episode_0072

The battle with King Serpent began rather abruptly as Seraphine and I arrived at the western gate.

The first thing to do, of course, was to protect Edan.

Initially, the start of the boss battle was marked by Seraphine drawing King Serpent’s aggro to prevent him from further harming the already exhausted Edan.

Of course, even for a skilled fighter like Seraphine, drawing the aggro of King Serpent was no easy task.

I wasn’t sure of her current level, but considering her level at the time of joining the original story, she was probably at a similar level to Edan now.

Estimated level was around 7-8. At most, it wouldn’t exceed 10.

Naturally, it seemed absurd for her to face off against the boss monster King Serpent even for a moment.

…On the night of the full moon, Seraphine was undoubtedly on a different level.

-Whoosh!

‘Yaaahhh…!’

King Serpent, hit by her spectacular mid-air kick, grunted in pain.

Although he didn’t show any visible injuries, the impact was enough to halt his movement momentarily.

Truly a character whose skills inexplicably improved once a month.

True to her title as the Moonshadow Princess, she utilized ‘lunar power’ rather than conventional energy and magic in combat.

Given her reliance on external factors, fluctuations in her abilities were unavoidable, but on a full moon night, she was as formidable as any other major character.

With a smooth overhead kick resembling a crescent moon, she struck King Serpent’s jaw.

Mesmerizing the monster with her shining golden hair like moonlight, she continuously diverted the boss monster’s attention.

In the game, Seraphine was a competent character, serving as a support dealer and evasion tank.

…Well, she was a necessary ally for the story, so even if her performance wasn’t great, it was an inevitable setting.

Despite being a troublemaker character, her popularity ranking wasn’t at the bottom for a reason.

‘Of course, even with the full moon’s Seraphine, she probably can’t defeat King Serpent at this point.’

In the original story, it was said that Agnes and Seraphine barely managed to defeat King Serpent together, so it was likely that Agnes was responsible for dealing the final blow.

Seraphine probably bought time by diverting the monster’s attention.

I could roughly guess the type of battle they had, but there was no need to cross-verify that in my mind.

Especially in urgent situations like this, wasting time on unnecessary things was pointless. What I needed to do was simply aim my mana blast at King Serpent, and that was most likely the future that Seraphine had witnessed.

“Release…? What do you mean by you and the princess finishing it…?”

“Quiet, Edan. We need to focus now.”

“….”

I gently silenced Edan’s murmurs of confusion from behind, and immediately began to memorize the incantation for a spell, feeling the sensation of gathering magical energy in my hands.

Using advanced magic like mana blast for the first time was a challenge, but it wasn’t particularly difficult compared to using other spells.

Unfamiliar magical formulas seeped into my mind, and with the sensation of magic flowing through my hands, a sphere made of mana began to form.

The sphere started to grow in size on the palms of my hands.

“Yeah, this is the form.”

Characters in games often started by gathering small clumps of mana like this before casting mana blasts.

Of course, there was a difference in that most mage characters used tools like staffs or two-handed wands.

It might sound regretful, but to me, who had cleared the Release strategy more than ten times, this sight wasn’t even that strange.

I mean, would I have never taught Release how to cast a mana blast while carrying her around?

I tried using auxiliary magic, melee magic, attack magic, and various other growth methods. As someone who had tried everything, there probably wasn’t anyone who understood Release as well as I did.

Despite being a magic user, this pitiful character who didn’t equip a two-handed wand or staff mostly gathered mana using their hands when casting spells.

Perhaps Release’s low accuracy was due to not using such a medium.

Of course, it didn’t matter whether the accuracy of the mana blast was low or not.

“It’s an ultimate skill with a 100% accuracy rate that will never miss.”

The mana sphere, which initially started as a ping pong ball-sized clump of mana, began to gradually increase in size in my hands.

In proportion to Release’s mana, the volume expanded at an incredible speed.

Even though I felt it had grown to a certain extent, it seemed that only about half of the mana had been consumed.

