Chapter 165: Mercy of the Creature
The whole rear guards were positioned some distance away from him, but even from where he stood he could see how the entire group had been pressed backward step by step until there was nowhere left to retreat. The dozens of grotesque creatures surrounded them in a tightening circle before eventually cornering them against a cracked stone wall.
"Keep shooting! We must halt them from advancing any farther."
"There's just too many of them... damn it!"
"My arrows are out of stock... anyone give me some immediately."
"Coming!"
Asphy and the other archers were desperately drawing their bowstrings again and again, their fingers raw and trembling as they released arrow after arrow toward whatever weak spots they could glimpse between thick fur and snapping jaws, but there was simply no end to the advancing mass. The arrows struck, some embedding into eyes or joints, some merely bouncing off dense hide, but even when one creature fell another would immediately crawl over its corpse, their movements too swift and erratic to properly track.
"You're not going anywhere, bastards."
A man wielding a long spear stood at the forefront, his boots sliding against the water-covered ground as he thrust the weapon back and forth in a relentless rhythm, not allowing a single monster to cross the invisible line he had drawn in his mind, each stab meant to buy only another second, another breath, another fragile moment of survival.
"The creature on the left got a severe injury on its chest. Everyone attack in unison. Let's bring it down together."
"Ugh... not again! It keeps dodging my spells like they are nothing. It's pissing me off!"
"Hey, someone back me up... I'm out of mana."
"Fall back, idiot!"
Behind the spearman the mages continued casting their spells without pause, streams of fire and shards of ice bursting outward in flashes of light, but the creatures had the ability to sense any spell thoroughly, which meant most spells struck nothing but air. Although a few of them did hit due to the overwhelming number of targets, scorching flesh and freezing limbs in place, the damage remained far from enough to halt the tide that pressed upon them.
The leader herself remained positioned behind them all, continuously pouring water to keep it from running dry again, her focus entirely consumed by maintaining that flow, leaving her unable to direct her full attention toward anyone else... for now.
"Crap!"
At some point Asphy's fingers slipped from her bowstring, whether from exhaustion or frustration he could not tell. Instead of reaching for another arrow, she abruptly threw her bow aside before drawing the dagger-like weapon at her waist, then she leapt into the fray without hesitation and began swinging in wide desperate arcs. Her blade carving into fur and flesh as she tried to cut down as many creatures as she could within her limited reach, positioning herself like a barrier so that none could pass beyond her, but even she must have understood that her strength alone could not stem such a flood. At that moment, it became painfully obvious that within a minute or so the rear guard would inevitably collapse as well beneath the overwhelming numbers.
Kael looked over his shoulder once more, and this time a harrowing expression slowly formed across his face as his eyes settled upon a sight that made his breath catch.
Some distance away, surrounded but momentarily ignored by the creatures that prowled around her, Serow sat motionless while leaning against a shattered section of the wall. Her once soft clothing torn apart in countless places, the fabric hanging loosely from her shoulders and thighs, exposing the pale skin beneath that under different circumstances might have been called beautiful, but what lay revealed now was nothing but grotesque clawed wounds that split her flesh open as blood flowed freely down her body and pooled beneath her.
One side of her slender thigh had been torn open so severely that pale bone seemed visible beneath shredded muscle. Her face, once gentle and composed, was now stained crimson, her expression distant and clouded by pain as her chest rose and fell in shallow uneven breaths, her eyes still somehow searching until they found him and lingered there without strength.
That sight left a bitter taste in his mouth that no words could properly describe.
'Ah, how terrible! I don't think she will be able to live.'
He forced himself to look away.
Not far from Serow, three men lay scattered across the ground some distance apart from each other, their bodies riddled with countless shallow cuts and several deep gashes that had torn through armor and skin alike, the metal of their gear carved with grooves so severe that some sections had been completely torn away, exposing bloodied flesh beneath. They were still alive, their chests faintly rising, but it was clear that such fragile signs of life would not last much longer under the current circumstances.
A short distance away from them two battered adventurers stood side by side, desperately swinging their weapons in frantic arcs to prevent the encroaching monsters from finishing off the wounded behind them.
Behind those two defenders lay a girl with a severe wound carved across her chest, the fabric there soaked through and clinging to her skin, while beside her knelt a young man whose entire body had been splattered bright red by her blood, his own injuries seemingly forgotten as he held her tightly against him with trembling arms, his eyes fixed upon her unmoving form in stunned disbelief.
"Get a grip, man!"
"We're holding them off for now, so bandage her quickly unless you want to let her die, you bastard!"
"We... can't... we can't win!"
"Hell, we will win. Trust in our leader... Mistwalker! I believe she will pull something off... she hasn't even used her magic yet, haven't you seen?"
"How... can you be so sure of it?"
