Chapter 110

Chapter 110
## Chapter 110

### Dragon Hunt (2)

Fractures rippled through its frame and skeletal structures shattered, yet the Bone Dragon stubbornly locked onto the Mad Dragon, its fractured parts knitting back together without pause. Simultaneously, the Immortal King unleashed a relentless volley of spells that tore straight through the beast’s immense magical defenses.

A vampire disrupted its positioning, focusing strikes on vulnerable areas like the wings, while a humanoid entity—or rather, a parasitic being—remained firmly attached to its torso.

[Kiyaaaaaah—!]

Overwhelmed by fury and irritation, Heratos wrenched his massive frame, discharging a violent shockwave of raw mana in every direction.

Goooo—!

The turbulent, hostile energy erupted like a bursting dam. Its destructive force at point-blank range meant the attackers had to back away momentarily to avoid lethal damage.

Heinz, who had been systematically hacking into the Mad Dragon with blades forged of crimson blood, retreated instantly to safety…

“Oof!”

Thud—!

Yet Harley refused to yield his advantageous position. Sinking his talons and fangs deep into the creature’s open lacerations, he resisted the violent thrashing meant to dislodge him.

Crack— Crackle!

An immense, crushing pressure saturated with concentrated mana radiated from the dragon’s hide.

Harley’s physical form, which had been progressively adapting and hardening, began to rip apart and distort under the strain.

Even with the aid of “Regeneration”, mending this level of trauma would drain a massive amount of his vitality. Yet Harley paid the agony no mind, letting out a wild, boisterous laugh as dark blood sprayed from his tearing flesh.

“Ahahat! When the ultimate nourishment is sitting right in front of me, these scratches don’t mean a damn thing!”

His jaw unhinged abnormally, mimicking a serpent, to expose rows of razor-sharp teeth.

Crack! Crunch!

Completely disregarding his own breaking body, Harley fervently gorged on the dragon’s flesh and vital fluids.

This peerless sustenance was rapidly processed into his system through the mechanics of “Gluttony”, transforming into a massive reservoir of energy that knitted his ruptured tissues back together, leaving them tougher than before.

As this cycle repeated over and over…

《The subject has fulfilled the necessary prerequisites and achieved growth. The skill “Gluttony” has advanced into the special skill “Voracity”.》

At long last, the “Gluttony” ability pushed past its threshold and evolved.

‘It makes sense after consuming such a vast amount of dragon meat and blood.’

A skill required a specific tier of ‘milestone achievement’ alongside raw mastery to trigger an evolution.

And anchoring oneself to the chest of a live Mad Dragon while actively eating it alive was undoubtedly a monumental feat.

Furthermore, Harley had been perpetually utilizing “Gluttony” to sustain his unnatural, mutated physique, meaning his reservoir of accumulated experience was already profound.

Seizing a momentary lull in the dragon’s chaotic mana discharges, he quickly scanned the attributes of his newly upgraded trait.

Previously, “Gluttony” assisted him in processing highly resilient or toxic matters, enabling him to consume greater quantities at a faster rate.

It was an indispensable asset for someone like him, who required an enormous influx of caloric energy to sustain his peak combat state.

However, the newly unlocked “Voracity” operated on an entirely different paradigm.

‘This… provides an incredible synergy with Harley.’

He cast his gaze down at the thick dragon scales that were already attempting to reform over the exposed wounds.

Previously, he had been forced to peel away the plating to access the soft muscle underneath…

Crack—

This time, he stretched his jaws wide and bit directly into the armored hide.

Crack! Crunch!

Dragon scales possessed such extreme density that even Heinz, whose power now exceeded that of a standard True Blood, had to exert his utmost strength just to crack them.

Yet, beneath Harley’s specialized bite, they fractured effortlessly like brittle glass.

This was the result of the overwhelming amplification provided by “Voracity” whenever he engaged in consumption.

Moreover, as he swallowed a chunk of the Mad Dragon, a specific essence circulating through the beast’s biology was forcibly extracted along with it.

‘What is this sensation?’

The immediate consequences of the bite became starkly visible.

The regenerative speed of the localized area he had just bitten slowed down to a crawl.

‘This is phenomenal!’

The upgrade wasn’t merely limited to eating larger quantities at a higher velocity.

‘Am I now capable of assimilating the very concepts inherent to what I consume?’

