Chapter 193: The Kill That Didn’t Count
[Ice Shatter], the attack that ignored frost resistance.
But even without the [Ice Shatter] mark applied, the attack had landed properly. Cleanly enough to drop the thing out of the sky.
How?
Walfred tilted his head.
’And there’s something even stranger.’
The White Whale was a frost attribute Boss Monster.
Which meant it naturally had powerful frost resistance or tolerance. Just like the Frost Spirit King he’d faced in Philadelphia.
So when he hit it, a warning notification about frost attribute damage being absorbed should have appeared.
’But...’
The White Whale was different.
There’d been no absorption notice when he’d first hit it with [Titan Attack], and none when he’d landed on it and struck again.
’Why not?’
The doubt kept growing.
Was it possible the thing wasn’t frost attribute at all?
The wrongness was thick enough to put that thought in his head, and Walfred narrowed his eyes.
But he didn’t dwell on it for long.
’Beat it down first, ask later.’
Frost attribute boss or not.
The only thing that mattered right now was killing the White Whale. He could look into what it really was afterward, so he threw himself back into the fight.
"Frozen Weapon."
He converted the ice hammer into an axe.
Then Walfred fed cold into the ice axe until a bluish aura formed along its edge. Without pausing for breath, he started hacking away like a madman.
Shk! Thwack thwack thwack! Crrrunch!
Merciless axe blows, one after another.
The keen cutting power of a cold-infused ice axe sheared the White Whale’s thick hide and flesh away in great chunks.
"Shadow Attack!"
"Ignition Railgun!"
"Thunder Bolt!"
The hunters’ offensive resumed behind him.
Under attacks flying in from all sides, the White Whale’s body was soon shredded to ribbons.
Thrashing in pain, the thing wrenched itself free of the frozen sea.
[─! ──!]
And soon after.
Its buoyancy back, the White Whale’s body began drifting slowly into the air.
Just as it was about to take to the sky.
"Everyone, fall back!"
Elma’s firm shout rang out.
At the same time, a colossal wave surged and churned around her. Seawater erupting up through the split ice.
Seeing that overwhelming display, Walfred and the hunters knew instantly that she was preparing a large-scale skill, and they cleared away from the White Whale without hesitation.
And.
"Water Thunder Spear, Boundless Blue Waves!"
Elma’s skill was complete at last.
The seawater coiled around her body defied gravity and shot upward.
The terrifying column of water reshaped itself into an enormous spear, then hurtled like a thunderbolt at the White Whale as it tried to flee into the sky.
Thwuck! Crrrunch!
With a heavy, wet burst.
The spear of the sea ran the White Whale through.
It punched from the creature’s back clean out through its belly, and in doing so, drove its body plummeting back down.
And the result.
Kabooooom!
The White Whale slammed into the ground in ruin.
It was pinned to the frozen sea like something skewered on a giant spit. Walfred could only shake his head at that kind of destructive power.
"What in the world was that..."
"...One of my ultimate skills."
Elma answered between ragged breaths.
She’d wrung her mana out to the limit, and her face had gone white.
She downed a mana recovery potion in one gulp, then smiled in triumph.
"It won’t be getting away now."
She was exactly right.
The White Whale thrashed, trying to lift off again, but the spear of the sea pinning it had no intention of letting go.
If anything, the more it twisted, the wider its horrific wounds tore open.
Elma held her mana steady to keep the spear from losing its shape and looked over at Walfred.
"Would you finish it?"
"Sure. Leave it to me."
With that short reply.
Walfred charged the White Whale.
And just as he had a moment ago, he swung the ice axe and set to butchering it. The hunters watching from the rear joined the assault.
Crack! Thwack! Crunch!
A relentless, ferocious barrage.
Faced with that one-sided violence.
All the White Whale could do was scream in agony.
[─Skreeee! Skriiiiii─!]
Its thrashing grew violent, accompanied by a nasty sound like a blade dragged across steel.
But it didn’t last long.
Walfred had already burrowed inside its body, and with a grip on his axe he spun, churning the thing’s internal organs into pulp.
Crrrunch! Splat!
Painted head to toe in blood, Walfred kept swinging with a blank expression. Shattered bone fragments and viscera spilled out around him.
Maybe it was the sheer blood loss.
The White Whale’s movements grew steadily sluggish.
And a short while after that.
’Found it.’
He located the heart, what he assumed was its vital point.
Walfred condensed cold to its absolute limit and delivered a slash that cut the heart clean in two.
Thwack! Crrrunch!
The power behind it was staggering.
It didn’t just split the heart, it split the White Whale’s entire body in half. The severed halves sank slowly to the ground.
Whoooomph!
The White Whale stopped moving entirely.
No more struggling, no more violent thrashing. Utterly still, like something that had breathed its last.
The hunters’ faces lit up.
"Th-the White Whale is down!"
"Finally, finally...!"
Cheers erupted all around.
A celebration of the extermination.
Walfred’s reaction was different. He looked at the two halves of the White Whale’s heart and his expression hardened.
"..."
Because the powerful enemy extermination notification, the one that always appeared when you took down an Elite Monster of A-rank or above, still hadn’t shown up.
That could only mean one thing.
The White Whale wasn’t dead yet.
’But...’
By any measure, the thing looked dead. Its body was in two pieces and its organs had been ground up and pulled out into the open.
On top of that, he’d completely destroyed the heart, its presumed vital point. So why hadn’t the extermination notification appeared?
He was still turning it over when.
"Uh, uh?"
"Wh-what the?"
Voices rose in alarm.
They had good reason.
The White Whale’s scattered flesh and organs had suddenly turned into pure white snowflakes. A few hunters shouted, their faces shocked.
"L-look over there!"
"The White Whale’s body is..."
They pointed at the two halves.
At that moment, the White Whale’s body turned into an enormous block of ice, and then it collapsed all at once.
None of it made any sense. The hunters were baffled, and Elma’s eyes went wide as well.
"Wh-what on earth..."
What was going on here?
Everyone was thinking the same thing when something emerged from the crumbling remains of the White Whale.
Vwoooom!
An enormous vortex churning in the air.
At a phenomenon every hunter recognized on sight, Walfred narrowed his eyes and murmured.
"...A gate?"