CHAPTER 64: COLLAPSE

"Ooh, shit! I messed up big time!" Aurelian groaned, feeling a surge of pain coursing through his body as a mystical change erupted within him, one he couldn’t fully comprehend. And if he couldn’t contain it, it would kill him.

Crack! And as if to confirm his thoughts, microfractures spread across his bones and skin, echoing softly as the pain ramped up a notch and sent him reeling back.

"I have to fix this!" Aurelian groaned, his fingers curling into fists, frustration eating at him until he forced himself calm and scanned the dungeon around him. Wisps of energy were starting to coalesce all across the dungeon, foggy mists covering it, but underneath it all the real terror was unfolding.

Monsters were respawning, only this time far larger, their forms almost all towering over eight metres, and with them a faint ethereal glow encapsulated them, the kind only E-rank beings emitted: the light of mana.

And they even had faint mana barriers erected on them. Why wouldn’t they? Aurelian snickered, momentarily forgetting his plight before a thought suddenly sparked at the back of his mind.

All his problems originated in his weak body, proof of that were the hairline cracks now expanding as blood began sputtering from them, his bones breaking and being ground into pulp before barely being reforged, and the haziness soon encroaching on his mind. All of it brought on by one thing: his weakness.

He had access to all the power he could ever dream of, but his body couldn’t contain it; if this went on any longer, it would be the death of him.

But he would be damned if he died without fighting back. A quick scan of his surroundings brought a bloody smile back to his lips.

He couldn’t stop the merging with the Infinite Mana Pathways that had already begun, but he could try a different approach to avert this crisis.

With all the beasts he’d slain, a portion of their vitality would be channeled back to him, and by devouring the corpses of those beasts he could buff his physique as much as possible and maybe become strong enough. Maybe this wasn’t entirely hopeless.

The moment the plan formed in his mind, he didn’t hesitate. Grinding his teeth, he suppressed the pain raging inside him with his primordial will of lust as much as possible, then rocketed forward toward a group of newly spawned slimes. He called upon his mid S-rank Embers of Illusory Spectral Death while casting Appraisal on the slimes.

[Evolved Acidic Slime — Level 26]

[Rank — Common (E)]

[Weakness — Intense fire-elemental attacks and mana-coated attacks; soul-based attacks]

Was the appraisal recalibrating the foe’s weakness using his combat power? Aurelian mused. The blades behind him finally materialized before merging; until finally only two spectral blades hovered at his back.

Holding them, he felt they had somehow been affected by his recent evolution, but he didn’t have time to examine them. They had grown exceptionally sharper, more durable, and a faint blue hue coloured their serrated edges.

Mana? He didn’t care. As he crossed the five-metre mark, he voiced another mental command.

Activate C-rank: Iron Skin!

Instantly, a heavy metallic sheen covered him, his frame arching into the outline of armor.

"Let’s see how much you’ve grown!" Aurelian muttered, appearing before the acidic slime with his blades aimed to pierce its torso. Yet before they could even make contact, the slime hissed, opening its huge maw and spewing black vats of acid at him. This time he wasn’t perfectly immune—the acid scraped part of his metallic armor, corroding large chunks and producing a boiling heat.

Bearing through it all, he pushed forward and lodged both blades deep into the beast’s torso.

High-pitched shrieks followed as the slime sizzled inside out, its innards reduced to mushy liquid as the blades corroded it. Finally it collapsed to the ground lifeless; its soul drifted into his blades and was devoured instantly. Pure clarity slammed back into him, laced with surging vitality. His eyes lit up—he felt an inexplicable change as part of the energy streamed directly to his soul.

Something he had never experienced before. He only had a rough grasp of it, since he had been there, but that wasn’t what intrigued him most. As the soul was absorbed, he felt a faint compatibility with the merging Infinite Mana Pathways—his affinity with it growing stronger. The vitality erased some of the damage and pain, but the collapse was recurring; if he stopped now, it would all be for nothing.

Wasting no time, he looked at the corpse of the acidic slime and snickered. Guess what changed? Just your stupid size and the intensity of your acid, he mused.

Of course, if another party had been here, they would have noticed a third factor he’d missed: insane defense due to the innate mana barrier around them. Only that his blades grew stronger with him, allowing them to tear through the barriers easily.

Done smirking, he murmured, "Vortex of Doom!"

He let go of the blades and watched them hover, suspended in the air as they split and their numbers rose to a fleeting twenty-four. They lit up in a devilishly resplendent black light and formed an intricate formation over the corpse, rotating rapidly. Their forms blurred; a black hole formed at the center and sucked in the corpse.

Barely a second later, a notification blinked in front of him.

[Ding! The Vortex of Doom has absorbed all the energy from the slain foe. Where do you wish to channel it? Attribute points? Increase proficiency of talents and skills? Equipment?]

"Efficient. Way faster than before," Aurelian blinked, then without hesitation channeled it all to attribute points and allocated them to Constitution. Warm streams of energy flowed into his body, washing over him, strengthening his muscles and reforging his body to house more power, restructuring it, until another notification appeared.

[Ding! Congratulations for allocating +13 attributes to Constitution!]

Ignoring the notification, a smile cracked his lips as he felt the changes. The rate at which his body was collapsing had slowed, and his normal healing sped up. As this dawned on him, his eyes grew cold as he stared into the distance: another group of slimes had just respawned. A whisper escaped his lips.

"If your death means I get to live, then so be it." Rays of hope welled up inside him before his figure vanished, leaving a mirage flickering behind.