"Impossible..."

The word barely escaped past Seok’s throat. His posture, which was usually so steady, was visibly trembling.

Beside him, the archer’s bowstring went completely slack. The glowing green aura he had prepared flickered twice before dying out entirely.

The couple at the back instinctively drew closer to each other as the man’s heavy shield suddenly began looking small against the towering monster.

’I knew it would also be in this Gate...’ I thought as my fingers around the hilt of the dagger tightened beneath the water. ’But looking at it in front of me and reading about it on paper is definitely different.’

In the text, it was just a hurdle meant to be passed. But in reality, its appearance alone was making it hard to draw a clean breath.

And the sulfurous odor coming out of its mouth was enough to make my eyes water.

The Behemoth tilted its massive and featureless head. Without eyes, it relied entirely on the vibrations in the air and the water, and the magic radiating from living beings.

And right now, the highest concentration of active mana was coming directly from the front.

From Seok.

With a sickening sound, the monster slowly lowered its massive maw toward him. It didn’t pace toward him; instead, it moved slowly, like it was savoring the absolute terror of its prey.

Seok didn’t move. His eyes were wide and fixed on the hundreds of teeth which were merely a few inches away from his face.

SHREEEEEEK!

The Behemoth suddenly lunged as its circular jaw snapped forward to crush Seok’s upper body.

"Move!" the man from the couple shouted from the back, but his voice was too late.

Yet years of strict training and survival instinct finally broke through Seok’s frozen state at the last second.

With a desperate movement, he hoisted his spear horizontally above his head with all of his strength.

BOOM!

The weapon’s shaft slammed violently against the monster’s jaw. The impact created a massive shockwave that sent a wave of water cascading outward in all directions.

Seok was instantly driven downward and his knees buckled as he struggled to keep his feet planted in the shifting mud beneath the surface. He gritted his teeth together as blood trickled from his nose under the immense pressure.

"Don’t just stand there! Attack!" he managed to shout out, and witnessing him barely holding the line, the remaining Hunters finally snapped out of their daze.

"Ahhhh! Die, you oversized worm!" the archer screamed and pulled his bowstring to its absolute limit. Three green arrows materialized simultaneously and flew through the air, embedding themselves deep into the monster’s skin.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The explosions from the arrows tore apart chunks of flesh from the monster that sprayed across the swamp water.

The creature shrieked in anger and its massive tail thrashed in the water, creating ripples across the swamp.

"Divine Light Shield!" the woman from the couple chanted at the top of her lungs as her hands began glowing with a blinding white light again.

A massive translucent shield of holy energy materialized directly in front of Seok and absorbed a second brutal strike from the monster’s torso.

The battle instantly turned into a brutal struggle for survival. The melee Hunters moved forward and desperately attacked any part of the creature they could reach, while the archer maintained a steady barrage of arrows.

But despite their efforts, they were clearly losing ground. The Behemoth’s thick skin healed almost as fast as they could damage it, and the Hunters were rapidly losing stamina.

As my mind was calculating our chances, I looked over at Vera. If the front line collapsed, we would be forced to fight it anyway.

"Vera," I whispered while adjusting the mask so that it wouldn’t fall off. "We should join in. If they fall, it is going to get annoying."

I made a move to step forward, but before I could take a single step ahead, Vera’s hand moved and gripped my wrist. Her hold wasn’t painful, but it was entirely unyielding.

"Wait, Woo Jin—I mean, Brian," she spoke.

"Why?" I asked, looking down at her.

"Let them beg first." She continued, "Let them ask for help, then we step in. So wait."

Oh, she wants them to suffer a little bit more so that when we step in and she kills the monster, it would make our presence even bigger.

But the question is, can she really defeat that thing without much trouble when she might not even have her full power recovered?

Meanwhile, the situation ahead was growing dire. The man’s shield was cracked down the center and his partner’s face had gone pale from mana exhaustion.

Seok was also very tired. His spear flickered weakly as he used his physical strength to parry another descending strike.

