The Epic of the Discarded Son-Chapter 50: Belly Of The Beast

He came to halt.

Every part of him wanted to reach the ship. Get back on deck. Stand beside Nora and—maybe the others, and fight the way they were supposed to. Together. Which was ideal.

But he couldn’t. That would be like welcoming disaster with open arms.

If he led that thing to the ship, there wouldn’t be a fight. There would be wreckage. One pass from a beast that size and the hull would split like dry bone. And the moment they hit the water—Nora, Ana, Luca, all of them—they’d be prey. Floating. Helpless. Waiting to be picked apart by the bastards flying above.

"Okay, Shiro. You can do this. You’re a big, strong boy." He hyped himself up the way someone does when they know they’re about to do something monumentally stupid and need to hear at least one person believe in them.

Even if that person was himself.

’Big. Strong. Boy.’

’Sure.’

He took one deep breath—making it count just in case he didn’t get another.

He dove down. Deeper. Moving through the black water in silence, letting the current carry him like a shadow sinking through ink.

Right under him, suspended in the water, was the abomination.

It was massive. Not like the others, not long and sleek and built for speed. This one was fat. Bloated. Coiled around the remains of the two Shiro had killed, feeding with a slow, mechanical patience that made his stomach turn.

And the other four—the ones that had been fighting over the cores minutes ago—were gone. Well, part of them was.

Their heads were missing.

The beast didn’t even acknowledge them. Only Coiling tighter around the corpses like a snake squeezing the last breath out of something already dead. Swallowing them in long, lazy gulps. Like noodles.

His heart slammed against his ribs. He couldn’t watch anymore. But he couldn’t look away either. It was like staring at a disaster happening in slow motion—horrifying and fascinating in equal measure.

’This is disgusting.’

’Why can’t I stop watching.’

He kicked upward. Broke the surface. Filled his lungs with air and, eager to see more, dove back down.

Because of course he did.

The beast was still there. Eating the other four. And with each one it consumed, something changed. Its mana grew denser. Thicker. Heavier. Pressing against his skin like standing too close to a furnace that hadn’t decided how hot it wanted to get yet.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

And then its body started to vibrate.

Not thrashing. Not convulsing from the poisonous flesh it ate. Just vibrating. A low, steady hum that rippled through the water and into his bones. Its scales shifted. Its shape trembled at the edges.

It was changing. Right in front of him. In real time.

Every sane part of him screamed to leave. Swim. Get as far away as possible before whatever was happening finished happening.

But the other part—the stupid, reckless, dangerously curious part that had gotten him into every terrible situation he’d ever been in—wanted to see.

’How do they evolve?’

So he stayed.

A moment later, the beast went still. Completely still. Suspended in the water like a puppet whose strings had been cut. No movement. No breathing. No sign of life at all.

He moved closer. Slowly. Against every survival instinct he possessed.

Up close, it looked like a cocoon. The scales had gone dull—lifeless, like armor left out in the rain for a century. Its eyes were open but blank. Empty. Staring at nothing. Like whatever lived behind them had gone somewhere else for a while.

Its face was strange. Not quite a snake. Not quite a lizard. Something caught between the two that neither side wanted to claim. And its fins—long, ridged, stretching from the base of its skull all the way to the tip of its tail—were unlike anything the others had. More intricate. More detailed.

Almost elegant.

’Show off.’

He raised his dagger. Drove it toward the dead-looking scales. If he could kill it now—mid-evolution, mid-transformation, before whatever it was becoming finished becoming it—this would be over.

The blade touched the shell.

And the shell cracked first.

A shockwave erupted outward. The impact hit him like a wall—blasting him backward through the water, tumbling, spinning, no control over which way was up.

He panicked. Kicked upward. Hard. Desperate.

But the eyes—the ones that had been blank and empty seconds ago—were open. Alive. Fixed directly on him.

The cocoon exploded.

Armor and dead scales detonated outward in every direction. And from the remains, something new emerged. Something that hadn’t existed thirty seconds ago.

Its tail found him first. A blur of armored muscle that slammed into his chest with enough force to launch him clean out of the water. Into the air. Above the surface. Above the spray.

He hung there. Suspended against the night sky for a full three seconds. Long enough to look down.

And what he saw made his blood go cold.

