Whoooooosh!
Intense heat scorched the air and evaporated the moisture in its path.
A single streak of flame fell like a meteor. Leviathan’s eyes widened as it twisted its body, forgetting even the pain that had come before.
Shhk!
Hot.
The spearhead sliced through scales that could shrug off missiles. A mere graze carved dozens of kilograms1 of flesh from its body.
No—it burned the flesh away.
Hissssss!
Leviathan screamed without a sound as searing pain swept through it.
From the day it first opened its eyes, the mythical monster had reigned as a calamity of the sea. Pain from fire was still foreign to it.
So was the human coming at it as fast as a beam of light.
Shh-shh-shh-shhk!
Leviathan had no idea when or how the spears had been launched.
It only heard the sharp whistle of something tearing through the air and saw five streaks of flame flying toward it. A red warning light flashed in its mind.
Danger!
Its massive body, rigid with pain, twisted desperately. Leviathan narrowly avoided the flame-wreathed spears and summoned its magical power.
Ruuumble!
A tremendous force pressed down from every direction.
Its wounds had not healed, but the quality and quantity of its magical power were far beyond what they had been a day ago.
A wave surged upward, brimming with magical power. At Leviathan’s will, it advanced without a breath of wind to drive it.
Toward the human who had dared challenge the ruler of the sea.
And toward the traitor who wore the skin of a worthless human and attacked its own kind.
Whooooooosh!
A vast shadow covered a radius of several hundred meters.2 Magical power churned inside the pitch-black wave, where not even the faintest light could penetrate.
“Damn it, I told you I don’t taste good…”
The Skeleton King muttered blankly.
At that very moment—
“Get lost.”
The low words came through clenched teeth. At the same moment, the human—Jin Taekyung—thrust out a fist wreathed in flame.
Boom!
Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist.
Blue-white flames burst through the air and tore open the center of the wave.
A small human figure shot through the collapsing spray. Leviathan roared in fury.
“You bastard!”
Whoooooosh!
Streams of water surged up from every direction and shot toward Jin Taekyung’s entire body.
Each carried enough force to pierce an aircraft carrier. An ordinary human wouldn’t stand a chance.
If his opponent were an ordinary human.
Shhk.
The air vanished. The wind split apart.
Flames bloomed at the tip of a silver spearhead, unmistakably different from the ones Jin had hurled at Leviathan earlier.
Fwoosh. Shhk!
A blue line swept across the black sea.
The blue-white flame flowed like a dragon’s tail, burning away the jets of water that came at him like awls.
Jin Taekyung stepped on empty air again and accelerated. In the slowed world around him, he steadied his breathing.
My body…
It wasn’t like usual.
His hands and feet felt heavy. He wasn’t as fast as he used to be, and he was burning through internal energy much faster than he had expected.
That damn debuff.
Broken Body was taking an enormous toll in combat.
It might have been different if he had never possessed those capabilities in the first place. But with every attribute except Intelligence drastically reduced, the resulting void left his body unable to properly carry out the commands from his mind.
Just like now.
Thud!
The dull impact sent his body swaying. Jin swallowed his groan and evaded the attack that came immediately after.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Hundreds of spheres of water rushed at him, filling his vision.
They looked like the attack spell mages called Water Ball. Jin knew better than anyone that they were far more powerful.
He also knew that if he backed off now, he might lose the monster in front of him again.
Whoooom.
The nearly translucent white shaft of his spear trembled. Flames that had seemed about to die surged up fiercely.
Jin Taekyung drew the divine weapon far back and slashed down at an angle.
Fire Dragon Divine Spear, second form.
Heavenly Strike.
Fwoooooosh!
A dazzling flash lit the darkness that had swallowed the surrounding sea.
Hellfire fell, evaporating the spheres of water on every side. Its glow stained the monster’s enormous eye red.
“How dare you! How dare a mere human…!”
With a cry that was almost a scream, Leviathan drew up all its magical power.
Ruuuuumble.
The sea heaved, and the dark clouds overhead groaned.
The moment the spearhead met the barrier of magical power shielding Leviathan’s body, a brilliant flash split the blackened sky.
It struck toward the human who had dared defy a myth.
Fwoosh!
In the slowed world, dozens of lightning bolts plunged from high above.
They emerged as dozens, but by the time they reached their destination, they had merged into one. That destructive force of nature was sucked toward a single point as though drawn there by something.
Crackle, crackle, crackle!
“Gyaaaaaaaah!”
Countless flashes lit the sea, accompanied by a scream of terrible pain.
Leviathan, holding the spearhead at bay with all its magical power, felt a surge of joy.
I knew it!
The voltage was in the billions of volts. No matter how strong the human was, he couldn’t take a direct hit from that column of lightning and remain unharmed—
What?
Leviathan blinked its enormous eye.
Beyond the slowly fading flash, the human who should have been standing there with his flesh burned and his bones shattered by the lightning was staring back at Leviathan completely unharmed.
