Chapter 283
Puh-buh-buh-buh-boom!
The Sand Blasters relentlessly hammered Lee Jeongho.
Each time, his body shook violently.
The tremendous impacts made his entire body go numb, but Lee Jeongho endured.
He had already taken dozens of Sand Blaster hits, yet he still remained standing.
Because while executing Meteor Cleave, his aura protected his entire body.
But the closer he got to Zeon, the exponentially greater the number of Sand Blasters striking him became.
Puh-buh-buh-buh-boom!
As the high-pressure sand attacks continued, the accumulated shock building up in his body snowballed.
The desert was overflowing with limitless sand, and Zeon still had plenty of mana left.
Without exaggeration, he could have kept firing Sand Blasters until sunset the next day.
Puh-buh-buh-buh-boom!
“Kraaaagh!”
In the end, unable to withstand the relentless bombardment, Lee Jeongho’s Meteor Cleave shattered.
The aura protecting his body vanished, and dozens of Sand Blasters struck him consecutively.
With a scream, Lee Jeongho was blasted far away. But Zeon had no intention of ending things here.
He raised his hand.
At once, an enormous pillar of sand shot into the air.
When he clenched his fist tightly, the sand compressed as hard as sandstone.
As if Lee Jeongho were standing right in front of him, Zeon slammed his fist downward with all his might. The hardened sand pillar descended like a massive stone spear toward Lee Jeongho.
KWAANG!
The ground shook violently, and dust billowed everywhere.
Lee Jeongho’s limbs, pinned by the sand pillar, were twisted at grotesque angles. His chest had caved in as well—one glance was enough to tell his condition was critical.
“Kh… ugh…”
Lee Jeongho let out ragged breaths.
Blood streamed from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth.
As if unable to believe he had been defeated so miserably, he could only blink blankly.
Zeon approached him.
Looking down at Lee Jeongho, Zeon spoke.
“It seems you were the one who received death’s lesson.”
“Y-you… think you’ll… be okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Can you… handle the mayor’s wrath?”
At Lee Jeongho’s words, Zeon tilted his head.
“Why would the mayor be angry?”
“You’re asking because you don’t know? If you don’t bring back Moby Dick’s heart, the mayor will be furious.”
“Then I’ll just bring it back. What’s the problem?”
“What?”
“There’s no rule saying you had to be the one to bring back Moby Dick’s heart.”
“You bastard!”
Realizing Zeon’s meaning, Lee Jeongho’s eyes widened.
Rip!
Tearing off the necklace hanging around Lee Jeongho’s neck, Zeon said,
“It’s enchanted with subspace storage, right? As long as Moby Dick’s heart is placed inside this, Jin Geumho won’t question anything.”
“The mayor…”
“His Heavenly Eye isn’t omnipotent. He can predict results to some extent, but he can’t see the entire process. He probably foresaw that if you accompanied them, they would obtain Moby Dick’s heart. But your survival likely wasn’t included in the result he saw.”
“How do you know about the Heavenly Eye?”
“The person who knows Jin Geumho best told me.”
“Y-you…”
The moment Lee Jeongho tried to rise in a convulsive motion, sand engulfed him.
Gaaaaang!
Furiously rotating sand.
Sand Mixer had been unleashed.
There wasn’t even a scream.
His body was ground apart in an instant.
The sand where Lee Jeongho had been buried turned red.
That was the end of Lee Jeongho, a member of the Numbers.
“H-how…?”
Seeing the scene, Claire’s face turned deathly pale.
The person she feared most was Lee Jeongho.
And now Zeon had killed that same Lee Jeongho without suffering any serious injuries himself. It terrified her beyond words.
Zeon hadn’t merely killed Lee Jeongho.
He had slaughtered all the demonic beasts attacking Moby Dick as well.
If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she never would have believed it possible.
That was how overwhelming the shock she felt was.
Her legs trembled so badly she could barely stand.
Though she had only acted under Lee Jeongho’s orders, she had played a major role in reducing Moby Dick to such a state.
She had no idea whether Zeon would forgive her.
Without even sparing Claire a glance, Zeon walked toward Moby Dick.
Moby Dick’s condition was horrific.
Its thick hide had split and torn apart, exposing raw crimson flesh, while entrails and blood spilled grotesquely from its body.
Anyone could see it was beyond saving.
Moby Dick seemed to know that as well.
—Beeeii!
The calf whale had sensed its mother’s death and cried mournfully.
The sight of the calf rubbing its body against its dying mother’s face was heartbreaking to behold.
Even as it died, Moby Dick gazed tenderly at its child before finally turning its eyes toward Zeon.
Eyes larger than Zeon’s entire body.
Though they could not speak to each other, Zeon felt he understood what Moby Dick was trying to say through its gaze.
Without a word, Zeon nodded.
At that, relief appeared in Moby Dick’s eyes.
Zeon reached out and gently stroked the calf whale.
Feeling the softness of his touch, the calf raised its head and looked at Zeon.
Zeon stared directly into the calf’s eyes.
Human and whale gazed into each other’s eyes for a long while.
At some point, both of them felt a bond connect deep within their hearts.
At that very moment, brilliant light burst from both Zeon and the calf whale.
Particles of light swirled around them briefly before being absorbed into their bodies.
This was not the artificial taming used by Tamers.
Their hearts had genuinely understood one another, forging an emotional bond.
In that instant, Zeon came to understand Moby Dick.
Through the calf whale, information about Moby Dick poured into him like a waterfall.
Moby Dick was not an ordinary demonic beast.
Nor was it a lifeform evolved from Earth’s whales.
It was a spirit born in Kurayan.
A Great Spirit, no less—born possessing four different attributes.
