Arifureta: The Devourer

Author's Note: NGL I Fucking Love That Title

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100th Floor — Final Trial of the Great Orcus Labyrinth

The descent into the 100th floor was suffocating in its stillness.

Aio stepped through the jagged tunnel threshold and into a cavern so vast it could swallow cities. The walls stretched upward into oblivion, veiled in darkness, while enormous crystals floated mid-air, casting a ghostly blue light across the battlefield below. The terrain itself was a warped graveyard of elemental devastation—ashen craters, frozen columns, glassed stone from ancient flame, and ground split as if by thunder.

And then—

The ground moved.

No, it pulsed, breathing with the presence of something ancient and unrelenting.

A shadow as wide as a siege beast and long as a serpent emerged from behind a towering stone monolith. With every shift of its mountainous body, obsidian scales scraped stone, sparking friction and malevolent energy. Six heads rose into the air, each marked by an elemental glyph that pulsed with magic. Each pair of eyes glowed with unnatural red light—calculating, intelligent, hungry.

The Hydra.

Final guardian of the Great Orcus Labyrinth.

Aio's eyes narrowed, his breathing slow and deliberate. This... was it.

The Hydra's heads hissed in unison, a high-pitched screech like steam whistling from a thousand vents. Mana surged around them like a storm.

Fire burst from the red head—Aio ducked under the jet of flame. Wind howled from the green head, slicing deep gouges into the stone. A blast of ice followed, freezing air and dust mid-motion. The yellow head lowered its maw and released a shimmering pulse—the very ground around Aio thickened, slowed, as if the air itself had gained weight.

The white head pulsed gently. Glowing Green Light bathed the Hydra's body, preemptively preparing for the battle ahead.

Then the black head whispered.

Not aloud.

Not in words.

But into Aio's mind.

At first, nothing. Then—pain filled screams. Not from the Hydra.

From his past.

From the countless times he'd been torn apart in the dark and knitted back together. 

He screamed and screamed until his mind began to fall apart his will failing to keep going amidst the cycle of dead and rebirth before another scream follows the pain. But not from his past self. But—

From Shizuku.

From Kaori.

From Hajime.

"A-Aio... you monster..."

He spun around—no, they were there. Standing behind him. Blood dripping from wounds he knew he didn't cause—but what if he did?

The Hydra vanished from view.

The battlefield blurred into darkness.

He was surrounded. Surrounded by the faces of classmates—dead, accusing, silent. Kaori's soft voice trembled, "You were supposed to be one of us..."

He backed away. Bringing up his blood covered hands dripping with blood.

No. This isn't real. This isn't real!

Hajime, covered in soot and ash, pointed a scorched hand at him. "You survived and turned into a beast. You're no different from the monsters you eat."

Aio's claws shook.

His breath came in ragged gasps.

Then—his own reflection. Standing in front of him. Not as he is, but as he was—human. Pale skin. Wide eyes. Trembling. Weak. Fragile.

"You're disgusting."

"SHUT UP!" he roared—and sank his claw deep into his own thigh, slicing across flesh and muscle with a savage gash.

Pain shot through him like lightning.

The illusion cracked.

The shadows dissolved like smoke retreating from fire.

The battlefield returned in a violent lurch—color, sound, weight, all slamming into Aio's senses like a thunderclap. His body trembled, blood pouring from his wound.

But now...

Now he remembered who he was.

"Illusion magic..." he muttered between clenched teeth. "Nice trick."

His body began to shudder—not from pain, but power.

[Biomorphing – Activation Confirmed]

Bones popped.

Flesh unraveled.

Veins slithered under his skin like living cords. Aio's body began to rupture, blood spraying as his current form split apart at the seams.

The old body died.

And from the falling slabs of regenerating flesh, something new emerged.

Dense red and black fur—slick with bioluminescent streaks—crawled across his new hybrid body. His height compressed for speed, but his limbs swelled with ogre-tier muscle. The twin-tailed wolf hackles sparked with violet lightning, forming a wreath of crackling power around his body. Wicked acrillosis quills formed from his forearms, and his mouth unhinged to reveal twin sets of battle ape fangs and a forked serpent tongue.

Two eyes glowed in tandem—one yellow, slit-pupiled and predatory, the other a shimmering basilisk blue, cold and unblinking.

His transformation complete, Aio hunched forward, low to the ground. He could feel everything—the burn of the fire head's rage, the static churn from the wind head, the oppressive pressure of the illusion magic that still clung to the back of his thoughts like a distant echo.

And then—

He howled.

A sound that tore through the air like thunder. Not a cry of pain. Not even one of rage.

A declaration.

A challenge.

The howl of a predator acknowledging another alpha.

The Hydra's heads coiled back in unison, their eyes narrowing.

Aio cracked his neck.

His voice came out as a growl:

"Let's try this again."

CRACK!

Aio's quill pierced deep into the black head's eye, dark fluid spurting as it reeled back with a guttural screech—but the victory was fleeting. The yellow head lurched low, its glyph flaring violently. The ground beneath Aio shattered and rose, warping into a jagged earthen pillar that slammed into his right flank like a battering ram.

WHAM!

Aio's body hurled through the air, ribs crunching as he collided with a crystal-lined ridge. Before his feet even touched the ground—

WHOOSH!

The green head whipped around mid-coil, unleashing a slicing whirlwind that carved across his chest, shredding the fur and flesh there in a spray of blood.

