Chương 365: Chapter 337: Darkness vs. Dumbo

Dumbo The Verdaphant was done holding back. With a guttural bellow, the vines wrapped around its midsection writhed to life, snapping outward like whips. Thorn-studded coils lashed at Thalion, each swing strong enough to crush stone. That was not all. The beast's massive chest swelled, and a torrent burst from its trunk. Not fire like a dragon's breath, but a choking cloud of green spores. Wherever the spores touched, they burrowed deep.

Leaves shriveled, bark cracked, and within moments vines erupted from the inside out. Even the forest itself twisted under the breath, becoming a writhing garden of thorns. Thalion vaulted upward, landing lightly on a thick branch. His eyes narrowed as he watched the devastation spread. So… not flame, but corruption. Almost like Crimson Garden. He felt no fear, for the spores shriveled into nothing the moment they brushed against his darkness.

But for everything else like trees, beasts, earth itself, it was apocalypse. A grin tugged at his lips as he countered. His hand rose, and a flood of black mist poured outwards. Umbral Miasma. The darkness rolled across the battlefield like a living tide, colliding with the spreading spores and devouring them whole. The two domains clashed, but Thalion's essence proved stronger and purer.

The spores hissed, shriveled, and collapsed into droplets of oily blackness, his miasma swallowing the Verdaphant's attempt at control. The great beast roared in outrage, veins glowing as it charged. Trees snapped like brittle twigs before its bulk, canopy shuddering above. Despite its size, it was frighteningly fast. Yet Thalion was faster. He blurred past, vaulting over its massive head in a fluid spin, the trunk lashing through empty air beneath him. His claws, wreathed in shadows, slashed outward.

Five crescent arcs of darkness screamed toward the Verdaphant's back, carving through the writhing vines like paper. Shredded pieces rained to the ground, lifeless, while the monster trumpeted again, this time in fury. Thalion landed lightly, eyes narrowing. Beasts larger than him always demanded respect. He couldn't simply overpower them. It was a true stat check. And yet, the practice was exhilarating. His skills felt sharper, layered with something beyond the festering darkness he had once known.

A strange resonance lingered in his strikes, reminding him of Ankhet, though he could not place why. It gnawed at the edge of his mind, the sense of knowing yet not knowing. Annoying… but perhaps important. Enough testing. It was time to escalate. Darkness rippled down his arm, and Thalion thrust his hand forward. A tendril of shadow shot out like a spear, slamming into the beast's hind leg with brutal force. Flesh split, and this time, the wound remained.

The Verdaphant stumbled with a huff, spinning with startling speed. All around, the air thickened as Thalion unleashed more of his essence. Umbral miasma poured from him in waves, cloaking the forest in a storm of blackness. The ground warped beneath his feet, trees blackened and withered, and everything the storm touched dissolved into glistening droplets of liquid shadow. The Verdaphant bellowed and released its countermeasure.

A surge of energy burst outward, a mana wave so dense it shredded bark and cracked ancient trunks as if they were glass. Thalion dove behind one of the wider trees, though even that protection shuddered and splintered under the assault. His miasma was obliterated, the darkness scattered like smoke before a gale. Still, Thalion's eyes burned with defiance. He had bled and labored to elevate the crippled Eclipsari. No way would he lose to an overgrown elephant. He moved.

Blurring around the giant, he struck at its joints again and again with Shadow Claws, each swipe leaving lines of corroding darkness. Spikes of shadow erupted from the ground when he willed it, slamming into its flank and forcing it to stumble. The Verdaphant responded with fury, attempting to trample him, even unleashing a ground-shattering skill reminiscent of Tectonic Slam. But Thalion read every movement.

The instincts of the Eclipsari and the precision of his title sharpened him into a predator who was always a step ahead. The tremors of its quakes he simply leapt over, the deadly shockwaves fading once the first impact passed. He almost laughed at how easily the move was countered—like stepping over a tantrum. The more his attacks found flesh, the angrier the Verdaphant became. Mana waves lashed out more frequently, its vines whipping wildly, only for Thalion to slice them apart mid-swing.

Worse for the beast, he had discovered a flaw. The mana wave, though devastating, never crushed the ground directly beneath its belly. That blind spot became his hunting ground. Every time it unleashed another pulse, Thalion darted under it, driving massive black spikes upward into its exposed underside. The spears sank deep, and the darkness they carried spread like infection, corroding flesh faster than even the Verdaphant's passive regeneration could mend.

The vines tried desperately to pull the spikes free, but Thalion's blades cut them down as quickly as they reached. The trunk swung too short, unable to dislodge the weapons. His shadows fed on the beast's vitality, its healing overwhelmed by spreading corrosion. Then, as he dodged another quake and ripped a deep wound into its front leg, Thalion froze. Something shifted. Something stirred beneath his claws, in the air, in the very resonance of the battlefield. He could feel it.

