Chapter 83

At the same moment Yuseong issued his warning, the dragon began to descend—no, plummet—toward the ground.

As the dragon fell at a terrifying speed toward where they stood, showing no signs of slowing down, people turned pale and scattered in all directions.

Whoosh!

Just before impact with the ground, the dragon reduced its speed with powerful wing beats and executed an inverted flight that barely grazed above the expedition party’s heads.

The flight skill was so fantastical it drew involuntary gasps of admiration.

However, people felt an indescribable terror watching this beautiful flight.

“Aaaah! W-what is this?!”

“Let go! Let me go! No, don’t let go!”

People were screaming while clinging to various parts of the dragon’s body.

They weren’t hanging on voluntarily.

They had simply been forcibly grabbed by countless hands that had sprouted from all over the dragon’s body as it passed over the expedition party.

“…No wonder they couldn’t properly describe its appearance with something that looks like that.”

Dozens of eyes of varying sizes and shapes, and thousands of hands covering its entire body, writhing.

As far as Yuseong could remember, the only being more horrific than this was the ‘something’ he had witnessed in [Unidentified Organism. Highly Hostile to Humans].

Dudududu!

A barrage of shells and magic rained down on the dragon, but it had little effect.

There were extremely few marksmen skilled enough to accurately predict and hit a target moving freely through the sky, and even when they did hit, the attacks were well beyond their effective range and couldn’t inflict proper damage.

As the dragon made several more passes and the number of people forced into unwanted flight increased, fear and despair began to spread through the expedition party.

At that moment, Crow called out in a loud voice.

“Slow down the dragon’s speed, even if just slightly! Gigants, move to the positions I’m about to call out!”

In this situation, there were no fools who would question why or dispute the chain of command.

And as the dragon descended once again, Dorothy and the other fairies brought out the magic chains they used for pranks.

“Kyaaak!”

Of course, even magic chains couldn’t hope to stop the dragon’s movements.

The chains instantly snapped, and the fairies were sent flying in random directions from the impact.

However, it wasn’t completely ineffective.

The dragon’s flight speed decreased ever so slightly.

That’s when Crow made their move.

Ten wires extended from between twelve fingers.

In the blink of an eye, Crow bound the dragon’s entire body and tied the other end to the Gigants.

“Good! Everyone pull!”

“Hold on! Just hold on!”

Remarkably, the silver wires didn’t break even under the strain of the dragon and Gigants’ power struggle.

Even a dragon couldn’t take flight while carrying several tons worth of multiple Gigants.

Finally, the dragon had no choice but to crash to the ground.

BAM!

KYAAAK!

For the first time, a scream escaped from the dragon’s mouth.

Seeing the dragon stagger, apparently still dazed from the significant impact, everyone drew their weapons with cruel expressions.

“Charge!”

The first to step forward was the leader of the Mercenary.

Known as Last City’s finest swordsman, he drove his Claymore, wrapped in an aura the size of a house, into the dragon’s crown.

Wham!

“Everyone follow me! A thousand gold to whoever mounts the dragon first!”

Climbing onto a dragon covered in thousands of writhing arms wasn’t something one could do with an ordinary mindset, but once the Mercenary leader unhesitatingly broke the ice, other warriors began mounting the dragon as well.

“Damn, I’ve had enough sleep for today.”

Despite steeling himself before coming up, seeing the hellish sight up close made it impossible not to curse.

However, the true nightmare hadn’t even begun yet.

“Ca-Carlson?”

“Uuuuugh.”

“So-someone get me out of here…”

“Can’t see anything, can’t hear anything. Am I still alive?”

“…”

In that short time, the people who had been caught by the hands had already become assimilated with the dragon.

Even those in the best condition had their legs melted into the dragon’s skin, and in severe cases, they had transformed into something that no longer retained human form.

While the warriors fought against the people who had become part of the dragon, Yuseong carefully moved forward, cutting down the arms trying to grab him with his axe.

‘I need to find the core.’

True to its name as a mutation, this dragon also possessed overwhelming regenerative abilities and vitality.

While the plasma axe could prevent regeneration by burning the cut surfaces with intense heat, wounds from other attacks were all regenerating as if they were nothing.

Seeing how the dragon was acting even more energetically despite the Mercenary leader turning its head to mush with his aura-wrapped Claymore, it was clear that mindlessly attacking would exhaust their side before the dragon fell.

‘Where is it, where could it be?’

Though he was thoroughly scanning the entire body with Eye of Truth, he couldn’t find anything that could be called a weak point.

To be more precise, he could find it, but the problem was that its location kept changing every time he did.

Energy would gather in the chest, then move to the neck, when he blinked it would shift to the legs, and when he focused again, it would be on the back.

Yuseong frowned at the core’s position changing continuously without any pattern, then suddenly realized something and deactivated Eye of Truth.

‘If I map the core’s movement positions to reality…’

“It’s the eyes! Everyone, destroy the eyes!”

“Eyes? What do you mean?”

“The eyes are its weak point! If we destroy all the eyes on its body, we can kill it!”

“Damn it! Easy for you to say! How are we supposed to do that?”

The beast had eyes all over its body, wings, and tail, which stretched over 100 meters.

Moreover, considering its regeneration speed, they would need to destroy all eyes almost simultaneously—something impossible against a body of this size.

At that moment, Oswald joined the conversation.

“We can block the regeneration! Don’t worry and destroy them one by one calmly!”

“You can block the regeneration? How?”

“Just try breaking them first!”

After hesitating briefly, Yuseong put his axe back at his waist and drew up magical power.

There was no way a small hand axe could destroy an eye two meters in diameter.

