Chapter 140

Underwater (3)

It went without saying, but jumping straight into the mouth of a gigantic creature that was opening its jaws wide right in front of me was quite difficult to do with a sane mind.

Even more so when rows of sharp teeth were clearly visible even beneath the water. If someone jumped into that, what kind of fate awaited them was as obvious as fire.

“…He will, right?”

“…He will.”

However, there were two people here who were completely certain that Aiden Kellermain would do exactly that without the slightest hesitation.

Amid the chaos unfolding around them, Elisha and Bailey, who were still acting as powerless commoners, nodded their heads while looking toward Aiden, who had jumped into the water.

How should it be put?

There was a strong feeling that, when it came to evaluating Aiden, everyone would likely share a similar opinion when it came to the category of recklessness.

“I’m looking forward to it. What kind of technique will he show this time—”

And just as Bailey, with her eyes darkened as usual, was about to say that.

Her sentence abruptly cut off.

“…?”

Elisha quietly looked at Bailey.

It was one thing that she had stopped speaking midway, but the behavior this woman was showing right now clearly looked strange.

“…What’s wrong with you?”

Elisha scanned Bailey up and down with suspicious eyes.

Well, she was a woman who often showed a few loose screws even normally.

But her current state was exceptionally strange even compared to those times. She kept staggering as if she could barely support her own body, and for some reason heat had risen to her face and her breathing had become ragged.

“…Hh, ngh….”

“…………??”

Then, after a little more time passed, she even let out such bizarre sounds before collapsing to the ground.

When Elisha stepped a little closer to check on her, her impression became much clearer.

‘…Is she enduring pain?’

Looking at the cold sweat forming on her forehead and the back of her neck, that was the only impression she could get.

Her face, which had turned red from the heat, was gradually starting to look pale as well.

She did not know why she suddenly felt pain, but if even a top-ranking executive among the demons was reacting like this, then it must certainly be an immense level of pain.

“That man…!”

Before long, Bailey glared resentfully beneath the surface of the water.

…It was clearly the gaze of someone convinced that Aiden was doing something down there.

▣

In truth, what Aiden had arranged was actually quite simple. It was just a bit extreme.

Basically, the God of Death that he was facing was an intelligent being with fairly decent response capabilities. That much was evident just from how it had dealt with the divine power Milene had unleashed without much difficulty.

Simply trying to kill this thing would not work. It would surely find some way to slip away again. That kind of cunning, combined with its regenerative abilities, made it an extremely troublesome opponent.

So, to kill something like that, he had to resort to extreme measures as well.

As Aiden flowed straight into the Kraken’s mouth, which had bared its teeth wide, the sharp fangs immediately came crashing down on him. One side caught his arm. The other caught his leg.

The physical force crushed his entire body—power so overwhelming that even a body strengthened to its limit with every kind of skill barely managed to endure it. His vision flashed from the pain, as if his limbs were being torn apart.

But it was similar to when he had entered the mouth of a dragon before. Inside here were vital organs that could never be defended, no matter how much the creature trained its body.

Of course, unlike a dragon, this thing regenerated at a mysterious speed, so it could not be dealt with in exactly the same way.

Aiden, who had entered the Kraken’s mouth,

immediately spread the divine power that had risen around his body in every direction.

-……

-……!

Scorching heat surged everywhere. Once it ignited, the divine power—something that would never extinguish until the caster personally put it out—began burning everything around it.

[----!!!]

The Kraken’s agonized scream thundered so loudly that it felt like Aiden’s eardrums would burst.

Even a creature that could casually chop off its own legs without hesitation could not endure the sensation of flames descending from its mouth into the very ‘inside’ of its body.

And in the first place, because of where it was burning, it seemed it could not simply cut off and discard the burning part like it had before.

“-……!!!!!”

Of course, Aiden’s body was not unharmed either.

Naturally, if something like this was ignited inside a sealed space, Aiden would inevitably be engulfed in the same heat. While trying to burn the Kraken, he would be roasted along with it.

Perhaps the Kraken had realized that as well, because its mouth immediately began moving violently again.

Its teeth slammed down toward Aiden once more.

It was as if it were asking whether he could endure not only burning himself alive inside its mouth, but also being chewed apart by the Kraken at the same time.

Compared to the Kraken, which was merely burning, Aiden was suffering far more—his entire body being shredded while burning at the same time. It was the Kraken’s way of saying that if he did not like it, he should extinguish the flames immediately and get out of its body.

His body, whose vitality had been amplified to its limit through all kinds of skills, did not collapse easily even while being bitten by the massive creature and burning his own body alive. Horrific agony surged through his nerves.

His vision flashed as if sparks were exploding before his eyes, and a scream he could not suppress rasped up from beneath his vocal cords.

But.

He did not stop.

[……?]

Even the Kraken seemed to grow confused.

As his body was being chewed alive, and he endured the same agonizing pain of being burned alive just like the Kraken itself.

The small human inside its mouth had no intention of stopping.

