341. The Deep Sea Matriarch (2)
341. The Deep Sea Matriarch (2)
- 1 -
Kureureureung...!!
"... Ugh."
At some point, I couldn't suppress the groan that escaped my lips.
The force confronting me was growing stronger, slowly but surely.
The quality of mana was nearly equal, but there was a decisive difference between the 'Great Mother' and myself.
A simple, primal difference in 'mass.'
It was the sheer weight of an existence forged by ages and grudges.
- Kuuuuu ——
A low-frequency resonance shook the entire sea.
The surface of the water swelled massively as the master of this ocean began to reveal her true form.
The sight unfolding before my eyes was overwhelming.
'Disgusting.'
This thing had transcended the category of a 'kraken.'
Dozens of tentacles writhed like snakes from a body several times larger than a warship, and among them, four pairs were especially thick and menacing.
Three pairs of protruding eyes, utterly grotesque, emitted an alien light as they stared at me.
Her sticky, clammy power, her very aura, was vividly palpable even through the storm and darkness.
Like filth risen from the deepest trench of the sea, this existence instilled in me a profound sense of revulsion.
Gertrude, the Great Mother of the Deep Sea.
Her presence held a primeval force akin to the sea itself, on an entirely different dimension from that of ordinary krakens.
It was hard to consider her a mere lord-level monster.
"M-Monster...!"
"Aaaah... Aaaaaah...!"
"We have to flee! W-W-Where do we go...!!"
A terror-inducing momentum that stimulated primal instincts.
The screams of ordinary human sailors, scattering in panic, filled the air.
Turning around, my demon beast soldiers were faring somewhat better, but not by much. I could see people collapsing here and there, their legs giving out beneath them.
"They can't come any closer...!"
"Stand up! Block them!!"
Of course, my retainers were different.
Shue and Saya moved without hesitation, fending off the other krakens, while the heavyweights, including Wepar, spread their power to the other demon beasts, washing away their fear.
I felt subtle gazes directed at me, hearts brimming with trust.
- Dungeon Lord...
I turned my gaze forward again.
Jealousy, hatred, rage.
Six crimson eyes, blazing with those three emotions, were glaring at me.
- 2 -
After the first attack—a strike that shot out as if meant to pierce through me in a single blow—Gertrude had revealed herself.
But she, who had seemed ready to charge at any moment, instead slowly withdrew her tentacles and stared at me for a long time.
- Dungeon Lord... A race I haven't seen in a long time.
Her will burrowed directly into my mind.
It wasn't language, but a wave of pure mana and emotion.
- But something is different... What are you?
Her six eyes overflowed with a mixture of clear intelligence, ancient wisdom, wariness, and curiosity.
- From you... I don't smell the scent of a Dungeon Lord. But... I feel a power identical to theirs. What... exactly are you?
Her curiosity dug in like sharp claws.
She must have sensed the power of the 'Dungeon Core' from me.
The fundamental power of a Dungeon Lord.
But at the same time, she seemed to be sensing the other power I possessed simultaneously.
'Interesting.'
The rage and hatred that had been burning so clearly were gradually cooling.
In that process, I noticed that her emotions were 'old.'
Not 'new ones' created just now by my killing of her retainers... but emotions that had accumulated over a very, very long time.
It was an anger layered over ages, a deep-rooted hostility directed specifically at the existence known as 'Dungeon Lords.'
"What you saw is correct. I am a Dungeon Lord, Libertas."
- That's impossible. This is... this power is...
I provoked her.
"I am the one who has come to devour you."
- Ha...!
The curiosity that had briefly flickered in her eyes instantly morphed into hatred.
- As expected... You've come to exploit us again! Even after hundreds of years, you haven't changed!
The emotions that had been subsiding, following my acknowledgment, blazed up again like a volcano.
The flames of an old grudge flickered chillingly within her six eyes.
Emotions began to boil over, mixed with a lament-like rage.
- You Dungeon Lords...
There was no voice, but the emotions conveyed through mana were even more desperate and vivid.
- You have exploited our power, our lives. You used us as tools to satisfy your greed! I... hid... ran away...! I struggled, coughing up blood, just to survive!
A rage akin to a typhoon trapped in a basin, finally being released.