Wrapping his entire body in mana, Yuseong squeezed his eyes shut and threw himself forward with all his might.

Wham!

“Ugh.”

As Yuseong pulled back, Oswald threw a potion containing green liquid at the broken eye.

Crash!

Surprisingly, the eyeball exposed to the green liquid not only failed to regenerate but began to rot away instead.

Everyone who witnessed this amazing sight shouted in unison.

“If you had something like that, you should have brought it out earlier!”

“Hmph.”

How much had they struggled to kill mutations with their terrible regenerative abilities?

It felt too unfair that all of that could have been prevented with a potion barely the size of a pinky finger.

Though they wanted to argue, there were more pressing matters at hand.

“Destroy them all!”

The warriors destroyed the eyes while the soldiers from the six families threw potions.

Even those who initially doubted the effectiveness became increasingly excited as they saw the dragon thrashing more violently with each eye destroyed.

KYAAAAAAAH!

“Watch out! Magic!”

Even reduced to a monster running on pure instinct, a dragon was still a dragon.

Numerous fireballs began appearing around the dragon.

Just as everyone braced for impact from the violently trembling fireballs, Dorothy’s voice rang out.

“That’s enough.”

The fireballs disappeared as instantly as they had appeared.

People who had been staring at Dorothy in shock for blocking the dragon’s magic with a single word resumed destroying eyes at Yuseong’s urging.

“What’s going on? We destroyed them all but it’s not dying!”

“The belly! There are still a few eyes on its belly!”

“The belly?!”

Not just Yuseong who spoke, but everyone else was forced to contemplate this difficult situation of needing to destroy the eyes on the belly.

There was no one with enough attack power to pierce through the dragon’s dozens of meters thick body and damage the eyes on the other side, no way to flip over a body weighing hundreds of tons, and if they released the restraints to let it take flight, there was the risk it might escape into the sky if they failed to finish it properly.

An ambiguous situation where they could neither advance nor retreat.

That’s when a heavy rumbling sound rang out.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

“Leave it to me!”

Operating the Tyrant transformed into the power specialization mode seen earlier, Vulcan climbed onto the dragon and asked Yuseong.

“Where are the eyes located?”

“…Down here, and there, and there.”

“Alright! Everyone get back!”

As people retreated, Tyrant’s arms began striking the dragon’s back with full force.

Amazingly, the speed at which Tyrant destroyed the dragon’s body and moved downward exceeded the mutation’s regenerative abilities.

The rhythmic booming sounds and the dragon’s flinching with each impact.

And when the blood-stained Tyrant reappeared, the dragon had transformed into a cold corpse.

“We won! We actually won!”

“This was the last one, right? You’re sure there isn’t another one hidden somewhere?”

“WOOHOOOOO!”

In this moment, even those who had been desperate to kill each other and factions that had viewed each other as potential threats purely shared the same joy.

They had achieved victory against a powerful enemy they thought impossible to defeat and had truly found land untouched by contamination.

All that remained was to wrap things up successfully.

That’s when the unexpected occurred.

Thud!

There was no telling who fell first.

Warriors, mages, humans, other races—everyone simultaneously lost their balance and collapsed like puppets with cut strings.

Using Thorny Vine to barely maintain his posture, Yuseong only realized what had happened after looking around.

“…Wow, I didn’t expect betrayal at this timing.”

He knew internal strife would occur.

However, he thought it would happen at least when they were returning from the expedition, probably when they were near Last City.

Though they had cleared all monsters along the route, he thought no faction would risk unnecessary conflict early on since new monsters or dangers might have appeared in the meantime.

‘No, that’s exactly why they chose this timing. Because no one would expect betrayal now.’

People from the six families were taking the lives of those who had fallen, holding an oddly scented incense in one hand and weapons in the other.

While watching their actions with a dejected expression, Yuseong heard Oswald’s voice from behind him.

“Vine manipulation? You’ve learned an interesting skill.”

“That comment suits you better than me. What method did you use? Some kind of paralytic incense?”

“Similar. But a bit more complex. The covenant you’ve all been consuming had certain drugs added to it. They have no effect on their own, but when combined with this incense, they instantly paralyze the body.”

“Was that drug in all the covenants?”

“…Why do you ask?”

“Just curious? Consider it a gift before the afterlife and tell me.”

At Yuseong’s carefree response, Oswald smiled cruelly.

“You seem to be under some misunderstanding, but I’m not going to kill you. Your crime of toying with the six families can’t be repaid with death. I’ll keep you alive as long as possible and make you experience every kind of pain you can imagine, and even those you can’t. You’ll beg for death. I’ll make you regret being born into this world.”

“Okay, fine, but can you just tell me if that drug was only in the covenants you provided for this expedition, or if it was in all covenants?”

An unexpected response.

Faced with Yuseong’s incredibly casual attitude, Oswald answered reflexively as if entranced.

“…Only in the covenants we provided.”

“How long does that drug’s effect last? Does it stay semi-permanently in the body after drinking it just once?”

“It naturally leaves the body after two or three days… I don’t understand why you’re asking these things.”

“Thanks for letting me know. Thanks to you, I can cleanly take out just the six families and be done with it. Oh, and while I’m asking, any chance you could tell me about your weaknesses, or ways to attack the six families, something like that?”

“Has the contamination reached your bone marrow? You’ve completely lost your mind.”

Giving the middle finger to Oswald, who wore a dumbfounded expression, Yuseong pulled out his axe handle, placed it against his neck, and pressed the switch with a smile.

Flash!

[‘Twisted World’ clear conditions not met.]

[2 retry attempts remaining. Quest resolution failed.]

[Deducting 1 retry attempt.]

[‘Twisted World’ will now begin]