Chapter 122: Awakened Tournament Crisis (28)

Kael’s expression slowly changed.

The two of them were surrounded.

Tentacles filled the ruined streets, rising above the buildings and twisting through the air. Some had crashed through nearby structures, while others stretched across the ground like enormous black roots.

There were hundreds of them.

Perhaps more.

Every direction was blocked by a tangled wall of spikes and writhing flesh.

Kael slowly lowered his sword.

"...Ah."

Sophia looked around.

Then she looked at him.

"What’s wrong?"

Kael remained silent.

The wind blew dust across his face.

He stared at the tentacles for several seconds before finally speaking.

"...Where the hell is the battlefield?"

Sophia closed her eyes.

For a short moment, she seriously considered whether she was going to die here.

Back at the arena, Eden was having a rather different experience.

He was not imagining himself as the protagonist of a heroic story.

He was trying to understand why the future he remembered was falling apart.

’This never happened!’

Eden’s eyes remained fixed on the enormous black skull rising above the ruined arena.

He remembered his previous life.

He remembered the tryouts, the people who participated, and the events that followed.

He never participated back then, but watched every broadcast at home with Mihui.

He remembered the battles that had shaped the next generation of Awakened, the guilds that rose in power, and the disasters that eventually changed the world.

But he had no memory of this.

No enormous Abyss Creature attacking the stadium.

No Aphelios appearing in the middle of the tournament.

No dozens of skyscraper-sized tentacles tearing through the city.

Nothing.

’Did something change because of me?’

The thought lingered for only a moment.

He couldn’t afford to dwell on it.

Three enormous tentacles were already moving toward him and Elio.

"Left!" Elio shouted.

Eden reacted instantly.

He twisted aside as Elio’s whipblade flashed, cutting through the first tentacle. Eden followed with a crimson slash that severed the second, while Elio’s weapon snapped outward again to cut through the third.

For a fraction of a second, the three tentacles hung motionless in the air.

Then their severed ends began to writhe.

Eden’s eyes narrowed.

The black flesh surged together, regenerating with startling speed. Their surfaces thickened, and the spikes protruding from their bodies grew longer and sharper.

Within seconds, all three tentacles had returned.

Only now, they were larger.

Elio stared.

"...You have got to be kidding me."

The regenerated tentacles attacked.

Eden and Elio split apart, dodging in opposite directions as the enormous limbs slammed into the ground between them.

The impact shattered the remaining stone.

Eden landed on a broken slab of concrete, his silver eyes narrowing as he observed the creatures.

’They regenerate after being severed.’

That alone was troublesome.

But the increase in their size and durability was far worse.

It meant that simply cutting them apart might actually make the situation more difficult. Every successful strike gave the creatures an opportunity to return stronger, forcing their opponents to spend increasingly greater amounts of power to destroy them again.

’An ability that punishes conventional combat.’

Eden clicked his tongue.

He had encountered regenerating monsters before, but this was something else.

The tentacles weren’t merely healing their injuries.

They were adapting.

And they were doing it at an alarming rate.

Another tentacle swept toward him.

Eden used Burst-Step, narrowly escaping its path as the enormous limb smashed through the remains of a nearby structure.

He reappeared several meters away.

Then another tentacle came from the side.

He twisted around it, crimson Essence spreading from his arm to form a massive mouth that bit down on the creature’s surface.

[Devour]

The mouth clamped shut.

Black flesh disappeared between its teeth.

For a moment, Eden felt the familiar sensation of Devour consuming its target.

[+1 Vitality]

’Oho?’

The tentacle violently tore itself away.

The wound began to regenerate almost immediately.

Eden’s expression brightened.

’Even if it regenerated, I still got an attribute point from consuming it...’

’Does that mean that giant skull is actually a necromancer type, and these giant tentacle are it’s summons?’

That was an unexpected surprise.

’No wonder Devour couldn’t get it done. That thing isn’t just healing those tentacles, it’s actually bringing them back from the dead!’

He had assumed that completely consuming a portion of the creature would prevent it from regenerating that particular section.

The fact that those tentacles are seperate beings, though, changed that theory.

For the better.

He smiled.

It was a smile so perverse it made Eden look like a creep.

’That means I have an unlimited source of attribute points.’

Eden glanced toward Elio.

The silver-haired Awakened had been forced to retreat, using his whipblade to keep several tentacles at bay. His purple Essence lashed out in serpentine arcs, cutting through the incoming limbs whenever they approached too closely.

But each successful strike was followed by another wave of attacks.

The tentacles showed no signs of tiring.

Elio, on the other hand, had already spent a considerable amount of Essence fighting Eden.

His breathing was heavy, and his movements were beginning to slow.

If this continued, he would eventually be overwhelmed.

And despite his greediness, Eden had no intention of letting that happen.

They may be a feast like no other to him. But to everyone around him, it was a catastrophe harboring the scent of death.

And Eden wasn’t going to put his attribute points above the lives of his friends and countless innocents.

"Elio!" Eden shouted. "Don’t waste your Essence trying to destroy them! We need to find a way to stop them from regenerating!"

Elio glanced toward him while deflecting another strike.

"Do you have a suggestion?!"

"Not yet!"

"Then that’s not particularly helpful!"

A tentacle slammed down between them.

The shockwave sent both men skidding across the broken ground.

Eden recovered first, immediately using Burst-Step to evade another attack. He glanced toward the enormous black skull again, studying its glowing crimson eyes.

The tentacles were emerging from its body.

Their movements seemed coordinated, but the creature itself seemed to be the skull, watching the destruction with an unsettling stillness.

And standing above it all was Aphelios.

The Mad Summoner had yet to make a serious move.

He was simply watching.

Enjoying the chaos.

Eden’s gaze sharpened.

He couldn’t be certain whether Aphelios was directly controlling the creature or merely guiding it, but the old man’s presence was no coincidence.

An S-Rank rogue appearing in the middle of a national tournament, accompanied by a monster capable of tearing apart an entire stadium?

There was no way this was accidental.

Another wave of Essence swept through the stadium.

Eden felt it press against his skin.

His instincts warned him that the creature was far more dangerous than its tentacles alone suggested.

He had fought strong opponents before.

He had even encountered entities whose power dwarfed that of ordinary Awakeneds.

But this creature was something else.

Its regenerative abilities, its overwhelming size, and the seemingly endless supply of tentacles made it an opponent that couldn’t be dealt with through ordinary means.

Eden’s lips curled into a grim smile.

"Yeah..."

He raised his Aura Blade as crimson Essence gathered around his arm.

"This is without a doubt an S-Rank Boss Monster."