Chapter 90: One Sided?
The dark purple mana swirling above the sapphire throne began to expand outward. The cloud of energy gathered together and condensed rapidly until it formed a figure.
What stood before us wasn’t another mermaid. It was a humanoid figure. He didn’t have a fish tail; instead, he stood on two legs covered in purple scales.
His face was mostly human, but sharp fins came out from his cheekbones and his ears were elongated. In his right hand, a trident also began to materialize.
The entrance of this guy was really breathtaking and because of this, he looked less like a standard Gate monster.
"Who are you?" his voice echoed through the water, but nobody answered him.
Behind me, the remaining Hunters were frozen in absolute silence. The archer’s knees were visibly shaking, and Seok had tightened both hands on his spear so hard his knuckles were white. The terrifying presence coming from this creature was on an entirely different level than the Swamp Behemoth.
But I knew exactly who he was.
His name was Trion, the exiled prince and the final boss of this Gate.
He was the son of the queen whose head was currently floating above the throne.
He had plotted a coup while conspiring with rival underwater kingdoms to overthrow her. When the queen discovered his treason, she stripped him of his royal birthright and branded him a traitor, then banished him to a faraway place, swearing that he would never inherit the crown.
Driven mad by rejection and thirsting for vengeance, Trion had sought out a dark corrupted power hidden deep within the lowest point of the waters.
It was unique and extremely rare, the very power I had come into this Gate to steal for Vera.
With that forbidden strength, he had returned. He hadn’t just attacked this palace; he traveled across this world and slaughtered the populations of all seven underwater kingdoms.
This place was merely his final stop to gloat over his mother’s corpse. And I knew this clearly because I had read this part over and over again alongside a couple of other scenes because of how good it was.
To clear this Gate, our objective wasn’t some complex puzzle. It was simple: tear this piece of shit apart.
"Who are we, you ask?" I spoke up, breaking the silence which no one dared to break. I adjusted the edge of my paper bag mask, letting my voice come out with a mocking tone. "I don’t know exactly who we are... But if you want to know, then you can think of us as your demise."
Behind me, a collective gasp came from the Hunters.
"What is he saying? Demise?!" the archer whispered.
"Can’t he see the monster in front of him?! Why is he provoking it?!"
"Wow... he’s literally rage-baiting the boss monster," the light-armored Hunter muttered, staring at the back of my head in sheer disbelief. "Is he completely insane or just that confident?"
Trion’s yellow, reptilian eyes locked onto me. The purple scales along his neck flared with mana as his grip tightened around the obsidian trident.
"You," the merman prince growled, and the water around him began to boil with dark energy. "You insignificant rats have a death wish."
I didn’t flinch. In fact, I let out an amused chuckle from beneath my mask just to add the arrogance to the maximum.
"How about this," I said and tilted my head slightly as I casually crossed my arms. "Let’s make a little wager. If you can manage to touch me or even just a single strand of my hair, I will accept defeat and let you slaughter us all without a fight. Deal?"
"Holy shit, he’s still going," the archer whimpered and took a step backward subconsciously.
Trion didn’t waste another second on words. The absolute disrespect blew away whatever restraint he had left, which I think was nothing considering what he had done.
BOOM!
The water exploded behind him as he dashed forward. Because he had two feet instead of a tail, his propulsion was really fast.
He moved like a purple streak of lightning across the grand hall and in just a second he crossed the distance between us.
The sharp points of his black trident thrust directly toward my throat, carrying enough force to shatter every bone in my body.
But before the cold metal could even graze the surface of my mask, the weapon stopped.
It froze completely solid, hovering barely two inches away from my eyes.
Trion’s yellow eyes widened in sudden shock. He pushed forward with all his strength but the trident wouldn’t budge even a little.
Holding the prong of the trident with a single bare hand was Vera.
She had stepped in front of me so fast that none of the humans had even seen her move. Her mask was slightly tilted, and her fingers were wrapped around the middle blade of the weapon.
"I think your minions failed to inform you," Vera’s voice cut through the water. It was once again dripping with absolute and terrifying malice. "Attempting to touch him... is fucking forbidden."
The merman prince tried to yank his weapon back, but Vera’s grip prevented him from doing so.
And standing right behind her, safe and completely untouched, a smirk appeared across my face. I looked over her shoulder and met Trion’s panicked gaze, then added a little more salt to the situation.
"Oops..." I murmured playfully. "Looks like you lost the bet."
"You bitch!" Trion roared.
Abandoning the trident, he channeled his purple mana into his left fist and swung a devastating punch straight toward Vera’s face. The pressure created by his fist was strong enough to create a vacuum in the water.
However, Vera didn’t even bother dodging. She let go of the trident, then raised her own fist and met his attack head-on.
BOOM!!!
The collision of their fists generated a massive underwater shockwave in all directions which slammed Seok and the other Hunters back against the marble pillars of the palace. But Vera had grabbed my hand so that I also don’t blow away.
When the bubbles cleared, Trion was the one stumbling backward while his left arm was shaking violently as blood leaked from the cracked scales on his knuckles.
"Impossible!" Trion hissed, and his regal composure was entirely gone now. "What kind of entity are you?!"
Vera didn’t give him an answer. She lowered her body slightly, her boots cracking the sapphire floor beneath her, and launched herself forward.
What followed wasn’t a standard boss raid.
Trion swung his trident in wide, desperate arcs, and unleashed waves of dark purple energy blades that sliced through the palace walls.
Vera navigated through the assault with terrifying grace. She sidestepped the energy slashes effortlessly, appearing on his right side like a ghost.
CRACK!
A heavy kick from her boot connected squarely with Trion’s ribs. The sound of fracturing bone echoed through the hall as the merman prince was sent flying across the room and smashed heavily into a massive stone pillar.
"Argh!" Trion coughed up dark blood and immediately tried to stabilize himself, but Vera was already there.
She grabbed his scaled neck and slammed him downward into the floor, creating a massive crater in the sapphire tiles. The shockwave rattled the entire palace structure, causing loose debris to rain down from the ceiling.
Behind me, the Hunters were watching with wide, unblinking eyes.
"She’s... she’s completely overwhelming the final boss," Hana stammered. "A C-Rank hidden boss is being treated like a ragdoll..."
"She isn’t even using any skills," Seok added while his tone was mixed with awe. "That is pure physical strength. Really, who the hell is she?!"
’Yeah, she is cornering him,’ I thought while looking at the one-sided battle. ’But that is only because the piece of shit prince isn’t using his real powers.’
