The Jester of Apocalypse

Chapter 127: Pink Cockroach Immortal Body

Neave wrestled the typhoon puma while imbuing it with plasma spirit, and after a while, it finally began morphing.

“Thank you! Fucking finally!”

He dragged the monster that carried the trial for his speed-boosting ability and threw it on the pile of other morphing bodies.

As they morphed into the gross semi-abominid with many limbs, Neave smacked it around, and finally, it was over.

He returned to reality, back in his workshop.

All of the components were finally in place.

With the subsequent trial, he could, after so long, finally merge his powers together.

The preparations took many times longer than Neave had assumed they would. The biggest bottleneck was finding and growing monsters for the proprietary fusions he had to do.

The first thing he had to do was get a few powers to first merge them with the super organs ability. This was a gigantic pain in the ass. But, it was necessary. The super organs spirit power was trash due to how much weight the hyper liver component had. So he had to dilute it with more organ toughening powers.

The second part was finding a fire-resistance power. This wasn’t that difficult, but they almost always came with some caveat or problem that made them an unacceptable option. Neave didn’t want any more spirit power trouble, so he stuck with the search until he found exactly what he needed.

The third part was growing enough monsters to produce enough speed-boosting abilities he could merge together. This took, by far, the longest time out of all the preparations.

That said, he merged the fire resistance ability with fire lungs. Then, he combined the resulting power with the endurance boost.

Afterward, he merged the super organs with many similar powers and then together with the crystal cardiovascular system.

Then, it was the superior thunder nerves combination. And then the speed boost combination, which he had finally finished.

All he needed now was a single trial, and he would finally be done. Grabbing a minuscule monster core, he rounded it up. It held some extremely minor muscle-altering power that wasn’t even all that bad, and Neave consumed it to start the trial.

Once inside, he first killed the carriers for all the powers that weren’t being combined, then, one by one, he merged the two groups of monsters. It was incredibly challenging.

Except for the crystal mega abominid that held the crystal super organs, and the messy combination of monsters that made the speed-boosting power, none of the other opponents were easy to handle.

The thing that held the superior thunder nerves spirit power was a giant metallic flying ape octopus monster. Lovely.

The fire lungs power was a furry fire wolf-dragon thing.

The massive troll champion was a pain in the ass too.

A starfish, fungus, and bear monster carried the regeneration, distance from death, and willpower of might powers, respectively.

Wrestling them and beating the gods-forsaken flying metal ape octopus was a monumental task.

Eventually, however, the group that went into altering the physique came together, and the group that merged the supernatural boosts with willpower of might was also combined.

With that, the resulting creatures, two tough-as-balls abominids were left alone. Neave quite literally just abandoned them and escaped over to the metallic cone.

Eventually, they would have to jump into the acid sea and die. He was too tired to finish the fight himself. So he wouldn’t.

While waiting for the creatures to perish, he spent the time atop the mountain cone daydreaming of what the powers would be.

This would reduce his many spirit powers to only six. Perhaps this would cost him some overall strength, but removing interference and consolidating his strength was well worth it.

The fatigue was getting to him by now, and he couldn’t handle the additional stress these mismatched powers caused.

The independent existence of sacred blood, integrate, and shapeshifting would still cause some degree of interference, but it was extremely minor.

The powers were separate enough by nature or target that it shouldn’t be a problem. And the violet avatar had no interference whatsoever.

Neave stared at the red, cloudy sky, reminiscing about his time inside the loop.

The immortal arts are taking a big step forward, Neave, he thought to himself, and you should be proud of it.

And he was. This was something that wouldn’t take all that long to do when he returned to reality.

Once these powers were combined, he planned on potentially doing something rather insane.

Neave wanted to try evolving these powers. It would push them to diamond rank in threat, but as the creatures were both rather abominal in nature, it should be relatively simple to handle, the way integrate and sacred blood were.

Although, these creatures weren’t, by any means, ordinary abominids.

As he watched the morphing memory of clouds shift, eventually, off in the distance, the two trial monsters finally went skinny-dipping in acid.

And the trial was over.

***

What is happening?

Neave felt his body morph and shift.

Had I fused too many powers at once?

This fear lasted for only a moment as the transformation continued.

It was as if countless needless were being removed from his body, and Neave felt as if his entire spirit was being unshackled.

Tears ran down his eyes as the sense of divine relief set in.

Was the interference that bad?

As he felt the powers merge and consolidate in his spirit, only now he realized just how much agony he had been living in all this time.

It wasn’t entirely gone, but the difference was day and night. Neave relished the sensation, and the transformation was over before he even noticed it.

Getting off the floor, Neave went to the mirror in the corner of the workshop.

“What the…?”

His body had changed. There was a shine to his skin now, and his eyes looked much clearer. His hair looked as if it were threaded in metal, and his muscles bulged even more than they used to.

“What is happening!?”

Even as he felt it now, he had lost a ton of power from his spirit powers. So why did he feel so… Mighty?

His body felt crystalline yet metallic, flexible yet rigid. His entire being felt as if it were forged in fire and thunder, and his movements had a distinct thrum.

