The monster fully erged now, its towering form a horrifying blend of mutated insect, slithering serpent, and sentient rot. Bulbous tumors pulsed across its chitinous body, leaking trails of acidic vapor. Dozens of sickly tendrils waved behind it like a fan of rotten feathers.
And at the center of its chest, bound in fleshy tendrils, was a half-lted humanoid face—his original body, grotesquely fused into the core of the beast.
This face was none other than the old man who had accompanied them until now.
"What? Little lord? You didn’t expect this, did you?" Kaelthorn let out a malicious laughter. "What are you going to do now? Your little slut here won’t be enough to save you now!"
Damon looked completely shocked and stunned. Absolutely horrified. "What? How? But did you not die?" He stamred and choked. But the very next second he couldn’t control himself. He buckled over, clutched his stomach, and started to laugh wildly.
"What the hell are you talking about, idiots? How could you have been more obvious than this? Who would possibly be surprised by sothing like this?"
Damon’s laughter echoed across the venom-laced chamber, sharp and unhinged. Standing next to him, Ellora who was actually surprised quickly changed her reaction after hearing Damon’s words, slightly lowering her head in embarrasnt.
Damon wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and straightened, his crimson gaze turning cold. "I think all the years in the prison have completely rotted your brain, Kaelthorn. But its fine. I will deal with you later. I guess I have to deal with the bigger idiot in the room first."
Damon shifted his gaze to the horrendous creature in front of him. "Let guess, you are a poison master and you went wrong sowhere and ended up like this? Now you want my handso body?"
Ouroboros or at least the half-face imdiately looked offended. "What are you blathering about, you fool? This is the perfect poison vessel I carefully sculped after years and years of experinting! What would a ignorant little blood sucker like you understand? Hmph! This is perfection standing in front of you! Why would I want another body? Yours would rely be an addition to my existing perfection!"
The creature cackled loudly, spreading out its limbs and spewing poison out everywhere. Ellora hurriedly strengthened the blood barriers around herself and Damon.
However, Damon tilted his head, completely unimpressed as green mist hissed around the edges of his barrier. "Right... you’ve definitely been sniffing your own fus for too long." He narrowed his eyes. "You call that perfection? That’s not perfection. That’s a sewage accident with legs."
The monstrosity let out a screech, venom geysering from its pulsating sacs. "You dare mock ?! You stand before the eternal mind of Ouroboros, Herald of the Ever-Rot, the Grand Alchemist of Decay—"
Damon interrupted dryly, "Herald of the Ever-Rot? That’s the edgiest na I’ve heard all week. You’re basically a fungal infection with delusions of grandeur."
Ellora stifled a laugh behind her palm, quickly converting it into a cough. Even Kaelthorn found himself glancing sideways at the creature, lips twitching.
Ouroboros hissed furiously. "Enough! You bloodsuckers are a blight on the purity of poison! I will dissolve you, digest your vessel, and excrete you as alchemical waste!" The creature reared its head and let out a big belch of green air.
The air imdiately turned to a haze of corrosive mist, thick and buzzing with acidic mana. The stones beneath it hissed and bubbled, lting into slush, and even the temple walls groaned in protest as runes flickered under the toxic onslaught.
Ellora hurriedly tried to strengthen the barriers again but the creature cackled wildly. "It’s no use. The mont you stepped inside this dungeon, your fate was already sealed. You have already been exposed to my poison for a long ti now. What is a little blood going to do about it?"
The next second waves of green sludge started rising up from the poisonous lava lake, arrows shooting out of it towards the blood barriers.
Even Kaelthorn was not left out as several arrows honed in on him, sizzling and screeching as they tore through the mist. He cursed and conjured a jagged blood wall to deflect the incoming wave, barely managing to divert the sludge with a snap of his fingers.
"What the hell?! I thought I was on your side!"
"You were," the twisted voice of Ouroboros gurgled through the haze, "but now you are simply another test subject." The malford old man’s face twisted in a sickly grin. "Be grateful. Your blood will make a lovely reagent for my next evolution."
Kaelthorn’s expression turned murderous, his blade igniting in a crimson glow. "You backstabbing filth! You dare—"
The huge stinger behind the creature’s back did not let him finish as it shot forward like a bolt of lightning, attacking him repeatedly with a speed and agility that a creature like this should not possess.
Kaelthorn had to use everything he had just to dodge the attacks. "How are you so fast?" His eyes went wide as his abilities were pushed to the maximum.
"Am I fast or have you beco slow?" The creature cackled as it released another belch of putrid poisonous air and at the sa ti dove towards Damon.
Ellora and Elina both imdiately jumped into action. The snake hissed as she sent blasts of pure fire power towards the huge monstrosity while Ellora took the defensive stance, not letting a single attack reach Damon.
"Hmph! Parlor tricks won’t work against !" Ouroboros cackled and screeched as he used the waters of the poisonous lake to block all of Elina’s attacks. Fire sizzled the poisonous waters and it only ended up producing more toxic fus.
"You only help accelerate the process!" he howled, absorbing the ambient heat into his bloated sacs. "You think you can burn rot? I am a poison master! You humiliate by using such cheap tricks! Give it up! Your soul is mine! Your body is mine! Your everything is mine already! Co and beco part of !"
***
Mass Release sponsored by Danny_Marek
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