The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 610 – Quasi-divine beast

‘Holy fuck, it’s huge!’ Percy gasped.

He’d expected the creature to be massive, but it appeared that he had still failed to properly imagine its size. The ruby mountain easily stretched for over a kilometre from end to end, though it was admittedly difficult to tell its head apart from its tail.

That remained the case until one side shifted more than the other, a vast cavern appearing seemingly out of nowhere as the monstrous beast opened its maw. Rows of long, curved fangs lined up its colossal jaws, each made of the same material as the creature’s exterior.

What Percy could only assume to be a river of mangled Green beasts flooded the giant mouth, disappearing inside the demigod’s horrid throat. Three kilometres wasn’t that far, but the turbulent current still heavily interfered with Percy’s vision, making it difficult to say what was happening with any certainty.

Even so, he could tell that each of the elephant-sized beasts were barely large enough to fill the gaps between the creature’s pillar-like fangs. Had Percy been here with his real body, the quasi-divine beast was unlikely to even notice his existence as he got pulverized in its jaws.

‘Scary,’ Micky said. ‘But also good for us. Unless we do something to stand out, it won’t spare us a glance. We wouldn’t even qualify as a grain of rice, and I bet that this thing is used to eating more than three bowls per day.’

Percy nodded, yet calming down his host’s racing heart was still a struggle. That was especially the case a few seconds later, when the creature’s bright yellow eyes leisurely brushed over its incoming food – Percy and Micky included. Thankfully, the oppressive gaze didn’t linger on them at all.

Trying to gauge the demigod’s size, Percy estimated that it should be able to swallow a couple of fully grown Starry Queens standing side-by-side – maybe as many as three or four if it opened its mouth wide and stacked them vertically as well as horizontally – and that was only because most of the beast’s bulk was taken by its length rather than its girth.

If the monster had to be described in terms of animals native to Remior, the closest match would be an eel, though the demigod’s body wasn’t nearly as smooth. It was jagged and bumpy, its colossal scales looking more like mineral deposits than chitinous protrusions.

Long fissures stretched across its serpentine exterior, seemingly functioning as giant vents – or pores, perhaps – that spewed massive plumes of the same ruby-like substance that Percy and Micky had come here to collect.

As they had suspected, the quasi-divine beasts were the source of the substance, though it looked like their connection to the massive whirlpools they used to trap and collect their prey wasn’t as straightforward.

Percy could feel the presence of the monster’s willpower inside the current, but it was still quite thin, and he doubted that even a demigod could perpetually control such a vast region with its domain alone. It was more likely that the whirlpools already existed, and the eels merely empowered and steered them into fulfilling their own sinister purpose.

‘How can they even afford this expenditure?’

Micky asked, what remained of their host’s eyes jumping across the eel’s long body as the Huehuan clearly tried to count how many streams of red were being poured into the water.That was honestly a great question. The quasi-divine beast required a ridiculous amount of high-quality food to survive, yet didn’t appear to mind constantly secreting an equally-absurd volume of the red substance. Percy thought about it for a few seconds before offering his opinion.

‘There’s no doubt that the material is magical, but if you pay closer attention, it doesn’t actually contain that much mana.’

To demonstrate, he pulled a pinch of the concentrated substance that he had filtered and accumulated in his spatial seal, summoning it inside their host’s mouth. Then, he scanned it with Mana Sense, sharing the results with Micky. The needle-like particles shimmered in a faint Red colour that would barely qualify as a secondary ingredient when used in alchemy – a far cry from the grade of its source.

It was just speculation, but the substance looked like it was merely a byproduct of the eel devouring and digesting so many powerful beasts. Most of their mana was used to sustain the demigod’s colossal body, with the remaining nutrients processed and released into the ocean.

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Besides, the quasi-divine beast was clearly able to recycle much of the material: hordes of smaller creatures slowly filtered it out of the water, the larger ones accumulated it by eating their way to Green, and finally, they helpfully delivered it back to their overlords at the moment of their death.

At least, that further explained why the material was concentrated in the red regions instead of being scattered evenly across the planet. In all likelihood, the eels didn’t even have to generate much to supplement their losses.

