Breakthrough

"Yeah! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!" Ending the incantation with this final praise, the monster summoned by Gao Xiaowen appeared on the seabed. It was a mass of black flesh covered in black-red growths that were indistinguishable as either blood vessels or tentacles. Naturally, a mere ghost could not summon the Great Old One herself—the Black Goat of the Woods—but she could summon one of His Dark Young.

The most famous Dark Young are the Dark Young of the Black Goat, the prototype for the black monster the Witch summoned earlier. Aside from them, the only other well-known Dark Young is Saya. The one Gao Xiaowen summoned now was not among the famous ones, but it was absolutely powerful.

The black-red tubules of the black flesh mass drifted through the water before shooting out, piercing a Deep One and injecting something into its body. Gao Xiaowen bore the mark of the Great Old One's gaze, which allowed her to barely command the Dark Young to attack the Deep Ones; otherwise, such a monster would have attacked indiscriminately the moment it appeared.

On the other side, Hu Wenxu poured the last vial of black liquid into his mouth. It was the spoils from his first game instance. That black liquid was actually composed of countless black larvae that could symbiotically bond with most organisms. Wandering within a host's body, they could provide a continuous stream of power, but every gain had a price: the cost of this symbiosis was that his future diet would be restricted to humans.

He had already consumed the flesh fungus as well. Several substances from different monsters, some strong and some weak, were fermenting inside Hu Wenxu's body. These items all had different side effects; consuming them directly would transform a human into a mutated monster. Now, they were constantly reshaping his body—some conflicting, some harmonizing. The mutation of his body drove his mind, igniting his emotions.

Hu Wenxu's appearance was also changing. His skin turned deathly pale, covered in strange, living black veins. The bones of his right hand were digested, his five fingers elongating and spreading until the entire hand became a massive cluster of tentacles. Disgusting pustules grew continuously on his left chest, and his feet mutated as well; they grew, swelled, and fused together into a lump of flesh exposing countless black blood vessels. The lump grew eyes, with octopus-like tentacles beneath it. Excluding his upper body, his lower half had become a grotesque, bizarre giant octopus.

Naturally, the most significant change was in Hu Wenxu's eyes. His original alienated organ had been his eyes, and now that he had become a monster, his eyes underwent an even more terrifying mutation. Where his eyes once were, there were now only two empty, cavernous holes, pitch-black and bottomless. From time to time, eyeballs sprouting tentacles would fly out from within, and soon, his surroundings were filled with these tentacled eyes.

Hu Wenxu let out a hiss of delight. His hypothesis was correct: consuming those items individually would not only mutate the body but also risk annihilating his personality. By consuming them together, although he now faced certain restrictions and his body constantly reacted with bizarre desires, he could confirm that his personality remained intact, at least for now.

The two newly appeared monsters helped the Merfolk slaughter the Deep Ones. Gao Xiaowen was doing fine; although she had abandoned the ghost, causing her Implant Path abilities to stop improving, this summoning had brought her closer to the Great Old One she served. As for Hu Wenxu, his body was completely alienated; while his personality remained, his body now harbored all sorts of hidden dangers.

Hu Wenxu's strength had increased dramatically. The tentacled eyes drifting around him constantly transmitted the surrounding scene to him. The Deep Ones, who were previously his equals, were no longer a match for him in a single exchange. Furthermore, he had completely perceived his skill bar.

The skill bar was always loaded onto a player, and players could change the modules within it via the panel. However, in this state, skills were usually fixed—a mere tool for the player. Now that Hu Wenxu's perception had broken into the skill bar, it had become an extension of his own hand. He could allocate the skills within it more rationally, solving the lack of flexibility inherent in a player's skill set.

Hu Wenxu possessed three skills. Aside from the ability-cultivation skill, the other two were a wave that induced greed and an attack that inflicted paralysis. After touching the skill bar, Hu Wenxu activated the skills based on his own understanding. He emitted the wave that induced greed toward his surroundings, but this time, it did not induce greed; anything touched by the wave was instantly paralyzed, unable to move. Hu Wenxu vaguely realized that this was the path of the player: turning the skill bar into an organ he could control directly. Now, by using his monster avatar, he had successfully reached this stage.

With the help of the players, the Deep Ones found it increasingly difficult to resist. The Dark Young and Hu Wenxu pushed relentlessly toward the altar, drawing the attention of all the Deep Ones. The Deep Ones resisted with all their might, and no one noticed Lu Li, hiding to the side, quietly picking up a spear.

Brain Overclocking released, and countless pieces of information flooded into Lu Li's mind: the temperature of the seawater, the direction of the currents, the positions of various debris, and the undertows caused by the ongoing battle. The massive computational load was enough to drive a human insane, but Lu Li merely let two streams of blood flow from his nose, drifting into the ocean, as he cracked a smile. Muscle Release activated, and his rapidly swelling muscles became strong and powerful. The Deep One spear flew toward the flesh mass on the altar like a meteor.

By the time the Deep Ones reacted, the spear had miraculously drifted through various undertows and passed through debris and corpses, piercing deeply into the flesh mass. The monster atop the mass let out a shrill, terrified scream, and countless tentacles stretched out from within, dragging everything nearby into the flesh.

The Deep Ones were not killed by the Merfolk, nor by the Dark Young, nor by the monster Hu Wenxu had become, but were instead devoured as food by the very mass they were protecting. It was, to say the least, an irony. This moment triggered chaos among the Deep Ones. The Merfolk King seized the opportunity, forcing back the massive Deep One, and the Merfolk he brought heroically blocked him. The Merfolk King began to chant a high-level spell: Raise Sandstorm.

This was Imhotep's ultimate move when cast in the desert, but it took on a different form on the seabed. Seawater mixed with sand swept crazily through everything. Countless creatures were caught in the undersea sandstorm, drifting uncontrollably with the current. The flesh mass on the altar was struck, and its unintelligible roars were to no avail; shortly after being torn from the altar, it dissolved into countless rotting, useless chunks of meat...