Chapter 184
Chapter 184
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 184
Chapter Title: Ep. 184
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As I crawled up from underground, the already dim sky began sprinkling down white flakes. The blizzard, which had quieted for a moment, was back.
Through the falling snow, the enemy player and I locked eyes, glaring at each other.
"Why? I've grown just as big as you. Got a problem with that?"
The enemy player smirked at me with a relaxed expression. Even amid the swirling snow, his gleaming golden figure shone brilliantly, steadfastly shielding its summoner.
I ignored his mockery and replayed our previous clash in my mind.
Those mysterious particles.
One thing was certain: they weren't made of psychic power. If they had been, my psionic reflection armor would have bounced at least some of it back.
And size doesn't mean a damn thing.
The golden figure was only about 5 or 6 meters tall at most, but that was a trick. Just moments ago, when it swung its sword-shaped arm, the length had stretched out dramatically.
To be precise, as it swung its arm, the arrangement of the golden particles making it up had shifted, transforming into a thin, elongated sword aura.
It looks like sword aura, but it's fully under its control.
In other words, this golden figure was a summon that could freely reshape its own body. Nothing like it existed in the game.
A newly acquired skill... or maybe...
Perhaps an effect from one of his privileges. Just like the 'Plunderer's Amorphous Polyhedron' I'd gained after killing Muriel, he might have slain someone and stolen theirs.
At least two, or more.
Curious if I could glean anything, I used Insight on the enemy player, but nothing useful came up. Just like with Muriel, the only message was that some information was inaccessible.
The one piece of info I could see was his name.
Jason.
His real name didn't show, exactly like Muriel's.
Beyond Insight, my Predator Sense, triggered underground, hadn't properly displayed his name either. It had flickered in fragmented bursts amid heavy noise.
Is it because he's a player?
I had no idea why it was glitching like that, but I'd figure it out later.
Having sorted my thoughts in that brief moment, I lunged forward again.
The blunt claws around my tail and lower body, along with the bone beast spines sprouting from the Bone Beast transformation, dug fiercely into the snow and ice.
My 100-meter frame shot ahead like a storm. In an instant, I'd closed in on the Cult player—no, Jason—and brought my combat arm crashing down on him.
"Hmph."
The golden figure blocked my strike with a snort from him. The moment it met his shield, the bone spines on my arm snapped off in a shower.
"Told you it's useless."
Mirroring the figure, Jason raised his left arm while flicking his right. In sync with its summoner, the golden figure moved to attack me once more.
The golden sword sliced across my head carapace. Sparks erupted violently where it connected, but true to its claim as boasting my body's highest defense alongside the tail-tip pincers, it didn't cleave through easily. Still, I couldn't prevent a gash dozens of centimeters deep.
"Let's see how long you can hold out..."
As he reset his stance, I ripped all six erosion tentacles free from my back. Like snakes bursting from a jar, they lashed out and entangled the golden figure.
Gripping tight with the tentacles, I yanked. Jason, linked to the figure, staggered for a split second.
My tail swept through the snow blanketing the ground toward the faltering foe, its tip pincers yawning wide.
Thanks to Bone Beast, the pincers were roughly 10 meters across. Even Dragon Slayer gear couldn't escape if they clamped that chitin-hard grip.
"...or so you thought?"
But Jason remained unfazed. The moment he spoke, the golden figure disintegrated into particles and slipped free between my tentacles.
Reforming in the blink of an eye, it swiftly conjured a shield to block my pincers. Its left arm, now shield-shaped, gleamed with a denser gold than the rest.
"Too easy."
Then it counterattacked like a fencer thrusting his blade. I lifted my head to dodge the strike aimed at the auxiliary organs under my jaw.
But its assault wasn't over. Jason, who'd been standing idle, kicked off the ground and leaped into the air.
His encasing shield vanished as my tail grazed beneath his feet. He stepped across the airborne snowflakes like stairs, soaring up to slash at my chest from below.
Jason was tiny compared to me, so no real threat on his own. The problem was the summon clinging to his back.
From behind the airborne foe, the golden figure reformed into a massive blade hurtling to cleave my body.
Damn it!
Dodging sideways was impossible. I hurriedly unfurled the gliding membranes attached to my combat arms.
Originally meant for gliding, they weren't ideal for powered flight on the ground.
But with my enlarged body, the six membranes—one per arm—had scaled up too. Six wings spanning dozens of meters each could at least briefly lift my bulk.
With membranes spread, I thrashed my arms. A gale roared beneath me, launching my body upward.
"Damn it!"
Jason blinked against the rushing wind. The sword poised to slice my abdomen scattered into golden particles.
"Cheap tricks!"
With his shout, the blade reformed in an instant, now bereft of physical force, and grazed my exoskeleton shallowly. Meanwhile, airborne, I retreated while sweeping my tail forward like a broom.
I expected another shield from the golden figure, like before. Instead, he took a different tack. As he splayed his left hand, an invisible energy field appeared, shoving my tail back the other way.
A psychic technique that reflected enemy attacks: Reflection.
The energy in my tail rebounded with massive recoil slamming into me, but I turned it to my advantage. My massive frame rode the reflected force, hurled far backward.
A colossal spear of golden particles flew at me as I landed on the snowy plain. I parried the relentless strike targeting my auxiliary organs with my erosion tentacles.
