Osian had thought deeply about Terence and Elise. The two were a mage and a dark mage, respectively. What they had in common was that they handled their power by formalizing it through a certain academic discipline. They weren't professions that honed their senses in actual combat like others.
That's why he thought their growth would be considerably slow in preparation for the battles ahead. He had even seriously considered whether he should directly instruct them to expedite results.
'It was needless worry.'
What Terence and Elise showed was enough to completely ease his concerns. Shadow birds and magical butterflies filled the space and engulfed Sea Dragon.
The Sea Dragon pulled in massive clouds of wrinkles to protect its body. It meant that the magic of the two was strong enough to pose a sufficient threat to the Sea Dragon.
'It seems I underestimated their genius. Those two were already in a state where all preparations were complete, on the verge of blooming.'
What Terence and Elise needed was only a kind of trigger to push their backs. And Osian, by directly showing them the Sun-Moon-Star-God, lit a brilliant fire to the firewood the two had stacked up.
The flower called talent that had been prepared in advance bloomed brilliantly the moment it received droplets of water. The skills of the two were truly marvelous. Refined yet splendid, cold yet beautiful.
The power of professions established through academic discipline had finally surpassed the stage of reason and calculation and moved beyond it.
It worked because the opponent was the large-bodied Sea Dragon; if it had been an ordinary superhuman, they would have definitely caught those openings. It was regrettable, but he decided to be satisfied with this much. One can't be full from the first spoonful. The two had already shown splendid results beyond expectations.
'So we need to help.'
The Sea Dragon began its counterattack. The clouds each transformed into dragon heads and rushed to bite the two.
Terence and Elise's reactions were slow. True to the mage profession specialized in offense, their response to incoming attacks was clumsy.
Osian and Amenora covered that part.
Osian drew his shield and wrapped it with the energy of Sun-Moon-Star-God. Three patterns formed like a magic circle in front of the shield, forming a triangle. Osian stood in front of Elise and blocked the incoming water dragons.
Beside them, Amenora wrapped red lightning around her wings and stood protectively over Terence.
-Muooooooo!
The Sea Dragon roared as its attack was thwarted. It was a sound like dozens of whales crying simultaneously in the deep sea. It made the skin tremble and the ears ache.
The Sea Dragon was desperate now. There weren't just one but four beings threatening its life. Such beings were working together to block the way. They were interfering with going to find its egg.
The Sea Dragon knew that Osian's party was blatantly stalling for time. But it didn't know the reason why. Assuming the worst-case scenario, they might be trying to take its egg even farther away where it couldn't be retrieved.
To the Sea Dragon, Osian was no different from an accomplice of those who stole the egg.
If only it could protect its one and only child.
The Sea Dragon's eyes slowly began to turn red. Though it had maintained reason facing a dangerous battle, there was no longer a need for that.
[Oh no! The Sea Dragon is going berserk!]
The feared situation had finally occurred. Maternal love seemed stronger than survival instinct. The Sea Dragon was determined to end this drawn-out fight by burning everything it had.
Terence and Elise also noticed the change in the Sea Dragon's momentum.
"Uh, uhh? That thing. It seems to have completely lost it?"
"This is dangerous."
Even the two who were riding high on momentum were intimidated.
-Kugugugugung.
The surrounding typhoon gradually grew stronger. The airflow accelerated and its ferocity doubled. Lightning whipped between the clouds.
The one fortunate thing was that one of the horns acting as a lightning rod was missing. But that wasn't the problem. The eye of the typhoon, which appeared to be over 5km in diameter, shrank in an instant.
[The size is shrinking. But, the power!]
Amenora was shocked seeing the typhoon's power. As a Sky Dragon, she's sensitive to airflow patterns. She immediately realized that the energy had become more compressed as the typhoon shrunk.
"Does it plan to completely grind us up like this?"
Even for a Sea Dragon, compressing a typhoon of this magnitude further would be too much. But it didn't hesitate.
Amenora looked back at Osian with urgent eyes. Terence and Elise did the same. They seemed to believe that he might have a way to break through.
'It's not like I have a certain solution either.'
The opponent was a monster that wielded natural disasters. Wasn't it said that a typhoon contains energy 10,000 times that of an atomic bomb? Just imagine that massive thing being compressed into something small. One can't even imagine how terrifying the power it would unleash would be.
However, it wasn't as if there was no method. The solution wasn't certain, but there was a possibility.
"In the end. Must I kill it?"
Osian muttered in a sunken voice. His gaze was directed at the Sea Dragon.
The only way to end all of this was to kill the Sea Dragon.
Honestly speaking, it was a method he was reluctant to use.
It didn't invade Tirna with any malice. As a mother of one life, it was simply angry with the rage of losing its child. And there was clearly another existence that caused this.
Osian neither felt angry nor frustrated looking at the Sea Dragon.
He only felt sympathy. He empathized with the reason for the Sea Dragon's anger, and fully understood its appearance of trying to burn its own life like that.
That's why he tried to fight, attempting suppression as much as possible. He thought it would work if they calmed it down and then returned the egg.
But the Sea Dragon's maternal love was much stronger than he thought.
'To think it would choose such a mutual destruction method. Now that it's come to this, it's no longer possible to delay the fight.'
Since this side couldn't die, there was only one remaining method: to kill it.
The power of Sun-Moon-Star-God dwelt in Osian's sword. The power contained in a single sword was so strong and refined it was hard to believe.
Brilliant light scattered. It was the light of heaven, a celestial hymn that brightly illuminated the entire universe.
