Solo Leveling: Digispirit.

A/N : tomorrow Chapter, I had a busy day at work to avoid problem here is, after that it came a mini arc centered in goat pumpkinmon, you may or no skipped.

In the end, another three weeks passed before they reached the place where Orochimon lived. As BlackTailmon had explained, it was a lake.

They took their time getting there. Along the way, they continued working on their coordination and teamwork, polishing their individual abilities and learning how to fight together more efficiently. The constant battles had slowly turned the three of them into a surprisingly coordinated group.

During that time, Takuya had noticed that his own abilities had improved considerably. It wasn’t necessarily just an increase in raw power wich also was part of it. Rather, his techniques, timing, fighting rhythm, and control over his flames had all improved by a significant margin. He was becoming much more efficient with the power he already possessed, wasting less movement and controlling his flames with far greater precision than before.

Eventually, the trio reached the lake in the southern part of the island. There was no sign of Orochimon anywhere. If there was one thing they had learned during their time on the island, it was that the Perfect-level Digimon they were hunting were extremely territorial. They didn’t allow other Digimon to remain anywhere near their territory, and any unfortunate Digimon that dared to get too close was practically guaranteed to end up dead.

Because of this, the mortality rate around their territories was incredibly high, especially among Child-level Digimon. Adult Digimon at least had a better chance of escaping when something went wrong, giving them a slightly higher survival rate. Even then, however, survival was far from guaranteed.

Takuya and the others carefully searched the area, making sure not to get too close to the center of the lake. If Orochimon managed to grab one of them and drag them into the water, there would be very little they could do. The water wasn’t the natural terrain of any of them. Quite the opposite, in fact. They weren’t going to take that kind of risk without a reason.

They waited.

And waited.

Nothing.

There was still no sign of Orochimon.

Takuya eventually had an idea. "What if we make it come to us?" he asked.

Pumpkinmon and BlackTailmon both looked at him with confused expressions, apparently wondering what exactly he intended to do.

The answer became obvious a moment later.

Takuya began firing Burning Salamanders directly at the lake.

The moment the flames touched the water, they naturally extinguished. However, Takuya maintained the output of his flames and continued releasing Burning Salamanders against the surface without stopping. Pumpkinmon soon understood what he was trying to accomplish and began doing the same with his own fire attacks.

The two of them continued directing their flames toward the water. Slowly, the temperature began to rise. The area where their attacks were concentrated started bubbling, then boiling, and the effect gradually spread outward. If this had been ordinary fire, it might have taken hours to heat such a large body of water, but the power behind the flames of a Digimon couldn’t be underestimated.

The water quickly reached a violent boil. Bubbles spread across the surface, and a massive curtain of steam began rising around the area.

Then something suddenly emerged from the water.

A gigantic Digimon rose from the lake, its enormous body surrounded by multiple metallic heads, with one central head made of flesh. It resembled a gigantic serpent surrounded by several artificial-looking heads.

The moment the central body emerged from the water, Takuya redirected his attack and slammed a Burning Salamander directly into Orochimon’s main face.

The Perfect-level Digimon roared in anger and violently shook his head, scattering the flames. The remaining water surrounding his body made extinguishing the fire even easier.

Then Orochimon finally emerged completely from the lake.

He was huge.

Really huge.

All three of them had to tilt their heads upward just to look at him.

Orochimon stood roughly twenty meters tall, and his enormous serpentine body stretched even farther behind him. He was considerably larger than Cherrymon and closer in scale to the two titans they had fought earlier, Groundramon and WaruSeadramon.

The gigantic Digimon looked down at them as though they were nothing more than insects.

"You have a lot of upps... nerve," Orochimon slurred.

He was obviously drunk.

His movements were sloppy and unsteady, and his words were barely coherent. Even so, none of the three dared to underestimate him simply because he was drunk. They had already learned that Perfect-level Digimon were dangerous enough without giving them any additional advantages.

Pumpkinmon immediately threw his already-used giant pumpkin toward Orochimon’s head.

Orochimon raised several of his metallic heads and stopped the pumpkin.

Then, to their surprise, he actually tried to throw it back at them.

Takuya immediately reacted, firing a full-power Burning Salamander at the pumpkin before Orochimon could launch it. The attack shattered the pumpkin in midair, sending dozens of burning pieces crashing down onto Orochimon’s body.

The gigantic serpent immediately shook them off and rolled across the ground.

He really did move like a drunk old man.

"Smart hip... kids," Orochimon slurred. "But isn’t enough."

He opened his mouth.

Before he could launch his next attack, the smell of alcohol suddenly invaded the trio’s noses. All three frowned instinctively.

Then Orochimon released something resembling a breath attack.

Except it wasn’t fire.

It was alcohol.

A massive stream of concentrated alcohol erupted from his mouth and swept toward them. The three immediately dodged, but even after avoiding the direct attack, they were left feeling dizzy from the fumes.

The attack wasn’t designed to kill them.

It was designed to get them drunk.

If they had taken the full blast, they could have easily ended up intoxicated and unable to fight properly. Fortunately, all three managed to avoid most of the attack’s effects.

However, this revealed something else.

If Orochimon was using alcohol as a weapon, then he was giving Takuya an incredibly effective fuel source for his flames.

