Chapter 477

Shwish-shwish-shwish-shwish!

Front, back, left, right.

The instant the Mutated Water God Dragon noticed four figures shooting toward it from every direction, its one remaining eye widened.

—Krrk!

When did they…?

Even in Berserk Status, the Mutated Water God Dragon could tell the situation was turning against it.

But rage had paralyzed its reason, and the immense power contained within its large, beautiful body led the strange and terrifying evil beast to underestimate its opponents.

Then someone shouted.

That was enough to sever the last thread of reason that had barely registered the danger.

“Even if everyone else curses you, I believe you’re a good guy. Because you don’t have a single rough edge.”

—Krrrrrr…!

A murderous light flashed in its pupil, which was nearly as large as a grown man.

It did not matter what that tiny, insignificant human was babbling about.

All that mattered was that he was the one who had ripped out every last whisker—the dragon’s pride, its finest weapon, and practically its soulmate for hundreds of years.

Kill him.

No matter what it takes, I will kill that fucking human!

Whooooooosh!

Its enormous tail, filled with murderous intent, blasted apart everything in its path.

At the end of that path, one man’s lips curled into a faint smile.

“Got you, you son of a bitch.”

What?

A chill swept through the Mutated Water God Dragon’s entire body, but it was already too late.

With that much force and speed behind it, pulling its tail back was as impossible as recalling an arrow after it had been fired.

Whoom, boom!

Everything was crushed beneath the violently swinging tail.

The cliff that had barely been holding together collapsed completely, and the resulting roar swallowed every other sound.

But what awaited the Mutated Water God Dragon was not the thrill of crushing its enemy.

It was searing pain.

Fwoosh, thk!

No.

It was not imagining things.

The next moment, the Mutated Water God Dragon saw it clearly.

Through the slowly dispersing wind, rain, and clouds of dust, a spear wreathed in blue-white flames had pierced straight through its large, beautiful tail.

And the fucking human gripping that spear was smiling.

“Got you.”

—……!

My mother had always been lenient when it came to raising her children.

She never believed studying was the only path to success. Even when she saw my high school report card—sevens in every subject,¹ like I’d hit the slot-machine jackpot—she ended her lecture with one short remark.

“Amazing, my son…”

Hmm. Now that I thought about it, she may already have given up on me halfway by then.

In any case, even she made me read books when I was young.

I think it was in elementary school. She saw me folding paper airplanes out of an English workbook and flying them around, so she handed me a book and told me to read that instead.

The title was…

Oh, right.

Gulliver’s Travels.

Even though I had no talent for studying, I enjoyed novels like that. Sometimes, I even reenacted memorable scenes from them with Hayeon.

For example, the scene where the Lilliputians tied Gulliver down with ropes.

“Mom! Look! I caught Hayeon! She’ll be quiet now!”

“Waaaaaah! Mommy!”

“No! Hayeon! My daughter!”

Of course, my curiosity did not end particularly well.

When my mother saw her young daughter bound from head to toe in blue packing tape, she screamed. Then she used a hyojason² to beat the calves of the son who had just proven himself decidedly unfilial.

But with a tenacity unusual for an elementary schooler, I did not shed a single tear.

I did, however, reflect on where I had gone wrong.

“Next time, I need to tape her mouth shut too, so she can’t scream!”

Ah, what fond memories.

The vicious elementary schooler who had bound his much younger sister in blue packing tape was long gone, but the memory of that day remained vivid.

Along with the ambition I had held as a child: to tie up Gulliver just like in the novel.

Thk!

That’s right.

Just like now.

Remembering the childhood dream I had thought would never come true, I spoke.

“Got you.”

—……!

My method was more brutal than the one the Lilliputians had used on Gulliver, but it was undeniably effective.

I had predicted that the bastard would swing its tail. I dodged just before the enormous, hideous thing lashed across my body, then drove my spearhead in with all my strength.

White Flame, the sturdy, transparent divine weapon, became a massive nail that pierced through both the monster’s tail and the ground beneath it.

What about a hammer?

Obviously, that would be my fist.

And I still had plenty of nails left.

Open Inventory. Summon.

Thk-thk-thk-thk-thk!

It all happened in an instant.

I summoned five spears from my Inventory in a flash and drove them into the bastard’s tail. Then I brought my fist down in place of a hammer.

Boom! Boom! Booooom!

Anchoring complete.

My powerful punch struck the ends of the spear shafts. The sharp spearheads sank deep into the ground and trembled.

Hayeon, are you watching?

I trembled with satisfaction at the sight.

The Mutated Water God Dragon screamed in agony.

—Gwoooooooooar!

But its scream seemed a little premature to me.

Three people who had been waiting for this exact moment were just about to unleash attacks with everything they had.

The fastest among them arrived first and swung his sword at the dragon’s waist.

Shk—!

Ghostlike movement.

Speed too great for even my eyes to follow completely.

Nothing could stop the dazzling flash that burst from that gray-white shadow.

Not even scales hardened further by Berserk Status.

Not even flesh and bone as tough as iron.

It was none other than the Slaughter Saint’s sword strike.

Shrrk!

A clear sound of cutting pierced through the confusion of battle and reached my ears.

Mungyeong’s figure, having dealt a devastating blow with the fastest and most concise sword strike in existence, vanished in a blur.

Dark blood erupted like a waterfall, and a scream of agony burst from the monster’s maw.

—Kuaaaargh!

The attack had not severed its torso completely, but a single strike had sliced through nearly one-fifth of its thickness.

Of course it screamed.

But there was one thing I wanted the bastard to know.

This was not over yet.

“Two more strikes.”

Before I had even finished speaking, purple Force resembling the glow of sunset shot forward and lit the darkness.

