Boom-!!!
“Ugh!! What the hell is this?!”
“Why are you suddenly shouting and causing a ruckus?”
Elvira snapped back at Russell’s scream, and it wasn’t hard to understand his reaction. Who wouldn’t be surprised if they opened their eyes to fierce explosions and flames bursting before them?
Indeed. Parang and Oceanos had dived into their first memory, which was an explosion.
Flames erupting before their eyes, the deafening sound echoing across the sea.
And there stood someone, calmly looking at the onslaught of intense heat as if they were ready to burn the world.
A knight clad in radiant white plate armor, with a shield in one hand and a lance towering over 2 meters in the other.
With long brown hair flowing gracefully, she gazed at the explosion with poise.
A Slayer, Kang Yuri.
“…Is this footage from a few hours ago?”
“…It’s 40 minutes ago.”
Parang responded, slightly surprised.
“40 minutes? Why is it so short?”
40 minutes, it was incredibly short. Though Yuri bore many wounds, there were no severed body parts, and her head wasn’t severely damaged either.
Thinking of Matilda, who had been absorbed by a Gorgon in a pitiful state in the South China Sea Hive, the time seemed extraordinarily short.
“I don’t know either. She looked fine on the outside, but her insides could have been completely messed up.”
“For now, let’s keep watching. I can’t comprehend this situation. Why the sudden explosion?”
This part was just as puzzling.
None of the thousands of monster fish Oceanos had encountered had ever exploded with flames.
“Okay. Let’s play it back.”
The paused memory began to flow again.
The flames subsided.
There was nothing in front of Kang Yuri.
Just an empty space filled with water, as always.
‘A self-destructing monster fish?’
Many thoughts crossed Parang’s mind, but they quickly faded away.
Soon after, they would see the identity of the explosion with their own eyes.
Naturally, it wasn’t an explosion caused by a monster fish.
Boom—
Kruuuu—
What Oceanos had thought was empty space slowly tipped over.
What was once empty in front of Kang Yuri was not empty after all.
It was a massive hole, revealing something.
A gigantic humanoid mech about 300 meters in size.
Marian’s ultimate, strongest, and most heinous creation.
The battle weapon Goliath.
A steel giant that seemed barely able to support its own body.
On its chest.
There, Kang Yuri had made a hole.
A very large hole.
Goliath slowly toppled over,
Kruuuuuuuuu—
And it lay on the ground.
A colossal sound reverberated, shaking the area.
Anyone could tell.
Kang Yuri had destroyed Goliath.
Marian’s killing move, by her own hand.
Parang recalled Marian, who had carelessly attacked him earlier.
‘Was she already enchanted at that point?’
Then, as if to confirm Parang’s thoughts, a voice cried out from a distance.
“…Rian!! Help!!”
It was Hunter Han Siwoo’s voice.
Fortunately for Oceanos, despite feeling pain, Kang Yuri headed toward Han Siwoo to help.
And the scene everyone had anticipated unfolded before their eyes.
With eyes glowing purple, Marian unleashed every weapon at Han Siwoo while he shouted back.
“Please, please get a grip!! Damn it!!!”
While dozens of railguns targeted him and fired lasers, he deflected all the attacks.
Given the situation, it seemed only these three remained.
The battered Kang Yuri, Han Siwoo, and Marian.
Beyond them, there was nothing else.
Leaving behind that lonely, bizarre, and also sad spectacle, Oceanos finally had the time to look around.
Kang Yuri was just before the last moment. She had teleported just before Marian.
If that was 40 minutes before her death, it meant the battle was already nearing its end.
Indeed, the surroundings were different from when it was Alexandra’s time.
First, everyone in Oceanos, including Parang, had felt something since the dive began.
“Am I the only one feeling really weird right now?”
Russell spoke up with a surprisingly gloomy and heavy voice, unlike his usual self.
“…I feel that way too.”
Voices of agreement echoed from here and there.
Of course, Parang felt it too.
Depressed. Creepy. Anxious. Scared. Sad.
Whether it was from the feeling of witnessing the end of the Slayers or some other factor, the wide and dark sea surrounding them seemed exceptionally gloomy and dreary.
It was unsettling.
For the first time in his life, Parang felt ‘dislike’ looking at the sea.
That was how overwhelming the eerie sensations were around them.
An endless emptiness, a feeling of futility, a sense of loss, all kinds of negative emotions flooded in.
Secondly, the once-black swarm of monster fish had vanished without a trace.
It didn’t take long to figure out where they had gone.
Upward, and downward.
Countless monster fish, presumed to have been slaughtered by the Slayers, floated above them, while the remnants of statues they had shattered piled up below like a mountain.
“No way… did they… kill them all?”
“…It seems so.”
Parang swallowed hard and spoke.
There was no one else aside from the Slayers who could have wiped out the monsters, and more importantly, Kang Yuri’s condition reflected the tremendous battle they had endured.
First, her armor.
It was in shambles, though he hadn’t seen it closely earlier due to the explosion.
The left shoulder armor was completely destroyed and gone, and there were scorch marks revealed on the shoulder.
Not only the shoulder, but the legs, arms, and chest—each part was broken or shattered beyond recognition.
“Hah… Hah… Ugh…”
Gasping for breath, Kang Yuri clutched her left shoulder.
The spot where the scorch marks were.
“It’s a wound that looks like it was burned by something. It’s highly likely…”
“Marian did it.”
“Did we really… kill them all…? Every single one…?”
Vertea muttered in disbelief.
Parang honestly couldn’t believe it either.
He had seen it back in Alexandra’s last memory.
The countless monsters moving so terrifyingly in sync.
The seemingly endless army of monsters, that wouldn’t show any signs of thinning even after wiping out thousands, tens of thousands at once.
They had all seen it.
But boldly, the Slayers had done it.
They had cleared them all away and were standing there.
And that sight only deepened Oceanos’s questions.
“…How many minutes before death is it?”
“30 minutes.”
“That’s unreal.”
Parang struggled to voice his thoughts.
The waves of negativity he had felt since earlier were now truly unbearable.
The Slayers had, for whatever reason, triumphed.
Marian was in no normal state, and both Kang Yuri and Han Siwoo were battered, yet they still stood in that spot.
But why?
What in the world had happened to them?
Such questions hung in the air.
“…Hey.”
Elvira spoke in a trembling voice.
“Is that, is that just me seeing it? No way.”
Her usually confident voice quivered.
And everyone in Oceanos was looking at it.
The embodiment of all the negative emotions they felt.
The source. The essence of negativity.
From afar, something was gazing at them. But its eyes were closed.
A round calamity. A large sphere.
What Kang Yuri was staring at.
What was staring back at Kang Yuri.
It.
It opened its eyes.
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