Aio rolled, barely avoiding the blue head's icy lance that shattered the stone beside him in a flurry of frost. He planted one clawed hand into the broken floor and roared, his hackles igniting with electrical fury. Lightning arched outward, lancing toward the Hydra—crackling through the environment.

The bolt struck the yellow head, but the heavy shell that covered it diffused most of the current. Annoyed more than harmed.

Then, the white head glowed with that sickening, pulsing light.

Aio's stomach sank as the black head's eye began to reform, grotesque tissue knitting back together as though time were reversing.

He gritted his teeth. "Regeneration?"

His breath trembled.

Speed wouldn't cut it.

Not anymore.

[Transform – Wrath]

Pain spiked as his body expanded, the Blitzkrieg shell erupting in streams of crimson as muscle tore and reformed. Troll sinew, battle ape limbs, and the behemoth's massive frame returned with thunderous weight. His shadow stretched, a colossus once more. Black fur thickened across his body, and his shoulders bulged with veined strength. His arms—four now, each brimming with monstrous force—slammed into the ground, cracking it.

Regeneration flared. The wounds on his chest mended in real time.

"Round two."

He ripped a slab of stone from the floor and hurled it like a boulder at the yellow head, disrupting its barrier for a precious second. That was all he needed.

He leapt, his twin-tails twisting mid-air to stabilize his movement.

Slam.

His four fists struck down like meteorites onto the green head, crushing through sinew and bone. With a vicious rip, he twisted the neck, snapping it in a sharp crack. Blood sprayed, dark and steaming.

The red head retaliated immediately, mouth igniting as it released a concentrated beam of flame that engulfed Aio's side. His fur caught, flesh sizzled, and a roar tore from his throat. He didn't hesitate.

He rolled, seized the red head in a death roll—ripping it from the body with his monstrous jaws.

Two heads down.

But the white head glowed again.

The green and red heads twitched.

Tendrils of light danced along their necks.

They were regrowing.

"Faster than expected," Aio growled, chest heaving, the smell of burnt fur and ozone thick in the air.

He couldn't keep pace with the healing.

He needed a new angle.

[Transform – Sham Alraune]

With a body-wrenching shudder, his flesh peeled, revealing coils of green vines and blossoming petals. His torso hollowed, spores erupting like dust clouds, mixing with an acidic mist expelled from his throat. Toxic tendrils whipped outward, spreading across the battlefield.

Aio's Sham Alraune form stood tall—unnatural, eerie, beautiful in its lethality.

But the black head inhaled sharply—then whispered again.

The world collapsed.

The battlefield was gone. The Hydra vanished. All was still.

Aio stood in a void.

The corpses of his classmates circled him.

Shizuku.

Kaori.

Hajime.

Even Kouki, silent and bleeding.

"Monster," they all said in unison.

"Cannibal. Coward."

"You should have stayed dead."

Their eyes bled. Skin peeled. Hollow voices echoed like knives in his ears.

Aio trembled.

"...No," he whispered.

They stepped forward.

"You're weak."

He screamed and dug a vine into his own skull, pain erupting like wildfire. His vision burst into static—

And broke.

The illusion fractured, reality bleeding back in. Stone. Fire. Wind.

"Not real," he hissed. "You're not real!"

He whipped a vine like a javelin—and it pierced the black head's eye, exploding it like a rotten fruit.

The illusion magic died instantly.

No time to breathe. The blue head fired.

A glacier of ice formed around his legs.

But troll regeneration surged, cracking the frost as he lunged through it, releasing a boiling mist of scalding poison that struck the blue head full-force, melting its scales.

Snap!

A vine coiled tight and twisted.

Three heads down.

But then—

Pulse.

The Hydra's body surged with radiant mana. Its glyphs glowed like stars.

Limit Break.

All remaining heads—white, yellow, green, red—doubled in speed, whipping around with perfect coordination. The yellow head reshaped the terrain, forming jagged canyons to trap Aio. The green head's wind launched him into the air—and the red head struck him point-blank with another fire burst.

Aio smashed into the wall, his form barely holding together, burned, broken, cracked.

He collapsed to his knees, one arm missing, his other barely able to move. Blood pooled beneath him. The god stone in his chest flickered, mana low, regeneration taxed to its absolute limit.

He panted, vision swimming.

"They're... working together..."

A bitter laugh slipped from his throat.

"...Final floor, huh?"

But he wasn't finished.

Never.

He looked at his arm—then bit into it, tearing free a chunk of his own flesh. His maw swallowed it whole.

The effect was instantaneous.

Mana flowed again.

His veins flared gold, the god stone pulsing violently in rhythm with his heart. Strength returned.

But this time...

He let his body collapse into mush. He let it fall apart—deliberately.

Flesh sloughed off.

Quills cracked and dropped.

Vines withered.

He hit the floor, a half-dead, twitching corpse—

Until it began to reform.

Monstrous tissue regenerated, but not just healed.

It changed.

Horns. Tails. Bone plating. Lightning-filled quills. Acidic glands. Vines that slithered like snakes.

A new form.

A synthesis of everything.

A beast of war, a creature made to end battles.

His body rose, six meters tall, but compact. Efficient. Lethal.

Mana crackled from his claws. His new tail hissed steam. The air bent around him from the pressure of his reawakening.

He threw his head back—

And howled.

Not in pain.

Not in fear.

But in triumph.

In defiance.

The Hydra turned all six of its heads toward him.

The white one glowed—

And the red, green, and blue heads began to regrow.

Their broken necks twisted back into place, heads reforming in real time.

All six heads stood tall again.

Aio stepped forward, claws flexing, his voice low and steady.

"Then let's finish this."