Chapter 294 294. ARROGANCE
Noah stood before the entrance of a large underground expanse, a bit less than a kilometer in radius, his expression remained that of perplexion, yet that of mild mockery.
Nevertheless, he felt unable to properly react to the serpent\'s words, after all, they were so filled with arrogance that they almost sounded true.
\'What the heck is he saying,\' Noah thought casually placing his hand on his head and scratching the portion that itched him. His face had gone blank after a while but deep down he suppressed the urge to burst into laughter.
"What is it human? Do you not believe me?" the serpent or rather Gurmund commanded with a voice dripping with anger.
"Well yes I do not," Noah replied. "However I don\'t think such a situation is impossible," he explained, allowing himself return to a state of seriousness.
The serpent remained silent at his words, as its eyes continued to scan the tiny human before him. It had seen many powerful individuals since the day he got captured by the great dungeon, but none like the man before him.
He had only been allowed to keep a portion of his memories since he arrived there, and he found similarities between the man before him and some others that had ventured into that place.
"You are the progenitor of the grand serpent\'s race?" Noah said to the beast, his expression deadpan.
"What tier were you formerly at that this level of strength is only a fragment of your power," Noah inquired of him; looking to gain information about the upper tiers. But mostly to mock the beast.
Gurmund stared at Noah for what felt like hours before opening his mouth to vomit words that oozed arrogance.
"I stood at the mighty level of an Arcane lord. The path before transcendence; tier seven," the beast announced raising its head to gaze at whatever sky that existed there.
Needless to say, Noah felt his eyes widen and his heart palpitate with a level of excitement that managed to leave him stunned. In truth, he had gained vague ideas that tier 6 wouldn\'t be the last, but the beast confirmed it, at least he disagreed with the thought of such words being lies.
Followed closely by the astonishment was a barrage of questions.
"What can Tier sevens do?" Noah blurted out feeling it weird to call the title. Something about that title carried power, one that his mouth seemed unable to utter.
\'I have said too much already," Gurmund stated his aura growing cold for reasons Noah didn\'t understand. "I can feel the dungeon moving to eradicate this replicated version of me," Gurmund explained, and a series of panels flashed before Noah\'s eyes.
[Inventory has been re-enabled along with other spacial items]
[Muillix has been re-enabled]
[Healing speed has returned to 100%]
[Potions have been re-enabled]
A burst of power as a result of the return of his healing filled Noah\'s whole being. His aura exploded forth due to that event, and he quickly found that his figure had started to glow as a result of the unrestricted access his essence had regained to his body.
Muillix appeared on his figure, his daggers appeared in his grip, a potion appeared in front of him and he didn\'t hesitate to crush it in his mouth. The essence within his now large core, about to undergo a breakthrough bubbled with essence, until it reached the state of being half-full. The amount it could now contain made his potions 35k addition look small.
Due to his leveling up and the increase in his speed cores volume, the potions Noah had available were only able to restore half the amount of his formerly 65k large core. But now that his speed core could contain more than 100k, the new batch would need to be tweaked to fit that requirement.
"Just as I mentioned; I have spoken too much, now you have a good chance of killing me," Gurmund declared, his tone almost that of laughter, but also deep frustration. "Nevertheless it was bound to happen."
"So you truly are the progenitor of the grand serpent race," Noah furrowed his brows, trying his best not to drown in the ecstasy he experienced. He felt anew,
"I am, and will continue to," Gurmund replied, suddenly falling silent. "The great dungeon is a powerful place many who held power stronger than mine fell to it. Be careful human Aiden," he suddenly explained falling into another silence. However the second silence carried something dangerous, and Noah sensed it.
The red eyes of the serpent turned bright yellow after its words ended, and it raised its head to give voice to a deafening roar.
The sheer amount of power within that roar stunned Noah since the whole expanse trembled violently at it. Noah had gained the urge to cough blood after the erratic sound waves washed over him, but his healing had already fixed him before he could react that way.
Something had changed about the Grand serpent, and Noah could tell that it was its calmness, and probably intelligence. Both were gone, a wild beast replacing the smart serpent.
Many thoughts ran within Noah\'s mind at that instant, but the serpent unwrapped itself from the pole and jumped head-first into one of the huge holes closer to it.
Danger boomed inside Noah\'s mind at that point, but he had all his assets available to him.
Deafening silence reigned in the whole expanse after that event, and Noah unfolded his consciousness and allowed it to float right above the close to one-hundred holes capable of comfortably fitting the serpent\'s large figure and still feature extra space.
The serpent stayed underground for whole minutes putting Noah on edge. Nevertheless, he had full control over his mind and emotions. He decided not to switch to his apathetic side.
Needless to say, something eventually happened. The holes nothing less than seven feet from him, burst with a dense wave of purplish gas. Closely followed by that event was the appearance of many vines and roots.
The ground crumbled beneath Noah\'s feet giving way for his figure and the serpent appeared beneath the caving-in space, but Noah had already run across the falling bits of stones to arrive 400m from his former position.
\'Why do they always do that,\' Noah thought; silently clicking his tongue.
The serpent appeared from the commotion in the distance and scanned its environment searching for its opponent, and finding him.
Roots vines and even whole trees appeared from the ground and curved towards Noah in a wave-like manner. Noah held in breath in marvel at that massive mass of vegetation barreling towards him at crazy speeds, even if everything soon began to move in slow motion to him.
His arms crossed with his daggers in his hands, and he didn\'t hesitate to unleash two ethereal slashes both more than 4m in length. His daggers ran out of energy at that point, but he never attacked in hopes of immediately destroying the mass of thick vegetation.
The horizontal slashes smashed into the mass of moving vines and managed to decimate a portion, but it remained small compared to what continued to barrel towards him.
Noah browsed through his skills at that point, but none looked capable of destroying them in one go. However, he recalled a move he had executed more than a month ago during his fight with the village head of Enil; Jon.
The move had been the execution of his "Arms of Asura", but its main detail was that it had utilized his raw Speed Essence as the attack. The results had been wonderful.
\'Can I pour essence into the blade?\' Noah contemplated while also asking the system, but no reply came. It seemed the system really was unreachable in that place.
Performing a shrug, Noah simply tried his idea. \'There were no mentioned limits to what type of energy it could absorb, but I\'ve never charged it with essence before,\' he conversed inwardly.
His essence moved into the blades of the dagger by directly flowing out of his figure in small masses and landing on the tips of his blades.
His daggers immediately burst with a blinding yellow light after that event.
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Author\'s note: You guys deserve a mass release for the long delay of chapters. But I don\'t want to burn myself out. Nevertheless, a mass release of a minimum of five chapters is coming.