『Alright, let’s do this!』
「Nn! Awakening.」
Fran awakened as she looked down at the midgard wyrm from Urushi’s back. She went full throttle right off the bat and immediately activated Brilliant Lightning Rush.
The electricity radiating off her body caused Urushi’s fur to stand on end.
『Let’s start by provoking it and making it raise its head.』
「Got it.」
「Woof.」
『And when it opens it mouth, we hit it with everything we’ve got.』
「Nn! Urushi.」
「Woof woof!」
Urushi slowed down, bravely placed himself right in front of the midgard wyrm, and fired several spells at the creature’s submerged head.
『Leave attacking it while it’s still underwater to me.』
Urushi’s attacks weren’t having too much of an effect, so I asked him to relinquish his role as an attacker for the time being.
Taking his place, I dove underwater. I made a beeline for its face and started blasting it with lightning and explosions.
It ignored the first strike, but the second and third ticked it off enough for it to start to twitch.
『Alright, this should do the trick.』
I threw in a telekinetic catapault just for good measure and charged straight at the monster’s head. I didn’t expect it to do too much damage given the amount I was being slowed by the water resistance, but for some odd reason, the attack managed to get a huge reaction out of the midgard wyrm. It stopped moving and loosed a loud roar the moment it got hit.
「Gyobobobobooo!」
The sea stirred. The massive shockwave spawned from its bellow caused the ocean’s waves to violently rock through my surroundings.
『Woah!?』
I didn’t take any damage from the shockwave, but it sure as hell fucked me up. The resulting water pulses knocked me around and disoriented me to the point where I couldn’t tell up from down.
I was surprised. It seemed really mad, and I didn’t understand why. The telekinetic catapult’s damage shouldn’t have differed much from my spells’.
After hurrying back to Fran, I realized that the wyrm was totally locked onto us. It raised its head out of the water and stared us down with its neck curved like a goose’s. Though its face lacked eyes, I could tell it was giving us a hateful glare. It wanted to kill us so badly that its body had started radiating pure enmity.
「Did something?」
『Dunno. It suddenly got all pissed right after I hit it with a telekinetic catapult.』
「Remembered last fight?」
『Last fight?』
「Nn? Last time, blasted face off with telekinetic catapult.」
『Wait, that’s the same one we fought last time?』
「Nn.」
The monster had higher hp than it did last time we saw it, and I’d known that it was possible for the midgard wyrm to grow infinitely, but I’d still presumed it a different individual.
Fran, however, was somehow able to tell that it was the exact same individual. Maybe it’s just a beastkin thing?
But that would mean that this wyrm’s the exact same one we fed all the monoliths.
『So it remembered me even though it’s dumb as a single celled organism?』
Does it not forget grudges? Oh well, it’s not the only one that still wanted to fight. It was time for us to show it just how much we’d grown since our last conflict, even if we had to end up running away.
It tried chasing Urushi down, but it was far too big to catch him. He could easily slip somewhere it was harder for the massive creature to reach.
The act of him running around bought me enough time to get my spell ready.
『I’m good to go, Fran.』
「Nn!」
We struck the moment it tried to attack Urushi, and launched our attacks straight into its mouth.
『Now! Kanna Kamuiiiii!』
「Haaaah! Black Lightning Advent!」
My spell, a dragon made of pure white lightning, mixed with Fran’s, a burst of jet black lightning, and flew straight into the wyrm’s interior.
I used the sorcery skill to put 80% of the mp I had left into the attack and hit the midgard wyrm with the most powerful Kanna Kamui we’d ever used to date. Likewise, Fran had also poured every last bit of her mana into her black thunderbolts.
The wyrm’s head exploded into a million pieces. Blood and flesh, its body parts, flew all over the place and fell around us like pieces of a deflated balloon. The explosion had been huge; it covered an area 50 meters in diameter.
It caused waves to pour through the ocean and crash into the Algieba. I quickly turned towards the ship out of concern to check on it, and breathed a sigh of relief after confirming it was still fine.
The only reason it didn’t get capsized was because the wyrm’s thick ass body had absorbed most of the impact. In a sense, one could say that the wyrm had actually stopped the ship from flipping over.
Speaking of which, the wyrm itself was a terrible sight to behold. A third of its body was flat out missing. Serpent and centipede type monsters were known for their vitality, but the wound was so bad it looked like it would’ve been more than fatal for any normal member of either of the two aforementioned types.
