No. 101
To cross the sea in the world beyond the crack.
Even for Yoo-seong, it sounded like an insane idea. However, he had to do it.
He needed to get to the place where the Sky Scissors and Sky Needle were hidden: Bohai Bay.
It was located parallel to the Shandong Peninsula in the outside world. In the world inside the crack, there was a mountain floating in that area. Chinese legends called it the Samshin Mountain.
The legends said it was where the ancient Qin Shi Huang ordered Seobok to find the elixir of eternal life.
Jin Wei-baek had given him several coordinates for where he needed to go before making the journey. These were locations of cracks that Tenz had handled in the past.
Jin Wei-baek, with his foresight, ordered his rush teams to leave supplies and equipment at those locations. There were even enough materials for Yoo-seong to build a working raft.
It was a surprisingly advanced raft with parts made by the first-rate Tenz technology.
Less than half a day after Yoo-seong found the materials, he was out onto the sea.
Hooowook-!
Bubbles rose rapidly as Yoo-seong sucked in air.
He hadn’t brought an oxygen tank. He was using the hole in the Sky Needle, which floated above sea level, to breathe.
The needle was connected to his mouth through an Aura thread. It was one of the techniques he’d learned in order to survive in an alien environment.
Hooowoook-!
It was dark underwater, but the blue crack’s faint glow could be seen with Yoo-seong’s Aura-assisted vision.
He began sewing it closed as fast as he could. This was the biggest advantage of the Sky Needle. There was no need to carry a pulse breaker and charge it.
As long as the needle’s user could come into contact with the crack, it was possible to block it completely without even going into the crack.
‘Fortunately, it’s not that big,’ Yoo-seong thought. ‘It’s smaller than expected.’
At best, it was a small, Thunder-class crack. Yoo-seong had already sewn a quarter of it closed.
He was doing the blocking operation smoothly when, suddenly, Auto-Hunt did something strange.
“Huh?”
Using Auto-Hunt, he made a foothold at the tip of his toe. Then he kicked the foothold to get away from the crack as quickly as possible.
The next instant, Yoo-seong realized why.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})Cyclops Moray-★★★★★★
It was a sea predator, with an average length of thirty-five meters. However, since the crack was almost sewn closed, only its three-and-a-half meter mouth could get through the crack.
Still, it was enough to let it bite Yoo-seong’s head off if Auto-Hunt hadn’t made him get away in time.
The Cyclops Moray backed off after missing and peered through the crack.
It was a horrifying sight.
As its name suggested, it only had one eye stuck on the center of its head. The pupil darted left to right as if it was trying to find Yoo-seong.
Yoo-seong suppressed his rapidly beating heart and stared back at the Moray.
However, after a few seconds… the panicked beast still hadn’t struggled through the crack to attack Yoo-seong.
Instead, it darted away, deeper into the crack.
Yoo-seong thought it was a temporary retreat, a way to lure him in. It might just be out of his sight, preparing to lunge again. However…
Bang-!
Kicking off from another foothold, Yoo-seong began to speed towards the crack again.
Auto-Hunt seemed to disagree with his opinion.
He restarted the stitching process as if the Moray weren’t a threat.
‘Why?’ Yoo-seong was puzzled.
Somehow, Auto-Hunt’s behavior was understandable.
It had enough reaction speed to avoid another Moray attack. However, even more puzzling was that the Moray was truly gone.
Not only that… There were no other monsters even trying to peek through.
Monsters were instinctively drawn to the rift. That was why an underwater crack was a blue hell.
By now, he should be fighting various underwater creatures, but…
It was abnormally quiet. There could only be one reason for this.
Something that threatened the monsters so much that their fear overpowered the urge to go through the rift.
‘That’s fortunate for me,’ Yoo-seong thought.
He didn’t care what that ‘threat’ was.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"}) Just like that, Yoo-seong had almost stitched the crack close.
However…
Auto-Hunt formed another foothold. It made Yoo-seong nervous.
Bang-!
He had been pushed forcefully. This time, it was in a direction he didn’t expect. It didn’t push him away from the almost-closed crack but to its inside.
‘Why?!’
He felt confused. However, he did not turn Auto-Hunt off.
Just like that, Yoo-seong disappeared beyond the rift.
Then he finished closing the crack from the inside.
Soon, the faint blue scar under the water disappeared, as if it had never happened. Only the quiet underwater scenery remained.
***
“This is it!” Nakai raised his voice.
Koji Ishida, one of his most cherished subordinates, picked up his sword.
At twenty years old, he was a veteran hunter whose career was already comparable to Nakai, who was in his fifties.
However, the young man found himself shaking subtly.
Nakai stared at him. He knew Ishida understood the situation perfectly. They were preparing for death.
