NOVPUBOne step.
Two steps.
...
With every stride, cracks spread across Daniel’s skin.
The poison corroded his outer layer, but fortunately, his innate healing power robustly countered the damage.
This constant dance between harm and restoration maintained a peculiar equilibrium.
Yet, as time progressed, Daniel noticed the rate of corrosion on his body seemed to be gradually decreasing, as if he were growing accustomed to this environment.
Daniel’s eyes shimmered with speculation, guessing that perhaps it was the effect of his heightened immunity.
As his strength grew, so did his immunity, to the point that it could resist a significant proportion of the damage. 𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙥𝒖𝒃.𝒄𝒐𝒎
Around him, the maggot monsters still swarmed, but now interspersed with a myriad of other creatures.
He recognized the familiar Ghouls and saw others he had never encountered before.
Some were incredibly massive, like the gigantic dog-like beasts, as vast as warships with hooves the size of chariots.
As they stepped over Daniel, the very earth trembled beneath their weight.
It became clear that this was the Abyssal Realm, a realm for monsters.
A forbidden zone for humans, where only monsters could thrive.
Daniel felt the urge to retreat, fearing that if he lingered too long, he might not be able to rewind to the time before he entered this door, risking everything.
Just then, a familiar roar echoed from the distance, accompanied by a powerful gale.
The stench was overpowering!
Where did that beastly bellow come from?
Daniel clutched his nose, his eyes trembling in response.
The toxic haze that obscured his vision dispersed under the gusts, revealing a more defined mountainous terrain.
It was then he realized, the mountain... it was moving, it was standing up!
Its shadowy figure towered, reaching the clouds, its colossal form surpassing even the grandest mountain on earth.
Its massive head resembled the moon as seen from the earth, but magnified a hundredfold.
The creature’s muscles lay bare on its exterior, with sprawling veins, each as wide as a one-way road, coursing with a dark red blood that flowed like mountain streams.
Slowly, it turned toward Daniel, opening its mouth wide, a gaping maw echoing with a deep rumble.
"MOOOOO!"
The sonic boom unleashed a hurricane-force wind that whistled by.
Countless creatures were swept away in an instant, leaving an eerie emptiness in the blink of an eye.
Daniel thrust his feet deep into the ground, anchoring himself against the gust.
Soon, the wind subsided.
As he prepared to extract his feet, a sudden, powerful force surged from behind.
The gargantuan beast was inhaling deeply.
All the creatures that had been blown away were now being drawn back in, sucked into the massive abyss of its gaping mouth.
The deafening sound of its chewing made Daniel involuntarily swallow.
Moments ago, the surrounding horde numbered in the millions, if not more!
If they were to appear on Earth, they’d undoubtedly decimate humanity in an incredibly short span of time.
Yet now, in mere moments, this monstrous behemoth had devoured them all, not granting them even a moment’s resistance.
A flicker of emotion crossed Daniel’s face.
Without a doubt, this creature was beyond any human’s capacity to confront, especially his.
One singular thought dominated his mind now: escape!
Yet, the terrain was barren, devoid of any cover. If he dashed out, he might draw the monster’s attention.
However, given the creature’s immense size, he was but an ant in its eyes. Moving slowly might allow him to remain undetected.
With that in mind, Daniel gently extracted his feet from the ground and began to crawl stealthily forward.
But he had underestimated the behemoth’s keen senses.
As he inched forward, the deafening sounds of chewing abruptly halted.
A shiver ran involuntarily down his spine.
He could feel, all too distinctly, the malevolent gaze that had fixed upon him from behind.
The colossal creature had taken notice.
Run!
With a swift motion, Daniel sprung up from the ground and bolted, his legs carrying him as fast as they could.
Against such a monstrosity, there wasn’t a shred of hope for victory.
Yet, in the very next second, Daniel felt an intense heat searing through his entire body.
It was as if every drop of blood within him was boiling, every cell bursting into flames.
Almost immediately, cracks began to form on the surface of his skin, allowing torrents of fresh blood to seep out.
Even with his healing abilities working at their utmost, the pace of the cracking did not slow.
Merely being under its gaze inflicted irreparable harm. This creature was truly beyond the realm of human confrontation!
The silk thread activated automatically, weaving across his cracked skin, attempting to stitch the wounds together.
But to Daniel’s horror, the silk thread disintegrated at a visibly rapid rate.
