Chapter 469

Everyone saw it. They could see it.

Amid the blackened sky and the violent wind and rain, a shower of strangely shaped rocks came crashing down.

Rumble-rumble-rumble, crash!

When a massive boulder struck the lake, spray erupted several jang¹ into the air. Birds that had lost their nests tumbled from the collapsing cliff with shrill cries, while torrential rain and lightning battered the world without pause.

And as everything collapsed around them… one being alone reared up.

Whoooooosh!

Water cascaded down its body like a waterfall.

Far below, the humans reduced to tiny dots gazed up at the being that had finally revealed itself, their eyes filled with stunned disbelief.

It was enormous.

Even that word felt inadequate, yet no other came to mind.

Only one question filled everyone’s thoughts.

What is that?

Scales gleamed with an ominously beautiful black sheen. Its body was so thick that ten burly men with their arms outstretched could barely have encircled it.

Their gazes traveled up the long, sinuous body, more than thirty jang² of it visible above the surface, until they reached two horns jutting from its forehead.

And beneath them, its eyes.

Blood-red pupils stretched into long vertical slits. As the scales around its mouth slowly parted, they revealed saw-edged teeth and a maw like a dark cavern.

Grrrrr.

The vicious growl echoing down from far above sent a chill deep into the bones of Crouching Dragon Guest Zhuge Feng.

What in the world…?

Zhuge Feng had been called the greatest genius in his clan since infancy.

He possessed an extraordinary mind that never forgot anything he had seen, along with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Over the years, he had devoured tens of thousands of books and made the vast knowledge of the world his own.

The river of knowledge within Zhuge Feng was endlessly broad and deep.

Or so he had thought.

Until he saw that.

This cannot be.

For the first time in his life, he felt the fear of confronting the unknown.

At that moment, Zhuge Feng realized that all the knowledge and information he had accumulated had turned to foam.

He also realized that fragments of the countless myths and legends he had dismissed as nonsense now stood before his eyes.

Could those absurd stories… truly have been real?

Zhuge Feng had always placed absolute faith in the power of knowledge.

He was a martial artist, but first and foremost, he was the Family Head of the distinguished Zhuge Clan, and he had used reliable information and knowledge to protect his many clansmen and his family’s power.

To a man like him, unverified superstition was not even worth considering. Believing in an illusion no one had ever seen was simply foolish.

But someone a hundred jang³ away from Zhuge Feng was different.

Unlike Zhuge Feng, he was not a Family Head responsible for an entire household. He was merely an old boatman who had survived by relying on his own experience and a single ferryboat.

“……!”

The old boatman stared into the sky with trembling eyes.

A colossal being stood tall amid the collapse of everything around it. The sight alone made his legs buckle, while unbearable awe and fear pressed down on his shabby shoulders.

The cry that the crushing pressure kept him from voicing echoed only in his heart.

It’s the divine spirit. The divine spirit of Dongting Lake has revealed itself!

The world was filled with more superstitions than anyone could count, and Hubei Province was no exception.

An old man told a child, and when that child grew old, he told another child. Stories passed from mouth to mouth for hundreds of years.

The old boatman was no different.

A native of Hubei Province who had spent his entire life on the water, he knew the identity of the being he called a divine spirit.

The Two-Horned Beast of Dongting Lake.

The Water God Dragon.

The true master of Dongting Lake.

Ah… ahhh…

The old boatman trembled violently. His entire body shook beneath an emotion he could not understand, and something swelled within his chest.

It was an emotion only he, among everyone present, could feel.

Awe and fear too profound to put into words.

A boatman to the marrow of his bones, he could not believe that he had come face-to-face with the master of Dongting Lake. The aura flowing from that being left him struggling to breathe.

The divine spirit is angry. All of this happened because the divine spirit was enraged!

The old boatman realized that his guess had been correct.

The countless deaths that had occurred one after another over the past month. He did not know why, but the divine spirit had certainly been angered beyond measure.

And in the end, it would punish him just as it had punished the others.

With death!

He could not die like this. Somehow, he had to calm the divine spirit’s anger.

A cracked cry burst from the old boatman’s mouth as he stood there, entranced.

“D-Divine Spirit! This humble one has committed no sin!”

The silence that had settled over everyone shattered. The old boatman’s cry scattered into the wind and rain.

Before the others, frozen rigid by the colossal being’s appearance, could stop him, the old boatman ran toward the water on trembling legs.

“Divine Spiriiit!”

Tap-tap-tap, splash!

The instant the old boatman’s shabby straw sandals touched the water of Dongting Lake—

Swish.

In a world that had slowed to a crawl, a gigantic pair of eyes turned toward him.

The old boatman’s reflection appeared in those blood-red vertical pupils. As the creature registered the tiny, insignificant human, the light in its eyes blazed crimson.

Whoooooosh!

A chilling aura erupted in every direction from the thirty-jang² body.

Birds in flight lost their strength and plummeted. Thousands of fish fleeing in schools through the depths of Dongting Lake floated belly-up to the surface.

An aura as immense as its body, an aura akin to death.

Neither insignificant creatures nor even humans could remain unharmed before it.

Before that invisible aura even reached him, the old boatman’s entire body had already stiffened like a stone statue.

His mouth hung open, his eyes bulged wide. Just as his pupils began to roll white beneath the grip of terror—

Whoosh! Thud!

A sharp whistle cut through the air, and the old boatman crumpled where he stood.

