#49 Advent of the Demon Wolf (3)
#49 Advent of the Demon Wolf (3)
The moment Executioner raised its scythe, Wolf's eyes sank into a dark trance. As the black mist undulated, Mountain Goat's eyes flared and it brought the massive scythe crashing down. Wolf watched the blade cleave the air and did not move. In the next instant, a colossal gray slash bisected him.
"......?"
—That never happened. Perplexed, Mountain Goat tilted its head and stared at its great scythe. It swung the weapon again and again, yet no slash emerged. The black mist simply coiled around the blade, undisturbed.
"―――."
A low howl. Mountain Goat clawed at the dark fog, but grasping the intangible was futile—the mist merely slipped through its fingers. Even wrapping the mist in magical power to bind it changed nothing. If anything, the black mist devoured the magic. That was only natural. Even a monster wielding Great Magic Power and over 600 points of MP could not pierce the black fog. Black Mist held an absolute hierarchical advantage over all magical power—so absolute that not even the Silent Mouth, an executive of the Heretical Prodigals with unprecedented magic, had been able to breach it.
That edge, however, extended only to magic. When Mountain Goat gave an irritated swing of its scythe, the sheer wind pressure battered the mist aside. In that gap, Mountain Goat struck.
Wolf avoided the gray slash without difficulty. At this distance, knowing the enemy's trajectory made it impossible to be hit.
After two or three repetitions with the same result, the expressionless Mountain Goat began advancing, and the tension in the air slackened. Mountain Goat's shadow rippled. Already eroded under Wolf's Shadow Domination, the shadow pierced its owner but could not dig deep.
'...So it's not going to come easy.'
No—this was a battle that demanded a readiness to die. A Sector Boss of the Calamity dungeon Neverland was never going to be soft. Gray mana trickled from the creature, but the black mist devoured every wisp of it.
Wolf sprang upward, and Mountain Goat looked puzzled. To its eyes, Wolf's speed was painstakingly slow—a fact Wolf himself understood better than anyone.
'I can't win this head-on.'
So Wolf conjured footholds in the empty air and climbed. Once he had established a suitable distance, he launched a volley of thorns ablaze with Ghost Flame (C). Mountain Goat swung its scythe in response. Strength surpassing 600, amplified by magic, stirred a terrible wind. The thorns rebounded toward Wolf—and before they could reach him, they were swallowed by "something unseen," vanishing as though erased from existence. Mountain Goat cocked its head, a question forming.
In that interval, the black mist that had wormed through the wound opened by the shadow burrowed inside Mountain Goat and began to gnaw from within. Normally, expelling something that had entered the body was a function of magical power. This was mana of a distinctly higher order—power that had once even sealed Perry's Blink. And yet, it could not dislodge the mist. The black fog gnawed upward through Mountain Goat's leg from the inside.
"―――!"
Mountain Goat, whose face had remained blank the entire fight, finally twisted its features and howled. It raised its scythe and severed its own leg without hesitation. Blood poured from the amputated limb, forming a dark pool.
Black mist oozed from the severed leg. As if intending to simply crawl back through the stump and resume its work, the fog surged forward again—and Mountain Goat bent its knee. Despite possessing only one leg, the creature launched itself dozens of meters into the air. Wolf, having anticipated this, moved to intercept. He used Elasticity to duck beneath the two-handed scythe swing, kicked off a foothold, and sprang upward again.
'This will work.'
Twisting midair is difficult for anything with a spine. Even a monstrosity endowed with Great Magic Power could not instantly learn to generate footholds. Wolf came around from behind and sank his fangs into the nape of its neck. Mountain Goat let out a shriek of agony.
Even as it plummeted, Mountain Goat wrenched its head around, and from its gaping jaws, the Impure began to spill forth. Its C-rank skill: Subjugation. Turning its body might be hard, but twisting its neck was feasible. Mountain Goat seized Wolf's front leg and refused to let go. A swarm of corruption—countless serpents and insects—shot toward Wolf.