Shwish-shwish-shwish-shwish!

Dozens of red plum blossoms appeared amid the swirling wind and rain.

That was no illusion.

I instantly recognized the trails drawn by the purple Force infused with the Zaha Divine Technique, known as the essence of Huashan.

The Plum Blossom Sword Technique.

If Mungyeong’s sword was a razor-sharp guillotine that severed its target in a single blow, Cheongpung’s Plum Blossom Sword Technique was a dagger that slashed and carved dozens of times.

Now that dagger had taken the shape of plum blossoms and was plunging into the split wound.

Thk-thk-thk! Shrrk!

Bringing down an enormous opponent was surprisingly simple.

Either hit it with one tremendous blow powerful enough to knock it flat, or keep pounding the same spot.

And make it hurt like hell.

Before the Mutated Water God Dragon could unleash yet another scream, someone came rushing in to deliver a blow that combined both methods.

“Can’t you just fucking die, you motherless evil-beast bastard!”

A streak of flame tore across the battlefield, accompanied by a filthy insult about the bastard’s parents that was wildly unbecoming of his age.

The Fire King.

The illegal resident of Mount Jiuhua.

The firebug of the Great Faction War.

A national-level thug who had dominated the Murim with seniority as insane as Bodhidharma’s skull water³ and martial arts even more explosive.

Just looking at him made my heart race and my eyes burn.

Ah, fuck it.

Whatever happens, happens. I’d already dropped the formalities anyway.

Once you were riding a tiger, there was nothing left to be afraid of.

Feeling my blood boil, I shouted at the top of my lungs.

“Go, Fire King! Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist!”

“You fucking little—!”

I could not tell who he was cursing, because the enormous boom that followed drowned him out.

Fwoosh, kwaaaaaaang!

Flames erupted from his fist and shot forward, vaporizing every trace of moisture in their path.

Hellfire carrying unimaginable heat tore into the gaping wound created by the previous two attacks, burning and devouring everything inside.

—Kraaaaaaaaaah!

I remembered hearing somewhere that death by fire was the most painful death in the world.

Anyone who saw this scene would have no choice but to agree completely.

Heat filled the air on every side, hot enough to conjure visions of a fiery hell, along with the thick, acrid stench of burning flesh.

And in the middle of it all, a gigantic monster writhed, engulfed in hellfire.

—……!

A terrible scream unlike anything we had heard before shook the ground and drove back the waters of Dongting Lake.

Its agony made it thrash so violently that even I, gripping the embedded spears with all my strength, could no longer hold on.

Thk, thud-thud-thud!

When Gulliver came to his senses and broke free of the ropes the Lilliputians had bound him with, what had they thought as they stared up at the giant rising above them?

I could not know for certain.

But at least I was neither shocked nor flustered.

“Well, look at you.”

It made no difference anyway.

The three hardcore ranged-DPS addicts—or rather, three Supreme Peak masters—had followed my orders perfectly, and the Mutated Water God Dragon had suffered devastating damage.

Even if it pulled out the spears embedded in its tail and gathered Water Breath now, nothing would change.

Shiiiiing, tap!

Seizing an Object Through Empty Space.

Like the other spears, White Flame had been torn free by the force of the dragon’s tail and sent spinning through the air.

Then it was sucked into my hand.

I raised White Flame’s spearhead, slick with dark-blue blood, and pointed it at the bastard.

“From now on… hack apart anything you can reach.”

My voice came out as hot as lava.

The three people who had grown accustomed to waiting for my orders sprang into action like beasts freed from their leashes.

Snap!

Jeok Cheongang, Mungyeong, Cheongpung—and me.

The first and strongest raid team in the history of the Murim shot toward the enormous body of the monster writhing in agony.

Shweeeeeek!

Four superhumans stepped out toward four different points.

And four streaks of Force carried unprecedented power.

Shwish-shwish-shwish-shwish! Shrrk!

Fwoosh, kwaaaaaaang!

East, west, south, north.

Above, below, left, right.

There was no opening through which the dragon could escape and no direction in which it could dodge.

They were everywhere.

And nowhere.

Its body, as large as a small mountain, was the largest target imaginable. Its mangled tail could overturn river and earth alike, but it could not touch the figures flashing around it like streaks of light.

The Mutated Water God Dragon.

The greatest advantage of this corrupted being, which had spent hundreds of years growing to its immense size, had now become its greatest weakness.

—Kroooooooooar!

There was no shield that could not be broken.

No door that could not be opened.

In a span too brief to even call a moment, dozens of streaks of Force carved the monster’s body apart and left it in a horrifying state.

Its dangerously beautiful jet-black scales shattered into pieces.

Its flesh and bones, so tough that ordinary blades could not even scratch them, had long since been slashed and crushed beyond recognition.

Craaaack, shaaaaaah!

Dark-blue blood gushed from its wounds and soaked the earth.

The thunder and lightning that had struck without pause began to fade.

The storm winds and driving rain slowly died away.

And so did the life of one being.

Shrrk!

—Krrk…!

Pain struck the Mutated Water God Dragon once more.

Its body writhed feebly, and then a figure appeared in the pupil of its eye.

A young human with a familiar face.

Its mortal enemy.

The one it absolutely had to kill.

—Gwoooooooooar!

And the presence of one man alone—Jin Taekyung—roused the monster’s last fading reserves of strength.

Gooooooong—!

At the very moment a massive sphere of water, what someone called Water Breath, was about to be completed after the dragon poured out every last bit of its strength…

Then the young human vanished from before its eye.

The next moment, the Mutated Water God Dragon heard a low, steady voice.

“You’ve worked hard.”

Thk!