Chapter 36

Crack!

The tentacles that had been closing in on Mikhail's back collided with the dark blue sphere and flinched to a halt.

Dark blue fragments scattered in every direction, leaving a deep dent on the tentacle's white surface.

Tsssss...

But the wound was only temporary.

Golden crystals jutted from the tentacle's surface with a grinding crunch, filling the hollow crater in place of flesh.

The sprouted golden shards dropped to the ground.

Mikhail spared them a single glance and kept running.

'Just as I expected. To properly destroy that thing, I need to weaken it far more than this.'

Grrrrr— Rrrrr—!

The smell of stagnant water grew sharper by the second. Mikhail looked back at Han running alongside him and shouted.

"Han, clear the path! We're heading for the lake nearby!"

"Kyarung!"

The moment Han answered, a fierce blast of wind shot at the ground ahead. Tough grass stalks and vines snapped in one sweep.

The instant his path forward opened up, Mikhail cut sharply to the side.

Crunch!

A pointed tentacle drove into the exact spot he'd been heading toward. If he'd kept running straight, he'd have been skewered without a chance to react.

Mikhail let a breath of relief slip out and kept running.

Tap.

Before long, the scenery ahead changed.

Instead of the endless stretch of bushes, a still water surface appeared before his eyes.

Mikhail stopped at the water's edge.

He stood with the lake at his back and thrust forward a hand brimming with condensed mana.

"Hah, haah..."

Sweat poured down like rain and his knees trembled.

His vision flickered as though his eyes might shut at any moment, but his nerves were sharper than they'd ever been.

Grrrrr— Rrrrr.

The enemy's cry was right on top of him.

But soon—the moment it showed itself, one strike would—

Flash!

【■otice: ...Powerful setting intervention... is... twisting... the coordination... by force... causing... distortion...】

It happened in an instant. Shattered system messages floated before his eyes, then reassembled themselves.

【Notice: Environmental debuff application for [Fragment of the White: Oz] is delayed.】

【Notice: [Fragment of the White: Oz]'s position is being relocated to a more favorable point for pursuing its target.】

'...What the hell?'

Before Mikhail could even voice his confusion at the suddenly upended situation—

"—!"

The suffocating killing intent didn't come from ahead. It came from behind.

A chill sank down his spine, and Mikhail whipped around.

The calm water surface split wide open, and a snow-white tentacle burst skyward.

---

Meanwhile, above the trail of wreckage left by the chase.

Ethan had just broken free from the magical beasts' encirclement and was sprinting forward without pause, eyes locked straight ahead.

Ringing in his ears was Lloyd's voice from moments ago, when he'd cleared the way.

[Go. Don't worry about things here. ...And make sure—both of you—come back safe.]

"Hah... haah..."

Ethan wrinkled his nose as he gasped for breath.

The further he followed the trail of broken and snapped trees, the stronger the damp breeze became.

'Come to think of it, wasn't there supposed to be a lake near here? Then that might be where he's headed...!'

But the thought cut short.

Ethan's eyes flew wide, and his startled gaze locked onto the middle of the ground.

Golden crystals lay scattered across the dirt, glinting in the dark.

They were traces of an entirely different kind from anything he'd seen so far.

"......"

Ethan slowly crouched and reached toward the ground.

His hesitant fingertips brushed past the golden crystals and stopped on a blade of grass.

Rustle.

The grass beneath his fingers withered in a shape he knew all too well.

It blackened, lost all life, and crumbled apart.

"...!"

It felt as though everything before his eyes had gone pitch black.

Ethan stared down at his faintly trembling fingertips, then clenched his hand tight and bit his lip until he tasted blood.

In truth, only one conclusion kept surfacing in his mind.

But the answer growing clearer with every second wasn't something he could easily accept.

...No. He didn't want to accept it.

Because—

Whoooosh—!

A sudden crash of noise snapped Ethan's head up.