‘Fascinating… so this is the true power of the Clear grade,’ Percy couldn’t help but think.

Admittedly, he’d met gods and even titans before, but neither Nephthys, Phoebe, nor Metatron had had a reason to show him much of their strength. Even the Whites that he had met on Felmara and Thess’kala hadn’t openly exerted themselves.

This was different. It was his first time seeing such a powerful creature openly demonstrating its might. Part of that had to do with the fact that the eel couldn’t just shrink itself or hide its enormous strength even if it wanted to, but it also clearly had no qualms about throwing its weight around, since it had nothing to fear in this ocean.

At this moment, Percy was certain that even Machaon – the frightening opponent that his main body had spent the past decade tirelessly working to overcome – would easily lose his life if he found himself inside the eel’s jaws.

‘I wonder if I’ll also grow this huge once I reach the Clear grade,’ Micky said, clearly just as impressed as Percy.

Percy smiled wryly, suddenly glad that his friend now had the ability to shapeshift into a smaller body. Micky’s true size could already get a little inconvenient at times, and he was merely a Green. The thought of flying around Remior while sitting atop the head of a town-sized bird sounded ridiculous.

Then again, they would probably have to deal with that issue when his current familiar grew to that level, as it didn’t look like Nephthys’s mutations would grant her a similar shapeshifting ability. Fortunately, it would be a while before that became a problem.

‘And to think that the weakest god can probably crush dozens of these things without breaking a sweat,’ Percy said. ‘Do you think true divine beasts are even larger?’

He knew that even a newly promoted deity was supposedly three grades stronger than a demigod. If that translated to a similar size increase, the dragons and phoenixes of Sixiang were bound to be enormous.

‘Maybe the power of the Concept realm doesn’t manifest in the same manner,’ Micky suggested, though he didn’t sound very certain of his guess. ‘Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a method of compressing their size like I do.’

Percy nodded, suddenly wishing to visit the peak faction one day, and not just because his familiars and fellow aspects might need access to the Elemental Source of the beast affinity that the divine beasts were suspected to possess. Alas, it would probably be a while before that day arrived – if it ever did.

For now, they should leave this place while they still could.

Their host, much like all the other Green beasts in their surroundings, had been reduced to a catatonic state. Its scales had mostly been peeled off, and its body had nearly been flattened by the crushing pressure. Percy struggled to so much as twitch, but the reptile’s mutilated muscles weren’t the only issue.

The willpower inside the water had grown dangerously thick, holding them in place. The current appeared to flow faster as they spiralled towards the eel. Percy and Micky were still a couple of kilometres away, so they did have some leeway before they reached the previously agreed one-kilometre mark, but there was no reason to risk drawing the leviathan’s attention now that they had already saturated the storage seal with the material.

‘Send me more phantom mana,’ Percy told his main body as he prepared to leave this planet.

It probably wouldn’t be necessary, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some of his own mana at hand, in case he had to drill his way out of the demigod’s domain. His spectral stash was the only tool he would be able to wield after letting go of his host.

As soon as he was ready, he extracted his wisp from the lizard’s spectral injuries, not even bothering to leave the stitches intact. Either way, the creature wasn’t going to survive this.

Percy apologized to his host for the rough handling, not sure whether the reptile was still capable of hearing or understanding him. In his defence, most of their time on the planet had been peaceful. It was only the last few hours that had been rather unpleasant.

‘It’s impressive that this guy lived his whole life without ever falling into the eel’s trap,’ Micky noted as they fled the colossal whirlpool. The potent willpower did offer some resistance, but it was nothing they couldn’t handle. ‘Pity we had to ruin its streak.’

‘It’s a pity, but not an accident,’ Percy argued.

It looked like most beasts on this planet tended to die in one of two ways: old age or getting eaten – whether by the demigods or the smaller creatures. At the very least, it didn’t seem like starvation or freezing to death were serious problems here.

Getting eaten was admittedly countless times more common than surviving the eels’ machinations for centuries to reach the end of one’s lifespan, but Percy and Micky would have inevitably selected one of those rare outliers to possess, since they had needed an intact body.

‘Indeed,’ Micky conceded with a mental sigh as they finally escaped the planet, disappearing into the infinite darkness.