Chương 145: Chapter One-Hundred-and-Forty-Five

Adam pushed his body to go as fast as possible, throwing out loops of spidersilk in front of himself to rapidly shoot forward, but he couldn't see Julie anywhere, neither above nor below. Since she was able to fly, probably by lifting the armour she wore or something, he thought it strange that she had decided to swallow a parasite worm, rather than get one from the bottom of the world. But the fact that she's been carrying that inside of her this entire time… I can't even believe it.

What was it she wanted to find with the compass? Her son? Or maybe a way to get around the Flayed Lady's quest for her? It's clear that her quest wasn't to eradicate the White Flags, that much is obvious now. While the Absolutes give predetermined quests, they clearly aren't above giving unique ones when they feel like it. No doubt Julie was tasked with bringing a feral Cloud Leviathan into the world, and to do it in a way that betrayed everyone.

For all her words to me, the Flayed Lady clearly holds a grudge, giving me a quest she designed to be impossible. I can't keep worshipping her. I need to find a way out. Although the Hippogriff was fast, Adam had already outpaced it with his speed. But still the compass only pointed him forward, proving that Julie was at least as fast as him, perhaps even faster. Is speed determined by Mana? Or range? If not, how else could she be faster?

Maybe she's lifting both her own blood and the armour gifted to her by the Flayed Lady. But when I lifted my own blood, I could immediately tell it was doing a lot of damage to my body. I'm guessing Julie wanted to know of a way out using the compass, because the alternative is sacrificing herself for this moronic quest. No doubt the Flayed Lady told her that she would get to see her son again, even if she died, so long as she worshipped her well. So long as she betrayed us all.

Adam threw out another loop of spidersilk, consuming the last embers of his Mana in doing so. He immediately devoured the slugwhale stew, which would recoup 50% of his Mana over 3 minutes. I still have the All-Mother's Fruit that Belamouranthe gave me after Stage Five, but I'll save it just in case. The arrow on the compass suddenly veered to the right and Adam immediately course-corrected. He didn't know where Starfall Island was in relation to himself, but he was sure that Julie knew exactly where she was going.

Then suddenly he saw it, appearing from the golden clouds some kilometres away. He'd been flying above the floating point of most islands, giving him a good overview of the surroundings, and he knew he'd reached the right place when he saw a large island with a giant crater in the centre. It floated above other islands and had towering obsidian shards dotting its surface around the crater, which glowed with a malevolent yellow-orange light as though there was magma below the cracked dirt and stone.

In the middle of the crater was a reflective obsidian-black slug dragon with the same yellow-orange light glowing from cracks along its body. It was shaped like a serpent with a head that had three eyestalks above a mouth with two pale-white tooth plates. The air around the serpent seemed hazy and polluted, as though it had a deadly aura. In front of the large serpent, just beyond the aura, stood a tiny crimson figure. She was red from head to toe, as though covered in a layer of blood.

Adam had no idea if it was her own or not. And still, despite her no doubt tumultuous emotions, there was no melody nor a single tone emanating from her. The Flayed Lady must've told her of a way to avoid the power of the Mandate of Blood. I don't understand how else it would be possible. Adam threw out more loops of spidersilk in front of himself to speed up and close the distance. But he wasn't fast enough. Julie pulled out a large red shape from her mouth.

It was the length of Adam's arm and had grown fat from living inside her stomach for almost a full day. With a dramatic gesture of her arms, Julie shot the blood-coated parasite into the slug dragon's mouth. NO! As Atrophy's Daughter swallowed the parasite whole, Julie turned as though she knew he was coming. The blood lifted off of her body and floated out in the air in front of her as three liquid blades.

She also brought out the Fetish of Sloth and activated it, sending a slothling imp racing across the cracked ground, leaping around the large shards of obsidian as it headed for Adam. Adam activated his own fetish and sent the imp that it summoned after the one coming towards him.

Then he wove a Heart Lance spell pattern in the air in front of himself using his own blood and the Spidersilk Needle, closing his glass hand over the ball it manifested in his palm with his fingers in the shape of a beak, and firing it at Julie in a sweeping motion. The beam cut across the distance between them in about two seconds, but Julie didn't move away from where she stood in front of the slug dragon.

