70. Legion of the Black Sea
70. Legion of the Black Sea
The Mulren tribe's legion advanced swiftly.
The blue legion moved across the sea.
Beyond them, on the sea, a black haze writhed.
A Mulren warrior in the vanguard, riding a Silvilia, raised his spear high.
"Halt! They've revealed themselves!!"
At that cry, the Silvilia that had densely filled the sea all stopped at once.
Yuma kicked the flank of his Silvilia lightly.
It was a signal to advance.
Beside him, Bel, likewise mounted on a Silvilia, stuck close to Yuma's side.
Chwaaaa—
They passed countless stationary Silvilia.
He stopped beside Yerkur, the king of the Mulren, who was next to the vanguard.
"Is that it?"
Yuma pointed ahead with his chin.
Darkness.
An energy of darkness, spreading stickily over the sea like leaked oil, filled Yuma and Bel's eyes.
Yerkur nodded firmly.
Bel narrowed his brow.
The black energy was, of course, formidable. Because of the fog stretching out in front of that energy, it was impossible even to gauge exactly what kind of enemy it was.
Yuma looked beyond it with <Searching Eye>.
But perhaps because it was obscured by the fog, nothing was being detected.
"What are you hesitating for? How unlike that vain title of God of War!"
As Yuma and Bel, who had stepped forward, stayed still, a burly man on the left raised his spear, golden aura flaring up upon it.
Kwarurrung!!
And he swung his spear, instantly firing that condensed aura in the form of a slash.
The golden slash tore through and burrowed into the fog.
For an instant, the fog split open as wide as the slash, then the torn wound sealed itself back to its original state, as if healing.
Kuraaaaak!
From beyond the fog, a scream filled with agony was heard.
And then, as if it were a tentacle, something shot out, piercing through the fog.
That was no tentacle—it was a single water dragon (水龍).
Kwadeuk!
"Kyaaaaak!"
The scream echoed along the coast.
It was the scream of the Mulren man who had just fired the slash.
His right shoulder joint had been torn out in the shape of a giant bite mark.
Blood gushed from the man's shoulder.
"Sea Serpent...!"
[Lv.122]
Sea Serpent.
'So the water snakes really are under the command of that one presumed to be Leviathan.'
A roughly 40-meter-long black-scaled water snake.
"Kyaaaak!"
Leaving behind the continuing scream of Rugel, the man whose shoulder had literally been torn off, Yuma readjusted his grip on Balmung.
Kroraaaaak—!!!
The [Sea Serpent] let out a thunderous roar and charged at Yuma.
The [Sea Serpent] swung its maw wide open.
Yuma wasn't particularly frightened by the charge of the water snake, whose every single tooth was like a fang.
That monster's head charging was the same concept as a martial artist's fist.
There was no reason he couldn't parry it.
He had to aim for the parry point of that snout.
The [Sea Serpent]'s blood-red eyes stared directly at Yuma.
Yuma, still mounted on the silver seahorse Silvilia, swung Balmung.
Kwaaaaaang!
The blade of Balmung met the front tooth right in the center of the [Sea Serpent]'s snout.
A heavy, recoiling sensation, like striking a massive boulder with a sword, crawled up Yuma's right arm and permeated his entire body.
A golden, circular impact—signifying a successful parry—spread outward.
<Absolute Counter>
Absolute Counter activated.
There was no time for the force to be sent anywhere. It simply—instantly—seeped into the body of the [Sea Serpent] that had thrust its fangs at Yuma, with ten times the serpent's own power.
The black water snake's movement halted abruptly.
Ttudu—du—dudu—duk!!!
A horrifying sound, the instant shattering of the [Sea Serpent]'s spine and ribs, echoed across the sea.
Kwajik!
And then, its heart burst.
Splash!!
The water snake, boasting a body nearly 40 meters long, became a ragdoll and sank completely into the sea. Recoiling from it, a pillar of water shot upward.
For a moment, Yuma tapped the intact left shoulder of Rugel, who was staring blankly at his divine might, forgetting even his pain.
"Fall back and get treated first. You're a hindrance."
"Hiiiiiek! I'm sorry!"
To Rugel, who had dismissed the title of God of War as mere vanity, Yuma's light tap felt no different from being hammered down by a blunt weapon.
Bleeding profusely, Rugel hurriedly moved his Silvilia and fled to the rear.
Chalrang....
The sea regained its silence for a very brief moment.
From here and there, the voices of the Mulren warriors were heard.
"...That thing used to only die after getting hit directly twenty times or so by a blade or spear condensed with ki."
The murmuring voices were, without exception, trembling heavily.
"E-Everything ended in a single strike."
"So, is that truly the God of War?"
In the sharp gazes unique to the Mulren warriors, admiration was deeply embedded.
"The rumors that swept the continent contained not the slightest exaggeration!"
Hearing that, Yuma stared at the [Sea Serpent] slowly sinking into the deep sea beside him.
From Yuma's standpoint, having killed the thing with one shot of Absolute Counter, he hadn't had a chance to learn how tough it was.
'It was a fairly tough bastard, then.'
Indeed, it was level 122, and the fact that it merely attacked with its body alone must mean its lethality and durability from just its body were that outstanding.
Yuma again felt a pair of heated gazes.
The owner of that gaze was Yerkur, the king of the Mulren tribe.
"No matter that you are the God of War, I had harbored doubts when you brought only three subordinates. But you had your reasons. I am sorry for doubting."
Yuma merely stared back at Yerkur, who said that, with an expressionless face.
'Don't clear up your doubts. Keep harboring them.'
