Vol. 2 Chapter 34: Breach

Chapter 34: Breach

"Yea! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!" As Gao Xiaowen finished her chant, a black mass appeared in the ocean. This black, pulsating blob, covered in writhing tendrils that resembled blood vessels, was one of Shub-Niggurath's Dark Young. Though Gao Xiaowen couldn't summon the great entity herself, she managed to call forth one of its lesser offspring.

The summoned creature began attacking a Deep One with its tendrils, injecting it with a mysterious substance. Gao Xiaowen, marked by the gaze of her eldritch patron, managed to command the Dark Young to target the Deep Ones. Without her influence, this monster would have attacked indiscriminately.

On the other side, Hu Wenxu gulped down a vial of black substance, his final trump card from his first game instance. This black liquid was teeming with tiny larvae capable of cohabitating with most organisms, providing their host with relentless power. The cost of this symbiosis, however, was that the host could only consume human flesh thereafter.

He had already consumed the meat fungus, among other substances. Each of these materials, derived from various monsters, had different side effects. Ingesting them separately would mutate a person into a monster. Now, these substances interacted within Hu Wenxu's body, some clashing and others harmonizing, mutating his flesh and warping his mind.

Hu Wenxu's skin turned pale and sprouted strange, writhing black patterns. His right hand's bones dissolved, fingers extending into a massive tendril cluster. His left chest bulged with grotesque boils, and his feet fused into a writhing mass of tentacles. His transformation was most evident in his eyes, originally his mutated organ, now replaced by dark voids from which tendrilled eyeballs occasionally emerged.

Ecstatic, Hu Wenxu roared. His theory proved correct. The combined ingestion of these substances led to extreme mutations, but his sanity remained intact. The various monster components provided him immense power, albeit with some limitations and monstrous urges.

With their newly gained power, Gao Xiaowen and Hu Wenxu began aiding the merfolk, killing Deep Ones. Gao Xiaowen, though losing her demonic implant and future potential in the implant path, was now closely tied to her patron. Hu Wenxu, now fully transformed into a monster, faced numerous hidden dangers within his body.

Hu Wenxu's enhanced abilities and the floating eyeballs relaying surroundings made him unbeatable by ordinary Deep Ones. He also finally accessed his skill panel, previously a rigid tool, now an integrated part of his body. His three skills—cultivation enhancement, desire-inducing waves, and paralysis attack—were now fully under his control. Hu Wenxu unleashed a wave, initially meant to incite desire, to paralyze all touched by it.

With the players' assistance, the Deep Ones' defense crumbled. The Dark Young and Hu Wenxu pushed towards the altar, drawing all attention. Amidst the chaos, no one noticed Lu Li quietly grasping a spear.

Lu Li's brain went into overdrive, processing vast amounts of data: water temperature, flow direction, debris positions, and currents caused by the battle. The immense calculation load would drive a normal human mad, but Lu Li only bled from his nose, smiling. He freed his muscles, making them bulge with power, and hurled the Deep One's spear towards the flesh mass on the altar.

By the time the Deep Ones realized, the spear had already bypassed various obstacles and currents, piercing the flesh mass. The grotesque entity shrieked, extending countless tendrils to consume all nearby. Ironically, many Deep Ones, who had been fighting to protect it, were devoured by their own worshipped entity.

This chaos provided the Merfolk King an opening. He drove back the giant Deep One, with the merfolk bravely holding the line. The Merfolk King began chanting a powerful spell: "Summon Sandstorm."

In the desert, this would be Imhotep's ultimate move. Underwater, it manifested differently. The ocean floor roiled, sand mixing with water to form a massive, turbulent storm. Countless creatures were swept away. The flesh mass on the altar roared, but its cries were futile. Once detached from the altar, it quickly decayed into useless, rotten flesh.

End of the Chapter