Zane fought, and felt viscerally what he was up against. Those tentacles were like a glut of pythons coiling over him, sinking fangs into every inch of him, digging into him, pumping him full of numbing, burning feeling, a cloud of it seeping through him—
The Jellyfish was so close Zane could feel its emotions almost as clear as if they were his own. Feel the triumph burgeoning in that tiny soul…
***
The Giant Nebula Jellyfish knew exactly how its victims felt when it had them in its grasp.
It was a very old creature. It'd been corrupted aeons ago. Since ancient times it would reach up from the farthest depths of the oceans and drag whole ships down to ugly demises. Even Core Cultivators felt a chilldread when they saw little white dots sprawled across the sea. Like a starscape coming up from below.
That was how the Monster got its name. 'Nebula Jellyfish.'
It had been the ruler of the deep oceans on the Planet Garra—also known as the Planet of a Million Icebergs. It was a creature of legend then. It seldom came up to the surface, if ever—and when it did it brought disaster in its wake. Many of the tribes that eked out livings on the icebergs gave it many names. Names they were scared to say, lest it summon the beast they most dreaded.
It had been hunting Glacier Whales when it got captured by the System. Imprisoned.
Here in its dungeon confines it slaughtered humanity's Champions one by one. Every cultivator it met succumbed under its toxins… they made the mistake of thinking it was just another Core Beast.
The poisons of the Giant Nebula Jellyfish stemmed from one of the most vicious bloodlines on all of Planet Garra—they were what granted the Giant Nebula Jellyfish supremacy over all its oceans.
Those poisons were in a class of their own.
***
And now they pumped deep into this strange gorilla. The Jellyfish started smothering it under its weight, under layers upon layers of gelatin and wiry powerful muscle.
The Jellyfish was surprised this creature even had the wherewithal to struggle. Once the Nebula venom got in its victims—once that crushing feeling smashed down and the numbness took hold—most lost the will to resist. They gave up almost as fast as their bodies did.
At first the Jellyfish thought the gorilla was in its death throes. But it soon got a nasty surprise.
The essence burning in its muscles was rising too fast for that.
To the Jellyfish's consternation, the gorilla was starting to break loose. Grunting, wrenching out of the holds even as its toxins made a wreck of its insides… The Jellyfish tried tightening, tried stabbing in more poison.
The gorilla only bucked harder. Started rumbling, started raging against the stranglehold.
The Jellyfish did not understand. It could feel the muscles failing in this chunky beast—feel its body start to blacken under the toxic load, under its terrible Law of Toxic Sludge.
Yet the muscles that remained fought harder than ever.
For ten thousand years, the Giant Nebula Jellyfish had been the strongest creature in its domain. Whatever it crushed folded.
This creature was not folding.
If anything it was strengthening.
The gorilla let out a groan. And its power somehow ratcheted up even more. Its tentacles' vice grip started to unravel, giving up inch by inch…
The Jellyfish was growing alarmed. It had to crush this thing. Now.
It went all-out.
Those tentacles descended once more, squeezing harder, shredding harder, surging with enormous power... the Jellyfish looked on eagerly. It would make mincemeat of this troublesome creature. It would savor the taste of its tainted, corroded blood.
The Jellyfish started to tremble. Squeezing so hard a little earthquake rippled its gelatinous body. And its effort was rewarded. Its hooks sank deeper, shredding skin, shredding muscle even, and blood bloomed all over the gorilla's thick body.
A tremor went through the poor creature as it was slowly crushed inward.
And just when the Jellyfish thought it had it wrecked at last, had stamped out the last of its resistance…
The gorilla let loose a furious bellow.
***
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕕!
ℙ𝕣𝕚𝕞𝕒𝕝 ℝ𝕠𝕒𝕣 [𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖] [𝕌𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟 (𝔼)]
𝔸 𝕤𝕚𝕘𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕗-𝕓𝕦𝕗𝕗 𝕤𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕋𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕟 ℝ𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕠𝕔𝕖𝕣𝕠𝕤. 𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕞 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖 𝕓𝕦𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘. 𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕤 𝕒 𝟙𝟘% 𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕤 𝕦𝕡𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕤.
Zane felt it instantly.
The Final Boss had seized back the momentum. But only for a moment.
Zane felt it shove—and shoved right back, arms working against the coils like a beast slamming against its cage, over and over. Harder, fiercer, straining with every last ounce of energy he could muster—
Once Zane got going there was no limit to his strength. Only his essence, his willpower. And there might as well have been no limit there either.
It was a race.
Even as he wrestled, shoved, bellowed, slamming and flexing and writhing, he felt whole chunks of muscle starting to go dark. Succumbing to the poison—that essence, that ultra-dense Core essence, was too much—delivering that poison with such steamrolling power… Holes of sensation opened up all over his front side. Deadened muscles. He could not feel a quarter of his back—and the holes were opening fast…
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟟𝟝%
Yet at the same time—his heart was thumping even faster.
His blood was burning hotter. Brighter. Coursing through him like massive white-water rivers.
So much essence was pouring through him, burning up in him, it set that poison on fire—the sheer vitality of the Titan Rhinoceros's body was asserting itself…
And the tide began to turn.
His muscles began to stir. Began coming alive again—began to flare along with the rest of him.
