Chapter 252 : Chapter 252
Chapter 252. The Smell of Sulfur
Yet the expected scene of scorching and burning never appeared.
“Gulp.”
Not only did the Devourer fail to dodge, the slit on the face covered in compound eyes—previously sealed shut—suddenly split open wide, revealing a bottomless, giant maw lined with barbs. Facing that pillar of flame hot enough to melt steel, it actually sucked in sharply as though slurping noodles!
Hiss—!
The fire filling the sky was forcibly twisted and compressed by a strange violet-black vortex the instant it neared the creature’s mouth, then swallowed whole into its belly.
A red glow briefly lit up its abdomen. Then it let out a satisfied belch. Several of the tentacles Karlsas had severed began regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye after devouring that vast mass of energy. They even grew back thicker than before, their surfaces now covered in crimson patterns like flowing magma.
“What?!” Karlsas’s eyes widened violently.
“ROAR—!!”
Having tasted the benefits, the Devourer let out an excited howl. The four tentacles behind it lashed wildly through the air, now carrying the searing flames it had just swallowed as they whipped back toward Karlsas!
“Interesting.”
Logaris raised one hand and pointed beside Karlsas.
【Spatial Barrier · Refraction】
Bang!
Logaris pushed up his glasses. He did not rush to counterattack. Instead, he stared fixedly at the strange fluctuation that had flashed through the monster’s abdomen.
“Something’s wrong.”
Logaris murmured to himself and flicked out a probing arcane missile from his fingertip.
The sixth-tier magical beast did not dodge at all. The giant mouth on its face snapped open, swallowing the missile and even the surrounding air like a bottomless pit.
There was not even the sound of an explosion. That violent mass of magic power vanished without a trace, like a stone dropped into the sea.
Immediately afterward, the wounds Karlsas had carved into the monster’s body began healing once more at a speed visible to the naked eye.
“Interesting...” Logaris narrowed his eyes behind his lenses, his mind racing. “The energy it devours far exceeds what it needs to repair its body. Where is the surplus going? There’s no thermal radiation, no Mana overflow...”
Unless its stomach did not exist in this dimension at all.
“Old General, can you still move?” Logaris asked abruptly.
“What kind of stupid question is that? As long as I’m not dead, I can still swing a blade!” Karlsas braced himself on his greatsword. Though he was breathing like a bellows, the fighting spirit in his eyes had not diminished in the slightest.
“Good. I suspect its ‘stomach’ is connected to a half-formed subspace. That is both its source of energy and its weakness.”
Logaris analyzed the situation calmly. “I need to sever that connection, but first I need to capture the coordinates of the instant the spatial passage opens.”
He turned to look at Karlsas.
“Feed it something big. The bigger, the better.”
Karlsas grinned, baring bloodstained teeth. “No problem!”
With a furious roar, the old general abandoned all defense and charged straight at the monster like a burning meteor. The greatsword in his hands erupted with flames fiercer than ever before!
“ROAR—!”
The Devourer sensed that immense and delicious energy. More than a hundred of its compound eyes lit up greedily, while its giant maw opened to the limit. Even the surrounding space distorted beneath the force of its suction.
Deep within that pitch-black vortex, a concealed spatial fluctuation finally revealed itself completely.
“Got it.”
A sharp glint flashed through Logaris’s eyes as his right hand, prepared long in advance, clenched shut.
【Spatial Interference】
Bzzzz—!
Inside the giant maw that had been preparing to devour everything, the deep black vortex suddenly began trembling violently. The passage connected to the subspace flickered twice—then went out completely.
“Wuh?!”
The monster let out a shriek of absolute terror. It could clearly feel that the subspace which had always served as the source of its power had been forcibly “shut.”
Karlsas’s flaming slash crashed solidly into its mouth.
With the subspace transfer gone, that violent energy exploded instantly inside its body.
Boom!
The Devourer’s abdomen swelled into a grotesque sphere. Violet-black blood mixed with shattered organs sprayed wildly from its mouth and nostrils.
“Now! Kill it!” Karlsas roared before collapsing to the ground in exhaustion.
Logaris’s figure flashed. He drew the fingers of his right hand together like a blade and slashed brutally through the air.
【Riftspace Slash】
A black spatial fissure instantly cut across the monster’s waist.
Yet the expected sight of it being severed cleanly in two did not appear.
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!
At that moment, the immense life energy stored within the monster erupted all at once.
Just as its body was about to split apart, countless writhing strands of flesh sprouted madly and pulled its upper and lower halves back together like threads sewing a wound shut.
Though it had lost the replenishment from the subspace, the energy this sixth-tier lord had accumulated in its cells over time was still terrifying. It swung its regenerated tentacles madly, trying to make one last desperate struggle.
“Tch. As expected of a thick-skinned sixth-tier life-form. Simple physical cutting can’t keep up with its recovery speed...”
Logaris frowned in displeasure.
He pushed up his glasses and suddenly crossed both hands before his chest, all ten fingers moving through the air at blinding speed like a pianist performing a furious piece.
【Multiple Riftspace Slashes】
Slashslashslashslashslash—!
In an instant, dozens—hundreds—of fine black lines appeared all around the Devourer, weaving together into an airtight net of death.
There was no scream. Only a dense succession of sickening cutting sounds.
The Devourer’s enormous body froze in midair. The regenerating flesh had not even managed to reconnect before the next spatial blade cut it apart once more.
One second later—
Crash.
That overbearing lord-class monster collapsed in an instant like a heap of building blocks, turning into chunks of flesh scattered across the ground, each piece bearing cuts as smooth as mirrors. This time, its vaunted regenerative power had finally failed completely.
With the monster’s death, the violet-black mist around them seemed to lose the thing sustaining it and began to dissipate rapidly.
“Huff... huff...”
“It’s... over?”
Gasping for breath, Karlsas leaned on the heavy sword that had already twisted out of shape, staring blankly at the corpse split apart before him.
That was it?
The sixth-tier monster that had driven them to the brink of death—one that could even devour Battle Aura—had just been carved apart by this kid in two moves?
“What else did you expect? Should I erect a monument for it too?”
Logaris did not leave at once. Instead, he walked over to the twitching corpse, pushed up his glasses, and a dangerous light called curiosity flickered in his eyes.
“This extraordinary regenerative speed... and that stomach connected to a subspace...”
Logaris crouched down, ignoring the nauseating stench of blood and rot. With gloved fingers, he dipped into a bit of the violet-black blood and lifted it to his nose for a careful sniff.
“As expected... it has a sharp sulfur smell.”
Logaris muttered softly, then snapped his fingers.
Bzzzz—
A pitch-black spatial fissure opened behind him like the gaping maw of an abyss.
Under Karlsas’s watchful gaze, Logaris manipulated gravity and tossed the shattered corpse of the sixth-tier magical beast, now reduced to chunks of flesh, directly into his personal space—packing it up and taking it away.