Chapter 91 "Swallowing it Whole"

 Pentos Pov

　It exploded from within, as if some part of the beast's oddly shaped body had exploded.

　There was no indication that the sphere had done anything.

　...What in the world...?

　Screams of pain echoed through the city.

　The explosion occurred in two places.

I thought I saw something black and stringy wriggling out of it, and then more wounds exploded.

　Something that looks like plant ivy breaks through the wounds and wraps around the body as if to restrain it.

The beastly creature struggles to tear the ivy away from its body, but realizing it is futile, it lowers itself to gather its strength.

　The next moment, with a roar, the impact ripples through the entire city.

　The impact reaches me from more than enough distance, and my body is blown away.

"...ga..."

　My body complained of pain, but I was so transfixed by the battle in front of me that I didn't care about such things.

　It was a battle so bizarre that it shattered the common sense I had built up over the years.

　Was this the battle of the gods as described in mythology?

　The scene before my eyes was so spectacular that I could believe it.

　I whipped my aching body and got up.

　...What happened to the battle?

　The beast's terrifying roar was causing tremendous damage, but the opposing ball, although it had lost a few "somethings" that had grown on it, was still alive and well and did not seem to have lost its will to fight.

　The beast deformity, on the other hand, was weakened by the mysterious plant that had suddenly sprouted from its body, and its movements were quite sluggish.

　The mysterious plant is changing little by little as it tightens around the beast deformity.

　Something like a fruit...

　...No, is that a bud?

　My guess was correct, and the bud opened wide to reveal a large, poisonous purple flower.

　The purple flower sends out a large amount of what looks like fluff from its petals.

　The purple fluff, which is just as poisonous as the flower, flies toward the ball at a speed that is hard to believe that it is riding on the wind.

　A part of the sphere changed into a mouth-like shape and opened wide to receive the fluff.

　One by one, the fluff flew into the mouth. The change is immediate.

　The missing part regenerates with a sickening sound.

　Conversely, the beast's deformity is stripped of its flesh and its bones are exposed.

　It seems to be sucking out its power.

　The beast deformity tries to do something about it by throwing smoke at the flower, but the flower is not only dying, but growing huge.

　Realizing that the smoke is ineffective, it now unleashes the mysterious impact that destroyed the city earlier.

　With a roar, the flower bursts open along with the beast's misshapen body, sending the surrounding debris soaring into the sky.

　The ball was not so patient as to stand idly by and watch.

　The next moment, the "something" extending from the sphere was biting all at once.

　The beast's deformed resistance was futile as the "something" coiled around it, bit into its belly, and laid waste to it.

　The battle seemed to have been settled.

　...It was a tremendous battle.

　As I was thinking about this, I suddenly realized something.

　A shadow fell on the ground. I tilted my head and looked up to see debris falling from above.

　"Ah..."

　Before I had time to react, the debris was right in front of me....

　...impact. That was the last thing I felt.

MC pov

　Hunger.

　That's what's gnawing at me right now.

　Oh, shit. I didn't want this to happen.

The first thing I did to finish off the Kaiju was to make my body a reasonable size. Fortunately, there were plenty of materials around.

　I absorbed all the zombies and corpses around me from one end to the other, gaining mass and growing to a giant size....

But I could not even move because I did not have enough "roots" to control my body.

　Since I had no choice but to increase the production of "roots" inside my body, and as a substitute, I made seeds of a giant plant I came across at the ruins and germinated them, forcing them to multiply inside my body. With this, I think I can manage to move this figure.

　The ivy of this plant has similar characteristics to my "root," so it is a perfect substitute.

　...In fact, they were controlling corpses.

　The rest was done by making a brain for control in parallel.

It is difficult to move this body, so I decided to fight without moving it.

First of all, I needed "arms" to reach him. I didn't have time to worry about gimmicks and such, so I made a replica of the Death Worm and grew it from my body.

　One arm was not enough, so I made five arms.

　It was good that I made them grow, but... they are not so good.

This body is more inefficient than I thought it would be.

I quickly decided to turn the other three against it, leaving two Death Worms for defense.

Aquiel ducks with a light movement and gets close to me.

　Well, that's how it goes.

Fast enough to catch me when I was human-sized at first. That's what I saw coming.

