Chapter 756
The desire to live is not a privilege granted only to humans.
If it is alive, if it is a creature with enough intelligence to think, then until the very moment its breath is cut off, it cannot help but struggle.
All the more so for a born predator that had never once even considered death.
Shwaaaak! Splurt!
– Graaaaaaah!
A spear fired from behind burrowed into the lava-like giant body.
In the vision that suddenly turned stark white, Leviathan, screaming in pain, gritted its shattered teeth.
‘I, this body, will not die. Never!’
Leviathan swam with all its might.
But unlike its survival instinct, which was burning fiercer than ever, the fins and tail that had once sliced through the vast ocean like rays of light barely moved.
No, rather, its entire body, once always overflowing with vitality, was steadily growing heavier.
‘Why the hell…!’
Leviathan gasped for breath. But it could not stop here.
It had only just barely succeeded in shaking those bastards off, so a path to survival had opened. All that remained now was to flee as far away as possible and hide.
Whether it took decades or centuries, as long as it survived this place, revenge could come at any time.
Unlike humans, whose fate was to die after barely a hundred years, Leviathan could continue a life close to immortality as long as it had water and Magical Power.
‘In the end, the one who survives is me. Not you bastards, but Leviathan!’
Leviathan forcibly raised its body, which kept trying to sink.
Riding the waves still surging from the aftermath of battle, swept along by the current, it moved toward the refuge waiting for it somewhere far away.
No, it believed it could.
Until something cold and hard blocked its path.
Thud.
A heavy boom and a rebounding force.
‘A reef?’
Amid the hazy question, Leviathan lifted its head. Reflected in the monster’s half-crushed eyes was a steel warship glittering in the sunlight.
And above it, the figure of a human looking down at it.
“Operation complete. We will now secure the target.”
A low voice of unknown destination reached Leviathan’s ears.
Though it was human language whose meaning it could not understand, guessing the intent was not difficult.
– . . .. . .’D-die… die.’
Leviathan gathered every last bit of strength left in its body. It raised the tail that had once smashed dozens of aircraft carriers in a single blow and lashed out at the bastard.
And in the next moment.
Slice.
As it looked at the spray of water scattering weakly in place of the tail that should have stretched for dozens of meters, the monster of myth finally realized it.
Its tail, which had once boasted majestic grandeur, was already gone.
That the streak of flame fired from behind earlier had melted away half its body.
– Ah…
Leviathan groaned. And Choi Minwoo, the human who had broken even the monster’s final hope, looked at the two approaching figures in the distance and smiled faintly.
“Good work.”
“Waaaaaaaah!”
“Woohooo! We got Leviathan!”
At Team Leader Choi’s words, the naval personnel of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force aboard the aircraft carrier erupted into loud cheers.
After coughing up enough seawater to fill a kettle, I barely managed to speak.
“Tell them to shut up. My head’s pounding.”
The Skeleton King, soaked past the point of wet and practically pickled in seawater, added a word of his own.
“Instead of showing up late, tell them to quietly steer the ship. If they keep making noise, this body will summon the vengeful spirits of Pearl Harbor. You know what happens then, right?”
Team Leader Choi nodded.
“Yes. We do another raid on the spot.”
“…Are you serious?”
“I’m joking.”
Leaving the Skeleton King behind with a wounded look on his face, I headed toward the rear of the aircraft carrier.
The giant monster, tightly bound in a magic-enhanced net, was gasping for breath.
– You…
Even with its crushed eyes, the bastard somehow recognized me and muttered like a groan. Sweeping back my wet hair, I waved a hand.
“Yeah, it’s me, you piece of shit.”
– K-kill me. I have not the slightest intention of suffering humiliation at the hands of mere humans.
I blinked silently.
Then I asked Team Leader Choi,
“Did anyone say they were going to let this thing live?”
“Not me, at the very least.”
“Not me either. You?”
The Skeleton King, who had followed behind, answered brusquely.
“Are you insane?”
“Right? I thought I was hearing some bullshit.”
Shrugging, I drove White Flame, which I had retrieved on the way over, into Leviathan’s body.
Thrust! Thrust!
A faint groan slipped out.
It was as if death, which had once again come striding near, flickered in Leviathan’s eyes.
Half its body was already gone.
No matter how tenacious its life force was, wounds like this were beyond recovery.
But before that, there was something I needed to hear from it.
“You should’ve stayed asleep. What made you crawl all the way out here?”
– …Kill me.
“Ah, you can stop worrying about that.”
Splurt! Crrrk.
I slowly twisted the spearblade embedded in its torso. Leviathan, convulsing from the pain of having its bones shaved alive, hurriedly answered.
– F-food! I smelled food!
“An S-Class Magic Crystal Stone.”
That much was exactly what I had expected. I kept twisting the blade as I continued the questioning.
“What bastard woke you up?”
– Woke me?
“How would we know? You would.”
I tightened my grip on the spear shaft.
But the answer that came out with a groan did not change.
– Ghrk. Kuhk. I-I do not know. I was simply starving for a long time, and then I sensed Magical Power coming from the sea.
Was it telling the truth?
I didn’t have to think long.
Because everyone becomes honest in the face of death.
At this moment, with Leviathan having already lost the will to live, there was not even the slightest sign of deceit.
