Chapter 287: Battle in the Arena
Deep blue, uncanny blood sprayed down—to call it an ocean overturning would be no exaggeration, because everywhere Ryū's Observation Haki reached, for thousands of meters in every direction, that same deep-blue blood coated the ground, nauseating to look at.
But the layer of Ki wrapped around Ryū's body blocked the blood perfectly, keeping every drop from reaching his skin—not a single splash got through.
He had no idea what strange properties this giant monster's blood might have. If it turned out to be highly corrosive or worse, that would be a real problem.
So he had absolutely no intention of letting that thick, deep-blue blood touch him.
Back in the Arena, he'd once faced an enemy whose blood carried a curse effect.
Fighting that one, Ryū had died a solid seventeen or eighteen times before he'd figured out what its power actually did. Ever since, whenever he faced an enemy, he made sure nothing of theirs touched him.
Better safe than cursed by some bizarre ability I didn't see coming. It wasn't a cleanliness thing—it was survival instinct.
He drove one fist into a mountain-sized tentacle, blasting out a crater several thousand meters across and nearly a thousand meters deep. Then he stamped his foot and appeared instantly at the crater's center, and threw another punch!
The terrifying force of the blow snapped the mountain-sized tentacle clean in half—actually severed it. The massive limb went flying tens of thousands of meters away, drifting off into outer space.
But before Ryū could even catch his breath, a full ten more giant tentacles rose up from every direction, each one no thinner than the one he'd just destroyed—two of them were even thicker.
Still, it seemed like this enormous creature could only attack with ten tentacles at once, maybe because of where he was standing, which made it hard for it to bring more to bear.
It was like a single soldier surrounded by a million enemies on a battlefield—could all million of them actually strike at the same instant?
Not really. Only the ones in the innermost ring could reach him. If the ones on the outside tried to attack too, they'd just end up hitting their own side.
That was basically Ryū's situation right now. This giant creature might have countless tentacles, but it couldn't bring them all to bear simultaneously—ten at most.
Even so, ten tentacles as thick as mountains, of unknown length, put tremendous pressure on him. Barely manageable, but manageable.
Is this thing calibrated against my one real weakness—no experience fighting something this size? Figures it'd be this brutal. This body's got to be bigger than Earth.
All kinds of thoughts flickered through Ryū's mind, but the massive tentacles bearing down on him left no room to keep thinking.
Ki gathered rapidly inside him, condensing into a small Ki blast—a simplified version of the Kamehameha, built on the same principle but scaled down to roughly fist-sized.
Using Shave, Ryū barely dodged a few swinging tentacles, found a gap in the assault, and fired the simplified Kamehameha straight down—at the "ground" beneath his feet.
The blast showed terrifying penetrating power. Through his Observation Haki, Ryū felt it punch straight through tens of thousands of meters of "earth."
And nearly a hundred thousand meters down, a massive explosion of energy went off. Instantly, the entire flesh-and-blood "ground" began to shake violently.
The shockwave from the blast tore through the creature's insides—because that's what the "ground" actually was. Cracks began splitting across its hide.
Blood poured from the cracks—the same deep-blue blood, unsettling to look at.
The only blue-blooded creature I remember from my past life on Earth was the horseshoe crab. Its blood was blue too. But horseshoe crabs looked something like facehuggers, and whatever this giant thing actually looked like—Ryū still couldn't make out its full shape—something with this many octopus-like tentacles was clearly not a horseshoe crab.
Probably not an octopus or squid either, since none of the tentacles had suckers. They were smooth and rounded.
This thing is definitely intelligent... and it can apparently feel pain. In a vacuum there was no medium to carry sound, but Ryū found he could pick up a shallow read of its thoughts through Observation Haki.
Dodging the frenzied tentacle strikes, enduring shaking that felt like the world cracking apart, Ryū tried to use Observation Haki to read the giant creature beneath his feet.
To his shock, he could make out fragments of its intent. From what he could tell, the thing had gone into a rage because of his attacks.
Except it attacked first. And now it was furious that he'd fought back? Classic double standard. You get to hit me, but I can't hit you? And you're mad that I did? Give me a break.
Even as he grumbled internally, Ryū's face showed no trace of letting his guard down—inside, he stayed exactly as wary as when the fight began.
He didn't dare relax, not even slightly. After all his time training in the Arena, he knew perfectly well: the moment he let his guard down, he was as good as dead.
Time ticked by, second after second. Ryū had now been locked in battle with this colossal creature for a full dozen-plus hours—the first time in the Arena he'd survived more than ten hours from the start of a fight without dying.
Still, he could feel death getting close. The creature had gone fully berserk, and he'd already taken the full force of its tentacles three or four times.
Several of his ribs were broken now. Blood traced the corner of his mouth. One eye had gone somewhere during the fighting—he wasn't even sure where.
The pain was viscerally real, but he'd long since gotten used to this kind of agony in the Arena. He was almost numb to it by now.
Right as the pain made him slip, just for an instant, one of the massive tentacles caught him square on and sent him flying backward through the air. A red "DEAD" character suddenly flared in front of his eyes.
And, at the same moment, the revival prompt popped up as well.
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