#44 Never Land (4)
#44 Never Land (4)
[Taurus]
[Height 3.98m] [Weight 1.1t]
[STR 406] [AGI 365] [VIT 429] [MP 214]
[Skill List]
[Tough Skin (E)] [Weak Regeneration (E)]
—A Taurus that looked like a cross between bull and man. And four Stalkers, slightly weaker, with forms that straddled the line between lizard and man.
'...This much shouldn't be a problem.'
But it couldn't end with just these. More annoying ones would show up. No—Perry and I had to rack up kills and cross into Sector 2 as fast as possible, before the boss emerged.
"Groooooooar—!"
Crossing its arms in an X, the Taurus let out a deafening war cry and charged with thundering steps. Its enormous body, channeling every bit of its STR over 400, closed the distance in a flash. It drew its cast-iron fist back past its shoulder and slammed it down with terrifying force. Feeling a dizzying pressure wave, I leaped onto the descending arm.
"——?!"
The bull's eyes bulged as if it couldn't believe what it was seeing. I didn't care. I ran right up its limb. Black flames blazed up in the wake of my sprint. The moment I reached the nape of its neck, the Taurus bellowed in alarm and lashed out with its arms. It tried to gore me with the horns jutting from either side of its head, but my tentacles were already boring into the back of its skull. My shadow pierced through its tough hide and severed the cervical vertebrae. The Taurus promptly collapsed onto the stone floor, its breath cut short.
'...Didn't hold up so well against Steelletons.'
Those things have no vital spots. The problem went beyond stats and skills. Even with Ghost Flame (C), my shadow, tentacles, and Gust, fighting them was a pain. Snatch Devour was the only real option I had. But—
'These guys are different.'
The Stalkers had already vanished. You might wonder where they could possibly hide in this wide-open plaza, but true to their name, they possessed D-rank Stealth. Still, they couldn't fool my detection. The moment I pinpointed them, they snapped back into visible focus.
'You must be getting anxious.'
I hadn't panicked when they vanished, which would make them worry their Stealth had been seen through. In that tense standoff, I devoured the Taurus first.
[Taurus consumed. Experience Points and Satiety increase.]
—I gained a decent chunk of EXP, but when I glanced toward the door, it remained shut.
'So one Taurus isn't enough, huh?'
At that moment, the wavering Stalkers bent their knees and sprang high into the air. A surprise assault—leaping high and attacking from Stealth. Their arms spread wide in an intimidating display. Light glinted off their long claws.
'Idiots.'
I unleashed a volley of spines at them as they converged from all sides, and they crashed down like flies riddled with holes. The spines burrowed deeper into the ones that had collided with the ground. My spiritual field had already saturated the arena floor. I snuffed out their lives, but I ground my teeth.
'...Still not enough?'
[Bul ekinci synoo!]
Other monsters were already emerging from the periphery. I glanced around and used Insight.
[Chechkindüülügüñüzdü dalildeñiz!]
Still nothing. He hadn't appeared yet. I thought I would be okay for the moment.
[Öltürgön adam menen taanyşuu!]
'......Damn it.'
From beyond the outer ring, the silhouette of the one I dreaded most—the Executioner—began to reveal itself.
***
"......We've wrapped things up for now."
Looking around, the Raid Force members were all sprawled out, exhausted. Two days of forced march. The fatigue they felt in Neverland—a dungeon of supreme Malice where you couldn't let your guard down for a single second—was on a different scale entirely.
"What are you doing?! Is this your goddamn living room?!"
Baek Gun-tae's roar made the Raid Force grimace. A hunter could go three days and nights without sleep and still keep a clear head, but that was under normal conditions. The hunters were already knocking back potions and chugging stimulants just to keep themselves upright by sheer willpower.
"Do you all want to die?! The Sector 1 assault isn't over! You want to greet the next wave of monsters in this state?!"