The archer’s face was covered in swamp mud. He glanced toward the rear of the line. When he saw us standing there entirely still, his expression twisted into pure rage.

"What the hell are you two doing?!" he screamed. "Do you want us all to die here?! Move your hidden expert asses and do something, or we are going to get wiped out!"

A few other Hunters glanced back and I noticed that their eyes were filled with a mixture of pleading and resentment, since they were bleeding, exhausted, and desperate for a miracle.

Vera slowly turned her head toward the shouting archer.

"I do not care if you die," she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it somehow cut perfectly through the roars of the monster and the splashing of the water. "Your survival is not my concern."

The archer froze and a chill ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the swamp water.

Vera turned her head slightly toward me.

"Brian. Stay here."

"Huh, alright," I said, and then she let go of my sleeve and began walking, stepping past the trembling mage girl that was still standing in front of us instead of fighting the monster.

"But you are making too much noise. And you are delaying our meal."

Without waiting for a response, she glided through the water smoothly and stopped right beside the panting and bleeding Seok.

"Hand over the spear," Vera commanded.

Seok blinked through the sweat and blood dripping into his eyes as he looked at the small figure in front of him.

"What...?"

"Give it to me."

Before he could even process the request, Vera’s hand closed around the shaft of his blue spear. The moment her fingers wrapped around the weapon, the flickering blue aura vanished entirely as Seok’s grip slipped away and his hands were left empty.

The monster shrieked again and its maw descended to swallow them both.

Vera didn’t flinch. She didn’t take a defensive stance. With a fluid motion, she spun the spear in an arc, the tip cutting through the air with a sharp whooshing sound that literally parted the fog around them.

Then she drove the blunt end of the spear directly into the swamp and used the leverage to push her body completely out of the water. Her movements were so precise and effortless that it seemed gravity didn’t even work on her.

’What is she gonna do?’ I thought.

While in midair, she twisted her body and gripped the spear as hard as possible with both of her hands.

As the monster’s maw opened wide beneath her, Vera brought the spear downward with a force that made it look like a blur.

THRUST!

The blue spear drove directly through the center of the teeth, then pierced straight into the creature’s throat and continued going through the entire structure until the tip embedded itself deep into the soil beneath the water.

CRACK—SHATTER!

The sound of the monster’s internal skeletal structure breaking echoed through everyone’s ears.

The Behemoth’s entire body went rigid as its dark green skin expanded outward for a fraction of a second before a massive geyser of blood exploded from its wound and rained down into the water.

The massive creature didn’t even have the chance to let out a final shriek. It simply collapsed inward, its colossal form sliding down like a sack of meat before splashing heavily into the water.

Silence fell over the swamp. Absolute, dead silence.

Vera landed lightly on top of the dead monster’s head. Her mask was completely unbothered by being wet, and she casually reached down to pull Seok’s spear out of the body with a single effortless tug.

Seok sat frozen in the water, his glasses sliding off his nose entirely and splashing into the swamp. He didn’t even bother to pick them up. His eyes were wide, fixed on the weapon in Vera’s hand.

’She knows how to use a spear... even better than me?’ This might be what he was thinking. He was a trained professional, a spear specialist certified by the Association.

Yet the way Vera had handled that weapon... it wasn’t just raw strength. It was a level of mastery that belonged to higher-ranked Hunters.

Vera walked along the monster’s back, stepped off into the water, and waded calmly back toward me. She extended her hand, offering the spear back to Seok as she passed him.

"Your weapon," she said simply.

Seok took it automatically, and his hands were shaking so much he almost dropped it again.

"Who... what rank..."

Vera ignored him completely and reached my side. Then, once more, her posture instantly returned to normal as she grabbed the edge of my sleeve.

"Brian," she whispered. "Can we get the spicy chicken skewers after this?"

I looked at the absolute, shell-shocked bewilderment on the faces of every single Hunter in the area, then down at my terrifying companion.

Even I was shocked by her effortless victory.

"Yeah," I replied, hiding my shock behind my mask, which gradually turned into a grin. "We will."