Chapter 35: | Abandoned
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So I was abandoned?
Hahaha… was this truly my fate?
To be forsaken again… and again?
A chuckle escaped my throat, low, jagged, and maddened.
I couldn't stop myself.
I had done everything to protect Liora, shaped my path around her safety… and what did she do?
She sacrificed her essence, something I never even wanted, all so she could flee.
Run toward her ambition, away from me.
Predictable.
So predictably you, Liora.
Did you wait for the perfect moment?
For me to be wounded, for my guard to drop, before you turned away and left me in the dark?
Alone… again.
Haaah… how futile these so-called bonds of family truly are.
I should never have trusted her.
Never have offered affection.
I should have used her, as I originally intended.
A pawn, nothing more.
Not someone to cherish.
But regrets are like spilled blood in the tide… staining everything, yet impossible to recover.
Still, I suppose I owe her a debt.
A small one.
Without her help, would I have lived to see another day?
No matter.
Time to move forward.
My compound eyes scanned the cavern, its moss-lit expanse flickering with bioluminescent gloom.
The massive stone gate ahead, once sealed tight and engraved with ancient murals, now lay broken.
Shattered.
So… the Kraken came through here.
Months before me, perhaps.
I stepped forward, the shattered gate crunching beneath my feet as I entered the gaping threshold and descended into the dungeon's depths.
The walls whispered stories.
Carvings spiraled around me, etched in forgotten runes and barnacled stone, depicting scenes of adoration and fear.
A sea dragon, titanic and revered, bowed to by the masses, worshipped like a god of the deep.
And then I saw it.
A portal.
Its presence wasn't just visible, it was felt.
It throbbed against the skin like a heartbeat.
My instincts screamed, but I stepped through without hesitation.
My insides twisted.
The world bent.
Gravity unraveled as my body spun within an unseen current, tumbling through space and depth until, at last, my limbs steadied and equilibrium returned.
Then I saw it.
A vast, alien expanse stretched before me.
Endless fields of jade-colored grass shimmered under shifting light, dancing like terrestrial blades, eerily familiar, yet impossibly submerged.
Creatures blurred across the distance, colliding in chaos.
Their roars and shrieks tore through the stillness.
The battlefield was thick with the scent of blood and ozone.
Six presences.
My senses flared, Lord-class auras, each pulsing with dominance and pride.
Their strengths varied, from lower to higher Lords… and they had encircled me.
Interesting.
My gaze locked onto them, calculating, amused.
Two eels, coiled and crackling with volatile charge.
A crab whose claws gleamed like jagged steel.
A grouper with monstrous jaws.
A swordfish radiating cutting pressure.
And a turtle with a shell as dark as obsidian armor.
Bwahaha…
They looked so serious.
So eager to test themselves.
They didn't know fear.
Adorable.
My maw opened wide, and from its depths I unleashed a roar that shook the realm.
A low, seismic bellow rolled across the landscape, sending tremors through grass and stone alike.
The very currents of this world quivered.
The Lords around me tensed, reacting instinctively to the presence of a predator that did not flinch.
Then pain struck.
Countless lightning projectiles rained down on me, pelting my carapace in an electric barrage.
Each impact seared my nerves, but before I could recover, the crab lunged, its jagged claw driving straight toward my gills.
My tendrils whipped forward, intercepting the attack, only for a sharper pain to rip through me.
The swordfish.
It cleaved clean through the tentacles intercepting the crab's strike, its blade-like snout flashing with terrifying ease.
And then, more agony.
My fins screamed in pain as the grouper and turtle tore into them with monstrous hunger.
I could feel their serrated teeth grinding through cartilage and scale.
Interesting…
Their coordination.
Their precision.
These six weren't just mindless beasts, they were strategists.
Their teamwork rivaled that of elite raiding parties.
Pain surged across my entire body, sparks of anguish flickering like stars across a black sea.
My shell flushed crimson.
Blooming Wrath.
A sharp ripple coursed through my veins as the rage took root.
My compound eyes flared wide, tracking every movement, every twitch of muscle, every vibration in the water.
Then, I moved.
My tendrils lashed out in a blur, invisible to most.
A spray of blood burst into the water as I tore into the grouper.
Its gills, were shredded.
The beast flailed, still alive, but it wouldn't last.
It thrashed, desperate, but I drove my tendrils deeper, puncturing deeper, until...
A sharp flash.
My vision flickered.
Pain ignited along one of my tentacles, a blinding white line bisecting its length.
Then, rupture.
Blood exploded in the water as the limb was severed completely.
The swordfish again.
Its precision was near-perfect.
My senses hadn't even registered the strike before the damage was done.
Then, another.
The crab's claws drove deep into my left gills, slicing my flesh with brutal intent.
I howled, a sound as more monstrous this time, echoing through the currents.
Lightning again.
Dozens of spears of it lanced across my back, searing through my armor.
Then, disappearance.
The swordfish flickered from view for a second, only to reappear as dozens of thin white lines encased my remaining tentacles.
And then they ruptured.
A fountain of blood erupted around me as each one exploded in violent bloom.
I chuckled.
Despite the pain.
Despite the carnage.
Impressive.
Truly impressive.
To have disarmed me of every weapon… To coordinate so flawlessly…
I commend your strength.
But it is futile.
I let my fury take shape.
A remaining tendril coiled tight beneath my belly, then exploded upward, driving through my own cracked exoskeleton as it launched like a harpoon.
It struck true.
