Ch.184Cult Priest (3)

When I came up from underground, white particles began to fall from the already dim sky. The blizzard that had calmed was returning.

Through the falling snow, the creature and I glared at each other.

“What? I’ve grown just like you. Got a problem with that?”

The enemy player mocked me with a relaxed expression. The golden figure shining brilliantly even through the swirling snow was steadfastly protecting its summoner.

I didn’t react to his mockery and instead reflected on our recent exchange.

‘Those mysterious particles.’

At least I’m certain they’re not made of psychic power. If they were, my psychic reflection gloves would have reflected some of it.

‘And size doesn’t matter either.’

The golden figure is only about 5 to 6 meters tall at most, but that’s deceptive. When it swung its sword-shaped arm just now, the length extended dramatically.

Or more precisely, as it swung its arm, the golden particles that composed it rearranged themselves, transforming into a thin, long blade of energy.

‘It looks like a blade of energy, but it’s actually under his control.’

In other words, that golden figure is a summon that can freely change its body. Such a concept doesn’t exist among summons in the game.

‘Either it’s a new technique or…’

It might be the effect of a Perk he possesses. Just like the “Looter’s Amorphous Polyhedron” I obtained after killing Muriel, he too must have killed someone and stolen their Perk.

‘At least two, or possibly more.’

I tried using Insight on the enemy player to see if I could learn anything, but nothing specific came up. Just like with Muriel, I only got a message saying there was information that couldn’t be verified.

The only information I could obtain was the enemy player’s name.

‘Jason.’

Just like with Muriel, his real name didn’t appear.

Besides what I saw with Insight, his name didn’t properly appear in the Predator Sense that activated underground either. Not only that, but it appeared fragmentary and intermittent, filled with noise.

‘Is it because I’m facing another player?’

I don’t know why it appears this way, but I’ll have to think about that later.

After organizing my thoughts in a short time, I moved again.

The blunt claws on my tail and lower body, along with the spikes that formed when I transformed into a bone beast, kicked hard at the snow and ice.

My 100-meter body shot forward like a storm. In an instant, I approached right in front of the Cult player—no, Jason—and struck down at him with my combat arm.

“Hmph.”

The golden figure blocked my attack with a sneer. When it touched his shield, the bone spikes on my arm cracked and broke.

“I told you it’s useless.”

Jason, who had been holding up his left arm just like the figure, flicked his right arm. Following the summoner’s movement, the golden figure attacked me again.

The golden sword sliced through my head carapace. When my head made contact with his sword, intense sparks flew.

True to its reputation as the most defensive part of my body along with my tail pincers, my head carapace didn’t cut easily. Still, I couldn’t prevent a wound several dozen centimeters deep from forming.

“Let’s see how long you can hold out…”

While he was readjusting his stance, I pulled out all six corruption tentacles from my back. The tentacles, springing out like snakes hidden in a jar, entangled the golden figure.

I applied force to the corruption tentacles to pull the figure. Jason, connected to the figure, momentarily staggered.

My tail swept through the snow covering the ground as it flew toward the faltering opponent. The pincer at its end opened wide.

Due to the bone beast transformation, the pincer was about 10 meters in size. Even with the Dragonslayer set, one couldn’t escape if caught in these pincers, which were as hard as an Ice Horror’s carapace.

“…or so you thought?”

But Jason remained composed. The moment he opened his mouth, the golden figure disintegrated into particles, slipping through my tentacles.

In the blink of an eye, the figure reconstituted itself and quickly formed a shield to block my pincer. The shield-shaped left arm had a deeper golden hue compared to other parts.

“Too easy.”

The golden figure counterattacked like a fencing athlete extending their sword. I raised my head to avoid the attack aimed at the auxiliary organs below my jaw.

But his attack wasn’t over yet. Jason, who had been still until now, kicked off the ground and jumped into the air.

The shield that had been surrounding him disappeared as my tail swept past beneath his feet. He leaped up, stepping on the snow in the air as if it were stairs, and slashed upward at my thorax.

Compared to me, Jason was much smaller, so I shouldn’t have needed to worry much. But the problem was the summon hanging on his back.

