CH 122

When the city, which had sunk underground, turned into a lake due to me activating my Fahr Stones filled with water mana, the subterranean dragon leapt out of the pit, unable to withstand this flood.



[I hate I hate I hate! I hate wateeeeeeerrr! And I hate you for using iiiiiittt!!] (Subterranean dragon)



His mountainous bulk looming over me was nothing short of dreadful.



Still, I didn’t look away.



A true assassin didn’t overlook even the smallest piece of information. He would understand that in order to survive and kill, information was everything.



I continued to observe that giant with great precision, using the super vision of my Tuatha Dé eyes.



[So I was right.] (Lugh)



When I fired at him with【Cannon Volley】, he did regenerate from that.



But that didn’t mean he went back to the way he was before.



After I blew away his brown shell, the flesh under it rose up to close up his wounds, while his shell remained shattered. 



And even now, his pink flesh was rising up to heal his wounds.



After all this time, he still hadn’t completely recovered yet.



This reinforced my suspicion that this giant beast wasn’t the demon.



[I guess water torture must be hard to bear when your body is full of holes.] (Lugh)



[I hate I hate I hate I hate!] (Subterranean dragon)



Since he wasn’t back to full health, he was infuriated by my water torture.



Under normal conditions, if he retracted the tentacles coming out of his mouth and curled up into a ball, his brownish outer shell would repel the water, and this water torture wouldn’t be a problem for him.



Not only did the water wash away his mucus, but since he instinctively continued to produce it, his weakness against water only concerned his pink flesh, the inner part of his body.



However, he had lost a good chunk of his shell to my【Cannon Volley】attack from earlier.



If he was doused with a large amount of water while he was in that state, it would seep under his shell, and make him suffer.



That wasn’t my aim back then, but my【Cannon Volley】wasn’t for nothing.



The frenzied subterranean dragon was now just a stone’s throw away from me.



All of his eight eyes, filled with murderous intent, were fixed on me.



Which worked to my advantage.



…During our first encounter, he was taking it easy and messing with me.



This meant that he was taking me lightly, but for me, it didn’t work in my favor.



Being carefree about this meant that there would be nothing to narrow his field of vision, so he may realize what my aim was, and him playing around made it extremely hard to anticipate his next move.



So him being filled with blind rage and trying to kill me made things easier for me.



After all, it was easy to read your enemies’ next move when they narrowed their own field of vision.



In other words, it made them the easiest marks for an assassin like me.



The subterranean dragon thrusted his countless tentacles like spears and blocked all escape routes as he rushed toward me.



It would be impossible to avoid him by using ordinary evasion methods.



[Let’s play.] (Lugh)



I released a Fahr Stone.



It was loaded with a 7:3 ratio of wind mana and water mana.



Unlike earlier, this one wasn’t going to break out muddy waters, but a storm.



A heavy rain and a hurricane.



Although that beast was jumping up at a speed that was unthinkable for a giant like him, jumping and defying gravity was all he did.



And that was when my hurricane came into play. It was visibly killing his momentum.



Not only that, but the water permeated onto his flesh, washing away his mucus and dulling his movements.



[Wet! Wet! Weeeettt…! He’s gonna get away! NOOOOOO…!] (Subterranean dragon)



And as for me, I rode the wind.



Thanks to the manufacturing of my clothes, I could freely manipulate the wind.



I also knew from past experiments what kind of storm was likely to occur. By riding the wind, I managed to gain super speed, avoid his giant mass and countless spears, and sneak under him.



The storm ended.



At that moment, I fired my fourth Fahr Stone.



[Blast away!] (Lugh)



That last Fahr Stone was filled with a 3:7 ratio of fire and wind mana.



It was specially made for explosions.



A directional explosion was generated, and the giant body of the subterranean dragon was blown away.



Unlike my usual explosions, this one didn’t have any mass as I didn’t add any earth mana to the mix, but if my only aim was to send him flying, this was the better combination.



Of course, if I used such a weapon while in midair, I would get blown toward the ground myself.