But the midgard wyrm was an A ranked magic beast, a creature far outside the realm of human imagination. Though its defenses were lackluster, the injury we’d given it was far from fatal.
_______________________________________
General Information
Species: Midgard Wyrm (Sea Serpent Type Monster)
Level 62
HP: 28117/39823
MP: 591
STR: 4139
VIT: 4699
AGI: 108
INT: 5
MGC: 112
DEX: 24
Skills
Absorption: Lv 2
Regeneration: Lv 2
Predation
_______________________________________
It still had over two thirds of its max health, and it was already started to rapidly regenerate.
『Fuck, that thing’s a monster. But we at least managed to slo—oh shit.』
「Not… good…」
Wait, what the fuck!? That thing’s headed for the Algieba even though it doesn’t have a head!? How is it already moving!? Aren’t you normally supposed to wait for your missing body part to regenerate before you start doing shit again!?
Is its brain not in its head, or does it have multiple, like how it has a bunch of different hearts? Wait, does it even have a brain in the first place?
Fuck! Thinking about this shit is just a huge waste of time!
『Urushi, get in front of it again!』
「Woof!」
The only choice I had was use the rest of mana to hit it with another Kanna Kamui. And if that didn’t stop it, I’d have no choice but to use my real trump card.
「Mas…ter… okay?」
『Yeah. I’ll be fine. You can sit back and rest for now.』
「Nn.」
I left Fran to Urushi and leapt off so I could focus on casting my spell. I wasn’t expecting it to do much, I didn’t have enough mana.
『I really want to avoid using Latent Potential Release unless I really have to.』
Things were looking pretty grim. I was probably going to have to have to use it in the end—or at least that was what I thought was going to happen.
『Huh?』
The situation suddenly took an unexpected turn.
I felt a powerful, imposing presence. It was several kilometers away, but it was incredibly overbearing nonetheless. The speed at which the thing came at us was incredible. It looked like it was somewhere around the 500 km/h range.
『Fuck, that thing’s huge!』
There was no other way to put it. The only part I could see was the part sticking out of the water, the thing I presumed to be its dorsal fin. That alone was already 20 meters high and 100 long. I was certain that the thing coming at us was some sort of monster.
『Urushi, get the hell out of here!』
「W-Woof!」
Retreating, I returned to Fran’s side. Urushi was terrified; he was trembling with his tail between his legs. Fortunately, he still somehow managed to move his way back over to the Algieba.
「Master, that, what?」
『No idea. Appraisal won’t work because I can only see its fin.』
That said, I had more than enough information to guess. Its aura carried way more magical energy than the midgard wyrms. It was clearly a monster even more powerful than the one we’d just fought.
「Master, that.」
『I knew it!』
The mystery monster rushed the midgard wyrm and attacked it.
「Gaaaaaoooooooooooooooooo!」
It drove its fangs into the midgard wyrms body and lifted it, and in doing so, showcased its 100m long neck. It was adored from head to tail in beautiful scales, like a kingfisher. I couldn’t help but feel that it both resembled a dragon and a sort of serpent.
_______________________________________
General Information
Species: Leviathan (Oceanic Divine Dragon//Divine Beast)
Lv 87
HP: 92336
MP: 36887
STR: 18139
VIT: 22699
AGI: 3123
INT: 6039
MGC: 9996
DEX: 1698
Skills: Unknown
Description: Unknown
_______________________________________
『Haaaah…hahahaha』
Appraising caused me to break into laughter. There simply wasn’t anything for me to do but laugh. It was so strong I couldn’t even see its skills. It was a veritable S ranked monster, a ridiculously overpowered creature capable of destroying the entire world if it wished to.
Just appraising it had completely drained me of the will to fight.
I immediately began to think of the worst case scenario, and what I needed to do. If the Leviathan attacked, then my only choice would be to abandon the Algieba and focus on preserving Fran.
I would have to teleport us away the moment it showed even the slightest sign of aggression.
Right as I started working out the details, the leviathan looked at us—but its eyes lacked even the slightest semblance of hostility.
Its gaze instead seemed to momentarily reflect a sense of amusement, as if it was entertained The impression only seemed to last for a second, so I wrote it off as just my imagination. Me hoping it wouldn’t antagonize us seemed to have led to a delusion of sorts.
Either way, the leviathan ended up leaving; it turned around and nonchalantly carried off the midgard wyrm despite its desperate struggles to break free of the more powerful monster’s grasp.
『It looks like… it let us off the hook…?』
「Nn…」
「Whimper…」