A huge blade of the reconstituted golden figure flew from behind the airborne Jason, aiming to split my body.

‘Oh no!’

It was difficult to dodge sideways in this situation. I hurriedly spread the gliding membrane attached to my combat arms.

Originally, the gliding membrane was meant for gliding, not for flying on the ground.

But as my body grew larger, the gliding membranes attached to each of my six arms expanded accordingly. With six wings each spanning dozens of meters, briefly lifting my body wasn’t impossible.

I spread the membranes and swung my arms vigorously. A strong wind surged beneath me, propelling my body upward.

“Damn it!”

Jason blinked at the sudden gust of wind. The sword that was about to slice my abdomen momentarily scattered into golden particles.

“Cheap tricks!”

With his shout, the sword that had lost its physical force instantly reconstituted and shallowly cut my exoskeleton. Meanwhile, I floated in the air, retreating while swinging my tail forward like a broom.

I expected him to create a shield with the golden figure like before, but this time he took different action. When he spread his left hand wide, an invisible energy field appeared and pushed my tail back in the opposite direction.

It was “Reflection,” a psychic power technique that reflects an opponent’s attack.

An enormous recoil hit my body as the energy in my tail was reflected, but I used that recoil to my advantage. My massive body was pushed far back, riding the flow of the reflected energy.

A giant spear made of golden particles flew toward me as I landed on the snow field. I countered the enemy’s persistent attack targeting my auxiliary organs with my corruption tentacles.

The spear, its trajectory distorted by the tentacles, transformed into small particles of light and returned to its owner’s body.

“You bug. All you can do is run away?”

“……”

“Why so quiet? The mighty rank 5? Hmm?”

Jason sneered at me. But I didn’t answer.

Because there was something more important.

‘Just now, that was?’

In the short span of a few minutes, I had obtained two crucial pieces of information.

‘He lost substance when he blinked.’

When I leaped into the air, the wind made Jason blink momentarily. In that split second, the golden figure broke apart into particles.

It was literally in the blink of an eye, but I didn’t miss it.

‘That figure is affected by his senses.’

Vision in particular seems to play an important role in constituting the figure. Probably, if sword energy blasts or thrown spears leave his field of vision, they’re likely to be neutralized.

‘And there’s a cooldown when changing the figure’s form.’

After blinking, the reconstituted golden figure tried to cut me with a sword again but failed. Right after that, when my tail tried to strike him, he didn’t block it by transforming into a shield.

‘Unlike before, he blocked with Reflection.’

This part isn’t certain yet. He might have set a trap, or he might have acted that way without much thought.

‘Let’s experiment.’

I spread my membranes wide and swept the ground forcefully. The ground in front of me split, and ice fragments and newly accumulated snow scattered into the air, obscuring me.

Then I turned around and started running in the opposite direction.

“Trying to run away without even cover?”

Running away? Of course not.

Although I had created significant elevation differences in the ice plain, there was no specific place to hide my body. Moreover, unlike my black body, this place was covered only in white snow, so I couldn’t conceal myself.

‘But that doesn’t matter.’

What I’m about to do is to make it look like I’m “trying to hide my body.”

–

‘As expected of an AMorph bastard. Quick to figure things out.’

Jason clicked his tongue briefly in the falling snow. They hadn’t been fighting long, yet the creature had already noticed the weakness of the Perk he was using.

The true identity of the golden figure connected to his spine was a swarm of tiny parasitic organisms in particle form.

Because the organisms were so small and tightly connected, the entire swarm appeared to constitute a single entity.

Usually stored inside Jason’s body, they emerged externally connected to his spinal cord like now whenever he activated the Perk.

In other words, Jason was a living nest for these parasitic organisms that resembled golden particles, functioning as their brain. Therefore, they were greatly influenced by his cognitive abilities.

What he couldn’t see, the parasites couldn’t see either; what he didn’t know, the parasites didn’t know either.

“To catch that in such a short moment. What a crazy bastard.”

Despite his words, Jason wasn’t particularly worried.

He was a powerful psychic power user, holding the position of a shaman in the Cult Empire. He had plenty of means to enhance his cognitive abilities and senses.

