Chapter 906 - Blood red skeleton

POV Cerulean Parlor

The doors open as multiple figures rush in, with each one of them offering a very polite greeting before entering.

"Blessings upon you, Lady Kindness, Lady Lust. It is an honor to stand before your divine presence once again."

"I bow before the grace of Lady Kindness and the majesty of Lady Lust.”

“I bow to your presence, the Ruler of Kindness and the Ruler of Lust.”

“Sup.”

"My heart to the Lady of Grace, my soul to the Empress of Desire!"

"M-My Ladies! Lady Kindness, your mercy! Lady Lust, your... your overwhelming presence! P-please accept my humble arrival!"

"Greetings, Lady Kindness. Greetings, Lady Lust."

"Lady Kindness, Lady Lust, it is always a true privilege to be in your presence."

More and more members of the parlor rush in. Some of them show clear fear at the presence of the two Rulers, others show deep respect, and some show straight-up fanatical admiration.

Thanks to receiving messages from the members of the parlor already present, they are aware of the things happening on the screen and, after their greetings, rush to their usual spots.

The last time that many members had gathered was when Nyssa Volare alone challenged the Champion on the 5th floor for the first time. Yet now, it seems there are even more people, with the doors opening as more and more enter.

New bets are flung all over again, and questions are asked. They learn of the bet of about 100 million by the Ruler of Greed, and an anonymous bet of 1 shard. Some are unfamiliar with the human on the screen, so they ask questions about the man.

Any of the people present could, in a mere moment, deal with all of the Champions currently on the 5th floor. Cerulean Parlor accepts only people at the level of Absolute and higher.

They note how many times the man almost died, yet moves almost casually afterward, unshaken by the fact. Some notice the lucky coincidences that save his life without him even noticing, while others notice how he thrives in all of this mess.

A few still snort and laugh at the man, finding his powers so weak in comparison to theirs. They can see what has been done to his body, and most of the parlor views him as a fleeting curiosity. He is someone who will disappear in a few years, dying off because he gambled too much, set his margins of error too tight. He is the same as many, many before him, as much as he might glow brighter for the duration of his short life.

Yet no matter if they praise him, insult him, or see him as weak, no one is able to take their eyes off the screen.

POV Nathaniel Gwyn

The hydra is nowhere to be seen, and instead, a storm is pushing against me.

I raise my hand in front of me and increase my kinetic output to push against the wind.

It is dark, the wind roars, I am rained on, and the clouds continue to cover the sky. The storm itself fills the entirety of the crater left after Regalia's explosion, and I pull the ambient mana and remains of the explosion into my spinning halo as I take a step forward.

My detection bounces into the area like sonar, and blue lightning begins to crack between the clouds.

It doesn't take me long to realize that I can feel the hydra's presence in the entirety of the storm, as if the storm itself is the hydra. And it currently spreads further and further, already way beyond the size the biggest city on Earth would have and soon to reach the extent of a country.

When the rain comes down, I quickly realize it is red and toxic. It falls against my defensive layers, dyeing me in a red color and sizzling up into the air. The wind picks up more, and I lean toward it as it threatens to blow me away.

I sense the attacks gathering all around me, but I do realize that the hydra doesn't have eyes in this state. I feel these senses sliding against me and through the area. So I replicate my presence, and that way send multiple duplicates all around, each of them perfectly mimicking my current mana signature.

After placing them, a flying tree uprooted by the storm crashes and breaks against me, an entire pulled-out river mixes with the red rain, and from the dark clouds, two red lasers begin to shoot down, cutting through my fakes. A heavy lightning barrage joins in, vibrant against the red rain and dark sky.

My projectile shoots toward where the lasers are coming from, but it just passes through without hitting anything at all.

The attacks rain down on my fakes, destroying the already heavily damaged area further as the wind sands down entire mountain ranges and uproots forests of trees bigger and taller than my Regalia was.

Still attuned to the area, I sense that immense kinetic energy gathered as the air itself shakes.

The falcon is slower than previously, but still moving at an incredible speed. It pierces through the entirety of the storm, drilling a wide circular hole that lets in light and passes through one of my presences.

Even as it flies past, noticing its target is just a fake, its golden eyes twist and lock straight at me as I watch it pass by in my thought acceleration.

The falcon then disappears through the other side of the storm, and only then do ten or so subsequent hypersonic booms follow.

The structure of the skill array I made is prepared, and I hold the Zweihander in my hand and stab it deep into the ground. The sword leaves a deep ring, and white and golden light flashes inside, momentarily lighting up what feels like the entirety of the storm.

From the handle, the sword starts unwinding into long threads that get pulled through the wind and into the storm. Miles and miles of thin, near invisible, and near impossible to destroy threads.

[Manifestation - lvl 69 > Manifestation - lvl 70]

I then boost myself through the air, just as the falcon passes by, once again piercing the storm with a circular window that soon closes back up.

