Big and Beautiful (3)
Of all the beasts I had crossed paths with so far, none had been anywhere near as colossal as this frilled lizard.
When the giant crab and crawfish were busy shooting a kaiju movie by the lakeshore, I had simply given them a wide berth. I had done the exact same thing with the master of the reverse waterfall. When creatures grew to that sheer, unnatural scale, their very presence exerted a suffocating aura of dread, making it common sense to avoid confrontation at all costs. I had defeated the mechanical Kraken once before—a monstrosity vastly larger than any of them—but it was only right to treat that incident as an isolated anomaly. There was an ocean of difference between picking a fight with something in its own territory and defending my home against an unprovoked siege. Unless I was backed entirely into a corner, my standard operating procedure was to mind my own business and ignore them completely.
"Kieeeeeeek!"
"Just my damn luck."
Unfortunately, looking away wasn't an option this time. I felt like an idiot who had casually poked a stick into a hornet's nest. I stared up at the chalk-white Giant Frilled Lizard as it flared its neck frill wide and let loose an ear-splitting roar. Purely in terms of sheer bulk, the beast was on par with Cheongseol's mother, Nidhogg. And that wasn't the only terrifying thing about it.
It looks like its body is laced with Adamantium…
While the creature's hide was largely the color of pristine marble, patches of dull, somber gray were mottled across its surface.
Th-th-th-thwip!
The moment the lizard flared its frill, a deadly hail of Adamantium daggers erupted in my direction. Thankfully, because I had already deployed my Protective Gangqi, the volley didn't inflict any real harm. Adamantium was renowned for its peerless hardness, but true cutting sharpness required the painstaking touch of an artisan blacksmith. Even so, the sheer velocity of the projectiles spitting from that frill was nothing to scoff at; a single lapse in concentration could easily prove lethal.
"Master! What do we do!" Ggobongi shouted.
"I'll hold its attention as much as I can! Sir Cain, please protect the little ones!"
Against a leviathan of that size, it was best handled by the one with the highest physical mass and durability—namely, me. Everyone else, aside from Cain and the children, would be far more effective providing tactical support. Given that Ludwig's baseline performance had substantially improved recently, things would at least be somewhat easier than before.
Kwwaaang!
The lizard's massive foreleg came crashing down directly over my head. Fortunately, its attack speed was rather sluggish, allowing me to dart out of the impact zone with ease. Without wasting a single heartbeat after dodging, I swung the Heavenly Demon's Sword in a wide arc. Coated along the edge was the radiant, vivid glow of an Aura Blade.
Craaack!
The Heavenly Demon's Sword was a masterwork blade capable of cleaving ordinary steel like tofu, yet it failed to sever the lizard's thick foreleg cleanly. Burying itself about halfway into the limb was the absolute limit. In truth, I hadn't expected any different. Those Adamantium daggers spraying from its neck frill hadn't just materialized out of thin air.
This bastard literally grows Adamantium inside its own body!
A genuine, bona fide Wolverine had appeared right in front of my eyes. Glancing toward its claws, they gleamed with an equally ominous, unbreakable luster.
"Kieeeek!"
Still, having a blade buried halfway into its flesh clearly hurt. Screeching in pain, the lizard jerked its foreleg back. I hastily yanked my sword free and braced for the follow-up. Given its overwhelming mass, the beast could put us through hell just by thrashing around haphazardly.
"Kaaaaaa!"
Rearing its head toward the cavern ceiling, the monster spread its wide frill once more. A dense storm of Adamantium daggers shot skyward in a silver plume, and moments later, a dreadful spectacle unfolded above our heads. The projectiles had arced across the air and were now cascading down like a relentless, razor-sharp downpour.
I could shrug it off through the barrier of my Protective Gangqi, but the others couldn't.
What about Ggobongi and Ludwig…? Ah, thank God.
Ggobongi had reacted swiftly, deploying an energy shield from his gauntlet to shelter Ludwig beneath its perimeter. Cain had taken similar precautions; the Dullahan's armored frame was so immense that simply planting himself over the little ones was enough to shield them from the deadly rain. The real problem was the lizard itself. Despite unleashing an indiscriminate attack that could easily wound its own flesh, the beast remained utterly unfazed.
"Kyaaaaaah!"
If anything, it lunged forward as though seizing the prime opportunity. The monster paid no heed whatsoever to the Adamantium daggers raining from the sky. Whenever the blades struck its own body, they produced nothing more than sharp metallic plinks before bouncing harmlessly off its thick hide.
The beast was charging straight toward Ggobongi and Ludwig. Meanwhile, the rain of Adamantium continued to pour without letup. If Ggobongi lowered his shield, they would be shredded by the metallic shower; if they stayed put, they would be crushed beneath the rampaging monster. Without a second thought, I sprinted straight toward them. This was a crisis only I could resolve.
Whooosh!