Kenton Dasteni’s silk thread ability couldn’t withstand even a mere glance from this monstrosity!
It was evident that the two were not on the same level, with a chasm of disparity between them.
Lifting his eyes, Daniel’s gaze was filled with terror.
This creature was far more terrifying than he had ever imagined.
At this moment, Daniel was drenched in his own blood, not a single inch of his skin remained intact.
Whoosh!
A colossal shadow loomed, akin to an entire mountain collapsing towards him. But it halted just before him, enveloping him completely.
It was the monstrous creature’s tongue.
Resembling a kilometer-high skyscraper, the tongue’s surface was rugged and dotted with countless mouths of varying sizes and appearances.
Each mouth ceaselessly smacked, emitting tormenting murmurs.
The combined murmurs of thousands upon thousands of mouths sounded as if a horde of souls was screaming madly right by one’s ear, pushing the limits of endurance, threatening to shatter one’s sanity.
For some inexplicable reason, the murmurs evoked memories in Daniel of the monstrous murals he’d seen in the Trojan Pyramid.
Visions of them flashed across his mind.
A massive eyeball, veined with blood, yet paired with incredibly pristine white wings.
An immense giant of a creature, holding countless writhing maggots in its grasp.
Were they... the same kind of creature?!
The same kind that looked down with disdain upon all living beings, evoking sheer terror!
A powerful sensation of weightlessness overtook him as Daniel was whisked into the creature’s maw by its tongue.
An overwhelming stench assaulted his senses, and the fleshy walls around him were pockmarked with wounds, among them the rotting remnants of other creatures, their decaying flesh evident.
Gulp!
A forceful pull dragged him deeper, and along with the remains of other creatures, Daniel was swallowed whole.
Throughout the ordeal, he didn’t resist.
Because it would have been in vain.
It wasn’t that he didn’t dare to; he simply couldn’t.
His abilities, his strength, even his limbs were rendered utterly immobile.
The colossal beast felt like a higher-dimensional entity, subjecting him to a dimensional assault.
Its mere presence bound him tightly, leaving him no choice but to helplessly watch himself drift down the viscous river of blood, dropping into an endless pile of putrid remains, awaiting digestion.
His vision was obscured by the blood, presenting only a crimson world to him.
His body seemed to wage a futile battle against the creature’s stomach acid, inflicting excruciating pain upon him.
A pain potent enough to mentally shatter any Level 3 Evolver, perhaps even a Level 4 Evolver.
But not potent enough to break Daniel.
Still, his body seemed to commence its dissolution, slowly fading from his conscious grasp.
The murmured whispers continued to ebb and flow around him, the mouths here far outnumbering those on the tongue.
The fleshy walls surrounding him were densely packed with innumerable mouths, too many to count.
This only intensified the madness of the whispers, making them more cacophonous, as if countless souls were murmuring, shouting, and lamenting right next to his ear.
Each mouth conveyed tales of its own suffering and agony.
Daniel pressed his hands over his ears, using his Spiritual Power to block out the sound, yet the voices manifested directly within his mind.
The immense tidal wave of anguish battered at his consciousness, engulfing his very soul.
Deep within the recesses of his heart, where the soul’s prison lay, countless chains vibrated frenetically, their clattering noises echoing through every corner of his being.
The soul, bound by the Gene Lock, struggled against its restraints, desperately covering its ears and striving to break free.
Daniel knew all too well that the moment his soul could no longer bear the strain and broke out of its cage would be the moment of his ultimate demise.
Even if he managed to quell the rampaging spirit, he’d either be left a soulless madman or an imbecile.
Fortunately, he had the Enchanted Eye.
He tapped into the power of the Enchanted Eye, beguiling his own soul, and simultaneously immersing himself in a paradise-like illusion. Waves of torment and despair crashed against this dreamscape, flooding into its confines.
As one illusion reached its capacity, Daniel conjured a second.
Then a third, a fourth... up to the hundredth.
Illusions burst under the strain, only to be reformed again and again.
For Daniel, this cycle felt as if it spanned millennia, if not eons.
He bore witness to every whispered lament, understood the pain behind every mouth, and processed every harrowing emotion.
Eventually, his own mouth began to emit these incomprehensible murmurs.
After what felt like an eternity, Daniel jolted awake.
He had understood!
From these ineffable, elusive murmurs, he had gleaned everything about this creature. A look of disbelief emerged in his eyes.
Behemoth!
