[CC] Chapter 52

It’s burning!

Shouren screamed as an excruciating pain pulsed through his blood and into his body.

When did the monster latch onto his leg? It was too fast for Shouren to follow.

“You sneaky rat, you have venom in your fangs!”

Shouren cursed through his teeth as he wobbled for a second. He could feel something invading his body, dampening his senses and thoughts. The monster glanced up at Shouren, its draconic eyes gloating as if it had never claimed it wasn’t venomous. Also, it appeared offended that the human called it a rat instead of the noble snake species.

It’s too late, I don’t have any healing cards. I need to kill it before the venom spreads further.

Shouren grit his teeth in regret and raised his hand, about to bring the hammer down on the monster’s scaly head. It was the perfect chance for him to land a hit on its head.

Swish.

The hammer swung cleanly without resistance.

Huh?

Shouren’s glazed eyes rolled down. The python was still locked on his calf, its fangs latched onto his flesh in a deathly vise.

It’s a venom that targets the brain.

A sense of dread creeped into Shouren. It was a nerve agent targeting not his body, but his mind. He had swung that hammer with his full strength aimed at the monster, but his mind-body connection was off sync.

Shouren wanted to cry at his earlier decision to hold off on using the Spectral Threads card, and he was paying the price for it now. The python’s fangs sunk in deeper, eliciting another sharp cry from the boy.

I can’t give up. There must be a weakness to this monster. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have tried to sneak up on me.

Shouren racked his brain for a way out while he kept swinging at the python. His arm didn’t obey the trajectory his brain sent. The snake expected this and didn’t even bother looking up at the human anymore. It was focused on injecting as much of the venom as it could until it would be too late for Shouren to do anything.

Shouren stopped moving abruptly, the hammer limp in his hand but not fallen to the ground yet.

The venom is weak.

Shouren grasped at that realization. It had been a few minutes, and he could still think consciously. Though his motor functions were compromised, much of his rationality remained. Shouren quelled the rising panic and took his time to think. The monster didn’t even notice that the human was standing still. Its fangs throbbed as it pumped more drops of venom into him.

I don’t have a high constitution attribute. Despite that, the venom hadn’t paralyzed me yet. Was it geared towards the nerves within the muscles? And since it grabbed onto my calf, it hasn’t let go and seemed to let the venom do its job. Did the venom require a constant flow to work or was did it need to reach a certain threshold before the effects were permanent?

Shouren ignored the scorching pang of heat traveling from his leg and concentrated on unraveling the venom. From what he gathered, the venom was too weak to have a significant effect from a single drop. It also didn’t target his brain like he’d initially thought, but towards the nerves connecting his brain to his muscles.

He gazed down at the monster. Only its mouth thrummed near the fangs, but the rest of its body was still.

I thought it was confident in its venom, but knowing how weak it is, it shouldn’t have been that confident to not even flinch when the hammer came near it. It’s not that it was unfazed, but that it actually couldn’t move.

Shouren’s eyes steeled at the revelation. Whatever the venom was, it was affecting the monster as well. It has no resistance to its own venom? Shouren didn’t care to dwell further on it.

He placed his palm on his hip and meticulously moved his hand down to his calf, using his skin as both support and guide to navigate. If he took his hand off his body, then his brain would cease to discern his bodily movements. That’s why Shouren kept his hand connected to his body. He gradually neared the python’s shiny head. The monster had a long sinewy body, while its head was relatively slimmer.

Now that his hand made contact with the monster’s head, Shouren latched onto its body and trailed down to its midsection. At this point, the python’s fears were coming true. The human had figured it out!

It hastily released its fangs from Shouren’s flesh and tried to retreat. Globules of Shouren’s blood seeped into the grass below, staining the earthy dirt.

Was it ingesting my venom-filled blood? That must be why it was affected as well. Hells, the venom is interfering with my blood and preventing it from clotting.

