12_Titan Boa King (2)

As its eyes were about to close, they shot open once more.

A new pain rose in the back of its eye.

Its eye began swelling and bulging.

The sudden pain had made it fully conscious again.

It wanted it stop, but it couldn't do anything.

Its eye swole abnormally, then finally popped.

Blood gushed out violently.

And it screamed loudly.

It couldnt move anymore.

It consciousnes was fading but the pain, unfelt before, forced it awake once more.

And now it had lost ine of its eyes, half of its vision, even depth of vision just gone.

Was the other eye next?

How much more torture would it face?!

Why did this happen?

What even happened?

It couldn't feel its body anymore, yet it could feel the pain so vividly.

This was torture, this was hell.

It then felt something other than pain.

The sense of touch on its face wasn't lost.

Something had touched the cheek on the now blinded side.

While keeping contact with its skin, the thing made it's way to the snout, and then to the other side.

The Titan boa king saw the thing touching it. It was thing that was cause of all this. This pain, this torture and all this destruction. It all made sense now.

It was the thing it had tried to eat.

The human, who had killed its children.

And now had driven it into such a state.

But there wasnt any anger any more.

No hatred left.

Its emotions had been destroyed with its body.

Only fear was.

Fear of death.

Of Torture.

Of the creature infront of it.

Beneath the skull helmet, behind the flames that burned in the sockets, the humans eyes were hidden. But their presence, their pressure couldn't be. A deep abyss unlike any other.

What kind monster was this.

He had been eaten but was unharmed.

Rather he destroyed the one that tried to eat him.

He did impossible things to the Titan boa king's body.

To make one lose control of their body entirely.

To make one suffer so much pain from the inside.

He couldnt be human.

He couldnt be.

No human could possibly do this.

They couldn't have tortured a creature to this extent, not to mention a king of creatures.

The body of a king is millions of times stronger than that of a normal creature. Even their insides are much more durable.

To do this much damage while being a lowly human was not possible.

The gods promised that there wont be absurdly strong humans that will disrupt us as such.

But for such one to pop up so suddenly and destroy years of effort in a mere day.

A human couldn't do this.

They didnt have the capability, the power to commit such deeds, to perform such acts.

He wasn't a human.

His body is seemingly weak like all the others that came before and were easily eaten.

But to hold so much power.

He could never be a human.

The Titan boa gathered all of its remaining strength to communicate,

<.....wha... t...a...re....y.....ou...?>

The being looked at it with a different gaze as he tilted his head.

He turned to look at the sky.

He stared at it for a few moments, moments that seemed like hours.

He turned back and answered.

"The monster above monsters." He replied.

The snake had doubted that he would answer, they didnt speak the same language. Yet he did.

A monster above monsters, an answer that described the being infront of him completely and aptly.

The Titan boa king didn't know who this man really was, it didnt know the ordeals he had gone through.

Nor did it knew how many times he went through such ordeals either.

<....w..wh..y....?>

The boa king spoke again, its curiosity urging it.

The man laughed lightly and answered.

"Cause it was fun."

The boa king didnt speak anymore.

It wasn't dead yet, albeit death was near. It's just that it didn't want to speak anymore. And even if it did, it had no strength left to do so.

He watched the man closely with his one remaining eye.

The man took off his armor.

Short white hair blowing in the dry wind, one eye blood red the other azure blue. He was smiling like nothing had happened.

Like he just had a refreshing stroll.

He placed the armor by his feet.

"Though it was cool looking and had neat abilities, it's basically useless to me, maybe I should give it Jungkook or Su-jin. "

He began talking to himself, as if the gigantic snake next to him didn't exist. Ofcourse, the boa king was nearly dead, he wouldnt matter to him much either way.

After a few seconds the human turned towards the snake again and murmured.

"I wonder how you taste...."

The Titan boa king's eye widened once more only to droop back to a squint. The man was waiting for it to die so that it could eat him.

'Monster.'

It thought.

And slowly closed its eyes.

The Titan Boa King breathed its last .

* * *

<<Dante's POV>>

"Finally, he died." Spoke Dante.

The Titan boa king was much smarter than he had thought. He didnt think that it would ask him questions. It spoke in beast-kin tongue, actually using words that had meaning rather than just hisses.

Dante then looked at the system message.

"You have slain the Hiden Boss mercilessly."

"You have killed 6 Young Titan Boas. Gained 6,000 points. You have killed the Titan Boa King. Gained 35,000 points. For Solo kill, gained an additional 5,000 points."

"You gained [Titan Boa King's soul gem]"

"You levelled up. You became lvl.67."

Air warped and fist sized green gem fell in his hands. When you looked at it closely, you could see a long translucent snake coiled inside. It felt so near, yet so distant.

It took quite an effort to kill the titan boa king.

I had to rip through its esophagus/gullet into the chest cavity. After that I used miasma, flames and aura simultaneously to cause explosions here and there inside of it.

Its insides were quite sturdy, so it took quite some time to damage it as much as I wanted.

The miasma also began to corrode the organs as secondary damage too. That helped too.

I then located various nerves and severed them. I followed them to its spine and then to its brain stem. I then finished by severing its cerebellum.

As it controls motor functions (voluntary movements), the snake was rendered paralysed.

And then I escaped the cranium by travelling along the brain, finding an eye and popping it.

