Kwoooooo-!
A gigantic mouth gaped wide and charged straight at me.
Kuuung-!
I slammed into the wall, smashing it to pieces.
Dragging my mangled arm, I barely managed to evade it.
Moving was incredibly difficult underwater.
‘Tch….’
I clicked my tongue and frowned.
My body being torn apart was a problem, but there was something even more pressing.
[Hand yourself over to me obediently!]
Every word the bastard shouted continued to reverberate inside my head.
Was it attacking me directly through my mind?
‘What a pain in the ass.’
My physical state was bad enough, but the fact that it was meddling with my mind as well made things unbearably troublesome.
‘What the hell is this thing?’
I was always running around with all sorts of strange things dangling from my body, so it wouldn’t be strange if there were one more.
But it had appeared so suddenly that I couldn’t help but wonder.
A monster resembling a snake with blue scales.
It possessed a massive body, and its sharp fangs were particularly striking.
Its appearance was the sort that made me wonder what kind of creature could possibly look like that.
It was disgustingly arrogant and utterly shameless.
And yet, for some reason, I could sense a familiar aura from it.
Ssshhk-!
“...!”
I raised both arms at the presence I sensed from the left.
Kwoong-!
The moment I raised my arms, an attack descended upon me as though it had been waiting for just that.
“Urgh!”
A tremendous weight landed on the backs of my arms. It had attacked me with its tail.
My body was swept away by the impact and went flying.
Kwaaak-!
The pain was so intense that I could hardly believe it was happening underwater.
I should have been sent flying and slammed straight into the wall.
‘Damn, it’s strong too.’
The situation was so absurd that I let out a hollow laugh.
No matter how I looked at it, things were far too unfavorable.
How could this be happening?
One of my arms had been bitten off, and I couldn’t properly apply my inner energy.
Was it because my vessel had been shattered? It might have been.
I wasn’t reduced to the level of an ordinary person, but I couldn’t display even a fraction of my original ability.
And in a situation like this, I was supposed to fight a bastard like that?
‘This is really fucking shitty.’
It was an utterly ridiculous situation.
I twisted my body.
Krrrrrk-!
Its claws sank straight into the spot where I had been.
I tried to put some distance between us somehow, but it wasn’t easy.
The back of my arm throbbed. Had it cracked?
‘It doesn’t feel that bad.’
Without my protective qi, my defenses had become vulnerable.
Blocking its attacks was too dangerous, so I had to evade them somehow.
Kwaaak-!
But that was impossible as well. My body, knocked away, fluttered helplessly through the water.
‘Urgh.’
The impact shook my organs.
I had barely managed to protect my head, but my injured arm twisted once more.
Fuck, this hurts like hell.
I gathered my scattered consciousness from the pain and tried to steady my body.
Snap-!
Its arm shot forward, seized me, and pinned me to the floor.
Kuuung-!
The surroundings shook once more from the impact.
Perhaps from the force of it, bubbles surged upward, and the sensation of my bones being pulverized made me bite down on my lip.
[You lowly aberration.]
[As a noble superior species, I have granted you mercy, yet you do not know your place.]
[Did you truly believe you could defeat me? You, a mortal who lives for no more than an instant?]
“Ah, for fuck’s sake. Can’t you just talk normally?”
My ears were itching so badly I thought I was going insane.
Krrrk-! I tried to wrench myself free, intending to twist my bones apart if necessary, but the force constricting my body showed no sign of loosening.
[Cease your futile struggle. You have no hope. Therefore, hand yourself over to me….]
“You want my body?”
[That is correct.]
Hearing those words, I raised the corners of my mouth.
It had repeated the same thing several times already.
It was great and mighty, so I was to give up my body. If I did, I would obtain peace.
There was no way I could win anyway, so I should simply hand it over obediently.
The more I listened, the more questions arose in my mind.
“So. Why do you keep asking me for it?”
[As I have already said….]
“You could just take it, you bastard.”
[...]
The creature’s body stiffened for an instant at my words.
Seeing that, I pursed my lips.
I wasn’t an idiot. After clashing with it just once, I could immediately tell one thing.
In my current state, I couldn’t defeat this bastard.
That was obvious just from the fact that I was pinned down like this.
And the one trying to devour me knew it as well.
But—
“Why the fuck do you keep asking me to give it to you?”
Watching it continue to demand that I hand myself over, I felt like I was beginning to understand something.
I looked at its one unharmed eye and spoke.
“You can’t take it by force, can you?”
[Grrrrr….]
“I have to give it to you myself. Right?”
No answer came.
Only a low growl reached me.
But that was more than enough.
