Leveling with the Gods

C410

"Siegfried!"

YuWon yelled.

A gigantic, unrecognizable slime. YuWon looked at his companions trapped in it.

Behind him, Hercules pulled his arm.

Now, the only survivors were YuWon, Hercules, and Asura.

"We need to get out of here first."

"We can't."

"Only the three of us are left. Asura has also lost a head, he's practically incapacitated."

"We can capture it here. If we wait a little longer..."

"Kim YuWon!"

It was a shout that made his ears feel like they were going to burst. How long had it been since Hercules had shouted so loudly? YuWon, who had been running wild, covered in blood and lost in rage, finally regained his sanity.

Hercules shook his head.

His gaze finally turned to Asura, who was staggering with a sword in hand.

The evil spirit, who now only had one head, had been unconscious for a long time.

What he was doing was simply a reflex of the experiences his body had memorized. Moving while unconscious meant he was also pushing his vitality to the limit.

Asura would die like this.

That was a fact.

"...Understood."

YuWon gritted his teeth.

He had to stay calm. He always told himself that over and over again.

The angrier he got about someone's death, the faster his remaining comrades would die.

So, what would he do if he couldn't regain his sanity in a situation like this?

"Get Asura out."

YuWon raised his head.

Without him realizing it, Hercules was already turning.

From inside the nest, Ubbo-Sathla was slowly approaching.

It was obvious what he was going to do.

"Don't overdo it."

"Do you want us all to die?"

"We want to survive together."

"Right now, you're just getting in the way."

A statement that hit the key point.

But YuWon couldn't refute it.

His energy was also dwindling. Asura had long been exhausting his strength to stay alive, and only Hercules had enough remaining energy here.

It seemed that he had impressive endurance, just like his brute strength.

"If I'm alone, I can survive. Don't worry. I promise. I will come back alive."

It wasn't someone else making this promise, it was Hercules.

He said it with such confidence that he probably made some judgment saying it that way.

More than anything else...

"...Understood."

YuWon couldn't refute Hercules' words that said, "you're just getting in the way."

Finally, YuWon lifted the semi-conscious Asura onto his shoulder.

There was a slight resistance, but it was brief.

Whack!

When Hercules punched him in the back of the neck, Asura twisted his body and then collapsed.

YuWon left the place.

Hercules kept his promise.

When Asura, who had been unconscious for a long time, began to slowly recover.

"Hercules, Hercules has returned!"

Finally, they could hear the news they had been waiting for.

YuWon hurriedly left. In the distance, he saw Hercules stumbling while being supported by other companions.

When Hercules saw him, he spoke in the same voice as always.

"I told you. That I would come back alive."

Despite having lost an arm, Hercules smiled as if he was saying, "Look."

YuWon opened his eyes.

He was sitting quietly, trying to rest as effectively as possible, but unnecessary thoughts invaded him.

Was it because they were inside Ubbo-Sathla's nest?

Unconsciously, he began to remember things from the past.

"At a time like this... Cheongseung (청승)" (Note: 'cheongseung' is a native word that means: 'a miserable, lamentable, and unpleasant attitude or behavior')

YuWon got up from his spot.

It was a brief rest of less than ten minutes.

However, depending on how effective the rest was, it could make a difference in the body's recovery.

Furthermore, YuWon hadn't even spent much energy in the previous battles.

"Well, isn't it just Cheongseung?"

This fight was one they had already lost.

Both the attack on the nest and Hercules' escape.

Both had failed.

And that's precisely why they could try it again.

To succeed.

"Is everyone rested?"

This was Hercules' question as he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

"Yes."

"Then, let's move immediately."

YuWon and Hercules began to move.

The other members of the group were out of sight.

Each of them was moving to their assigned positions.

"The map that Daedalus showed us, is it real?"

The Lion King asked the question several times.

As he had a poor memory, he was the last to memorize the nest's map.

He was afraid that the map he had memorized so painstakingly might be wrong.

"The map is real. Fortunately."

Perhaps it was a bit of conscience, or maybe he simply didn't care. Daedalus, who had been pointed at the map, showed the true structure of the nest identified by YuWon, Hercules, and Asura, who were survivors at that moment.

Perhaps he didn't want it to be discovered that he had betrayed them in that way.

"So, what's the plan?"

YuWon asserted that they could assault the nest.

From the beginning, YuWon never said things without a basis. Almost everything he proposed had a success rate of 50% or more.

Therefore, the team members trusted that it would be the same this time.

But...

"From now on, we will separate."

YuWon's plan unfolded differently from what everyone had anticipated from the beginning.

"I don't know if this will be okay."

"It will be. You also agreed to this method."

"I... didn't..."

Hercules, who was about to say he had never said such a thing, stopped.

"I seem to forget it frequently. That you came from a different time than ours."

In fact, that didn't really matter.

Among the companions who came together, there was no one who didn't trust YuWon.

Even if YuWon hadn't come back with the Clock Movement, if he had kept saying to continue, everyone would have responded the same way.

