Chapter 855
Chapter 855 - 841: Living to See the Day
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9 min read
Hefty creatures might possess great wisdom, but on the battlefield, they become the most conspicuous targets.
Guided by a note from a "Scout," it didn’t take long for Lu Ping’an to find the battlefield of the Giant Beast.
And with just one glance, Lu Ping’an and his group felt a bit stunned.
"....Are there really two? Both physical? How is that possible."
In front of everyone, two identical Snake Kings were viciously beating a giant toad.
The previous monster boxing had been shocking enough, but now it had turned into a brawl, the kind where two heroes gang up on one.
Sharp claws tore off flesh and broken stones with each swipe, and the massive snake tails swung like siege engines—steady and swift. The twin-like half-snakes frantically attacked the poor giant toad.
Lu Ping’an could see the toad was in bad shape.
Its mountainous body was riddled with holes and cracks, its ridgelike skin now varicolored, from forced Regeneration at different times.
That she was still alive was quite unbelievable.
But now, the frenzied Snake Kings would not let go of the rebel who had pushed them into a corner....In their eyes, those foreign invaders were cunning and duplicitous, but what they couldn’t accept the most were the traitors before them.
".....I did it for the Abyss..."
"...You have everything because of me, your current status is all bestowed by me, why betray me...."
"I am the King, haha, Bastard.....no, you’re not...."
The confused speech and crazed expressions even made one doubt if she had gone mad, even for an Abyssal creature.
Her facial expressions were Out of Control, her mutterings completely unhinged.
"Even if she’s not mad, she must have some mental issues. Dying multiple times is one thing, but voluntarily splitting one’s own Spirit and Soul....Heh."
Lu Ping’an smiled as he repeated what his "personal old grandpa" had said, which caused Anlijie to roll her eyes at him in the Courtyard. It also rallied Kun Ba and the others.
They weren’t afraid of a boss with many strong abilities; they feared an invincible one that wouldn’t even show its health bar...Now, clearly cornered, they were naturally overjoyed.
"The stiffer one should be one of Snake King’s reserves, a Snake Shedding. She forcibly activated that spare body, splitting apart her own Spiritual Power, Soul, and Life Force for remote manipulation....It should be irreversible, that ’spirit body’ will only dissipate over time, and the physical body is extremely short-lived."
To willingly dispose of what must have been very limited remaining Snake Shedding was a great loss, but more lethal was the through-and-through damage to the soul.
Splitting the soul forcibly was even more dangerous than Lu Ping’an had said. What’s most troublesome isn’t the permanent loss of that part, or the grievous wound it inflicts on the soul itself, but that the split part gains autonomy and starts to grow independently.
"Another me" might not be friendly, especially when born as a tool.
This kind of deliberate soul-splitting and body-splitting, aside from a rare few professionals, can basically be seen as a desperate and deadly measure.
And now, the cornered Snake King no longer thought about the consequences.
She already lost "contact" with two of her Snake Shedding. Clearly, someone was hunting her "spare bodies" in the shadows.
If she couldn’t deal quickly with the persistent giant toad, she’d never be able to extricate herself, only waiting as her "treasures" gathered over eons were completely stolen, destroyed by others.
"Kill her."
These two voices shouted from the mouths of the Twin Snake Kings. At this distance, she could still forcefully merge her splitting soul...cunning and cruel, she planned to kill her own clone after killing the giant toad, to prevent the worst outcome.
But even so, the strange murmurs and calls never ceased from both mouths. She had died too many times; her soul not only sustained heavy damage but was now forcibly torn apart, teetering on the brink of further collapse and splitting.
"....The spirit body is unstable, it might collapse soon..."
This statement wasn’t a relayed assessment of Big Cat, but rather what Lu Ping’an’s "eyes" were seeing.
The "shadow clone" Snake King was actually the Snake King herself, possessing an almost identical body, and by borrowing a split spirit body and Spiritual Power to manipulate the physical body, it resembled a puppet on strings....no wonder Lu Ping’an felt the scene was oddly staged.
The clone was strong, or to say, its Physical strength was identical to the original’s. Although its use of spells and curses was somewhat stiff, relying purely on instinctual combat abilities, it even slightly surpassed the original, which had to think with a brain.
The "shadow clone" fought more furiously as time went on. Claws, teeth, elbows—in stark contrast to the supposedly cultured and Noble original being, she became uglier and more frenzied, and as a result she garnered even more favor from the Abyss.
An already high-tier Abyssal favorite, she began mutating once again.
Her horns grew more twisted, her scales darker and more lustrous, and faint lightning began to flicker around her massive snake tail.
