Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest-Chapter 351: Echoes of Chaos And Saltwater

Lips quivering, breath a ragged rasp echoing against the river’s noise, Garduck rushed to Adam’s sunken cheek. Desperation fueled his frantic shakes, his voice coming in heartbroken pleas.

"The Fury left. You endured it, Adam!" He clenched his jaw, a tear trailing down his pale face. "Stand up proudly like you always do. We... we’re close to our destination. It’s the last stretch to escape them. You can’t give up!"

However, Adam’s tight eyelids didn’t flutter. His body didn’t twitch ever so slightly either. He was out cold, his flesh mangled, his soul tainted, and his mind an inmate in a prison of hate.

Achilles narrowed his eyes behind them. He knew more than anyone that recovery was possible but slim. Perhaps a hundred years wouldn’t even suffice to untangle the hate poisoning Adam’s soul. As for the devoured limbs...

He bit his lip and shook his head. The river was a primordial cosmological marvel that predated even the Stygian titan representing it. To him, Adam’s wings and tail were like the desolate bank—lost, unable to regrow naturally.

A sudden noise, faint like a twitching finger grazing mud, forced him out of his negative assessment. Hoping he had underestimated Adam’s resilience, he moved to his left side before his eyes widened.

"Hahaha!" He slapped his forehead, the corner of his lips rising. "His left hand, Garduck. The iron will inherited from Tyr preserves him partially! We forgot, but that mad dragon didn’t."

Garduck rushed beside Achilles, his pupils constricting and his heart drumming in his ears. He saw Adam’s forefinger move. No... Even unconscious, he was completing a line of runes.

A shudder rocked his shoulders, relief crashing on him like a rising tide when the runes brightened a scalding scarlet. Light twirled, enveloping Adam’s towering frame before they compressed into a wretched shadow of his devil’s form.

Yet, the relief was short-lived. Adam’s eyes were still closed, but he noticed another line of text written in their common language this time.

"Carry me until I wake up."

Garduck and Achilles exchanged a glance before they gripped him by the legs and arms. With a grumble about his weight and as relieved as they were worried, they bolted along the Styx in silence, hoping whatever cunning plan he had made to control the water’s effect would bear fruit before the Furies caught up.

But Adam’s body was anything but silent. In the deepest part of his being, the nexus of existence, two forces clashed in a relentless war.

The murky water of the Styx roiled with hate, trying to devour him whole. Opposing it, his chaos rumbled like a beast awakening for the first time. A faint scent of salt exuded from his body as the sea whirlpools every sailor dreaded formed in a firm yet seemingly mocking defense.

Soul corroding water? It had absorbed Munin’s divinity, engraved Tyr’s most notable trait and hand, and devoured Odin’s lost eye and its abilities. The maddening winds of the abyss failed to bend it, and so did the six devils’ remnants. But now, it was personal.

A mere primordial river’s water? Amusingly ridiculous! It was the primordial salt water filling the gaps between the stars, the ever-moving chaos that fueled evolution. And now that Adam believed that desiring perfection was a sin against the very nature of his powers, the affinity planted in him by Tiamat ten years ago awoke.

With a draconic roar, the vortexes accelerated, pulling the invaders towards their depths. The Styx stirred fiercer in resistance. But drop by drop, it disappeared into the chaotic mouths.

Its murkiness faded, salt devouring its properties before purifying it until nothing remained. The vortexes exploded into triumphant geysers that splashed through Adam’s every vein, seeping into every cell with the power it had just assimilated.

The effects already manifested outside. Garduck and Achilles, who had been running for several hours at top speed while scrutinising the sky, snapped their faces toward Adam’s trembling body.

Their eyes widened in shock, then delight as they witnessed fresh muscles grow to push the sagged skin to its rightful place. Somber veins throbbed beneath, contrasting with his ashen skin, as a layer of soft fat filled his sunken cheeks. Finally, his eyelids fluttered.

"He’s waking up!" Garduck roared, bending Adam’s legs to help him sit.

Achilles, however, remained frozen for a second, his mouth open and his heart pounding against his ribs. Even when his mother dipped him in the river, she received the gods and Styx’s help to protect his soul and help him turn into a Stygian human. So how did Adam recover in mere hours?!

Flabbergasted, he let go of Adam’s arms and helped Garduck support his back. "I don’t know what’s happening..." He paused, shaking his head. "The river of hate strikes the soul more than the flesh. Prepare yourself, Garduck. He might have changed."

As Garduck reluctantly nodded, Adam’s eyes snapped open. His lips parted, his voice sounding as ragged as if he had just travelled through a burning desert without water.

"Approach, Achilles." He muttered, the corner of his lips curling. "I’ll show you if my punch changed." Seeing Achilles step back, he smirked, retrieved a basin of fresh water from his magic cube, and downed it.

The fresh sensation descending his parched throat felt heavenly enough for him to sigh in satisfaction. Then, he waved his hand at his two frowning companions. "I’m fine. Well, not entirely, but you get it. Anyway, we can’t waste a second, and I have a few things to check."

Without wasting a second, he shifted to his draconic form. Yet, he frowned as his wings didn’t unfurl and his tail didn’t whip the ground. He had felt his own body refuse to regrow them but didn’t want to believe it before seeing it. ’I lost more body parts than a broken figurine sent for reparation at this point... Am I... some kind of toy?’ freewēbnoveℓ.com

Though frustrating, he understood what his body wanted—evolution. And in its process, lacking or useless features were bound to fade. With his plasma jet boosting his flight and trajectory, the wings and tail were less relevant in their current states.

"Just need to grow better ones when I evolve again." He grabbed Achilles and Garduck in his left hand, ignoring them as he lunged above the Styx.

Plasma beams of a different color erupted from his feet and right palm, propelling him forward before six more sizzled behind his back to add speed.

Garduck and Achilles talked, but he ignored them. Emotions were irrelevant. Only success mattered. Well, what he got for surviving the worst suffering he had ever endured helped to calm them a little, too.

[New trait unlocked. Primordial chaotic body: You who reject static perfection can evolve endlessly.]

But the changes didn’t end here. He felt a colossal strength concealed beneath his densely packed muscle fibers. Did the assimilation strengthen him?

With a curious thought, his stat panel appeared in a burst of scarlet flames that flickered along the right side. A surprising splash of dark water followed, whirling into chaotic dark pools on the left.

Name: Adam

Race: Elder Dragon Overlord

Affinity: Infernal Chaos and Saltwater

Talent: SS grade (Upgradable): I’m a gamer!

Job: Aberration Crafter

Class: Chaos Druid

LVL: 76

Exp: 2.000.000/6.500.000

HP: 13.678.925/13.678.925

Vitality: 642.225->842.225 (+252.667)(+24.000)(+249.000) Total: 1.367.892

Strength: 642.225->842.225 (+224.779)(+336.890)(+252.667)(+24.000)(+249.000) Total: 1.929.561

Agility: 642.225->842.225 (+224.779)(+210.556)(+252.667)(+24.000)(+249.000) Total: 1.803.227

Chaotic infernal essence: 76.000->166.000

Free attribute points: 0

Items: name change ticket, city relocation ticket, Chaosbringer, AoE Card, Magical cube.