Yuma found Yerkur's wholehearted faith to be quite bothersome.
It was because he grew more tired the more his share of the work increased.
And this was not the land, but the sea—a place full of variables.
"Command the battlefield as you always do. I merely do my part. The dominion of this battlefield is your task."
Yerkur raised his spear and nodded deeply.
"My apologies. I had forgotten my own duty for a moment."
Yerkur raised his spear high.
"Mages of water! All of you, deploy!"
At the king's shout, all the Mulren tribe's mages, including Tisha, began drawing spell formulas in the air.
Immediately after.
Kroraaaaak!!!
With a terrifying roar, over thirty [Sea Serpents] burst out from the fog.
Among them were ones that infiltrated under the sea and were slowly approaching.
Kwaaaaang!
A heavy sound exploded from the seafloor.
Before anyone knew it, a transparent wall had formed in front of the sea, perfectly blocking the advance of not only the [Sea Serpents] breaching the surface and charging ahead, but even those infiltrating from below the sea.
It was the 4th-circle defensive magic <Veil of Water>, deployed simultaneously by over a hundred Mulren mages.
The characteristic of the Veil of Water was that it completely blocked all attacks or infiltrations coming from the opposite side of the caster, while allowing all attacks cast from the caster's side to pass through.
"Warriors, fire your slashes!"
The king's thunderous shout was now directed at the Mulren warriors.
Ooooooong!!
Sword aura and battle qi, condensed on each weapon in a dazzling array of colors, were fired as slashes.
Kwakwakwakwakwang!
Hundreds of sword auras and battle auras directly struck the [Sea Serpents] on the other side of the Veil of Water.
An endless eruption of noise.
The warriors rotated in shifts, firing slash after slash.
The mages likewise rotated in shifts, deploying the Veil of Water spell.
Yuma observed the brilliant deployment of attacks for some time.
Cloné, Hestia, and Bel, who were positioned a bit apart from Yuma, also played their own axis of the offensive deployment.
Yuma looked at Yerkur, who was watching the spectacle alongside him.
"Did you never consider advancing outright to finish those creatures completely?"
"You strike a sore spot, Grand Duke Yuma."
Yerkur let out a sigh.
"That black haze draped over the fog. That is what makes entry impossible. Our warriors can endure it somehow if granted magic, but the Silvilia cannot withstand it. Yet leaving creatures like that and moving only with our bodies is far too dangerous. And... the biggest reason is fear."
"Fear?"
Yerkur nodded heavily at Yuma's repeating question.
"Warriors of the tribe who infiltrated beyond the fog and beyond the haze had their limbs torn apart and were discarded on the seafloor. It was about fifty of them... all of them were advanced experts."
A monster.
Yuma looked beyond the fog with his Searching Eye. Yet nothing was visible.
'So you don't intend to reveal yourself today.'
Leviathan.
It seemed the beast planned to hunt the Mulren tribe quite cautiously.
Yuma had no intention of playing along with this cautious hunt.
'It won't take long.'
Yuma planned to hunt Leviathan before too long.
At that moment.
Wajangchangchang──!!
The calculation of the duration of the <Veil of Water> had apparently gone awry.
Beyond the shattered Veil of Water, over a dozen [Sea Serpents] charged.
Koraaaaak!
Yuma swung Balmung toward the snout of the water snake that was bearing down on him from the front.
Kwaaaaang!
Kireeeek!
The [Sea Serpent], its snout parried, wailed and tumbled onto the water's surface.
<Absolute Counter—Disaster Split>
A skill that allows the use of <Absolute Counter> of identical attack power on up to three enemies, including the original target of 'Absolute Counter.'
Yuma designated one of the [Sea Serpents] massed on the left as the first split attack.
He designated the one in the very center among the [Sea Serpents] dimly visible and gathered underwater as the second split attack.
Ujijijik—!
The [Sea Serpent] that was the original target of Absolute Counter died instantly.
Chwaaaaaak!
A single streak of light carved across the sea, sweeping the [Sea Serpents] massed on the left into the underworld.
The remaining one split attack pierced through the sea like a torpedo.
Kwaaaaang!!
Beyond the <Veil of Water> that was redeployed, the corpses of Sea Serpents floated to the surface.
The warriors also fought desperately, finishing off the remaining Sea Serpents with their slashes.
In the silence.
Yuma looked beyond the fog with both eyes.
Kurrrrrr...
It sounded as if something was grinding its teeth.
"I-It's the cry of the Leviathan."
A warrior's voice trembled heavily.
The anomalous phenomenon visible after the cry was an eye.
Beyond the fog, a crimson eye, densely massed, was visible. There looked to be well over fifty of them.
And that eye slowly began to grow distant.
The black haze and the fog were slowly growing distant as well.
"Next time."
At Yuma's words, the gazes of the entire Mulren tribe concentrated on him.
Yuma spoke while stroking the head of the silver seahorse, Silvilia, who seemed tense from the charging [Sea Serpents].
"When we come out to this sea next time, we do not go back until I have killed that creature."
The Mulren warriors found themselves shouting without realizing it.
"Understood!"
Even the king, Yerkur, had momentarily almost responded with formal honorifics.
"Understood."
He just barely managed to cut off the polite tone at the back of his throat.
"No one died...."
One of the warriors spoke.
That statement struck deep into everyone's hearts.
This time, too, there were quite a few seriously wounded.
But not a single one had lost their life.
The battles they had fought against those creatures up to now numbered five in total.
Each time they had engaged in battle, there had been countless casualties.
Yet this time, not a single person had died.
And so, the Mulren tribe's army all returned safely.