A young man gently caught his frail body, then raised his head and stared at the enormous being.

“Hey, you fucking eel bastard.”

……!

At the clear voice, the enormous being’s pupils swelled as though it had realized something.

Different.

Every other human on the ground had frozen from shock and fear, but this young man was different. He was neither stunned nor trembling.

Fear of the unknown came from confronting something incomprehensible.

But that young man was free from it all. More than fearless, he almost seemed accustomed to this.

Just like now.

“Can’t you open those eyes properly?”

With that offhand remark from the young man, Jin Taekyung, a streak of light tore through the air.

Whoooooosh! Bam!

When I first saw the thing, only one thought flashed through my mind.

Am I seeing things?

I could hardly have thought otherwise. A monster I had seen somewhere before had appeared right in front of me—not in the modern world, but in Murim.

If it had merely been an illustration in some fantasy novel, that would have been one thing. Unfortunately, I recognized it from the Monster Encyclopedia, compiled over the past several decades by countless leading scholars and Hunters who had fought in the Great Cataclysm.

Could that be…?

Although the monsters I had fought most often during my Hunter career had been low-level creatures like goblins, the section I had looked at most in the Monster Encyclopedia was the one covering the highest-level monsters.

And that thing was one of the monsters given a particularly large entry.

…A Sea Serpent.

As its name suggested, a Sea Serpent was a marine monster.

In the early days of the Great Cataclysm, a Sea Serpent had announced its existence to the entire world by sinking a US carrier battle group. For some reason, it vanished shortly after the Great Cataclysm.

No, let me correct that.

At least, that had been true until a moment ago.

A Sea Serpent in Murim? What the hell is going on…?

I had frozen in shock, but I soon noticed something strange.

Wait. Something’s different.

In the modern world where I had been born and raised, the Sea Serpent was not some fictional monster that appeared only in mythology.

It was one of the highest-level monsters serving the Demon King Asmodeus, as well as one of the major culprits responsible for inflicting terrible damage on humanity.

Naturally, there were high-resolution photographs showing exactly what it looked like, along with preserved video recordings of its battles.

But the monster before me was clearly different from the Sea Serpent depicted in the Monster Encyclopedia.

The Sea Serpent looks more like an actual sea snake, but that thing is closer to an Eastern dragon.

The more closely I looked, the more certain I became. There were subtle differences in the size and length of its body, as well as the shape of its face.

But these two similar yet different monsters did share one crucial trait.

Whoooooosh!

It was that.

An inherently ferocious aura possessed only by monsters—fundamentally different from what martial artists called killing intent.

Fear.

Fear was exactly what it sounded like: terror and dread.

Every monster possessed it, but the stronger the monster, the more powerful its Fear became.

It shackled an enemy’s body by instilling fear and terror, then shattered the enemy’s mind.

Just like the Dongting Fisherman.

The scattered puzzle pieces in my head began falling into place.

The Dongting Fisherman’s state, which had seemed almost insane. His clear eyes returning only after all his strength had drained away.

He must have encountered that thing before we did.

Even a Supreme Peak master with immense martial prowess and an unshakable mind could be overwhelmed by the terror of confronting the unknown for the first time.

When it came to resisting Fear, an S-rank Hunter was probably far better equipped than even a Supreme Peak martial artist.

And…

That goes for me too.

Ding.

System

You resisted Fear!

A powerful mind overcomes terror!

Whoosh, thud!

I caught the old boatman’s collapsing body as I struck his pressure points.

One second. No, even a quarter of a second later, and the poor old man might have gone mad from Fear—or simply died.

I raised my head and looked at the enormous being towering in the distance.

Damn. It’s huge.

I had never fought a Sea Serpent, but this thing was clearly no pushover.

It had just taken a spear I had hurled with all my strength and still hadn’t fallen.

Bam!

With a heavy impact, the colossal body, more than thirty jang² long, swayed slightly.

It was like watching a small mountain move. I bit my lip.

I couldn’t pierce its scales.

I could tell from the sound alone. Even after pouring all my strength into the iron spear I had pulled from my Inventory and hurled, I had failed to inflict any meaningful damage.

If I had used White Flame, forged from Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron, I could have dealt a more decisive blow.

But if I could not finish it in One Strike, that would be a foolish move.

It was more urgent to act before the enormous monster recovered from its confusion.

I turned and drew a deep breath as I pulled internal energy up from my dantian.

“Cheongpung! Hyuk Mujin! Gung Gibang!”

“Hup!”

“Urgh!”

A thunderous shout erupted from my mouth, so loud I could scarcely believe it had come from me. The three men, frozen like stone statues, flinched.

No.

Not three. Two.

Unlike Gung Gibang and Hyuk Mujin, whose eyes looked as though half their souls had fled their bodies, Cheongpung was staring at me in surprise.

“You startled me. What is it, Benefactor?”

“……?”

What the hell is this guy?

Anyone would freeze after seeing a monster like that. I was the exception because I had grown up in the modern world, surrounded by monsters until I was sick of them.

But Cheongpung had been born and raised in Murim. The fact that he could overcome Fear so easily was astonishing.

“Cheongpung. Are you really all right?”

“Huh? About what?”

“I mean, that thing over there…”

“Oh, right. I was really surprised.”

Cheongpung threw both arms wide and exclaimed emphatically.

“It’s huge! Really huge! I’ve never seen anything like that in my life!”

“……”

I hadn’t thought that through.

Cheongpung had been out of his mind from the beginning.