Its trajectory warped by the tentacles, the spear dissolved into tiny light specks and returned to its owner.
"Filthy pest. All you can do is run?"
"......"
"Why so quiet? What happened to that mighty Rank 5?"
Jason jeered at me. But I didn't respond.
Something far more crucial had my attention.
That just now?
In the span of mere minutes, I'd gleaned two vital pieces of intel.
When he blinked, it lost its substance.
As I lifted off, stirring the wind, Jason blinked briefly. In that instant, the golden figure had fragmented into particles.
A split-second event, but I hadn't missed it.
The figure is tied to his senses.
Especially vision—it seemed critical to maintaining its form. Likely, even sword auras or thrown spears would fizzle if they left his line of sight.
And reshaping has a cooldown.
After reforming post-blink, the figure tried slashing me with its sword but failed. When my tail followed up, it didn't switch to shield.
Reflection instead.
Not entirely confirmed yet. Could be a trap, or just a random choice.
Time to test it.
I spread my membranes wide and swept the ground hard. The terrain before me cracked, hurling ice shards and fresh snow into the air, blanketing my front in a white veil.
Then I spun and bolted the opposite way.
"Trying to run with no cover in sight?"
Run? Hardly.
The ice plain bore nasty scars from my earlier movements, but no real hiding spots. My pitch-black body stood out against the pristine white snow anyway—no camouflage possible.
Doesn't matter.
What I was doing now was meant to look like hiding.
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As expected from a morph bastard. Figures it out quick.
Jason clicked his tongue amid the thickening snowfall. How long had they been fighting? Already, the thing had sniffed out the weakness in his privilege.
The golden figure linked to his spine was a swarm of minuscule parasitic organisms in particle form.
Each creature so tiny, and so tightly interlinked, the entire cluster mimicked a single solid entity.
Normally stored inside his body, they emerged upon privilege activation, connecting to his spine to form the golden shape.
In essence, Jason was a living hive and brain for these golden particle-like parasites. Thus, they were heavily influenced by his cognition.
What he couldn't see, they couldn't either. What he didn't know, neither did they.
Catching that in a split second. What a freak.
Strictly speaking, a weakness, but Jason wasn't worried. A psychic powerhouse enough to hold priesthood in the Cult Empire, he had plenty of ways to boost perception and senses.
Standing firm, he cast psychic enhancements on his senses. Info flooded in: the enemy's receding aura, faint thought waves streaking off somewhere. He missed no detail, however small.
Thought waves. Calling its slave?
He already knew it enslaved Wolf via parasites—spotted it through the temple guardian's eyes.
Come to think of it, that griffon Wolf... a player, maybe?
Circumstances fit Muriel's last message. High chance Wolf was a player.
A player, huh.
Males were useless beyond privileges—kill on sight. Females...
Been a while since a Wolf slave.
Planning to toy with her a bit before killing, Jason leisurely trailed the morph's traces.
The worsening snow nearly erased them, but it posed no issue. Psychic power didn't yield to mere flakes.
Activating Memory Sight to read residual memories in objects, he pursued.
No escape for it.
About five minutes later, Jason halted atop an unremarkable snowdrift.
Ha, what the hell is this?
The last memory showed the morph frantically digging right here.
Like some kid's prank. After all that fleeing, hiding under snow? Jason couldn't help a chuckle at the pathetic sight.
Still, better safe.
With defensive psychics like Reflection active, he thrust his arm skyward. The sword from his clinging golden figure ballooned to dozens of meters.
This oughta do it.
Growing it to easily a third of the morph's body length, Jason swung wide at the drift. The titanic golden blade plunged into the snow, visible even from distant mountains.
A boom echoed as debris flew.
His enhanced senses picked out chunks of the morph's flesh amid the fragments.
Examining the fallen pieces, it looked like an arm. Fingers spanning over 5 meters tumbled across the snow.
Huh?
Startled by the oversized remains—far too big even for a 100-meter body—Jason jolted.
What the—wait?
Sensing something off, he stomped to leap upward. That instant, a colossal something erupted from beneath the drift where he'd stood.
"What the fu—?!"
For a heartbeat, he thought two small mountains had sprouted underfoot. Leaping dozens of meters effortlessly, it was—incredibly—an open maw.
The jaws, splayed wide beneath the snow, now snapped shut to devour him. Like a bear trap concealed by leaves springing.
No time for a shield. Reflection was up, but it couldn't block jaws closing from all sides.
Dodging backward was his only play. He kicked off the air and retreated fast.
Like ancient tomb spike walls converging, he barely slipped the jaws. But the unforeseen mega-mouth, spanning dozens of meters, nicked him. Just before escape, teeth taller than him raked his leg.
"Gah!"
"Scraped" was an understatement—each tooth dwarfed his height. More like his leg got shredded.
"Son of a bitch!"
Dragon Slayer gear mended the wound swiftly, but pain lingered. Feeling agony this raw after so long, Jason spat curses.
The mouth's owner rose slowly before him, as if answering in kind.
"Fucking morph bas—wha, what?!"
For a moment, he mistook it for a planetary eclipse. No.
Not the moon's shadow, but one cast by a living thing.
The shadow blanketing the snowy plain belonged to a familiar entity.
The creature Jason loathed most...
｢■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■!｣
The monster he dreaded even in nightmares.
An Aimorph over hundreds of meters tall roared before him.