Chapter 36
Kwaaaang—!!
The wolf’s claws tore through the air.
With a thunderous blast, the wolf’s blow struck the centipede’s head, and the massive body of the beast twisted sideways.
But—
It did not fall.
Srrrrk—
The head that had seemed bent and broken straightened once more.
Dozens of red eyes.
All of them turned toward Gwiwolrang.
Watching that sight, a low sound escaped Gwiwolrang’s throat, almost a groan.
“Yung…”
No answer came.
For a moment, silence.
“…I found you, but…”
Very softly.
“…I’m too late.”
At that instant—
KWAaaang—!!
The centipede, which had not moved until now, moved first.
Its immeasurable body came crashing straight down to the earth.
The shockwave lifted Dohyun’s body off the ground.
The goblin, who had been spreading the formation again, collapsed where he stood, and Geoung was knocked flat once more.
At the center of the trembling ground,
a wound had been carved into the earth by a body that must have stretched dozens of meters long.
Great yokai...
Only now did Dohyun realize that they had been holding back completely all this time.
Dust rose into the air, and the aftermath of the impact, like a bombardment delayed by a breath, came crashing down on them.
The thought of what had become of Gwiwolrang flashed through Dohyun’s mind.
Auuuuuu—
When the wolves’ howls rang out, he knew Gwiwolrang was safe.
High in the sky,
within the haze of dust,
Gwiwolrang floated there, his gray fur now darkened almost to black.
“...”
Gwiwolrang’s eyes, fixed on the giant centipede, turned bloodshot.
Grrrr.
Strength gathered in all four legs.
Then he shot through the air like a ghost.
Silent,
so fast it was impossible to track with the eyes.
In his wake,
the air split a heartbeat late.
With his whole body committed to the charge, Gwiwolrang slammed into the centipede’s body.
KUUUUUNG-!
Only then did the impact catch up.
The centipede’s enormous body staggered for an instant,
but it quickly recovered its balance and rammed back into Gwiwolrang, who had come at it head-on.
Neither of them stopped.
As the two colossal monsters collided again,
the air burst outward as though it had been ripped apart,
and the ground caved in.
The air was driven back.
One beat later,
the earth itself seemed to sink.
The impacts were so violent it was hard to keep his body under control.
For Dohyun, it was almost impossible to keep his eyes open.
Perhaps because of that, everyone except him staggered under the shockwaves and could barely stay on their feet.
Retreat!
The Chungyo tribe the giant centipede had summoned had already been wiped out by the clash of the two beasts.
The troops fled in panic.
Chijijijik—
Dohyun saw cracks spreading through the formation.
The aftereffects of the two monsters’ collision were shattering the array here and now.
I have to go now...
As he watched the army pull back, he saw the battle between the two beasts.
Against a giant centipede with a body so vast it seemed to have no end,
Gwiwolrang charged in with a howl.
Without a trace,
with blinding speed,
he closed the distance,
and his two fangs tore into the centipede’s flesh.
Swoosh—
The centipede’s body moved like a serpent, trying to coil around Gwiwolrang.
The earth rolled upward.
The ground split open,
and bedrock twisted.
The formation could not withstand the force and began to break apart.
Crazy—
The formation Dohyun had chosen to open by force was collapsing.
Purely by physical might.
Watching the fight, Dohyun realized something.
They weren’t fighting on equal terms—
Gwiwolrang was being pushed back.
Gwiwolrang is losing ground...
Little by little, he was being driven back.
No.
They’re in different weight classes.
Gwiwolrang was strong, but not as strong as that centipede.
Kuuung—
The ground rolled over and the struggle grew fiercer, each breath ragged and harsh.
Crack—!
As the formation shattered, the forest beyond—full of ancient trees—came into view.
At the same time,
Dohyun felt the path reconnecting him to the Dungeon widen inside his body,
and the power available to him rise.
But
it was hard to keep thinking like that.
Kwajik—
At last, the centipede’s fangs clamped down on one of the wolf’s legs.
They pierced.
They dug in.
And then they held.
Blood exploded outward—
and Gwiwolrang swung his remaining foreleg.
He struck the centipede’s fangs and barely managed to wrench free.
Blood streamed from the right foreleg, the one that had been barely keeping pace through sheer mobility.
Green blood.
Poison...
His face was getting worse by the second.
By contrast, the centipede’s body was already healing the wounds that had been opened in it.
This is bad...
Auuuuuu—!
The wolves, seeing their chieftain’s battle turn against him, bared their backsides and braced to charge, but—
...No good.
The harder Dohyun calculated, the more helpless it felt.
For a yokai to join a great yokai’s battle was suicide.
We’re in different weight classes.
It was like watching a light heavyweight boxer face a heavyweight.
Even between those two monsters, there was a gap in size and power.
That centipede was larger than Gwiwolrang. Its aura was stronger too.
Great yokai.
That realm was not merely a matter of size.
Kuuung—
Gwiwolrang’s body was driven backward.
“I was wondering where you’d gone, Dragon. So you were here?”
Heok-o?
Heok-o suddenly appeared.
Dangerous. Get out of there.
“Hah. Dragon, this little thing? That’s not dangerous. More importantly—what are you doing?”
...Retreating.
