I Can Assimilate Everything-Chapter 657: You Call This Adversity?! II
Achilles began to move within the domain he was locked into, testing the boundaries of his prison with careful steps.
Crimson chains materialized the moment he tried to venture too far, invisible bindings connecting him to The Existential Lattice with force that made his stellar form shudder. They pulled him back toward the central space where his body had been fused, veins and arteries pulsing with rhythm that spread his Chaos outward like a beacon he could not silence.
He thought about how fortunate it was that he had taken the place of Rose as the Claimer of Chaos.
If she were here instead of him, bound to this cancerous construct and used as bait for monstrosities beyond her current power, he would not be able to live with himself. The thought of her being torn apart while creatures born from the corrupted lifeblood of Observable Existence descended upon her with hunger that could not be satisfied...
No.
As her man, he needed to at least be able to bear this weight. This was his responsibility. His burden. Whatever horrors awaited him in this place, he would face them so that she would never have to.
As he thought all of this and prepared to begin mapping his surroundings...
KI! KI! KI! 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚
Another clicking sound echoed through the crystalline channels, but this one was different. Heavier. The vibrations it carried made the biological walls around him tremble with something that felt almost like fear.
His expression changed as he sensed what was coming.
This one was overpowering.
Its aura pressed against his perception with weight similar to the Absolutes that followed THE Prisoner. Fundamental Depth creatures were dangerous but manageable. This was something else entirely, authority radiating outward with immensity that made his enhanced foundations feel insignificant by comparison.
Moments after he sensed it, the Mutated Anomalous Weaving appeared.
He looked at it as inherently, he could feel that it was...
A Mutated Corrupted Terror.
It emerged from the largest crystalline channel with motion that combined reptilian patience and predatory hunger. Its form resembled a massive komodo dragon, but mutations had twisted it into something far more horrifying. Obsidian-purple scales covered its body in overlapping layers that pulsed with corrupted light, each one bearing patterns that seemed to shift and writhe independently.
Its head was elongated and filled with teeth that grew in multiple rows, some curving backward while others jutted forward at angles that should have made its mouth unusable. Crimson eyes burned with the same corruption he had seen in the Fundamental Depth creature, but magnified a thousandfold. Crystalline growths erupted from its spine like a ridge of purple mountains, each one humming with authority that pressed against reality itself.
The sense of oppression Achilles felt was immediate and crushing.
Even with his Inner Dominion, even with the territories he had consumed and integrated, this was not an enemy he was ready for. The gap between them was vast, an ocean separating his Intermediate Depth from its corrupted Absolute existence.
But he would have to face it regardless.
"Assimilate!"
He roared the word as multicolored brilliance erupted from his form and smashed into the Absolute Mutated Corrupted Terror. Part of its obsidian-purple scales disappeared instantly, flesh beneath dissolving into authority that flowed toward him with hungry efficiency.
The creature roared with sound that shook the entire domain, fury and pain compressed into a single expression of rage. It charged toward him with speed that defied its massive form, arriving before him instantly with depth that made his existence tremble.
He could not resist.
Its claw landed on his jaws with force that cracked his stellar obsidian features, pressure clamping down as if it wanted to snap them shut and prevent him from saying Assimilate again. The weight of its authority pressed against his consciousness with crushing intensity.
But he simply thought the word instead.
Assimilate.
Another portion of the Absolute disappeared, scales and flesh dissolving from its forearm even as it held him in its grip. He felt booming immensity rising inside of him, power flooding into his Inner Dominion with each successful integration.
Assimilate. Assimilate. Assimilate.
The Absolute roared at this continuous theft of its existence, corruption flaring from its crimson eyes as fury overcame whatever passed for reason in its mutated mind. In the next moment, it furiously exerted its Depth with force that exceeded anything Achilles could withstand.
His body broke down to mush.
He felt the immense pain of collapse as this particular form was destroyed, stellar obsidian flesh pulverized into nothing by authority that treated his existence like wet paper. Bones shattered. Organs liquefied. Consciousness screamed as the vessel containing it was rendered into formless ruin!
Oh!
But the moment this occurred, obsidian purple light gathered around his destroyed existence.
The Existential Lattice began its terrible work.
Pain flooded through his consciousness as he was forcefully reformed in the central space of the domain he was locked into.
It was not a gentle process. His existence was pulled together from scattered fragments, flesh and bone reconstituting through methods that felt like being burned and frozen and torn apart simultaneously. Every nerve that reformed screamed with agony. Every muscle that reconstituted carried echoes of the death that had just occurred.
The moment he returned, the Absolute Mutated Corrupted Terror was already surging toward him.
Its speed far exceeded his own. He could only initiate Assimilate one time, watching another chunk of its scales disappear, before its terrible Depth collapsed him again!
BOOM!
Death.
BOOM!
Reformation.
Pain beyond description!
The cycle continued.
The Absolute killed him in different ways as it learned that simple physical destruction was not enough to stop his consumption of its power. It released Corrupted Embodiments that melted his reformed body into pools of dissolving flesh.
It scorched him with authority that burned hotter than stars, reducing his existence to ash that scattered across the domain before being pulled back together. It poisoned him with corruption that ate through his being from the inside, organs failing one by one as toxins beyond mortal comprehension destroyed everything they touched.
Each death was agony.
Each reformation was worse.
But every time he Assimilated, every time he managed to think or speak that word before being destroyed again, his Inner Dominion grew more robust. The anchor he had placed in another body received the power he was consuming, territories within integrating and using the heavy assimilated Depth of an Absolute to strengthen foundations that would one day exceed what was killing him now.
As he bore terrifying pain and adversity, he got stronger.
While the Absolute continuing to kill him got a chunk of its power eaten away and became weaker each time.
The creature did not understand what was happening. It only knew that its prey kept returning, kept stealing pieces of its existence, kept refusing to stay dead despite deaths that should have ended anything. Its roars grew more frustrated with each cycle. Its attacks grew more desperate.
And Achilles endured.
Death after death after death.
Pain that would have broken lesser beings a thousand times over!
He thought about Rose as corruption melted his eyes for the seventh time. He thought about his children as his spine was shattered for the twelfth. He thought about everyone he was protecting by being here instead of them.
It was just pain.
Pain he could come back from. Pain he could bear. Pain that would fade into memory once this ordeal was over and he emerged stronger than before.
What he could not bear was having this happen to Rose. What he could not bear was knowing his children might face something like this because he was too weak to take it himself.
So he would take it all.
Every death. Every agony. Every moment of suffering that this place could inflict.
He would bear it so they never had to.
