Book 17 Chapter 39
Chapter 124
Old Rulers, Ancient Madness Summoning the Sea Wind (13)
“Link, Link, Link!”
At that moment, Link, after a bloody back-and-forth with Divanugo the salmon shark, finally managed to enter the <Carsico> interior!
“You, get-out-of-my-way.”
Divanugo had found this guy, who kept interfering whenever it tried to eat humans to fill its belly, truly annoying and bothersome since earlier.
But now, it was even irritating.
Being irritating meant it couldn't be dealt with. Link persistently clung on, protecting lives, and it couldn't shake him off.
“Kyah, Kyaaaaahk!”
“A mon-monster!”
Had it not been for the barrier cast by Tajirmum, the Blue True Dragon, more than half of the refugees would have had their brains explode from madness and died the moment Divanugo entered the city.
“Link, Link, Link!”
Bloody Link, thrown by Divanugo again and again, horribly covered in blood, urgently shouted to the citizens.
Their languages were not understood.
But that desperate emotion, the meaning of his desperate shouts while fighting for them, was deeply conveyed to the hearts of all the refugees.
‘He's telling us to run away….’
‘Who on earth is he…?’
‘Going to such lengths for us….’
That sight, that heroic appearance, was vividly etched into the memory of all the islanders!
It was the reason why, later, the Tersh Archipelago would be called Linkland, and why a statue of Link would be erected at the lagoon entrance to <Carsico>!
And the reason this hero would take root here also stemmed from the bloody battle of this day!
“Mister… don’t lose!”
A girl cried out with a tearful voice.
Then, the citizens, who had been holding their breath and watching the bloody battle, all raised their voices.
They cried out the words, like an incantation, that the nameless hero repeatedly shouted, as if weeping!
“““Link! Link! Link! Link!”””
Even with the cheers of refugees filling the city, the disparity in strength was clear!
The opponent was a great being!
Link had no choice but to keep holding onto Divanugo and pushing it outside, which led them to the wharf section… that is, the lagoon area!
‘Oh, no… that place.’
Tajirmum, who had been protecting the city from the large army and the madness of the old rulers, trembled.
“Her-e, it-smells-like-Ba-o-ba.”
In the struggle between the massive figures, the witch and guards who had been blocking the underwater stairs had no choice but to retreat in a hurry.
As Divanugo tried to enter those stairs, Link immediately stopped it, but was pushed back by a force stronger than usual.
In the end, both bounced down the steps and rolled to the bottom of the stairs! The stairs were so long that their fall only ended after their heads had hit almost hundreds of times.
「…!」
Rageldaran, the Blue True Dragon, who was pouring all her energy into maintaining Baoba’s sealing spell, opened her eyes wide in surprise.
‘Intruders?’
Both carried the aura of the abyss, but one was literally a symbol of madness, and the other contained a soul of a child, pure as light, within its abyssal body.
“Ba-o-ba!”
“Li-nk!”
The old ruler Divanugo was trying to advance towards Baoba, and Link was barely delaying it by pressing it down from above!
He couldn't completely stop it!
Divanugo was crawling on the ground with two arms, gradually approaching Baoba's flesh!
‘I must step in, I.’
Rageldaran held her breath. As per the will of the Pure White Mother, all life is precious and must be protected.
But if she did that…
If Baoba completed its physical restoration, a greater catastrophe would befall this world. How many more lives would then be sacrificed?
“Link! Link! Link!”
The True Dragon, who could see the core, not just words and actions, understood the true meaning of Link’s urgent cry.
I will do it.
You protect that.
In that situation, with all his muscles twitching, was he considering her plight instead of his own?
“You-, real-ly, an-noy-ing.”
Just then, a gap appeared for Link.
A gap for Divanugo to flip its body!
If it were to swallow Link’s head whole with its massive maw, even after receiving reconstructive surgery, at its core it was still life, and it would die.
「Ah, no!」
The moment that maw was about to swallow Link’s entire head, that instant when Rageldaran finally released her concentration of power and was about to reach out a hand of authority to Link!
“An application of Tajirmum's water wheel (水輪) attack.”
Jingle… like the sound of a wind chime (風磬) on a summer day, clear and pleasant, waking you from sleep on the main veranda… such a sound was heard!
“Ice Wheel Lotus (氷輪蓮花).”
