Chapter 572

How did this happen?

The thing blinked slowly as the question formed in its mind.

It had lived its entire life driven by instinct. Now, with intelligence far beyond anything it had known before, everything was confusing.

But it soon understood what had happened.

—Hu. Man.

Yes. That human.

Humans were small, strangely shaped creatures. Accursed things that occasionally invaded the black sea where it lived and stirred it up.

For countless years, the thing had fought them, driven by instinct and rage. Today had been no different.

But…

—What. Was. That. Human?

Several dozen humans had invaded the black sea.

Their weapons and magic brought down even the Mermen with their magnificent fins and the Sirens whose beautiful songs lured humans to them. Blood spilled into the water.

Then, as the thing sensed defeat and fought desperately on, one human stepped forward.

“Let’s stop here.”

He looked ordinary. Smaller than a Merman, and nowhere near as beautiful as a Siren.

Yet the thing knew instinctively: of everyone there, this was the only human who could kill it on his own.

The other humans, however, were different.

“Mr. Dongseok, sorry, what did you just say?”

“What are you doing in the middle of a raid, you crazy bastard? Move it!”

“That’s going to be difficult. I have something I need to do.”

“Something you need to do? Mr. Dongseok, what does that mean?”

“I told you. I’m going to see it through.”

“Wait. Mr. Dongseok, I’m asking because I really don’t understand what’s going on here…”

Shing.

“M-Mr. Dongseok?”

“T-Team Leader Kim! That guy…!”

Whoosh—slash!

Confusion turned to uproar, uproar to a fight, and the fight to a battle. The battle brought death.

Crack-crack-crack!

“Ghk, krrk…!”

One against many. But the difference in strength was overwhelming.

In moments, the human had killed everyone who stood in his way. He came to a stop before the thing, which lay wounded where it had fallen.

Then he held out an object containing a power both irresistibly alluring and terrifyingly strong, and spoke words the thing could not understand.

“Absorb it. It’s a gift from that person to you.”

The thing had no choice. Exhausted by the long battle, it had neither the strength nor the energy to kill the human before it.

Its mind filled with the scent of what he held out.

Magic power.

That was exactly what it was: the primordial power the thing had possessed since birth, and a meal so tempting it could not resist.

Whoooooosh.

When the brief meal ended, the thing realized it had changed.

Its body had grown beyond comparison with what it had been, and immense magic power overflowed from within. The vast black sea it had known all its life looked strangely unfamiliar.

Almost as if…

“It’s cramped, isn’t it?”

The human’s voice came from far below. Without thinking, the thing nodded.

Yes. Cramped. The black sea that had once seemed so vast was now too small and shabby for it.

What should it do?

“Go outside. There’s a wider sea.”

The answer could not have been clearer. Reborn as something new, the thing looked down at the human who had solved its problem.

—Thank. You.

“…!”

And that was the end.

Crack! Crunch!

The human who had seemed so powerful was no match for what the thing had become. It wrapped him up, crushed his tiny body in an instant, and stirred the power lying within itself.

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

The black sea—everything the thing had ever known—began to shake.

Waves filled with magic power swallowed the human corpses and woke countless Mermen and Sirens sleeping in the deep sea. Amid savage roars and beautiful songs, magic power surged beyond its former limits. A dozen or so whirlpools rose around the thing and swept outward in every direction.

Whooooooosh!

A storm tore through the once-calm black sea and ripped open space itself.

Beyond the rift lay blinding light and a world the thing had never seen.

Whoosh!

Nothing could contain its magic power now.

Knowing its time had come, the thing became a single enormous wave and moved toward the new sea, carrying the countless Mermen and Sirens clinging to its body.

Crack! Whooooooosh!

The sunlight it felt for the first time was painfully hot. The endless blue sea was impossibly vast. And the sight of humans frozen in fear was enough to rouse the savagery it had briefly forgotten.

—Kill. Them.

A Monster Wave. The beginning of another disaster.

—Aah, aaaaaah!

Humans fleeing the Sirens’ alluring songs turned back as if bewitched. The Mermen fell upon them.

Stab! Stab-stab-stab!

Screams and death swept across the sandy beach. Humans with special abilities came running, but they were no match for the thing.

Whoom—crack!

One Strike.

A single powerful sweep of its leg crushed a dozen or so humans to powder. What insignificant, feeble creatures humans were.

—To. A. Wider. Place.

The vast blue sea was the thing’s now, and nothing stood in its way. It sent nearly a thousand of its followers ashore, one after another, then swam on beneath the surface.

