Second World

Jack stopped swimming after seeing that big dark red dot. It was right next to him on the radar, meaning it was inside this vertical tunnel. Since he was just from up there and there was nothing there, this new hostile should be further down in this tunnel. This new monster should still be far down there despite the dot being right next to him. Because his radar was two-dimensional, it didn't show the distance in correspondence to the above and below directions. The red dot just show up recently, he figured the distance of this hostile down there should be the distance of him to the edge of his radar, which was three hundred meters.

Jack looked down. It was dark. The water obscured his Dragon Eye and Keen Sight skill from looking into the distance.

'Are you going to go down?' Peniel asked from inside her hidden dimension.

'I don't see any choice,' Jack said. 'I guess this is that eccentric God's idea of pushing one's limit. But I am going to wait one hour first. I might need the Asura again.'

After one hour passed, Jack was ready to go down. But before he did, he said to Peniel in his mind, 'Hey! I will need you out for this. I need your boost to my HP recovery and also to be ready with your heal at any moment.'

'Uh… Do I have to?'

'Damn it, do you want me to die?'

'Urgh, fine…!' Peniel reappeared beside Jack. 'All this water, so uncomfortable,' she complained. She clung to Jack's shoulder. Her flying was slowed underwater, it would be difficult to keep up with Jack if anything happened.

'All right, let's go. Be ready for anything,' Jack said and resumed swimming down.

While on his way, he cast Barrier as well as activated Life Burning Art. His life went down due to the activation of Life Burning Art but it slowly recovered again as he swam. He swam close to the wall of the tunnel.

As he proceeded deeper, the water was getting even murkier. He felt pressure with his mana sense even though the hostile monster was not yet visible. He knew then from this mana sense that the hostile was most likely a mythical grade.

'The darkness in this water is unnatural,' Jack said. 'It's as if it was full of ink.'

Just as he thought about that, he sensed an incoming danger. Luckily, he had positioned himself near the tunnel's wall. Most of his movement skills required footing to execute. He immediately planted his feet on the wall and used Shooting Dash.

His body zipped away as a huge tentacle came by and crashed the wall where he used to be. He looked back at that tentacle. No, it's not a tentacle, it's an octopus' arm. It had two rows of large suckers in the entire length of the arm.

He then sensed another attack coming. He used his second dash to dodge this attack as well. And then another.

When he was out of his third dash, there was still another attack. He used Charge on the wall to continue the dodge. After the fourth attack, he was relieved to find the attacks had stopped. He was ready to use either Blitz Slash or Roll to dodge. He was not even sure if Roll would be working on a vertical wall.

After dodging those four attacks, he had come closer to the monster. He saw it now. It was a gigantic octopus.

*

Kraken (Mythical monster, Aquatic), level 51

HP: 1.180.000

*

'A monster from the myth that is mythical-grade, how fitting,' Jack thought.

The previous four attacks came from half of its eight arms that were facing Jack's side. These four arms were retracted now and seemed to be preparing for another round of attacks. But before that happened, the water under the Kraken turned pitch black and it was spreading.

'It released black ink?' Jack thought in consternation. So, the murky water was a residue of its ink, not the water's natural state. With the new injection of the Kraken's ink, the water soon became pitch black as the ink covered the water around Jack.

At the same time, Jack received notification that he had been afflicted by a status ailment, Fatigue, which increased the consumption of his stamina and mana.

This ink had such an effect? This meant it would be very difficult for a melee player to deal with this monster. Not only was it impossible to see the monster with all this ink, anyone who came near would get this negative status effect. This Fatigue status meant that a prolonged battle against Kraken would be disadvantageous because it was impossible to defeat a mythical-grade monster in a short period. Most likely the attacker would run out of stamina and mana first.

Before Jack could think of any solution, he sensed the attack coming again. He couldn't afford to hold back, so he used his beast form. His transformed body immediately shot away as he flapped his wings. He zoomed in and out avoiding the Kraken's arms assault, depending entirely on his mana sense.

He summoned his Spirit Weapon but instructed it to move away and attacked from range. He also summoned Ice Demon Fiend. He didn't summon Therras because he was not sure how well it would perform underwater. It was fine if the Ice Demon Fiend or Spirit weapon were killed. They would still be fine the next time he summoned them, but not Therras.

He cast Acceleration on himself to increase his speed and make it easier for dodging the Kraken's arms as they kept on trying to grab him. He continued to slip through the arms with his increased speed and arrived before the Kraken's main body.

Jack then activated Overlimit, Adrenaline Rush, Phantom Blade, and executed Hundred Shadow Strikes.

Each shadow generated around 2,500 damages, with several of them scoring critical hits. The total resulting damage was around 80,000. Despite using ultimate attack with so many buffs, it was not even enough to take out ten percent of this Kraken's HP. Jack couldn't afford but be amazed by its mythical-grade defense.

The Kraken didn't just stay still and let Jack do a second attack. It lifted its large body and revealed a huge circular mouth with uncountable sharp teeth.

'Oh, shit!' Jack was just about to use Asura and battle it out with the Kraken at close range. But once he felt the mana accumulating in that mouth, he hurriedly used his dragon form's Wind Jet and shot himself away. However, before he was far enough, he felt a strong pulling force. The Kraken's mouth was sucking water with incredible force. Jack felt his body losing control and was pulled by this force. He immediately activated Gold Dragon Armor to stabilize his body. He then flapped his dragon wings frantically as he tried urging his body to fly away. However, his dragon flight was not strong enough to resist the pull. He was slowly getting dragged back.

Seeing its master's predicament, the Ice Demon Fiend came forward to locate the Kraken's mouth through the dark water. The Kraken's arms had stopped attacking when it started using its sucking ability, so the Ice Demon Fiend was unobstructed. The Ice Demon Fiend then fired its Ice Beam right at the Kraken's mouth.

The Kraken's mouth was frozen and its sucking force interrupted. Finding himself able to advance again, Jack immediately broke away with speed. The ice covering the Kraken's mouth lasted only an instant. It was soon broken. The Kraken stared at the Ice Demon Fiend with rage. Its arms snapped out. The Ice Demon Fiend was unable to dodge the arms at such a close distance.

Two of the Kraken's arms caught the Ice Demon Fiend. One grabbed the fiend's upper body, the other one held its bottom part. The suckers on the arm glued the Ice Demon Fiend's body. Once the arm grabbed its prey, the sucker would prevent the prey from escaping. With the two arms firmly holding the fiend's body, the Kraken pulled his arms in two opposite directions.

Jack watched with dismay as damage numbers upon damage numbers continuously popped up above the gripped Ice Demon Fiend. Until eventually, when the fiend's HP reached zero, its body was forcefully ripped into two.

Jack didn't just stay still as he watched the Ice Demon Fiend's demise. Its sacrifice brought a few precious seconds where the Kraken was distracted. He also had to maximize all his damage while his Overlimit was still active. He sent his Spirit Weapon forward, executing its Finishing mode. At the same time, he used Lightning God Barrage.

As the spirit weapon's finishing mode and twenty lightning balls converged on the Kraken, Jack fired his Soul Breath. The tree combination attacks produced an astounding explosion.

As the water settled, Jack saw that the Kraken had two missing arms. It appeared to have sacrificed its two arms to block the explosive assaults. Jack used Inspect and found that the Kraken's HP was still above 800,000.

Jack's heart sank. He had practically used most of his trump cards but it was still far from enough to take down this mythical Kraken.