Chapter 91: A New Task
The heavy vibrations of the underwater shockwaves rolled against my skin, but I kept my footing as my eyes were locked on the crater where Trion was gasping for air while his purple blood was mixing with the blue water around him like smoke.
Vera stood over him and tilted her head as she stared down at the bleeding prince.
’She is cornering him easily,’ I thought. ’But that is only because the piece of shit prince isn’t using his real powers yet.’
Trion wasn’t just a high-tier merman. He was a calamity for a C-Rank Gate because of the corrupted power he had absorbed. Right now, he was fighting in his base form just to conserve his energy.
If he decided to unleash that dark power while the entire group was gathered in this place, the mana pressure coming from him alone would be enough to kill weaker Hunters alongside me.
I couldn’t let that happen. Not because I cared about their lives, but because their survival was necessary to trigger the actual Gate exit.
So, I turned around toward the bewildered Hunters standing near the shattered pillars.
"While she is distracting him, we should also do our part," I said.
Hearing me, Seok blinked and turned his head slowly toward me while still holding his blue spear tightly.
"But there is only one monster left," he said and was completely confused by my words. "And she clearly has the upper hand in the fight. So what is there left for us to do?"
"Do you really think clearing a unique Gate like this is that simple? Yeah, defeating him is necessary." I countered and let a soft, mocking chuckle escape my lips. "What you are seeing right now is just the surface. To make the Gate exit appear and officially clear this place, we have to perform one more task."
A mixed murmur broke out among the Hunters behind Seok.
"What? There’s more?" the archer whispered.
"Is he serious? We have to do something else while that monster is right there?"
"What kind of task is he talking about? I thought we just had to kill the boss!"
Seok stepped forward through the water, and his analytical expression returned as he adjusted his glasses.
"Tell us what we need to do. If it is necessary to clear the Gate, we will do it."
"You see that obsidian trident?" I pointed toward the black weapon floating above the floor a few meters away from the crater. "We have to get it first. Once we get it, I want all of you to take it and go to the back of the royal palace. There is a hidden altar behind the queen’s throne room. You need to plant the trident into the altar’s core to reverse everything that has happened."
"But what about you two?" Hana, the mage girl, asked with genuine worry in her wide eyes. "If we leave, you will be facing him alone!"
"Don’t worry about us," I replied and adjusted the grip on my dagger. "Just focus on doing exactly what I told you. Go the moment you receive the weapon."
Before they could argue further, a loud shriek echoed from the front.
Trion scrambled to his feet while his eyes were burning with rage. He didn’t look like a proud prince anymore; he looked like a desperate beast.
With a sudden burst of speed, he lunged toward his fallen trident, his webbed hand reaching out to reclaim his weapon.
"Woo—!" Vera shouted. Her voice was laced with sudden urgency as she noticed me moving toward the weapon too. "Don’t come near! Stay back!"
But I was already moving.
I knew this was the exact moment I needed before the real monster inside him awakened.
Since I didn’t stop, Vera rushed forward to intercept the prince and delivered a punch with all her strength to his shoulder, which sent him spinning off balance.
Using the momentum of the water, I kicked off the sapphire floor and slid right past Trion’s flailing arm.
My fingers tightly wrapped around the shaft of the trident and, with a powerful heave, I pulled it away from his reach. After spinning around, I launched the heavy weapon directly through the water toward Seok.
"Go!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.
Seok caught the trident as soon as it reached him. He looked at me for a split second and, after seeing the absolute calm confidence radiating from me, nodded fiercely.
"Follow me! To the back!" Seok ordered the group.
Without a single hesitation, the remaining Hunters turned and swam toward the hidden passages behind the sapphire throne. Soon, their figures quickly disappeared into the shadows of the palace.
"Hehehe..."
Seeing this, a chuckle left Trion’s mouth, which made my skin crawl.
While ignoring the blood dripping from his shoulder, he slowly rose from the floor.
His gaze drifted from the empty space where his trident used to be, over to me, and then finally back to Vera.
"You think if you snatch away my trident, I will get weaker?" Trion muttered. His voice instantly dropped into a deep tone that sounded entirely non-human. "How foolish. I suppose I should show you the real me... and kill you as swiftly as possible, since I have to catch the others too."
He raised his webbed hands and dug his long talons directly into the thick scales covering his own chest.
With a tearing sound, he began to pull them off his skin, releasing a massive cloud of purple smoke into the water.
He had been fighting Vera in his weaker and restricted form because his body couldn’t handle the strain of using dark power at full capacity continuously.
He must have thought he could slaughter our entire group without relying on the dark essence, but the poor prince had no idea he was up against a monster like Vera.
As the scales peeled away, a dense and pitch-black aura began to erupt from his chest and completely replaced the previous purple mana.
The black aura swirled around his body, mutating his features until his face was entirely hidden behind rows of sharp teeth and hollow, void-like eyes.
The sheer pressure of his transformation was terrifying and was enough to make any normal Hunter faint from sheer despair.
But Vera didn’t even take a single step back. She stood her ground as her small hand casually reached out to hook her fingers onto the edge of my sleeve.
"So this is you?" she began.
She tilted her head slightly, and the blank eyeholes of her mask stared directly into the black void-like eyes of the prince.
"Doesn’t change the fact that you killed children." Her killing intent flared up so violently that the surrounding water began to ripple. "And it certainly doesn’t change the fact that you tried to touch Woo Jin."
"Now, it will be more satisfying to hit you."
