Chương 355: Flesh And Blood

My gaze swept through the various innate abilities of 'Revenant Jack-Out-Of-The-Box' as I was still busy falling head-first amidst a rain of rubble of varying sizes. As per usual, my unusually quick thinking was of great help in preventing me from being dropped into a situation without having any clue what was going on. It was clear that this new form of mine was quite the powerful one.

Its physical might was dependent on my skill level for the most part, so if I really wanted to cave someone's skull in, I just needed to start fighting like a chimpanzee… Or maybe not, chimps–In my opinion–Chimps are actually pretty good fighters. They know where to hit to deal great damage. Anyway!

I do have a certain amount of control over this ability, and since I remembered what had happened whilst the form itself was at the helm, I knew that the second I had awoken, my physical might had been reduced by a fair amount. I wasn't one to trade tactics for brute strength completely, so I subconsciously manipulated the ability to redistribute things around. In any case, 'Ruler Of The Devoured' and 'Crimson Empress' are basically just like 'Steel Manipulation' and 'Steel Shaping'.

They just happened to deal with another resource I could stock by eating. … I found it a bit strange that flesh and blood were separated, however. As far as I was aware, my body recognised both as 'flesh'. They weren't separated once consumed. They all went into the same pile I had in storage, so seeing them be placed apart amidst the innate abilities was odd. My first thought was that they were considered different enough to warrant such an arrangement, but who was I kidding?

Either of them could have included both within their description. As such, I could only assume that the answer lay in the secondary effect of 'Crimson Empress'. I get to hold authority over blood that isn't created by me as well, but I don't get the same privilege with flesh.

I suppose that whatever is in charge of designing my abilities thought that letting me control the flesh of my enemy AND their blood would be too much, so I was limited to just blood, something that could easily be flooded with mana, and thus, something that could be resisted by an adversary. If I could do the same thing to blood and flesh at the same time, even a competent adversary would be in immediate trouble. Whatever writes down my abilities seems awfully concerned with keeping things as fair as possible.

I don't dislike challenges, but in this case, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It just doesn't follow the rules of 'flesh' that I had gotten used to… But well… I can surely have some influence on how these abilities work. After all, when was the last time I was given a description that actually explained the ability in full? I don't think I ever got this privilege. This makes me excited to try and push the limits of these abilities. Especially since they seem more flexible than 'Steel Shaping'.

The definition of steel–According to my imaginary stomach–Is more rigid and simplistic than the definition of flesh, after all. So these abilities granted by 'Revenant Jack-Out-Of-The-Box' feel a bit like having access to spellcasting. Well, spellcasting for the poor, but to me, being capable of casting one mana bullet every month would be a tremendous achievement, so… I locked my gaze on the lumbering bastard. The thing which I presumed was the ruler of the blood ocean was indeed humongous.

It was barely poking out of the blood, and it was already too large to fit in my field of vision. Punching a hole in this thing's neck wouldn't be anywhere near a lethal strike… Finding its organs or major arteries is basically impossible. Especially since… I tried to use 'Crimson Empress' to get a feel of its blood flow, but I was instantly denied. Yep, it has greater authority over blood than me. Well, it makes sense. It probably lived centuries and had nothing better to do than sharpen its skills.

Well, it doesn't matter. It was foolish enough to show me its head. I'll just need to strike here to execute it. You seem awfully confident. That creature is probably at least as intelligent as a human, and seems to have centuries' worth of spellcasting experience on top of having the body of a giant beast. I do not mean to appear pessimistic, but it has rather major advantages Strength disparity between entities always matters.

Most of your abilities will struggle to take effect due to this That's true, but that mostly applies to abilities which directly interact with another being, yes? Anything that manifests something else as its effect will just count as a good old projectile, and I don't know about you, but I feel confident that I can pierce its hide and bones. … Do you? I do suppose that the denizens of the blood ocean have shown themselves to have soft, blood-logged flesh, but its bones?

Especially if you target its head, the skull is nearly always one of the toughest bones in any given body. Piercing it will be difficult, and then you'll need to deal severe damage to its brain. There is no doubt that its regenerative factor will be great, and it is also likely to know healing magic, so even brain injuries could be negligible, especially on such a large creature If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. No need to worry so much, Nara.

I'm going to kill it. You can trust me on that. Is it your guts again? My guts? No, this is nothing but pure logic, sweetheart! Somehow, this worries me more than the usual explanation I was approaching the surface, but just before impact happened, I flipped over and activated 'Surface Hovering'. My momentum seemed to vanish into the void as I began floating just above the blood, as if the rapid fall had just been an act, and I had actually only weighed as much as a feather.

