Chapter 84

As soon as he entered, the first thing that caught his eye was the light balls intermittently illuminating the darkness where he couldn't see an inch ahead and the numerous scales glittering around them. Leonardo realized that his assumption, which he had suspected, was true.

The name of those glittering scales was Sawtooth Fish. They were deep-sea fish species with teeth like saw blades, mainly living in the deep sea.

Although small in size, Sawtooth Fish had a habit of swarming together and attacking prey much larger than their own body size, tearing and eating whatever they could.

The unpleasant eyes attached to those scales all turned towards where Leonardo was, sensing the ripples created by his jump.

Upon encountering them, Leonardo immediately swam quickly to a deeper depth. Then, the Sawtooth Fish swarm also started chasing him at a very fast speed.

Leonardo used magic underwater as if using flight magic in the air and descended, but the water's resistance was high, significantly slowing down his speed.

When he had discovered the skeleton tomb while moving along the procession, he had suspected that the scratches on the bone fragments might be traces of Sawtooth Fish, but he had never imagined that the deep-sea species would actually be in the middle of the peninsula, moreover in a freshwater lake in a high-altitude crater.

However, thinking about the unidentified monster that had been coexisting with those fellows in this lake, it became somewhat understandable that Sawtooth Fish had been surviving here.

The Elder Millie Peninsula was a place formed by the uplift of the ground and the explosion of underwater volcanoes, so there was a sufficient possibility that deep-sea species had flowed into the peninsula.

The question was how saltwater fish had survived in freshwater, but if the toxic components of that monster had played the role of sodium chloride like the poison of Ilaptor, it wasn't an entirely impossible story either.

Thanks to that, Leonardo, who had resolved to use only close-range attacks, stretched out his hand towards the huge swarm of Sawtooth Fish and caused an explosion by expanding hot air near them before even a minute had passed.

As a strong whirlpool was created by the air exploding in the water with high resistance, the creatures scattered in confusion.

He moved his gaze and looked down, having bought some time. The members down below were also blocking the Sawtooth Fish, preventing them from coming close while disrupting them, and only a few members were seen chasing and attacking the giant monster.

He had wondered why they couldn't finish it off right away, but it seemed there was a variable called Sawtooth Fish.

Leonardo confirmed the location of the swiftly moving monster and used teleportation to move to the anticipated location, matching its speed. However, the monster's movement in the water was unimaginably fast, so as soon as he moved, the creature immediately brushed past nearby, and Leonardo was pushed away by the water current it created.

This was another reason he disliked underwater combat. In the water, the image formed on the retina was different from when outside, making it difficult to gauge the exact location with teleportation.

In the meantime, two members clung to the monster and cut off its limbs, and the monster wove its limbs into multiple strands and pulled the captured member towards the center of its body. It seemed to be trying to use the member as a shield.

The 8th Platoon leader firmly stabbed her sword into the body of the monster and, while enduring the water pressure, launched a magic attack directly at its body.

The monster's skin, which had been injected with a lot of air, swelled up and burst, unable to withstand the internal pressure, but in the water, regeneration seemed to be even faster, and the flesh quickly wriggled and grew back, restoring itself. After going through that process several times, the creature's body seemed to be getting bigger and bigger instead.

Leonardo frowned and used teleportation once again in the direction the monster was moving. This time, his location calculation seemed to be accurate, and the monster's limb was right in front of his eyes. He immediately flew his body and snatched the limb.

However, the creature's limb he had grabbed was so slippery that it seemed he would lose his grip before long. Leonardo, who had been constantly scratching the monster's skin with his fingernails, ignited flames in his hand and directly seared its flesh, then dug his fingers into it.

The monster thrashed in pain, creating strong water pressure. Before falling off, Leonardo once again condensed high temperature in his hand and firmly grabbed the limb binding the member, crawling to where he was caught, and tore it apart.

As the torn section wriggled and the flesh tried to grow back again, Leonardo immediately seared that part with flames, blocking it. Then, the movement gradually ceased and didn't regenerate any further.

More than half of the intertwined limb strands were cut off in chunks, and the remaining strands were consecutively sliced by a member who had been clinging nearby. Then, the unconscious member floated in the water, tied to the severed limb, and the sliced part regenerated again, trying to grab the detached limb.

Leonardo created a flame sword in his hand, cut off the regenerating part once more, and kicked the floating severed limb far away so that the monster couldn't grab it. Then, he grabbed the arm of a member next to him and threw him together in that direction.

The member who had been suddenly thrown(?) by Leonardo rolled in the water, dumbfounded, then shot a fierce glare at him. However, he soon discovered his unconscious comrade floating in front of his eyes and slung him over his shoulder with one arm.