It had changed. Completely. The dull, bloated thing from before was gone. What rose from the water now was sleek. Purple so deep it looked almost black. Scales that caught the moonlight like polished gemstone. Fins twice the size they’d been—sharper, wider, edged like blades. Every inch of it redesigned. Refined. Perfected.

And it was rising. Jaw open. Wide enough to swallow him and the sky behind him.

But as he fell—barely able to catch his breath—his instincts took over.

He twisted mid-air, using the momentum to drive his dagger straight into its eye. Same trick as before. Hoping lightning was stupid enough to strike twice.

But it wasn’t.

Unlike the others who panicked when he blinded them. Thrashed. Lost control.

This one didn’t even flinch.

Instead it just dove. Straight down. Calm. Deliberate. Like losing an eye was an inconvenience and not an injury. Dragging him deeper and deeper into the black water with the patience of something that knew the pressure would do the killing for it.

And it was right.

His body wasn’t ready for this depth. Not yet. His chest compressed. His ears screamed. His grip weakened with every meter, fingers going numb around the hilt as the cold and the crushing weight of the ocean conspired to peel him off.

He couldn’t hold on.

So he let go. No choice. His fingers gave up the argument before his brain did.

He kicked upward. Lungs burning. Vision narrowing. Every kick slower than the last.

But the beast was faster.

It came from below. He threw himself sideways—barely dodging its jaws—only for the shockwave of its pass to slam him downward like a backhand from the ocean itself.

It wasn’t trying to kill him. Not yet.

It was playing with him.

’Great.’

His breath was almost gone. His vision blurring at the edges. The darkness creeping in from the corners like curtains being drawn shut.

The beast circled back. Shot toward him again. Mouth wide. Certain.

This time he didn’t dodge.

"Illuminate—Nocturne."

Light erupted from the blade. Pure. Blinding. White-hot radiance flooding the deep in every direction. The kind of light this creature had never known. Had never needed. Had spent its entire existence hiding from.

And for the first time—it recoiled.

The beast thrashed. Twisted away. Fins flailing against a sensation its body had no defense for. Centuries in the dark, and now the dark had betrayed it. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

He kicked. Clawed. Tore through the water toward the surface with arms that had stopped feeling like arms two minutes ago.

He broke through.

Air. Finally.

But it didn’t feel like relief. His lungs seized. Locked. Like they’d forgotten how to do the one thing they existed for. Every breath was a fight—short, shallow, rattling gasps that gave him just enough to stay conscious and not a drop more.

’Breathe. Just breathe. Come on.’

His vision swam. Steadied. Swam again.

Then through the haze—the ship. It had turned. Coming toward him. Cutting through the waves. Someone at the helm had seen him.

’No. Don’t—’

For one brief, stupid moment, he lost focus. Let his guard drop.

One moment was all it needed.

The beast recovered. Rose from below like a mountain being born from the sea floor. Jaws open. Swallowing the sky.

Swallowing him.

Dark. Hot. The stench hit him before the walls did—rotten, acidic, the smell of a thousand things that had died in here and never left.

But he wasn’t swallowed. Not yet.

His sword caught the edge of its jaw. Both hands. Buried to the hilt in rotten flesh. He hung there—suspended inside the mouth of a greater beast, his feet dangling over rows of jagged teeth that snapped and ground beneath him like machinery designed for one purpose.

He took a breath and gave it everything.

"Expand—Nocturne"

The blade expanded. Nocturne erupted from inside the beast’s throat, a pillar of light punching through flesh and bone and bursting out the other side.

He twisted. Planted both feet against the slick, pulsing walls of its throat. The blade resting on his shoulder.

His body flipped forward—a full rotation, the blade following his arc like an extension of his spine. Man and weapon becoming one single, falling guillotine.

Nocturne tore through everything in its path. Muscle. Bone. Scales that had been forged by centuries of crushing depth and absolute darkness. Gone with one brutal strike.

The beast split in two. Each half sinking in opposite directions, drifting apart slowly.

And he fell through the middle. Between the halves.

[You have slain a Greater Beast.]

[You have acquired 2 soul fragments.]

"That’s—"

That was it.

That was everything. Every drop of mana. Every ounce of strength. Every stubborn, reckless scrap of willpower that had been holding him together through sheer spite.

All gone.

His vision narrowed. The edges bled into black.

He reached out. One hand. Toward the fading silver above him. Toward the moonlight.

His fingers closed around nothing.

’I’m sorry, princess.’

The light above shrank. Dimmed. And went out.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​