Naturally, Baek Gun-tae and the other Raid Force leaders understood the situation perfectly well.
'I thought things were going smoothly...'
The absence of the Square and the lack of Go-won were far greater blows than they'd ever imagined. Other clans had decided to join in late, but the overall quality and quantity of the Raid Force was lacking. On top of that, they had chicks to protect, which only compounded the exhaustion in an already grueling situation.
'In the end, should we pull back once?'
The plan had gotten a little twisted from the start, but the objective wasn't to clear the dungeon anyway—it was to blockade up to Sector 2. They had enough time. It wouldn't be a problem to regroup with the Rear Unit, take a rest, and then continue the assault...
That line of thought was blown away by Lee Eun-ha's shout.
"Add! One o'clock, six!"
—Monstopia.
In this place, made of endless jungle, there was no rest whatsoever unless every last monster was defeated. They were simply reminded of that fact. The Raid Force members had to force their weary bodies up one more time.
***
The Executioner—a baphomet, a half-man, half-beast monster with the head of a Mountain Goat and the body of a man. The massive scythe it carried boasted horrifying cutting power. This creature was the boss of this plaza—no, without a doubt, the boss of Sector 1 itself.
[Baphomet (Executioner)]
[Height 2.67m] [Weight 448kg]
[STR 651] [AGI 628] [VIT 641] [MP 611]
[Skill List]
[Descent of God (A)] [False Immortality (B)] [Great Magic Power (B)] [Subjugation (C)] [Mitigation (C)] [Regeneration (D)] [Eye for Detail (E)] [Insight (E)]
"Kyu, kyuuuu...!"
Feeling an instinctive terror, Perry burrowed deep into my fur. I frowned at the sight of it.
'......This is way faster than I thought.'
I had entertained the idea it might not show up—after all, it wasn't the Raid Force stepping onto the plaza, just me and Perry. Maybe the difficulty would scale.
'......A miscalculation.'
The Steel Giant. The Underground Demon. Both were powerful monsters, but you could never call them the bosses of Sector 1. The reason? This thing. The Executioner.
'Taking it down is impossible.'
Maybe if I got really lucky, I could beat it—but that outcome didn't exist. If I fought it, I would most certainly die. 100%. Even if I somehow got impossibly lucky and landed a fatal blow, its False Immortality would mend the wounds. Even Broken Finger had been a massive headache with a mere five or six stocks. In this plaza, this thing was essentially an immortal.
'It doesn't even compare to bastards like Broken Finger.....'
It wasn't that Broken Finger, a cadre of the Prodigal Sons, was weak. It was that this dungeon, Neverland, defied all common sense. There was a reason the Raid Force—including the Seven Heroes and Square—had challenged it and failed to clear it. I glanced around and found myself already surrounded by monsters. Strangely, I felt relieved.
'I can just ignore it and wipe out the rest.'
I immediately bolted in the opposite direction of the Executioner. Its head tilted quizzically as black flames erupted and began consuming the monsters. Countless half-man, half-beast creatures that had appeared in the plaza fell one by one, but the Executioner looked utterly unbothered, almost leisurely.
It simply raised its scythe, slowly.
"......!"
The moment it swung the weapon, a support pillar holding up the wall was cleaved apart, sending the outer wall crumbling down in a cascade of debris.
'You've gotta be kidding...!'
It didn't use any special technique—just poured its magical power into a slash. The problem was that its magical power was off the charts. Even if it couldn't cast spells, its Great Magic Power meant it possessed more magical power than Hong Yuri, and all of that was packed into an immortal monster whose physical abilities far exceeded A-Class.
'......!'
Seemingly dissatisfied that its attack hadn't reached me, the baphomet cocked its Mountain Goat head. The tip of the rising scythe gave off a chilling, deadly edge.
'Here it comes...!'
I predicted it the moment it happened—the scythe swung, launching an attack from a distance. The same brutish slash as before, a blow that could freeze your marrow. But dodging a linear strike wasn't too difficult.