To put it plainly, he hadn’t just eaten the physical flesh of Heratos; he had literally ingested the ‘regenerative properties’ and the underlying ‘madness’ bound to that specific sector of the body.

‘The assimilation isn’t seamless yet, likely due to a low skill level and lack of familiarity… but it’s more than sufficient for the moment.’

Furthermore, to a being like him, ‘absolute consumption and digestion’ unlocked an entirely separate pathway.

“Mutation” cataloged the freshly acquired genetic data, allowing “Physical Transformation” to manifest it almost instantly…

A series of dark crimson scales began to break through the skin of his arm.

‘…The scales of a Mad Dragon.’

To manifest horns, he previously needed to digest horns. To grow a tail, he had to consume a tail.

Dermal plating followed the exact same principles.

He hadn’t attempted this previously because all genetic layouts could typically be harvested cleanly by absorbing the core magic stone, which held the absolute blueprint of any monster.

‘I wouldn’t have had the capacity to replicate a scale like this prior to consuming the dragon heart.’

No matter how potent “Gluttony” had been, it simply lacked the refinement required to fully break down dragon scales.

‘It’s still unrefined. But the sheer efficiency of extracting this much data from a single bite of a scale is staggering.’

While he had been modifying his anatomy by feeding on the dragon’s tissues and lifeblood, the return on investment had been low due to the absence of the magic stone.

However, the pristine structure of the scale he had just replicated proved that his rate of genetic absorption had multiplied exponentially.

His analytical thoughts ventured deeper.

The ultimate objective of Harley’s “Mutation” trait was to forge a flawless, apex entity by synthesizing genetic strains from a multitude of diverse lifeforms.

His very existence was a miraculous anomaly born from the blood of an otherworldly dragon—one whose biological traits differed fundamentally from the indigenous dragons of Auterica.

And within the hierarchy of this realm, dragons represented the absolute apex of living organisms.

On top of that, this specific Mad Dragon had pushed its physical anatomy past its natural biological thresholds under the influence of insanity…

‘I’ll disregard the side effects for the time being.’

Harley’s own constitution was sufficiently monstrous to withstand the psychological and physical backlash.

“Tsk— I can’t stop salivating. Kuhhuhut!”

Eating the heart alone wouldn’t instantly convert him into a pure dragon.

A certain degree of systemic waste was inevitable, regardless of how high his new absorption metrics were.

Yet the core truth remained…

The heart of the Mad Dragon would serve as the definitive catalyst to bring Harley closer to ultimate perfection.

“Kkahahahat! You miserable beast! Show me what your heart looks like!”

Driven by a surge of manic excitement, Harley tore back into the dragon’s ruptured chest.

Empowered by the mechanics of “Voracity”, a few savage snaps of his jaw were all it took to rip away massive chunks of muscle and swallow them whole.

Crack! Crunch!

Those dragon scales, which were normally so impenetrable that even Heinz, who had surpassed the tier of a True Blood, had to channel his entire might to breach them…

Crack! Crunch!

…Continued to shatter like fragile glass beneath Harley’s relentless bite.

It was entirely due to the specialized, potent enhancements granted by “Voracity” during the act of devouring.

As he consumed another portion of the Mad Dragon, the metaphysical current flowing through its massive frame was severed once again.

‘What is this?’

The tactical advantage manifested instantly.

The natural healing factor of the targeted area plummeted drastically.

‘This is incredible!’

It extended far beyond merely increasing his capacity and speed of consumption.

‘Can I truly internalize the abstract concepts embedded within my food?’

In essence, he had not only devoured the physical mass of Heratos but had also stripped away the ‘healing capacity’ and ‘insanity’ bound to that specific layer of tissue.

‘It’s still incomplete, likely because my proficiency and level haven’t matured… But it works well enough for now.’

And for his unique biology, ‘complete digestion’ signified a profound evolutionary leap.

“Mutation” recorded the novel biological traits, prompting “Physical Transformation” to act upon the dataset…

A patch of deep, dark red scales suddenly manifested along his forearm.

‘…A Mad Dragon scale.’

To produce horns, he had to feed on horns. To manifest a tail, he had to ingest a tail.

The scales adhered to the exact same logic.

He hadn’t resorted to this crude method before because he could typically secure a clean copy of a beast’s genetic code by absorbing its magic stone, which naturally contained the distilled essence of the creature.