The lizard hoisted its gargantuan foreleg high—the very same limb I had cleaved halfway through only moments ago. Yet, true to the absurd biology of beasts native to the Forest of the Four Seasons, the gruesome wound had already regenerated entirely. What an utterly infuriating pain in the neck.
Impenetrable defense paired with insane regenerative ability… Wait, isn't that just me?
Pushing that pointless thought aside, I glared up at the descending limb. Considering the creature's immense scale, that single foot was wide enough to flatten all three of us at once. I had to stop it, or we were dead.
KBAAAANG!!
Ggobongi's shield shattered like fragile glass, and the mountainous foreleg bore down upon us. Yet no one was crushed. I had planted both feet into the earth, thrusting my arms upward with every ounce of strength I possessed to catch the descending blow.
"Urgh…!"
"O-Ooh…!"
"……"
Seeing me physically halt the downward slam of that colossal limb, Ggobongi let out an awe-struck gasp. Ludwig stared at me with an expression that wasn't much different, though his gaze carried an unmistakable hint of disbelief—as if wondering whether I could even be classified as a human being anymore.
"Krreuk?"
The lizard itself was so baffled that it emitted a confused grunt. Straining every muscle to hold the titanic weight at bay, I quickly surveyed my surroundings. I needed to hold out until the Adamantium shower finally ceased. Thankfully, it didn't take long for the volley to taper off.
Now!
With an inward roar, I gathered all my might and forcefully shoved the massive foot upward. The monster's foreleg bucked into the air, thrown completely off balance—a testament to the external martial conditioning I had relentlessly honed throughout the harsh winter.
Thwack!
In that fleeting split second, I gripped the Heavenly Demon's Sword with both hands and drove it straight into the exposed sole of the beast's foot. This, too, was the fruit of my winter training. Without that rigorous discipline, I would have been satisfied merely shoving the limb away. Instead, I ripped the embedded blade across the flesh in one vicious, sweeping stroke.
Splat!
A fountain of blood sprayed outward as a deep, jagged gash tore through its sole. Howling in agony, the lizard recoiled backward. Taking advantage of the opening, Ggobongi finished preparing an incantation.
"Burn bright!"
FWOOSH!
A roaring plume of flame magic burst from Ggobongi's hands. No matter how dense its interior was, its outer skin had to be vulnerable to intense heat. His strike found its mark flawlessly; engulfed in flames, the lizard writhed in profound misery. Even if its rapid regeneration would heal the burns in short order, landing a clean, impactful blow was victory enough for now.
"A prolonged battle will not favor us," Ludwig warned from beside me.
I was well aware of the danger. The beast's sheer mass was problem enough, but its ridiculous regenerative speed would grind us down into dust if the fight dragged on. To make matters worse, Cain was currently tied down protecting the children, removing him from the front line. The only path to victory was finding a way to deliver a single, catastrophic blow that could obliterate it in one shot.
Its hide is so dense that every single attack has to pour overwhelming destructive force into a single point.
Unfortunately, I was the only one capable of generating that kind of raw firepower on the spot. While Ludwig's baseline combat capability had certainly risen, he lacked the sheer destructive output necessary to breach an Adamantium-laced hide. Ggobongi was in the same boat; despite his growing repertoire of spells, he was nowhere close to summoning something like a Meteor.
There has to be a way…
Keeping one eye on the recovering reptile, I tilted my gaze upward. Something caught my attention.
Hanging suspended above the chamber was the excavation machine—an ancient behemoth far larger than the lizard itself—specifically, its massive circular cutting blade. Because it was an unimaginably heavy piece of industrial machinery, the blade was tethered to the central framework by thick, tensioned cables. My first impulse was to sever the structural joints entirely, but attempting that by hand would be wildly inefficient.
"Ludwig, I have a plan. Do you see those lines up there?"
"The cables connected to the blade?"
"Yes. When I give the signal, cut them down. They aren't ordinary ropes; they're heavy-duty steel cables."
Given the immense stress they were designed to bear, there was a very high chance they were woven from Adamantium as well. To ensure he could cut through them, I handed him the Heavenly Demon's Sword. I could manage just fine using my Mithricon Sword.
"Kyaaaaah!"
Meanwhile, the giant lizard had regained its footing and was charging back toward us. Its scales had taken on a faint reddish tint, signaling that it had flown into a complete rage—likely provoked by the burns Ggobongi's fire magic had inflicted.
"We're out of time! Go, quickly!"
"Understood."
"And watch yourself when those cables snap! They could whip back and tear you in half!"
Ludwig nodded firmly, clearly understanding the lethal kinetic recoil behind severed high-tension cables. Moments later, the lizard flared its frill and unleashed another barrage of Adamantium daggers, but Ludwig nimbly cleared the kill zone just in the nick of time.
"Ggobongi! Now we lure it over there!"
"Understood!"
Our objective was simple: bait the monster directly beneath the excavator's circular cutter blade. Fortunately, with the beast thoroughly enraged, herding it wasn't particularly difficult. The only remaining hurdle was pinning it in place so it couldn't scurry away.