The sound of erupting water was coming from the lakeshore—exactly where he'd guessed Mikhail was heading.

Clatter.

Ethan snatched a golden crystal from the ground and sprang to his feet.

His head and his heart were a tangled wreck.

But right now, at least, was no time to be lost in thought.

'Just focus on getting through this alive.'

Ethan broke into a run toward the lakeshore. His heart, always so steady, was hammering faster than it ever had before.

---

Whoosh!

It happened in the blink of an eye.

A white tentacle split the blue water surface and coiled around Mikhail's neck, hoisting him high into the air.

"Kgh...!"

Suspended and pinned, Mikhail could only choke out dry, strangled gasps.

The sky turned yellow and his head spun.

But he clung to consciousness by his fingernails. If he blacked out now, the only thing left was death.

【Notice: 60 seconds remain until environmental debuff application for [Fragment of the White: Oz].】

Mikhail barely managed to drag his eyes down from the system message.

The snow-white body writhed inside the lake while those bone-chilling golden eyes watched him.

'Sixty seconds until the debuff... If I just hold on until then...!'

Mikhail stared back into those golden eyes and bit down on his lip.

He glared at the gaze that blazed endlessly, as if urging his death, and clawed at the surface of the tentacle gripping his throat.

Fwooosh!

That instant. The choking pressure vanished and his entire body rocketed skyward.

The magical beast had hurled Mikhail high into the air.

The way a predator toys with prey moments before the kill.

Fweeee—!

What filled Mikhail's ears was the shriek of wind as he plummeted.

His vision, pushed to its absolute limit, sharpened beyond even fear itself.

Mikhail gritted his teeth and looked down.

Three tentacles that had been lurking beneath the surface were shooting upward to impale his falling heart.

"Kang!"

In that moment, the sky foxes dove at the oncoming tentacles one by one, sinking their teeth into the surfaces.

Small but impossible to ignore, their attacks made two of the incoming tentacles falter and hesitate.

Crack!

But the remaining tentacle drove straight through without slowing and plunged deep into Mikhail's body.

Yet the sharpened tip didn't pierce his heart.

"Ngh..."

Searing pain erupted from his skewered shoulder. Mikhail swallowed his groan and barely managed to look down past his neck.

The necklace he'd received from the adventurer Elsi days ago was slipping out from inside his clothes, glinting softly.

【Notice: The effect of [Item: Agate Talisman Filled with Prayer] activates.】

【Notice: The item's effect deflects a lethal attack once.】

【Notice: 15 seconds remain until environmental debuff application for [Fragment of the White: Oz].】

'Fifteen seconds... then now—'

Oz, having failed to land a killing blow, was rapidly retracting its sprawling tentacles.

Mikhail poured every last shred of focus into his fingertips and began manifesting his magic.

Tsssss...

The mana sphere forming at his fingertips grew steadily brighter.

...Then, for just one fleeting moment.

Over the burning agony in his shoulder, a scene from the past layered itself on top—days spent bedridden in a hospital, wracked by pain no one could explain.

A thin veil of memories from his previous world settled over his vision.

"......"

Curtains, round and full with wind, billowed gently.

Scratch, scratch.

The moment when he'd leaned against the hospital bed, pen in hand, scrawling alone.

Settings for the game that surfaced from his subconscious, written line by line across the wide-open notebook. Dense characters slowly filling the white margins.

Then suddenly, a single sentence born from the tip of that pen pierced through the fog of memory and rose sharp and clear.

[...The purer and closer to its origin the mana is, the more powerfully it resonates with the user's desires and will.]

...Without warning.

His shoulder screamed as if it were being torn apart.

"!"

Mikhail snapped back to reality. What lay before him were the enemy's pupils, slick with golden light.

Mikhail forced his eyes wide and drew every drop of mana from within his body.

'I am not dying here.'

Past the limits he thought he'd reached, to the very, very end.

