NOVEL NEXT Chapter 297: A Dying Hope
Before the pain registered, it pierced through and vaporised muscles and bones before it left from Coyle's back.
"ARGH!" Coyle's jaws snapped open as a scalding agony crashed on his nerves. Yet Adam was far from over.
He gripped the beam like a pommel as the plasma broadened. Like a ravenous devil, it engulfed more flesh and organs until it reshaped itself into a blazing falchion.
"Look, your poison is ravaging me, too." He raised his dark right arm, the toxic fumes swirling out of the crevices and teeth marks. "So, be a man and don't scream in my ears."
Coyle roared louder. How could he endure this feeling? And how did Adam not claw at his neck and writhe in agony like a worm? Neurotoxins, hemotoxins, and cytotoxins; his true poison melded them all in an acidic cocktail no one could survive. So, how could he stand, much less speak, with such a chilling tone?
As his mind rumbled in chaos, Adam's lips broadened into a smirk, and his fingers tightened around the falchion's pommel.
With all the strength he had left, he drove it upward.
The fiery edge devoured everything in its wake, carving a molten gash through the scales, then emerged by the top of Coyle's middle head and dispersed in a spectacle of scarlet tongues.
A split second later, the body slipped into two sundered pieces. Blood poured, and vapor rose as he watched the disbelief in Coyle's dimming eyes.
"Millions of degrees plasma, not flames. That's why you don't tell your adversary about your abilities." He dropped to the ground, purple veins throbbing on his clenched jaws, and his breath ragged.
A reluctant light flashed in Coyle's eyes as his two side heads stopped wriggling on the floor. He cursed Adam one last time and breathed his last a second later.
Simultaneously, a series of notifications rang in Adam's blurring mind.
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[You have defeated the tier 8 level 88 boss: Coyle, the new Azhi Dahaka. You have gained 36.000.000 experience points.]
[Promotion quest completed. Channeling the gods' authority to break the tier barrier.]
The familiar soothing sensation engulfed his poisoned body, supporting the struggling scabbard to heal it. Yet, the damages were too extensive, and the venom's magical properties had already seeped into his cells.
Still, it helped clear his mind, just enough for him to store Coyle's body in the magic cube and limp to the palace.
'Shit...' He coughed out blood on the way, each step a torture.
His plan to heal himself through the promotion had backfired and honestly, he didn't know what to do now. Perhaps he'd find an antidote in the palace? Doubtful. What if the exit was wide enough to let one person through?
'It's my last hope.' A steely glint flashed in his eyes as his skin rotted a little more with each second crawling by. He couldn't die, not so close to freedom, not after five long years of struggles... not without seeing her again.
His vision blurred as he stepped under the arched door, missing its intricate Persian flourishes. The same went for the rooms filled with multicolored silk sheets as thin as cicada wings. Even when he entered the throne room, the empty brazier didn't register, nor did the ancient stone throne from which a familiar piece had been excavated.
Dark blood dripped down his lips like water as he approached a swirling mass of energy.
"Interesting. Those braziers contained the remnant powers of the abyssal rulers." The mass of energy thundered, yet he couldn't hear anything. Instead, his knees buckled, but he still crawled toward it. He could feel it: the exit was behind.
"This incompetent human at least delivered on his promise to kill you. No antidote can save you from the poison I bestowed on him." The energy stirred, Ahriman's delighted voice thundering throughout the palace. "And with your death, the throne will become whole again. With your death, I'll wield the powers of the strongest devil that has ever existed."
As his declaration echoed through the abyss, Adam's movements halted, and he lost consciousness.
However, his body continued its desperate combat to stop the poison. Excalibur's scabbard poured out a sea of fresh water, yet it soon turned murky. His chaos roared, trying to assimilate the poison to no avail. The composition was too complex and lethal for the process to happen in a short time.
But their combined effort, added to the tier promotion respite, bore unexpected fruits.
Below the abyss, sleeping in Naströnd, a beach composed of corpses, a creature bigger than the leviathan snapped its eyes open. The dark pupils swirled as if drawn to something right above its head.
"A chaotic being?" It muttered, frowning. "A devil? No, among the seven existing specimens, only one wields chaos."
Its abyssal scales glinted as it rose to its paws, displaying its colossal frame in all its glory and the reason Surtr had warned Adam that this being was better left undisturbed. He scanned the sky with unwavering focus.
"Draconic blood as pure as mine..." Its voice faltered slightly as its wings unfurled, blasting the bones in every direction. "Apsu died hundreds of millions of years ago and they shackled Tiamat. Who is it?"
His confusion grew. He was the last chaotic dragon in the realms, yet everything pointed at the emergence of a new hybrid life form. But how could it come from the desolate abyss?
Eager to find the answer, he rocketed to the sky, leaving Niflheim for the first time in eons. It reached the closed passage dug through space by the devil in the blink of an eye, feeling the chaotic force wane at an alarming speed.
"Can't let you die without knowing who you are." His maw parted into a grin as he tore a claw through the fist-sized opening.
CRACK
The weakened space shattered like glass to reveal the throne room.
His eyes widened as he took in the scene: Adam's unconscious figure a few steps away and the mass of energy acting as Ahriman's avatar.
"Hmm. Angra Mainyu? Didn't Ahura Mazda put you to sleep millions of years ago?"
The mass stirred, anger filling Ahriman's voice.
"Don't you have roots to gnaw on? Get lost."
The dragon's head tilted toward the throne before his laughter boomed in the palace.
"I see. You can't accept your destiny and want to hold that devil's power to shatter it."
His maw snapped in the palace, devouring Adam and the brazier nearby as he retreated without delay, not forgetting to throw a hurtful spike.
"It must feel terrible to be destined to lose because of the interference of mortals when you're the embodiment of evil. That devil surpasses you in every aspect. Hahaha!"