Free Web NovelChapter 63: Neural Abomination (3)
Nobody rushed forward across the arena floor. Twin blade crowbars flashed in both hands. "Alright, ugly! You wanted Phase Three? Come get some!"
FLASH!
He activated Zigzag Teleportation and appeared beside one of the neural tentacles.
SHING!
The crowbar sliced across the fleshy appendage.
Purple fluid splattered through the air.
The brain monster vibrated violently.
BZZZZZZZZ
But instead of screaming....
it started whispering.
Directly into his head.
"...Monster..."
"...Nobody wants you..."
"...Toma fears you..."
Nobody immediately smacked himself on the forehead.
CLANG!
"Nuh uh."
Another illusion voice appeared.
"...Faceless freak..."
CLANG!
"Nope."
"...Worthless..."
CLANG!
"Still nope."
Blossom Bunny watched from his shoulder.
"Atta..."
The bunny genuinely looked concerned.
Nobody pointed proudly."See? The smack my head trick really works."
The giant brain monster pulsed.
The whispers stopped.
For a moment..the entire arena became silent.
Nobody seeing that said,"...That’s suspicious."
The creature suddenly started producing a deep vibration.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Its neural folds expanded. Veins bulged. The enormous eye in its center widened.
The air itself began trembling.
The system window instantly flashed red.
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[WARNING]
PHASE 3 INITIATING
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Nobody froze. "...Phase 3?! WHY DOES THIS MOTHERFU**ER HAVE SO MANY PHASES?!"
The brain monster began growing larger and larger.
And larger.
Its exposed neural tissue expanded outward. New veins appeared. More tendrils emerged from beneath its body. Its already disgusting appearance somehow became worse.
Nobody slowly lowered his crowbars.
"...Dude....You look like a tumor with an eyeball."
The monster responded by vibrating even harder.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
The lanterns throughout the arena flickered violently. Stone dust began falling from the ceiling. Even the ground trembled.
The system rapidly generated another warning.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[NEW SKILL DETECTED]
SONIC ALARM
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Nobody blinked. "...Sonic what?"
The system continued.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
Immediate Evasion Recommended
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Nobody looked around.
"...Evasion from what?"
The monster suddenly opened the neural folds around the giant eye.
Then....
SKRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
A horrifying sonic blast erupted throughout the arena.
Nobody felt the impact instantly.
BOOOOOOOM!
"GAAAAAH!" The shockwave hit him like a truck. His body was launched backward through the air.
Beside him....
Blossom Bunny was thrown as well. "ATTAAAAAA!"
CRASH!
Both slammed into broken stone ruins.
The arena shook violently. Cracks spread across nearby walls. Lanterns exploded.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Nobody rolled across the floor. His ears rang endlessly.
EEEEEEEEEEEE....
He couldn’t hear properly. Couldn’t think properly. Couldn’t even stand properly. Blood slowly dripped from both ears.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Nobody touched his ear. His hand came away red.
"...Oh fu*k."
"...That’s my blood."
The monster released another sonic pulse.
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
The pressure slammed into him again.
BOOOOOM!
"AAAAARGH!"Nobody barely managed to brace himself using his crowbars.
The stone floor beneath his feet cracked. His arms shook violently. Even breathing became difficult.
Nearby....
Blossom Bunny looked terrified. The little summon covered its ears with both paws. Its body trembled.
"Atta..."
"Atta..."
Nobody immediately noticed. His expression changed.
The bunny was suffering even more than him. The sonic waves were affecting its small body badly.
Another pulse started charging.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZ....
The giant brain’s veins glowed brighter.
Nobody clenched his teeth. "No."
He raised a shaking hand. Blue particles appeared. "Blossom."
The bunny looked toward him. "Atta?"
"Go back."
"Now."
Blossom hesitated. The bunny clearly didn’t want to leave him alone.
Another sonic charge intensified.
The entire arena vibrated.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....
Nobody forced a smile. "Don’t worry. I’ll kick this ugly floating brain’s ass later."
Blossom’s ears lowered sadly. "...Atta."
Nobody gently recalled the summon. Blue particles surrounded the bunny.
FWOOOSH
Blossom vanished into the system.
The moment the bunny disappeared Nobody felt slightly relieved. At least Blossom was safe.
Unfortunately....he wasn’t.
The monster immediately unleashed another Sonic Alarm.
SKRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
The sound exploded throughout the entire stadium.
Blood burst from Nobody’s ears again. He dropped onto one knee instantly. "GAH....!"
His vision blurred. His head spun.
The ringing became unbearable.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE....
The system window flickered wildly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ freeωebnovēl.c૦m
[WARNING]
Critical Auditory Damage Detected
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
User Stability Decreasing
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]( ˶°ㅁ°)!!
High Risk Encounter
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Nobody coughed blood onto the stone floor.
"...This..."
"...This thing is insane..."
The giant neural abomination floated overhead.
Larger than ever.
Its eye glowing, veins pulsing. Its tendrils spreading throughout the arena like roots.
And then....
the monster started charging yet another skill.
The entire stadium darkened.
The system suddenly flashed crimson.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ALERT]( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜;)
Unknown Phase 3 Ability Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody slowly looked upward.
"...Unknown?"
"...You’ve got to be kidding me."
Far away....
inside the tutorial chamber....
Ren finally sat up from the couch. His usual smirk disappeared.
"...Oh....Now that’s interesting."
Back inside the arena....
Nobody forced himself to stand. Blood still dripped from his ears. His crowbars trembled in his hands.
But despite everything a grin slowly appeared on his faceless face.
"...Fine."
"...If you’re bringing out secret boss moves..."
He raised both crowbars. "...Then let’s see who breaks first."