He even spoke, looking a little embarrassed.
“Uh, he’s always been a scaredy-cat.”
“…?”
“Hey, cut it out. That won’t kill you.”
What?
Leviathan tilted its head without realizing it. Beyond Jin Taekyung’s shoulder, someone was letting out a terrible scream. Leviathan could see him clearly.
“Gyaaaaaaaah…”
The scream gradually faded.
The Skeleton King glanced down at his smoking body, then awkwardly lowered the sword in his hand.
“Ah, right. I’m a skeleton.”
“Great timing. Good lightning-rod strategy.”
“I only drew this to help you… No, as expected, you saw through my strategy perfectly. Not bad.”
“…!”
What the hell were these bastards?
For a moment, Leviathan couldn’t make sense of any of it.
That instant of distraction was enough to disrupt the flow of magical power that had been as solid as a wall with no gaps.
Crack!
The fissure was tiny compared to the whole barrier.
But it was exactly the opening Jin Taekyung had been desperately waiting for, and the flame dwelling in the spearhead smashed through the wavering magical power and plunged toward its target.
Thrust!
Scales shattered beneath the spearhead. Leviathan thrashed on instinct as its flesh and bone caught fire.
“GRAAAAAAAH!”
Rumble! Whoooooosh!
Its enormous body bucked wildly.
Jin Taekyung wasn’t satisfied. He grabbed the small horns jutting from the monster’s skin and drove more strength into the spear gripped in his hand.
Shhhhuuuk!
The spear’s two-meter3 shaft plunged into the center of Leviathan’s brow.
Its enormous head saved it from death, but the pain was beyond anything the mythical monster had ever suffered or imagined. It let out a terrible roar.
“You bastard!”
Whoooooosh!
Terrifyingly powerful Fear spread outward from Leviathan.
Marine creatures crouching in the deep sea rolled their eyes back and floated upward, while countless birds fleeing far away after sensing the danger that was about to arrive suddenly fell from the sky.
At this moment, Leviathan was angrier than it had ever been.
I’ll kill them. I must!
It would tear them apart until no one could recognize them. The human who had inflicted this pain and the traitor who had turned on its own kind would die the most gruesome deaths it could give them.
But amid the pain and fury that consumed Leviathan, fear raised its head.
How?
The enemies had not only inflicted such a massive wound upon it the day before—they had deceived its senses and lured it into a trap.
Especially the human. That tiny creature had driven a weapon into its head and wielded a power Leviathan couldn’t begin to understand.
He’s strong. Stronger than any human I’ve ever seen.
During the Great Cataclysm, such a thing would have been unimaginable.
Leviathan had roamed the five oceans and sent countless lives to watery graves. Even the humans considered the strongest had failed each time they tried to hunt it.
Leviathan had always been the one doing the hunting.
It had been born a ruler and lived as a predator. In the vast sea, humans had always been prey—not even enough for a mouthful.
Looking back over its long life, Leviathan could think of only one being who had ever forced it to submit.
The master to whom it had sworn loyalty.
The Demon King Asmodeus.
“…!”
In that instant, Leviathan’s eyes, stained with pain and anger, opened wide.
Could this bastard be…?
It had heard of a human who had stood against its mighty master.
Leviathan had never met that human, but he had proved his strength by defeating countless monsters. The last had been the Demon King Asmodeus.
Then could this human really be…?
It had to be. There couldn’t be two humans this strong.
Leviathan’s mistaken conclusion swelled into terror. Its anger vanished, leaving only one thought.
I have to run. As far away as possible. I have to get away from him!
Anger? Fighting spirit?
None of that mattered. If this human had defeated the Demon King Asmodeus, whom Leviathan had served as its master, then its own fate was practically decided.
“GROOOOOOAR!”
Leviathan roared and shook its body.
It thrashed harder than ever, no longer from pain but in a struggle to survive. Yet it did nothing to dislodge the man already settled on its enormous body.
“Shut up. Shut up. Will you shut up?”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Blood sprayed and flesh crumpled. Jin’s tremendous grip tore out scales as tough as they came, pulling them free like cabbages. Flames around his fists crushed flesh and bone.
Thud. Crack!
“Kuhk. Khk.”
The relentless pain nearly made Leviathan black out.
No human should have possessed such strength. In the end, only one way out remained.
The deep sea.
The place where Leviathan had first opened its eyes. An unknown domain deep beneath the ocean that no enemy had ever been able to invade.
If it reached that place, even this tenacious and terrifying human would be shaken off.
Whoosh!
Spray burst upward. Leviathan left the shallows for the open sea and dove deep.
Then it saw the human smiling and realized it had been wrong.
“Now we can finally fight together.”
What?
The question flashed through Leviathan’s mind.
And then—
Whoooooosh!
Deep in the dark water below, countless things gathered into one and blocked its path.
Bones.
They were bones.
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