‘Damn it.’
I forcibly swallowed my disappointment.
The culprit who had lured it in with an unrefined S-Class Magic Crystal Stone was obvious enough.
‘Michael Silbert.’
The problem was whether I could prove it.
If there was no evidence that he was the cause of this calamity, no one would believe what I said.
That was the sort of position the current Odin Guild, and Michael Silbert, occupied in the world.
He had gone beyond the title of hero of the Great Cataclysm and reached the point where he could challenge the domain only a single person in human history had ever touched.
‘Under normal circumstances, it’d be impossible even if I died and came back to life… but now the situation’s different.’
Cheon Tae-min.
If Prometheus gifted fire to mankind, then he brought peace to humanity by defeating the Demon King Asmodeus.
A never-before-seen, never-to-be-seen-again feat accomplished not in some myth covered in layers of fiction, but in reality just a few decades ago.
But now, he too had become the past.
To the people living in the present rather than the past, Cheon Tae-min was great, yet too distant to reach, and while still someone they were grateful for, he was also someone more bitterly resented than anyone else.
Now the world was cheering not for a secluded hero, but for the hero moving in front of everyone’s eyes.
For Michael Silbert, one of the countless figures hidden behind the name Cheon Tae-min.
‘…Goddamn it.’
The strength drained out of me.
I pulled the spear shaft that had been buried deep in Leviathan’s body and aimed it at its neck.
The hunt was already over.
Now it was time to take this damned monster’s life.
“Off you go. And don’t you dare rest in peace.”
With that short farewell, I raised the spearblade high.
A bluish-white flame had already settled over the transparent blade.
One strike.
With just one strike, everything here would be finished.
The body of the monster, its strength completely exhausted, would be split like tofu by Aura.
And I did not hesitate.
Whoooong.
Just as the flame was burning the wind as it advanced.
Leviathan, staring blankly at the falling spearblade, suddenly opened its mouth.
– The time has come.
What?
The question flashed through my mind, and I tried to twist the spearblade, but my body, soaked in fatigue as thick as the salt in the seawater, reacted half a beat too late.
Slash, shwaaak!
Its thick neck, several meters in diameter, was cut in half.
Beyond the green blood surging up like a wave, my eyes met the eyes of the monster, over which irreversible death had fallen.
Together with its final thought, which rang out not in my ears but in my mind.
– It was Magical Power that stirred my hunger, but it was you, and this world, that woke me from the deep sleep.
– Now the time has come. Human. Survive, no matter what. Survive until the very end. Survive until the last moment of this world, and witness with your own eyes the day I could not see…
Splash.
The thought slowly scattered, then finally ended like an echo.
At the same time, its gigantic jaws, which had been trembling faintly, dropped onto the surface of the water.
And as I stared in confusion at those eyes from which the light had gone out, a clear chime rang in my ears.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
– You have defeated [Lv.170 Leviathan]!
– You have successfully completed the quest, [Calamity of the Sea]!
– You have obtained an enormous amount of experience and fame!
– Level Up!
– The special debuff, [Ravaged Body], rejects the power of healing!
– [Leviathan] is a powerful S-Class monster and, at the same time, a one-of-a-kind Named Monster. Because you have accumulated an astonishing feat, an additional reward is granted!
– The effects of the title, [Lifeguard], have been further enhanced!
– The title name of [Lifeguard] has changed!
– You have newly obtained the title, [Hope of the Sea]!
Even with the nonstop chiming ringing out like celebratory gunfire, I couldn’t move, seized by a sense of dread for reasons I couldn’t understand.
– The time has come.
And just as those final words Leviathan had left behind stirred through my head once more.
I suddenly realized it.
Ding.
– The Main Quest, [Cataclysm], has been created!
A change so immense its scale could not be measured had already come striding toward this world.
===
Leviathan’s death.
This brief yet intense news reached Japan’s Ministry of Defense first, then spread beyond the Japanese mainland and out into the world.
[Jin Taekyung, Leviathan Raid Successful!]
[The Calamity of the Sea Finally Meets Death!]
[The Miracle of 24 Hours. Asia’s Star Rises Again After the Fall!]
The people who had desperately prayed for the raid’s success while holding down their fear cheered, and the media outlets of every country that had been watching Japan in breathless silence poured out articles as if they had been waiting for it.
[The Dazzling Flight of a Young Hero.]
[Prime Minister B, Defying All Expectations, Boldly Declares at Press Conference. “We kept it. Because it was a promise.”]
[Defense Minister H Abruptly Dismissed. Lament from Key Figures in the Ministry of Defense: “The Defense Minister was considering a kamikaze operation.”]
[A Great Feat Accomplished by Only Two S-Class Hunters!]
[B Netizens Criticize the Government and Praise the Hero. “What in the world was Japan’s S-Class Hunter Yamamoto doing?”, “Make Jin Taekyung the Shogun!”]
[Korean Netizens Mock Japan: “Yamamoto was probably cleaning.”]
Countless articles and news reports swept across the internet like a tidal wave, and at the center of it all there was always one name.
Jin Taekyung.
Asia’s star.
The star that had soared once more after an endless fall.
But even amid the praise and cheers of the entire world, he could not smile.