Chapter 28: | Fusion III
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• † Blooming Colossus Bastion [Ascension II]
Your body becomes a living fortress—regenerating, unyielding, and immune to displacement. When near death, you erupt into a vine-armored titan form: limbs reborn as crystalline growths, each movement crushing, each defense absolute. Attacks that once pierced now shatter. You cannot be moved. You cannot be stopped. Only destruction of your core halts the bloom.
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What?
What was this skill?
It was... broken.
Absolutely, unequivocally broken.
With this alone, I could likely obliterate monsters far beyond the class of Lords.
Maybe even Calamities.
This wasn't a skill, it was a contingency for death itself.
A fail-safe made of flesh and fury.
I loved it.
Why?
Because it wouldn't let me die peacefully.
And really, who in their right mind would embrace death?
Not me.
Not anymore.
This skill made dying an option I could no longer afford.
When my body neared the brink, when death licked at my heels, this thing activated.
Like a damned final form, it would turn me into a walking catastrophe.
An extinction event in the shape of a whark.
Whoever, or whatever, bestowed me the luck to get this skill…
Arigatou gozaimasu.
Yeah.
I don't know why I said that, but it felt right.
That phrase, it echoed with the right kind of respect, the right kind of reverence.
I'd heard it once from those who hailed from the Eastern Lands.
They didn't just say "thank you." They said it like a prayer.
Because it felt more polite.
And now… I understood.
I sighed, snapping back to the now.
My gaze drifted back to the fusion table, flickering with endless possibilities.
Next.
There was no stopping now.
I had tasted the sweetness of madness, now I hungered for more.
The next fusion should be… these.
All stealth-based skills.
Every one of them tuned for silence, concealment, and ambush.
I tilted my head, curious.
Would this fusion push me toward absolute invisibility, the path of perfect stillness?
Or would it evolve into something stranger?
Darker?
I didn't care.
The outcome would be mine, either way.
Without hesitation, my tendrils clicked Yes.
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[Would you like to combine these skills?]
• † Phantom Bastion – Ascension I +
† Duskplate Hide – Ascension I +
† Abyssal Ghosthide – Ascension I
[Yes] / [No]
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The skills fused.
And my body began to mutate.
I felt it immediately.
Blood gushed from beneath my hide, erupting like volcanic jets.
My carapace cracked.
My scales shattered.
My entire outer shell crumbled in an agonizing cascade of destruction.
Hide.
Scales.
Carapace.
All of it merged into something new, something unified, something unknown.
An extreme amount of pain tore through both flesh and mind.
I let out a guttural groan, barely holding back the scream clawing at my throat.
The agony nearly rivaled that of Blooming Colossus Bastion, a hell I had only just survived.
From the side, Liora groaned in exasperated confusion.
"For the love of the Almighty Supreme One, how!? How can your skills keep ascending one after another?"
She paced for a moment, muttering under her breath.
"You're not… you're not actually walking the path of False Ascensions, are you?"
Her tone shifted, concerned.
She had seen this before.
One of her comrades, reckless and ambitious, had chosen that path.
He'd soared quickly, almost too easily.
Then died just as fast.
False Ascensions granted rapid growth… but no depth.
No resilience.
They were fragile.
Temporary.
She facepalmed, muttering again.
"Well… that's your path, not mine, I guess. Who am I to stop this madness?"
I heard her.
Sort of.
But her words blurred into white noise as the pain intensified.
I lost control of my body and slammed violently into the cavern wall.
The stone cracked.
My bones howled.
My body writhed and thrashed like it was being torn into thousands of pieces.
Liora sighed again and… laid back down.
"If you die, I'll bury what's left, alright?"
She murmured as she snored, already too tired to care about the nonsense her descendant insisted on enduring.
I tried to endure.
I really tried.
But the pain… it wasn't just physical anymore.
My thoughts bent and twisted.
Memories frayed.
My consciousness fractured.
Reality became a blur.
The light in my vision dimmed, then began to fade altogether.
Was this... my limit?
Was this truly how far I could go?
No.
No one dictates my limit.
Not the world.
Not fate.
Not even pain.
But even so.
Even with that defiance in my soul.
My body collapsed.
And the darkness claimed me.
I passed out.
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The currents drifted peacefully.
The activity within the cavern had returned to normal now that the being who caused the havoc had passed out.
Days passed.
Then, I awoke.