Before leaving, I look back at the sword as it unravels. Countless micro-threads, so fine they are almost invisible, peel away from the handle and catch in the storm. They turn the dense, woven blade into a beautiful, drifting stream of pale blue, gold, and white silk.

I hear the sonic booms from the previous attack and teleport away before the falcon can get to me.

Once outside of the storm, the cold hits me again, and I look back at this monstrosity filled with blue lightning and the hydra's blood. It stretches so wide that the scale is difficult to even properly take in.

[Selective Adaptation - lvl 51 > Selective Adaptation - lvl 52]

Testingly, I step on the thick layer of ice and then look into the distance, needing to tilt my head way high up. There is a humanoid golden golem that is many times taller than my Regalia was. That golem is pierced by multiple ice crystals growing from the ground. It moves and twists, struggling to get out while the ice grows all over it from where the crystals are piercing it.

Once again, I boost myself and begin to run, slipping a few times on the ice. I sense those kinetic waves and, in the last moment, move to the side. The shockwave of the falcon passing by throws me spiraling, almost falling.

I cover my feet in mana, and from the bottom of them, I make sharp blades that cut into the ice so my drag decreases. Sonic booms catch up to the previous falcon's pass, and I boost myself a few times, leaving some booms of my own.

My speed increases as I ice skate across an area the size of a smaller country covered in a thick layer of ice. I lower myself a bit and take a deep breath as the air presses against me due to the speed, and I continue to add to it, accelerating further and further.

On my side, I catch a movement and jump into the air, and the falcon passes under me. I feel the air in my face and wave my hands clumsily to keep my balance in the turbulence as I fall back to the ice. My speed picks up again, and the falcon's and my sonic booms mix.

After a wide turn, the monster catches up to me. I can sense it right behind me. I look back, watching as it keeps its wings nearly folded, the air smoothly passing around it, changing its direction of flight just by making minimal changes to the way its wings are angled, sometimes just a few feathers. I notice there are barely healed wounds, as well as weakness.

My defensive layer of mana pushes slightly ahead of me, changing and molding as I let the air pass around and by it. I create a narrow point in front of me, and the drag dramatically decreases.

Just as the falcon begins to almost catch up to me, I sling around one of the craters, heading back toward the giant golem pierced by ice crystals.

The falcon moves incredibly elegantly, catching up to me during that change of direction. I watch its claws open and stretch ahead, touching and scratching against my defensive layer.

Then I lower myself almost to the point of kneeling and absorb all of my momentum. Just that seemingly simple maneuver requires incredible attention so my brain doesn't explode inside of my skull, so my body doesn't evaporate under the immense force.

Spinning in the air and even then keeping me locked in its vision as it misses, the falcon passes by, and I focus once again, boosting myself with the same amount of kinetic force I just absorbed.

The ice under me ripples like waves, the area behind explodes, and I launch with the same speed I had previously. I pass by the falcon, which begins to turn to reach up toward me.

The Empyrean Ichor inside of my body surges, and white and golden light sparks up, following the pointy defensive layer in front of me. The snow on my side turns to a blur, stretching into lines, and my field of vision narrows to a single thin point. The thought acceleration damages one of the subminds to the point I cycle it up and swap it for another one. My Preeminence eyes burn as I continue to observe everything.

My unraveling sword in the distance, the hydra's storm, attuning to the changes in the air to track the falcon, the halo spinning over my head, my defensive layers, body reinforcement, all these kinetic forces I am dealing with, and my connection to my fragment.

With all that gathered speed, I reach the ongoing fight and slam toward where the thylarin stands.

Just getting near him, his cold begins to freeze even the dense layer of mana in front of me, tempered by all the pressure and strengthened by me. But it is enough. Half of it breaks into ice particles, but the other half crashes against the thylarin Champion with the full impact of my momentum.

A massive shockwave ripples outward from the point of impact, tearing the ice apart. Both the thylarin and I are thrown rolling across the frozen landscape, leaving the golem and falcon behind.

My body crashes against his, and he crashes against mine, with just ice holding his caved in and near exploded chest together. Even now, after all the damage he took, my attack wasn't enough to kill him instantly.

Still, he is dying.

I let his attack hit my defensive layer to get closer, and the ice begins to break through and get to my body. But my blood sparks once again, and with my fingers closed into a flesh and bone blade, I stab through his eye and toward his brain.

My fingers break, but I allow an immense amount of my mana output to explode and bounce inside of his skull.

Yet, that mana gets frozen inside the immense cold of the thylarin’s body.

[Selective Adaptation - lvl 52 > Selective Adaptation - lvl 53]

[Selective Adaptation - lvl 53 > Selective Adaptation - lvl 54]

[Selective Adaptation - lvl 54 > Selective Adaptation - lvl 55]

While the frost begins to cover me and fighting against the output of my Ignition Heart, that man keeps slamming his fist against the layer on my face.