They leaped, step by step.

YuWon and Hercules moved through the long passage of the nest.

Strangely, they walked a good distance and didn't encounter any enemies.

"There's something that intrigues me."

The reason Hercules brought up that question he had been doubting was precisely that.

"Have we failed after all?"

Tick.

YuWon's steps stopped for a moment.

Just a few seconds. YuWon, who had stood as if time had stopped, started walking again as if nothing had happened.

"We are still alive. You, me...".

"I'm not denying that."

"My return is a trial. If we had succeeded, there would be no need to come back."

"For Ubbo-Sathla? Or Shub-Niggurath? Foolish Chaos?"

"No."

The reason YuWon stopped for a while.

"It's none of those things."

The long-forgotten memory, or rather, the one he had tried not to think about, suddenly surfaced.

"Then, what is it?"

"I don't know its name."

"Something like Foolish Chaos?"

"I caught that guy. The problem is another."

"Who is that guy?"

"It's difficult to explain in words. That's..."

YuWon whispered as he raised his head.

What he was seeing now was not the obstructed ceiling but the purple sky that stretched beyond.

A purple sky.

If they weren't in the situation they were in, they would have considered this color quite beautiful.

But when they saw its true nature with their own eyes, YuWon and his companions had no choice but to give up on winning this fight.

"What made us give up the assault was the sky itself."

"The sky?"

There's nothing you can do about it if you know it in advance. Now is the time to focus on assaulting Ubbo-Sathla."

Tick.

YuWon stopped in front of a wall in front of them.

"We've arrived."

"This is it."

Grunt.

Hercules clenched his fist tightly.

YuWon did the same.

[The strength of giants is infused in your right arm]

[The flame of the Giant King manifests in my arm]

Whooosh.

The flames and strength of Surt infused their arms.

In an instant, Hercules looked at YuWon's arm.

"You have completely mastered Gigantification. It's much more than I expected."

"Let's talk about that later. Focus. If we don't pierce through it at once, it could get more difficult."

"Understood."

At the same time.

Boom, boom, boom.

The nest's ceiling resonated above the floor where YuWon and Hercules stood.

Their eyes focused on the wall in front of them.

The map that Daedalus had shown them only marked up to this point.

But...

"There was a wall."

"A wall?"

"It's the room Ubbo-Sathla most wanted to hide. It was the place where Kali discovered it while we were searching for an escape route."

"Me?"

"Your eyes may not be as penetrating as the Golden Cinder Eyes, but they can see through walls to some extent."

Beyond the nest that was not marked on Daedalus's map.

Kim YuWon and Hercules extended their fists to that place at the same time.

Rumble...

Kwaaang!

The wall trembled.

It was like when they hit the ceiling. The wall didn't break.

But the situation was different now since they had no intention of leaving the nest in the first place.

Bang, bang!

Thump, thud...

YuWon and Hercules continued to pound on the wall. At first, the wall didn't even budge, but when they both struck it together, cracks finally began to appear.

"Step back."

At Hercules's signal, YuWon stepped back without hesitation.

He knew that if he stayed close, he would be dragged along with the wall.

The crack they had created together...

Whoosh!

Hercules extended his fist forcefully toward the center of that crack.

Kwaaang!

It was a single blow.

With that final blow, the crack and the entire wall were blown apart.

The energy radiating from his fist pierced the wall. Beyond the thickly rising smoke, a vast space was glimpsed.

Keeping his fist extended, Hercules looked at that space.

"...It was real."

Thump...

A giant circular space.

In the center, a purple sphere pulsating steadily like a heart.

And even a stone slab within it.

Hercules looked at the ground he was standing on. Then, he looked at the ceiling connected to the wall.

"The entire nest was Ubbo-Sathla."

"Why are you marveling so much?"

Boom...

A dazzling lightning bolt exploded from behind.

Crack...

It passed by Hercules at an astonishing speed.

The Lightning Bolt instantly flew toward the sphere surrounding the stone slab.

But...

Crack, crack-le...

The Lightning Bolt finally vanished before touching the stone slab.

It literally dissolved. The sphere surrounding the stone slab seemed to absorb the Lightning Bolt launched by YuWon like a sponge absorbing water.

"Clearly, it's protecting that."

Could that really be a heart?

At first glance, it appeared to be a stone slab, but Ubbo-Sathla was desperately guarding it.

From the beginning, the whole purpose of hiding this room seemed to be to conceal that stone slab.

Drip...

The liquid dripping from the ceiling began to fill the floor. Soon, it gathered and transformed into single-celled slime-like forms that moved.

They didn't attack YuWon and Hercules.

Instead, like the sphere surrounding the slab, they filled around them, trying to protect the slab.

"Do you know what to do?"

"Yes."

Crack!

YuWon created another Lightning Bolt in his hand.

To reach that slab, they first had to get rid of the other beings around it.

Thump!

Hercules clapped his fists together.

In his pupils, Ubbo-Sathla's slab glowed intensely.

"Let's snatch that slab."