Ending Maker Chapter 65
Ending Maker Chapter 65
Chapter 20 - Rough Avalanche #2
Yuder and Cordelia opened their eyes at the same time, but they did not immediately sit up. It would have been too conspicuous.
Of course, for Yuder it was a calculated decision that considered the risk of exposure, while for Cordelia it was instinctive.
"Roooooar—!"
Once again, the howl tore through their heads. Cordelia covered her ears in pain, and Yuder was not much different.
'It's close! But it's beyond the barrier!'
The roar was muffled, as though it were coming from beyond a wall rather than directly nearby.
Once the howling began, it did not stop easily.
Eventually, Yuder and Cordelia gave up waiting for the howling to stop and began moving despite the pain.
'That way.'
Yuder gave Cordelia a quick glance and hand signal, then crept forward with his body held low. Cordelia nodded and followed.
The two crawled forward until they reached the rock wall, pressed close against it, and cautiously peeked over the edge to inspect the area below.
"Rooaar!"
The howling was not coming from just one source.
More precisely, the agonized screams themselves were laced with sinister power.
A basin.
There was a huge fissure cutting through the center of the relatively flat summit.
The gap itself was wide and long, as if a waterway ran across the summit.
Moreover, it was no ordinary fissure.
Blue light rippled inside the fissure, and even at a glance they could feel the immense power within it.
And right beside that fissure, a being was screaming.
It was a giant bear.
A pure-white bear nearly five meters tall was chained in place and roaring in agony, while violet demonic energy swirled around it.
'Rough Avalanche.'
The wild god Great Storm had mentioned.
Yuder and Cordelia's eyes met for an instant. They nodded to each other.
The one howling was definitely Rough Avalanche.
And the ones making him howl.
Near the center of the fissure stood a gray-haired man with a pair of large horns sprouting from his head.
Dressed in a pitch-black robe and holding a skull-decorated staff, the horned man chanted an incantation atop a large magic circle. In response, barbarian warriors poured barrels of blood into the fissure.
"Rooaar!"
Each time another ladleful of blood was poured in, the fissure's blue light convulsed and Rough Avalanche screamed in agony.
The violet demonic energy swallowed more and more of Rough Avalanche, and a sinister edge began creeping into his cries of pain.
"Aah! Aaaah!"
Cordelia sucked in a breath at the desperate roar and quickly ducked back behind the rock wall. Yuder lowered himself beside her and met her eyes.
With Rough Avalanche's screams masking them, the two communicated however they could.
"Zaracul."
"An officer of the Devil's Eye."
"He's corrupting Rough Avalanche."
"That ritual over the fissure. I've seen it before."
"The event near the end of Act 2's northern-barbarian arc."
"A ley line? A Dragon Vein?"
"If we leave it like this, Rough Avalanche will be corrupted."
"We can't beat Zaracul. He's a mid-grade Demonic Human. There's no way to weaken him like the Guardian of the Tomb."
"But we have to stop him."
The exchange stopped there, but only for a moment.
"You remember the end of the event, right?"
"No way?"
"That."
"You want to do it in reverse?"
"Let's do it in reverse."
"You lunatic."
Cordelia cursed him first, but the look in her eyes said everything.
Cordelia knew it too.
She knew there was no other way.
"How?"
"Solari's holy spear."
"You're seriously insane."
"So you don't like it?"
"No, I love it."
If they were going to do something reckless anyway, they might as well go all the way.
"But will it really be okay?"
"We have no choice if we want to stop them."
Just as he said that—
"Do you have some kind of plan? Help me! We must stop them!"
A third voice suddenly rang out. Yuder and Cordelia instantly thrust his dagger and Moonlight toward the source.
"A baby bear?"
It really was a baby bear.
A tiny, white, adorable baby bear.
"C-cute."
The moment Cordelia blurted that out, the baby bear spoke urgently.
"I am Rough Avalanche. That over there is my main body. This is an avatar I hurriedly split off from it."