The nightmare ended as a wave of comfort washed over me, but I couldn't help feeling a tinge of disappointment, disappointed at my own weakness, at the fact that I had passed out from the pain.
I admit it.
I was weak.
Truly weak.
And perhaps it was exactly because I was weak… that I managed to survive.
A soft chime echoed in the cavern as a hologram flickered into view.
Its descriptions followed shortly after.
And I chuckled.
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[Your skills have fused.]
[You have gained:]
• † Phantom Duskhide [Ascension II – Passive]
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• † Phantom Duskhide [Ascension II]
A spectral fortress forged of stone, shadow, and silence. Your body vanishes into terrain when still—rock, reef, or ruin. Strikes glance off your shimmering, ghostlike shell, while misdirection and warped silhouettes make targeting near impossible. Weapons chip. Focus slips. In darkness and silence, you are the unseen.
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Monsters gushed in from both sides of the passage.
It was only now that I noticed them.
There was no time to explain the workings of this new skill.
I sighed and closed my eyes.
My tendrils twisted, then lashed out into the tide of monsters, cutting through the horde, carving a path toward the one pulling the strings behind this swarm.
My maw opened wide, tearing apart anything that got close.
Again and again, I rammed through the horde, my tendrils impaling and absorbing their mass.
I could feel it, among them were a few Lower Lords… and one High Lord.
Why classify them?
Because the difference was vast.
A Lower Lord might've once been a threat, but now?
They were food, nothing more than meat waiting to be taken.
But a High Lord?
Be it defensive, physical, or magical, those monsters had ascended beyond a mere Lord's might.
They could threaten my life even now.
That was why I created categories among them.
So I'd know who was who.
So I'd know how to kill them.
Liora sighed as she saw me charging straight into the Lord-class monsters.
Her legs shifted, morphing into an ornate armor before she obliterated the monsters pouncing at her.
She moved, her form blurring, then reappearing tens of meters away.
Golden lines split through hundreds of monsters.
Then they exploded.
Flesh, bone, and blood splattered across the cavern as Liora danced forward, merciless and efficient, her limbs striking with unstoppable force.
"These mere ants think they can take a piece off me?"
She chuckled, amused, her hands and legs blurring as she blocked, countered, and massacred every pitiful mongrel that lunged at her.
The currents turned red from the sheer volume of blood spilling into the water.
And I?
I surged deeper.
The Lord-class monsters lingered in the back, biding their time.
Waiting for me to exhaust myself before delivering the finishing blow.
Clever bastards.
To think they could coordinate swarm tactics... Impressive.
But not enough.
My stamina dipped, yet it recovered with each devoured foe.
My stats sharpened, my strength grew.
The more I consumed, the more I killed, the more refined I became.
My muscles compacted over and over as fresh wounds replaced the old, my regeneration worked relentlessly.
I opened my maw, and howled.
A challenge.
Their response?
Nothing.
They waited.
Watching.
Calculating.
Hoping I'd falter.
Hours passed.
Carcasses littered the battlefield.
The currents were blood-heavy, so thick with the stench of death it clouded my mind.
Madness clawed at the edges of my sanity.
Murder and blood became all I could think of.
My tendrils flailed with erratic force, cleaving flesh and shattering bone without pause.
Liora munched casually on the carcass of a slain beast near the back.
"Go kill those bastards,"
She muttered.
Then she punted an eel toward the ceiling with a lazy kick.
"Don't be a coward. Go!."
I sighed and nodded.
She was unhinged, if you could call it that.
Then.
Pain.
A burst of blue light tore through the chaos.
My body convulsed as burning holes riddled my flesh.
Another flash.
Blue lightning.
Agony lanced through my nerves, through bone and sinew.
My vision flickered.
My mind struggled to process the pain.
That thing, that bastard, had firepower.
Enough to kill me.
So why?
Why didn't it strike me down from the start?
Why swarm me with monsters instead of ending me outright?
Sadism?
A sick pleasure in watching me struggle?
Then that bastard… is fucked up.
A primal desire surged in my blood.
A need to destroy.
I howled.
Damned bastard.
I growled.
Now witness my true form!
Crystals ruptured from my flesh, exploding outward before being reabsorbed.
My body shifted, morphed, bulking up and crystallizing.
Like a demon king rising from hell, my flesh hardened into luminous crystal.
I towered over them, laughing... no, cackling, as I looked down at the insignificant insects that dared defy me.
The show was over.
Now die, mongrels.
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