And he started shoving the great beast back—every single entrenched layer of muscle, all that force stacked on top of itself. He forced it inch by inch. Grunting, bellowing with the effort of it, hacking out gobs of black blood—but he was doing it.
The Jellyfish jerked and trembled, struggling to hold on, failing miserably—its mind was a static whine. It was a simple creature. It could not understand what it was looking at, could not comprehend just where Zane was pulling all that raw power from.
It had a certain pride. It was something very old, Zane could feel—almost like a force of nature. He did not know its history but he could tell it had a storied one.
It simply could not accept that Zane had come into its place of greatest strength… and was beating it.
And things were only about to get worse.
Zane's weapons burst into being at last.
His Chains. Not Hammers. He'd been switching them this whole time. He was going old-school.
Plain Chains snaked back over that mess of tentacles, binding them tight, tangling deep into each other. And now the strangling went both ways.
Then it was only a question of whose squeeze was stronger. Which of them was more powerful.
Right now, running as blindingly hot as he was, Zane doubted you could find a creature on Earth who could even touch him. He lashed inward, heard a mass of gelatin splatter on the spot, felt those tight cords of Jellyfish muscle twist like wet towels—snap under the raw force—
He loosed another battle cry.
And added one last old Skill.
His Chains burst with Stormfire. Lit up the darkness—until, locked tight together, the two of them looked like a demented yin-yang spinning in the void…
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕖𝕧𝕠𝕝𝕧𝕖𝕕!
ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕟 ℕ𝕠𝕠𝕤𝕖 [𝕃𝕖𝕘𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕣𝕪 (𝕄) -> ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕞𝕠𝕟 (𝔼)]
And instantly he heard the hiss of melting flesh, of his Chains sinking deeper and deeper, wading deep into that Monstrous mass, pulverizing everything it touched to a pulpy burning paste.
Explosions of pain wracked the Final Boss all over.
Zane gritted his teeth. Grinned. Squeezed tighter, and tighter, shoving his body to its very limits—somehow each time it did, it was like chasing the horizon. Every time he thought he was getting close, he realized his muscles did not have one. It just took more soul power, more willpower, to chase it higher and higher…
All the power in the world was there for him—if only he had the will to seize it.
Zane did not even understand the concept of giving in.
He just kept. Getting. Stronger.
Even as his tendons, his bones, his organs, wasted away inside him…
There was almost as much poison as blood running inside him now. His muscles might be burning so fierce they resisted. But the rest of him was not. All over him, splotches of blackened skin flaked off—and underneath he saw a realm of rot. Saw intestines, his liver, kidneys rotting away at the edges—he didn't care.
He was focused on one thing only.
Crush.
By now he'd crushed it so badly the bulk of the tentacles had no choice but to give; huge chunks of them loitered there listlessly. And through all those layers of poison and flesh, he saw a glimpse of the outside again, just flashes.
Healing poured in. It was Reina trying as best she could to give him a helping hand. Evan was crying out, shooting in streams of light. Avery was trying to confuse it.
But for this fight, there was not much any of them could do.
This one was on Zane to win.
Black blood started leaking between Zane's clenched teeth. But he was smiling. He could feel his organs failing inside him—
But he could also feel himself crushing the life out of this thing. Inch by inch.
He had made the same bet as with the other boss. Could not match his power.
Again—he was being proven right.
Then—despite Reina's best efforts—
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟝𝟘%
𝕊𝕒𝕧𝕒𝕘𝕖 𝔹𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕
𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%
𝕊𝕡𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝟚𝟝%
𝕍𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝟚𝟝%
It was the best thing that could have happened to him.
Sometimes in the heat of battle, in the midst of smoke and explosions and fast-moving things, it was hard to tell precisely how much his strength went up from Savage Body. He just knew that it went up.
Right now, stuck in this slow grind to the death, it was very clear.
Instantly it was not slow anymore. It was not even a fight anymore. Zane ripped with everything he had, screaming with the sheer effort of it, the way you might gun the accelerator—and the sound that came out of the Jellyfish was almost like a gasp. The sound of all the air pockets in its enormous body being squeezed straight out of it. It started to shrivel like a grape.
His Chains took over.
Started crushing it utterly. Destroying its powers, its defense so fast it was almost disrespectful. By now, Zane's Bloodline had reached such a furious peak he felt a huge chunk of his essence erased every second—he couldn't hold this insane state, this insane power, even half a minute.
He didn't need to.
His Chains started laying into it, constricting tighter and tighter faster and faster, lashing it in until it was all just a raging burning sphere, trash-compacted to unbelievable density. Growing smaller. And smaller—smaller beyond all reason. Something so big should not be able to fit in such a space.
But Zane forced it to.
The Giant Nebula Jellyfish did not have a mouth to scream. But if it did, it would be screaming quite mindlessly right now.
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘!
ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕙 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝟚𝟝%
Zane brushed it aside.
He was growing more excited than he'd been that whole fight, the way a predator grows when it scents wounded prey.
It was time to finish the fight.
The Boss gave a last ditch try. Expelled a wave of toxic sludge at him. But it was so swarmed with Stormfire it barely touched Zane. It got swallowed up.
With Emperor's Soul, Zane exerted his will over the mess. Like he was extending one big invisible hand over it all…
He closed the fist of his mind.
And the Final Boss of the S-Rank Dungeon went limp.