They got the gist immediately. Rather than waste time on side issues, Yuder and Cordelia went straight to the point.
"What are they doing?"
"They're polluting the Dragon Vein! They mean to contaminate the vein running throughout the Wild Lands, steal the wild gods' power, and corrupt the Wild Lands themselves!"
"Dragon Vein?"
"It is a vast circulation channel of power created by the wild gods. They are trying to contaminate it. A wild god draws power from the land, so if the Dragon Vein is corrupted, the wild gods connected to it are corrupted as well. My main body beginning to fall right now is proof."
Rough Avalanche finished the breathless explanation and panted for air. Yuder and Cordelia exchanged another look.
"Dragon Vein."
"Something similar did come up."
In Hero Legend 2, the Wild Lands had already been completely corrupted. Players could only see a polluted current of evil power that could no longer even be called a Dragon Vein, but Yuder and Cordelia understood the gist of Rough Avalanche's explanation.
"We have to stop them! We absolutely have to! The Dragon Vein may be vast, but they won't be operating only on my mountain. If they corrupt enough sanctuaries, the entire vein will inevitably be tainted."
"So they're dumping sewage into the river?"
Cordelia summed it up simply, and Yuder nodded.
"Rough Avalanche, we came here at Great Storm's request."
"Oh! Great Storm! That little runt!"
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that last part. Either way, we have to stop them, but the two of us aren't strong enough on our own."
"Hmm...... I understand. The horned man is truly strong. He used all sorts of strange sorcery and even sealed my power."
Zaracul was a mid-grade Demonic Human. For a wild god with no tribe under his protection—and therefore no worshippers to empower him—Zaracul was simply too much to handle alone.
"But even so, we must stop him."
"Yes, you are right. If this continues, I too will be corrupted and become their puppet."
Rough Avalanche gritted his teeth when his main body screamed again, then pleaded with Yuder and Cordelia.
"Do whatever you have to. If it will stop them, I'm willing to stake my life on it. So please—stop them! Please!"
He was grasping at straws.
But at the words 'whatever you have to,' Yuder and Cordelia's eyes suddenly lit up.
"Did you say you permit anything?"
"We can do anything, right?"
Hearing the two questions come at once, Rough Avalanche felt a sudden chill of unease, but nodded immediately.
"I, a wild god, permit it! Do whatever it takes to stop them!"
"Okay, the homeowner gave permission."
"That makes it feel a little less wrong."
After this baffling exchange, Yuder and Cordelia finished planning in seconds using glances, hand signals, and clipped words only the two of them could understand.
"I'll say it again, this is insane."
"And I'll say it again: does that mean you don't like it?"
"No, I love it."
Cordelia grinned, thumped Yuder once in the chest, and spoke.
"Make it work. And don't get hurt."
"You too."
Yuder grinned back and drew a deep breath. Once he had steeled himself, he kicked off the ground and sprang upward.
"Yahoo—!"
First, he shouted loudly to draw attention.
Even over Rough Avalanche's howling, Yuder's internal-energy-charged shout rang out clearly enough to command attention.
"Who goes there!"
Zaracul barked the stock line and turned toward Yuder. The barbarian warriors reacted just as quickly, tossing aside their gourds and drawing their weapons.
Yuder was satisfied. The moment he landed on the ground, he wrapped himself in holy fighting energy and stepped into the Twenty-Four Gale Steps.
"Whirlwind!"
He shouted deliberately. At the same time, he generated more whirlwinds than usual to draw every eye toward him.
"That idiot Fearsome Horn! I told him not to let anyone interfere with the ritual!"
After cursing the blameless Fearsome Horn, Zaracul snapped a hand forward and the barbarian warriors charged Yuder.
There were eight of them.
They were not simply large; each and every one was a well-trained warrior.
Every one of them was as strong as Knight Jun, who had accompanied them as far as Langesthei.
But Yuder focused on Zaracul rather than the barbarian warriors.
Yuder's job was to draw Zaracul's attention as well as the barbarian warriors'.
