Chapter 222: A Total Upgrade…?

[Darkame Flowery]

“Just a little more…” I hissed through my teeth.

I forced myself upright, pins and needles stabbing through my dead legs as I mashed spells from both [Holy Flame Manipulation] and [Dark Recovery] together on instinct.

It was going horribly. The spell was a glitching mess—but the Hydra was still reeling from my first hit, still knitting its flesh back together. I had time. Not much, but more if I kept grinding time itself to a crawl.

[Holame Recoflame]

“The hell does that even mean?” I snapped.

Juggling spells like this was way harder than I’d thought. I’d gotten lucky with my first fusion, but this one? That luck was dead and buried.

It was still healing me, technically, just… in the jankest, most half-broken way possible.

“C-come on…!”

I bore down harder, forcing my brain to line up the formula. You’d think [Holy Flame] and [Dark Recovery] would be way simpler than that insane new spell I’d just invented—but no.

Apparently, this one was harder, even though it was just two spells slammed together.

I guessed it made sense…

Breaking things is always easier than fixing them.

“Fuck…!”

My legs gave out again. I lurched forward, skull ringing as the side of my head smashed into broken concrete.

“C-come on…!”

If I couldn’t force this spell to stabilize in time, I’d die—either when the Hydra came at me again, or when my own insides finally tore themselves apart.

Didn’t matter how I went out. Every option sucked.

“J-just a little… more!”

[Flamecovery]

I shoved myself upright again, feeling surging back into my legs—stronger this time, but still shaky and wrong.

But I was close…

I was so damn close.

“Stupid math!”

I screamed at the numbers spinning in my head and—

[Dark Flame Recovery]

Dark fire roared over my skin, swallowing me whole. For a heartbeat, I braced for agony—but instead of eating through my flesh, the flames stitched it back together.

It was like watching a clip of burning wood played in reverse—the char peeling back, the black turning to raw, living flesh.

My hand. My body. My crushing fatigue.

All of it rewound as the dark flames wrapped tighter around me, devouring my injuries instead of my life.

[Breakthrough Achieved]

[Special Condition Achieved]

[Bonus Level Granted]

[Expert: Lvl 2]

I barked out a manic laugh, raw and too loud, magic roaring through me until my own voice sounded like it was blasting out of a broken megaphone, crashing against the False Hydra’s screeches and the hammering rain.

For a second, it felt like I was the real monster here, not the towering abomination thrashing in front of me.

“Oh, you are so screwed…”

I muttered it under my breath, then dragged in another shaky inhale and pried my jaws open, power condensing into a tight, blinding orb on my tongue.

[Malignant Heavenly Eclipse]

“Die!”

I unleashed the same spell again, this time aiming for what I hoped was the beast’s base—where all its necks converged.

The spell snapped to my target in an instant, a thin black line that drank in everything around it.

Once it finished devouring everything in its path—

BOOM.

The line erupted, detonating into a shockwave that felt like it ripped a hole straight through the world.

And—

“Y-Yes!”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed, squinting against the blast as dust and dirt slammed into my face, stinging my eyes and blinding me.

Direct hit.

I knew it!

The Hydra’s invisibility was a wreck now; its form kept flickering in and out, visible more often than not.

And I had to admit…

It was one ugly beast.

“No wonder you’re invisible,” I snorted.

[Capturing Spirit… 100%]

“Finally!”

[Confirm?]

“Yes.”

[Choose Item to Store]

“Item…?” I muttered.

Well, that was obvious. I didn’t have many options, and there was no way I was dumping this thing into [Endless Fang]. That left [The Serpent’s Amulet]—the lesser evil, and the one I was choosing only because I had no other choice.

Hope this won’t be a repeat of the [Eye of the Profaned]…

[Processing]

Panels swarmed the Hydra’s body, translucent system screens blooming into existence and slowly consuming it from the ground up.

But the beast didn’t just sit there and let itself be eaten.

SCREECH!

It unleashed another shockwave, a deafening, distorted wail that almost sounded like a twisted song. Every raindrop around it exploded outward at hypersonic speed.

Fast enough to kill.

[Dark Gluttony]

But not fast enough to break through me.

My spell snapped into place, shadows opening wide.

[The Serpent’s Amulet Resisted Memory Erasure]

[The Serpent’s Amulet Resisted Memory Erasure]

“Just die already!”

I roared, forcing [Dark Gluttony] to expand, widening its maw to swallow every lethal droplet hurtling toward me.

While I held the line, the panels kept crawling higher up the Hydra’s body. Even the Serpent, still somehow standing, a shredded, detached thing clinging stubbornly to the monster, was getting swallowed by the system.

And then, just as the panels reached what looked like the Hydra’s final remaining head—

[Completed]

[High-Level Entity Secured]

The panels slammed inward in what felt like a millisecond. One moment, a hulking pale beast covered with blue light; the next, a small blue cube hanging in the air, an arrowhead icon fixed on it.

I didn’t need a genius to tell me what came next.

[Dark Step]

I warped to a shattered ledge closest to the cube and launched myself off it, the stone crumbling behind me as I hurled across the sky.

“And… got it!”

My fingertip brushed the cube. Causing it to shimmer once before completely vanishing.

[Entity Stored]

[Dark Step]

I blinked out of the open air before gravity could claim me, reappearing on solid ground and skidding forward on leftover momentum.

“T-That was kind of anticlimactic.”

I let out a short laugh. No deafening explosion, no blinding light show—just silence.

And an ominous system panel hanging in front of me, waiting for me to ask what it actually did.

[Entity Stored]

SNAP!

I snapped my fingers, shutting down the killing field I’d spread across the battlefield. The moment it faded, I just dropped, lying flat on my back, staring up at the dark sky as the rain kept pouring.

“Thought I wasn’t gonna make it…” I exhaled, chest still heaving.

“Well, you did.” Julius leaned over me, his head blocking the rain from my face.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this… but you were a big help,” I muttered.

“You did most of the work, though.”

Julius crossed his arms, a small smile tugging at his lips.

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