The parasite hadn't fully taken hold, but Atrophy's Daughter writhed and bucked behind her, the glow from the cracks in her surface flickering between dark and super bright. It would turn at any moment, evolving into a feral beast and dooming them all. I have to kill it! Julie's Blood Mage Choker triggered to protect her from Adam's cutting beam, and she even extended her blood out to catch the tail end of it, keeping it from hitting the slug dragon. She's protecting it. That means it must still be vulnerable!

It's probably just like how Iffen was left exposed while assimilating with the Golden Slug. The imp he'd sent off tore through the one Julie had summoned, making both vanish, and Adam flew right through where they'd been, quickly closing in on Julie and firing his Blood Bolt Ring at her. Julie flung her liquid blades out to meet him, and Adam pushed the last bit of blood needed into the spell pattern he'd prepared across his torso.

With its capacity full, his Shade Barrier spell triggered just as her attacks came in, shooting him five metres ahead while leaving behind a full-sized version of himself rendered in blood that her blades tore into. Adam immediately took control of the blood and moved it out as three separate spells, intermingling them with Julie's flowing blades, all while he continued to close the distance. But her power as a Blood Speaker meant that she was able to turn his own blood quicker than he could turn hers.

Sensing this inevitability, Adam focused on his connection to his Mana-infused blood as it was being conquered, sending out a frequency with his melody that resonated with the magic, instantly crystallising it. The effect quickly spread to Julie's blood, moving at the speed of a crack in a pane of glass, and she was unable to break away her magic before it was rendered inert by the crystallisation.

Adam skidded along the ground as he came within 100 metres of Julie and used his Slothling Spring Boots, along with a double activation of the Cloud Skimmer Jacket, to fire himself forward with even greater speed. At the same time he pulled his tail off from the bottom of his spine and added the flesh and blood to his right hand like a massive gauntlet. The pain was immense, feeling as though he'd severed his own arm, but he endured it.

Julie didn't move as Adam closed in, but he knew that she had two unused blood rings, and despite her melody being void to him, he also knew she was waiting to utilise them. As Adam flew right towards her with his enlarged fist leading the way, Julie swung her arms out and activated two Blood Fist Rings, but Adam had a choker of his own which created a barrier of blood in front of him. Even as it triggered and created a wall of blood that absorbed both of her attacks, she almost instantly conquered his blood again.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. But before she could wield the blood against him, Adam's fist found its way to her face, and the top of her body was destroyed in the single powerful punch, leaving behind not much of a body, along with its blood and Relics.

Adam skidded to a halt just before reaching the hazy aura around the writhing slug dragon and quickly scooped all of Julie's Relics into his backpack, while harvesting her materials for his magic, spinning up one Heart Lance after another, firing the pressurised beams into the slug dragon's body. [Warning! Mana at 0%. Overconsumption triggered!] [You have been afflicted with Mana Exhaustion. Stamina reduced to 0% and all recovery rates lowered by 90% for the next 20 seconds.] Adam roared, defying the exhaustion as it threatened to take him out of commission. He pulled the All-Mother's Fruit out of his bag and consumed it. [All-Mother's Fruit consumed! Recovering Health, Stamina, and Mana back to 100%.] He kept firing his spells into Atrophy's Daughter as the parasite worked its perverted power from the inside. But it was to no avail, because the slug dragon bulged and warped before his eyes.

The elementalist skirt Adam wore triggered its triple activation effect, which only had a 5% chance to occur, and his Heart Lance whistled like a banshee as three versions of itself were fired on top of one another. But it wasn't powerful enough, because despite how every slicing blast of magic managed to carve a path into the reflective black flesh of the dragon, the wound closed immediately a second later, no matter how deep it went.

And even with three layered lances, he was only able to barely scratch the cage of bone deep within its giant body. And then it happened. The thing Emelia had warned about so long ago. < < Stage Objective Updated > > < Obtain the Godstone before the Feral Cloud Leviathan devours the Temple of the Godstone > A cannonball shaped out of a densely-pressed cloud found its way to the slug dragon in front of Adam, but it was too late.