I channel and release multiple blasts in quick succession inside of his skull. Each of them would be enough to obliterate a mountain or two, yet they keep getting frozen again and again.

My effort picks up as I sense the falcon coming close once again.

[Attunement - lvl 29 > Attunement - lvl 30]

Even then, it is not enough.

So, my eyes narrow, and all my effort combines. My defensive layers disappear, along with everything else I have been keeping in mind. The entirety of me goes into channeling mana. The sheer force of it twists and breaks through my body, and my hand explodes as I throw it all inside of his head.

[Redistribution - lvl 84 > Redistribution - lvl 85]

It bounces wildly inside, his face swells, and his skull explodes from the inside, causing the shrapnels to cut through me.

A notification about a kill pops up, and a countdown of one second given to myself starts.

The dead thylarin's fist slides down off my face, and the ice on my body breaks down, taking all the skin and muscle with it.

My ichor remains as I hold onto it, standing there as just a skeleton with inner organs, while the blood I pull on covers all of my bones as it clings to me, turning them from white to red.

I move my eyes inside of my skull and feel my organs fall out now that nothing holds them in place.

Without the thylarin's domain, mine replaces it. The domain comes from my Fragment of the Nameless Tree that now towers high up in the distance.

All kinetic movement in the area halts at once. The snow, all the thousands of golems, the wind.

And the falcon.

It stops just a few steps in front of me with its claws outstretched.

There are not many shapes I have as much experience manifesting as an orb, so I create one, weaving it out of threads and tempering it with a tiny bit of that immense amount of kinetic energy.

Then I shoot it ahead, channeling, redistributing, and using all the kinetic energy absorbed by the tree to launch it.

[Redistribution - lvl 85 > Redistribution - lvl 86]

It stabs through the eye of the falcon, passing through in a mere moment, and then that shockwave follows, nearly exploding the monster in its entirety.

A notification dings.

My organs haven't even fallen off me fully as I teleport again toward where my Zweihander is. The storm that was surrounding it is gone, and instead of it, to the side, lies the hydra, just a tenth of the size it was at the start, entirely covered in my threads and unable to move as they cut into it.

One more time, all my minds snap into one as I redistribute all I have, strengthening these threads and pulling them together.

An attack of two red lasers shoots at me in last ditch effort, moving so slowly as the one second I had stretches to an incredible length. It is one of the fastest attacks I've seen, yet it moves so slowly through the air as the threads begin to cut into the weakened hydra.

Even then, I know I won't make it in time as I begin to move and tilt. One of the lasers will hit my head. My mind is fast enough to perceive it, but the rest of me can’t keep up.

I'm not in a state to avoid the lasers, so as that second comes to an end, dozens of ideas flash in my mind. Teleportation away, kinetic energy, disruption, deflection. I take the properties of the lasers into consideration, my state, and the speed at which I can do any of these, yet nothing is fast enough.

The laser is almost in front of me when I get an idea, and I activate all I need. Then the laser stabs into my skull, easily piercing through it, through my head, and then out of the back of it.

At that moment, the hydra gets cut apart entirely into small pieces. It almost begins to regenerate, but the orb I used to kill the falcon passes through the cubed up pieces along with the shockwave, which entirely destroys everything else.

And this time, a notification dings.

Time returns to normal, and I use kinetic energy to move, pulling on my hands and lifting them up to catch something.

I almost don't want to look down, and there is no sense in even turning my head down, as I can't see currently. I couldn't teleport my whole body fast enough, but I managed to teleport a smaller part of myself.

Forcing myself to stop thinking about it, I teleport my brain and spinal cord back where they belong, and for the first time, I use the healing marks from Lily. All of them.

Over my red skeleton, my flesh and skin grow again, complete with circuits that will take longer to restore properly, and blood that will take longer to redirect.

My vision snaps back into place, and I look around, taking a step, but I fall to my knees, only to quickly stand back up. Then I fall once more, and only then do I realize how weak I feel. My legs, my hands, my entire body, all of it is shaking.

I feel like throwing up, and I do, only coughing up pieces of my body and some blood.

A wave of panic washes over me as I feel fear of what could be. My mind races as I am already replaying everything.

I forcefully calm my breathing, taking one breath after another as I absorb the still, cold air. I reach up and touch my head where the laser pierced through, and then I stand up, this time properly.

One after another, my subminds snap back into place, defensive layers surround me, and I attune to my area. My senses start shooting around, and after sending a signal, the fragment of my tree shoots from the distance and snaps back onto the back of my left hand.

The tree holds together for a moment, then begins to crumble and fall as the golems move closer.

I claim the three keys, turn around, and leave to find the portal back to the 4th floor.