There was clearly an overwhelming gap between us, and though the creature appeared to desire my body—
It could do nothing more than threaten me to hand it over. It wasn’t taking it by force.
Moreover, it seemed to be subtly regulating its strength so that I wouldn’t die.
“You can’t kill me, and you can’t take it from me. Am I right?”
I could tell that it was in a situation where it couldn’t treat me recklessly.
Was I certain? No, I wasn’t.
But I was on the verge of becoming certain.
Its reaction told me everything.
Its face twisted into a vicious grimace. Its breathing grew increasingly rough.
And yet, the fact that it showed no response afterward told me enough.
That bastard couldn’t do anything to me.
It had no choice but to mentally corner me and make me hand myself over.
Of course, there might have been some ulterior motive behind even that.
‘Would it really go that far?’
For that to be the case, it also needed a reason to do so.
And perhaps because of what I had just said—
I felt the pressure holding me ease ever so slightly.
I twisted my body. Escaping was impossible, but I succeeded in pulling my hand out a little.
The problem was what to do next.
‘…I know what the problem is, but….’
I understood the creature’s problem, but that knowledge didn’t give me a way to break out of this situation.
In the end, this would only be over once I dealt with it myself.
How?
‘As if I’d know.’
If I knew, would I be in this situation?
The only thing I had gained was the certainty that I wouldn’t die so easily.
As for how I was supposed to overcome this situation, I would have to keep racking my brain.
I didn’t think I could do anything with strength alone.
‘If only my inner energy would circulate, I could at least try something.’
But that was impossible too, since my insides felt completely hollow.
‘Damn it.’
This was a complete disaster.
As I twisted my body this way and that, my fingertips brushed against the creature’s flesh.
At that moment—
Woong-!
“…!”
[…Ghurrrk!]
I felt something burrow into my body.
At the same time, the creature, which had been holding me, swung its arm and hurled me far away.
Whoooosh-!
My body shot through the water.
The situation was the same as before, but this time I didn’t crash into the wall.
Tap.
I twisted my body and landed lightly against the wall.
Immediately afterward, I checked the state of my body.
‘…My energy is circulating?’
I realized that a tiny amount of vitality, which had been completely absent before, had returned.
Feeling it, I let out a faint laugh.
“Ah. So it was you.”
[Grrrrr…!]
My body was wrecked, and my mental strength was crawling along the floor, but—
Separate from that, I finally felt some of the suffocating pressure ease.
I looked at the creature while sensing the minuscule amount of energy that had returned to my body.
I had wondered why it felt so familiar despite being something I had never seen before.
“So that’s what it was. It was you.”
I thought I understood the creature’s identity.
That thing was—
“Blood qi.”
It was blood qi.
The energy that had flowed into me from the creature was unmistakably blood qi, and the familiar presence I sensed from it was also that same blood qi.
I didn’t know why it had taken on a form like that.
[Grrrrrk-]
But there was no doubt that its true identity was blood qi.
Looking at the creature as it snarled with its face twisted in anger, I spoke.
“You were sleeping quietly as though you were dead. Why the hell are you suddenly acting up?”
It was energy the Blood Demon himself had planted inside my body.
When used, it displayed absurd effects, but the backlash it caused in the body afterward was far too severe.
The fact that it was energy given to me by the Blood Demon had been reason enough for me to avoid using it whenever possible.
But I had no idea why the power I had buried in a corner of my dantian had suddenly emerged like this.
“What are you?”
[Do not misunderstand.]
“What?”
[Because I was present, you obtained the opportunity for 탈각. Therefore, it is only right that I take that body.]
I had no choice but to furrow my brow at its words.
It claimed that I had obtained the opportunity for 탈각 because of its presence?
‘탈각.’
What on earth did that word mean? The Blood Demon had said it to me as well.
It sounded like it had something to do with dying as a human.
What would happen if I underwent 탈각?
‘It called itself a superior species, didn’t it?’
Would I become something far superior to the humans it kept mentioning?
The very words “superior species” left an unpleasant feeling in my gut.
Perhaps because I had been frowning repeatedly, the creature continued speaking to me as though displeased.
[You are unqualified to become a dragon. You miserable wretch.]
A dragon.
The word blood qi uttered lodged itself sharply in my mind.
‘If it’s a dragon….’
After hearing that, I looked at the creature’s appearance again.
A long body resembling a snake, limbs, a sharply torn mouth, and fangs.
And on top of that, its enormous body.
I had thought I might know what it was, but now that I looked at it, its appearance was strikingly similar to the dragons passed down through legend.
That was what made it even stranger.
When people in the Central Plains spoke of dragons—
‘They were all White-rank monsters.’
Because the term referred collectively to the White-rank monsters that had emerged through the White Demonic Realm Gates.