Chapter 164. Sea Snail Party (1)
Kaboom!
‘……!’
It explodes.
The shell.
The space.
The memory.
The consciousness.
Everything.
Engulfed in a sudden, ferocious explosion, it crumbles, shatters in vain, and is destroyed.
‘.......Kaaaaah!’
The body of the ancient demonic beast, Kratum, was lifted up. Swept up in the incredibly powerful explosion that erupted from below. It was thrown nearly 100 meters into the air.
And then it crashed down.
‘Ah, n-no……!’
The shell had already been shattered the moment it got caught in the explosion. Add to that the potential energy from falling from a 100-meter height and its own mass of hundreds of tons.
The result was a crushed snail.
Or a pill bug accidentally stepped on.
Squelch!
‘……!’
The shell was completely crushed.
The flesh, once protected by the hard shell, burst outward in all directions.
‘...Ku, kuhak?’
The demonic beast Kratum was horrified.
The first experience of its life.
A shock it had never even imagined.
‘What is…… this……’
More than pain, confusion came rushing in first.
What had just happened to it?
It couldn’t understand.
An explosion from below ground. An explosion powerful enough to crack its shell and send its massive body flying into the air?
That was something it had never even dreamed of.
‘Th-this is bad……’
This was the first time its shell had been so ruthlessly broken. Its soft, vulnerable insides were now exposed. Even during the Jewel War, it had never been damaged this badly.
Its heart sank.
Fear set in.
And with it, fury flared even stronger.
‘KRAAAAH!’
The more it feared, the more terrifying it tried to become.
It roared more savagely.
It tried to overcome this crisis.
But Kratum did not know.
It didn’t understand what kind of being was standing against it.
…… Thud-!
‘……!’
The moment Kratum roared, sharp crimson spikes like flagpoles surged up fiercely from below the ground. They pierced through the cracks in the broken shell and stabbed deep into its body!
‘Guh……!?’
If only the shell hadn’t been shattered.
If only it had been in its normal state.
It would never have allowed this kind of pain. It flinched at the moment the unbearable pain struck.
And in that moment, Kratum saw it.
A demon race figure stomping one foot into the ground and looking up at it. A being who had aged and grown stagnant for so long, now looking up with a brazen gaze filled with fresh curiosity!
‘Wow. After taking it down in the same pattern for 19 runs straight, doing it like this feels pretty refreshing?’
Smile!
Kim Jangcheol’s lips stretched to his ears.
A fresh wave of dopamine he hadn’t felt in ages!
Truthfully, up until now, Kratum, the challenge boss, had only been taken down using Aged Kimchi.
Of course, during that time, he’d tried all sorts of different things as he grew more skilled.
Beating it without any armor.
Whipping it to death using only a whip.
Taking it down slowly with only bleeding damage.
Rolling around in thorn armor to rub it down.
Luring it to high ground and killing it purely through fall damage.
Roasting it, boiling it, flipping it over, humiliating it, bloating it by blocking poison gas, provoking it—he’d tried every perverted strategy imaginable.
But… taking it down not with Aged Kimchi, but with another character, and that too while in the official final boss Credos’ body—this was the first time!
‘Aah, this is so fun…!’
Back when he fought Asurat or the Star Masters, he hadn’t felt this kind of excitement.
And that was understandable.
Back then, he hadn’t fully gotten used to Credos’ body. He couldn’t properly utilize Credos’ skills. At the time, the body felt more like a handicap-ridden prison than his own.
But now?
It was pure, unfiltered fun!
Ding-dong!
[Mana Seed is activated.]
[Mana Seed (Sprout Stage Lv.2) amplifies all of your stats by 2.4x.]
Ding-dong-dong!
[Equipped gear, Camilan’s Legendary Sword Set effect is applied.]
[As you're currently in a “Satiated” state, all of your stats are further amplified by 1.2x.]
Fwooosh!
Power surged through him.
His stats skyrocketed with amplification, enhancement, increase, breakthrough, supersize combo, double portions—everything stacked high! Thanks to that, he could now feel the high-level body’s raw might pulsing from within his silver body!