'I believe, I believe! Twenty-Four Gale Steps!'
Boom!
Yuder kicked off the ground hard and charged straight toward the barbarian warriors racing at him through the whirlwinds.
But his goal was neither attack nor defense.
The gaps between the barbarian warriors.
He slipped through them. He truly passed through them like the wind!
Swooooosh—!
Whirlwind!
Gale!
The air churned.
Yuder's charge, swift yet smooth, passed through the barbarian warriors in an instant.
"You worm!"
Zaracul reacted at once, swinging his staff to intercept Yuder's charge.
And once again, Yuder broke Zaracul's expectations.
Boom!
It was the sound of him kicking off the ground, not an attack.
Instead of charging at Zaracul, Yuder abruptly changed direction and ran toward Rough Avalanche's main body, and Zaracul's eyes flew open.
Zaracul realized that Yuder's true target was Rough Avalanche.
"Not a chance!"
Zaracul kicked off the ground and charged at Yuder. As befitting a mid-grade Demonic Human, his momentum was terrifying.
At that moment, Yuder burst a pouch he had tucked inside his clothes. The horrible stench rode the whirlwinds he had created and spread across the entire area.
"Ghk?!"
Even a powerful Demonic Human and well-trained warriors could not simply ignore their sense of smell.
The same stink bomb that had screwed over the Fury Wolves inside the Dungeon Book momentarily stopped Zaracul and his subordinates in their tracks.
Boom!
Yuder kicked off the ground again and doubled back the way he had come, moving as though he were near his limit. Zaracul floundered in the stench, then roared and summoned a fierce wind that swept the area clear.
The moment the stench was cleared, he charged at Yuder again.
"You slippery bastard!"
The barbarian warriors also headed for Yuder.
And Rough Avalanche, who had been watching this entire scene through a gap between the rocks, stamped his feet anxiously.
"What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?!"
Yuder's plan to wake Rough Avalanche's main body had failed.
Yuder's movements were astonishing, but that alone could not overcome Zaracul and his subordinates.
Rough Avalanche, his face crumpled with worry, turned his gaze to the side and shouted.
"Child! You should say something too... huh?"
His voice weakened at the end. That was only natural, because Cordelia, who had been with him until just now, had disappeared.
"N-no way?"
Had she run away? Abandoning even her lover?
No. Just as Rough Avalanche began to panic—and while everyone's attention was fixed on Yuder—Cordelia was running too.
"A diversion!"
The moment Cordelia reached the ritual magic circle, Zaracul thundered the realization and whirled toward her.
"She's trying to ruin the ritual!"
She had drawn their attention and was trying to destroy the magic circle.
It was a reasonable deduction, but it was wrong. Yuder and Cordelia—the two rotten fossils—had planned something even worse.
"Hah!"
Cordelia, in her Witchification state, hurled herself into the ritual magic circle. Pouring her witch's mana into Solari's Holy Spear, she fixed her eyes on a single point.
Not the magic circle itself, but the ground beneath it.
The Dragon Vein being polluted.
The fissure itself!
"No way?!"
"Stop her!"
Not only Zaracul but even Rough Avalanche shouted.
What Yuder and Cordelia were trying to do.
It was the same thing Zaracul had done in despair at the end of the Act 2 event, deciding that if he was going down, everyone would die with him.
Overload the Dragon Vein with overwhelming power.
Trigger a massive earthquake and bring the whole surrounding area crashing down with it.
There was a Dragon Vein.
And this place was a mountain.
What would happen if the Dragon Vein was overloaded in this situation?
"No!"
"Stop her!"
But it was already too late.
Cordelia raised Solari's Holy Spear high as it began to blaze with her witch's mana, then shouted with a radiant smile.
"Explosions are art! F**king boom!"
And it really happened.
An intense light rose from the holy spear that had driven deep into the Dragon Vein.
The holy spear exploded, and the released power of Solari caused an even greater explosion.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With a terrifying roar, the earth's axis shook.
