Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

Alex jumped off the ground using his incredible strength and landed directly onto the beast's back, 200 metres in the air.

The beast tried to shake him off at first, but failed to do so.

The two of them got entangled in the air as they rapidly rose, then fell over and over again as the beast kept trying to fight back against Alex.

But it wasn't flexible enough to reach its back where Alex was located, hence it tried to use momentum to lose him instead.

In the end, that wasn't enough to shake him off either.

Alex was like a bug stuck to its skin with glue.

There was nothing it could do to shake him off.

Seeing that it couldn't get rid of him, it decided to take a new approach.

Roarrrr!

It roared as it started to rapidly accelerate.

Upwards…

It started flying directly up, as high as it could.

"Shit, this thing's trying to suffocate me!"

Alex realised what it was trying to do immediately, but the skin of the beast was so much tougher than it was as a C rank.

It was taking him much longer to penetrate it, even with his full power.

If he couldn't break through the scales in time before they reached the edge of the atmosphere, then he would be in some deep shit.

However, things continued to not go his way.

He only made it halfway through the thick scales by the time the beast flew above the clouds, then even higher until the sky eventually started to fade from light blue to black, as it reached the farthest edges of Ceres-9's atmosphere.

Alex could barely breathe at this point, only being able to keep himself alive and conscious this long thanks to the fact that his energy core regulated most of the energy in his body.

Most of his body no longer needed oxygen to survive.

But things hadn't changed for his brain. That still needed oxygen to survive.

The brain was special, just like the heart.

Even though Alex had completely integrated his heart with the energy core, his brain remained unaffected by these changes.

He wasn't yet a higher life form, it was only when he evolved to a higher life form that his brain would evolve, so he couldn't survive in the vacuum of space yet.

'I have to end this, now!'

With a final, desperate effort, Alex decided to activate the one ability he hadn't made use of in this battle yet.

Inferior Teleportation.

In an instant, 40% of his overall energy capacity was emptied, and Alex felt himself transported through the cracks of space off of the beast's back…

And he landed on the beast's tongue…

This was exactly where he planned on landing, but it was extremely risky.

For one, he had no idea whether he would actually land in the beast's mouth, or in the middle of the sky as the two of them were in constant motion.

But it seemed his talent disregarded whether they were in motion or not, and only focused on that specific point in space where Alex had willed himself to teleport to.

Not to mention the danger of being inside the beast's mouth in the first place…

He could only do this because just like Alex, the beast was also starved of oxygen, only it was in a much better position than Alex.

It was only 1 rank away from being a higher life form, so it could survive a much longer time without oxygen.

But that didn't change the fact that it still needed it.

Its solution was to open its maw wide as it flew up, allowing the small pockets of air to fly directly into its mouth as it passed right through them and continued climbing.

However, it didn't expect that Alex would use this tactic to conserve oxygen against it.

The beast's mouth was a cavernous, dark expanse, its foul breath a mixture of rotting flesh and acrid fumes.

Alex stood on its tongue, feeling the beast's entire body tremble with rage and frustration. He knew he had one shot at this, and he had to make it count.

"Fuck it," Alex muttered under his breath.

He concentrated the remainder of his energy into one final, desperate attack.

The Phoenix flames, already intense, flared up around his body, becoming a blazing inferno.

With the injection of literally all the energy he had left, they became much, much more intense.

Their power instantly rose, matching that of the Variant class C+ rank beast he was currently in the maw of.

The beast could feel the sheer amount of energy concentrated in its mouth, but it couldn't do anything about it. It had to keep its mouth open if it wanted to stay conscious, and if it closed it, then Alex would be able to remain conscious by using the air that the beast had left its body.

The beast was frustrated and anxious; no matter what method it thought of, it always ended up with it being on the losing side.

And after just a few milliseconds had passed, its worst fears had come true.

Alex's body became a blindingly bright beacon of light, as he was covered from head to toe in Phoenix flames.

Underneath all that light, Alex was in agony. His muscles screamed, his bones felt like they were on fire, and his mind was in a haze of pain. He was barely hanging on to consciousness anymore, and right before he passed out, he issued two last commands to his body.

His first command was to disregard the Regenerative heat aspect of his Phoenix flames, which was why he was in so much agony.

This enabled the destructive aspect of them to become even more potent as the energy reserved for regeneration was syphoned towards the destruction.

And his last command before he passed out was simple.

'Jump!'

His body listened to him, but Alex was no longer conscious enough to see the results.