Chapter 247 - Shedding Layers

"Just lie down. Let me take care of the rest." Compass Carburettor said, watching the cobra do as told as it looked weak, growing weaker by the minute.

He quickly used an Armament to cut open its stomach to see countless undigested pieces of Darble there. "Wait…Darble?"

He was surprised, because what he used to make the Spydragon, though called Darble wasn't exactly pure Darble. It was just the reserve in his horns that were almost like Darble but were impure.

And now, for some reason, all these impure Darble had been digested to condense pure Darble fragments. Moreover, as he gazed at the cobra's stomach walls, he noticed that even though the Darble had poisoned it, the cobra's body was fighting against it.

It was using its trait to evolve to adapt to this change, for even though it was poisonous, it wasn't potent enough to directly kill it.

'There might be a boon through this disaster.' He thought, looking at Grisha, "Heal her once I give the signal."

Seeing her nod in response, he took out a pearl and placed it in the cobra's stomach, watching the pearl beginning to melt as the burst of energy flowed through its body. And suddenly, the tiny Darble fragments were influenced by the energy stream, beginning to slowly move towards one another as they touched each other.

Moreover, Compass Carburettor noticed the Darble fragments beginning to join with one another while the cobra's venom—that was inherently infused into its energy—also flowed into it.

'Something different is happening.' He nodded, watching Grisha beginning to heal the cobra. Moreover, he made the cobra swallow the pearls one at a time, watching through a small cut section on the stomach, noticing the Darble beginning to be assimilated by the energy that flowed through its body.

All the Skills that he possessed were already Bestowed upon the cobra, allowing it to make a natural recovery and not die from the changes. Moreover, Grisha was constantly healing any damage the cobra faced, not to mention him providing it with enough pearls for whatever changes in its body to have enough energy.

"How are you feeling now?" He asked it through telepathy.

"I feel like a dying python now, uncle." The cobra said weakly, "And I'm not even a python…"

"I'm unable to understand the reason, but your body is evolving for some reason." He said, turning around to look at Grisha, "Do you have an idea?"

"In the previous loops, there were rare cases where a System Host's beast companions evolved for mysterious reasons." Grisha replied through telepathy, "So, this might be like that. I don't see any signs of cancer on the cobra, so it isn't dying. If its body is unable to handle this evolution, it would have shown signs of cancer by now."

"That's good then," He sighed in relief, patting the cobra's head as he consoled it, "You'll be fine."

Upon seeing the cobra relax a little, he asked, "Why the heck did you eat those things that I had been creating all along?"

"Well…" The cobra said in hesitation, "After Grisha awakened to Darlac, she removed most of the bracelets that you had made for her, only wearing one of them. When the both of you had gone, I was hungry and for some reason, they smelled delicious. So, I ate them. Then, I searched for the same scent and found the box that you had been keeping secret. There were many similar things in that too."

"A delicious scent?" He frowned, thinking, 'Do creatures think of Darble like this?'

He hadn't thought about this before. Because in the Darble World, even when monsters eat other monsters, including the Darble growing on their foreheads, it wouldn't be digested in their bodies and would be ejected as excreta the next day.

Or in most cases, the monsters would simply eat the flesh of the monsters they kill and leave behind the bones, Darble horn, etc.

So, even though he was a Haggon, he didn't know what a monster felt while seeing a Darble. Because, he, as a Haggon didn't feel anything while looking at a bunch of Darble Crystals that formed a pile in the Mohart Dungeon.

"Argh!" Suddenly, the cobra began to shout as crunching sounds resounded from within its body, as if its bones were breaking. It was odd, because, in the spots that generated this sound, there were no bones.

Compass Carburettor hurriedly grabbed hold of the cobra's twitching figure, trying his best to calm it while Grisha assisted him, healing it the moment any lacerations happened on it.

Shockingly, the cobra's body volume began to decrease as it shed skin, in layers, one after another, every couple of minutes.

"What's happening to you?" He was alarmed, asking it when he noticed the cobra had fallen unconscious.

In worry, he was flustered, not having any other means at his disposal other than Grisha's healing ability. All he could ask was for her to continue healing it while he fed it pearls at intervals when he judged that its body was lacking energy.

After spending twenty pearls in such a fashion, his face convulsed as he lifted the cobra, gazing at its figure that was only the length of his arm now, lying weakly on his hold.

And on the ground were piles upon piles of skin that it had shed. And, it was strange how this had happened because even its head had shrunk down, the skull bone having been shed off in layers with the skin.

It seemed every single organ in her body too had shed in such a manner, with the excess being barfed out after some time.

The cobra now lay on his hand, tiny, lacking its three horns, weak, not having enough energy to even lift its head. And most of all, its vitality continued to drop while its body turned colder.

"Dammit!" He felt helpless, trying everything he could think of, but unable to do anything. He wasn't even able to know just what was up in the cobra's body, not to mention saving it, watching its body turning colder and colder on his hands.

"Shit!"