As it surpassed the size of a basketball and became the size of a small exercise ball, a strange sense of unease began to creep in.

“Was it originally this big…?”

…I didn’t recall ever seeing it grow this large in the game.

Beyond growing impressively, the mana sphere grew to a terrifyingly huge size, and I began to feel a strange sense of fear.

“If I drop this accidentally, it’ll be game over, right…?”

Internally, I wanted to stop here and just throw it away, but unfortunately, the mana blast was not the type of magic that could be stopped at will.

When used, it consumed all remaining mana in the body and released it in one shot, making it the ultimate of ultimates.

Despite having enough mana to kill King Serpent and then some, the sphere in my hand continued to grow slowly.

As fear crept in at the sight of the huge clump of mana shimmering before my eyes, I raised both arms and swept the mana sphere above my head.

-Whoosh, whoosh!

“……!!!”

Around the massive mana sphere, it seemed as if a whirlwind was brewing, and the surrounding wind and dust enveloped me and the giant sphere like snowflakes in a blizzard.

Unable to bring myself to stare directly at its size, I simply extended my arms towards the sky, gathering the remaining mana.

Eventually, when I felt there was no more mana escaping from my body, I suddenly felt a sensation that I could ‘throw’ the mana sphere above my head.

“This is the feeling when casting a mana blast…”

It truly felt like I could throw it anywhere. Even high enough to reach the head of a giant monster towering three stories high.

The boss monster, raising its massive body and baring its sharp fangs to face the Seraph in front of me.

And there she was, struggling to hold out against the boss monster, buying time as best as she could.

For her, and for Edan who had held out until now, it was time to end this battle.

“Princess!!!!!! Watch out!!!!!!! Get to the corner!!!!!!!!!!!”

Just before the mana blast was launched, I called out to Seraphine with all my might.

Over the course of about 10 minutes, I poured all my magical power into the mana blast, and then it left my hand.

I couldn’t confirm whether she actually heard me and dodged properly.

Just throwing the mana blast that was in my hand felt quite burdensome.

She’ll probably dodge it well. If she came back from the future, dodging my mana blast should be a piece of cake.

Seraphine never moves after seeing her ‘death in the future’.

She was a character who was absolutely certain that surviving herself would save more people in the future.

-Whoooooosh…!

A huge mana sphere, gathering whirlwinds and dust around me, flew away as it was.

Seeing it fly away from my hand, its size was much larger than I had thought.

I couldn’t think of any other object of appropriate size, but if I had to compare, it was about the size of a kimchi refrigerator.

It was almost unbelievable that all that mana was just a lump of my own power.

The huge mana sphere, flying out at an incredibly fast speed, causing a gust of wind around me.

The mana blast, with a 100% accuracy rate, flew straight towards King Serpent’s head with full force.

Before the creature could realize what was happening, my magic made contact with the monster’s head.

-Kwaaaaah!!!!!

Like a loud thunder striking all at once, the mana blast exploded with a deafening roar.

As soon as it hit King Serpent’s temple, the explosion of the mana blast caused a momentary violent vibration that resonated through the nearby ground.

After casting a large-scale magic, I, too, fell to the ground with a thud due to the pressure.

-Thud!

“Ughhh!”

Despite pouring out all my magical power, the explosion lasted only 1-2 seconds, but it was enough to demonstrate its power.

After the large-scale magic, composed of noise, vibration, pressure, and all sorts of elements, was activated.

When I came to my senses, King Serpent’s head was completely gone, as if it had evaporated, leaving only the lifeless body to collapse to the ground.

-Kugung!

With another sound that shook the ground, King Serpent fell.

Well, with this, it seems like the boss monster of the ‘Hwangung Assault Incident’ has been somehow resolved.

Thankfully, no main characters died, and the story ended without any casualties. I breathed a sigh of relief and took a look around the now quiet Sunmun Defense Line.

As I quietly turned my gaze away from the scene of the disaster, Edan’s bewildered eyes met mine naturally.

“……”

“……”

…Now, how should I explain this?