Ray’s plan expected two results. First, killing the emerging monster to get himself a good deal of Essence. Since it was a powerful creature, he ought to be getting a decently hefty amount. Second, using a combination of Chaos Chymify, Lifeblood Crucible, and Lifeblood Construct to earn and use the same power that allowed the Duskshell to create Mana fruits.

Ideally, it would have been more convenient to earn something like a Tower Node that he could use to perform that.

Lifeblood Crucible and Construct were supposed to be for his personal use. For abilities that he could wield in battle and use to grow stronger personally.

But if it ended up he had to store the Duskshell’s Mana-fruit-producing power in Lifeblood Crucible, Ray didn’t want to end up replacing Hoard Defence. He definitely didn’t want to get rid of Soaring Wings. Thankfully, there was a way to avoid that.

Ray used Goliath Eater.

It was a little saddening the Sylvans hadn’t been five or more levels stronger than him. As such, he still hadn’t gotten to test the skill. But now, against a level 19 Duskshell, the skill finally activated.

Ray was flooded with newfound power. His muscles felt both stronger and lighter. The world appeared just a tiny bit detached from him, like he didn’t exist in the flesh as much as he used to and was a bit more of a ghost now. A weird feeling, to say the least. But more than all that, it was the Mana surging through him that made him feel alive.

So much Mana. A ton more than he was used to. Thousands of little sparks shooting inside him, almost seeming to glow under his skin. It made him itch to use his power, to do something. Anything. Ray had turned into a veritable livewire of magic.

It was strange that he had never felt this kind of change before, despite steadily having his Spirit raise his total Mana capacity continuously.

Maybe it was because the increase was so sharp this time. A steep ascent, like the face of a cliff, rather than a gradual gradient as had happened so far in his progression.

The Duskshell had fully emerged from the ground now. It turned to face him, its regard making his skin crawl. Even with Goliath Eater active, Ray understood just how much stronger this monster was.

It scuttled forward. Fast. Good thing Ray had the Ring of Temporal Evasion on. Time froze for a moment. It seemed over a day had passed since his last use of it. Ray already had something of a plan of action, though, so he didn’t even bother using the full time allotted to him by the ring.

Time unfroze. For a beast the size of a movie theatre, the Duskshell covered distance like crazy. In less than a breath, one of its forward tarantula-like legs swiped forward to quash the human before it like a bug.

Ray dodged away. For now, he kept Soaring Wings in reserve. He would use it if anything truly un-evadable appeared before him.

He also used Occultic Apparition on himself. Boosted to Tier 5 thanks to Goliath Eater, the spell not only suffused him with chaotic energy, it also enhanced his movement speed even further Ray’s Insanity affliction would be even easier to proc now. So long as he could hit the monster.

Considering how big it was, that wasn’t going to be difficult.

As Ray backed up, he threw out a couple of Chaos Chymifies. The monster’s girth was way too huge for it to dodge any of Ray’s attacks.

It didn’t matter. There was a dark shimmer in front of the spot on its leg that Ray had targeted, and the bolts of Chaos Chymify smashed against it before disappearing.

Leaving no damage on the limb at all.

Ray quickly moved backwards even more before he was crushed by the very leg he had targeted. Despite his racing heart, his thoughts were still calm. This was expected.

The monster’s Impervious Shell skill blocked all damage from any abilities that was of a lesser Tier than Impervious Shell. Even with Goliath Eater active, Ray’s Chaos Chymify was at a paltry Tier 3. Pretty bad matchup against a skill that was at Tier 5.

No problem. So long as he kept avoiding getting crushed, of course. Ray summoned his wings, then got some good aerial distance from the monster. There. Now he was in no danger.

Time for his Mana Infuser ring. One quick pulse of Mana into Chaos Chymify took it to Tier 4. Now it had to be enough to do some damage to that hulking turtle-spider from hell.

Thanks to his Thoroughness Reputation points.

Ray landed at a spot just behind the Duskshell. It had to turn around to face him again, which gave him just enough time to shoot off his empowered Chaos Chymify.

This time, the bolt of black-red energy did indeed pierce through the shimmering, dark barrier set up by Impervious Shell. Thoroughness came in handy here. It allowed him to pierce through any defences no more than a Tier above his attack’s Tier completely, which meant not a single bit of the damage he dealt would be negated.

Yet, the monster’s leg still didn’t take that much of a hit.

Ray started for a second as his bolt of Chaos Chymify left a rotten wound on the limb. Some hairs on legs wilted and fell away, others grew and strangled the limb. Beneath them, the chitinous covering melted away and the flesh sprouted outwards like a tumorous growth, blood spurting to the ground.

It wasn’t a terrible effect, but all it caused was a good deal of pain. Ray was pretty certain this was the first time he was building up Insanity on it too. If he remembered right, Impervious Shell protected its user from any afflictions from taking effect too. So overpowered.

The Duskshell roared as it turned around. Its motion was way too fast, and Ray barely caught the tail whipping out to lash at him from his right.

A good case for his wings. But the monster was so fast, he still took a hit. Even after he completed his summons and rose straight up, the swiping tail caught him in the leg.