I let the Death Worm that I left behind catch the claw that swung down on me and feed it the dissolving fluid circulating inside my body.

　Aquiel roars in rage and attacks with his breath. I've already seen that one.

I blow it up with a counter-intuitive [Outrageous Storm]. The surface is a little blistered, but the damage is within acceptable limits.

　In the meantime, the attacking Death Worm came back, and I fed it a [Flame] - a magic that radiates fire - from behind, but it hardly burns at all.

　...I guess magic doesn't work so well after all.

　I thought he would back away and regain his footing, but contrary to my expectations, Aquiel ignores the flames burning his back and bites me.

　If that was all, there would be no problem, but this dog-bastard breathed directly into the wound.

　What the hell did he do?

　It's not good if I don't manage to pull it off.

　I make a tube from the Death Worm's outer shell inside my body.

　I will make it stick out of my body and feed it to Aquiel, blowing him away and forcibly separating the two of us.

　The structure of this tube is simply just a hard tube.

　The purpose is to make a "gun barrel."

　Inside the tube is loaded with processed "seeds" and blown up by [explosion].

The "seed" hit the bastard dog, who probably didn't expect to be shot. As he was knocked down, I fired another shot at him.

　The way he looked at me was beyond angry, he even had a murderous intent in his eyes.

I don't give a damn, though.

　After the third shot, the dog man ducked.

After that, perhaps wary of projectiles, he would attack in a half-way position and distance himself from me.

　So-called "hit and away."

It's tough to get hit by this one.

It is powerful, but my attack is slow to "come out".

If they deal with me calmly, I won't be able to hit it.

　Well, I have already prepared for it, so all I have to do is wait and see.

　After a while, the seed I shot at him germinated.

It feeds on magic power and flesh, grows, and grows ivy to strangle its host.

　It worked.

　I wasn't sure if it would work, since the demon's body is different from normal and it has a title like "advanced," but from the looks of it, it seems to be working.

　To be honest, I was worried about what I would do if it didn't work, so I was relieved inside.

　He twisted and turned to do something about the ivy, but it didn't work. As long as it's growing out of your body, twisting your body won't shred it.

　It may have realized that the ivy is difficult to deal with, so it now fires a shockwave at me, but it is not as powerful as it was earlier, perhaps because it is exhausted. I blocked it with wind-based defensive magic, but some of it penetrated. A few Death Worms took some damage, but my body was mostly unscathed.

　In the meantime, the ivy that has sucked up Aquiel's nutrients will blossom.

If it reaches this point, it will die quickly.

　From the blooming flower, a large amount of what looks like dandelion fluff shoots out.

　It's a mass of nutrients made of his magic and flesh.

Frankly, I was on the verge of running out of gas, so I took a mouthful and sucked it in.

Like dry sand absorbs water, soaking up magic power. Using it, I recover from the damage.

　Aquiel's body is completely dead.

He was originally a zombie-like creature, but his flesh has peeled off and he is reduced to nothing but bones.

　In the first place, even right after he was summoned, his bones were covered with patches of flesh, but when he began to eat the soul, his body gradually began to regenerate.

　From the looks of it, it seems that he was originally summoned in a very weakened state.

　I don't know if this happens to everyone who is summoned, or if something happened to them before they were summoned, but I'm sure they are not in their best condition. In such a state, a lot of magic power was sucked out of him. I don't think there is anything he can do about it.

　The souls of the people who died in this city, the only thing he can count on, have been eaten alive by me and him.

　While I was watching, he was trying to do something about the flowers, but it wasn't working.

　His breath attack was absorbed and ineffective, and as a desperate measure, he began to attack the flowers by shooting shockwaves into his own body.

　This one seemed to be effective, and the flower scattered, but the seeds are still there, so they will grow back.

His legs began to wobble, as if he couldn't stand up.

I guess all I have to do now is to cook him. I used all the Death Worms I had to entangle it, and pulled it in as hard as I could.

　Aquiel tries to resist somehow, but it is in vain as it is pulled close to me.

The rest is ready to go as I make a huge mouth on my body.

　I lift up Aquiel, who is now nothing but bones.

　I can see the fear in his eyes. He seems to realize his fate.

　I open his mouth as wide as I can.

　...Bon appétit.

　I swallowed him whole.