Chapter 483: Chapter 483
This isn’t working. I can’t outlast something that doesn’t tire. Can’t wear down something that regenerates instantly. Can’t suppress something that exists outside normal rules.
I need more power.
I need more power..
Satou dodged another tentacle barrage, his enhanced perception tracking eighteen different appendages simultaneously, his body flowing through gaps measured in inches. His muscles screamed protest even enhanced by Overdrive Version One, the strain of maintaining superhuman speed for six continuous hours beginning to show.
A tentacle swept horizontally where his torso had been a microsecond earlier—he’d already dropped into a slide, his crystalline scales scraping across devastated ground, friction generating sparks that ignited the air itself.
He teleported immediately as entropy breath carved through the space he’d occupied, the decay-inducing beam aging the ground by millennia, turning stone to sand to dust to nothing in progressive waves of temporal destruction.
[SHADOW ABSOLUTE MOVEMENT]
Appeared fifty feet away, already moving, knowing Khar’razoth’s next attack before it manifested—
A reality-distortion wave hit him despite his evasion, the space-warping effect catching his left side, tearing chunks of flesh away not through physical force but by literally removing the space his body occupied.
Pain exploded across his nervous system. His Legendary Regeneration activated automatically, burning mana to seal wounds that shouldn’t exist, reforming flesh in spaces that had been deleted from reality.
[CURRENT STATUS - HOUR SIX:]
HP: 7,200/20,000 (Still Regenerating)Stamina: 48% (continuous Overdrive drain)Mana: 52% (healing consumption accelerating)
Losing. Not dramatically. Not obviously. But mathematically, inevitably losing.
Satou’s tactical mind, enhanced by Combat Transcendence and Ancient Dragon’s Wisdom, ran calculations with cold precision:
At current depletion rates: Stamina depleted in 2.4 hours. Mana exhausted in 3.1 hours. Physical collapse in approximately 3 hours regardless of resource availability due to accumulated micro-damage even Legendary Regeneration can’t perfectly heal.
Khar’razoth shows zero resource depletion. Zero fatigue. Fighting capacity unchanged from Hour One.
Conclusion: I will lose this battle of attrition in approximately 180 minutes.
Unless I change the parameters.
Another tentacle barrage forced him to activate [TIME DILATION], his perception speeding up to make the world slow down, giving him precious microseconds to calculate evasion paths through the forest of flesh-weapons.
He wove between twenty tentacles, his body contorting through impossible angles, Serpentine Grace and Enhanced Agility combining to let him flow like water through stone—
A twenty-first tentacle, moving faster than the others, caught him across the ribs.
CRACK.
Three ribs shattered despite his Enhanced Endurance and Natural Armor. The impact launched him sideways, his body tumbling through the air, blood spraying from his mouth.
He hit the ground two hundred feet away, the impact creating a crater, more ribs breaking from secondary trauma.
[REGENERATION - LEGENDARY]
Healing activated before he’d finished rolling, broken bones knitting back together in eight seconds, internal bleeding sealed, torn muscle reformed.
Can’t keep this up. Every hit costs mana to heal. Every dodge costs stamina. Every second of Overdrive Version One burns resources I can’t regenerate fast enough.
Need to end this. Need more power. Need Version Two.
Now. Has to be now. Before I’m too weak to activate it. Before my reserves drop below the threshold needed for the transformation.
Khar’razoth’s massive form was advancing toward him, two hundred feet of divine horror, tentacles spreading wide, preparing to crush him while he was down—
Satou activated [SHADOW ABSOLUTE MOVEMENT], teleporting half a mile away in a single jump, creating distance he desperately needed.
The Ancient God’s lion-skull head tracked his movement, thousands of eyes on its nightmare-wings all focusing on his new position.
"RUNNING, MORTAL? THE GOD OF HUNGER IS INEVITABLE. YOUR DEFIANCE ONLY DELAYS THE FEAST."
Satou didn’t respond. Couldn’t waste breath on words.
He drew in air—tasted blood from internal injuries not yet fully healed, tasted ash from the devastated landscape, tasted the metallic tang of ozone from reality-warping energies saturating the battlefield.
His flame-like eyes locked onto Khar’razoth’s distant form, his tactical mind making final calculations:
Overdrive Version Two activation cost: 15% current stamina, 10% current mana Enhancement duration: 45 minutes maximum Resource consumption rate: 1500% stamina, 2000% mana Physical damage accumulation: Extreme Survival probability if activation fails: 3% Survival probability of settlement if I don’t activate: 0%
The choice was obvious.
Satou planted his feet, his crimson Berserk aura flaring brighter as he prepared to shatter every remaining limiter, and spoke the words that would either save everyone or kill him:
"BERSERK MODE: OVERDRIVE VERSION TWO!"
The activation didn’t happen all at once. It was a progression—a cascade of failures and adaptations as his body was forcibly pushed beyond every design parameter.
Every nerve in Satou’s body fired simultaneously.
Not sequentially, as nerves normally operated. Not in controlled patterns that created coherent sensations. But all at once—billions of neurons activating in perfect synchronization, creating a feedback loop of signals that should have fried his nervous system instantly.
His Mind Fortress prevented complete neural collapse, but couldn’t eliminate the pain.
It felt like being struck by lightning from inside his own body. Like every nerve ending was being stabbed with white-hot needles. Like his brain was being boiled in his skull.
Satou screamed—a sound torn from his throat by pure agony, his vocal cords shredding from the force, blood bubbling from his mouth as he vocalized pain beyond normal human experience.
His Dragon’s Heart, currently beating at triple normal rate from Version One, suddenly accelerated.
Three times normal became four times. Four became five. Five became six.
The organ was never designed for this. Dragon physiology could handle extreme stress, but this transcended extreme into territory labeled "catastrophic failure."
Blood pressure spiked to levels that burst vessels throughout his body. His eyes wept blood as capillaries ruptured. His ears bled as auditory blood vessels failed. His nose streamed crimson as sinus cavities hemorrhaged.
The Dragon’s Heart itself began glowing—literally glowing—visible through his chest scales as supernatural metabolism generated heat that would have ignited normal tissue.
His muscles didn’t just tear and regenerate anymore.
They liquefied.
The protein structures binding muscle fibers together broke down under stress that exceeded their molecular bonds. Flesh literally turned to fluid—a horrifying process where solid tissue became liquid slurry before reforming into denser, stronger tissue.
