CHAPTER 344: GIVING IT EVERYTHING

"Wait—what?!" I shouted, staring up at the sky.

I could still feel Dante’s presence, faint but steady, resting calmly inside the heart of the churning green cloud.

"Are you messing with me, old man?" I called out again, louder this time.

All I got was a low chuckle echoing through the air.

"Fuck," I muttered.

And then everything started to change.

The cloud above pulsed once like it had just drawn a breath. I looked up and saw the edges of the green mass stretching outward. Expanding. What was once a looming storm above the base now began to spread like spilled ink across the entire sky.

Within seconds, it had covered everything. The whole realm dimmed beneath the sickly green light. The sun was gone. The warmth faded. Everything turned cold and wet.

Then the blobs started falling again.

Twice as many.

Thicker. Faster. Angrier.

They hit the ground with loud splatters. Trees hissed as their leaves melted. Stone cracked and steamed. I even observed part of a mountain slope buckle and slide as the poison chewed through its roots. Forests were warping. Grass was shriveling. Animals ran or screamed. But worst of all—

The Essence.

I reached out, instinctively, and felt it.

It was... wrong.

What had once been clear and obedient was now slow, sludgy, and twisted. Green veins pulsed through the Essence particles. It wasn’t just the land anymore. The poison was spreading into the very energy that made up this realm.

Corruption.

He wasn’t just trying to destroy the place, he was trying to ruin it forever.

I gritted my teeth.

I raised my hand, and my staff appeared with a sharp snap of Essence. Cold and solid in my grip.

Essence burst through my body like a flood, rushing from my core and channels into the staff. My muscles tensed. My fingers locked around the metal shaft as it drank in more and more power.

One violet ring formed at the tip, spinning slowly.

Then a second—smaller, moving in the opposite direction.

Then the third. Tiny, silent, glowing faintly at the center.

I could already feel the drain. My limbs started to shake. My body felt light from the sheer loss of Essence suddenly. But I pushed through it. Focused everything.

The corrupted rain poured around me, but I didn’t flinch.

[Singularity Beam].

The rings collapsed inward.

No sound. No flash.

Just a pinprick of violet light sitting quietly at the end of my staff.

Then it fired.

A thin, silent beam no wider than a hair shot straight into the sky and pierced the heart of the cloud.

There was no explosion. No grand blast of light.

Only pull.

The air twisted as the beam expanded slightly. The corrupted rain around me began to shift. Droplets paused mid-fall, then slowly turned upward.

Then it began, Essence devouring Essence.

The beam created a singularity in the sky. And from that point, everything nearby started collapsing into it. Acid blobs were pulled upward, stretching like strings of slime before vanishing into the singularity.

Even the corrupted Essence particles in the air started unraveling, sucked in and purified as raw energy.

Chunks of the cloud began to fold inward, shrinking as they fought against the pull. The massive storm didn’t vanish but its thickness reduced. The churning slowed. The heavy curtain over the sky grew lighter, like a thick fog beginning to thin.

And most importantly, the rain stopped.

The last few blobs of green poison vanished into the singularity.

Then, quiet.

The beam faded.

The violet rings were gone.

My arms dropped to my sides, my shoulders slumped, and I took a long, shaky breath.

I wasn’t weak, not by a long shot. My physical stats alone were enough to tear through stone and steel. But the sudden loss of Essence... it felt like someone had ripped a piece of my soul out.

I looked up again.

The cloud was still there, still massive and dark but it wasn’t raining anymore. Its edges were retreating slightly. I had stopped the downpour. Slowed the corruption.

But the threat... remained.

And then, from deep inside the sky, I heard Hugh’s voice again, warped and stretched by the Essence, but loud enough to carry across the realm.

"YOU THINK THIS WILL STOP ME?! HOW DARE YOU, YOU INSIGNIFICANT ANT!"

Hugh’s voice thundered across the realm, shaking the earth like it was made of paper. The very air felt heavy with rage.

I looked up.

The green storm above me churned violently, thick clouds rolling into themselves like a sea gone mad. Then it started twisting, warping, pulling from every direction until—

It formed a face.

Huge. Hollow-eyed. A stretched, gaping mouth with no detail, just shape and poison and rage. The clouds funneled into that mouth, spinning faster and faster, pulling in the very air, turning it into a weapon.

Then it fired.

A concentrated green beam blasted downward from the sky, wide enough to swallow me whole. I could feel its power from the moment it lit up—pure, concentrated death. Acid. Toxin. Essence-corrupting filth.

It wasn’t just meant to kill me.

It was meant to erase everything.

I took a breath, slow and steady.

"Node 3," I whispered. "Activate."

Ba-dump.

My heart thumped like a drum. Then the third rune along my spine lit up, searing hot. A raw wave of strength tore through me.

Every part of me surged—my legs, my arms, my lungs, even my thoughts. All of my stats jumped. Muscles swelled. My veins pumped like rivers. My senses sharpened so hard it hurt.

The pressure around me changed.

Violet steam hissed from my skin. My hair whipped in every direction, caught in the raging storm of energy. The moment I felt the full force of Node 3 flood my body, I triggered the next layer of control.

"[Psynapse Fracture.]"

A searing pain split through my skull and then clarity.

Three minds.

One remained centered, focused on pure combat instinct, controlling my body’s movements without thought.

The second branched out, handling the rapid cast and maintenance of my Essence-based skills.

The third monitored everything, calculating, adjusting, watching the flow of battle and energy like a commander on a war table.

With that, I moved.

I gripped my staff tighter, and my feet dug into the cracked stone. I didn’t wait for the beam to hit me. No, I took a step forward.

And when the massive green beam came crashing down from the face in the sky, I roared and swung the staff down.

The staff struck the oncoming beam.

Not just contact, a full-force smash.

Violet Essence exploded from the impact point, clashing with the toxic green in a storm of sparks and heat. The collision lit up the air with blinding flashes, Essence against poison, force against force.

The moment my staff connected, my knees buckled.

The sheer pressure crashed down like a tidal wave. My boots scraped across the stone as I struggled to stay upright. The force didn’t just push, I felt it trying to bury me into the earth.

Cracks spread beneath my feet like spiderwebs. The ground groaned, then splintered. Chunks of stone snapped upward from the shockwave, levitating briefly before crashing down in pieces. My teeth clenched hard, jaw locked against the weight pressing on every muscle in my body.

But I held on.

Before the shock could settle, I activated the next step.

"Sovereign Reversal!"

Vortexes formed directly inside the green beam. Dozens of small, spinning violet whirlpools tore open across its length like wounds. Each one sucked with insane force, dragging energy, poison, and motion into themselves.

The beam didn’t stop but it faltered. It rippled.

The third mind kept track of each vortex’s pressure levels, stabilizing them before they collapsed. The moment one broke, I formed another. I was holding barely but every second I survived was another second the beam weakened.

Chunks of the green energy peeled away and were devoured, the power recycled into fresh, clean Essence that surged back into my body.

With another roar, I flooded my muscles with Essence and drove my body forward, pushing back against the beam with everything I had.

The staff in my hands trembled violently, its shaft straining under the force pressing down.

I felt it vibrate all the way through my arms to my spine, but I held firm refusing to bend.

My boots slid another inch, the ground cracking beneath them, but I gritted my teeth and leaned in harder, forcing the green torrent to slow.

The ground shattered.

My shirt ripped apart, my muscles burned, and the air howled around me.

I was fighting back.

Partially.

I could feel fresh Essence rushing into my core as the vortexes spun but the beam didn’t stop. It fought back, pushing down harder, its energy deeper than I expected. The vortexes began to crack under pressure.

One shattered. Then another.

I had to summon new ones immediately, again and again. Each one cost me more. My Essence dropped fast. My skin burned. My body trembled.

Roaring louder, I forced the staff forward another inch.

It was a battle of will now. A tug of war between what Hugh threw at me and everything I could give in return.