Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Chapter 45 Friend.
"Looking at how your total power has decreased, it seems you've come to devour us again and regain your strength! But this time will be different!!!"
Although its reasoning ability was worse than even a newborn's, the power I felt from the Dragon was real.
An ominous black energy gathered at the corners of its mouth. And in an instant, it shot toward me like a beam of light.
Dragon's Breath.
The dragon's breath filled with pure magic erased everything in its path in one fell swoop.
"Shiiiit! It's not me!"
I drew my demonic energy to its limit and somehow managed to defend against the breath.
Everything around me except my body disappeared without leaving a trace from the breath.
Even oxygen wasn't being supplied properly, so somehow I had to hold my breath and endure the breath.
Fortunately, Demon God Baal's characteristic sticky and solid Qi reinforcement didn't melt against the breath and protected my body.
Seeing the dark red demonic energy blocking the breath, it let out a sneer.
"Puhup... Are you still planning to deceive me even after bringing out that terrible Qi reinforcement that only you can use?"
The misunderstanding deepened further. To clear this misunderstanding would require a lot of conversation, but it didn't seem to have any intention of that, and neither did I.
'It's a guy I'm going to devour anyway. Whatever.'
I felt it properly while taking that last attack. If I devoured it, I could definitely become stronger.
I would thoroughly absorb all of its potential and obtain even more powerful strength.
Now I decided to give up on clearing the misunderstanding.
"Yeah. I'm Baal. So why don't you, my Dragon friend, obediently enter my stomach like your fellow creatures? They're all waiting just for you. Dude."
Instead, I planned to amplify the misunderstanding further to make it lose its reason.
The difference in size was too great, so I felt I needed this much of a handicap to compete with it.
[Everyone in Pantheon and Pandemonium bursts into laughter.]
It seemed truly furious at my words, angry to the very top of its head.
Despite having a dragon's face, the anger was nakedly visible in its expression.
"Finally showing your true colors! Every Demon Beast born on this land remembers you! Feel the wrath of your brothers!!!"
It was about to begin attacking in earnest, but I threw out a question to resolve a doubt that suddenly arose.
"But friend. Didn't you also eat your brothers?"
Wasn't the reason it could evolve into a Dragon because it devoured other Demon Beasts and stole their power? But I don't understand why it's only angry at me.
"Shut up! You bastard!"
As if the only thing left after being defeated in logic was to use force, magic began activating at its fingertips.
'Wait, it uses magic?'
Of course, it wasn't ordinary magic but black magic. I could feel all sorts of curses and debuffs stacking on me.
Of course, comprehensive resistance included curse resistance and various debuff-related resistances, so it wasn't that fatal, but the fact that it could use magic itself was important.
It meant it hadn't just become similar to a dragon in appearance and total power, but had truly become an existence close to a dragon.
It used the numerous bones and blood remaining around to cover its body and enhance its physical form.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
With it having a size close to a high-rise building, enhanced by black magic and attacking, even without enlightenment about nothingness, it was overwhelming violence in itself.
Thinking that even one proper hit would crush my body, I dodged with all my might.
Displeased that I was slipping away here and there, it began using various black magic with one hand while engaging in close combat with the other.
It summoned clouds of poison around the area, or tried to grab my ankles by moving hands made of blood or bones.
At the same time, it swung its hands and claws as if to kill, making it truly threatening.
If I hadn't built up sufficient resistance, if I hadn't learned martial arts enough to avoid all the hands made of black magic, I would have already been turned into jerky by it.
But having all of that, the fact that it was sealing one hand for the use of black magic felt like an opportunity to me.
Every time it struck down with one hand creating an opening, I hammered the same spot with fists containing the mysteries of Transcendence Limitless Path.
Dragon scales don't pierce easily normally, but my Qi reinforcement isn't ordinary Qi reinforcement either.
After hitting the same spot with my fist two or three times, the scales were damaged, and when I injected demonic energy through the gaps, it began writhing in pain.
Rather, when it was an ordinary Demon Beast, it was indifferent to pain, but after its intelligence increased, it showed more intense reactions to pain.
"Friend. Does it hurt?"
When I seared the wounded area with Hellfire, I was extremely pleased.
'What good is having high specs and being able to do many things when you don't know how to fight properly?'
Power built not through training but solely by stealing from others.
Even the abilities it handled weren't learned through effort but were merely byproducts obtained the moment it became a disaster-grade Demon Beast.
It didn't even make any effort to become accustomed to the power it gained that way, so Eve, who had been learning to catch up with me, was actually more threatening.
Perhaps thinking this wouldn't work, it began using higher-level magic while preparing a breath with its mouth.
'The racial stats are definitely different.'
It's really absurd that knowledge about magic accumulates automatically just by the passage of time.
It exploded the bones, blood, and poison clouds around to draw aggro, and drained my life force through Life Drain.
Feeling that ordinary curses or debuffs were meaningless, it was only using curses that purely caused pain to the opponent.
That was actually more effective too.
While I could easily block things that slowed down my body or made me sick with resistance, pain just had to be endured and withstood.
Of course, even pain didn't work on me, who had sublimated it into pleasure while progressing through the 4th floor of Hell difficulty in the Testing Floors.