The pain this giant kraken had endured over hundreds of years was transmitted raw and intact.
What filled the space beneath the skin of this giant kraken was not mere flesh, but the layered grudges of monstrous beings.
- Now I...!
Hwooook...!
I unleashed my own power in kind, bracing myself.
The growing power that followed her swelling emotions wasn't something I could simply stand by and watch.
- Will devour you — !!
A power that expanded explosively.
"Come."
With a faint smile, I greeted her charge.
- 3 -
Explosive mana erupted from Gertrude's massive body.
The sea, which had briefly calmed, roared again like a ferocious beast.
Heavy rain poured down, enough to obscure naked-eye vision, and waves that rose as if to cover the sky charged at the 'Black Three Goddesses' and the ghost ships, threatening to swallow them whole.
Chwareureureuk — !!
The seawater and rain, stained with murky mana, surged toward the ships like a tsunami.
The hulls shook precariously, but they held firm under the combined power of Libertas and Wepar.
- Kkieeeek!!
One Kraken fanatic caught in the mana screamed and writhed.
His entire body was melting horrifically with a hissing sound.
It looked as if he had touched a caustic substance that seared his skin.
This wave, imbued with the curse of the deep sea, was no simple water current.
It was an attack containing an ancient curse that corroded everything it touched and drained the life force from it.
Peolleok!
Floating in the air, Libertas unfurled her parasol and held it up.
From the surface of the black parasol, a pitch-black darkness spread, blanketing the surrounding area.
"Ugh...!"
The fierce mana storm that erupted from the collision of the tsunami and the barrier shook the entire atmosphere.
Smaller monsters and fanatics nearby were torn to shreds or simply melted away.
Libertas turned only her eyes, focusing her power by extending one hand toward the 'Great Mother.'
Kwajik!
In the distance, Saya was glimpsed just as she severed the life of one kraken.
Shue was also watching Libertas's side from atop a nearby kraken corpse.
As a result of the two of them steadily whittling down the numbers while Libertas confronted the Great Mother, only three kraken besides Gertrude herself now remained.
She turned her gaze forward again.
'Even so, she's still only paying attention to me.'
The six blood-red eyes never once strayed; they were fixed solely on Libertas, glaring.
I didn't know the reason, but that giant kraken had little interest in the other krakens besides herself.
Despite the fact that the identical nature of their power, along with all circumstantial evidence, clearly suggested they were blood kin or of some similar relation.
I was curious about the backstory of that terrible 'grudge,' but that curiosity would have a chance to be satisfied after the fight ended.
She opened her mouth.
"Shue. Saya. Deal with it."
""Yes!""
As soon as the command, carried on mana, spread out, Shue and Saya threw themselves into the heart of the fight without hesitation.
Shue, wrapped in a red glow, and Saya, her golden wings fluttering, flew through the sky using Libertas's mana, which was laid out in the air as footholds and air currents.
- Do not interfere — !!
Gertrude allocated two tentacles to each of them.
As if swatting at annoying insects.
It was a mistake.
Kwaang — !!
With an explosive sound, Shue's bare hand collided with Gertrude's giant tentacle.
There was no way she would stop there.
Kwakwakwak!!
Red mana erupted between Shue's fingers, instantly burrowing into the surface of the tentacle.
Like a predator clutching its prey.
Simultaneously, Shue, propelling power from her back and from beneath her feet, rotated along Gertrude's appendage and rose upward.
"Just die...!"
As if peeling a fruit, flesh and shell were sliced away along the edge.
Blood and flesh rained down.
- Kuaaaaa — !!
Gertrude didn't even scream.
She let out a mana-infused low-frequency wave and gathered other tentacles to thrust at Shue.
But Shue had already launched herself away and moved on to the next target.
With the explosive propulsion of red mana behind her back, her form scattered like mist, leaving only momentary afterimages before it reappeared near the next tentacle.
She shook Gertrude's defensive line with blistering speed and overwhelming power.
Kkwareureureung — !!
At the same time, Saya became an incarnation of lightning, splitting the sky.
Golden lightning concentrated on her sword, and she swung it like a giant whip, aiming for one of Gertrude's massive eyes.
Peoeok!!