[Faint Poison Resistance (E) Lv.1 proficiency at maximum. Faint Poison Resistance (E) Lv.1 → Faint Poison Resistance (E) Lv.2]
Poison seeped in, but Mitigation and Poison Resistance held it back; the damage was negligible. Ghost Flame (C), igniting a beat later, reduced the corrupt swarm to ash. Mountain Goat's grip was crushing Wolf's foreleg, and Wolf ordered his shadow to sever the creature's wrist. He had expected resistance, but the wrist was cut clean through with startling ease. As Mountain Goat snatched at the falling hand, the ground was already rushing up to meet them. Wolf kicked off Mountain Goat's body with a burst of Elasticity and landed lightly.
The instant Wolf and Mountain Goat reached the ground, Wolf melted into the shadows while Mountain Goat, caught by its overwhelming mass, went flying for dozens of meters.
"―――!"
The culprit was a roaring lion. Its forepaw had caught the Goat squarely and sent it hurtling away. By the time the dust settled, Mountain Goat was wiping black blood from its mouth and reattaching its severed wrist. Regeneration filled in the lost portions of the wrist, but for some reason, the recovery was painfully slow.
"......?"
Mountain Goat extended both arms and tilted its head. As if "something had been eaten," the length of its arms no longer matched. In the end, it tore off the reattached hand and waited for the limb to regenerate completely, and only then did Mountain Goat belatedly register what had happened.
At some point, Wolf had gotten hold of its scythe in his jaws.
***
"......!"
The Baphomet had appeared without warning and gone flying for dozens of meters—that much they could accept—but the sight of Wolf gripping the scythe in his fangs ratcheted the hunters' tension to a breaking point. Meeting those red eyes at close range sent their hearts pounding with the raw instinct of a living creature. Consumed by fear, the hunters leveled their spears and blades, and Wolf let out a short sigh.
As the spears came flying, Wolf watched the volley with chilling calm. Then someone spread both arms wide and planted herself between them.
"Lee Eun-ha. Have you lost your goddamn...!"
The furious hunter never finished his sentence. A single spear bent like willow and swatted aside every blade aimed Wolf's way.
"Disciple of the Spear Saint, what are you..."
Before anyone could ask what she thought she was doing, Eun Ja-rim's cold reprimand cut them off.
"Do you even grasp the situation? The enemy of your enemy is your ally. Do you want to fight three Sector Bosses at once?"
Eun Ja-rim's voice was ice as she asked whether they truly meant to make an enemy of Alpha the Jirisan Warg as well. After a beat, the hunters nodded. They steadied their breathing. She was right. They hadn't failed to think it through; fear had simply overridden their judgment. Perry, arriving belatedly, swatted the hunters with her tail in anger, but to them it felt like nothing more than a pat.
"Kyuuuuu!"
The enraged dragon's roar—a cry that sounded only adorable—broke the standoff. Lee Eun-ha, looking dazed, lowered her arms. A soft exhalation, almost a chuckle, escaped nearby. When she tilted her head and turned, Alpha the Jirisan Warg had already shown them only his retreating back. Eun Ja-rim let out a short sigh and spoke.
"As a member of another clan, I have no right to lecture you... but you are aware that was dangerous, yes?"
Lee Eun-ha nodded at Eun Ja-rim's words. That hunter's "have you lost your mind" hadn't been wrong. The act had been certifiably insane. But Eun Ja-rim's words weren't finished yet.
"...You did well. But don't do it again next time."
Lee Eun-ha's eyes went wide. Flustered, she tried to express her thanks, then realized her voice was utterly shredded and impossible to use; she simply lowered her head in a deep bow. As Eun Ja-rim turned away, she glanced at the ground beneath her feet—the rippling shadow was already settling back into its natural shape.