Seeing me approach with a smile even while my whole body was being tortured with knife-like pain, it seemed to feel an unknown fear.
As if telling me not to come closer, it spat out a breath that wasn't yet complete.
Of course, even that was sufficiently powerful, but it was absurd for me, who had blocked even the breath used in perfect condition, to be defeated by such an incomplete breath.
Knowing this, it spread its wings to create distance, but I was one step faster.
I penetrated right through the breath and entered its mouth.
'This is the only answer.'
Although I pretended to be relaxed, the current situation wasn't that advantageous for me.
Until now, it had been using close combat and magic simultaneously because it was overconfident, but that was only temporary.
If it gave up close combat and fled to the air to only bombard with magic, there would be no way to deal with it.
As time passed, it would awaken more black magic and become a more threatening enemy, but since I had less total power than it, I would inevitably become more disadvantaged.
The current me couldn't use Authority or Manifestation.
'I should learn some magic in the next waiting room too.'
The potential for magic obtained by devouring guys like Goblin Shamans, Orc Shamans, and Druid Trolls.
I felt the necessity to develop that and at least obtain Flight magic.
I had thought Odin's magic or Void Step was sufficient and hadn't touched magic at all until now, but it was essential in situations like this.
In situations where I couldn't use Authority and couldn't waste mana with the high-consumption Void Step, nothing was better than Flight magic.
Of course, it wasn't possible right now, so the method I chose was different.
It was destroying it from the inside.
It tried to spit me out after I entered its mouth, but it was already too late. I had passed through the giant teeth and moved to the esophagus.
It was a place with a terribly foul smell, but having eaten so much Demon Beast meat, I had become quite adapted to such smells.
Numerous things appeared in the esophagus, trying to exclude me, wondering if it was possible to use black magic even inside the body, but it wasn't at a level difficult to block.
Even if magic could be used inside the body, wouldn't its own body be injured if used seriously?
It was impossible to use magic as mercilessly as outside.
So I moved even more actively, making it use magic passively.
Instead, after passing through the esophagus, the contracted organs squeezed me as if to crush me, and liquid that was either gastric acid or mana caused pain as if melting my skin.
Since it was difficult to settle the match with magic, it seemed to think of stopping me now with internal bodily activity.
'It certainly uses its head a bit...'
But there was one thing it was mistaken about - this was its body, not mine.
It had to be as careful as possible, but I didn't need to be.
I drew out my Qi reinforcement and began slashing the interior wildly.
Perhaps losing control temporarily due to the pain from that, the contraction of the organs blocking my path loosened.
The direction it had been contracting most earnestly.
Moving toward the place where the most precious thing would probably be, there was... a black gem shining brilliantly.
'Is this... a Dragon Heart?'
I could feel tremendous power pulsating inside.
Dragons, called the masters of magic. The dragon's heart, called the source of their power, was before me.
The moment I reached here, it began pouring out black magic as if it was do-or-die, not caring about injuring its organs.
Black magic flames filled with curses burned me, and numerous spears made of blood sprouted from the organs to pierce me, but there was no problem for me.
I regenerate anyway. Unless my entire body was turned into a handful of blood in one go, I couldn't die.
"Actually, I also have regeneration ability. Sorry, friend."
I had deliberately hidden Immortality in preparation for times like this.
Instead of making attacks to stop me with physical force like this, it should have thought to shoot a breath at its own body or something to annihilate the entire area.
Then it could have aimed for mutual destruction.
But it couldn't make the decision to sacrifice itself to kill me.
If it had fought with the resolve to give up everything except the heart, it might have been able to kill me.
That was why it was defeated and I was victorious.
'Seeing it resist to the end, I can't use Retainer Transformation.'
I had been looking for an angle to use Retainer Transformation from the moment the special individual appeared, but its aversion to Baal was too great to make it a retainer.
So before it made a truly extreme choice, I stretched out my hand and extracted the black gem from its body tissue.
Like a puppet whose controlling strings had been cut, its heavy body began to collapse.
"Uh oh?"
THUD! CRAAACK!
Naturally, being inside its body, I experienced a sensation like the world was spinning along with an earthquake-like shock.
The place I was in happened to be the organs, so the floor was slippery, making it difficult to maintain proper balance.
'Ugh... go quietly. It hurts like hell.'
With the pain accumulated from curses plus the final impact, it felt like my body would break apart.
But all that pain and complaints seemed to melt away when I saw the Dragon Heart in my hand.
[Black Dragon Heart (Legendary)]
A legendary-grade elixir whose value was difficult to convert was right in my hand.
Deep in my heart, friendship toward it bloomed. The expression ‘friend’ I had used earlier was no longer empty words.
'I'm sorry... thank you.'
The Dragon was already like my irreplaceable friend.
It was different from guys who were only smooth with words. Real friends showed it through actions like this.
Who would have thought it prepared such a gift, worried about me being left alone in the world?
Although it made the mistake of confusing me with Baal, now I could forgive all such minor things.
Friends can make mistakes with each other, can't they? Originally, friends grow by fighting with each other.
"With the gift you left... I'll live hard for your share too."
If the dead Dragon had heard this, it would have tried to kill Han Yeong-min even if it had to resurrect as a Bone Dragon.