Although the member was reluctant at Leonardo's hand signal telling him to go up, he immediately nodded and swam towards the surface.

Leonardo looked at his appearance, unexpectedly following his instructions well, with satisfaction. At that moment, the monster's limb suddenly coiled around Leonardo's ankle and pulled hard. Because of that, he momentarily spat out the breath he had been holding and swallowed water, causing his breathing to become extremely unstable.

He immediately tried to grab and tear off the thing wrapped around his ankle, but this time, another limb came and bound his entire body, making it impossible to move even a single hand.

'Is this thing crazy, wanting to die?'

Leonardo felt his breath gradually running out and struggled to escape from the limbs tightly binding his body. However, now that he was actually caught by the creature, the compressing force was considerable, and it seemed his bones would be crushed first if he wasn't careful.

In the end, he tried to make the monster detach itself by igniting flames all over his body. As he was writhing while drawing heat from his dantian, the 8th Platoon leader suddenly appeared from somewhere, quickly approached, and struck down the monster's limbs coiling around his body with a sword wrapped in mana.

The limbs that had been constricting in multiple layers were cut off in an instant, and Leonardo swiftly escaped from between the shredded flesh. The 8th Platoon leader glanced at him, who had come out safely, then immediately turned her body and unleashed indiscriminate attacks on the creature's regenerating flesh.

Leonardo watched her back as she had saved him, then went back up to the surface to breathe for now as his breathing had almost reached its limit.

* * *

Hugo took off the glove on his left hand and wiped the black blood spatters on his face with his hand. He quietly looked at the black blood gathered on his fingertips, then soon conjured water and washed it off cleanly.

In his right hand, a huge greatsword made of ice was held.

Black blood flowed down the blade of the greatsword, which exuded a chilling aura, dripping down, and some of it froze and engraved patterns on the blade. The dripped blood deeply stained the ground, but the ground looked a bit strange.

The place where Hugo was standing was between the cliffs of a deep ravine, and originally, there was a valley filled with water boiling from the heat of magma. However, now that valley was completely frozen solid, and even the blood dripping from the greatsword turned into slush as soon as it hit the ground.

Inside the ice beneath Hugo's feet, there was a huge shadow, a monster that looked like a combination of a lizard and a fish. It was frozen in a vivid pose, just before it had charged at him with its mouth wide open, revealing sharp teeth, and its bright yellow eyeballs flashing.

Amidst that bizarre scene, Hugo checked the watch on his left wrist and clicked his tongue.

'Did I delay too much?'

Hugo and two members had come out quite far while exploring the route to the next target spot. It was because they had encountered a mutant monster.

Mutants, which were seen for the first time, were quite dangerous as their characteristics were unknown, so if possible, only two or three individuals should be captured alive for investigation, and the rest should be annihilated immediately upon discovery. That was the reason why two monsters that had fainted during the capture were caught in a net next to Hugo.

Fortunately, they had made contact with a messenger from another battalion nearby and were waiting for a moment to hand over the captured individuals once some of the expedition team arrived here.

A member came out from between the ravines and approached Hugo to report.

"Commander, we have checked all the way to the nest."

His combat uniform and sword were also covered in black blood, and he looked a bit tired from the battle. Hugo, who had been checking his watch, turned his eyes at his words and asked,

"The remaining ones?"

Just as the member was about to answer and take another step, the eyes of the huge monster frozen beneath Hugo's feet rolled eerily and turned towards where the member was.

The approaching member saw it and stopped in his tracks, and Hugo raised the heavy greatsword with one hand and strongly stabbed it towards the creature.

Then, a loud boom echoed through the ravine, the ice he had been stepping on cracked, and the greatsword pierced through the gap. The sharp tip of the greatsword accurately aimed at the monster's eyeball and deeply stabbed the center.

A gust of wind blew around due to the aftermath. The member closed his eyes and briefly turned his head at the scattering ice fragments. After the wind died down, he confirmed the eyeball under the ice that could no longer move and shifted his gaze back to Hugo.

"They have been annihilated."

Hugo nodded once and said while taking out a spare glove and putting it on.

"Good work. Stand by until the expedition team arrives."

The member received the glove Hugo had taken off and looked around the valley.

This place was near a volcanic zone, so the temperature had been quite hot even when they first arrived. However, now the cliffs in this area were completely covered in ice, and an eerie chill lingered.

Moreover, within a certain radius around Hugo, huge monsters were all sprawled with their bodies disintegrated, spilling black blood.

The monsters' blood flowed down the cliffs and froze like a black waterfall, and most of their corpses had sharp ice pierced through their necks.

At that sight, the member felt quite embarrassed to be told "good work" by the Commander.