Swept away by the backlash of terraforming, it had somehow crossed over to Earth, but the Great Spirit had immediately fallen into danger of extinction.
For a Great Spirit to survive, it required an environment rich in elemental attributes.
But Earth was covered in sand, and elemental power had nearly vanished.
In the end, the Great Spirit gradually weakened and slowly began to die.
That was when it discovered a gigantic whale.
The massive whale was also dying as the sea dried up.
In a way, the meeting between the dying spirit and the dying whale may have been fate.
The spirit needed a vessel in the form of the whale, and the whale needed a source of power in the form of the spirit.
Driven into an extreme situation, the spirit and whale fused together and were reborn as Moby Dick.
That was the origin behind the demonic beast known as Moby Dick.
Strictly speaking, Moby Dick was not a demonic beast, but a spiritual lifeform.
A new species that had adapted to the land called Earth.
But it had not been born perfect from the beginning—it was incomplete.
Because of that, Moby Dick had survived by barely prolonging its life, sometimes absorbing the remaining earth and water attributes deep beneath the sand, and at other times soaring high into the sky to take in fire and air attributes.
After living on Earth like that for a hundred years, it conceived a calf whale.
The first spiritual lifeform to be born on Earth rather than Kurayan.
Neither a complete spirit nor a complete lifeform, yet possessing the advantages of both.
In order to give birth to its calf, Moby Dick turned the surrounding area into its territory.
Even though it knew doing so would attract demonic beasts.
If an ordinary S-rank demonic beast had established territory there instead, A-rank beasts would never have dared approach. But Moby Dick was not an ordinary demonic beast.
The beasts instinctively knew that if they devoured Moby Dick—a being filled with attribute power—they could elevate their own existence.
That was why they had flocked here without regard for their own lives.
“So that’s what happened.”
The calf whale was an entirely new spiritual lifeform born upon this land.
Unlike its imperfect mother, the calf was complete.
Of course, it would require a very long time before it grew enough to wield power equal to its mother’s, but the fact that it had been born complete from the very beginning held extraordinary meaning.
In a way, it might have been the only hope left for the ruined Earth.
At that moment—
Hwaaaahk!
Suddenly, particles of light poured from Moby Dick’s dying body.
The brilliant particles wrapped themselves around the equally dying body of Arkelon. The particles circling around Arkelon were gradually absorbed into it.
As the light particles fused into Arkelon’s body, changes began to occur.
Its horribly shattered shell regenerated anew, and elasticity returned to the skin of its limp limbs.
The injuries inflicted by the black sea anemone healed instantly, and vitality returned to its dim eyes.
And that wasn’t all.
Crk-crk!
Large spikes burst from the hexagonal shell on its back.
Its already sturdy shell had now become armed with huge, razor-sharp spikes.
A horn of light also formed on Arkelon’s forehead like that of a unicorn.
Until now, it had possessed only incredible defense, but now it had gained a physical means of attack as well.
Zeon realized that these changes were Moby Dick’s final gift to Arkelon for trying so desperately to save him.
Along with the scattering particles of light, Moby Dick’s enormous body slowly began to disappear.
—Beeeii!
The calf whale cried softly as it watched its mother.
The heart of a newborn forced to witness its mother’s death was filled with sorrow. Yet, true to its extraordinary nature, it also accepted its mother’s death as part of the natural order.
When the colossal body that had filled their vision completely vanished, only a gigantic black jewel remained behind—large enough to equal several people combined.
Zeon realized at once that it was Moby Dick’s heart.
“Did you leave this behind as a gift for me?”
Zeon smiled bitterly.
As he had guessed, the massive black jewel was the heart containing all the attributes Moby Dick had absorbed throughout its life.
However, because it had expended so much power saving Arkelon, it now contained only about one-tenth of its usual mana.
Even so, it still held an overwhelming amount of mana, though whether it would satisfy Jin Geumho’s expectations remained uncertain.
Zeon decided he didn’t care.
The request he had accepted was merely to bring back Moby Dick’s heart. There had been no condition stating it had to remain completely intact.
“Hoo…”
Letting out a sigh, Zeon opened the subspace within the necklace and stored Moby Dick’s heart inside.
The calf whale floated quietly in the air as it watched everything unfold.
Zeon spoke gently to it.
“I’m sorry.”
—Beeeii!
As if saying it was alright, the calf whale let out its thin, distinctive cry.
Zeon stroked the calf whale’s head.
At that moment, the calf seemed to catch the scent of something from Zeon’s body and began circling around him, wagging its tail.
“What is it?”
—Ppiii!
“You smell something good from me?”
—Be!
“Where? Something I have smells good?”
—Beei!
Because they were connected through mutual understanding, Zeon could understand the meaning behind every sound the calf made.
The calf whale circled around Zeon’s right arm.
The arm wearing the Gauntlet of Superheat.
‘Is it interested in something inside my subspace?’
There were countless miscellaneous items stored within it.
When Zeon opened the subspace, the calf whale fearlessly shoved its head inside.
Flapping its tail energetically, the calf searched through Zeon’s subspace with great enthusiasm.
The sight was so adorable that Zeon simply let it do as it pleased.
After a long while, the calf emerged again with a large mineral clenched in its mouth.
“That is…”
It was the very mineral Zeon had taken from Park Manho when he visited the magic stone mine not long ago.
The mysterious ore that had been mined together with the highest-grade magic stones.
Though it contained no mana, it emitted a strange warmth that made it feel extraordinary.
Zeon asked the calf whale,
“What’s so special about that?”
—Ppiiiiii!
At the calf whale’s answer, Zeon’s expression stiffened.
“A seed of the World Tree?”