The vast lightning bolt struck the eye of Gertrude, who had been chasing Shue's form.
The lightning burrowed deep into the eyeball, stirring up the mana; the giant eyelid convulsed, and a black liquid poured from the eye.
Along with the stench of burning rotten flesh, the sound of searing meat came from beyond the storm.
Even if she was a lord-level monster, the power of those who received strength from Libertas could not be taken lightly.
- Kuuoooo — !!!
Gertrude was powerful, as befitted her title of the Deep Sea's Great Mother.
Rather than faltering at her own injury, she counterattacked with dozens of tentacles and the mana erupting from her main body.
The skin peeled away by Shue regenerated in an instant.
The eye still imbued with Saya's power hadn't yet regenerated, but that too would only be a matter of time.
The pressure, like the water pressure of the deep sea, crushed the battlefield, and cursed water jets stretched out in all directions.
Tentacles suddenly springing from the sea, sticky ink that obscured vision, low-frequency attacks that dazed the mind followed in rapid succession.
"Kk...!"
"Damn it!"
A chain of narrowly successful evasions.
On the surface, the attacks seemed simple, but that mana, which was fatal even with a mere graze, was deeply threatening.
Kwadeudeudeuk...!!
"「Last Petal」."
Libertas was blocking the most dangerous threats and continuing her own counterattacks and curses, but the Kraken Queen's persistent attacks were accelerating the cracks forming in her mana.
'Ordinary magic won't be enough.'
Libertas fell into brief contemplation.
Gertrude's power was beyond the ordinary level.
To the point that it was difficult to overcome with the power of a pure Dungeon Core alone.
The mana of a monster that had lingered at the lord level for an age contained not just a vast quantity of power, but a fatal 'something' dwelling within it.
"Kk...!"
At that moment, Shue was seen being seized by Gertrude's giant tentacle and dragged into the sea.
Saya also momentarily stumbled from a low-frequency attack, her posture disrupted.
"Shue...!"
The moment she saw them, even briefly, placed in danger, something inside Libertas exploded.
A short cry burst from her lips, she who had momentarily lost her composure, and the restraint of her body, always perfectly controlled by 「Lofty Profundity」, wavered minutely.
Along with that agitation, the color of her eyes deepened further.
The always gentle demeanor vanished, and her eyes, inorganic like marble, stared directly into Gertrude's eyes.
The black darkness that had been swirling around her transformed not just into mana, but into a deeper and deeper 'something.'
It was something her 'mother' had given her, and at the same time, something she herself had developed.
"「Twisted Triaina — 」."
The moment Libertas whispered, enduring the bloody taste rising in her mouth, the surrounding temperature began to heat up strangely.
She elegantly raised the hand not holding the parasol, grasping the empty air.
Sswaaaaak — !
The seawater rose as if forcibly submitting to her will.
The water current, transparent at first, was instantly dyed with a pitch-black darkness.
A color as if swallowing life itself.
The blackened seawater twisted and condensed in the air, soon transforming into three giant spears.
It was similar to the magic that had executed the other kraken moments before, but...
Its density and presence were on a different dimension entirely.
The spears emitted a chilling power, as if drawn from a place deeper than the sea, deeper than the abyss.
They were like curses given substance.
"「 — Gatekeeper's Judgment」."
—— Shwiak!!
Along with the lowly murmured incantation, the three black spears were launched toward Gertrude.
The sound trailed behind the spears.
Aiming for the blind spot in her vision that Saya had pierced.
Peopeopeok!!!
The black spears struck Gertrude's main body simultaneously.
As if transcending space, in an instant.
Tentacles and flesh burst apart, and black blood and ink covered the sea.
The smaller monsters nearby, caught in the aftermath of the magic, were transformed beyond all recognition of their original forms, or screamed as hideous tumors sprouted on their bodies.
- Kuaaaak —— !!
This time, Gertrude truly screamed.
Something was scooping out her insides from within.
- Recovery...!
Regeneration wouldn't work.
Mana wouldn't well up.
Her body wouldn't move.
- Aaah...
Her massive body simply froze.
Because the mana contained in the spears had fixed her own mana to the coordinates of the 'other world.'
It was the moment the tide of battle completely turned.