Without even blinking once, he continued burning both the Kraken and his own body ‘at the same time’.

Truly, in the most literal sense.

It was a challenge of who would die first.

Both of their vitality was stubborn anyway. Milene’s flame possessed the trait of burning its target ‘until it died’.

Even if Aiden himself had to endure pain twice as great as the Kraken, the killing intent to cut off this creature’s life while watching it with his own eyes could be vividly felt.

[---------!!!!]

The Kraken moved its mouth in convulsions. It was moving far more violently than before to chew Aiden apart, and in reality Aiden’s entire body was mutilated far more severely than earlier.

Blood scattered everywhere. If the people who usually worried about his well-being had seen him now, it would not have been strange if they fainted on the spot. Yet Aiden instead grinned and wiped the corner of his mouth.

Because he could clearly read the emotion coming from that movement.

Because it was an intelligent creature, it seemed to feel it even more clearly than beasts that had nothing but instinct left.

The emotion called ‘fear’, which it was experiencing for the first time in its life.

All fear came from the unknown, and even the Kraken must have never experienced a gamble that ignored the fundamental instinct of ‘self-preservation’ that any living creature possessing life would naturally have.

Purely, even if it meant burning his own body.

To this extent, to the point it felt absurd.

Such a frost-like killing intent that stood bristling with the determination to kill it no matter what was surely something it had never seen before!

‘…So.’

Aiden, regardless of his body being shredded to pieces, licked near his lips with his tongue.

He additionally activated the Holy Flame Operation skill he had taken from the Pontiff.

A simple yet powerful effect that doubled the output of all divine power for a single strike.

The black flames that were burning both the Kraken and his body grew even more intense.

‘How many times do you think I’ve died?’

And the one here

was none other than a man whom even the Knight of Dawn had clicked his tongue at, saying he was the most stubborn person he had ever seen.

A man who had died dozens, hundreds, thousands of times a day until it reached the point where it was not only nothing to him anymore, but he would even feel something missing if he did not die.

The flames with twice the firepower did not stop moving.

They burned, burned, and burned again.

Aiden’s own body burned, and the Kraken’s body burned.

The more they burned, the more violently it resisted, yet even so, until the very end. Without ever stopping.

Burn. Burn. Burn.

Burn. Burn. Burn—

“-!”

He kept burning until his sense of time grew distant and hazy. Aiden’s own body endured pain that would have meant death dozens of times over for an ordinary person, all within a short span. The agony made one second feel like an eternity, as if his consciousness would snap at any moment.

“--!”

But.

He endured.

And after so much time had passed that it was impossible to tell how long it had actually been,

Aiden realized that the Kraken was no longer moving at all.

“…….”

-Haa.

Even beneath the water, a long sigh of relief escaped.

He slowly looked around his surroundings.

Even after being burned that thoroughly, the inside of the Kraken’s body was still writhing in places where regeneration was occurring. Even by his standards, that level of regenerative ability was disgustingly persistent.

But.

Its body had endured.

System Message

▶ Target ‘Kraken’ has died from shock.

▶ The body endured to the very end while withstanding excruciating pain. A new function of ‘Skill: Sanctified Body’ has been discovered.

▶ Check the newly added function in the Skill tab!

‘…Looks like the mind couldn’t endure it.’

While scanning the floating window with his eyes, Aiden let out a small chuckle.

Anyway, with this, the task right in front of him had been resolved.

As he staggered out beneath the surface of the water, he could feel the people nearby staring at him without even being able to say anything.

When he had slain the dragon before, the way people looked at him had been close to awe and shock.

…But the gazes directed at him now were closer to the fear one would show toward an aberration or a monster.

From Aiden’s perspective, it was not hard to understand.

A single human

had dragged a creature massive and powerful enough to cover the entire surrounding area into a one-on-one fight,

and then killed it through ‘pain’, causing it to die from shock.

While he himself had endured more than twice that amount of pain and still remained alive.

“…….”

When Aiden silently grabbed onto a raft and pulled himself up, someone standing on it unconsciously let out a small gasp.

And understandably so.

On top of the madness that had already caused fear in the people around him, Aiden’s appearance—after continuing to burn himself alive and being torn apart the entire time—could hardly be described as anything other than horrific even in the most generous terms.

Yet even in that state, Aiden slowly swept his gaze around.

He quickly found what he had been looking for. Walking forward step by step, he stopped in front of someone.

“So it was you.”

Aiden spoke while looking at Bailey, whose face had turned pale as she breathed heavily.

“A mental lifeform, even if only to a very small extent, inevitably shares its senses with its creations. Isn’t that right?”

“…….”

“Burning alive hurts quite a bit, you see. Even for a high-level being like you, the connection only passes on a fraction of the sensation, yet it’s enough to leave you in that state.”

“…….”

“I won’t expose your identity right here. Instead.”

While Bailey looked up at him, cold sweat pouring down her face, Aiden wiped his face and continued.

“Let’s talk.”

“…….”

“There are quite a few things about you that I’m curious about.”