"I don't know, dude. Truth be told, she was nothing more than a ghost to me not long ago. I never actually believed she even existed to begin with since she never appeared in front of anyone before. However, after watching her in person and fight like a monster, it gave me the impression that she could do anything somehow. So, I'm just trusting my intuition here. Besides, we've got the Sword Princess too, you know. She promised us she wouldn't let anyone die, I just hope that she can fulfill it till the end."
"Isn't... it nothing but a delusion, though? The whole vanguard has fallen apart, we're not even sure if those are alive or not. The rear guard will fall soon enough too, then what? We also don't have anywhere to run now, they have surrounded us from all sides. We're still alive only because those wretches are trying to enjoy themselves killing us. No, but really... how many do you think the leaders will be able to kill? Dozens? Fifty? Hundreds? And after that... what then?"
He paused for a moment then added, his breath uneven and laced with despair.
"There's just no end to them... they keep coming over and over again as if a mountain of them were waiting somewhere below, ready to flood this place at any moment. Wouldn't the leaders eventually be tired too? Besides, the boss hasn't even shown up yet. How can you still have hope left? Just admit it... we're all going to die here. We all will die."
"Don't spout such nonsense, you damned coward. We can win. No… we will win, even if I have to tear my own limbs apart to make it happen. I can't die here… I refuse to die here. My little daughter is waiting for me outside these cursed walls. So, I have to go back alive, no matter what. Otherwise, there would be no one else left to take care of her anymore, I can't let her lose her father the same way she lost her mother. I have to go back, even if I have to crawl my way out with these broken limbs. I have to."
"We'll die... we'll die... we'll die."
Kael could vaguely hear what they were talking about through the deafening clash of steel and the guttural roars that echoed across the hall, but he knew without needing to listen closely that their words carried the weight of a grim reality that none of them wished to acknowledge openly.
'So, they still have some spirit left within them despite standing on the brink of death. That alone is worthy of praise.'
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
'Huh? What the hell is that idiot doing now? Has he finally lost his damned mind?'
Some distance away, Valric stood directly within the teleportation circle itself, the very gateway from which monsters poured out in waves without pause, dozens emerging at once from the lower floors, and that reckless bastard had positioned himself right in the heart of it. The moment a new group materialized, he did not allow them even a breath to comprehend their surroundings before his greatsword rose and fell in brutal arcs, cleaving torsos apart, severing heads cleanly from necks, splitting bodies in half as though they were nothing more than brittle wood.
However, it was far from an easy task to maintain such a reckless stand, since although the creatures arrived disoriented and vulnerable during that brief instant of transition, they still came in overwhelming numbers, which meant he could only cut down a few before the rest lunged outward in frenzy, some charging at the nearest adventurers while others hurled themselves directly at him with unrestrained savagery.
At the same time, he had to endure the continuous assault from the monsters that had surrounded him on all sides, their claws scraping against his battered armor and their jaws snapping close enough to graze his skin.
Worse still, the teleportation circle itself was treacherous in nature, since the slightest lapse in mental focus could cause him to be transported to another floor against his will. So, he had to maintain absolute clarity of mind without thinking of any floor at all or keep uttering the name of the first floor, anchoring himself through sheer discipline while continuing to swing his blade without hesitation.
'Well, lost his mind or not... he is actually doing a great job holding them off. If not for him, we would have been overwhelmed beyond measure long ago. Truly, what a monstrous fellow.'
The fallen corpses that accumulated upon the circle were periodically swept aside by a sudden surge of water conjured by his comrade, washing the bloodied remains away and granting him a fleeting moment of stable footing before the next wave arrived.
Even so, his condition was far from pristine.
The intricate designs engraved upon his armor had been marred by countless impacts, deep grooves carved across the once flawless surface while certain plates had bent inward under relentless pressure, beyond any hope of simple repair. His expression remained calm and cold as ever, almost detached from the battle around him, but blood trickled down from his forehead along the sharp lines of his face, staining his features crimson.
'And yet he has no title to match that spectacle. Not a single cool nickname, really. What a waste of legend in the making.'
Not that such things truly mattered in the midst of survival.
'The veterans are still fighting as though victory is within reach, even when the battle already reeks of defeat… but what about the other two leaders? Where are they now? Still searching for the boss while this hall turns into a graveyard? How foolish!'
He had never expected Seraphina to appear so indifferent in a moment like this. Sure, she carried herself with cold detachment most of the time, wrapping her true self behind a composed and distant facade, but he had always believed that beneath that frosted exterior lay a heart far gentler than she allowed others to see.
Then how could she turn such an obvious blind eye to this desperate situation? Why had she not stepped forward to save anyone yet, despite possessing the power to turn the tide in a single devastating spell?