Until the will to shatter his predetermined death reached its peak.

Gurgle...

He heard a sound—like the stirring of water so impossibly distant, so fathomlessly deep that its depths couldn't be measured.

The fingertips Mikhail had thrust toward Oz began to stain dark blue.

Rumble...

The spreading darkness painted his hand, swallowed his arm, climbed his shoulder, tracing the vivid color of the deep sea.

Across the darkened skin, white specks surfaced one by one.

【Notice: Environmental debuff is now applied to [Fragment of the White: Oz].】

The message he'd been waiting for appeared.

Mikhail lowered his eyes to confirm it, and there below—the magical beast, mid-lunge into another attack, was convulsing.

Tiny blisters were bubbling up across its snow-white skin.

Ghhh—! Grrrrr—!

...And yet, the brightest star among them all.

Those golden eyes, blazing like a first-magnitude star, still watched him. Still brimming with that terrible light.

Mikhail met those golden eyes and snapped his fingers.

Crack!

From his outstretched fingertips, a mana sphere etched with the night sea erupted.

Crackle!

The condensed mana tore through the magical beast's single golden eye.

Where the dark blue projectile had raged and passed, only vivid black remained.

——!

The magical beast couldn't even manage a death cry. Its tentacles, still mid-motion, froze where they were, rigid as ice.

Rummmble...

The massive body tilted toward shore, and its edges began to slowly crumble away.

Killed in a single blow, the magical beast immediately began to disintegrate.

"......"

Mikhail felt the tentacle impaling his shoulder go limp and slack, and stared blankly at the scattering fragments.

Had he really killed it?

A sight that still didn't feel real...

【■■: This— isn't— the end— of— everything—.】

Mikhail's eyes shot wide at the message that suddenly flooded his vision.

Crack!

The splitting sound came from below.

Of the five tentacles draped along the water's edge, one—the only one that had never been used in the attack—thrashed violently.

It split lengthwise down the middle, the halves twisting around each other as they reshaped into a sharp javelin.

"...!"

The pale gray javelin rose into the air.

The sharpened spear tipped once, then aimed its point at Mikhail, still pinned high above.

Screeeech.

The magical beast's body was moments from crumbling completely.

The javelin fired toward Mikhail.

Shreeek!

Mikhail threw up his arms to shield himself. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the agony to come.

"......"

But no pain tore through his body.

Bewildered, Mikhail lowered his raised arms and slowly opened his eyes.

The sight that greeted him stole the breath from his lungs.

"...!"

A golden cross-section was carved into the javelin's body.

Stopped dead by someone's strike, the javelin never reached its target. It tilted, spent and powerless.

The pale gray body split in two and dissolved into ash.

Tsssss...

The tentacle that had pierced Mikhail's shoulder also blackened and crumbled before vanishing completely.

With the support holding his body gone, Mikhail began to fall, helpless.

【Quest: [Main] Participate in the Main Storyline's Progression Complete】

• Completion Reward: Shop Currency +6

【Notice: The entity distorting the flow of the main storyline has been destroyed.】

【Notice: The original story progression is maintained—】

Messages appeared one after another, their dark blue text flickering on and off, signaling the situation's end.

Something dropped into his pocket with a soft thud.

But Mikhail's eyes weren't fixed on anything new.

"......"

Through his rapidly rising field of vision and his fading consciousness.

Behind the blade shedding silver fragments in response to its master's growth.

Ash-gray hair streamed in the wind.

Mikhail barely managed to move his lips.

"You..."

As if answering the call, gray eyes slowly lifted to meet his gaze.

"......"

Of all people. Right now, of all times.

The one face he'd desperately wished he wouldn't see.

"Ethan."

Despite the agony searing through him like fire, Mikhail couldn't tear his eyes away.

Whether it was instinct or foresight—he could feel the story bending toward a turning point, and the tail end of the breath escaping through his teeth trembled once.