It was, yes, the sound of light!
The sound made by a fragment of the soul of the Yellow True Dragon, Yoshuhar… the sound made by the Golden Staff of Light, Geumyeongjang!
And that the sound was heard, didn't that mean Rin, the mage of the Hero’s Party, Rin, had returned!
“Ah-ah?”
Initially, they were five water wheels that spun and charged fiercely.
But the moment they impacted their coordinates, namely Divanugo’s maw, they fully blossomed and immediately expanded & froze!
It froze everything from its upper jaw to its lower jaw, preventing it from swallowing anything with its massive maw! What a master!
“Kyuung!”
Behind Link, who turned around filled with joy, ah, there was the young mage, Rin, slightly lifting his straw hat!
“Link, Link, Link!”
“Long time no see, Demon Slayer.”
But who knew this emotional reunion would have a fatal outcome.
Strange, strange!
Suddenly, Divanugo had vanished without a trace! Divanugo, whose maw had clearly been completely frozen, was nowhere to be seen!
“What the heck?”
Soon, the aura of being prey, which could be devoured at any moment, enveloped them. Link rushed over to protect Rin.
Rin, who leaped onto Link’s shoulder, used his special skill among skills, a search magic using a system of inequalities!
The wavelength of electricity spread out in a golden glow!
“If electricity reacts to an invisible obstacle, it means an mimetic object is there. Is it there?!”
Indeed, something had blocked the current, so he had unleashed an electric shock… but what a strangeness! There was nothing there! Was it a mere illusion?
That couldn't be!
Human eyes can cause illusions, but in magic, which interprets principles with mathematical formulas close to perfection, in that flawless discipline, there is no such thing as an illusion!
“Link, Link, Link!”
Something charged the moment Link urgently shouted!
“Liiiiiiiiink!”
Link, who pinpointed its direction with nothing but animalistic instinct, firmly planted his feet and braced himself for the impact!
“Link! Ow, you shark bastard!”
Divanugo, suddenly appearing, tore at Link’s trapezius muscle with its teeth! Rin’s pupils trembled.
It wasn't an illusion.
What happened to this guy? How could this massive body be invisible to sensory organs?
“Osarius Rosary Deployment… what, it disappeared again!”
“Kyuung-kyuung!”
“Link, Link, Link!”
“Link, your shoulder! It’s bleeding!”
“Liiiiink!”
When Link exerted force on the torn area, muscle fibers automatically knitted together, half-filling the wound.
This was not ultra-fast regeneration!
Link’s chimera body also harbored a monster that promotes regeneration, Gupapaka.
Gupapaka!
This monster is famous for injecting its own body as nutrients into captured humans.
Humans injected with it can regenerate their bodies enough to scream.
This is by no means mercy, but a way to attract allies!
“I saw it again… but it disappeared again!”
“Link, Link, Link!”
“Kyuuuuuing!”
“This guy is circling us! Like a predator circling its prey, waiting for an opening!”
Rageldaran, pouring all her energy into isolating Baoba, spoke.
「It’s the wind. Divanugo, that sea crest is absorbing the atmosphere.」
“Atmosphere?”
「The atmosphere! That twisted barrier of wind refracts its body from light! It's similar to forming a cloaking field!」
Rin moved his head and eyes up, down, left, and right repeatedly, thinking.
‘If it appearing and disappearing isn't like Ken Serman, whom we defeated in the Red Mountains, moving to an entirely different space-time…’
The countermeasure is rather simple!
If it's certain that it exists somewhere nearby, the way to deal with it becomes incredibly simple!
‘If it were a one-on-one situation, it would have been more dangerous because no time would be needed to cross space-time, but…’
With Link so reliably watching the front, it's not difficult.
And he can use it!
That linked attack with Sval that he had thought of in his head!
“Osarius Rosary, deploy.”
Chwarurururuk… resonating with the hand seal the boy made with his left hand, the constellation of power drawn by the rosary was a staggering seven!
“Great Water Mirror Ring (大水鏡淪環).”
This was one of the few battle-oriented spells recorded by the 10th Great Mage, Hirk, in his grimoire!
It was a great mirror (大ㆍ鏡).
However, it was not a mirror made of artificial objects, but one crafted from water (水) so transparent… it was truly a lake!