Why had she not unleashed her magic again?
It could not simply be hesitation born from fear of the boss… could it?
Was she restraining herself because her spells were too lethal, because if the boss were to divert them even slightly they might slaughter her own comrades instead, given that most of her incantations were designed to annihilate everything within their radius? She had always exercised extreme caution whenever she cast, measuring distance and angle with almost obsessive precision, after all.
Was that the only reason behind her inaction, or was there something more beneath that silence? What exactly was she planning, all of a sudden?
Looking forward, he saw his wife dancing between a horde of creatures and slicing their heads clean off their shoulders in a single, fluid motion, her silver hair trailing behind her like a cascading waterfall that shimmered even beneath the dim and bloodstained light of the hall.
'I still can't understand her at all. But if you are waiting for the perfect moment… then you had better make it count.'
He turned his head.
At the exact opposite side of his wife, Mistwalker kept massacring an entire horde all on her own, without sparing even a glance toward anyone else as though the world around her had ceased to exist. Her figure blurred at times, not because she was moving too fast to follow, but because the drops of black blood that sprayed into the air created a curtain between her and the others. Wherever her blade traced its path, bodies collapsed upon the water-covered floor in a slow, dreadful sequence.
He did not know why she was hiding her true strength in this battle, yet at some point he realized that she truly was.
If he compared it to what he had witnessed that day when she fought those goblins, then her current movements felt somewhat restrained in comparison. Although those goblins had been of far lesser rank than the creatures she was facing now, that alone did not justify the difference he was sensing unless something was deliberately holding her back. The enemies before her did not appear faster than her, nor did they seem capable of obstructing her in any meaningful way, and their thick fur, though resilient, did not seem enough to explain the subtle heaviness in her strikes. Back then she had drawn her weapon once and the battle had ended almost instantly, but now she was swinging it repeatedly, each cut precise but lacking that overwhelming swiftness he remembered.
'Isn't it a little bit strange?'
Then again, his peculiar ability often distorted his perception of reality whenever he shifted his body, blurring the line between what was truly happening and what he believed to be happening, so there remained the possibility that he was mistaken as well. The creatures' fur was unnaturally tough, their bodies dense and resistant, and it could very well be that cutting through them required more force and time than he assumed, which in turn made her movements appear slower than they truly were.
'I must've imagined it... perhaps?'
Regardless of his doubts, the situation of the battle had long shifted from bad to worse, and what little hope they had once clung to now felt like a distant memory slipping through their fingers. Perhaps they had already lost, and the only thing left was to witness how it would end.
The leaders might still find a path to survival somehow, as individuals of their caliber rarely perished without exhausting every possible means, but saving the rest of them while doing so would be an entirely different matter. Most of the frontline members were teetering upon the brink of death, their bodies marred with grievous wounds that demanded the intervention of at least an S-Ranked healer, a luxury they did not possess within this suffocating hall. So even if the leaders attempted a desperate rescue, they would hardly manage to save anyone at this point.
Speaking of which, his own condition was no better, in fact he could barely move at all. It was still surprising enough that he hadn't gone unconscious yet.
Whether he liked it or not, the sole reason he and the others were still alive was because the boss desired it to be so, and it was that simple. He did not know what the creature intended to do with them yet, but the way its minions had surrounded the wounded without finishing them off made its intentions painfully obvious. In fact, that was the whole reason why he dared to move his body in the first place.
'Ah... it feels awful to be at the mercy of a creature. Just what the hell does it want from us to go to such an extent?'
Wasn't it obvious?
The creature had remained here only because it had been trapped within this hall for a long time. Unable to leave on its own, it had dispatched its minions outside instead, for what reason? To find a way out, of course. When a group of adventurers entered the spacious chamber from the outside world, what conclusion would such a being draw? It would simply assume that they possessed knowledge of an exit, that they carried within them the key to its freedom. Even a creature with a primitive mind could reach such a deduction through instinct alone.
'So, it wants to know how to get out, huh? Damn, when did I start understanding creatures? Not that it matters, though, because it's going to show itself... isn't it?'
As if answering to his question, the lesser creatures began to move aside, their grotesque forms retreating in a slow and deliberate manner that created a wide, empty space at the center of the flooded floor, where nothing remained except shallow water tinted black and the scattered corpses of those who had fallen.
Then, from within that clearing, a massive figure revealed itself, rising from the drifting haze like a nightmare given flesh. Smoky tendrils of shadow seeped from its thick, needle-like glistening fur, coiling lazily around its enormous frame as though the darkness itself clung to it. Its grotesque face was obscured by three star-shaped formations made of writhing tentacles that pulsed faintly with a dim glow.
When it finally lifted its head and released a deafening growl, the foundation of the hall seemed to tremble from the pressure of it, halting the ongoing battle in a single, suffocating instant.