‘Replicating a scale like this would have been impossible before devouring the dragon heart.’

No matter how effective “Gluttony” was, it simply lacked the sheer power required to thoroughly digest dragon armor.

‘It’s a crude imitation for now. But extracting this level of absorption efficiency from a mere fragment of a scale is phenomenal.’

Though he had been adapting his physical form by consuming the dragon’s tissues, the systemic yield had been minimal because he wasn’t feeding on the magic stone itself.

Yet the sheer structural perfection of the scale he had just formed proved that his assimilation rate had grown several times more potent.

His calculations ran deeper.

The ultimate goal of Harley’s “Mutation” was to build a flawless, fully evolved organism by piecing together prime genetic sequences from every conceivable species.

He was a miraculous anomaly, engineered using the bloodline of a dragon hailing from an alternate dimension—a creature possessing entirely distinct properties compared to the native dragons of Auterica.

In this specific realm, dragons stood as the absolute zenith of biological life.

Furthermore, this Mad Dragon had forced its physical structure past its natural evolutionary boundaries under the catalyst of madness…

‘I’ll ignore the potential drawbacks for now.’

Harley’s own physical constitution was highly irregular, granting him the resilience to withstand the immense strain.

“Tsk— My mouth is watering. Kuhhuhut!”

Consuming the heart wouldn’t automatically turn him into a complete dragon overnight.

There would always be a marginal loss in efficiency, regardless of how advanced his absorption rates had become.

However, the undeniable reality was…

The heart of the Mad Dragon would propel Harley significantly closer to absolute perfection.

“Kkahahahat! You bastard! Let me see your heart!”

Stirred into a frenzy, Harley bit deeply into the dragon’s open chest once more.

Utilizing the raw authority of “Voracity”, it required only a few swift movements of his jaw to tear away the dense musculature and swallow it down.

Crack! Crunch!

He burrowed straight into the interior of the dragon’s torso, tearing through flesh and drinking the blood within.

Under normal circumstances, the massive laceration should have knit itself shut instantly, crushing or expelling any intruder…

But with its supernatural healing factor actively suppressed, there was absolutely nothing left to impede his descent.

—

[Kyaruruuk—?]

The Mad Dragon, Heratos, sensed an unnatural disturbance within his own anatomy and cast his gaze downward toward his chest while locked in a brutal struggle against the Bone Dragon, which remained constrained by heavy black chains.

A minuscule, humanoid parasite had been clinging to his exterior, chewing through his hide like a common insect. Up until now, he had simply tolerated the annoyance, completely confident in his dense physical armor and his virtually limitless capacity for rapid regeneration.

However.

A sudden, sharp spike of agony shot through his core as a vital essence was abruptly torn away from his biology.

[Kiyaaaaaah—?!]

Crimson torrents erupted from the cavity, and the rate of tissue repair was visibly, drastically slower than it had been moments prior.

The parasite had successfully tunneled past his outer defenses and was actively burrowing toward his central heart.

Heratos thrashed his massive body in a violent attempt to shake the intruder loose, but Hans had no intention of allowing him the freedom to move.

[KuoOoooooh—!]

Entracio surged forward, throwing his skeletal mass around the Mad Dragon in a tight embrace, physically locking its limbs to prevent it from reaching its own chest.

As the two monstrous, corrupted dragons engaged in a desperate wrestling match, Harley’s lower extremities wriggled and flexed between the ribs of the Bone Dragon, driving him deeper and deeper into the interior of Heratos.

[Kuhhuhut— Stand perfectly still. The process will be concluded shortly. It brings me immense satisfaction to witness my creation approaching its final, completed state.]

Hans, the architect behind Harley’s existence, murmured with a sense of grim pride as he channeled additional layers of binding magic to immobilize the thrashing beast.

Even for a being of his stature, subduing a mad dragon without killing it was an extraordinary undertaking, and a distinct sense of fulfillment was beginning to settle over him.

[Kyaaaaagh—!]

Realizing that his demise was rapidly approaching, Heratos went into a state of absolute frenzy.

He flexed and constricted his internal muscle walls, attempting to crush the invading parasite through sheer internal pressure, and went so far as to detonate high concentrations of raw mana within his own chest cavity, completely indifferent to the self-inflicted trauma…

Yet the intruder simply continued its relentless downward descent.