There had always been this gnawing sensation in the back of his mind, a whisper he could not name. But now he understood. Part of his aura was pressing against the Verdaphant's very soul-body, sliding past its defenses like oil through cracks. Whether it was the beast yielding under pressure or Thalion himself forcefully invading, he could not say. What he did know was that the elemental inside him rejoiced, feeding hungrily. Was it devouring fear? Bathing in the Verdaphant's despair? The sensation was uncanny.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. The greater the panic in the Verdaphant's eyes, the stronger the elemental swelled. The mighty creature, once composed, now repeated its attacks with desperate abandon. Trunk, vines, stomps—everything came faster, wilder, and more erratic, its instincts sabotaged by fear. Thalion showed no mercy.

He danced methodically around its massive bulk, slashing open joints, burying black spikes into its flesh, and piercing shadows upward from beneath its own body. He suspected the Verdaphant's panic wasn't natural. His aura was seeping into its mind like poison, breaking its composure far more effectively than the maddened aura he had once endured during the third stage. That, in hindsight, had been a blessing in disguise. He had survived, adapted, and learned.

Now it was the Verdaphant's turn to suffer under the same torment. Each moment only tipped the balance further. The elemental grew hungrier, weaving its malice into the fear aura and intensifying it with every breath. Thalion pressed the assault. He tore into the beast's ear, ripped muscle from its hind leg, and drove colossal spires of shadow upward into its belly. Normally such attacks would be noticed, countered, evaded, but the Verdaphant was too far gone, blinded by panic.

Its thrashing trunk swiped wide, vines tore at nothing, and its trumpeting roars shook the canopy in futility. Thalion even sank his fangs into the creature's flesh once, savoring the surprising richness of its blood. The elemental exulted in agony, lashing the Verdaphant's hide with writhing tendrils that dug deep into its wounds. It was a long and brutal execution. The Verdaphant's sheer size bought it time, its bulk holding against Thalion's onslaught for ten minutes more.

By the end it resembled a grotesque mountain of meat, arterial fountains spraying crimson high into the air with every failed attempt to resist. The finale came with a single strike. A six-meter spike of shadow erupted through its right eye, piercing brain and soul alike. The great beast toppled, crashing to the earth with such force that the ground shook and nearby trees split at the roots. The jungle fell silent save for the settling echo of its fall.

Breathing heavily, Thalion gazed at the corpse, satisfaction blooming in his chest. He had learned much from this fight, both of the crippled Eclipsari's power and of his new fear-laced aura. It wasn't just the oppressive presence of his darkness. Every cut, every festering wound carried despair like venom, spreading hopelessness through the victim's mind. Against enemies too strong to kill outright, he now had a weapon to stall, to drown them slowly in terror until their will broke before their flesh.

He stepped forward, pressing a claw against the corpse's hide. With a deep breath, he activated Acquire Form. The skill had often disappointed him, failing outright or hiding key abilities. The memory of the Leviathan still stung. This time, relief flooded through him as the magic took hold. His body warped and stretched, and in moments he stood as the Verdaphant reborn, albeit half the original size. Smaller, weaker, but with the essence intact. Three skills revealed themselves. Earthquake. Manawave.

Both useful, but uninspiring. The third, however, gleamed like a jewel. Font of Vitality (Legendary) A constant current of vitality flows through your body, drawn from the depths of your own strength. The greater your maximum health, the stronger the flow becomes. Wounds close swiftly, fatigue fades faster, and even in battle your body refuses to yield. As long as your heart beats, life itself rises to meet every strike against you. Thalion's eyes lingered on the final line. As long as your heart beats…

For a creature as massive as the Verdaphant, whose health might have exceeded a hundred thousand, the regeneration must have been staggering. His own form was weaker, the F-grade variant possessing only a fraction of that power, thirty thousand at best. His human form, with barely over a twelve thousand health, would gain far less. But even then, the thought of a passive, unyielding current of recovery weaving into his bloodline was more than enough to spark his greed. Free regeneration was never to be dismissed.

He swiftly transferred the newly acquired skill into his human form before returning to the shape of the crippled Eclipsari, leaving the Verdaphant's hulking body behind without a second thought. Tendrils of pure shadow writhed outward from his form, slithering across the fallen beast. Where they touched, flesh and bone dissolved into inky darkness, the massive corpse unraveling into streams of void that flowed greedily into Thalion's body. The sensation was intoxicating.

Darkness flooded his veins, threatening to spill over, and Thalion directed it with discipline into his body-tempering. Every fiber of muscle drank in the shadow, every thread of sinew fortified with its power. Deep within, the elemental swelled, devouring more than its share to strengthen its core. It wasn't a transformation that would turn the tide of battle by itself, but it was growth nonetheless and growth, however small, was never to be wasted.

When the last scraps of the Verdaphant were consumed, Thalion straightened, a sharp grin tugging at his lips. One kill would not be enough; not for him, and certainly not for the ravenous hunger of the elemental. This was only the beginning. He leapt upward in a blur, claws finding purchase on bark as he scaled a towering tree in moments. With a powerful push he launched himself onto the next branch, moving effortlessly through the canopy.

Branch to branch, shadow to shadow, he vanished into the endless green above, his aura drawn tightly inward. No one needed to know he was watching. No one needed to know he was hunting.