Neave bit his finger off. As he watched it slowly grow back, he willed it to grow faster.

It instantly appeared, looking like new.

There was only one, no, only two things left to do now.

Neave focused on the first of the two spirit powers and evolved it. His time on the tall mountain cone was far less peaceful this time, and he had to keep materializing massive, heavy metallic spears that he threw at the insanely powerful abominid that kept smashing its gigantic limbs into the mountain.

Hours of fighting later, he was done, yet, before he even allowed the changes to sink in, he evolved the other power and continued the trial.

The slime juggernaut and the large violet drake were tiny dots melting in the sea of acid compared to the four monumentally massive abominids that made their way forward.

The two that carried integrate and sacred blood were bigger than the newcomers, but they were soft, fleshy, and vulnerable to the sea of acid.

The two newcomers, on the other hand…

A massive arm, part crystal, part metal, slammed into the side of the mountain, bending it even further.

The other creature wasn’t nearly as abominal as Neave would prefer, and it could apparently run up the mountain.

Oh shit!

This time, the mountain was battered so heavily that it began to collapse.

Neave had to flee to get away from the speedy creature rushing at him far faster than he had expected it to be capable of.

As he flew down the mountain, he had to continuously dodge its attacks and lunges, and the other massive abominid was making its way over to him as well, preparing to swing one of its gigantic limbs at him.

Chaining several movement techniques together, Neave shot off into the distance at incredible speed, just barely reaching the shores of the sea of acid.

“New plan!”

Without much hesitation, Neave began his run around the sea. The two creatures kept trying to get closer to him but couldn’t move fast enough through the acid.

Thus, the trial finished with Neave running circles around the sea while the two trial monsters slowly died in the corrosive liquid.

Finally, Neave, yet again, appeared in his workshop.

His body morphed, and it didn’t feel like relief this time. This time, it was pure and absolute pleasure. The different elements that make his physique combined and flowed into one another, and once it was done, Neave grinned ear to ear.

“I present to you, ladies and gentlemen…!” Neave transformed one arm into a blade and cut the other off. A moment of focus grew it back to full length, and he yelled again, “Defiance of death!”

Then, he flexed and stared at his gorgeous physique in the mirror, “And! The pink cockroach immortal body! Why have many abilities when few can do the trick?”

And, as far as he could tell, they could do the trick far better than their mismatched predecessors.

A deep itch spread through his body, and he rushed to one of the nearby chambers where he grew monsters for experiments.

Once he was there, he simply stood still.

Several reptilian, bear-like creatures jumped him, and he remained unmoving. They clawed at his body, yet, they couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of his skin.

“This won’t be enough…”

He grabbed one by the neck and threw it at the wall. The creature slammed into the side of the chamber, causing cracks to rapidly spread around its mangled body.

Neave stared at his hand as the other monsters backed away in fright.

“That felt so… Smooth.”

Everything about the way his body felt was simply… Extraordinary. It wasn’t perfect. Sacred blood, integrate, and shapeshifting still had a noticeable impact on how his body felt, but it couldn’t even begin to compare to how bad it used to be.

Neave had been wondering for a while why his spirit was so strong. Now, it felt obvious.

It had been under a mind-boggling degree of stress.

He left the chamber and went on a run through the caves. As he did so, he gradually realized something. This was effectively what he had been trying to achieve with spirit powers from the very beginning.

Two aspects. One boosting his physical form and another pushing that physical form far past its limits.

Suddenly, his attention was grabbed by a strange sensation. It didn’t take long to figure out what it was. The ring, bracelet, and necklace had a certain… Clash between them.

Taking two of the three pieces of equipment off made him instantly realize what was happening. They had the same nature, thus, they clashed in his body. He didn’t notice it before since the clash paled before his spirit powers.

However… He promptly put the two pieces back. The clash wasn’t that bad, and it boosted his physical prowess considerably.

Actually…

Neave stopped.

Having run around a bit, he found nothing that could even remotely threaten him as he was. Should he start working harder on growing the monsters? They were undoubtedly progressing nicely, and their numbers grew exponentially.

Their power, however… That was taking its time.

Perhaps he could… What if he fed one monster a ton and created a worthy opponent? Nothing was really stopping him from doing so.

After all his progress, Neave was seriously beginning to feel impatient. He had to test his powers against something worthy.

But… What?

He had dispatched an opponent on the diamond path with relative ease. And since then, he had grown considerably more powerful.

Well… There was one opponent he was sure he would be helpless against. Neave wondered what Astrador was up to. Perhaps the god was cooking up something nasty for him?

That prospect would have scared him just a while back, but now… It excited him.

Sure, go ahead, Great God, do your best.

Although that absolutely didn’t mean that Neave dared step foot into the range of the anchor.

What about the demons?

Going to investigate what they were up to wasn't a bad idea. That did mean leaving the others alone and unprotected.

But did they really need protection?

Neave turned and ran to the chamber.

Let’s see if they have picked any spirit powers already.