Everything froze in place, humans and monsters alike. Every clash of steel, every ragged breath, every distant scream vanished at once, leaving behind a suffocating silence that pressed heavily against the ears.
The wounded adventurers, battered and barely standing, lifted their trembling gazes toward the massive creature standing in the middle of the battlefield, its towering frame casting an overwhelming shadow upon them, and within their battered hearts there was nothing left but fear, or perhaps something even deeper than fear.
In the next moment, the creature raised its enormous hand and aimed its claw at someone... no, not just someone, but directly at him out of all the others.
All gazes shifted toward him.
Kael's eyes widened.
'Crap!'
The creature nearest to him lunged forward with terrifying speed, its clawed legs cutting through the shallow water and sending violent splashes outward behind it.
But despite the imminent danger rushing toward him, he could not move.
He could not move at all.
No matter how desperately he commanded his muscles to obey, they refused to respond... it felt as though he was attempting to drag an entire mountain instead of his own exhausted body.
'Ah... I'm so tired.'
Time seemed to be slowing down as the creature's claw hovered merely an inch away from tearing his handsome face apart, its sharpened edges gleaming coldly before his eyes. His body struggled desperately to react, straining with everything it had left, but it managed only the faintest twitch, a pitiful fraction of movement that would never be enough to save him.
Within a split second, he was certain he would die in the most pathetic way imaginable, crushed beneath an attack he could neither block nor evade. There was no one near enough to intervene, no one close enough to reach him in time.
'Ah!'
How had it all come to this?
Everything had been proceeding well until now, so where had they gone wrong all of a sudden, and what mistake had they even made to deserve such an overwhelming force crushing down on them? Was it not unfair to corner an enemy to this extent, to drown them beneath sheer numbers without granting even a sliver of a chance to resist? How were they supposed to win in a situation that had never offered them a choice to begin with?
'No point in regretting my choice now. Luck isn't on my side today, not that it ever was.'
Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes and braced himself, accepting the inevitable.
But nothing happened.
A few seconds passed, then a few more, and still nothing came. The attack that had been poised to tear his face apart never came, as though it had never been meant to strike him in the first place. Was he hallucinating, perhaps? Or had death decided to toy with him one last time?
He opened his eyes cautiously, and what he saw caused his jaw to drop ever so slightly.
'Oh, right! I almost forgot...'
The creature had indeed attacked him and still hovered above him, its claw poised to finish him without hesitation, but it could not complete its assault. Not because it had been commanded to stop, but because its entire body had been seized in mid-air by countless tendrils formed from raging water waves that surged upward from below and bound its limbs one by one, tightening relentlessly and refusing to grant it even the slightest movement no matter how violently it struggled.
He blinked a couple of times.
'...she's the embodiment of water itself.'
At that very moment, the boss released another deafening growl, one that carried the weight of an urgent command after it sensed the sudden shift in danger.
The minion creatures that had been surrounding the battered and broken adventurers in a tightening circle reacted without delay, their glowing facial tentacles swaying in eerie unison while countless claws lifted and glistened under the dim light, and with renewed aggression they lunged toward their earlier prey, intent on finishing what they had started.
"Is this really how it ends for us?"
Some froze where they stood, some broke into desperate cries, and some raised their weapons with trembling hands in a futile attempt to defend themselves as the dire situation escalated throughout the hall.
Seraphina, Mistwalker, and Valric were each entangled with dozens of creatures at once, their movements relentless and unyielding, but they could not break away to save the others at that moment, or so it seemed. They did not spare even a single glance toward the collapsing lines behind them, as though nothing beyond their current opponents mattered and as though they had long prepared themselves to abandon any who could not keep up.
As countless creatures surged forward to tear apart the remaining party members, Mistress of Waves stepped forward from the corner where she had been standing, her movements calm and unhurried despite the collapsing battlefield around her, each step sending gentle ripples across the water beneath her feet. Her ash-like messy hair swayed softly around her delicate face, partially concealing her expression as though she had no need to reveal it yet.
With graceful elegance, she brushed a few loose strands behind her ear and let out a soft chuckle that carried both amusement and authority, "Oh my. Is it perhaps my chance to shine? How delightful. What can I say? I have been waiting for this moment far too long. Very well then, my brave warriors... allow your weary eyes to witness a spectacle worthy of remembrance, a miracle woven by none other than your devoted mistress. Do try not to blink, would you?"
Raising her hands together, she formed a square hand sign in front of her as she peered through the narrow gap between her fingers while tilting it slightly.
Incandescent violet flames danced within the depths of her sleepy eyes as a darker tone seeped into her voice.
"Come forth, Water! Destroy them all!"
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(Chapter Ended)
To be continued...