‘……This is it!’
Now, he was emitting power far superior to what Credos’ original body once held.
Fwoosh!
The moment he pushed off the ground, a new level of acceleration surged through his whole body. The landscape blurred. Kratum’s massive form rapidly closed in.
He slipped right through the dozens of whipping tendrils that swept the air—patterns he could execute in his sleep, which he had long since memorized.
And then, at a single, tiny opening, he drove the sword in.
Squelch!
‘……!’
The moment he was stabbed by Lara, Kratum’s gigantic body flinched. Of course, it wasn’t a critical blow.
To Kratum, whose thickest lower body diameter was 30 meters, Kim Jangcheol’s stab with Camilan’s Legendary Sword felt like nothing more than a toothpick.
Even so, a chill ran down its spine.
An ominous feeling.
Or perhaps the dread that it was totally screwed.
‘This is……’
It had to get it out.
It didn’t know what exactly this was, but leaving the sword inside spelled disaster. Feeling goosebumps all over, Kratum swung its tendrils to shake Kim Jangcheol off.
But the ancient demonic beast didn’t know.
It didn’t realize its opponent was beyond “seasoned”—he had rotted into madness. He knew every single counter-pattern Kratum could throw.
‘Nutrient Drain!’
Just as Kratum tried to strike back, Kim Jangcheol willed the Mana Seed to awaken. He spurred Lara on. Lara opened her eyes. And began sucking the nutrients straight from Kratum!
……Slurrrrrrp!
‘……!’
Hundreds of Kratum’s eyes shot wide open.
And it realized something.
‘W-wait? My energy……?’
It was draining away.
The nutrients it had preserved for ages to survive deep slumber were now being absorbed into the sword!
‘K-KRAAAH!’
Panicking, Kratum twisted its massive body. But once Kim Jangcheol had latched on, it was impossible to shake him off.
‘This damn…… mosquito!’
It was flustered.
Growing increasingly frantic.
In desperation, it rolled its enormous body.
Rumble!
‘This’ll crush him under me—he’ll let go just to avoid being squashed!’
……Or so it thought.
Thwack!
Just before being crushed under Kratum’s desperate roll, Kim Jangcheol lowered himself while still holding the sword. He slipped perfectly into the large gap exposed from Kratum’s shattered shell.
Thanks to that, he avoided being flattened!
Once the rolling stopped, he stood up again and gripped Lara’s hilt. Pouring in mana, he shouted:
‘Another Nutrient Drain!’
……Slurrrrrrrrp!
‘KRAAAH!’
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At that moment, Kratum realized.
That today, he had been well and truly bitten. That no matter what he did, he wouldn’t be able to shake this guy off.
‘What…… is this!’
His nutrients were being drained in real time. All the reserves he had saved and stored, looking ahead to the distant future, were completely looted.
It was a kind of forced diet.
Fat melted away in real time.
Sensing crisis, his bodily tissues began to rapidly break down fat and protein to supply the energy needed for movement.
Which meant, more weight loss.
The body within the solid shell slowly began to wither.
‘Ku…… Kuoooh!’
It was agony.
He rolled.
It was useless.
He lashed out with his tendrils to strike and shake him off.
But again, it was all in vain.
Every time the tendrils came flying in, Kim Jangcheol slickly, annoyingly, dodged them with perfect evasive moves.
‘I, I…… The mighty demonic beast that I am…… How did it come to this!’
He couldn’t run.
He couldn’t shake him off.
Now he’d become prey to the worst mosquito in history, getting his lifeblood sucked out.
It was unbelievable.
The combat engineers watching with popcorn felt the same way.
“T-That’s evil………”
“Even if the opponent’s a demonic beast, isn’t that going a bit too far……?”
“Looks like he has no intention of letting go until the thing dies.”
“The beast looks like it's in pain… it’s kinda pitiful……”
“Isn’t this abuse?”
“Wow, this guy’s messed up… I got chills……”
“This…… is the true nature of the Demon King……”
They all felt it now.
Kim Jangcheol’s thoroughness. His ruthlessness. And his spine-chilling, leech-like persistence.
