Chapter 329: Innate Strength (2)
BOOM!!
As Croken rose, the shattered airship tilted once more, then broke clean in half.
The airship, which had withstood the magnetic storm without a scratch, was now breaking apart like styrofoam with just one step from that man.
Watching the alligator-like giant slowly straighten, Lennok swiftly drew on his mana.
“I’ll buy us some time. Get as far away as you can.”
“I’ll help.”
Aris rolled up her sleeves, but Lennok immediately shook his head.
“You won’t be of any help.”
“What do you mean—”
“You’ve already exhausted all your remaining energy from the previous fight, haven’t you?”
“…”
“You’ll only be in the way. Flee towards the satellite city and find Felix.”
Click!
Lennok’s sharp words, as he gripped his rechargeable shotgun, made Aris’s shoulders tremble slightly.
The words were somewhat harsh, but there was no other choice in this situation.
Aris, lacking mana, would be of little help against Croken Asylus.
He needed to quickly make her realize the reality of the situation and get her out of there.
It would be ideal if all three of them could escape together, but Enakphil’s five fingers, which could only teleport them a few hundred meters, couldn’t get them out of this desert area.
Lennok, who had the most energy remaining, had no choice but to buy time and wait for backup.
Aris, too, seemed to grasp the urgency of the situation from Lennok’s tone, biting her lip.
Just as Hina supported her and was about to activate Enakphil’s five fingers,
Croken appeared before her eyes and kicked Hina.
CRACK!!
“Kahak!!”
Hina’s body shot dozens of meters, slamming into a sand dune.
Sand dust exploded upwards, then fell like rain from the sky.
CRASH!
“Don’t move recklessly. It makes me want to kill you.”
Croken, lowering his foot, chuckled.
“Weak. But the reaction isn’t bad.”
“Haaah…!!”
Blood streamed down Hina’s face.
In her trembling hand, the blade she always carried was shattered like glass shards.
Surprisingly, Hina had managed to block Croken’s kick with her blade in that fleeting moment.
Yet, even with a perfect defense, she had only barely survived.
Against the monster before her, even that was nothing short of a miraculous fluke.
“Your reflexes are too good for your level. Is it your work?”
It was a miracle due to Lennok’s augmentation magic, Remnant Thunder Body.
Croken’s yellow pupils, recognizing the reason instantly, stretched long as he looked down at Lennok.
“You’ve gotten quite good. Have you completed your Hierarchy in that time? Hmm, if so, I won’t have anything to say to Myeong…”
No one dared to answer Croken’s nonchalant words as he stroked his chin.
His shocking appearance, having fallen thousands of meters from the sky alone and utterly demolishing an airship.
A body filled with transcendent power, as if that act of destruction wasn’t even real.
Lennok swallowed hard and asked,
“I heard you disappeared from Sector 40 a long time ago… What brings you here?”
“This is why.”
The alligator-like giant grinned and raised his left hand.
Within his hand, covered in thick scales, a black sphere the size of a human head quietly rotated.
Lennok realized it was something that had been attached to the holes scattered throughout the airship and held his breath.
“This airship was equipped with an anti-gravity engine. I needed to confirm if this item was an artifact from the Old World.”
“…”
“I came just in case, but I was wrong. It feels too focused on efficiency to be from the Old World… It lacks that unsettling obsession.”
There was no need to explain how absurd Croken’s cynical mumble was.
The airship was built by the City Council as part of a project. Did he just smash the airship and kill everyone on board simply to confirm the identity of the engine it carried?
As if all the chaos happening in the city had nothing to do with it, Pandemonium continued to move towards its own goals.
BANG!!
A pistol bullet fired from behind. Croken turned his head without even flinching.
Amidst the completely shattered and burning wreckage of the airship, an old man with stars on his shoulders held a gun, glaring at him.
“How dare a mere dog of Pandemonium…!!”
A somewhat familiar voice. It was the same one that had been threatening Lennok just moments ago from the airship.
Given he survived this chaos, the man must possess considerable physical abilities.
The man threw his pistol behind him and drew a sharp saber from his waist.
“You know well how grave the sin of defying the City Council is. I’ll make all of you disappear in the execution grounds…!!”
“Oh, right. I haven’t finished my work yet.”
Croken let out a throaty laugh and leaped down into the wreckage of the airship.
The man charged straight ahead, channeling mana into his saber, his sprint extraordinary even in Lennok’s eyes.
The captain operating a City Council direct airship would surely be a skilled individual entrusted with command.
“Die, monster!!!”
SWISH!
The blade twisted and turned through the air multiple times, bending at more than ten angles in an instant.
It was a sharp strike aimed precisely at the space between the alligator-like giant’s robust physique, where the scales connected his neck and head.
And Croken simply watched the saber blade, then seized the tip of the blade with one hand.
CRUNCH!!
The saber blade bent like taffy under the transcendent grip.