Whoooooosh.

Easy. Everything was astonishingly easy.

Humans were weak, and it was strong. It would make those worthless things understand.

The thing roused the magic power coiled within its body. At the same time, it churned the water with limbs that had multiplied from eight to dozens.

Whooooooosh!

A wave dozens of meters¹ high rose and hurtled forward.

Nothing could stop a wave carrying that much magic power. Everything human hands had built broke apart and sank.

The long, enormous structure built over the sea was no exception.

Ruuuumble!

The wave slammed into the suspension bridge called Gwangan Bridge. The wide-ranging defensive magic installed for emergencies shattered under its immense power, and the bridge broke precisely at its middle.

“Aaaaaah!”

“S-Save me…!”

Honk! Hooooonk!

The thing surveyed what it had made: the collapsing bridge, the terrified humans screaming, the noise pouring from objects it could not identify.

It was all satisfying.

At least until that happened.

Whoooosh! Boom!

In an instant, flashes of light rained down from the sky without pause, reducing some two hundred Mermen to pools of blood.

And then the thing noticed the presence of a human floating high above.

—Sky?

Could humans fly?

The question had barely formed when the human descended gently and landed.

Splash.

The human stepped into a pool of green blood and stared straight at it. Sunlight shattered against the spearhead he held at an angle.

—Guh…!

The thing groaned at the painfully bright glare. Then it made its decision.

—I. Will. Kill. You.

A savage red light flashed in the eyes on either side of its head. With a surge of immense magic power, dozens of legs struck the water.

Rumble! Whooooooosh!

Another enormous wave rose. The disaster it had summoned blotted out the sun, and the thing charged with a vast roar.

—Grrrrrrooooooar!

There, in the path of the terror of the sea—the Kraken—stood a human.

Of course the wave that struck Gwangan Bridge hadn’t formed naturally.

Soon after the Great Cataclysm, many structures had been rebuilt to combine the best of magic and science. Gwangan Bridge, one of Busan’s landmarks, was no exception.

But the fact that the powerful defensive magic on Gwangan Bridge was shattered by that wave……

The answer was clear. There was more than salt and seaweed in that water.

Something had torn through the boundary between worlds and emerged into ours.

I breathed out and tightened my grip on my spear.

“Come at me, you octopus bastard.”

The Kraken took me up on it.

Whoooooosh!

Dozens of tentacles came at me with a tremendous shriek of displaced air. Their evenly spaced suction cups were so large they looked like black holes.

Damn it.

Who the hell said octopuses only had eight arms?

Internally clicking my tongue at the greater-than-expected number, I circulated internal energy through my legs.

Crack. Boom!

Spiderweb cracks raced across the hard ground, which burst apart beneath me. The recoil launched me between the Kraken’s enormous tentacles.

An arc of White Flame slashed down like a flash of lightning.

Slash!

Three or four tentacles as thick as logs were cleanly severed.

They were only the relatively thin tips, but anyone would feel that pain.

The Kraken’s tentacle, which had been about to strike the section of Gwangan Bridge where I had stood only moments earlier, twitched and trembled before slapping against the surface of the water.

Splash!

I had avoided the attack, but it was not over.

This is a bad place to fight.

Gwangan Bridge had already collapsed, almost split in two, but survivors were still scattered everywhere nearby. The screams coming from behind me were proof enough.

If I fought the Kraken here, there was a high chance of causing many unexpected casualties.

At this rate…

The battlefield, the surroundings, what I needed to do—there was only one answer.

Step. Tap.

The tip of my foot gently touched empty air.

Stepping on Empty Air. It consumed internal energy at a punishing rate, so I couldn’t keep it up for long. I had no intention of dragging this fight out anyway.

Whoooooosh!

Nothing made an easier target than someone hanging in midair.

The Kraken’s tentacles swept toward me as if dancing. I brought my spearhead down at an angle.

Fwoosh—shhhhhk!

Blue flames split into dozens of streaks and shot through the air.

However strong the Kraken was, it couldn’t withstand Force.

Slash! Splash!

The tentacles swinging at me from every direction were severed in a single stroke.

Sizzle.

The Scorching Yang Qi carried by the Force burned the flesh even as it cut through. The Kraken roared in agony.

—Grrrrrrooooooar!

Of all kinds of pain, burns were the most agonizing.

I didn’t miss the moment it faltered.

Bang!

Compressed air burst beneath my toes. The spearhead held upright plunged down, slicing through the fierce wind.

At its tip was the face of a gigantic octopus.

Shhhhhhhk!