The Great Core's Paradox 2: A LitRPG Adventure

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The thought was like a flame, burning me from the inside out. It fought against the chilling slow-venom that had iced over my thoughts; it warred against the numbness that held dominion over my body. At a little over three-quarters, I petered out. It was pretty good to that point. Or, at least, I was engaged with Paradox the dungeon noodle and his struggles to survive in a deadly environment so far above his capability. I particularly liked his determination that saw him through his challenges.

But the later part of the story is what made me lose interest in the book so far. Not only does the little snake get friendly with humans, he gets super attached to them. To the point that his whole new life revolves around them. And to make things worse, there is of course a huge language barrier since they are different species. which cannot be overcome with a skill like telepathy; or showing words in his illusion ability like his status or the status of things he ate... but I guess this is what the author was going for. The giant Aridae touched the stone floor of the alcove. Her many, many legs flexed, cushioning the impact. Before I knew it, she was waiting next to me. And, for one who was created by the Greatest of Cores, is there anything more satisfying than proving another Core to be less than? I especially like Valera's development. I feel like she is the most fleshed-out of the bunch. The female lead, so to speak.I slithered my way around the forest of glow-caps once again. Though I hadn’t seen any bad-things until I reached the mana-water last time, I still kept a watchful eye on my surroundings. It had taken a bit of time to finish my preparations to reduce the effects of the terrible slow-venom. Things could have changed.

The sound, too, was unmistakable. Falling water beat rapidly against the ground and the mana-water that fell before it, repeating again and again like the pulse of a drumming heart. A portion of the numbness left my mind and length. I wriggled with greater force, fighting against the slow-venom’s effects. Still, the shimmering threads of white held on tightly. Streamlined Scales] , I realized after a short amount of testing, caused my slithers to be more effective underwater. A useful Trait, but not a powerful one. Still, the Blueswifts were small enough that they might be worth trying to consume in a life without [Size] . Satisfied with that, I moved onto the final pile of bad-things large enough to provide me a Trait - and the only ones that had no trouble breathing outside of the water. Now that I had escaped, I could see a familiar cavern. I could see clusters of glow-caps, each casting shadows upon the empty walls. I could see the Great Core’s glow again, suffusing me with its light; it spilled from my shed scale-flesh with a soothing glow, easing over my terror and loss. Though I had hoped to train my venom resistance further, there were limits to what I could do by myself. I had been forced to inject myself with my own venom. The pain had been terrible; agonizing, even. Yet for the Great Core, I had done it.Before I could manage to break free, we reached the cavern’s ceiling. It was a different world, viewed from this high. I would not have imagined that the glow-caps would look so small, that the giant pool of mana-water would appear so...limited. Then, with a snip, one of my puppets let it free. It was dead before it could even flee, crushed tight between my coils and dropped between my jaws. I flinched as a barbed tendril caught vulnerable mouth-flesh on the way down, the touch setting off a burning, painful spark that zapped across my mouth-flesh. I had seen enough of death to know that. I had seen the way that injured bad-things fell limp and quiet as blood burst from their skin-flesh. I had seen the way that they had struggled at first, desperately fighting to survive. I had seen the way that they had given up. Story: Hands down the most gripping tale of a monster MC I have ever read. Paradox went a long way from being a scared snake in chapter one to the little guardian of chapter 135. He uses the skills of the bad things around him and now he even chooses to pass some of them over. That shows he is capable of foresight. I don't want to spoil too much but Paradox's Coreless grew with him. This book just takes my breath away, a whole book written from a Snakes POV. How amazing is that? I ask you?!? And it's a very small snek, with a humongous amount of confidence in both the Great Core and in it's own ability, as is fitting for a dungeon boss named Paradox Ouroboros. A boss who can control destiny and thus honor the Great Core. So with his pet hooman adventure team, they set out for adventure. The humans of course have their own notions of what's goin on, but they all realize that their chances of survival has dramatically increased with the "tame" dungeon monster's help!

The wounds from the Aridae, both infant and mother, were too much. A few times, I tried to bend enough to reach my tail. I knew that if I could do that, I might be able to heal enough to resist. The crimson fluid glinted, reflecting the light of the glow-caps that reached into the alcove. I could see my reflection in it as well; I could see the same image that I had earlier, reflected in the brilliant blues of the mana-water. An orb inset into my head-scales, looking as if it were the Great Core itself. Style: The chapters are just the right length. The sentences flow freely and the paragraphs are the perfect length.Once pulled to the surface, however, finally freed from the bundle of threads that kept them trapped and away from the other bad-things, they flopped around helplessly. When my coils wrapped around the first, there was nothing it could do. The same was true for those that came after. The leviathans of the lake weren’t the only dangerous bad-things in the area, only the strongest of the bunch. There were stretch-tongue bad-things, with bulbous eyes and slimy flesh, that sat on the banks of the lake and hopped about. There were the small-winged bad-things that they preyed on, flitting down to drink from the waters. There were the bad-things that rushed through the river, fins and tendrils propelling them through the mana-water and towards the lake at its end. Until, one day, the Coreless found us. Until they tried to steal away my creator. Until, with no other option, I swallowedthe Great Core that had made me. Aridae of assorted shapes and sizes scrambled across the strong bundles of thread, winding across them as easily as I might wind across the Great Core’s sacred spots. It was their home, their place of power. I found myself wrapped up in shimmering white threads; they were soft and rather warm, providing some small comfort against the chill of my thoughts and body. I could still see slightly through the gaps in the threads, allowing me to watch as the mother Aridae pulled me upwards, hauling me up the walls with a connecting thread and seeming entirely at ease. I could see it; it did not feel threatened by me. It did not feel threatened by the chosen creation of the Great Core.