Chapter 25
Chapter 25
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: Leviathan's Descent
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"Why'd you do that to me? What the hell did I ever do to you?"
Aurora glared at me as she opened her mouth.
"...Shin Yu-hyeon, whether you actually committed those crimes or not doesn't matter to me. I couldn't care less. You were nothing more than... tissue paper, for example. Something to wipe away the filth and toss in the trash. Making an example out of you would've taught a lesson to those beastly men who always leer at me and my club members with their disgusting eyes. That was your role, and nothing more."
What a load of bullshit.
I could see sweat trickling down along her sharp jawline.
Even at her impressive height of 170 cm—which didn't make her look gangly at all—droplets fell onto her impressively full breasts and soaked in.
She was probably using her long-winded speech to cool her body temperature.
Figures a pro athlete would know a thing or two about pacing her stamina.
Since things had come to this, maybe I should give her a bit more time?
It'd be way more satisfying to let this bitch throw everything she had at me with full force—then shatter her head-on.
"Wait, no—my question was off. I can kinda guess why you did it to me... The real question is, how the hell were you able to pull it off?"
"What? I just... exposed all the evil shit you'd been doing..."
"Shut your bullshit mouth before I shut it for you. There's no way a muscle-headed bimbo like you cooked up some elaborate scheme on your own. Shin Nari's no genius outside of studying either. And those retarded fucks Jin Kyung-pil and Song Woo-seop plotting a conspiracy? That's even more laughable.
The third party who framed me. The real mastermind behind it all... Who the fuck is it?"
"Hmph. Why should I explain myself to trash like you? Have you forgotten? I'm an Awakener. Get ready. Things are about to change."
Hwooo!
Suddenly, the air felt heavier. Flip her words around—if she's never fought monsters, that means she's tangled with plenty of humans.
Could someone like Aurora, who's faced off against countless Awakener athletes over the years, really have never dealt with a tough human opponent?
As if to prove it, she switched to a completely different tactic from before. This time, she seemed to be going all-out with her Awakener ability too.
Shuuuak!
She thrust her sword while stepping into an impossibly deep position for a swordsman—way beyond normal spacing. The interval that should've stopped short of me closed right into my inner guard.
"Kuh...?"
She steps to my stance's left side, as if passing by, taps my heel to throw off my balance, then shoves my chest with the fist of her sword hand to keep me from recovering.
A exquisite move from a standing stance that disrupts the opponent's square zone—the area from the solar plexus down to the hips, their base of balance.
For an ordinary human, it'd send them crashing backward into the ground with a bone-jarring impact—a grappling art I'd never encountered, since I only fought monsters.
And since Aurora was an Awakener, her power and speed were clearly above average. Paired with the technique, it was downright impressive.
An ancient style, huh...
True to the name, these old schools of swordsmanship teach not just kata for sword handling, but the grappling techniques derived from them.
Those who train in traditional kendo use that grappling too. They're specialists in ancient-to-medieval Eastern close-quarters combat, revived in modern times.
Don't underestimate old martial arts just because they're ancient—the grappling lineages from schools like Koryu have evolved into Brazilian jiu-jitsu and sambo,
and the joint-locks from Daido-juku grappling birthed aikido.
Old-fashioned in some ways, sure, but with enough potential to evolve into modern martial arts.
And Aurora was a pro athlete Awakener who'd mastered this ancient style properly.
Tap, tap!
The sharply swinging blade combined with incoming grapples. Hard to predict.
'Specialist in human-vs-human combat, eh.'
Not some point-scoring sport with simple slashes—this was full-body tactics, ready to roll in the mud like dogs.
Yet that smoothness and depth never faded.
I was a powerhouse with 30 Strength, but those taps on my joints kept redirecting or scattering my power.
Aurora's Strength was surely under 20, but her grapples amplified it several times over.
"So this ancient grappling was your hidden ace, huh."
Flash!
A chilling gleam—not just hunger for victory, but obsession—flickered in Aurora's dawn-sky eyes.
Much better than before.
Yeah, this was a warrior's mindset. Sure, she was just the queen of the coliseum, never having staked her life against a monster, but against another human? She wasn't someone to take lightly.
Dragging in some whiny little bitch wouldn't give me any thrill of revenge or satisfaction in breaking her.
In that sense, Aurora's desperate stand here was almost welcome.
Shwak!
The moment I acknowledged her as a worthy opponent and prepared to strike back in earnest,
Aurora's wooden sword grazed my forearm.
No edge, just a graze—no wound, no pain. But that wasn't the point.
Out of nowhere,
I felt 'it'.
Kugung!
"Wh-what?"
A sudden roar echoing from nowhere—the kind that shouldn't be here, the kind that makes every hair on your body stand on end in an instant! Monster roar!
An overwhelming presence.
Terror.
Fear.
A colossal body several kilometers long, shrouded in thick, unidentified black clouds billowing around it.
Just gazing at that bizarre, majestic enemy of humanity felt like it was shredding my sanity to pieces.
I staggered back without thinking.
"L-Leviathan?"
Shiver!
Slap!
I shook my head side to side, then slapped my own cheeks. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth as my scattered thoughts refocused—but the despair only deepened.
A monster like that wasn't something a human could face.
It'd take five Kaiju Response Unit commanders to even have a shot.
An ultra-gigantic kaiju whose end you couldn't even see—Leviathan, one of the Four Evils.
Even for a flying type with a wide patrol radius, why would Leviathan come all the way to northern Seoul? Contaminated Area or not, it never ventures this far.
The fight with Aurora was already forgotten. No—had she sensed it and bolted? She was nowhere in sight.
Then, from the Leviathan floating in the sky, a thin something fired out, streaking toward my left shoulder.
A charging strike!
Something I'd normally dodge easily—an attack so slow it was unbelievable for Leviathan's predation—but my body felt like waterlogged cotton, refusing to move.
Puk!
"Kugh!"
Poison? A burning sensation spread from my left shoulder to my fingertips.
As if refusing to let me flee, the next strike followed immediately.
Kwak!
"Damn it!"
I raised my left arm again to block the whipping tentacle. Every movement sent a bizarre, prickling pain like burning needles inside my arm, but better than dying. Sacrificing a busted limb to escape was the play anyway.
That was when it happened.
!?
Confusion Immunity? One of the traits I got from unlocking the special resistances.
But... Leviathan was applying debuffs too?
Poison makes sense. A top-tier transcendent kaiju like that is pure venom just by existing.
Confusion, though?
While I was distracted by the status message, the 'tentacles' kept lunging at me.
Stagger.
"Shit."
My reaction speed was off. Strength felt fine, but signals from nerves to muscles had this weird delay.
Like internet lag—command to move, then 0.5 seconds later it happens.
Even weirder: my body hadn't been shredded yet. Quasi-Grade 2 or whatever, no frail human should tank hits from an ultra-gigantic like Leviathan.
Puk! Puk! Puk!
More tentacles stabbing into my torso.
And...
More system messages popping up, resisting debuff effects that Leviathan's attacks shouldn't even have.
Focus coldly on my body: faint pain, barely there.
This is...
Let me rewind.
Leviathan shows up out of nowhere mid-fight with Aurora.
Attacks way too weak for Leviathan tentacles.
Plus bizarre strikes carrying debuffs that aren't Leviathan's traits.
"I get it."
What the hell this situation really is.
.
.
.
"What are you staring at?"