Severing its ankles won't work because of its regeneration. But if I use cold…
Freezing its joints should buy us enough time to immobilize it. I rapidly accelerated the circulation of mana through my core. In the meantime, Ludwig reached his vantage point above. After inspecting the rigging, he yelled down at the top of his lungs.
"It is Adamantium!"
"Ah, damn it all."
Just as I had suspected, the cables themselves were forged from Adamantium. I shouted for him to begin immediately. Adamantium couldn't be severed in a single clean slash; the only option was to saw through the strands with relentless persistence.
As Ludwig went to work on the cables above, Ggobongi and I kept the monster occupied below.
Kbaang! Craaash!
The beast repeatedly flared its frill to spray daggers or brought its massive forelegs down in violent stomps. Its attack patterns were straightforward and predictable; the only truly troublesome aspect was its absurd physical mass. More than anything, it was vital that the creature remained oblivious to what was happening overhead. I had no idea how intelligent it was, but for now, it was entirely driven by primal predatory instinct.
Skrrr-screeech—
After Ludwig had been sawing away for what felt like an eternity, an ominous metallic groan echoed from the excavator's housing. Glancing up, I saw the massive circular cutter noticeably sagging downward.
Under normal circumstances, cutting the primary cables wouldn't cause the entire assembly to drop, but…
Countless millennia had passed. The internal safety mechanisms and emergency brakes had undoubtedly degraded into useless scrap long ago. One might wonder how an ancient machine could still function after deteriorating so severely, but that was an entirely separate matter. Even a desktop computer neglected for over a decade could still turn on when plugged in—even if its monitor refused to display, its graphics card was practically dead, and its hard drives were hopelessly corrupted.
"Krreuk?"
The problem was that the giant lizard finally noticed something was amiss. It glanced down at the encroaching, colossal shadow swallowing the ground beneath its feet. Sensing danger, it tilted its head skyward. It had realized that the gigantic circular blade was slowly descending straight toward its skull.
"Ludwig!"
I screamed for him to hurry. Ludwig was already hacking through the final load-bearing cable. Although the rigging had looked intact from a distance, he had strategically notched and weakened the main structural supports throughout. Severing the final strand all at once would ensure the maximum kinetic impact upon collapse.
"Kyaaaaaah!"
The entire plan hinged on keeping the lizard pinned beneath the drop zone, and that premise was on the verge of crumbling. Feeling the impending doom bearing down from above, the monster scrambled frantically to dart away.
"Slip and slide!"
K-THUMP!
Thankfully, Ggobongi's lightning-fast reaction saved the day. Whatever grease-slick magic he had conjured across the stone floor, the colossal reptile lost its footing and went crashing down in an ungainly heap. The sheer impact of its fall rattled the entire cavern, but it bought us the precious seconds we desperately needed.
"Kyaaa! Kyaaaah!"
Scriiiitch! Clack!
It wasn't over yet. Finding the stone too slick for its padded feet, the lizard began furiously digging its razor claws into the rock, dragging its massive body forward. If it managed to crawl out now, all our painstaking effort would go down the drain. What did that leave me to do?
"Where do you think you're going?!"
I lunged forward, grabbed hold of its thick, elongated tail with both hands, and dug my heels in with everything I had. As typical of a frilled lizard, its tail was exceptionally long, trailing far outside the slick radius of Ggobongi's magic. Realizing its tail was pinned, the beast thrashed wildly. Every time it tried to squirm, I yanked back with brutal force. Whenever it twisted its bulk toward the edge, I hauled it back toward the center. Thanks to Ggobongi's frictionless spell coating the ground beneath its belly, dragging that massive bulk was surprisingly manageable.
PING!
A sharp, high-tension snap reverberated from above. The moment I heard it, I snapped my head up. The weakened cables had finally begun to give way, snapping one after another in rapid succession. The colossal cutting wheel began its fatal descent, and the lizard's frantic struggles reached a fever pitch.
CRACK-SNAP!
To put the final nail in the coffin, the corroded iron support struts snapped cleanly under the immense strain. Age had eroded their structural integrity past the breaking point. Deprived of all support, the titanic blade plummeted directly toward the lizard's thrashing skull.
K-CRUUUUUUNCH!!
With an appalling, sickening crunch of rending flesh and shattered bone, the immense industrial weight crushed the beast into the earth.
No matter how dense its Adamantium-laced hide was, and no matter how absurd its regenerative vitality might be, nothing could survive having its skull and torso utterly pulverized into a flat paste under hundreds of tons of solid steel.
Just as the ancient Wizard King, Kadir, had once brought down a dragon using the raw, kinetic physical force of a falling Meteor…
Flump.
I, too, had successfully subdued the Giant Frilled Lizard through almost the exact same principle.
"……"
At that exact moment, Maengkkongi's dramatic battle BGM ground to a complete halt.