51 - Interference

Chapter 51 - Interference

Written By Dr Armstrong

->The Wyrm's POV<-< p>

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'You can teleport others?' The Spider asked softly, each of her glowing red eyes like rubies in a sea of white sand.

'That's right.' It was a factual statement, although [Summoning] wasn't part of the Spatial element and was probably meant to be used as a stand-in for Pokeballs, the Wyrm had managed to find a loophole, one that he promptly abused and took advantage of like the virgin that it was.

It was a Skill that could instantaneously transport any of the user's familiars to their side.

That was the Skill's description, yet it was pretty vague and easy to exploit for a constantly regenerating creature like the Wyrm.

By placing a small portion of his flesh and blood, the Wyrm could teleport his familiars to that location, as he was technically there.

Using this, the Wyrm had teleported the Overlord Dragon into the other side of the cavern, far, far away from the Hell Gate's suction zone.

He internally chuckled a bit as he realized his other Minions would wake up to find an actual Dungeon Boss sitting beside them, Larry would probably turn red again out of panic.

'Why didn't you use that against me, then?' Being able to disorientate the Spider by teleporting in and out of places would be a huge advantage, essentially allowing the Wyrm to be a roided-up Subnautica Warper.

'I couldn't.' Again, it would only work on one of his Minions, which the Spider noticeably wasn't.

'...and why couldn't you?' She asked, yearning for the specifics.

'Is your web fluid sticky semen, or is it some vaginal jelly since you're a girl?' Came the answer in the form of another question.

'What...?'

'Exactly.'

'...Well, the Skill for it actually consumes SP instead of MP, it also comes out not from my bum or the other hole, but a new, completely separate one dedicated to—' 

'Alright, alright, I get it. That was a rhetorical question, dumb ass...' The Spider might be better off just being a visually attractive background NPC again like in her past life.

'Oh...you heard that...?' She said in a weirdly quiet and embarrassed tone.

'That's how [Telepathy] works, sadly.' Every thought that popped out in their heads would be automatically transferred to the other party's mind, the God who designed this System was probably just too lazy to make an algorithm that could find the difference between intentional messages and private comments.

'...' It turned out pretty awkwardly.

Thinking about it now, Kumoko probably still retained her past life's demeanour, but since the Skill exposed her inner monologue, she had no choice but to speak more, less she had to endure complete internal silence.

A loud rumble reverberated through the cavern walls as the Hell Gate exploded in a huge burst of dark energy before completely vanishing out of existence, taking everything that it had swallowed into the abyss of nonexistence.

As the dark energy brought forth from the elemental upheaval settled, the Wyrm made his reintroduction to the battlefield as he blitzed his way in with a thunderous expulsion of magic rocketing to the Spider's direction.

'I think it's about time we get to doing the murder death kill again.' The Wyrm muttered to the Spider's mind before several magic circles manifested around her form.

'...Why is it that you want to kill me, anyway? I thought it was because you were just following the Dragon's orders, but that doesn't seem to be correct now...' Kumoko asked with a curious tone as her neutral tone of voice returned.

'I guess it would be fine to tell you since one of us would die soon; I have a Special Skill that lets me steal a portion of the power from those I murder.' The Wyrm explained his [Greed] without much thought.

'Power stealing? Like you can steal people's Stats and Skills?' She requested for the specifics, a curious arachnid Kumoko was.

'Exactly, though it doesn't work like the bad Slime's Gluttony. For me, I don't need to eat the body, I just need to kill and get access to the target's Soul. So don't worry about me messing up your body, I've decided to just cremate your ass instead of eating it.' In hindsight, it was a pretty cliche Skill, wasn't it?

'Naiwa...that's too OP! Mine just gives me more EXP from kills...' Kumoko responded as she explained her own 'Special Skill' to the Wyrm.

'Oh? Is that one of the Skills awarded from [Ruler of Perserverance]?' He assumed since it was most likely her that stole this Skill from under his nose.

'Ehm...no, it's my [Pride], [Perserverance] lets me survive off of my MP instead of HP...' She said passingly as the Wyrm descended from the shadows and met her face to face.

'...Hey...you lied!' Kumoko shouted out loud in their mental link as her gaze travelled down his draconic body.

'What? What do you mean?' The Wyrm frankly didn't know what she was talking about.

'Yo-you have...ehm...those...those parts!!!' She frantically waved her scythe-like arms to the Wyrm's crotch area.

'Oh...' The Wyrm's bemused voice resounded in her mind.

'Yeah, it is there. But it doesn't work, I never get any morning wood, nor did I ever pee in my entire second life.' That's right, his penis was completely non-functional.

He did try to use it, but it just did nothing. In fact, a couple of his bodily organs did nothing too. He never shat from his asshole, nor did he need to breathe the air around him.

But the Wyrm himself has been born from a mother and didn't just spawn into the Dungeon, meaning the Monsters of this place did reproduce.

The assumption was that female Monsters could use parthenogenesis to create offspring, the males are there just for the sake of it.

These Monsters didn't seem to be naturally evolving creatures, anyway. They were probably made by some God like how all Dragons and Wyrms were made by the Dragon God.

The Wyrm and the rest of the Monsters in this Dungeon much resembled the Titans created by the Hallucigenia or the Dragons from Ragna Crimson instead of real living animals, they were artificial and could only mimic true life but were not a part of it.

Yes, sadly, no sex for the Wyrm, none for the foreseeable future unless he got an upgrade from [Chrysalis] that could make his penis rock hard.

But weirdly enough, even though it didn't have any uses, the Wyrm's penis was still one of his weak spots before he had upgraded it, that goes for the other male Monsters too.

'Oh...that's a bummer.' The Spider muttered through their telepathic link.