And judging by the look Takuya exchanged with BlackTailmon, he understood the same thing.

Neither of them said anything.

They didn’t need to.

The two simply looked at each other before turning toward Orochimon.

"That’s all?" Takuya shouted. "Next time, aim properly, you idiot snake!"

It was a clumsy provocation at best.

But both of them knew it was probably enough for someone who was already drunk.

"Ahhh? That’s because you haven’t seen anything yet!" Orochimon roared.

He opened his mouth again.

This time, however, the attack looked considerably more dangerous.

The smell of alcohol was even stronger, but instead of another breath attack, something began gathering inside Orochimon’s mouth. It looked more like an energy sphere than a stream of liquid, and whatever he was preparing, it was obvious they couldn’t simply allow him to fire it.

Takuya immediately launched a full-power Burning Salamander toward Orochimon, aiming directly at the gathering attack inside his central head.

Orochimon reacted by using the metallic heads surrounding his body to block the entirety of Takuya’s attack. Several of the smaller serpentine heads were knocked aside by the impact, but Orochimon deliberately sacrificed them to protect the attack he was preparing.

That confirmed it.

Whatever he was creating was flammable.

But what none of them expected was that, outside of Orochimon and Takuya’s attention, Halloween launched his own fire attack at the same moment.

The instant Pumpkinmon’s flames touched Orochimon’s gathering attack, everything went white.

The next thing they knew, the three of them were being thrown away by an enormous shockwave. They flew more than a 800 meters before crashing into the ground.

Takuya struggled to stand. He coughed violently and looked around, his vision blurry and a high-pitched ringing filling both of his ears. His body ached from the recoil, but his first thought wasn’t about Orochimon.

It was about his friends.

"Halloween... BlackTailmon..."

Those were the first words that came out of his mouth.

Takuya immediately began searching for them. After a moment, he heard a voice.

"I’m here."

BlackTailmon emerged from the dust and smoke, moving toward him while barely managing to walk. he grabbed one of Takuya’s arms for support.

"I feel like shit," he grumbled.

"We need to find Halloween," Takuya replied.

"That might not be necessary. Look." BlackTailmon pointed in a direction.

There he was.

Pumpkinmon was lying several meters away, with half of his body buried in the ground and only his legs sticking out.

Takuya hurried over, grabbed him by one leg, and pulled him out of the ground. Surprisingly, Pumpkinmon was actually the one who appeared to be in the best condition of the three.

Once they confirmed that all three of them were still alive and capable of moving, they turned their attention back toward Orochimon.

The gigantic Digimon stood in the distance.

His mouth was literally burning.

Flames were pouring from between his jaws, but they weren’t under his control. Parts of his face had been burned away, and flames were even escaping through several openings in his body.

The three of them could only stare.

Orochimon looked like he was burning from the inside out.

Takuya finally understood why Orochimon had used all of his metallic heads to protect himself from the previous attack. Whatever he had created using his alcohol was incredibly flammable.

And now he had paid the price.

The trio didn’t attack.

They simply watched as Orochimon struggled against the flames consuming him from within.

Then, suddenly, his gigantic body collapsed.

The massive serpent hit the ground and began dissolving into countless particles of data.

"He died?" BlackTailmon asked.

"Just how strong was the backlash from that attack?" Takuya muttered as he watched the Perfect-level Digimon disperse into data.

Orochimon killed himself, not tecnically but...

"We’re awesome!" Pumpkinmon suddenly exclaimed.

The declaration was completely out of place.

He wasn’t wrong, technically, but it was still strange. Killing a Perfect-level Digimon like this felt almost ridiculous. None of them had actually dealt the final blow in a conventional sense.

Still, they could all feel the data flowing into their bodies.

There was no doubt.

Orochimon was dead.

The three remained silent for a moment, staring at the place where the enormous Digimon had once stood.

Then BlackTailmon finally broke the silence.

"I can evolve now."

The other two immediately looked at him.

"For real?" Takuya asked.

"For real."

BlackTailmon stepped forward and closed her eyes.

Her body began to shine.

The outer layer of her body seemed to peel away, revealing a digital pattern beneath. Green lines formed across her body, creating geometric polygons that surrounded her small feline shape.

The polygons began changing.

Growing.

Reshaping themselves around his body.

His legs lengthened first, the small paws becoming larger and more powerful. Her entire body began to grow until she reached roughly the same height as Takuya.

Then he grew even further.

When the transformation finally stabilized, she stood around two and a half meters tall.

he wasn’t particularly large by Perfect-level standards. In fact, compared to the enormous Perfect Digimon they had fought recently, it was quite small.

But he was no longer a BlackTailmon.

Around his new body, fur began rendering into existence. Clothing formed over her frame, followed by long claws and the rest of her new appearance.

LadyDevimon

LadyDevimon had been the preferred Evolution path for BlackTailmon, contrasting with the usual Evolution route of a normal Tailmon, which would eventually lead toward Angewomon.

But apparently, this BlackTailmon wasn’t quite bad enough to become a fallen angel or simply didn’t wanto be one.

So he had taken a different path.

What stood before Takuya now was a

.

A full fledged

blackWereGarurumon.