NOVEL NEXT Chapter 584: Stalemate?
A massive dome of poison erupted, swallowing everything for miles. The shockwave flattened the dunes, shattered nearby cliffs, and tore through the sky like a rippling wound. The Beast Lords threw up barrier after barrier, screaming as their defenses melted under the sheer corrosive force.
At the heart of it all, Damon stood unmoved. His clothes burned away, his skin glowing faintly with greenish black scales. There was also the obnoxious black egg stuck on his chest.
The broodmother's flames splashed harmlessly against him, her poison feeding his body rather than harming it. He had already integrated it into his body, and now it did not affect him.
The broodmother, on the other hand, shrieked and raged about, sending shockwaves in all directions. His poison was clearly superior, but not by that much. Or rather, it did not have the big impact it should have had.
It looked like the broodmother had her own ways to deal with it. She chopped off a part of herself, and the next second, the small part withered and died, turning into putrid smoke. She was ready for round two.
Damon smiled, his eyes blazing with a calm, terrifying focus. "You took my poison attack just fine, so what about other attacks? Let's see just how strong you are."
He charged ahead towards the huge monstrosity, blood and poison surging wildly around him. At the same time, thousands of poisonous hellfire crimson lances appeared in the sky above the broodmother.
They hung there for a moment, an apocalyptic constellation of death, each lance dripping with molten venom and crackling with blood-red lightning.
The broodmother sensed danger and screeched, her vast body coiling protectively. Veins of sickly light pulsed across her carapace as layers of hardened chitin sealed over her vulnerable spots. Her wings folded inward like shields, the translucent flesh hardening into a crystalline barrier that shimmered with corrupted energy.
But Damon did not stop. "How high is your defense?" He commanded the thousands of crimson lances to fall, and they rained down at once. Each impact sent shockwaves that carved canyons into the desert, detonating with bursts of viridian fire and black smoke.
The broodmother's crystalline armor cracked and shattered under the onslaught. Segments of her massive frame broke apart, oozing torrents of bioluminescent venom that hissed and burned through the sand.
Still, she did not die. The colossal beast thrashed violently, her wings reforming from liquid toxin, her wounds bubbling and sealing
Damon narrowed his eyes. "Regeneration that fast… that's a problem. But how long can you keep going?"
Damon flexed his abundant mana and sent in more and more crimson lances. His mana regeneration was also much higher in the deadly, poisonous zone all around him. His mana was getting filled up just as soon as he used it up.
Everything was working in his favor. But there was still something that bothered him.
The broodmother seemed stronger than she should be at the moment, under the influence of all of this corruption, his poison.
He sent out wave after wave of attack, and at the same time, he sent huge amounts of mana to his left arm, opening up one more meridian.
Crimson veins lit up across Damon's left arm like molten rivers, tracing intricate lines of blood and venom through his skin. The mana pulsed, his body vibrating with power as another meridian shattered open. The moment it connected, his aura exploded outward again.
Damon immediately tried adding more stat points. He threw a thousand into strength and another thousand into intelligence, and everything went in smoothly. He could feel his mana pool expanding.
He was about to unleash another wave of crimson lances when suddenly the broodmother stopped screeching. All her eyes locked onto him with rage and hatred, and the next moment, something unexpected happened.
Every droplet of venom in the air seemed to tremble, as though responding to a higher call. It was like his poison was suddenly not his own. The Broodmother lifted her colossal head, her eyes burning with a venomous, transcendent light.
The glow wasn't mana. It was something else. It was a sort of suffocating authority that transcended his understanding.
"What is this…" Damon muttered, his teeth gritting. His poison mist clashed against hers, but instead of overpowering it, this time his poison mist was simply dispersed, not a single wisp reaching the broodmother.
The bug bitch was doing something big. Damon knew that if he allowed her to continue, then she might truly pull something colossal out of her colossal ass. He dashed towards her and started punching her with his raw strength all over her humongous body. Crimson lances continued to rain down, doing further damage.
Each of Damon's blows landed like meteors, rupturing the broodmother's thick carapace. The earth quaked under every impact, dunes collapsing inward as his poison-infused fists tore through layers of hardened chitin. Each strike sent waves of blood-red venom coursing through the air, detonating like liquid explosions.
But the broodmother didn't even flinch. Her body twisted unnaturally, swelling as veins of glowing green light spread across her shell like cracks in glass. The next moment, all of the poisonous sludge nearby started rushing towards her.
Damon's eyes widened. It was all slowly healing her!
"Oh no, you don't!" Damon immediately tried to command the poison, but his control paled in comparison to the broodmother's. What followed next essentially turned into a battle of will or something like that.
Damon had expected the fight to go a lot smoother, but it essentially turned into a blow-by-blow dog fight where he had to wrestle for control with the huge ass bug. No matter how much he tried to bring her down, the broodmother kept going strong and regenerating.
She couldn't hurt him, but at the same time, he couldn't do anything to her. It was a dead-end stalemate.
Damon even went as far as to open up two additional meridians in his legs and dropped another couple thousand stat points in his strength and intelligence. It was all useless. It was as if there was a huge wall in front of him that he simply couldn't break.