Before one could marvel at such an absurd sight, he plunged the hand gripping the bent blade straight into the man’s chest.
THWACK!
A grotesque sound, like a drum being torn. But more astonishing was Croken’s sheer monstrous strength.
How much power would it take to shove the man’s desperate strike back into him from its tip, crushing his heart?
Croken looked at the man’s face and elongated his teeth.
“Interesting. So, if the Prohibition Edict is lifted, there will be more insolent brats like this, huh?”
“…”
There wasn’t even a scream. The man, eyes bloodshot, collapsed, blood pouring from his entire body.
“That’s something to look forward to.”
SMASH!!
A light flick of the wrist, shaking off the blood. At the same time, the anti-gravity engine component in his hand vanished.
A tearing sound filled the air, and the man’s head disappeared entirely, replaced by the engine component.
Croken, leaving behind the corpse that had collapsed in a fountain of blood, massaged his shoulder and turned his head.
“I’ve finished my business, and killed everyone I needed to, so shall we play properly now?”
“…What do you mean?”
“I got a request from Spider, but truthfully, I didn’t travel all this way just to retrieve this junk.”
“…”
“I thought it was about time to confirm how big a flower that possibility I saved back then has bloomed.”
GRUUUUMBLE…!!
Rising murderous intent. The oppressive weight of mana pressing heavily on both shoulders.
Croken’s bright yellow eyes clearly revealed who this monster’s true target was.
He had known Lennok was here from the start and had participated in this operation.
Croken grinned, looking up at the stiff Lennok.
“Don’t disappoint me. Otherwise, I’ll kill you.”
Immediately after, one step. Croken leaped dozens of meters and swung his fist.
CRASHHHHHH!!!
The sheer pressure from his fist alone caused the desert sand to rise like a tsunami, forming a massive wave.
Overlapping waves of impact erupted. That immense destructive power resonated like a giant’s roar, leaving an elliptical trace in the middle of the desert.
At the center of that monstrous force, which had completely overturned the surrounding sand terrain,
Croken confirmed Lennok standing firm and nodded with satisfaction.
“Not bad. Shall we do more?”
“I have no intention of fighting here…!!”
CRASHHH!
The 10-layer shield and multiple ice walls. Even the resonance of the anti-thunder and deviation-thunder spells Lennok unleashed to offset the impact were nothing more than consumables before Croken.
At this moment, to cling to life, he had to paradoxically counter-attack to negate the blows.
If he turned his back and tried to run, all the spells and measures protecting Lennok’s body would shatter, and it wouldn’t be strange if he died instantly.
‘Damn it…!!’
Lennok quickly glanced at Hina and bit his lip.
In the brief moment Aris had distanced herself slightly to check on Hina’s condition,
It was fortunate they hadn’t been caught in the aftermath of the collision, but at this rate, it was only a matter of time before the shock spread in all directions.
CRUNCH!
The 10-layer shield shattering and instantly regenerating. The barrier constantly surrounding Lennok’s body had a recovery rate superior to its durability.
But Croken, with one hand, crushed the regenerating shield like grains of sand and thrust his face through.
SMASH!
“If you’ve completed your Hierarchy, you should have a new trick to show me.”
“…!!”
“If you don’t want to die, bring it out now.”
Croken said with a wide grin,
“I can’t miss the chance to observe your Domain before the Commander and Myeong.”
“Just for that, you caused all this…!!”
BOOMMMMM!!
“Hoh?”
Croken’s eyes flashed with surprise as he saw the pile of carapaces blocking his hand.
“It’s much tougher than I thought. Did you make this yourself?”
“…”
Lennok remained silent, unable to properly answer Croken’s words.
He had just realized that faint cracks had appeared on the outermost layer of the carapace pile after taking that direct hit.
This meant that even the apostle’s outer shell, which had boasted abnormal strength until now, couldn’t withstand Croken’s power.
This was not an opponent he could hold off with remaining energy.
Realizing this, Lennok steeled his wavering resolve.
WOOSHSHSHSH!!!
A colorless wave erupted from beneath Lennok’s feet.
Croken laughed at the sight, as the wave instantly enveloped the hot sand dust and colored everything in a different hue.
“You should have come out like this sooner, brat!! Do you think you can face me head-on?”
“…I told you from the start I had no intention of fighting.”
Lennok replied, chewing on bundles of mana restoration pills from his pocket.
“I already refused your scout offer a long time ago.”
This was the landscape of his Domain Projection, forcibly unfolded by invigorating the faint remaining mental energy left after defeating Lieutenant General Treffen with Davi’s spirit domain.
He didn’t know how long he could hold out, or how effective it would be, but Lennok humbly accepted that there was no other breakthrough left for him now.
This was not an opponent he could defeat with half-hearted resolve.
A monster with whom he couldn’t even properly exchange blows without a thorough will to kill.
He was certain that only by responding with his full power could his life be guaranteed.
WOOOOONG!!!
In the fleeting moment the colorless wave occupied everything and delineated the Domain, everything instantly grew dark, and a vast void took its place.
Even as he instinctively stepped onto an unavoidable battlefield, only Croken chuckled.
“At least you’re quick to recognize your place, I like that. If you’d dallied a bit longer—”
CRASHHHHHHH!!
At that moment, a sudden bombardment from the sky rained down directly on Croken’s position.
Dozens of shells, fired from behind Lennok, concentrated their fire on the armored mass without pause, magnificently setting it ablaze along with the shattered airship.
THUD!
Simultaneously, a heavy tremor came from behind.
Lennok turned his head, recognized the source of the tremor, and relaxed his tight expression.
It was Mobile Fortress Unit 2, which had been undergoing recharging in the satellite city under the Defense Force’s occupation. Far in the distance, on its deck, stood the bird-headed giant looking down at them.
Felix, having taken over the control authority Lennok had seized, had resolved the situation in the satellite city and appeared to help Lennok.
Felix, carrying a heavy war hammer on one shoulder, raised his hand to give a signal, and the Mobile Fortress’s cannons opened fire,
Hundreds of shells began to pour down, aimed at killing a single man.
CRACKLECRACKLECRACKLE!!!
The incessant roar of explosions overlapped, echoing majestically like a waterfall.
Lennok, rising from the center of that incredible heat, immediately turned his back and ran.
Unfolding his Domain as Croken wished here would be suicide.
It would be tantamount to protecting him from the fortress’s bombardment.
With Croken’s attention now divided, he had to somehow create distance and plan for later.
“Davi…!!”
[I’m ready!]
As Lennok pulled out the monster bike from his pocket, Davi began to assist his movements.
ROOOOAR!!
The bike sped through the rough sand pits, making a long curve as it passed Aris and Hina.
Immediately after, Lennok grabbed the two by their necks with mana threads, sat Aris and Hina on the extra seat, and sped off towards the fortress.
Aris, her face pale, was about to open her mouth to say something when—
CRASHHHH!
From the impact point where the bombardment rained down on Croken, a flash of light burst forth in reverse.
Something shot out at supersonic speed, pierced through the Mobile Fortress’s deck, and exploded inside the fortress.
“Aaahhhh!!”
“Shit, what was that?!”
The distance to Croken was at least a thousand meters.
The freelancers, who had never imagined a counterattack from such a distance, cried out in shock.
Felix, who had been looking down at the ground from the deck, his eyes darkened deeply.
“He’s still the same. That man…”
“Damn it, what the hell is he throwing?”
Pallard, covered in dirt, brushed himself off next to Felix and asked.
Felix, leading the Mobile Fortress to help Lennok, had picked up Pallard, who had escaped the machine sphere earlier, and was moving with him.
“A shell.”
“…A shell? You mean the one we just tirelessly fired?”
“No need for explanations. See for yourself.”
As the sand dust cleared, the scene at the impact point, where thousands of shells had poured down, became visible.
A rain of shells falling from the sky. The alligator-like giant calmly walked amidst the bombardment, which boasted arm-thick caliber shells.
He didn’t even bat an eye at the flames engulfing and burning everything, instead coiling his tail around incoming shells to stop them.
SCREECH!
He threw the stopped shell into the air, grabbed it, and rotated his shoulder joint, then threw it with all his might as if pitching.
The shell, which had disappeared from Croken’s hand, sped towards the fortress at the speed of sound, becoming a dazzling flash of light that shattered the deck and exploded inside the fortress.
CRASHHHH!
“…”
Pallard, on the swaying fortress deck, silently blinked his eyes.
CRASHHHH!
The third flash erupted, and Pallard, who had accepted the reality of this man single-handedly destroying the fortress by throwing shells with his bare hands, asked,
“What the hell am I seeing right now?”
“A monster.”
CLACK!
Felix said, pulling the cylinder on the war hammer’s handle back and forth.
“A god of war whom even our commander can’t guarantee a direct victory against.”
WHOOSH!
Steam hissed from between the heavy hammer, and mana light shimmered faintly.
As the necessary locks were disengaged and the limiter released, dark black mana began to swirl within the hammer’s surface.
“If we keep going like this, we’ll all be torn apart by that man. We need to settle this before that happens.”
“…I don’t know why Pandemonium would appear now of all times. Is this also a trick by the City Council?”
“That’s unlikely.”
Felix scoffed, lowering his stance slightly.
“Because this is how Pandemonium moves.”
THWUMP!
The bird-headed giant’s body plunged dozens of meters downward.
In the middle of the vast desert plain, where sandstorms raged, the two giants met each other’s gaze simultaneously.
Pallard stared blankly at the sight, then clicked his tongue and mumbled,
“…Today, I miss Team Leader Marcia more than ever.”