'It truly is...now for the—' The Wyrm was interrupted.

'Hey, I didn't manage to give you a name yet!' Kumoko shouted, wanting to return the favour.

'...' The Wyrm just silently agreed and let the other party think for a few seconds.

'What about Ebio? You know, shrimp king!' That was a pretty clever name, the Wyrm wouldn't deny that.

'I don't plan to be a shrimp forever...' But it wouldn't fit the future Wyrm.

Being a shrimp was just a leftover from his previous evolutions, unlike Kumoko who was forced to be a Spider, the Wyrm already had choices to branch out from the shrimp path throughout his evolutionary journey.

'Oh...ehm, what did they use to call you back then, Issei-san?' Ah, that's right, the Wyrm almost forgot about it but he had a certain nickname back in his previous life.

'It was Ichi...I think.' That nickname made sense, his full name meant 'One becoming the cherry blossom' or something like that, whereas the nickname just meant the number one.

'Ichi...Ichi...Ichi...Oh! what about Ichiro?' Hey, isn't that another generic name?

'Firstborn son? I guess I am a firstborn...' The Wyrm tilted his head at this name.

'Uh, yeah, but I mean 'Ichiro' as in 'Ichi' and 'Kuro' since you're scales are a bit dark...' 

'So you're going to call me the Black One?' Yeah, hell no.

'...'

'Then what about Ryuka?' She proposed.

'You already said that one!!!'

'I did? I mean, it's a good name...' She muttered whilst repeatedly tapping both of her scythe-like limbs together.

'Oh! Oh! Oh! I got one! Akuro! It means red-black to fit your colour scheme, and It's not so generic!' Kumoko started jumping around for some reason as she said so.

'That's like a furry's name!'

'...Ikarus...?' She proposed another, and, uh...It wasn't so bad.

「The [Ruler of Pride] is granting you with the name 'Ikarus', do you accept this name?」

「Your new designation shall be [Ein Varaaz • Ikarus] until you either change your name, evolve, or die.」

'Great! Now can you let me [Appraise] you? I'll let you do that to me too!' Kumoko asked as she conjured up some mental glasses and adjusted them as she went for a closer look at me.

'I see no problem, let's do it.' She was going to die by his hands, anyway. So what if she got an advantage by knowing his Skills? He'd also get one by viewing hers, so it was fine.

「Unable to appraise a Ruler—」

「The Ruler has permitted for your appraisal.」

The Wyrm widened his eyes as he skimmed through Kumoko's stat sheet, this girl has some cheat Skills and extremely high stats, it was intense.

He appraised all of the unfamiliar Skills in her Status one by one, though he was also surprised to find that her species was not a derivative of 'Taratect' as she was instead a [Zoa Ele], whatever the fuck that is.

He particularly paid attention to her various Ruler Skills as well as her [Rot Attack], he also didn't know how the hell she got such a powerful Skill like [Abyss Magic] but it was damned OP, the Gods needed to nerf it.

'WHA-WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS, HOW DO YOU HAVE SO MANY SKILLS, AND THOSE STATS TOO!!!!???' The Wyrm heard Kumoko's voice shouting in his mind, apparently outraged by the number of ridiculous Skills he had that even dwarfed her own.

'It's because of [Greed], remember? Also, you have [Heresy Nullification] for god's sake! Give me a break here...' No wonder she was still saner than him, that Skill would block every mental side-effect that those troublesome Ruler Skills brought to him.

'Naiwa...' The Spider could only shake her head.

'...'

'...'

The Wyrm opened his jaws as blue flame gathered inside his maws, this was the power granted from his recent Title acquisition, [Dragon Lord], which allowed him to 'embody' a portion of his Dragon familiar's strength.

Though he could only embody some of the Dragon's strength, the Wyrm could only imitate Rend's blue flames to a certain extent and perhaps even turn a few of his body parts to resemble Rend's.

The Title had a particular method of acquisition, to be called a [Dragon Lord], one needed to subjugate a Dragon with their consent.

That meant that if he were to have enslaved a Dragon when they were at the brink of their death, or raised a Wyrm familiar to the stature of a Dragon, it would simply not count.

If the Title allowed him to embody the strength of a Dragon, then the Skill with the same name would let him influence the strength of a Dragon.

Whenever he fought a Draconic Monster, all their stats would be temporarily decreased by the Skill Level × 100.

Similarly, if he were to have a Draconic Monster in his party, all their stats would be increased by the Skill Level × 100, it was one phantasmal Skill.

Essentially, it was like the [Demon Lord] and [Hero] Skills, only targeted at other people, specifically draconic people.

The blue flame ballooned from his mouth before erupting into a blast of heat, utterly incinerating the afterimages left by Kumoko as she evaded the blast with arachnoid grace.

The Spider landed on the nearby wall as her scythe-like arms glowed with a dangerous light before she leapt in the Wyrm's direction, aiming for a strike.

Ikarus swallowed the remnants of his flame and turned to the Spider as his right arm swelled and bulged to resemble Rend's.

The distance between the pair rapidly shortened before the sound barrier shattered as the two limbs met in a booming clash.

However, just as the both of them pushed against each other in a test of brute strength, the pair widened their animalistic eyes as the very space between them seemed to elongate and twist in an unnatural direction, distorting even faster than their already accelerated minds.

*BOOOM*

The Wyrm crashed against the cavern's wall as it cracked and shook in response. Exhaling deep breaths, Ikarus looked up at the battlefield before him, of the Spider experiencing the same fate as him in another direction, and of the spiralling portal in the middle.

Out of that portal, a foot came out, then an arm, then an oh-so-familiar figure...

...The Dragon God.

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"Do you like the name?" - Remark

Stones = Cookies