Chapter 2348: Death Will |
Every cut Sunny dealt to the Snow Worm's voluminous body served a purpose, and that purpose was to allow more Obsidian Wasps to crawl inside it.
By now, almost all of them had found their way into the Cursed Beast. They were slithering there, wreaking havoc and mangling tissue while burrowing deeper and deeper. Even if the wounds Sunny dealt to the huge Nightmare Creature were relatively insignificant, being mangled and devoured by a hundred Supreme shades from the inside was not.
And yet, the Snow Worm endured the harrowing amount of damage being dealt to it almost effortlessly, demonstrating the vast divide between the Supreme and the Sacred - or rather, Cursed - Ranks.
More than that, even buried deep within its flesh, the Obsidian Wasps were not entirely safe. In fact, numerous of them had already been destroyed. Some were simply crushed by the unfathomably powerful muscles of the Cursed Beast. Some had accidentally found their way into its digestive system and were either ground to dust or dissolved entirely. Some met their end in ways that Sunny could not even describe, let alone understand, while some were destroyed in more bizarre ways.
Since the Snow Worm wielded the concept of infinity as its weapon and could expand or shrink its body at will, some Obsidian Wasps were simply torn asunder when the point in space they had occupied suddenly expanded. Others were crushed into infinitely small balls of obsidian when the space they had been occupying shrank.
Of course, none of them were actually destroyed - rather, they were returned to the dark expanse of Sunny's soul. But they were eliminated from this fateful battle, which was ostensibly the same.
'Gods… just how indestructible is that thing?'
The mountain was full of holes by now, groaning precariously, which made it difficult for Sunny to find sure footing as he kept escaping the Cursed Beast's awful attacks. The Snow Worm showed no outward signs of being seriously harmed by the swarm of Obisidian Wasps, for now… Which was not to say that it was unharmed.
In fact, Sunny could sense the cadence of the battle slowly changing.
By then, Kai and Slayer had sunk all of the Finality Arrows he had crafted into the Worm's flesh. The enchantments Sunny had so laboriously created were locking various segments of its body in space, making it more difficult for the creature to exercise its infinite power.
At the same time, the Obsidian Wasps were ravaging the Snow Worm's insides, while Sunny was poisoning its soul with the power of his deathly will. Kai and Slayer, meanwhile, switched to purely annihilating arrows, helping him wound the Cursed Beast as much as they could.
Their Transcendent wills were added to his Supreme killing intent, tipping the scales. As Sunny poisoned the soul of the Snow Worm more and more, suffocating the very spark that kept it alive, the creature weakened. The weaker it became, the less it could resist the binding power of enchantments constricting its power. And the more constricted its power was, the more physical harm the Obsidian Wasps could deal it.
Which, in turn, made its life force weaken more.
It was a virtuous cycle… a wicked cycle?
It was a cycle that would bring this huge, mindless, corrupted deity to death.
'Come on, you scum… die faster!'
Sunny's Shell, too, was slowly coming undone. Even if he managed to avoid being struck by the Snow Worm directly, the damage dealt to the Shadow Colossus through simply being in the epicenter of unimaginable destruction was mounting. Still, he persisted.
Because he could sense it - slowly but surely, the enormous body of the Snow Worm was shrinking. Instead of infinitely growing, it was gradually reducing in size. He could not see the result due to the sheer scale of the Snow Worm, but he could sense it through the shadows. Already, there were fewer coils surrounding the mountain…
And as the battle continued, the rate at which the Snow Worm was shrinking only accelerated. By the time Kai had run out of arrows, Sunny could already see its tail. The maw of the creature, too, had diminished in size - it could still swallow Sunny in one bite, but at least not without doing some chewing first.
As he stepped through the shadows and rolled on the heavily damaged, perforated slope of the mountain, a new shadow suddenly joined the fray.
'What… is this maniac doing?'
A haunting sound that resembled a song suddenly permeated the sky, and a sonic wave struck the head of the Cursed Beast, shredding some of its flesh and changing its direction slightly.
A gorgeous dragon plummeted from above, landing on the Cursed Beast's back and striking at it with its long, sharp claws. At the same time, Kai seemed to have spoken something - the Snow Worm largely ignored his command… but not entirely.
Sunny almost missed a graceful figure that shot an arrow into an open wound of the Cursed Beast from the dragon's back. Slayer wanted to kill the weakened deity, as well.
The sun had already fallen halfway behind the horizon.
'We need to hurry.'
After that, the demise of the Snow Worm was hastened.
The damage dealt to its soul and body had accumulated, and its ability to command infinity grew unstable. It shrank its body more and more, crushing the Obsidian Wasps within… but it was already too late.
Soon enough, the Cursed Beast could barely wrap itself around the mountain. Then, its maw became too narrow to swallow the Shadow Colossus - that, ironically enough, made it more dangerous, since it could maneuver much better for a short while. So, Sunny abandoned his Shell and continued the battle as a human.
Before too long, the Snow Worm shrank to a truly pitiful size - no more than a kilometer from head to tail.
Then, it became even smaller, similar in size to Soul Serpent.
…And then, finally, Sunny exhaled tiredly as he leaned on his odachi, looking down at a pale maggot that was wriggling in the mud.
That tiny maggot was the formerly proud Cursed Beast.
Sunny glanced at it darkly, his eyes hidden in the deep shadows of the falling dusk.
How could something so great become so pathetic?
'Was that… how the gods died?'
His tone was strangely forlorn.
'Maybe I'll learn before ending this game.'
With that, Sunny brought his foot down, crushing the tiny maggot under his armored boot.
There was a second of silence, and then, he heard the familiar words…
[You have slain an adversary.]
Sunny sighed with relief as the last vestige of the sun disappeared from view.
He had killed his first Cursed One today.
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