I removed all of my wind armor and used reverse thrusts to kill as much of my momentum as possible, but it was merely to give myself peace of mind, as I would instantly die if I crashed into solid ground.



I knew this would happen.



Which is why I took prior measures.



I put on a mask that protected my eyes, ears, and mouth, then I adjusted my position in the air, and coated myself with mana. Then I landed in the water with a huge splash.



That’s right. I did flood the city to harass that beast, but it was also to cushion my fall with water.



Even so, the impact of the water was so awful that even though I was wearing a high impact resistant assassin suit made from a monster’s hide, in addition to my mana protection, I still got badly bruised and broke some of my bones.



Furthermore, I sank so deep I actually reached the bottom of the water, but I had no fatal injury.



I kicked the bottom and rose up to the surface.



[…I guess I managed not to die.] (Lugh)



I floated on the water, looked up at the sky, and took off my mask.



My skin felt tingly. It was because of the mucus dissolved in the water. Apparently, it remained harmful even when dissolved in a water pool the size of a huge lake.



I could see fifteen Fahr Stones glitter as they flew toward the subterranean dragon I had blown sky high.



Tarte used the wind to give them unnatural trajectories so that the impacts of their explosions would be gathered at the center of them all.



They were already on the verge of their critical point.



As soon as all the Fahr Stones reached their target, they exploded.



[Leave it to Dia alright. Perfect placement and timing. I would’ve done the same.] (Lugh)



I protected myself with mana and went underwater once again.



That was a supercharged explosion generated by fifteen Fahr Stones.



Even from such a deep pit, I wasn’t completely safe from it.



Moreover, those bombing-oriented Fahr Stones were brutal, scattering countless iron fragments thanks to the earth mana in them.



I could hear the detonation and feel the shockwave from the bottom of the water, the surface evaporated at once, and the water turned hot.



More iron fragments rained down, and several water columns rose up.



…I expected no less from 15 explosions caused with 300 people’s worth of mana each. That was nasty.



[Bu-Haah!] (Lugh)



I emerged from the water.



I focused on my eyes to see the fate of the subterranean dragon.



From the look of it, his giant body had been blasted away without leaving a trace by that supercharged explosion.



If my guess that this giant beast wasn’t the demon was correct, then he wouldn’t be able to regenerate from that, and only the demon would come back to life and reveal himself.



…If he’s just a monster with a super healing factor, there’s no way he can recover from that.



Only a demon’s regression-based healing factor would allow him to come back to life.



So, what’s the result?



If that giant managed to regenerate from that, then killing him might as well be impossible.



We would have no choice but to run away.



I used a wind-based searching spell while channeling my mana into my Tuatha Dé eyes to make sure I didn’t miss anything.



A change occurred in the air.



Like a second-rate movie playing backwards, pieces of burnt flesh scattered in the air came into view and gathered in the center. Then the burns disappeared, and something humanoid took shape.



And then, a little boy with smooth, glowing white skin appeared, with nary a single scratch on him.



He had a strange appearance. Like a mannequin, without any bumps or holes of any kind.



[Gone? It’s goooooooooone…! My armor… My precious armor…! WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!] (White demon)



He screamed. It sounded more like he was crying rather than yelling in anger.



Looks like I didn’t get the wrong impression about that little boy.



He was way too mentally immature. Something that looked like a whip extended from his white skin and attached itself to the wall, then he went straight to the surface.



Maybe he was trying to run away.



…He no longer has any armor to protect him.



Now I can kill him.



The mana and miasma I could feel from his body were far less intense than those of the lion demon from back then.



In that case, Tarte and Dia wouldn’t have any problem dealing with him either.



And so, there was only one thing left for me to do.



[I’ll just focus on my main occupation: assassination.] (Lugh)



Taking a life without missing the opportunity to.



And at the same time, being prepared to back up Tarte and Dia in case of danger.



The fiend that had been killing people from a safe distance, while being protected by an invincible armor, now stood on the same playing field as us for the first time.



Time to teach this guy a lesson. That this is not a killing game, but a death match.