Kwaaang! Crack!

The Mad Dragon’s thrashing grew progressively more chaotic as the realization dawned that he could not dislodge the entity within him.

Entracio dedicated his entire focus to maintaining his iron grip, redirecting every ounce of his available mana toward pure defensive reinforcement and structural repair.

His own skeletal form was gradually being pulverized under the counter-attacks, rendering him incapable of striking back, yet Heratos found himself in a far more critical predicament.

[Hoooooop—]

In a final, desperate gambit, the dragon began drawing in air to unleash his destructive breath weapon at point-blank range.

However.

“Are you truly attempting to discharge your breath weapon at this proximity? You really have completely lost your senses.”

Heinz the Second had already positioned himself strategically beneath the dragon’s massive jaw line.

He had entered his absolute combat configuration, utilizing the perfect synchronization of both “Concealment” and “Invisibility”.

“I haven’t been afforded many opportunities to display my capabilities in this engagement. It would severely wound my pride if this encounter concluded without my contribution, even if the adversary happens to be a dragon.”

The colossal greatsword of crystallized blood resting in his grip vibrated with a faint, ominous glow.

The weapon, forged by condensing every spare drop of blood within his repository, was saturated with Heinz’s highly advanced hematological traits, further amplified by the passive benefits of “Hybrid Evolution”…

It served as the absolute flawless conduit required to channel the zenith of “Blood Mystery”.

‘It isn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to my presence. Is it simply too overwhelmed by the situation, or has it erroneously dismissed me as an insignificant threat?’

Given the creature’s acute sensory perception, it should have possessed the capacity to pierce through Heinz’s “Concealment” had it dedicated any focus to doing so…

Instead, its attention remained entirely monopolized by Hans and Entracio, leaving Heinz completely unmonitored.

Regardless of its reasoning, it was a fatal miscalculation.

Heinz’s crimson irises, sharpened by the active utilization of “Insight”, carefully mapped out the volatile currents of mana as the dragon gathered energy to fire its breath.

He was unable to perfectly scan the entirety of the dragon’s internal anatomy due to the significant disparity in their respective levels, but a detailed examination was entirely unnecessary when dealing with a magical current this loud and chaotic.

‘Right there.’

Heinz smoothly transitioned the grip of his greatsword to his left hand before locking both hands firmly onto the hilt.

This specific stance was the exact martial posture Heinrich had mastered through the application of “Comprehensive Weapon Mastery”.

‘While I was unable to fully duplicate the intricacies of “Logia Holy Combat”, this particular application will more than suffice.’

An elegant or complex sword technique was entirely superfluous for the task at hand.

The objective was singular…

———!

To deliver a single strike with the absolute maximum output of his physical power, augmented by “Acceleration”.

The blood greatsword extended fluidly like a flexible whip, cleaving through the atmosphere—

And its furthest tip, shattering the acoustic barrier as it moved, silently sheared directly through the Mad Dragon’s massive throat.

Then.

A split second later.

Whoosh—!

Kugugung—!

A violent implosion of displaced air erupted along the precise path of the blade, tearing the atmosphere asunder.

Whoosh—!

The Mad Dragon’s gargantuan neck was cleanly cleaved open, causing torrents of dark blood to fountain outward like a broken dam.

[Kuhurk—?!]

The massive reservoir of mana it had been compressing within its throat for the breath attack detonated prematurely within the open laceration, compounding the structural damage of an already catastrophic wound.

[Kuh, Kuhuck—?!]

The Mad Dragon reeled and stumbled, having just sustained the most devastating physical trauma of the entire battle.

Yet, almost immediately, the edges of the severed flesh began to aggressively reach out to knit themselves back together…

‘To think it can actively regenerate after sustaining a mortal blow of that caliber. Truly an absurd monster.’

Heinz ran his tongue over his lips, immediately drawing in and storing as much of the cascading dragon blood as his system could physically hold.

Naturally, he was capable of achieving a comparable feat of biological recovery utilizing his own “Super Regeneration”, but witnessing a creature of that immense scale possess such rapid cellular recovery felt fundamentally unfair.

‘Then again, it doesn’t actually matter anymore.’

Indeed, whether the dragon possessed the capacity to heal its outer wounds or not had become entirely irrelevant.

Because Harley…

Had finally breached the chamber of its heart.