This was all because of what had come out of the crack…
“Umibozu…” Ishida’s voice trembled as he muttered it.
Japanese sailors passed down a ghost story to each other.
One rainy night, a pitch-black shadow, tens of meters high, rose in front of a ship. It sank the ship with just one swipe of its massive hand.
Then, as if to ridicule the crew further, the shadow morphed into a variety of forms. However, the monster that took after its name was by no means a giant.
It was Slime, a myriad of microbes forming a colony.
colony’s size.
Some Umibozu were barely large enough to devour a fish, while some were large enough to swallow a battleship. When the colony grew to a certain size, it would float and let itself be carried by the waves instead of swimming.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"}) At first glance, it could easily be mistaken for an oil spill. However, beneath the black sheen that appeared on the surface level, chaos was happening.
By forming innumerable tentacles, the Umibozu snatched and sucked the life out of any marine creatures passing under it.
Above sea level, there was no difference. Even flying birds could not escape the tentacles of Umibozu that had grown large enough.
And now…
Pluk-!
Pluk-!
Pluk-!
The microbes were now falling out of the crack, looking like black lava.
What made it even creepier was that the flow of the microbes coming out did not decrease even after more than a dozen seconds had passed.
“Nonsense…” Ayana Nakai groaned.
Along with Ishida, she was the other elite hunter who could deal with the Typhoon-class crack.
She was Nakai Yasuo’s only daughter, as well as a powerful spellcaster. Moreover, she had hunted Umibozu before.
However, the amount flowing right now was something that she couldn’t have even imagined.
“Ayana!”
Her father’s cries awakened Ayana’s spirit.
“Raise the sea dragon!”
“Yes, Father!”
The father and daughter duo were on the deck, preparing their Tech. However, this took some time, and while they did, the amount of Umibozu slime flowing out continued.
The colony would have exceeded hundreds of tons by now, judging by the amount that had continuously flowed out.
Gwoooosh-!
The Umibozu took the form of a giant man, its upper body rising high above sea level. It stood in front of three Destroyers, including the one that Nakai and Ayanna were onboard.
Tratatatatatat-!
Without hesitation, the battleships’ machine guns began spraying bullets.
Nakai had planned to handle the situation with just two other hunters from his team, but at this point, there was no other choice. The military had to intervene.
As with other Slime-type beasts, the best way to deal with an Umibozu was to inflict heat. It was difficult to hurt it through cutting, tearing, or blunt force attacks. The only way to damage it was to burn it.
‘It’s not enough,’ Nakai estimated, based on his long years of experience.
As the size of the Umibozu grew, the amount of heat needed to damage it also increased.
His Water Tech was ready to be unleashed.
However, if the outrageous number of bullets coming from three battleships was still not enough…
‘Anti-ship missiles,’ Nakai decided.
It was their only hope.
There were at least two conditions that they needed to meet in order to complete their mission and defeat the Umibozu.
First, the Destroyers must be at the closest range possible to deliver the greatest impact.
Second, the Umibozu microbes must be collected into a single point, a single target.
To satisfy both conditions…
Go-oh-oh-oh-!
Nakai and his daughter spent all their energy preparing the Sea Dragon Tech. They could only hope for the best.
Kwaaang-!
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” All around them, sailors began to scream.
The Umibozu tilted its upper body and enveloped a Destroyer on the far right.
Countless tentacles covered the ship, wrapping the deck entirely and probing its insides. Of course, the tentacles’ purpose was not just to destroy the ship. It was to suck out all organic matter it could find inside.
Kwaduk-!
Soon, Umibozu finished its embrace of death, and the once strong Destroyer was crumpled like a tin can.
Gwooosh-!
The giant once again raised its upper body above sea level. Now, its height had grown to at least thirty meters.
Nakai and the other hunters were on the middle ship, which stood next to the monster’s path.
Ishida then made his move.
“Aaaaaahhh!”
A beam of light stretched out from his sword.
“Go, split!” he yelled out.
The next moment, the Umibozu was split from its head to its chest.
Paaang-!
The two halves fell left and right and splashed into the sea. Shouts of relief came from every sailor, hunter, and broadcaster around the area.
However, their joy lasted only a few seconds.
The Umibozu’s tentacles began rising again on both sides of the ship.
Ishida’s majestic technique only served to delay the catastrophe. Before long, the deck was covered with tentacles.
However, unlike the first ship, it wasn’t a helpless massacre.
“Nine o’clock!”
“Watch out!”
Nakai, Ishida, Ayanna, and the other hunters of PHF were doing a great job evading the tentacles despite the situation.
However, there was something they had failed to consider.
“Uh, uh uh!”
“Mr. Kano! Should I continue filming this?!”
“Film it! I believe in the hunters!”