—Given Alpha the Jirisan Warg's temperament, he wouldn't kill them, just as he hadn't during the Crimson incident. But there was no guaranteeing how far Wolf's mercy would extend. Her stepping forward to shield him was, objectively speaking, not a wrong action even if it wasn't a normal one. Right now, without Alpha the Jirisan Warg's help, the hunters who had turned him into an enemy wouldn't escape the dungeon—they would be annihilated. That much was certain. Her thoughts concluded, Eun Ja-rim re-gripped her spear and charged back toward the White Lion. While the hunters and the beast ground each other down, the mage fought off vertigo and continued her incantation.
"Totul este înghețat și înghețat―"
Now at the fourth verse. The spell was nearing completion when something hurtled through the air and slammed into the ground.
***
"......."
The two Sword Saints kept their distance. When Kang Hoon swung his blade, Kang Tae-jun's brow furrowed. The blazing blue flame and the freezing drop in temperature—Frostbloom—sheathed Kang Tae-jun's sleeves in ice. He pinched the frozen cloth between thumb and forefinger, and the ice crumbled away like powder. He wasn't being overwhelmed in the duel of blades, but the endlessly burning ice-flame was an irritant.
"It seems the closure is nearly upon us," Kang Hoon remarked, as if musing aloud. Yet Kang Tae-jun offered no reply, merely raising his sword and pointing it at him.
'—I must end this quickly.'
Kang Tae-jun exhaled, and his gaze sharpened. In his eyes, which seemed to pierce right through his opponent, Kang Hoon's next movements unfolded in hundreds of permutations—and at that moment, Kang Hoon surged forward. But the reverse was equally true. To the outside world, it was a simple exchange of blows, yet what they saw was not the present but the future.
—The two Sword Saints fought with their blades extended into what was to come. A scripted play. In a battle of calculations, the decisive factor was information about the opponent. Master and student, bound by blood—the two men knew each other to the point of nausea.
But the last fifteen years were a different matter. The duel hinged on that gap. How much had Kang Tae-jun closed the distance? Had the current Sword Saint surpassed the former? The countless silver trajectories—how many in this vast plaza could truly perceive them? Kang Tae-ho scowled.
"Tch..."
In raw physical ability he did not lag behind, but the unfathomable depth of the sword path—that was where his skill fell short. He could track the exchange of moves for a time, but the vision shared by the two of them surely extended far beyond this. The moment a flash erupted and Frostbloom blazed, Kang Tae-jun's sword slipped a step ahead and pierced through Gapju. Despite piercing the vicinity of the heart, no blood spilled.
'They said he became a monster.'
The words were true. Sensing the shades slithering along the blade toward him, Kang Tae-jun detonated the mana infused into his sword, and the specters burst apart into light. With the sword still lodged in him, Kang Hoon seized the blade in his bare hand.
"......."
The grip strength was so fierce the sword wouldn't budge. Kang Tae-jun's brow tightened. Grrrk—Frostbloom crept from Gapju along the steel, and Kang Tae-jun kicked at the sword to force it free, but Kang Hoon didn't so much as stagger. Instead, he swung his greatsword and severed the weapon lodged in Gapju. Even with a blade cut in half, Kang Tae-jun charged without hesitation. Kang Hoon exploited the momentary pause as blue flame flared up, kicking him squarely and sending him flying dozens of meters to crash into the ground. Kang Tae-jun wiped the blood from his lips with his wrist—his sleeve had long since disintegrated—and rose, but Kang Hoon was already gone.
"......!"
The faint blue flame had already passed the White Lion. Meeting that final, blazing glare, Kang Tae-jun chewed his split lip and swept his hair back with a bloodstained hand.
"Dawn Lord. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
Kang Tae-jun twisted his broken blade in acknowledgment of Baek Gun-tae's question. Kang Hoon was right—there was no more time to delay. They had to bring down Snowell, which was blocking the entrance, and escape before the dungeon's Frenzy triggered just before closure. While he was turning the thought over, Kang Tae-jun glanced aside and his gaze fell upon two monsters.
"―――!"
Mountain Goat and Wolf, howling at each other. Executioner, its true form unveiled through Descent of God, and the Demon Wolf wreathed in ominous fog—the battle between the two monsters was hurtling toward its conclusion.