Even as the ball expanded and ate a large chunk out of the monster, it grew it back and more. Adam was forced to retreat as Atrophy's Daughter started to balloon in size. Her serpent-like body bulged, and large limbs emerged from around her mouth, stretching and stretching until they reached the end of the island. And they just kept coming.

As he flew back towards the Hippogriff currently doing a bombing run with its entire broadside firing non-stop, Atrophy's Daughter grew from 200 metres in length to 400, and then 800. The new arms that sprouted from her multiplied at the same rate, and within mere moments, the entirety of Starfall Island except the tall obsidian shards, were covered by long tentacles with the same reflective black surface and yellow-orange glow showing from cracks in the skin.

It's a kraken, Adam realised as he recognised the octopus-like form. But it also reminded him of the Voidspawn in a way. Like how Iffen had grown vastly bigger by devouring the airship made of his kindred's bones, so too did Atrophy's Daughter reach a final size. But where Iffen's new form had been titanic, hers was somehow bigger still. And it seemed to only be the starting point, if Emelia was to be believed, because the leviathan would devour everything it encountered, growing bigger as it went.

The Hippogriff wouldn't stand a chance against the Feral Cloud Leviathan, because a single one of its tentacles were four times the length of the cloud ship. And it had hundreds of them. To make matters worse, somehow, the noxious effects of Atrophy's Daughter translated to her limbs and soon the air around every last one of then was hazy and polluted.

Adam was caught in the aura as he flew away from the island and immediately felt his skin crisp and flake, instantly drying out from a second's worth of exposure and turning black like glass. [You have been afflicted with Obsidian Rot. Receiving 15 points of damage and permanently losing 1 point of Health per second.] [You have been afflicted with Necrosis. Health recovery reduced by 50%.] Adam thought back to the Flayed Lady's comment about the Resistant Organ he'd found in Alepheria's Tower.

On pure instinct, he transformed his skin into hardened glass like obsidian. He couldn't truly say how he did it, but since the rot seemed to operate by moving from the outside in, it just went away when it had no way to rot his transformed glass skin. Suddenly, a cannonball from the Hippogriff must've struck true, because the limp leviathan writhed and swung its many tentacles, coming to the realisation that it could move.

One of the tentacles caught the cloud ship in the middle and just tore right through it in passing, sending it falling away into two halves that quickly came undone. Adam continued flying towards the airship, using his spidersilk to create rings in front of himself to shoot forward with greater speed. A figure with a red cape floated away from the sinking bow of the severed airship, gliding down towards the safety of an island below. Ellen! She's fleeing without the others! Adam pushed himself as much as he could.

By the time he reached the severed back half of the airship, the front half had fully come undone into swirling clouds that quickly dissipated into the air. Lasse, Cathy, and Jabari were clinging to the railing next to the wheel when Adam landed.

"Adam!" they shouted and screamed.

"Everyone, grab onto me!" he yelled. He moved the flesh away from his right hand and reformed it into a tail, which he swung around Jabari's chest, before grabbing Cathy with his left arm and Lasse with his right. None of them had been touched by the aura of Atrophy's Daughter, which was lucky, since one of her limbs had passed right through the Hippogriff. The moment he was sure they were all holding on tightly, Adam flew them off the side of the airship, just before the back half fully unravelled.

"The Golden Horn disintegrated in my hands when it struck us!" Lasse shouted into Adam's ear.

"It doesn't matter!" he replied.

"I still have the compass, so we'll find a way out!" Just then a voice spoke in Adam's head." What have you done? My kindred. They have been defiled and twisted. The cycle has been forever broken." < < Special Quest Failed > > < The Ascension of Iffen > From the sky above Starfall Island where Atrophy's Daughter was starting to lift up off the surface, came a brilliant neon-green light.

Iffen descended like a cruise missile, firing glowing green spikes from his skin, before his body struck the Feral Cloud Leviathan and shattered the island below it. Everyone clung to Adam like he was a human-shaped life-raft, all while the island behind them exploded into fragments that rained down onto smaller islands below that likewise crumbled. One house-sized piece of obsidian shot right past them, the wind tossing them off-course from the diamond-shaped island that Adam was heading them towards.