“Huh? If you don’t help right now, that wolf’s going to die.”
...What can I even do? It’s impossible.
Heok-o narrowed his eyes for a moment, then said,
“Hey, Dragon.”
He spoke like a teacher correcting a student.
“The centipede.”
He pointed at the dead centipede lying on the goblin’s spear by the ground.
“You’ve killed plenty of them, haven’t you?”
What does that have to do with anything?
Heok-o smirked.
“Where do you cut it?”
...!
It flashed through Dohyun’s mind like lightning.
The centipede’s body full of life, still moving even after it had been severed.
But—
the moment the connection in the nerve cluster running along the back of its neck was broken, it stopped.
But...
He had already tried once and failed.
“Hey, Dragon! So you’re just going to sit there and give up?”
At Heok-o’s words,
Dohyun’s wavering gaze sharpened again.
One time is enough.
He had gotten inside once before.
He had simply lacked output.
That was all—he had been too weak to pierce the centipede’s vital channels.
Wooong—
As the formation shattered, the Dungeon’s power flowed through him.
Now...
He clenched his arm.
Qi and spiritual energy gathered.
Crack—
The body’s scream traveled up his spine and into his brain.
His shape twisted.
The user’s body was forced beyond its limit.
Duration: Immediate
His shoulder broke.
The user’s body was forced beyond its limit.
Duration: Immediate
It forced itself back into place.
The user’s body was forced beyond its limit.
Duration: Immediate
It twisted again.
The user’s body was forced beyond its limit.
Duration: Immediate
His breathing caught for a moment.
The user’s body was forced beyond its limit.
Duration: Immediate
It held.
And then—
It broke again.
The sensation lagged behind.
The scream of pain thundered through his brain.
...Not yet.
Power beyond his usual limits had entered his body.
He needed more force, more speed.
Crack—
Watching the two monsters battle in the air, he spread power through his entire body.
He took in more Dungeon energy than his body could safely contain.
Grururut—
He could hear his body screaming from the inside.
Dragon Flowing Movement.
The dragon technique that forced the flow of energy through the body in order to move at extreme speed.
As energy beyond its limit rose inside him,
the cloud was crushing Dohyun’s body.
His shoulder broke.
His ribs twisted.
The user’s body was forced beyond its limit.
Duration: Immediate
His shoulder reattached.
The twisted bones were forced back into alignment.
A mist filled his entire body.
No—what flowed through Dragon Flowing Movement was more than mist.
Woooong—
Dohyun’s body moved even faster now, and flight became something closer to acrobatics.
He no longer had the right to fly through a sky shaking with shockwaves.
I won’t die.
So—
Once is enough.
His whole body felt as if it were being crumpled.
For a living being, it would have been enough to kill him on the spot.
The user’s body was forced beyond its limit.
Duration: Immediate
His body rose slowly into the air.
The sky was a chaos of colliding waves of power, but—
...
Thump... thump... thump...
Only the beating of Dohyun’s heart reached his ears, and everything else seemed to slow.
Gwiwolrang’s breathing.
The centipede’s movements.
Even the fine threads of the wind.
The world became clear.
I can see it.
The giant centipede’s head and body.
And the point between them, where the nerve cluster was located.
Dohyun’s gaze fixed there.
Rrrrk—
The sensation of bones twisting tightened his whole body like a vice.
His flesh was crushed.
His bones snapped.
The user’s body was forced beyond its limit.
Duration: Immediate
The body that had been crushed rose again.
The bones were forced back into place once more.
But the sensation remained like a brand burned into his flesh.
Once.
He endured it by force and pushed Dragon Flowing Movement to its peak.
Going beyond its limit, becoming the wind itself, he split the air apart,
and Dohyun’s body vanished.
Time lagged behind by a beat.
The world could not keep up.
There was no sound.
Only Gwiwolrang noticed.
“Yung...”
There was only—
one line left.
...
Nothing had happened, and yet
a beat later,
the centipede’s movements stopped.
...
Nothing had collapsed.
Only—
its motion had been severed.
The red eyes trembled.
Then the giant centipede’s frozen body slowly began to fall.
The red eyes still rolled as if alive,
but it was useless.
Gwiwolrang opened his mouth.
His breath stopped for an instant.
An icy silver light gathered in Gwiwolrang’s maw.
The red eyes flared in a final frenzy,
but it could not move.
With his mouth full of light,
Gwiwolrang spat it out.
Light burst across the world in a single white flash,
and silence fell.
The light vanished.
Slowly, the centipede’s body collapsed.
Gwiwolrang exhaled with difficulty.
He remembered.
Long ago.
The day they first met beneath that radiant one.
Yung, who had once been a small centipede.
He had even bitten him at first, and Gwiwolrang had hated him for it.
But he had been a friend who stood together with him under that one’s rule.
His gaze fell downward.
Yung’s carapace was blackened.
Through the broken shell, black energy seeped out.
It was something from long ago.
For a very brief moment, Gwiwolrang’s eyes wavered.
It was proof of courage.
“So you did it.”
Thinking of Yung hurling himself into that black pool all those years ago, Gwiwolrang looked down with sorrow in his eyes.
-Auuuuuuuuuuuuung-!
On the day the moon rose alone,
the wolf howled alone.
And no one answered.
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