The Warped really is just one gigantic creature huh? I think this is one of the biggest in the world, too. This stupid deer being the size of a small mountain— I am slightly over exaggerating, but also not really. — means that entering its chest cavity is like going inside a particularly rancid cave.

  How long has it been since I killed this thing again? A week? And now it's already starting to rot, there are countless monsters in here, there's so many in fact that after killing everything that came my way, I actually managed to level up!

  My Resistance has managed to cross the 300 threshold now— the total is 304. — which doesn't really help with anything but you know, it's cool that that particular stat is keeping up with everything else I have.

  The bacteria and viruses currently thriving in this oversized corpse should be easy to handle, even if they're boosted by the decaying magic of the dead Warped. And if they do infect me, then the mender's set will take care of any damage they do to my body.

  And oh yeah, I guess the mender's set is the key to successfully becoming a Dryad— it's also gonna merge with my body during the ritual, which means I'm gonna need a new change of clothes soon. — since the regeneration it gives me will keep me alive while the ritual, quite literally, breaks apart my very being.

  So that was what the mender wanted to do in this swamp: she wanted to become an immortal inhuman with the ability to control entire forests, the Warped was always meant to be killed as well, which is interesting.

  And it's interesting because if the mender started the preparations for this ritual before the deer became a fully grown Warped, didn't that mean that she somehow had a plan to come back to life after the aberrant evolved?

  How would she do that? No idea. I just hope that she doesn't get mad at me when she realizes that I've basically taken everything she's worked for and gave it to myself. There's nothing wrong with that right?

  Probably... Well, the mender will have a problem with it, but she's not here so eh, who cares?

  Hell, maybe the canon mender even got killed at some point, similar to how the Warped disappeared by the time the player gets to the giant tree. I wonder who killed them? Some powerful person, no doubt.

  Maybe it even happened during the cull? It wouldn't be that shocking if some S class adventurer somehow decided to visit this place during one of the many winters that passed.

  My nose wrinkles and my thoughts come to a sudden stop as I pass the esophagus and finally entered the chest cavity. The lungs are rotting so badly that I can see colonies of mold growing fuzz on the— capillaries? I think they're capillaries. — whatever these things are, flesh. Maybe. I dunno.

  The occasional pulse that happens on the surface of the muscular, red walls has me worried. I've seen them before while on my way here, the writhing of mass underneath the flesh, something tubular, parasitic.

  Except for some reason, the pulsing here is far too big to just be another colony of worms, whatever it is, it's burrowing under the flesh and prefers to stay there.

  My eyes go over the ceiling, where the bump of the spine can be seen marking the surface, vertebra so big that a family of five can turn it into a house. And, it seems, that a few things did start occupying it. "Well, "it" isn't accurate, they is the more appropriate term."

  A nice family of worms, living happily on this gigantic corpse, rotting it, spreading diseases, and encouraging the growth of viruses that will eat the flesh even further. How nice.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I keep walking, the sound of my boots soft against the fleshy floor of the lungs, I grab a hanging string of bronchial flesh and swing across the massive gap in the center of the organ, when I land, I look down at the cavernous pit I just passed, shuddering.

  There's a pool of liquid down there, all red and bloody, but I'm pretty sure it's not all blood. Other fluids must have mixed in there too, a waterfall of viscous, yellow pus is flowing down on some parts of the walls, more worms and even insects swarm the area where it meets the blood.

  Pus as a meal, I can't imagine doing it but I guess parasites are just built different. I shudder and silently tell them to enjoy their buffet.

  Several minutes passed and I finally broke out of my daze, I forced myself to look away out of disgust.

  With my mind now back on track, I make my way down the lungs, I find myself going down a series of bump-like growths, jumping from one to the next. All until I reached the bottom of the lungs.

  Here, the lake of body fluids, insectoid fish, and amphibious parasites is closer, and that means the stench that my nose picked up earlier— so very little, yet still overpowering. — is much stronger here, I'm pretty sure if I didn't have the mender's set my nose would rot and fall off my face.

  Naturally, with how bad everything is here, I move as quickly as I can, making sure that I don't get another whiff of this stupid lake became priority and I rush out of the lungs as quickly as I can.

  Oh, and funnily enough, [Wetland Navigation] works here. I don't know why I'm shocked, this place is a wet land of sorts, must be all the bacteria filling the air.

  With my speed, it didn't take me long to reach the tubes that lead into the heart, I don't know what they're called, just that they're here. I hop into the veins, I guess? And make my way down, and now, I'm inside one of the atriums.

  Unlike the other parts of the corpse, this place didn't have signs of rot, unsurprising given that this place holds possibly one of the dangerous items a regular animal can get close to.

  Corruption is still possible even when something is just being exposed to a diabolical core, in fact, ambient mana is more dangerous than, say, physical magic. It's ambient mana that turns normal animals into monsters most of the time after all, not some kind of artifact capable of corruption.

  Me willingly going through the four atriums just to reach the bottom of the heart and get access to a diabolical core is basically the equivalent of a stupidly competent explorer going inside of Chernobyl and entering the room where the elephant's foot is in.

  But radiation doesn't give people superpowers— or does it? I mean, I'm educated enough to know that radiation kills people and ruins genetics but what if it can actually give superpowers? That's never been proven! — and magic does so what I am doing is technically far more important than searching for the elephant's foot.

  Assuming, that, you know, radiation doesn't give superpowers, which has never been proven!

  But the things my old friends used to call a "conspiracy theory" aside— I don't believe them. — the diabolical core is close, I can feel it.

  No really, the magic emanating from the damn thing is currently ripping apart my flesh, every step I take is like walking underwater and the mental pressure pouring out of the core is enough to slow down my steps.

  This is also one of the reasons why animals don't go here, and also why bacterias die. The concentration of magic is so strong that there's no way for a normal creature to realistically survive it.

  Sure, the flesh of the Warped is fine, but that's because it's been exposed to the core all its life! Actually, it grew with the diabolical core, by this point this thing has adapted to the kind of power a diabolical core gives and is able to harness it.

  And somehow, me and my 36 levels, 314 Physical stat, and 687 magical stat is about to attempt to not just take the core from its socket, but also harness the power stored inside of it.

  The little exposure that I am experiencing now melts my flesh, harnessing all of this will expose me to even more of the diabolical core's magic.

  "It doesn't hurt... It doesn't hurt..." I repeat as I reach for the orb sitting at the bottom of the heart, it's at least the size of my head. "It doesn't—"

  The words were replaced by a scream as power surged into my body, every single inch of my flesh began to writhe and turn purple as the corruption began to take hold, and then, just as quickly— or maybe it took forever, I'm pretty sure I blacked out too. — it disappeared, the pain stopped, and everything went back to normal.

  Except this time, I'm holding the diabolical core.

  "Okay, good enough." I let out a sigh and started heading out.