Jason took out an ornately designed vial from a pocket in his armor. It contained Psychomaniac, a drug that improved the precision of psychic abilities. He downed it in one go.

“Gulp, ah.”

Enhanced by the Psychomaniac, he used a tracking technique.

Information about where the creature had moved flowed into his mind.

The creature’s energy rapidly moving away, the thin line of thought waves flying somewhere like a thread—Jason didn’t miss even the smallest detail.

‘Thought waves. Is he calling his slave?’

He already knew that the creature was controlling Volf as a slave through parasites. He had seen it with the eyes of a temple guardian.

‘Come to think of it, that Griffon Volf, could he be a player?’

Given the circumstances, there was a high possibility that Volf was a player, as mentioned in the message Muriel left before dying.

‘A player.’

If male, he’d kill him immediately after taking the Perk; if female…

‘It’s been a while since I had a Volf slave.’

Having decided to play with her a bit before killing her, Jason leisurely followed the trail left by the AMorph.

Although the traces left by the creature had almost disappeared in the intensifying snowfall, it was no obstacle for him. Psychic power doesn’t fade with mere snow.

He pursued the creature with “Memory Sight” activated, a technique that reads memories contained in objects.

The creature couldn’t escape.

About 5 minutes passed like this. Jason stopped on a snow pile where there was nothing.

‘Ha, what was he doing?’

Reading the last remaining memory, he saw that the creature had been digging frantically in the snow right where he was standing.

What childish nonsense—after all that running, all it did was try to hide under the snow. Jason couldn’t help but laugh at the creature’s pathetic attempt.

‘Still, just to be sure.’

He activated defensive psychic power techniques like Reflection, then raised his arm high. The golden figure’s sword behind him expanded to a size of dozens of meters.

‘This should be enough?’

After enlarging the figure to a size that would easily exceed a third of the creature’s body, Jason swung his arm toward the snow pile. The golden sword, now large enough to be visible from distant mountain ranges, plunged into the snow.

With a boom, various fragments scattered into the air.

Through his enhanced senses, he could feel that some of those fragments included pieces of the creature’s flesh.

Looking at the pieces on the ground, the part he had just destroyed appeared to be the creature’s arm. Finger joints at least 5 meters long were rolling on the snow.

‘Huh?’

Jason was startled to see that the debris was larger than expected. Even if the creature was about 100 meters tall, its fingers shouldn’t be that large.

‘What’s so big… wait?’

Sensing something was wrong, Jason quickly kicked off the ground to lift himself up. At that moment, something enormous erupted from beneath the snow pile where he had been standing.

“What the f—?!”

For a moment, Jason thought two small mountains were growing from beneath his feet. What appeared to be dozens of meters wide was, surprisingly, a mouth.

The jaws that had been spread wide under the snow began to close to swallow him. It was like a bear trap hidden under leaves suddenly activating.

There wasn’t enough time to activate his shield. Although he had already cast Reflection, it was impossible to block the enormous jaws closing in from all directions.

The only option was to pull back. He kicked off the air to quickly retreat.

Jason barely escaped the narrowing jaws that resembled a trap in an ancient tomb. However, he couldn’t avoid injury completely from the massive mouth spanning dozens of meters that he hadn’t anticipated at all. Just before escaping, one of his legs was scraped by the teeth embedded in the mouth.

“Ugh!”

To say it was scraped is an understatement—each tooth was larger than his height. Such enormous teeth passing through his leg meant it was more accurately torn than scraped.

“God d-damn it!”

Thanks to the Dragonslayer set he wore, the wound healed quickly, but it didn’t eliminate the pain. It had been a long time since he felt such intense pain, causing Jason to spout colorful curses.

The owner of the mouth in front of him began to slowly rise, as if responding to his curses.

“Damn AMorph bas… wh-what?!”

For a moment, he thought an eclipse had struck this planet, but that wasn’t it.

It wasn’t the shadow of the moon, but the shadow cast by some creature.

The owner of the shadow covering the snowy plain was a being he knew well.

A creature Jason despised the most…

「■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■!」

A monster he didn’t want to face even in nightmares.

An AMorph over hundreds of meters in size roared before him.