-Muooooo.
He could feel the Sea Dragon's bewilderment. But the creature neither fled nor backed down.
"Right. You can never back down. Even if your own death is right in front of you."
That spirit and action made Osian even more regretful. Osian raised his sword. The light burned even brighter. It was a radiance so dazzling it even pushed away the sunlight pouring from the sky.
Terence, Elise, and Amenora fell silent. They were all overwhelmed before Osian's sword.
If Osian brought down his sword like this, the Sea Dragon would be finished. This wasn't the nature of an attack that could be blocked or avoided. Osian, who had raised his sword, fell into thought for a moment.
Should he end it like this? Or should he give even a little leeway? The latter seemed difficult. The Sea Dragon, facing a crisis, was determined to burn its life even more.
It would never bow or break. It would only end when one side died. Osian closed his eyes tightly.
His head was complicated. Moments of choice were always confusing. What conclusion would be best? As long as he didn't know the future, he couldn't be certain.
Osian stopped thinking. Instead, he chose the path his intuition led him to.
He struck down with all his might.
Seogek.
The sound of something being cleanly cut through rang out. The roaring lightning stopped. Even the raging typhoon became quiet.
Jjeeoeoeoek.
The rotating airflow stopped, then began to split in half, from top to bottom. The giant supercell that had surged with momentum to pierce the stratosphere split in half but surprisingly the Sea Dragon was unharmed.
The Sea Dragon, frozen after feeling death, regained its reason. It looked puzzled seeing that its body was unharmed.
Realizing that Osian's sword hadn't touched it, the Sea Dragon roared again.
"Uh, uhh? Wait! Why did you deliberately turn your sword!"
Terence protested from the side. Despite being able to kill it, Osian had deliberately twisted the trajectory of his sword.
However, Osian didn't reply. Why did he make this choice? It was because of a knight's intuition.
His trump card had missed. This side was full of openings and it was a golden opportunity for the Sea Dragon. The Sea Dragon held the Sea Dragon Sword in its mouth. Its red eyes returned to their original blue and clear color.
Those eyes said that it was a mistake. That he should have killed it when he could.
Osian chuckled.
"Is it really a mistake?"
It was the moment the Sea Dragon was about to charge in, ignoring Osian's words.
The Sea Dragon stopped moving, having sensed something, turned its head to one side.
The Sea Dragon Sword in its mouth fell and disappeared, turning into countless water droplets. The Sea Dragon flew urgently in one direction, while wrapping around itself the little remaining cloud.
"What was that just now? What suddenly happened?"
"It seems the operation barely succeeded."
Osian urged the bewildered Terence.
"Move. We're chasing it."
"Uh, okay."
Osian, Terence, Amenora, and Elise chased after the Sea Dragon.
The Sea Dragon didn't go far. It stopped in front of the large entrance at the outermost part of Tirna, within the typhoon's sphere of influence, and looked down at the ground.
There stood Seren Gracia, holding the Sea Dragon's egg.
The fiercely swirling wind stopped and the pouring hail also stopped as the Sea Dragon slowly descended to the ground and landed. Seren unconsciously stepped back as the giant Sea Dragon landed before her.
But realizing the presence of the egg in her arms, she bit her lips tightly and stepped forward.
"Here."
Seren handed the egg to the Sea Dragon.
The Dragon's gaze moved from Seren's face to the egg.
Muooooooo.
The Sea Dragon cried lowly. Its large whiskers rippled and moved, then gently received the egg. Osian's party, who arrived at the scene afterward, all watched that scene.
The Sea Dragon's whiskers embraced the egg then it opened its mouth and put the egg in its mouth. The Sea Dragon paused for a moment as if trying to sense something, then soon opened its eyes wide.
The dark clouds receded. Light poured down like pillars through the crack in the split sky.
"My, my goodness, what is this?"
Tirna's defense force protecting the city was shocked at the sight of the Sea Dragon. Everyone present had their gaze stolen by that scene.
The sky opened and light fell again, illuminating the ground swept by the storm once more. The Sea Dragon stood in a reverent posture beneath it, holding the egg in its mouth.
That appearance itself was like watching a scene from mythology.
The Sea Dragon, having received its egg, turned toward Osian.
Osian, who had landed on the ground, looked up at the Sea Dragon.
The two gazed at each other without words and the Sea Dragon, having regained its reason, closed its eyes tightly for a moment then opened them.
Its gaze turned to Amenora who had followed behind Osian.
Amenora, having polymorphed at some point, was in the form of a white-haired woman.
-Muooooooo.
The Sea Dragon cried something, and Amenora jumped in surprise and trembled her shoulders. Before she could say anything, the Sea Dragon flew up.
The giant body stepped on the water remaining in the air. The Sea Dragon moved, drawing beautiful curves as if dancing.
Rather than stepping on water in the air, it seemed to fly more freely than a bird in the sky.
The Sea Dragon's giant body became so distant it looked small in an instant as it disappeared, hiding its form in the still-remaining dark clouds.
"Phew."
Osian stored his sword in the scabbard at his waist.
At the moment he raised his sword at the end, he had to make a choice. Whether to kill the Sea Dragon here or to see one more chance at the cost of his and his comrades' lives.
He made his choice. Not to kill the Sea Dragon right away. And that choice was right.
"At the end."
Osian asked, looking back at Amenora.
"Y-yes?"
"It seems the Sea Dragon said something to you separately. What did it say?"
"Ah, that."
Amenora answered, though flustered.
"It said thank you. And that it would definitely repay this debt."