All in all, it was an interesting journey.

I found out new things too. New organs, such as a mana organ next to the heart (where the mana was created and stored) and modified versions of old organs, etc.

*

For quite sometime Dante stared at the corpse of the giant snake.

Afterwards, Dante picked up the dropped skillstones and put them in his pocket. He then activated a skill.

He began to grow black scales with orange spots and claws. His head morphed into a lizard's, his legs morphed to those of reptiles and a tail grew out.

His clothes were replaced with a large loin cloth with strange markings and a piece of waist guard armour. He grew in size and he became a bit hunched too.

Dante should've transformed into a fire-salamander, but he didn't. This form was nearest to the fire‐salamander while retaining human characteristics.

An incomplete Fire‐-Salamander kin. They retain human intelligence while boasting beast like strength.

This was the result of Dante's interference in skill growth! But despite that, the change had yet to be accepted by the system.

In normal cases, the transformation is that of a lizard-man at most. It's a weaker race with more human like characteristics than beast.

Like lizard man would have the basic body structure of a human but with a tail and scales covering his body up to his eyes only. And transforming into them doesn't replace your clothes.

But since Dante's transformation was incomplete, it was only Pseudo beast kin. A true beast kin brings out the full power of both beasts and humans completely. While Dante's current form was more beastly.

It was stage below that of a true beast kin, but it was still more powerful than a simple Fire-Salamander or a lizard-man.

Dante looked at the the soul gem in his hand. He put it in his mouth and instantly swallowed it.

He then coiled the enormous corpse into a mound and then lit it by breathing fire.

Once the whole mound of snake flesh was burning, Dante who was still a Pseudo Fire-Salamander kin, jumped in.

Immediately, the flames turned from red to deep crimson.

Hours passed by.

When the flames finally subsided, Dante was lying on the soot covered ground. He had turned normal now. His clothes, albeit dirty, were back too.

The sky was dark and thunder crackled. It was starting to pour.

He opened his eyes, above him were storm clouds raining tears upon the desolate land.

*

The rain woke me up. As I opened my eyes, a beautiful sight greeted me. I smiled

"It worked.."

I got up and began stretching.

"Too bad I couldn't eat snake today.." I murmured "But maybe... if the smaller snakes' corpses haven't been annihilated, maybe I could. We'll see.."

Soon the rain became heavy. I looked up into the sky again. The smile still on my face.

"I missed you too rain.."

Since he had been transported to the Horror World, he hadn't seen rain. Ofcourse, not including the rain of the tar-like blood whenever he slaughtered the horrors.

It was refreshing, calming, soothing.

Among the rain there were tears too. Dante's own tears. The amalgam of emotions inside him had been stirred by the rain.

He was happy, yet sorrowful; angry, yet calm.

The time he spent in that world was most traumatic indeed.

Even if he had memories from past lives, even if he was unordinary, even if he became a monster beyond other monsters, in the end he was reborn only human.

A simple living being.

All that he went through had indeed changed him, it would've been stranger if it didn't. He never felt alive for a moment in that world. That world had been the cruellest yet.

And now that he could feel life again, his heart had calmed and his mind accepted it. Finally could he think that he was truly living.

But deep inside under that mix of happiness and sorrow, rage burned brightly. Rage directed towards a specific group. A group which always caused him pain and trouble. A group that looked down upon others as they passed judgements on whims.

One day that rage would be unleashed

Now was not that day. But it wasn't far.

"Huuu...."

And so Dante stood in the rain, planning for future while contemplating his past.

*

The Dzoavits armor was where I had left it. I took off my shirt and picked up the armor too. I then began to search for my backpack, the one bought with points to store stuff.

I had tossed it to the side, when the ground began split in the beginning area. The place where the first boa had attacked me.

I had ended up travelling a long distance from there while dodging the smaller boas and while I was inside the boa king.

So I wore the gauntlets and grieves and tied the rest of the armor pieces with my shirt around my waist.

I began to journey, tracing the path of destruction to its origin.

Most of the forest had been burnt and the flames themselves had died down too. There was silence everywhere.

No howling, no chirping, not even the sound of crickets. Only the sound of heavy rain and armor clanking could heard.

I kept walking for quite some time. At one point I decided to get a birds eye view. And so I jumped as high as I could.

The destruction had turned the forest into a maze. Everything looked like every other thing.

It would take some time to find the bag.

While in the air, all I could see destruction for miles. Just how big was this dungeon?

I saw a clearing in the distance (now mostly destroyed) and went in that direction when I landed.

After a half an hour of jogging, I reached the destroyed area. The only reason I could tell that this was the beginning area, was that there were no remnants of trees here. Neither burnt nor broken.

Only uprooted earth and 6 huge holes in the ground.

This meant that there weren't any trees here before the destruction and that 6 smaller boas had attacked here too.

I spread out my mana to observe the environment.

"Found it."

I walked in a certain direction and dug the ground a bit. Under the dirt was a bag.

Albeit one strap was broken, all the items inside were safe.

Ok first objective down, next was killing the boss.

I remembered another thing too.

Jungkook and Su-jin.

I wonder how were they doing, I hadn't seen them since I entered the dungeon.

Did they get vaporized in the destruction too?

Or did they not enter at all?

I get the feeling it's the later.

Something might've happened.

I should clear the boss quickly.