Absolute Beast Dominion

Leo had forcefully maintained the black scales to increase his body's defence for when he entered the open wound and in case the serpent tried to crush him.

The moment Leo touched the wound, the serpent jolted awake, and its slit eyes sharply contracted.

Within a moment, its entire 200-meter body awakened, and it once again started thrashing wildly. The danger of losing its pearl was far greater than the pain it endured while shaking its body.

But Leo was already 3 feet deep inside the wound and fiercely hacked through muscles and tissues, carving a path toward the orange sac.

The serpent's heart sank when it felt something small getting closer to its neck sac with every passing second. It immediately jerked its head back to crush the intruder, but at that exact moment, Leo delivered a charged punch directly into the spine of its neck.

SCCCRRRRAAAAAAA!!

The beast screeched and was forcefully made to lower its head. It had become completely unbearable to lift its neck. That was the effect of internal damage. Leo's punch had completely shattered the tendons and veins inside the neck.

The serpent's eyes intensified as the magma glow within them turned redder and hotter.

Within moments, its body temperature began to rise as blood—10 times hotter than lava—started circulating throughout its body and gushed out through the damaged veins.

The scorching blood surged through the ruptured vessels and splattered directly onto Leo. The heat was so intense that it even penetrated the defense of the black scales.

"ARRHHHGG!" Leo groaned as his body began to burn.

"1 minute! Fuck!" Leo cursed.

1 minute was barely enough time before he would be cooked alive and die. He even suspected that Gunther would have trouble rescuing him from here.

HIIISSSSSHHH!!!!

The serpent hissed wildly and tried to contract its muscles despite the pain. In the process, the pressure of the gushing blood rose off the charts and hammered directly against Leo's body.

The damage Leo had caused was becoming disadvantageous to him. But at least it was better than being crushed, which would have killed him outright.

Squelch!

"So disgusting!" Leo muttered in frustration.

Sinus fluid, blood, and torn muscles were directly slapping against his face as he carved through them with the dagger, which was getting chipped with every passing second.

"The blacksmith said this dagger could only handle the power of a Mid 4-star. It's miraculous that it's able to cut things here at all."

But it was only due to Leo's own force that the cut were made possible.

Leo's hand was just 2 feet away from the orange sac when he felt himself becoming trapped. The muscles around him unnaturally hardened, and the force pressing against him increased with every second. Not only that, but the temperature around him was becoming unbearable.

Crack!

The black scale armor covering his body cracked.

Crack. Crack—crack!

"Shit!" Leo suddenly had a bad premonition that he was going to die here.

If he were outside, he would have seen the serpent pushing itself to the absolute extreme.

Its bloodshot eyes, which had somewhat healed, were now bleeding freely as it arched its neck to impossible degrees to crush whatever was threatening the pearl it had spent centuries cultivating.

A [Sunblood Pearl] was a very special thing for an Infernal Serpent.

It was a second heart—or in this case, its primary heart.

It was its motivation.

And finally, it was its life partner.

Because the Sunblood Pearl was a special type of egg through which a perfect mate, designed solely for that particular Infernal Serpent, would be created. It was crafted by nature itself to birth a partner that perfectly matched the serpent's preferences and was a biologically ideal mate.

This was the reason beasts like Infernal Serpents cared little about the survival of their species and even hunted down their own kind in the surrounding regions. Because if they grew strong enough, a perfect mate would eventually come to them naturally.

Together with that mate, they would birth countless Infernal Serpents, and those offspring would begin the same cycle as their parent.

The only reason the serpent would die within an hour after the pearl was taken away was that the world would deem it useless without the ability to find a mate and produce future offspring.

A being's most important duty is reproduction and the creation of more lifeforms within the world it inhabits. If it failed in that, the world would have no use supporting it.

But even if Leo had known this, he would not have spared the beast.

Leo already knew that mercy in this world was a fool's act. One needed to be ruthless to grow stronger and ensure one's own survival. Even the serpent had survived by killing its own kind.

"HHHAAAA!!"

Leo summoned every ounce of his strength and directly hacked at the orange sac.

KLANG!

The dagger snapped and broke completely, but the work was done.

A foot-wide slash had been carved into the sac, exposing its rough interior lining that radiated heat even greater than the blood surrounding Leo. The blood had already seeped through the cracked armor and come into direct contact with his skin, burning him from head to toe.

By now, bones had snapped in Leo's legs, several ribs had caved in, and even the shoulder of his other arm had become dislocated. But his target was clear.

Leo directly plunged his hand into the extremely hot mucous folds and searched for the pearl.

"Come on!" Leo urged in a hurry as the pressure crushing him became nearly insurmountable.

And finally, Leo touched something.

At the same time, the system notification rang.

>Consuming into the treasure now increases the host's survival chances.

>Estimated time required to consume and absorb: 5 minutes.

>Absorb?

Leo was already on the verge of losing consciousness from the burns and physical damage, so he immediately accepted the notification.

The next instant, the football-sized [Sunblood Pearl]—hidden within the mucous folds—flared brightly as its essence began flowing into Leo's hand.

The moment it happened, a searing tide of crimson-gold energy erupted throughout Leo's body. Infernal flames mixed with blazing solar essence flooded every vein, sinking deep into his bones, marrow, muscles, and tendons.

There was already too much pain coursing through Leo's body, and he thought nothing could become more painful.

He was wrong.

"AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" All of that feeling of losing consciousness vanished.

Leo screamed from within his trapped position, but his voice never even escaped the serpent's body that pressed him.

The absorption was unimaginably painful. Flesh was torn apart from within, bones cracked and melted beneath the relentless heat, and every nerve screamed in agony as his body was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt.