Chapter 278

Chapter 278

When Zeon opened his eyes, Pantshi came into view, his mouth hanging open in shock.

He was still in the same posture as when he had been pouring the curse onto Zeon.

Zeon thought he had spent quite a long time fighting Deioden, but in reality, only about one second had passed.

Zeon’s gaze met Pantshi’s.

After confirming that focus had returned to Zeon’s eyes, Pantshi shouted,

“H-How? Prison of Chaos definitely took hold.”

Prison of Chaos, as its name suggested, was a curse that placed the mind inside a prison of chaos.

Before the caster dispelled it, the target could never escape.

Once caught in this curse, the target could not regain consciousness, and the body would dry up and die.

But the one who used the curse also had to bear an enormous backlash.

A curse was, by nature, two sides of the same coin.

The world was not so forgiving that one could scatter curses carelessly without paying a price.

To spread a proper curse, the caster also had to pay a price.

Pantshi had given up his youth to use Prison of Chaos.

Deep wrinkles were being carved into his face in real time, and his skin was turning dry and rough.

In an instant, he looked as though decades of time had struck him head-on.

Prison of Chaos had been unfolded at such a tremendous sacrifice.

Naturally, Pantshi had thought Zeon would not escape this curse easily.

Pantshi’s plan had been to make Bessie devour Zeon while he was trapped in the curse. But before Bessie could even fully escape the sand, Zeon broke the curse and regained consciousness.

“Y-You?”

At the unexpected situation, Pantshi could not continue and stammered.

Zeon looked at his forearm.

The Ultra-Heat Gauntlet was intact.

It was proof that he had escaped the curse and returned to reality.

In his eyes, now returned to reality, he saw Pantshi in panic and Bessie trying to escape from the sand.

Bessie was still half-buried in the sand, floundering.

While Zeon had briefly lost consciousness, the hide that had been ground away by Sand Blender was regenerating.

Its regenerative power truly was tremendous.

If left as it was, it would soon regain its original majesty.

Zeon had no intention of letting that happen.

“Sand Gehenna.”

He unfolded the same Skill he had used against Deioden inside his mental image.

The absurd Skill combining the authority of sand and the authority of the Ultra-Heat Gauntlet turned the sand around Bessie into lava.

In an instant, the sand melted down and boiled like lava.

KIIIIII!

At the terrifying heat cooking its entire body, Bessie writhed.

Bessie struggled, trying to escape the lava. But Zeon did not let it.

“Sand Blender!”

WHIRRRR!

The sand that had become lava rotated violently.

Sand Gehenna had literally unfolded upon Bessie.

It could neither flee nor hide.

The ultra-high-heat lava rotated fiercely, scraping away Bessie’s hide and cooking it from the outside.

No matter how much of a Chimera it was, created by combining the strengths of countless monsters, it could not withstand such an attack.

KIIIIEEE!

Bessie began melting from its lower body.

At the pain on a completely different level from its hide being ground away, Bessie howled loudly.

“Aaaargh!”

Pantshi, who shared Bessie’s emotions, screamed as well.

WHIP, WHIP, WHIP—!

As if in a final struggle, Bessie launched its tentacles and attacked Zeon. But the tentacles never reached Zeon’s body.

“Fire Rain!”

That was because Zeon brought down rain of fire and intercepted the tentacles.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—!

With explosive roars, the countless tentacles rushing toward Zeon were engulfed in flames.

At the pain of its body burning away, Bessie thrashed madly. But once the fire caught, it showed no sign of going out.

“Be......ssie!”

Pantshi stared blankly at Bessie.

His Bessie was dying.

He had attacked Archelon to save Bessie, but instead, he had only shortened Bessie’s life.

“I’m going to lose Bessie like this?”

Pantshi bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Without Bessie, he was nothing.

He had been able to display the majesty of a Grade A Curse Caster only because Bessie had been with him.

If he lost Bessie, it felt as though he would return to those miserable days again.

“I can’t allow that!”

Pantshi shouted loudly and leapt toward Bessie, who was engulfed in flames.

The ultra-high-heat flames spread to Pantshi.

At least Bessie, being a Chimera, could endure a little. But Pantshi, who was human, was different.

His body melted in an instant.

Even so, Pantshi smiled.

“We’re together until the end, Bessie! We’ll become one forever.”

Even Zeon clicked his tongue at Pantshi’s madness.

Just then—

As if it had understood Pantshi’s words, Bessie wrapped around him.

For a moment, it seemed as though the two had become one and were melting down together. Then Bessie’s enormous body exploded.

BOOM—!

A mushroom cloud rose in the middle of the desert, as if a nuclear bomb had gone off.

The impact of the explosion formed an enormous crater hundreds of meters wide, as if a meteorite had fallen.

Even Zeon had not been confident he could withstand the explosion, so he had hurriedly dug into the sand and hidden underground. Even so, the tremendous shock wave struck his entire body.

At the impact that felt as though his whole body were being dismantled, Zeon felt his mind grow faint. But he gritted his teeth and endured the pain.

A short while later, after the shock wave had completely vanished, Zeon rose from inside the pit.

No remains were left at the place where Bessie had exploded.

It seemed as though the tremendous explosion had vaporized it without leaving even a trace.

Zeon stared at the site of the explosion for a moment, then turned away.

His gaze turned toward Moby Dick’s domain.

“I wasted too much time. I have to catch up quickly.”

Zeon hurried into the place swallowed by darkness.

---

“It is like the deep sea.”

Pabilsa muttered as he looked around inside Moby Dick’s domain.

When Claire heard his voice, she unconsciously asked back,

“The deep sea?”

“Children born now may not know. Long ago, when Earth was still intact, there was a place called the sea. All kinds of fish and living creatures lived beneath water made of salt water. The deep sea was far down in the sea, and since light could not enter, darkness always lay there like this. That place was......”

“Stop with the useless talk.”

The one who cut off Pabilsa’s words was Lee Jung-ho.

His nerves were extremely taut.

That was because a sense of crisis had assaulted him from the moment he entered Moby Dick’s domain.

Because of that, he reacted sharply to Pabilsa’s words.

Pabilsa apologized.

“I’m sorry. I was so tense that I started rambling without realizing it.”

“I understand, but now is the time to focus every nerve.”

“I understand.”

Pabilsa nodded and looked forward.

THUD! THUD!

Archelon was advancing with difficulty, making heavy footfalls.

Pabilsa did not need to point out the direction.

That was because Archelon was choosing the direction and walking on its own, as though bewitched by something.

“Archelon!”

Pabilsa called Archelon, but it did not even pretend to hear him. No, it seemed it could not hear his voice at all.

Archelon’s eyes had lost focus, as if something had possessed it.

Lee Jung-ho said,

“It will be useless. It seems completely intoxicated by the song.”

“The song?”

“Can you not hear it?”

“Now that you mention it......”

Pabilsa listened carefully.

At some point, a faint sound had been stimulating his eardrums.

The sound, like a whale’s cry, could feel like a song depending on how one heard it.

Claire said,

“It must be the sound Moby Dick is making.”

“Hmm!”

“It is such a mysterious sound.”

She looked toward the direction the song was coming from with an expression as though her soul had left her body.

‘It really sounds like a whale’s cry.’

Pabilsa had lived as long as Jin Geum-ho.

Naturally, he had once heard the cry of a whale, which people of the present era had never heard. Though it had only been through footage shown on television.

The sound he heard now was exactly the same as the whale’s cry he had heard in that footage.

‘Then is Moby Dick a real whale that evolved? Like Archelon?’

He thought that might be possible.

After all, the world now was not normal.

THUD! THUD!

Even at that moment, Archelon was walking in the direction of Moby Dick’s song.

Just then—

FLAP—!

From within the darkness, the sound of something flapping its wings suddenly rang out.

The ominous sound of wingbeats grew rapidly louder with time.

In that instant, Lee Jung-ho swung his sword toward the front.

SWISH—!

With a brilliant flash, something was split in two and fell onto Archelon’s back.

After confirming what had been cut by Lee Jung-ho’s sword, Pabilsa hurriedly stepped back and shouted,

“It is a Vampire Bat.”

A giant bat with a wingspan of more than one meter.

From its snout, teeth as large as the molars of most monsters jutted out.

It was unmistakably a Vampire Bat, said to never let go once it sank its teeth into prey until it had sucked every drop of blood.

The problem was that Vampire Bats never traveled alone.

Vampire Bats were a representative swarm-type monster.

WHOOSH—!

Pabilsa’s uneasy premonition soon became reality.

Countless Vampire Bats tore through the darkness and appeared.

The Vampire Bats attacked Archelon and Pabilsa’s group as they were.

Under normal circumstances, they would not have cared about attacks from mere Vampire Bats. Archelon’s defensive power was not something Vampire Bats could dare challenge.

The problem was that Archelon was now far too weakened.

Unable to unfold its force field, it had to endure the Vampire Bats’ attacks directly with its bare body.

The Vampire Bats’ teeth bit into Archelon. But no matter how large their teeth were, they could not fully pierce Archelon’s thick hide.

In the end, they changed their target and attacked the humans.

“Damn it! Grandfather, come here.”

Kaylee hid Pabilsa behind her and held up a long rod.

BOOM—!

The rod fired a splendid flame.

The firework-like flame swallowed the Vampire Bats.

It was not an ordinary flame.

It was a flame containing white phosphorus, said to never go out once it caught fire.

The long rod was an item Kaylee had created.

Once charged with mana, it could be used ten times.

BANG—! BOOM—!

Kaylee fired flames in succession.

Each time, Vampire Bats were engulfed in fire and fell. But an enormous number of Vampire Bats still remained.

The power of the item Kaylee had made was remarkable, but it was impossible to deal with all the Vampire Bats.

“Children! Calm down.”

Claire used her ability to try to calm the Vampire Bats, but it was useless.

Unlike the Thunder Buffalo, Vampire Bats had no goodwill toward humans at all.

Naturally, Claire’s words did not work.

Just then—

“Everyone, get down.”

Lee Jung-ho’s sharp voice rang out.

Claire, Pabilsa, and Kaylee flattened themselves against the ground without asking why.

SWISH—!

At that moment, a sharp energy passed over their backs with a chilling sound of air being split.

When they raised their heads, they saw Lee Jung-ho holding a single sword and leaping into the swarm of Vampire Bats.

Sword lights created as Lee Jung-ho drew his sword in all directions flashed inside the darkness.

Each time he swung his sword, more than ten Vampire Bats were cut down.

The sight of him using Mind’s Eye to detect the Vampire Bats’ movements in advance and swing his sword was terrifyingly chilling, yet beautiful.

The three of them stared at Lee Jung-ho as if entranced.

It took less than ten minutes for all the Vampire Bats that had covered him in black to vanish.

SLICE—!

Only after cutting down the very last one did Lee Jung-ho slide his sword back into its sheath.

“The efficiency is poor.”

As expected, dealing with this many monsters did not suit his aptitude. He would rather face a single enormous monster instead.

WOOOOR!

ROOOAR!

At that moment, monster cries erupted from all over.

The monsters that had entered Moby Dick’s domain were fighting bloody battles among themselves.

Lee Jung-ho let out a sigh.

“What a fucking mess.”