She became more and more...Abyssal!
And what baffled onlookers even more was that the giant toad, beaten fiercely by both Snake Kings, looked done for. Just as Kun Ba was getting antsy, considering whether to save her, Lu Ping’an stopped him.
Lu Ping’an saw that the toad’s core organs were full of cracks. If he wasn’t mistaken, it had been dismembered not long before.
With such wounds covering its body, the giant toad now resembled a Beast composed of countless clumps of clay; the slightest touch would cause it to naturally disintegrate.
That it could still move and breathe was astounding.
"There’s no need, it’s finished," Lu Ping’an had seen the end already.
Two colossal Snake-men, one grabbing the two front limbs of a toad, the other its hind legs, finally flashing a brutal smile across their faces.
"Crack! Ohhh ah ah ah ah!"
The sound of shattering and the beast’s agonized screams rose simultaneously, as the Abyss Lord, massive as a beast, was torn into two large chunks.
It, the lord of the fifth layer of the Abyss, ’the Fool’ Anlijie, turned into a sky full of blood and flesh under everyone’s gaze.
When her two largest pieces of flesh hit the ground, the entire earth shook with it.
"Such a pity..." Kun Ba sighed, his regret was not for the death of Anlijie.
All Abyssal monsters of the lord level deserved to die; he simply lamented that he had not killed enough of them.
"...Without a main tank to take the hits, I have no choice but to step up."
Now that the giant toad had died, apart from the human side, the Snake King had no rivals in the seventh layer of the ground.
And Changping’s mission could not afford to fail; they had already paid too much...
Kun Ba silently drew his sword, preparing to forcefully confront these two great serpents.
Perhaps, by pushing his "rules" to the extreme, he really could control these two giant snakes.
But when he volunteered, he was stopped by Lu Ping’an.
"...Wait for the bullet to fly... Okay, no more riddles, if I’m not wrong, we’ll soon have a new main tank, uh, a better one than before."
Before Lu Ping’an could finish, a sudden explosion and fire became the focal point of countless gazes.
That was the Snake King’s aggressive curse technique, very powerful; where the rays touched, either they turned directly into stone statues, or disintegrated into rubble.
"Have we been discovered?!" Compared to the local geography and residents, the "short" stature of the outsiders had given them an excellent ability to hide.
Reality, more unbelievable than legendary tales, answered their confusion.
The one shouting "Die" in a fit of rage, and initiating the attack, was the more agile of the two, the real body of the Snake King.
And what responded to all this, the one that suffered its attack... was its own clone!
The "great serpent" favored by the Abyss suddenly turned back, then was whipped away by a tail.
The spectacle of fighting itself unfolded before their eyes, and even if Lu Ping’an had already vaguely guessed at this possibility, he still found it somewhat puzzling.
Lu Ping’an hadn’t guessed wrong, two giant beasts, two queens, two massive and dangerous twin snake monsters brutally and directly collided with one another.
They had similar abilities, similar temperaments, one fearful of its clone’s independence, the other surprised to find its real body so foolish and weak...
Tooth against tooth, claw against claw, this evenly matched slaughter was even more brutal and bloody.
The two giant serpents entwined, spitting poison and curse techniques at each other, while their lower limbs, the snake tails, tried to tear each other apart.
Soon, a few minutes later, when everything had come to an end, the behemoth lying in a pool of blood on the ground transcended everyone’s understanding...
"The real body lost? Was it bitten to death?" This scene evidently exceeded Lu Ping’an’s expectations.
Though the turn of events was completely unexpected, after a bit of thought, it still made sense.
The homegrown Snake King had fought to the death, its soul and spiritual power repeatedly taking heavy blows; its condition had already descended into a trough.
The newborn had just come into being, simple-minded and powerful, relying on instinct and brawling abilities to surpass its severely wounded real body.
Of course, most crucially, the "chaotic Lord of the Abyss" had gained the Abyss’s favor.
Abyssal creatures’ battles were simple and savage. Like countless others of its kind, the newborn Snake King feasted on the old Snake King’s bones.
She became more complete, and even stronger, her curved horns growing longer once more, with her power and energy levels visibly surging.
She had lost all past grace, devouring the flesh frantically, but then, she stopped...
Her gaze turned south, she could feel another self awakening there; the delicious blood and flesh she was eating... no, that was the "self" she hadn’t devoured.
The newborn, stepping again onto the path of evolution, craved more of "herself."
"...Fighting oneself, eating oneself, this really is something you don’t see often."
— End of Chapter 855 —