The giant neural abomination floated silently above the arena. Its massive eye glowed brighter than before. The veins covering its brain-like body pulsed rhythmically.
BZZZZZZZZZZ!!!
Nobody tightened his grip on his crowbars. Blood still dripped slowly from his ears. His hearing hadn’t fully recovered from Sonic Alarm.
Yet the monster wasn’t finished. Not even close.
The eye of it suddenly flashed crimson. The entire arena trembled.
The system window appeared instantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING]
New Skill Detected
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[Mind Blur]
Description:
Distorts the target’s perception of reality and surroundings.
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Nobody blinked. "...Mind Blur?"
The next second the world twisted. The stone floor beneath him suddenly looked uneven.
The walls bent inward, the lanterns stretched unnaturally. Even the distance between objects became wrong.
Nobody immediately stumbled. "WHOA....!" He nearly fell.
The arena suddenly looked twice as large.
Then half as large. Then large again. Nothing remained stable.
The giant floating brain appeared to move.
Then disappear.
Then reappear somewhere else.
Nobody spun around. "What the hell?!"
The monster seemed to be everywhere.
Above him.
Behind him.
Beside him.
Nowhere.
Everywhere.
The system confirmed immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mind Blur Active]
User Perception Stability:
41%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody pointed angrily at the brain. "Seriously?!"
"This tumor is getting on my nerves!"
Another wave of distortion spread. The arena floor suddenly appeared tilted.
Nobody instinctively leaned sideways.
Then immediately realized the floor wasn’t tilted at all.
"...Okay. This is annoying." He rubbed his forehead. "System."
The floating window appeared.
"Suggest me something useful."
For a moment....
the system remained silent.
Then several notifications appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Suggestion #1]
Close Eyes Temporarily
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Nobody blinked. "...That’s your plan?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Suggestion #2]
Reduce Reliance On Vision
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"...That sounds slightly smarter."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Suggestion #3]
Stop Complaining <(ꐦㅍ _ㅍ)>
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Nobody stared. "...You added that personally, didn’t you?"
The system did not respond. Which was basically confirmation.
Another pulse hit him.
FWOOOOOOM
The arena stretched again. Now the walls looked impossibly far away.
The monster appeared gigantic. Then tiny.
Then gigantic again.
Nobody groaned. "My brain is filing a complaint." He took a deep breath.
Then another.
The world remained distorted.
But his breathing stabilized.
A memory surfaced.
The wolves, the centipedes, the giant orc. Every stage had forced him to adapt. Not overpower but to adapt.
Nobody slowly lowered his crowbars. "...Wait."
The monster floated silently. Its eye glowed.
Mind Blur continued.
Nobody closed his eyes.
The system immediately appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User Vision Disabled]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody ignored it. He focused.
The sonic vibrations, the movement of air, the sound of the tentacles.
The humming noise.
BZZZZZZZZZZ
There.
The monster.
Even distorted....
it still made noise.
It still occupied space.
It still existed physically.
Nobody smiled slightly. "...Gotcha."
The giant brain suddenly fired several tentacles.
WHIP!
WHIP!
WHIP!
Nobody couldn’t see them. But he heard them.
Air displacement, direction, speed.
He moved.
STEP.
STEP.
DUCK.
The tentacles narrowly missed.
CRASH!
Stone exploded behind him.
The system immediately updated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Combat Adaptation Detected]
Good job( ദ്ദി ˙ᗜ˙ )
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Perception Resistance Increased]
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Nobody grinned. "...Who’s getting blurred now?"
The monster pulsed aggressively. Its eye brightened. Mind Blur intensified. But Nobody kept his eyes closed.
The illusion lost much of its effectiveness.
Another tentacle attacked.
WHIP...!
Nobody pivoted.
The strike missed.
Another.
Another.
Another.
Each one missed by inches.
The system continued reporting.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Evasion Success]◝(ᵔᗜᵔ)◜
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Instinct Growth +1]
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Combat Awareness Increased]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody laughed. "HAHA! Look at me!"
"I’m becoming a low budget martial arts master!"
The monster immediately responded by increasing output. The eye glowed intensely. A powerful pulse erupted.
FWOOOOOOOM!!
Even with his eyes closed....his sense of direction became unstable.
For a moment...he couldn’t tell where up or down was.
His balance nearly failed.
"...Okay."
"...That’s new."
He planted one crowbar into the stone floor.
CLANG!
Then the second one.
CLANG!
The physical feedback grounded him.
The cold metal, the hard stone. Those things were real.
Not illusions and distortions.
Nobody took another breath. His mind stabilized slightly.
Then....
the system suddenly displayed something unusual.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Analysis Complete]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody blinked. "...You analyzed it?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Mind Blur Limitation Found]
Skill Effectiveness Drops When User Focuses On Physical Reference Points
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Nobody’s grin widened. "...OH." Now that was useful.
Very useful.
He immediately touched the stone floor. Touched his crowbars. Touched the wall beside him. Each contact strengthened his awareness.
The distortion weakened. But not completely. But enough.
The monster noticed. Its eye narrowed. The neural abomination floated higher.
The humming noise intensified.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ..!
The system suddenly flashed red.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING] ⚠︎⚠︎
Entity Energy Levels Rising
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Phase 3 Continues]
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Nobody slowly reopened one eye.
The arena was still distorted. But less than before.
Far above....
the giant brain hovered like a nightmare moon. Its eye burned crimson. Its tendrils writhed. Its veins pulsed.
And somehow....
Nobody got the feeling it was becoming frustrated.
He pointed a crowbar upward. "...Good. Because I’m getting frustrated too."
The system displayed one final notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recommendation]
Hit It Very Hard (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)
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Nobody stared.
"...Now THAT is a useful advice."
