I did to the floor, had made it worse for me to decipher the mural.
But perhaps what the mural depicted is nothing of importance.
A single slam of my tentacles shattered the weakened stone.
The floor collapsed with a hollow boom, the sound echoing down the abyss.
Below waited the ninth floor.
I hovered above the breach, the silence stretching, breathless.
Who would I face this time?
Another King-Class predator?
Or something worse?
I hope so.
In this form, I would relish the challenge.
My body blurred into motion, cleaving through the abyssal waters like a scythe.
As I entered the ninth floor the pressure rippled across my shell as I carved through the depths.
Towering mountain peaks rose ahead, jagged and ancient, their shadows yawning across the ocean floor.
They stood like the fossilized ribs of something too large to bury, silent, eternal.
But predators stirred beneath them.
Lurking shapes slithered at the base, patient and poised to strike at any creature foolish enough to lower their guard.
My gaze locked onto the peaks, scanning every crevice, every distortion in the current, probing for hidden relics or dormant threats.
There were none.
Only stone and silence.
My compound eyes widened, catching movement below.
A knot of Stage 1 monsters, four of them, locked in a desperate, primal brawl.
Fangs tore, carapaces cracked, blood coiled through the water like ink.
A strange ache settled in my core.
I missed those days.
The chaotic joy of combat without purpose, without stakes.
Just rage, instinct, survival.
I could still hear the clatter of my siblings' maw against my flesh, the shared hunger in our brawls.
And Liora… her laughter as she pretended to be a wise ancestress of mine, the gleam in her eyes right before she laughed innocently.
Those days are gone.
It was my recklessness and carelessness that took them.
And me.
There is no return from this depth, not in body, not in soul.
My tendrils lashed out on instinct, bisecting anything that dared drift into my path.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
I didn't stop to watch them die.
The base of the mountain awaited.
It wasn't just stone, it was a wound in the world, ancient and bleeding.
A hollow chasm yawned at its center, pulsing faintly with something unseen, something that watched back.