The hit was so hard, Ray lost all control of his flight. He screamed out. Crushing pain had possessed his right knee, and his body twisted in midair thanks to the momentum imparted by the tail swipe. His wings failed to correct his flight, and Ray ended up crashing to the ground, even as he instinctively sent a chunk of his Recovery to fix up the injury.

He was on his feet in a second, using his wings fast to get himself some space. Much-needed, for the Duskshell had used Jutting Jaws.

Ray could only blink at how fast its tank-sized head ejected out of the front of its huge shell, seeking to gobble him up where he stood. Even as Ray escaped, he could feel the air whipping about him. He was almost deafened by the crunch of its snapping-turtle-like jaws.

The beat of his wings helped him regain his proper hearing as he threw himself farther out. That damned monster was way too fast for its size.

Ray halted his retreating motion quickly, though. He shot forward instead, pulling his arm back before swiping it forward. Shatterclaw activated. As it was at Tier 4 thanks to Goliath Eater’s boost, Ray didn’t even need to use his Mana Infuser ring. It was already strong enough.

Enough to pierce straight through Impervious Shall and land its multitude of sashes on the targeted hairy limb.

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Ray had aimed for the same leg he had already left a wound on with Chaos Chymify. In fact, he even struck precisely on the gory wound. It worked out just as he had planned. Shatterclaw was far stronger in pure damage than Chaos Chymify, and the empowerment it had received from his Goliath Eater skill only took it up an even higher notch.

The leg was slashed entirely apart, its bottom half falling away from the upper part with a welter of blood.

Ray had created some distance as the Duskshell roared. Dark energy bubbled out from underneath the monster. Presence of the Primordial informed him it was part of the Mana Surge skill the Duskshell possessed. With the help of his black wings, he evaded the shots of dark energy.

Ray flew up higher. The range of the monster’s skill had to end somewhere. After what seemed like rising forty feet above that dark shell, the Duskshell finally stopped attacking from distance.

“Ha!” Ray said. “Can’t reach me now, can y—”

The Duskshell leaped.

“Ah, shit.”

Ray was mostly prepared for the Duskshell’s Shell Quake. If that was even the right name. Whatever. He had seen the other Duskshell use that same skill on the Sylvans, but it hadn’t prepared him for just how fast the monster would be when it was shooting straight up.

His wings and his raiment really came in clutch in helping him avoid getting hit by a thousand tons of pure, monstrous mass.

Ray tried to put even more distance between himself and the Duskshell. As it crash-landed down, however, the shockwave from the impact struck like an oncoming truck.

Like the time he had been struck by its tail, Ray once more lost control of his wings. He couldn’t even curse as he twisted around in the air, in fear of biting off his own tongue. That would have been an utterly silly waste of Recovery, considering he had already taken off a third to fix up his leg.

He didn’t slam into the ground this time, at least. Though, with the timer on Primal Summons running out, Ray was forced to touch down on the earth anyway.

Ray twisted to face the Duskshell. The monster was gathering more Mana, converting it all to that dark energy. It was storing it up instead of shooting them at Ray in focused blasts. Ah, right. He recalled the full description of Mana Surge. The proper use.

At least it gave him some time to resummon Soaring Wings with Primal Summons. Just in time too.

A moment later, a storm of blistering black energy slammed out from the Duskshell’s location. Ther was no dodging something like that. The blast was hemispherical in nature, covering every inch of space from the earth to the air.

Ray’s only option was to block it.

He pushed several infusions of Mana into Mottling Membrane then immediately blasted it out. At Tier 3 thanks to Goliath Eater, it would already block a crap ton of magical damage. Boosted to Tier 6, it was going to keep Ray safe almost completely from an ability two or more Tiers below the boosted Mottling Membrane.

As such, Ray felt nothing as the storm of dark energy writhed over him. His barricade of black-red energy safeguarded him fully.

Ray dismissed the spell as soon as the storm of darkness was past him, crushing a Mana crystal to replenish his Mana store and preparing another spell.

Only to be faced with a gigantic maw would have put blue whales to shame.

“That’s my fucking trick—”

Ray didn’t even get to finish the sentence before the Duskshell’s Jutting Jaws enclosed around him and gobbled him and the ground he was standing on whole. So rude.

The fun thing about oversized monsters was that getting eaten by one didn’t spell instant demise. There was just too much space. The Duskshell might have snapped him up, sure, but its teeth missed him as he ended up in the centre of its mouth, right on its tongue.

At least, the fleshy surface he was on felt like a tongue. It was too dark inside the monster’s mouth to be sure.

Ray was assaulted by other senses too. His ears cringed at the groaning coming from behind him, at the monster’s grinding motion against the ground. He was tempted to tear off his nose too. That the Duskshell’s interior stank was an understatement of the century. Heavy monster saliva already coated him. Ugh.

The tongue began pushing him upwards. There was roof of spikes on top, and it looked like the tongue was going to crush him against those. Or maybe impale him.