As that attack fizzled out, the monster paused, and an ominous aura began to bleed out from its previously motionless form. The surrounding air swirled in the sinister energy, and shards from the stone floor lifted into the void.
"―――."
As the monster muttered something in an incomprehensible tongue, that ominous aura transformed into a sinister gray magical power. In that instant, I snuffed out the lives of the creatures pinned under the collapsed outer wall.
'Got it...!'
At last, the space behind the Executioner began to warp and tear open. At the same time, the Executioner's limbs began to twist at bizarre angles. Its eyes turned completely black, as if the boundaries of its pupils had vanished.
'Descent of God...!'
"Birinchi ölüm jazasy..."
Its skull split open, and tall horns sprouted from the center of its head as its magical power deepened further.
"―――!"
As it slowly transformed, I seized the opportunity without hesitation. I ran at full speed, firing spines packed to the brim with magical power—and every single one of them landed.
'Damn it.'
Yet the transformation didn't stop, as if it couldn't care less. Its Regeneration skill pushed the spines out, and the wounds sealed shut in an instant.
Even as the black flames surrounded and eroded it, even with spines piercing its body, it behaved as if such things were nothing.
'Hurry!'
Perry used Blink, aiming for the open Dimensional Rift. The timing and distance were right, but for the very first time, Perry's Blink failed to penetrate the Executioner's ominous magical power.
"Kyuuuu...?!"
There are ways to stop Blink, like when Hong Yuri trapped Perry inside a barrier. But this case was different. Perry wasn't suppressed and prevented from using Blink; it had used the skill, but the gray magical power suffusing the arena simply blocked the teleportation.
'Fuck...'
Perry trembled in terror at the first failed Blink. I detonated a Gust at maximum strength, rocketing past the monster just as it finished its Descent of God and was about to unleash its full power. In a flash, the baphomet—its body now monstrously enlarged—hammered its Mountain Goat hooves against the ground and gave chase.
"―――!"
Descent of God—a monster already monstrous had become something even more so. The suffocating gray magical power constricted me, a crushing pressure that felt like it would grind me to dust at any moment. If I hadn't learned to radiate magical power in the Illusion Realm, I would have definitely collapsed. Even so, I couldn't fully shake off that will-infused magical power. But I could use Snatch Devour to eat away at its gray magical energy.
"......!"
The erosion clawed at my brain. Eyes wide, I forced my magical power to surge. The quality was just so different...! Even after I'd eaten it, my eyes were bloodshot as if I'd swallowed poison, and my breathing seized up. Just as Mitigation and my own magical power barely managed to restore my body's state—
"......!"
[Faint Sixth Sense (E) Lv.6 proficiency at maximum. Faint Sixth Sense (E) Lv.6 → Faint Sixth Sense (E) Lv.7]
—a chilling sensation made me flatten myself against the ground. A hideous mass of magical power just barely grazed over my head. The Executioner's slash had blown right past the Wolf and cleaved into the open Dimensional Rift.
'......!'
The Wolf did not hesitate. As if there was no time to even think, it launched its body toward the torn Dimensional Rift. The Executioner's jaws, already right at its back, stretched to their limit as if to swallow the Wolf in a single gulp. In that instant, a violent Gust obscured the Executioner's vision.
"―――!"
The next moment, leaving the Mountain Goat to howl in fury, the Wolf—enveloped in the scattering black flames of the Gust—finally succeeded in escaping Sector 1. The moment had been too frantic, too desperate—and so it didn't feel a thing.
—That something had just entered Sector 1 of Neverland.
***
Lee Eun-ha, who had been extending her detection range, tilted her head.
"......?"
It couldn't be, but for some reason... she felt as if she'd sensed an oddly familiar magical power. However, by the time she focused her detection again, that presence had already vanished. Lee Eun-ha chalked it up to exhaustion making her imagine things and knocked back a potion.