「Child of the Spring Breeze! No! I understand you want to submerge the opponent in water to deprive it of mobility, but for the sea crest, water is like its domain of authority! Withdraw this spell at once!」
Splish, splash, splish, splash… through the clear ripples spreading on the water's surface, Link was able to pinpoint Divanugo's location!
He also parried the next charge!
However… it was an impact at least three times heavier than before! That's right. The sea crests can exert greater power underwater!
「Child of the Spring Breeze! Hurry!」
As Rageldaran urgently cried out, the boy's eyes were… ah, how could eyes be so calm yet so deep.
Rageldaran trembled.
For a moment, it overlapped with a memory of an existence she had never met herself. A memory received when she was created by the Pure White Mother, Yeriserica.
‘The Black Sun Karen Den…!’
Wasn’t it so similar to that most mysterious and secretive of the <Ones That Came>, about whom no notable information remained in history!
“A line (線) is a perfect and flawless concept connecting a point (點) and a point (點).”
The boy said, as if to himself.
“Kyuuung!”
From his left eye, whose iris turned icy blue whenever his soul bonded with the first ice dragon, Asurva, a chill scattered like an afterimage!
“Rune deployment, Ring (環).”
At that moment, only the perimeter of the lake separated and soared into the sky.
Like a ring of water!
What should be noted here is not that phenomenon. One must pay attention to the boy’s genius brain, which at that moment pinpointed the coordinates of every single water droplet forming that ring!
‘For what purpose is he doing this…?’
To input it into an equation.
What kind of equation?
It was Zernix geometry’s equation that creates a ‘line connecting one point and another point’!
“Link, stay still.”
At that moment, that single moment! The lake of the Great Water Mirror Ring connected with the ring floating above.
To be more precise.
Every single drop of water forming the lake, every single point, was connected by a line to every single point forming the ring!
“An advanced version of Ba-gal-juk (Baoba split in half and die).”
But what if, at this moment, those lines (線) were rapidly frozen?
It would become a feast of icy spear shards, slaughtering and tearing apart this entire underwater space!
Now, this very moment! This rampage of power, piercing, tearing, slashing, and severing a 30-meter radius in pure white, like this situation where Divanugo’s magnificent body was torn into hundreds of pieces!
“Divanugo, tear into hundreds of pieces and die.”
* * *
“It seems the match is decided. Will you surrender? Then I’ll let you stay comfortable until you’re sealed.”
Rista said.
Pointing the Ultimate Holy Sword Shurpain at Verges, who lay sprawling on the ground, torn into dozens of pieces!
Kies, who had subdued Rakuum, and Nils joined Rista from left and right as support, and this was the result!
“You human wench, less than a bug… now, now, how dare you look down on me, how dare you things insult me…!”
[His condition is strange! Retreat, Hero!]
“Now I don’t care what happens to the revival of the sea palace! Extermination! Annihilation! I will eradicate you and all these human bastards who witnessed the humiliation of Verges here and now!”
At that moment, Verges shattered the ‘Sea Palace Key’ entrusted by Shu’yul’kula, the old ruler of the sea, within his soul…
A key that had never been broken, not even when sealed by the <Ones That Came> in the Mythic Age!
The only situation where this key could be shattered was when an enemy appeared that had to be dealt with, even if it meant postponing the priority of the deep sea palace’s revival!
「No, it's not good! We must completely subdue Verges' body!」
The urgent cry of Tajirmum, who had rushed to this battlefield, even retracting his barrier!
Rista moves! Shurpain!
Kies moves! Serwebon!
Nils moves! Captilt-II!
The sword light of the holy sword, the light rays of the World Tree, and the energy blasts of the ancient combat weapon formed a triple barrage and struck Verges, but what happened!
“!”
“!”
“!”
It repelled all those attacks? No, it didn't repel them!
Gravity and buoyancy…!
That is, the sword blade, arrows, and energy blasts all, as if submerged in water, met with water resistance, expending a significant portion of their power and momentum, failing to deliver an effective blow!
‘The sea?’
‘What sea?’
‘When did we enter the sea?’
Strange!
So strange!
They were clearly fighting on an island, so why had they suddenly found themselves in the deep sea, where not a single ray of light shone?
「Ah, ahh, no… the ancient sea… has finally awakened…」