I gnashed my teeth together and unconsciously formed a smile, making my bony face crack–I forgot that this form somehow has the ability to smile, and also, there is something about this form that hasn't been mentioned up until now, but it has no feet. It has small, dainty, yet brutal hands, but it has no feet whatsoever. Which is probably why it feels so instinctual to use 'Surface Hovering'. Walking would be inefficient and awkward. Regardless…

The big bastard and I exchanged a short stare before I casually lowered myself just enough to touch the blood ocean, beginning to drain it at an utterly ridiculous rate, instantly making my adversary rush over to stop me. This thing's speed was truly unfit for its size.

Rather than use a spell, it opted for just ramming straight into me at full force, which was probably more effective, to be honest, but all I needed to do to cut the grass from under its feet was to focus my absorption right in front of me, so instead of equally drained all of the blood within range, it drained only the blood that it would need to traverse to perform its tackle. A large amount of blood suddenly disappeared, stored away safely into my belly.

The bastard was so big that even that wasn't enough to reveal just how large its body was beneath the blood, but it was enough to throw it off balance. Its course was diverted only slightly, but for something its size, even a slight change in direction was absolutely massive, especially when trying to hit a poor little doll like me. It compensated by trying to smack me with some of its tentacles, but by then, I had already gotten my hands on an unfortunate fish.

One thing that I quite liked about this form was that absorption was as easy as breathing, so I could control how I drained the blood around me, and I decided to do so in a very specific manner to create vortexes to pull over some of the smallest denizens of the ocean. Of course, it was Nara who guided me through the creation of these vortexes. I only knew the concept, not how they actually formed or worked.

I plunged my hand through the fish's stomach and consumed its guts, allowing me to make use of 'Haruspicy', and thus allowing me to dodge the oncoming tentacle without even looking at it. I hitched a ride on the tentacles, hovering over its length and onto the monster's back. A spot it didn't like me being in one bit, but good luck shaking me off when I am not even actually standing on it. I don't know how 'Surface Hovering' works, but even as it tries to dive and spin, I am not being launched off.

It gets to the point that it simply gives up and reemerges on the surface again so that I won't be in direct contact with the blood, and begins to unleash more spells than I have ever seen in my entire life, at once. They are blood spells, though… Can it not do normal mana like the Blood Squid? Just because it is stronger doesn't mean that it knows as much about energy manipulation True… Well, anyway… I focused on 'Ruler Of The Devoured'.

Apart from having a great name, this innate ability is supposed to allow me to manifest fleshy constructs, but as I previously stated, to me, flesh is a whole lot of things, so I try to compress the manifested flesh into something else. Oh boy, I am totally doing mage stuff right now! I know it is only similar on the surface level, but back when my parents had paid for some magical instruction, I had been very excited about it. Who wouldn't be?

Even if mages aren't that uncommon, it is different to see than to do it yourself. Alas, even when I had been in that A. R. DL and gotten to see myself as still a human in the future, the best I had been able to muster was the most basic of battle arts. Magic has always been completely out of my reach, so even if this is only similar on a surface level, I'll have my fun. Especially since it worked. After being compressed and being subject to my control, the flesh turned into bone, a bone shaped like a stake.

I immediately launched it straight at the back of the monster's neck. The attack went through, and I even made the bone explode into shrapnel inside, but the thing didn't even react. I struck its back with one fist whilst moving around to avoid the hundreds of spells raining down on me. I could absorb most of them, but there were so many that some would inevitably hit me anyway. So I did my best to evade as much as possible and only absorb some when I needed to heal a bit.

As I thought, the flesh was soft and sponge-like. The pressure down into the ocean must be incredible for even a monster of this calibre to have to adapt to it instead of just resisting it. I could tear my way through its flesh without problem, but it would just regrow around me within moments, and I have already confirmed that 'Corrupting Touch' is nearly ineffective against it. I would just get trapped. Oh well…

I intentionally continued my ineffective attacks so as to lure my adversary into a sense of security that it had already been in. From its perspective, it was clear that the only threat I posed was if I was draining the blood ocean, so as long as I wasn't doing this and instead uselessly attempting to attack to no effect, it had no reason to actually try any harder than it currently was. My best bet was that it was silently preparing a much larger spell to reduce me to dust in a single go.

Whatever was going on inside of its head didn't matter. It was time for me to pull something off. I am scared of what you intend to do, Mara Don't be scared. I'll look absolutely dashing. I am now terrified, Mara…