Watching it brought back full-blown PTSD, like traumatic memories of being tormented by mosquitoes all summer long were putting their frontal lobes into a guillotine chokehold.
They started feeling sorry for the poor beast being “bullied.”
Without realizing it, they began muttering:
“As expected…… the Demon King……”
“Yeah. Even if he’s good to us, he’s still the Demon King……”
“Exactly. A Demon King should at least be like that.”
“Evil or not, at least he’s on our side! Hahaha!”
“He even gave us permission to use explosives!”
“It was all part of the plan!”
“Lord Demon King! You got this!”
Everyone cheered.
That’s right.
Evil or not.
Cruel or not.
As long as he didn’t treat them that way.
After all, the worst kind of enemy makes for the best kind of ally!
The combat engineers raised a victorious cry. And amid that noise, the demonic beast Kratum was growing more and more steeped in real-time despair.
‘……KRAAAH!’
There was no escape.
But his power kept leaking out!
‘S-Save me……!’
But Kim Jangcheol had zero intention of letting him go.
The more the demonic beast thrashed, the more tightly Kim Jangcheol drove Lara in. The more thoroughly he slurped up nutrients.
And he was now preparing the final blow.
‘Ready, Lara?’
[Of course, Iron~♡]
The moment they exchanged words, Kim Jangcheol pulled Lara from the beast’s body.
Pop!
‘……!’
Kratum flinched.
The damn sword, which he thought would never come out, had been pulled free. He was finally free.
Finally had a chance. A single, blessed opportunity to escape from that damn mosquito-like bastard!
‘Grrrh!’
BOOM!
Kratum slammed the ground with all his tendrils.
At the same time, his entire body trembled with humiliation.
‘How dare… How dare you!’
To push him into such a corner.
To make him feel fear.
‘I will never forget this disgrace!’
He would return someday.
He would recover his strength and come back to this place to wipe out every living thing.
He swore it.
Using the force of his tendril slam, he slid swiftly across the swamp, seething with hatred.
But then—at that moment.
“Tsk? Running away? Not gonna happen.”
The voice he should not be hearing, the voice he absolutely didn’t want to hear, rang out right in front of his face.
‘……!’
And in that instant, Kratum realized.
That the opponent who had tormented him all this time hadn’t been shaken off.
That he had only pulled out the sword he had stabbed in—but was still clinging to Kratum’s body like a damn mosquito.
“But hey,”
Kim Jangcheol moved with relaxed ease.
No rush.
Like he was just out for a walk.
He strolled down the shattered shell of Kratum’s outer body, and gently stabbed Lara into the middle of Kratum’s dazed forehead.
“Aren’t you curious? What happens to all the nutrients I suck out of you? What it all turns into in the end?”
‘……!’
No.
Not curious at all! Not in the slightest!
……He was just about to scream that when it happened.
Bzzzzzzzz!
Lara’s blade, embedded in Kratum’s forehead, began to vibrate. It digested the massive nutrients absorbed from the demonic beast, metabolized them, created byproducts, and condensed them.
Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, sulfur—various gases formed from processing the nutrients.
Fwooooosh?
A massive volume of gas gathered at the tip of Lara’s blade.
Condensed.
To the limit.
Critically.
Compressed.
And at the moment Lara shouted—
[Pffft!]
……BOOOOOOM!
The gas was fired into Kratum’s body. It expanded. It exploded. It ruptured him from the inside.
And with that, Kratum’s final fading consciousness slipped away.
‘I…… This is…… how it ends……?’
He couldn’t believe it.
He, an ancient demonic beast. He, who once struck fear during the era of the Jewel War.
To be humiliated and toyed with like this, only to vanish?
‘This can’t…… be……’
That was the end.
The brain tissue that composed the demonic beast’s consciousness was obliterated.
The being who had once shaken the world. The beast who, in a distant future, had hoped to devour the world—now, his massive body was repurposed into ultra bulk-grade sea snail material.
This one is so exciting! I'm waiting for further interaction between Aged Kimchi and Kim Jangcheol!
I really enjoy reading this, and I adore the loyalty Credos' people held to him!