NOVEL NEXT Chapter 576: Poison everywhere
Almost immediately, countless venomous insects and beasts charged towards him, almost drowning him completely. If it were anyone else, they would have simply died out of sheer suffocation and claustrophobia.
Everything happened in a fraction of a second. Every single beast and insect emitted an impossibly strong, poisonous aura, and there were so many of them. Swarms and swarms of various creatures attacked Damon at the same time.
Just the very noise they made disoriented him, and blood seeped out of his ears. His brain was flooded with a chaotic storm of noise. Clicking mandibles, shrieking wings, and hissing venom sacs bursting midair.
The pressure was immense, like a thousand drums pounding inside his skull. His vision flickered crimson as waves of insects slammed into him, forming a moving wall of chitin and fangs.
Their collective miasma was so thick that the cavern network was now filled with liquid miasma, poison so strong that the few beasts that had followed Damon from the upper networks of the cavern instantly exploded and dissolved.
This part of the cavern suddenly felt like a completely different world. Damon gasped and choked, unable to handle the outburst immediately. The liquid at least helped with the noise, which made the whole situation slightly better but not that much.
He gritted his teeth and bore the pain as hundreds and thousands of new types of poison assaulted him at the same time.
Damon closed his eyes as intense pain swept past him. He had expected some strong enemies in the lower layers of the cavern, but he definitely did not expect this. However, he welcomed the situation with open hands. It couldn't have come at a better time.
He let go completely, his arms and legs stretched out and hanging in limbo in the poisonous miasma. Insects crawled all over him, biting him and scratching him, and some even slashed at him.
Poison burrowed into his body like an unstoppable force. His skin was withering and peeling off, his head completely bald and barren with dry fissures all around, his blood congealing black and putrid. Every part of him was quickly dying.
This, coupled with the damage from the hundreds and thousands of venomous beasts, made his health already 1% in less than a few seconds.
However, Damon still only had a big, wide, peaceful smile on his face. He was like a monk sitting on Everest. There was a serene look in his features as if he were truly immersed in something wonderful.
This was because, along with the destruction, the healing aspect of his body was also blowing up exponentially. The words of his Nine Million Poison Body Refining Technique resounded in his mind as every bit of death, decay, and destruction was accompanied by a pulse of intense healing.
All the poison skills he had stacked until now worked overtime as the very poison that was slowly killing him, also started healing him. His regeneration was struggling and only barely keeping up, but it was enough to hold him at the brink of death.
And this was more than enough to give his body, his bloodline, and his refining technique to adapt to the new slew of poisons. Everything that was getting broken down was also being slowly built back up.
While in theory the concept seemed pretty simple, it was also accompanied by unimaginable pain, agony, misery, and suffering.
Damon grit his teeth, bore everything, and tried to focus only on the words of the Nine Million Poison Body Refining Technique that kept repeating over and over in his mind.
"At one million poisons, the heart ceases to beat blood, it becomes a forge of refined venom, pumping liquid death through every vein."
"At three million poisons, the flesh is no longer flesh, your skin becomes sheathed in invisible scales, woven from spiritual toxins that turn even light aside."
"At six million poisons, awaken the soul-fire of the Serpent Path, ignite poison laws within your core, incinerate karma, and shatter mortality. Die and be reborn through venom's wrath."
"At nine million poisons…"
"You are no longer a man. No longer a beast. You are plague incarnate. Where you walk, worlds decay. Where you breathe, empires rot. You are the end of purity… and the beginning of nothingness."
…
…
…
Damon had no idea how much time had passed by and how long he had been in the torturous state when he finally was able to face all the pain without his mind crumbling apart. At this point, his health was no longer dangling at a dangerous 1%. Instead, he was already at 11% which was not much but a lot better.
Also, the process was only becoming faster and faster. He was now able to open his eyes and move his hand around, slashing at the numerous little fuckers that had latched themselves onto him.
Each swing of his arm sent arcs of black-green energy slicing through the poison-filled abyss. The very liquid miasma recoiled from him now, swirling in violent waves as if terrified of the being it once sought to consume.
The insects that had covered him like a second skin fell away in droves, some bursting into vapor, others liquefying before they even hit the ground.
Every breath Damon took released a pulse of corrupted vitality, a rhythm of death and rebirth. His shredded skin peeled away entirely, replaced by something new, smooth, pale flesh etched with faint luminescent lines that pulsed like veins of emerald lightning. If one looked closely, these resembled scales rather than just skin.
Damon continued to slaughter the beasts all around him, his body starting to suck in the blood essence along with the endless miasma. Though the blood was not much, his bloodline extraction skill still worked just fine, even with the small amount of blood.
More stats and skills continued to accumulate when suddenly Damon's body convulsed in a violent manner. The entire cavern responded. Streams of venom from every direction were pulled toward him, drawn into his flesh in a torrential flood.
The miasma condensed so thickly around him that it formed a cocoon of pure poison, black on the outside and shimmering green from within. The creatures that remained fled into the shadows, their instincts screaming that something monstrous was being born.
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