The tip punched through the grouper's already-wounded gills and drove into its brain.
The beast convulsed once, then went still, its blood staining the water in plumes.
One down.
Five to go.
The swordfish, now enraged, vanished from sight again.
I waited.
Mouth wide.
Still.
Patient.
And then, the timing was perfect, I snapped my maw shut.
Crunch.
Bone shattered.
Flesh tore.
The entire body of the swordfish was caught between my jaws and crushed with a sickening finality.
Another fallen.
The crab, now alone in its proximity, froze.
I turned my gaze toward it.
My vision, burning red with wrath.
The crab staggered.
Shock.
Fear.
Realization.
It was next.
Then, from torn flesh and shattered shell, more tentacles sprouted.
They tore through the cracks in my own exoskeleton, blooming outward like grotesque vines.
With coordinated precision, I launched them in a relentless flurry toward the crab.
Its carapace was dense, tough, like forged coral, but even steel wears down under a thousand strikes.
And I gave it hundreds.
Strike after strike rained down.
My tendrils blurred, whistling as they battered the crab from every angle.
Eventually, the cracks came, thin lines at first, then sprawling spiderwebs across its once-pristine shell.
It raised its claws to defend, trembling.
But with one decisive sweep, I cleaved both pincers from its body.
It staggered.
Its legs buckled.
My tendrils twisted and coiled, intertwining into a massive, whirling drill.
Crunch.
The sound echoed through the cavern.
I drove the drill into the crab's body, boring deep, pulping muscle and marrow until its shell imploded under the pressure.
It spasmed once, and then stilled.
Dead.
The eels responded with fury.
A twin barrage, lightning-laced.
One eel launched relentless projectiles while the other vanished into the depths, flickering in and out of sight like a phantom.
Afterimages surrounded me.
Then, bright blue lines bloomed across my flesh.
Pain followed.
My tendrils moved too late to block the barrage.
But not too late to retaliate.
I lashed out.
A wet sound, a series of slashes cutting through the water.
Then silence.
The flickering eel's body fell in pieces, its segments drifting away like writhing ribbons.
But the remaining one wasn't done.
The blue lines across my body ruptured, exploding in small bursts.
I howled.
Lances of lightning descended onto me as blue dots glowed like cursed sigils across my form, each one marking a detonation point.
They bursted, violently.
But it was useless.
My body shimmered.
Absorbing the brunt of the energy, siphoning it.
Turning it.
Redirecting it.
My horns pulsed with charged light.
Then, release.
A streak of blue lightning tore through the darkness.
The eel froze.
Its gaze drifted downward, its eyes wide with dread.
A gaping hole had been punched through its abdomen.
And then, the rest followed.
The lingering lightning inside my target detonated.
The eel exploded, its body torn apart from the inside.
Chunks of flesh rained around me, joining the rest of the scattered corpses.
Only one remained.
The turtle.
It backed away, too slow.
My tendrils coiled around its shell, anchoring deep into the grooves.
Pressure built.
My body flushed crimson, Blooming Wrath reactivated, pumping rage through every fiber of my being.
I squeezed.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the turtle's shell.
Blood leaked from its jaws.
Its eyes bulged, then popped, under the crushing force.
Then.
Crack.
Its shell collapsed.
I opened my maw and devoured it whole, bones crunching between my teeth.
I didn't stop.
I drifted across the battlefield, slowly consuming the remains of every fallen lord.
Minutes passed.
Only silence and drifting blood remained.
Then, a flicker.
A hologram appeared.
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[You have slain.]
• A Stage 1 Tier 6 Level 2 [★★★★ Gloomlash Reaver Eel.]
• A Stage 1 Tier 5 Level 13 [★★★★ Rift-Shell Burrowcrab.]
• A Stage 1 Tier 5 Level 23 [★★★★ Voltscale Ribbon-Eel.]
• A Stage 1 Tier 6 Level 13 [★★★★ Tanglejaw Reefgrouper.]
• A Stage 1 Tier 7 Level 24 [★★★★ Coralblade Swordfish.]
• A Stage 1 Tier 3 Level 11 [★★★★ Dreadback Marsh-Turtle.]
[You have successfully devoured various monsters.]
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[New Skills Acquired:]
• Arcing Burst Dash
• Bloom Burst Gasp
• Bloom-Fed Chitin Veins
• Bloomlight Streaking Veins
• Bloomstone Shell Dome
• Bloompierce Dash
• Hydraulic Limb Piston
• Jawlock Slam
• Kinetic Anchor Fins
• Micro-Vibration Sensors
• Reactive Shell Moss
• Rift-Shell Layering
• Shock-Mass Skull
• Silt Inhalation Gills
• Snapjaw Clamphold
• Static Bloom Veil
• Tanglejaw Structure
• Thrash Reflex Nerves
• Transparent Organ Array
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[Your grotesque physique would like to devour.]
• Arcing Burst Dash
• Bloom Burst Gasp
• Bloom-Fed Chitin Veins
• Bloomlight Streaking Veins
• Bloomstone Shell Dome
• Bloompierce Dash
• Hydraulic Limb Piston
• Jawlock Slam
• Kinetic Anchor Fins
• Micro-Vibration Sensors
• Reactive Shell Moss
• Rift-Shell Layering
• Shock-Mass Skull
• Silt Inhalation Gills
• Snapjaw Clamphold
• Static Bloom Veil
• Tanglejaw Structure
• Thrash Reflex Nerves
• Transparent Organ Array
[Yes] / [No]
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