Chapter 584: Devilish Behemoth - Dark Turtle [Part 2]
Their faces and composure shifted the moment Northern spoke. Maybe they would have had small fragments of doubt when Northern spoke, but Dante's strange behavior just now was all too informing.
Tension mixed with silence and made the air around them heavy.
Northern closed his eyes, his hand softly touching the crimson ground. Since they were ascending a slope, the murky waters around this area had greatly reclined, falling back to the lower slope of the plain.
All their attention converged on Northern. They were nervously waiting to hear the next thing he was going to say.
While Northern had his eyes closed, his awareness peaked in that moment.
The creature was very far-too far for anyone, even the best of scouts, to sense it. Of course, except for Paragons who had heightened danger detection.
"It's coming closer."
Northern's hoarse voice finally made its debut after minutes. But following it was a subtle but obvious trembling of the ground.
It was as if to inform them how correct Northern was. The creature was getting closer to them. Northern squinted his eyes. "I was right... it's moving beneath the ground. It's burrowing." Ignoring the part where he said he was right because no one ever noticed him mention it, they were all concerned about the latter statement.
"What do you mean it's burrowing?" Alystren inquired, his facial features folding.
Northern looked up at him and stood up, glancing around.
"I don't have much to say other than everyone's life is in their hands."
Northern's choice of words made their hearts suddenly heavier than usual, chills prickling their skin.
He wished he could have chosen a better route with his words. But he couldn't afford to-he didn't know how things would go with a Behemoth; he had never faced one before.
So rather than sugarcoat words and be optimistic, he'd rather be pessimistic and say the truth in the crudest way possible to prepare their hearts.
"He is right," Dante said as he walked closer to them. "What I felt just now... I am not sure I have ever fought something like that."
And that explained the reason for his unexpected response.
At the same time, hearing him speak even made them feel worse.
The trembling of the earth beneath them escalated, a rumble that crawled up through their feet, setting their nerves on edge.
The ground felt alive, as if the very land itself was twisting in anticipation of the creature that lurked below.
Northern steadied himself, his gaze hard, the shadows in his eyes betraying no hint of fear- only a grim acceptance.
"Everyone, spread out," Northern ordered, his voice like steel. "Don't cluster together. It's exactly what it wants."
They scrambled into position, each one glancing back at the undulating ground as if it might explode at any second.
Alystren tightened his grip on his weapon-a longsword, the edges of his expression wavering.
He glanced at Dante, looking for some assurance, but Dante's face was a mask-a mask that concealed the same fear clawing at the rest of them.
Then, the ground split open, and with it, a wave of stale, suffocating heat surged up.
It was as if a breath from the underworld had reached them, curling around their limbs, making their skin crawl.
The air grew thick, cloying with the scent of damp earth and something metallic, something foreboding.
And then... they saw it.
The creature's dark shell emerged first, like a vast boulder pushing up from the depths, glistening with the crimson glow from the murky sky above. It was like a dark turtle molded from the crimson sky and pure darkness.
It rose slowly, purposefully, each second stretching as its black armor cracked and shifted, plates sliding over one another with a deep, grinding sound that felt like it could tear the world apart.
Northern's eyes narrowed, tracking every motion, every twitch, every subtle shift.
Its single red eye gleamed through the gaps in its armor, a pulsing, unblinking sphere that looked more like an open wound, watching them all with a predatory gleam.
The red lines that snaked across its armored body pulsed, alive, as if the monster's very essence was blood and rage contained within that shell.
The Dark Turtle's eye fixed on Northern, and for a heartbeat, the world seemed to shrink. There was a strange message in its gaze.
And Northern instantly knew. He knew when he could recognize the strongest in the group.
The creature had immediately singled him out with its gaze.
Then, without warning, it surged forward, the ground beneath it splitting in its wake, chunks of earth flung up like shrapnel.
The force of its charge shook the ground like a thunderclap.
Everyone in that moment scattered away from the creature's path. It was thanks to them heeding Northern's advice to spread out that it had been possible, although shards of stones
still bombarded some.
Northern immediately leaped back as the creature moved, and in his hands, raised above his head, a black Lance was materializing.
There was a folded frown on his face as he locked gazes with the monster. He didn't know why he had a very strange and unsettling feeling.
His eyes looked like they were begging for this to end before it began and the Black Lance should not fail.
With a swift, almost undetectable 1-still as he lunged back to get farther away from the monster-he swung and threw the black lance forward.
The Dark Turtle's single red eye flared as if in mocking recognition, and the creature shifted its massive armored shell.
The lance, instead of piercing through, struck the shell's surface with a metallic clang and shattered into fragments of black energy, dissipating into nothingness.
'Tch, I knew it!'
Northern's face hardened, his jaw clenched. The unsettling feeling in his chest only grew.
The creature didn't give him a moment to recover.
With an earth-shaking roar, it lunged again, its bulk deceptively fast as it closed the distance, scattering loose stones and dirt in its wake.
Northern's instincts screamed at him to move, to dodge, but the Dark Turtle's presence bore down on him, pressing like a weight against his senses.
Dante was the first to break out of the paralyzing state they were all in. He launched himself forward with a burst of red energy.
His sword flashed, arcs of light slicing through the air as he aimed for the creature's exposed
underbelly.
The Dark Turtle twisted, deflecting the attack with its impenetrable shell.
As it shifted its focus, Alystren leaped in from the side, his longsword aimed at one of the
pulsing red lines.
But the monster caught wind of his movement, quickly adjusting its body to deflect with its
dark shell.
As Alystren's sword connected with the monster's back, it exploded back, throwing him away.
Just as Alystren flew away, Shin shot in, his form dividing into three that flew into different directions. His main body toward the monster's forelimb, one appearing in front and the last
one swiftly circling to the back.
Simultaneously, they attacked.
Black essence oozed out of not just Shin's sword but his entire body as he wove a strange
pattern of swordsmanship.
Northern had firstly almost likened it to Void essence but no, it wasn't. It was just Shin's soul
essence form. Darkness.
'So that's how it looks,' Northern acknowledged as he watched how Shin wove intricate sword patterns and bombarded the monster.
The dark essence seemed to curl like multiple blades, all complementing the delicate
movement of his legs and hands.
And with each connected strike was an almost thunderous resonance.
The most terrifying part was that there was a perfect synchronization with all three clones. Northern didn't see the one behind but he could see the one in front.
It was as if they were perfectly, without fail, mirroring every step without even looking.
There had to be a network of information that did not take time to deliver for such
magnificent display of sword art to be made possible.
Northern remembered link and how perfectly it worked. Looking at his father right now, he understood that Shin had mastered the ability to a level that he had never reached.
'Of course he has...' Northern felt slightly proud. He had always suspected Shin to be strong
and always hoped he was right.
This instance proved that he had been right about his father all along.
Sadly, it was all useless.
Every chain of attack was being perfectly deflected by the monster without a waste of
movement.
All it just had to do was shift its shell slightly. Its form was so enormous and the shell itself covered more than half the area of its body; there were little to no places to strike.
Even its legs were covered by the black shell and same red veins.
Shin, when he saw all his effort was easily being nullified, had to take a moment of recess,
jumping back.
As he jumped back, Dante entered the monster's space again, his movement this time seemed more vicious and dangerous.
He swung his sword with brutal strength, delivering an arc from the side to the monster's forelimb on Shin's opposite side.
But the swing was once again deflected with an even more outrageous force that sent the
Lieutenant reeling.