Ray acted. Pulling both arms back, he fired off Shatterclaw after Shatterclaw with both Talismans. Dark slashes scratched all around the monster’s mouth, spilling blood and gore everywhere. Ray aimed some overhead to break down those toothy spikes that might have crushed him. He shot some against the tongue too, forcing it back.

A pained groan worked out from the gullet behind him. It was so loud inside the Duskshell. He would go deaf at this rate for certain.

Despite the continuous wounds, the tongue was still rising to try and push him down the throat. The hell was it thinking even? That Ray would stop fighting back once he was being squeezed down its food pipe?

It was easy to lodge himself against the entrance to its throat proper by using his wings. They stretched out on either side, locking him in place.

A perfect position from which to continue to landing barrages of Shatterclaw. He had to use a Mana crystal to replenish his flagging store of Mana, but that was fine. Ray was pelting out enough Shatterclaws that he triggered the effects of his Talisman of Focused fury to shoot out even more. And—

Critical hit!

Well, there was the critical hit as well. He had used enough of his attacks to even reach that.

He looked up. If he attacked right, surely he would be able to carve a hole in its skull from below. Then he’d be able to reach its brain and finally take it out. Although, he had no idea if it even had a brain, or if it did, whether it was on top of this “head”.

Presence of the Primordial suggested that the mouth was merely an appendage for sucking in food matter. There were no sense organs or brain attached to it.

He continued attacking, nevertheless. Incredible that the monster was still thrashing out, still alive and kicking. Ray might be doused in a pool of dark blood and viscera, might be suffocating with all the tumorous, cancerous growths his attacks had left inside the monster’s mouth, but he wasn’t free.

Until the Duskshell suddenly belched him out. His wings were held such that he wasn’t sent tumbling backwards into the monster’s guts. But that didn’t save him when the force went in the opposite direction. Without warning, Ray found himself flying into open air.

Free.

He was finally fucking free from that horrid maw. His feet landed on solid ground. Jesus Christ, that had been horrible.

Ray twisted around. He should have dealt enough damage by now to really make a mess of things for the Duskshell. Surely it would go down in a few more blows.

But as he looked up, he found the monster retreating. It was still thrashing, even as it fell back. Ray frowned. What was going on? He could understand if the state he had left its mouth in had made it panic, but that thrashing seemed aimless. Almost mad.

Oh. He had procced Insanity on the thing. Of course. After all those continuous hits from Shatterclaw inside its mouth, he had to have procced the affliction.

That should have spelled good news for him. With the monster distracted by its own mental state, Ray could take advantage and finally deal a killing blow. But the Duskshell wasn’t about to be so obliging. It wasn’t just retreating away from him.

The monster was digging underground. Rapidly.

“Hey!” Ray shouted out, trying to run forward. All the blood and saliva and slime covering him almost made him slip. When he tried to fly with his wings, he found them too , too heavy, and too slow for liftoff. “Hold up! We’re not done here, you bastard.”

The monster, it turned out, didn’t care. Maddened beyond reason, it dug into the earth at the same rapid pace it had demonstrated aboveground.

Ray shot some Shatterclaws at it, but its back wasn’t that vulnerable. It didn’t care when he broke off a few more limbs. He was tempted to follow it underground. With how huge the creature was, he could fly right into the hole and get back to attacking. After a while, at least.

But for one, the dug-up hole was unstable. Rocks and earth were falling everywhere The crater the monster left behind was already collapsing.

For another, attacking from behind wasn’t going to do Ray a ton of favours. That shell was more or less unbreakable, and just breaking off more limbs wasn’t going to help. Ray would need access to its mouth again.

“Fuck,” he muttered as the big, enormous source of Essence just up and… left.

Ray kind of wanted cry. Just a little bit. He almost felt like the monster had cheated somehow. Weren’t monsters supposed to keep attacking him until one of them died?

It took a few minutes for the frustration to wear off enough to let him think clearly. No, no that was stupid. If Ray and any other Denizen could run away from a battle, then so too could monsters. He had just been led by silly expectations to believe otherwise.

But the worst part was that it was Ray’s own fault, in a way, that had led to the monster disappearing so suddenly. The Insanity affliction. That was what he believed had ultimately caused the Duskshell’s abrupt exit. It hadn’t retreated. Not really. Sure, the effect was a retreat from Ray, but ultimately, he wasn’t even sure if the monster knew where it was heading, or why.

He took a deep breath and sighed. Lesson learned, he supposed.

“Be careful about Insanity on monsters that can run away where I can’t follow,” he said, solidifying the understanding and imprinting it on his brain. “Got it.”

Still. While the lesson was good, it felt awful to have wasted that much time and resources on hunting down such a monster, such a potentially great source of rewards, only to be left empty-handed. The frustration returned, almost twice as hard as the first time. Argh.

Ray shook his head to clear his thoughts. Plan. What was his next plan?

He was far from running out of his Mana crystals, but he wanted to replenish them all the same. Plus, he was hunting for another Tier Point, to improve Lifeblood Crucible some more and make use of Lifeblood Construct. How though?

His thoughts halted when he noticed something approaching. Several somethings. He smiled.

The Imps. They were here with the spare loot from the dead Sylvans.