Chapter 92: Disrespect
"Satisfying? Huh!"
The pitch-black smoke pouring from his ripped-open chest grew thicker and continued mixing with the blue water of the palace until it turned the color of ink.
"Satisfying?!" Trion roared again.
The ground beneath his feet shattered. Massive fissures tore through the sapphire tiles, spiderwebbing outward in every direction.
"You don’t know shit about me!" Trion ranted as his void-like eyes glared at the headless body of the queen. "This old woman prioritized this shitty kingdom over me! Her own flesh and blood! She called me a curse! She banished me to the dark depths to rot! So I took what was hidden down there. I took it, and I used it to paint these white walls with the blood of her precious citizens!"
He took a step forward, and the water around his mutating body literally began to boil. Tiny bubbles broke as they rose from his skin.
"I am the rightful king of these waters! And you two think you can judge me while wearing garbage on your heads?!"
I wanted to throw another sarcastic retort back at him to keep the act going, but the words suddenly caught in my throat.
The air. No, the magic film protecting my body, suddenly felt incredibly thin. The pitch-black aura radiating from Trion wasn’t just standard mana.
It was a corrupted essence that actively ate away at any kind of magic in the room. Even with the red layer from Hana’s spell and the blue layer from my specialized breathing potion, the sheer pressure of his transformation was too much for me.
My lungs seized. And a sharp pain shot right behind my ribs, which made my vision blur at the edges.
"Urrrg..."
A choked groan escaped my lips beneath the paper bag.
My knees buckled slightly, and I instinctively clutched my chest as my fingers dug hard into the fabric of my shirt right over my pounding heart.
Vera noticed instantly.
The anger radiating from her body vanished in a fraction of a second and was replaced by panic as she turned around as fast as she could.
"Woo Jin?"
She lunged back toward me, and her hands reached out to stabilize my shoulders.
Trion saw my struggle, and a mocking laugh erupted from his mouth.
"Hahaha! Look at that!" the prince sneered as his body kept expanding and jagged black spikes began to protrude from his spine. "Your precious companion can’t even take care of himself! A single whiff of my true power is enough to crush his pathetic lungs! He is nothing but a weak guy dragging you down to hell!"
"Shut up," Vera whispered, but she didn’t look back at him. "You are hurting him."
"I’m going to do a lot more than hurt him!" Trion braced his mutated legs against the shattered floor to launch himself at us.
However, before he could make his move, the suffocating pressure on my chest suddenly eased.
The secondary layer of protection from my breathing potion pushed back the corrupted black mana that was trying to hurt me.
Air rushed back into my lungs. I took a deep breath, and my vision began clearing instantly.
"I am alright," I said. "Vera, I am fine. The potion kicked in."
But Vera didn’t move away.
Instead of turning around to face the monster, she stepped forward and completely wrapped her arms around me.
She hugged me tight and buried her face into my shoulder. Her body was trembling slightly, not out of fear of the monster behind her, but from the terror of almost losing me.
"Woo Jin... Woo Jin..." she murmured against my clothes.
It was a strange sight. A final boss was transforming into a world-ending demon just twenty feet away, and we were standing in the middle of a flooded royal palace sharing a desperate embrace.
Witnessing this, a look of disgust appeared on Trion’s mutated face. The lack of respect and the fact that we were treating his ultimate transformation like a minor inconvenience made him even angrier.
Well, it was better for us. Since the more angry he got, the more control he lost over his powers and the weaker he became. That was why I was trying to mock him when I first saw him.
"You disgusting, arrogant pests!" Trion roared. "To dare... to dare ignore me in front of my mother’s throne! Die together!"
The water erupted into a vortex as he lunged toward us. His claw was raised and aimed at us to rip through both of us in a single strike.
The moment he moved, Vera’s posture changed too.
She let go of me, and her hands slid down my arms for a final touch before she turned around to face the prince.
"If you have shown me your true self..." she began as she reached up with one hand and grabbed the top edge of her damp mask.
"...then allow me to show you what I actually am."
Slowly, deliberately, she lifted the mask.
I watched from behind as the paper bag was discarded, but before it got farther away, I grabbed it quickly for later use.
For the first time since we entered this Gate, her face was completely exposed. Her short hair floated around her head, and her eyes, which were usually so wide and curious when looking at me, were now narrowed as they looked at Trion.
"Guys like you," Vera muttered and stepped forward to put herself between the prince and me, "are just dogs wagging their tails in front of the person I want to destroy."
’She wants to destroy someone? Is she talking about Jane? Well, compared to her, I don’t even think he is worthy of being called a dog. She is just way too strong.’ I thought.
Trion didn’t care about her words. He was already mid-leap. He slashed his claws downward with enough force to part the water inside the hall and create a vacuum that pulled the surrounding debris toward his strike.
"RAAAAAH!"
Vera didn’t dodge. She didn’t raise her hands to block.
Instead, she simply leaned her head back slightly as the massive claw flashed past her face, missing her skin by a mere millimeter.
The sheer wind pressure of the strike tore a deep gash into the marble pillar behind us, but Vera didn’t even blink.
And before Trion could pull his hand back for another strike, Vera’s right hand shot forward.
"Clench your jaw, otherwise you are gonna need to see a dentist."