Shouren didn’t let go of his grip as the monster writhed under him. However, the situation had turned from worse to dire. The venom prevented the muscles near the wound from closing, causing Shouren to slowly bleed out. His earlier joy at finding the venom was not poisonous quickly died down, now that he had to face the possibility of bleeding to death.

Seeing that the human had no intention of letting it go, the python glared at the human and roped its long body around his wounded leg. Its sinewy muscles squeezed hard, forcing more blood to come spurting out the open wound.

However, while Shouren was losing blood, the venom inside also left alongside the more blood he lost. He was gradually gaining control over his body, but at the cost of his vitality. Fueled with desperation, Shouren raised his other hand and brought it down towards the monster’s jaw. Seeing an opening, the python coiled its upper body once again and bit into Shouren’s hand, palm up.

“Got you.”

Shouren wheezed through the burning sensation in his palm and activated his vault. The handle of the hammer shot through the monster’s brain the instant it appeared outside. Shouren had summoned the tool directly into the python’s mouth.

The monster’s body loosened around Shouren’s leg and slowly crumbled to the ground, as a single gray card floating above its corpse.

[Floor 1 Clear Conditions: Kill 1 Tier 0 entity]

[Current Kills: 1/1]

[Floor Rewards will be distributed upon exit or new floor.]

[Exit: Yes/No]

[Enter Floor 2: Yes/No]

A notification blinked within Shouren’s sight. However, the boy was losing his consciousness. Shouren shoved the card into his vault without looking at it and did the same with the python’s body as well.

He needed to stop his bleeding fast.

Should I leave right now? I could get healing once I’m outside.

Shouren stared at the exit option, deliriousness spreading through his body every second he lost more blood. He then hobbled away on his one leg, away from the scene.

No, I won’t have that easy option to quit every time I get hurt.

Shouren took out an extra shirt from his vault and wrapped it around his calf, tying the fabric tight to stop the bleeding as much as possible. The venom was still inside his body. After tying the fabric around his injury, Shouren channeled his lumen to move faster. He needed to find a safer spot to rest, away from the smell of blood.

How did I forget this? I can use lumen to fight off the bleeding!

As the tendrils of lumen danced through his body while he dragged himself away, Shouren recalled when he used the lumen in his dungeon run before to help heal slowly. It wasn’t effective on serious afflictions like burns or poison, but enough for fleshy injuries. The deliriousness was taking over his mind and he could feel his consciousness slipping away.

Shouren found an isolated spot near a crowd of trees and picked the one in the back. It was still vulnerable to an ambush, but Shouren was out of time. He was going to drop soon if he didn’t change something.

I should have expected that the snake might be venomous.

Shouren didn’t even make it to the tree before his body gave out and he came tumbling down with his face collapsing into the grass.

Everything was so hazy. Was it the blood loss or the venom? Shouren couldn’t differentiate any longer.

What a weird venom… it targeted my nerves instead of poisoning me.

Shouren’s hazel eyes dimmed as he lost focus and his vision turned blurry. It wasn’t just his body, even his brain was slowing down now.

The venom in my nerves is going to my brain as well?

Shouren’s mind was going numb. The speed of his thoughts were slowing down as well.

If my nerves slowing down makes my thoughts slow as well, can I make my nerves travel faster?

Drool seeped out of Shouren’s mouth as he lay there. His body no longer obeyed him. He couldn’t even exit the dungeon now, as his mind was cracking apart.

Faster… go faster…

Shouren’s mind was dissipating into nothing as he deliriously formed his half-thoughts. His eyes stared into nothing as he drifted away into the void.

Go…

A single thought echoed quietly, using the last strand of his will.

Something stirred inside the boy’s chest and all his remaining 13 units of lumen rushed to his brain in a tsunami of energy. Normally, Shouren would fear bombarding his most vulnerable organ with so much volatile energy, but in his delirious state, he no longer understood the ramifications.

The tide of radiant energy washed over Shouren’s brain, seeping through his lobes. A flicker of a notification blinked within the boy’s irises, but he was no longer awake.

[Attribute upgrade initiated… insufficient lumen… progress halted. Intelligence E (0.8%)]