The shockwave from the super-massive Flesh Bomb released by the mythical creature, detonating most of its body, directly struck Nareth.
Caught off guard, he was blasted backward, tumbling several times in midair.
His golden wings folded tightly as he stabilized himself. His armor was dented and pitted, smeared with scraps of flesh.
Large sections of chest armor had corroded away and fallen off.
With a thought, his golden wings spread across his entire body, sweeping away every bit of flesh stuck to him.
The black armor was instantly covered by living metal. Nareth extended his consciousness outward.
In a moment, he locked onto three heads.
'Its mythical form has ended!'
'The form was incomplete, so it's not Sequence 2.'
'It should be above Sequence 4, so it should be a Beyonder creature at Sequence 3.'
'Strange. Why didn't it use any herding abilities?'
Nareth's consciousness closely followed the tumbling heads. Because the mythical creature's form ended, the two extended heads had retracted.
The heads tumbled within the Void Whale, its three gaping maws chomping down, flesh rushing in.
The neck, severely damaged by the self-detonation, rapidly grew flesh.
Nareth beat his wings, thinking to himself:
'There are three possibilities.'
'One possibility: within the Void Whale, there are no souls it covets. Although I encountered no other powerful monsters along the way, the Void Whale's 3,200-kilometer body might harbor countless creatures. Besides, having some is still better than having none.'
But Nareth felt this possibility was unlikely.
'Second, maybe it hasn't developed its abilities beyond manipulating flesh, like Freddy, who only grasped Dream Invasion.'
'The third possibility is that mythical creatures only master parts of their power, unlike beyonder individuals who wield the full set of sequence abilities'.
While pondering, he had already closed in on the head.
One of the creature's heads spotted the golden figure approaching.
'The massive explosion I triggered earlier… didn't work at all?!'
Shocked, it immediately prepared to explode again.
This time, not to harm the enemy, but to escape.
With its "undying flesh," so long as a single cell remained, it could regenerate. It intended to blow itself apart while scattering countless cells to flee.
But just before it could act, Nareth raised his gauntleted hand and pushed forward.
A thick, transparent liquid shot out, engulfing all three heads.
The three heads flared with bloody radiance, yet before they could detonate, they froze solid.
Using Imprisonment, Nareth sealed all three inside an amberlike crystal, then moved the entire "amber block" into the Kingdom of Disorder.
Nareth did not immediately return to real space. He went to the third layer and picked up the bone mask.
The mask was obtained from the Temple of Morkai on Fenris for some time, but he hadn't used it.
After establishing a connection with the bone mask through the third layer, Nareth knew the mask corresponded to Sequence 3 "Ferryman" of the Death Pathway.
He would gain control over an army of the dead, but everything around him would slowly wither, as if he were trudging through the river of death.
The price was steep, it was not worth using.
'But now… this is the perfect opportunity.'
'There are many creatures inside the Void Whale, and a significant portion are powerful but not potion ingredients.
'Most importantly, there are no other living beings nearby, and beyonder traits do not vanish. Potion materials won't lose their effectiveness even after death.'
After a moment's thought, Nareth picked up the bone mask and placed it on his face.
The mask covered the upper half of his face. Instantly, cold seeped from his forehead and temples, spreading through his body.
But strangely, the Ferryman mask didn't affect the surrounding space at all.
Nareth returned to the realspace, a chill wind rose out of nowhere.
The Primarch immediately sensed the rapid drop in temperature.
The Void Whale's flesh turned gray-white, beginning to wither.
Golden wings beating, Nareth shot forward at incredible speed.
Within seconds, he had crossed five kilometers. Ahead appeared a cluster of blue toad-like monsters.
In his vision, none of them had a trace of spiritual glow.
The Baron of Corruption's spiritual energy surged into the bone mask.
Ssshhh!
Cold green mist spread rapidly, engulfing the entire blue toad colony.
In the mist, a pair of pitch-black, lifeless eyes appeared, chilling the creatures to their core.
A massive invisible hand manifested beneath them, slamming into the ground.
With a shrill chorus of screams, the green mist surged upward and transformed into a strange gate.
Creak
The spectral gate opened. Countless green vines shot out, racing forward.
They coiled around the blue toads and dragged them toward the gate.
The toads clawed frantically at the flesh-ground with their forelimbs.
But more vines wrapped around them one by one.
With terrified cries, they were dragged inside.
Clang!
The ghost gate slammed shut, and every toad was pulled inside.
Nareth flew forward another four kilometers.
He stopped in midair. Below was a swarm of crab-like creatures.
They, too, lacked any spirituality.
Nareth sent his spiritual energy into the mask again.
Green mist rose.
The ghost gate reappeared.
Vines rushed out.
The crab monsters shrieked, their claws stabbing deep into the rock-hard flesh of the void whale.
Dozens were dragged into the gate, but many more clung stubbornly to the flesh-rock, refusing to be pulled away.
Then, from the ghost gate, blue toads, now with gray-white skin, hopped out.
They leapt toward the crab claws and spat streams of corrosive green slime.
Crack
Sizzle
Their claws melted away. The crabs could no longer resist.
Whooooosh!
They were dragged into the spectral doorway.
Nareth continued on, gathering potion materials while using the Ferryman mask to accumulate undead creatures.
Meanwhile, the Void Whale, already missing massive amounts of flesh and now ravaged by the Ferryman's withering power, rapidly approached death.
He charged toward the whale's tail and carved a tunnel with the Dionysian Spear.
Bursting out of the whale's body, he turned and looked back.
The Primarch saw that the Void Whale was dead.
He flew to its tail and ascended into the seventh state of the Enumeration.
Psychic force surged outward.
The seventh state, designed by Magnus, allowed the direct use of psychic power to lift massive objects.
Light danced in Nareth's eyes as his telekinesis multiplied.
The Void Whale's colossal body began to move, pushed by the warp tides and Nareth's power, it slid out of the Kalium Gate.
The 5th Chapter's fleet, following Arsena's order, had dispersed.
They watched in shock as the enormous carcass emerged from the warp portal.
The entire process took two full days.
In the end, every ship's scanners confirmed it:
The whale-shaped creature measured exactly 3,205 kilometers long.
With the void whale no longer blocking the gate, Kalium Gate could finally begin operating.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu