Chapter 102: Falling
The first Alpha was a massive creature with a tail like a morning star, wreathed in earthy mana. It swung its heavy limb with enough force to shatter stone, forcing Neo to roll beneath the strike and counterbite the creature’s soft throat.
Neo used his jaw strength to crush the vertebrae, ending the first leader’s life with a wet crunch.
Neo did not rush the remaining four Alphas at once. Guided by the bond, he isolated the second Alpha, which was a heavy-set creature with bone spikes protruding from its spine.
He used his superior coordination to dodge a series of tail swipes while his sub heads tore into the Alpha’s underbelly, exposing the pulsing core within.
The third and fourth Alphas attacked in tandem, one attempting to pin Neo’s limbs with sticky, web-like saliva while the other lunged for his neck.
Neo let out a low, vibrating growl, his central head snapping the neck of the first while his other heads guarded his flanks from the second’s lunging claws. It was a dance of death.
The fight against the five Alphas was a gruelling display of grit and determination.
Neo took heavy hits, his scales cracking under the pressure of their elemental bursts, but he refused to transform back to his primary form despite the mounting pain. His pride, that unyielding draconic inheritance, pushed him to win in this weaker state.
One by one, the Alpha-rank leaders were systematically dismantled and killed, their dark red cores harvested by the Hydra’s central head. Neo’s movements were now much sharper, having integrated the crawlers’ terrestrial logic into his own muscle memory.
He stood atop the pile of leaders, a battered but victorious monarch.
By the time the last Alpha fell, Neo was gasping for breath, his body covered in shallow gashes and dust. He had successfully cleared the entire nest, proving that his terrestrial combat capabilities were finally stabilising through the repetition of slaughter.
He looked up at Kale, seeking the approval he felt he had earned.
Despite the victory and the massive influx of genetic data from the corpses, a sense of disappointment permeated the soul link. Neo had again failed to activate the Transformation trait even in the slightest degree.
He had fought as a mundane lizard until the very end, unable to trigger the partial morphing that the system had promised.
Kale felt the beast’s low mood and reached out to offer a mental word of comfort, though he remained stoic in his outward demeanour. He knew that true breakthroughs often required a catalyst that could not be manufactured in a simple training session.
They needed a moment of absolute extremity to unlock the next node of Neo’s DNA.
Both the beast and master stood atop the bloodied grounds of the nest, surrounded by a mountain of carcasses. Neo began devouring the remains savoringly, his maw unhinging to pull the nutrient-rich cores from the broken Alpha leaders.
The process of devouring restored his strength, the Octagon trait slowly sealing his wounds.
The iron scent of blood was thick in the air, and the silence of the ravine felt heavy and stagnant. Kale began to calculate the next set of training coordinates, satisfied with the day’s progress despite the lack of a trait breakthrough.
He tucked his daggers away, preparing to call Neo back into his shadows for the journey home.
Suddenly, a sharp crack echoed through the ravine, louder than the sound of a breaking bone.
The ground beneath them did not merely shake; it split open with no warning whatsoever, as if an invisible giant had unzipped the very crust of the forest. Kale’s eyes widened as the floor of the nest disintegrated.
He didn’t even have time to activate Mana Manipulation or call Neo back into his shadows before gravity claimed them both. The feeling of weightlessness was jarring, a sickening drop that made the air roar in his ears.
He saw Neo’s three heads flailing in the dark, the hydra trying in vain to find purchase on the air.
They plummeted into the absolute blackness, the light of the surface receding into a tiny, unreachable pinprick within seconds. The system in Kale’s vision flickered with red warnings, but the descent showed no sign of ending as the air grew colder and thinner.
The speed of their fall was increasing as they left reality behind.
They had already fallen more than a hundred meters, passing through layers of ancient rock and petrified roots that should have marked the bottom of the ravine. The depth was nonsensical, defying the known geography of the Tigerwood Forest.
It felt as if they were falling into the very core of the world itself.
Kale gritted his teeth, shielding his face from the rushing wind as the cold dampness of the underground air hit him with the force of a physical blow. Beside him, Neo let out a low hiss of terror, his claws scratching uselessly at the empty air around them.
The bond between them vibrated with shared panic.
The darkness was absolute, a heavy and suffocating void that seemed to swallow even their shared mana signatures as they drifted further from the surface.
They were no longer in the familiar territory of the Greenroot Guild; they were falling into a territory that lacked a name on any imperial map.
Every second of the fall felt like a minute of psychological torture, the wind pulling at Kale’s white coat and messy green hair.
He reached out through the dark, managing to grab Neo and pull the small hydra against his chest to offer some stability. He could feel the rapid, frantic beating of the hydra’s four hearts.
The system continued to glitch, unable to provide a stable scan of their surroundings as they breached a layer of reality that defied standard logic.
The temperature dropped further, and a sterile, metallic smell replaced the scent of the forest; the wind was oppressive and ancient.
Kale closed his eyes for a heartbeat, focusing on his own internal mana pool to keep his panic at bay.
He held Neo tighter, his resolve hardening even as his body weight vanished.
And they kept falling, drifting deeper into the bowels of the world while the echoes of the collapsing nest faded away far above.