The broadcasting staff on the ship had not fully grasped the situation.
Though it could be said that their professionalism was at its peak, the way they continued to film even if hunters themselves were escaping for their lives was quite suicidal.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what you’re watching right now… it’s unbelievable… but our hunters are working hard…”
The broadcasting staff’s professionalism would ultimately lead the hunters to their demise.
“Hey!” A hunter yelled at Kano and his cameraman. “Get inside! Quickly!”
Suddenly, tentacles wrapped around the hunter’s neck from behind and pulled him down off the ship in an instant.
It was the first hunter casualty of the day.
“Hey!”
“Uh?!”
The broadcasting staff shuddered at the frightening scene that had just unfolded before them.
Meanwhile, while they were frozen, hunters were dying all around them to protect them. It was what Nakai had ordered them to do.
Nakai had also seen what was happening, but because his focus needed to be maintained for his Tech, he couldn’t help them.
‘This is due to my indifference,’ he berated himself.
There was no excuse.
No matter how unpredictable the situation they face might be, he had to be prepared for it.
‘I should not have listened to the Prime Minister or Kano,’ he thought. ‘I should have faced the broadcasters in a safe place and had my men in formation.’
“Ahhhhh!”
One after another, PHF hunters were screaming and dying around him.
The only reason the ship hadn’t been totally destroyed yet was because of Ishida. However, even the young man was limited.
His sword attacks could only hold off the tentacles, not destroy them.
“Ayana…” Nakai cried out to his daughter.
“Father?!”
“I can’t just watch this anymore.” He closed his eyes tight.
‘My men are dying around me…’
Qawah-!
Nakai activated his Tech.
The current around the ship began to get stronger. Soon, the shape of a dragon formed from the waves.
The water dragon raised its head and flew above sea level. Its girth was about as thick as a small building.
Nakai and his daughter had exhausted their Aura to summon it.
“Kyaah!”
Nakai controlled its direction.
In an instant, the water dragon wrapped itself around the Umibozu and pulled it away from the ship.
The water dragon captured all the Umibozu’s tentacles before gathering them into a huge ball.
It was as if a giant frog egg was floating.
‘It’s really strong,’ Nakai thought.
He was trying to crush the Umibozu using water pressure inside the dragon, but it had no effect. In the meantime, his veins were starting to cramp as he maintained his extreme Tech.
‘The missile should be here soon,’ he assured himself as he endured the pain in his veins.
His expectations were not betrayed.
Shwoo-!
He heard the sound of projectiles flying above his head.
Then he released the Tech, dissolving the water dragon and exposing the Umibozu to the missiles.
Nakai turned around and closed his eyes.
Kwapaaang-!
There was a tremendous explosion. It was only the first.
Multiple anti-ship missiles began flying one after another, all toward a single target.
Finally, the battleship exhausted all its destructive power.
Nakai slowly opened his eyes. He turned around slowly, desperately wishing for the Umibozu to be nothing more than ashes after the missile barrage.
However…
“Uh, uh, uh, uh…”
The Umibozu remained standing, unchanged.
Even anti-ship missiles were not enough to destroy it.
Now it was walking back toward Nakai’s ship.
“Uh, uh, try somehow! All you guys…!” Kano cried out in desperation.
Only his voice rang out on the deck.
All the other hunters there had accepted what was coming.
“You are hunters! Come on! Do something!”
Soon, the massive shadow of the Umibozu was upon the ship’s deck.
For those who were on it, there was only darkness as far as they could see. However, those with good ears could hear it.
Jiiiii-!
The sound of magnetic fluctuations in the crack, which was probably widening at this point.
Then the magnetic field stopped ringing.
Paang-!
There was a crackling sound as if something had been shot down from the sky.
And…
Kuuung-!
Something landed with a heavy impact in the middle of the deck.
Everyone on board was stunned.
The Umibozu’s body had cast a large shadow over the deck.
But now…
A familiar red suit shone in the sunlight.
Yes. Sunlight.
Sunlight was pouring out of a hole in the Umibozu’s body, casting a spotlight on the hunter who had landed.
Nakai’s jaw dropped.
It wasn’t because he was impressed with the movie-like entrance. It was because the spotlight hadn’t ceased.
The hole Yoo-seong had pierced through Umibozu’s body was not healing. Somehow, Oh Yoo-seong had delivered more heat than an entire missile barrage.
Kleek-!
The helmet’s visor went up.
“Hooooo-whoook!”
Yoo-seong took in a long, deep breath as if he had not enjoyed oxygen for a while.
His face was pale.
It had taken him a very long journey inside the underwater crack to come out of this other crack.
Yoo-seong stared at Nakai while gasping for air. Then he spoke.
“Am I interfering with your hunt?”