Shit, that's Shipwreck Isle… he realised as he saw the wrecks littered around on its surface. The leviathan and Iffen crashed down through several smaller islands as they plummeted. The many black tentacles from Atrophy's Daughter were wrapped around Iffen's body, but his petrifying effect was rendering most of them inert.

Adam had no idea what was going to happen, but his main objective was to get them to solid ground and then figuring out a way to get to Captain Hast who had the mechanism they needed for the Godstone Temple. All their valuables had fallen away when the cloud ship sank, and they didn't have time to play along with the Golden Fortress, so their only hope for survival seemed to be to steal the mechanism and then get to the temple. Julie and Ellen completely fucked us! Then he spotted her.

She was running away from them as he flew his team down to the surface. The announcement for the optional objective to find the treasure on Shipwreck Isle popped up, but no one seemed to be paying much attention to it, since they were in a flight for their lives. From the loud explosions and screams and roars, Iffen and the leviathan were clearly still plummeting towards the bottom of the world. Adam just hoped it would buy them enough time to get out. Then Iffen's voice spoke in his head again." I have no choice.

Though the cycle is broken, I will sacrifice myself and the kindred within me to stop the monster my sister has become. The power I am about to unleash will travel far. Find shelter and do not let the light touch you."

"Oh fuck!" Lasse blurted out.

"What do we do??" Jabari asked in panic. Adam gritted his teeth.

"We keep going forward. Windtop Cove isn't far."

"What about Ellen!?" Cathy exclaimed.

"Fuck her!" Adam yelled.

"She abandoned you when the Hippogriff went down, and she's just as guilty as Julie!"

"Put me down!" Cathy insisted.

"You'll die!" Lasse yelled back. Cathy started wriggling.

"Just put me down!"

"Stop that!" Adam told her. Cathy managed to break free of his hold on her and she fell eight metres down to the pale sandy ground of Shipwreck Isle below them. Jabari yelled something and immediately pulled himself free of Adam's tail, falling down too. He landed next to Cathy and quickly helped her to her feet. Both of them were fine since they both had a lot of Health and Defence, not to mention that Cathy had the spring boots to soften her fall slightly.

"Motherfuckers!" Adam yelled.

"What do we do??" Lasse asked, holding on to Adam with no sign of letting go.

"While we should just leave them to their own foolishness, we have to find an airship and try to save them," he replied and pulled out the compass, now that he had a hand free.

"I didn't protect everyone this whole time just to abandon them now that it's convenient," Adam muttered. The arrow on the compass snapped to a direction that was obviously quite close given how much it moved as Adam flew them across the island.

"It looks like there's an airship around here somewhere," he said. But then suddenly there was a bright light behind them which overpowered the golden glow that normally tinted the clouds. It cast long strange shadows across everything it hit. It was a neon-green pillar shooting up from the bottom of the world, piercing and dissolving all clouds it touched, and turning any island in its path into moss-covered grey stone. I thought Iffen would give us more time! We have to find shelter somewhere!

Then the sound of the glowing pillar came. It was like a dying scream. Piercingly loud, mournful, and steeped in regret. The pillar rapidly grew in width, expanding outwards and petrifying everything it touched.

"We're fucked…" Lasse muttered. They only had twenty seconds before they'd be hit by the light and there was no way for Adam to outrun it, nor were there any nearby shipwrecks for them to hide within. So instead he brought them down to the surface of the island, crashing them into the sand with enough power to send it up around them and creating a small crater.

"Curl up and don't move!" he told Lasse as he started to quickly and crudely shape his body with the Mana in his flesh. It was the most painful and inhuman transformation he'd attempted, and it required him to stretch his body way beyond what was sensible or safe. But it didn't matter. I just hope the beam works the way I think. Once he was done, Adam had spread his body like a dome over Lasse's curled-up form, closing any gaps the light could shine through just in time for it to pass over him.

[You have been afflicted with Petrification.]