Zaracul screamed with a face gone pale, and Rough Avalanche was so shocked that he could not even scream and simply collapsed on the spot.
And the Dragon Vein went out of control. The blue light did not merely surge violently; it began to shoot upward altogether.
Dozens, hundreds of small cracks spread out from the fissure. The entire rocky mountain shook like mad.
"You crazy bitch!"
That was as far as it went.
Zaracul could no longer see Cordelia. Because the rocky mountain had begun to collapse.
"Aaaah!"
"Save me!"
"My mountain! My mountain!"
The last shout was Rough Avalanche's. And Yuder, who had appeared at some point and had been running like mad while everyone was focused on Cordelia, grabbed Rough Avalanche by the back of the neck.
As if lifting a kitten, he picked up Rough Avalanche's duplicate and climbed onto a wooden board.
"Nooooooooo—!"
At the moment Rough Avalanche screamed, the rocky mountain crumbled down.
Fearsome Horn's group, who had been positioned on the mountainside, could not escape the sudden catastrophe. Whether it was the summit or the mountainside, the entire rocky mountain was collapsing, so there was nothing they could do.
"Aaaah!"
The screams of the barbarian warriors were buried in the roar.
The pollutants they had poured in were also flung back out or annihilated by the explosion that occurred as the Dragon Vein went out of control.
Crash, crash, crash.
It was a situation where a rocky mountain easily hundreds of meters tall was collapsing.
In the endless roar, many things disappeared.
The magic circle for the ritual, the polluted blood, Zaracul, the barbarian warriors, and even Rough Avalanche's main body!
"Ahh, ahhh......."
At the moment Rough Avalanche let out a devastated voice, Yuder stretched out his hand through the thick cloud of dust that had risen. And there was someone who grasped that hand.
"Cough, hack. The fine dust is insane."
It was Cordelia, who had shot upward with fly magic at the moment of the explosion.
Cordelia, now a mess from the dust, spoke while coughing, and Yuder sat her down on the wooden board and smiled.
"Fucking boom."
"Because explosions are art."
"Well done, Cordelia."
"Praise me more, more, more."
As always, the two exchanged words that only they understood, looked at each other, and smiled brightly. Rough Avalanche shuddered in many ways at the sight of the two smiling at each other after the atrocity of collapsing a mountain.
And the pure-white rings of light floating up around Yuder and Cordelia.
"Two of them?"
"Two of them."
What the two rings of light meant.
One, there had been unexpectedly many bastards lying in ambush on the mountainside.
Two, they were still alive.
"AAAAAAH!"
A terrifying roar erupted from below their feet.
Yuder and Cordelia lowered their gazes, and Rough Avalanche opened his eyes wide.
Pushing aside large boulders, Zaracul rose to his feet.
The bastard, who had already completed his demonization, stood three meters tall, and his abnormally developed muscles evoked a monster rather than a person.
"You, you...... demonic bastards! What color is your blood!"
To collapse an entire mountain!
At Zaracul's shout, laden with resentment, Rough Avalanche unconsciously agreed, but Yuder and Cordelia paid no mind.
No, they were actually thinking even more demonic thoughts.
"He's not normal."
"He's badly hurt."
"One of his horns is broken too."
"He hastily demonized to survive the fall, and his magical power got tangled."
"His injuries are severe."
"His whole body is covered in blood."
A cold analysis.
Zaracul, whose fighting strength had been halved—no, reduced even more than that.
"We should finish him when we can finish him, right?"
"When he can't use his full strength, when he's weakened, when he's defenseless. When we've got a weakness or a hostage."
"Wow, you really are like a demon."
"So you don't like it?"
"I love it. It's my style."
Yuder and Cordelia looked at each other and smiled again, then placed Rough Avalanche on the wooden board and used fly magic to land lightly in front of Zaracul.
"We will now begin the boss fight."
"The boss fight begins from phase 3."
"What?"
At the moment Zaracul and Rough Avalanche were both bewildered.
Yuder and Cordelia did not drag out their words any longer.
They forcibly started the boss fight.