“Yes. I had him made special for me. There’s someone in Dryfe who creates custom monsters for you. His name’s Franklin... Oh, wait, it looks like you already know each other!”
“THAT LAB COAT SHITHEAD!” Hearing the name, I found myself raising my voice. I sure as hell didn’t expect my sworn enemy’s name to show up here!
“I mean, my Embryo is R’lyeh, and R’lyeh has gotta have Cthulhu, right? I brought in some materials and had Franklin make him for me. I even used an MVP reward.”
Right. Franklin had used Dragon King mats to create a monster that could use the Dragon King Aura. Knowing that, it didn’t seem out of the question that could probably make something like this too.
The fact that it was made using an MVP reward gave me a bad feeling about this, though.
“Oh, and I got the APMs at a discount for buying them in bulk. He said he didn’t have much use for aquatic monster materials, so he sold them to me for cheap. I bought a lot!”
“You got those things because they were on sale?!”
What kind of Overlord army is this?!
“Hmm. I like that reaction. You’re a fun one, Unbreakable. I can see why you went viral so many times.”
“Is that what you’re impressed by...?” said Juliet.
“Who gives a damn who made these and where?! If we can’t get past the mines in the air, that means we can’t get through if we don’t beat that octopus and the mermen!”
“Ah! Right! Sorry, Max! This all just caught me off guard!” I remembered we didn’t have time for this nonsense—we had to clear the dungeon.
G had said this was the halfway point, and we had about forty minutes left. It seemed like we were making good progress, but considering we still had to overcome this mid-boss and then G herself, we had no time to waste.
“Corpse-Eating Bird—Hræsvelgr!” Right as I finished my thought, Juliet besides me used her ult, starting the battle with a bang.
“GEH!”
“E e e a A a h H H!” The sideways tornado released from Juliet’s hands swept away the group of mermen on the bridge while also badly damaging Cthulhu’s upper body.
“Julie?! Wow, you act fast!” G exclaimed. Having her bargain finds... I mean, the mermen wiped out like that might’ve stung a bit.
“Well, Julie’s like this in duels too. She’s pretty proactive when she’s locked in,” said Chelsea.
“The fact that the bridge is still standing tells me that she controlled it properly too...” Nemesis added.
Yeah, when a bunch of enemies group up and block the path, few things are better than a wide-scale ult, I thought.
“Now...!” Juliet called.
“All right!” Urged on by Juliet, we ran on the bridge, now free of mermen.
“E a A h h H...” Though Hræsvelgr had gone straight to Cthulhu’s face, he wasn’t just still alive—he was quickly regenerating. It reminded me of the RSK I’d fought during Franklin’s Game, and I could really tell this Cthulhu was another one of his creations.
Regardless, he was still recovering, so he was completely immobile. Even if he fully healed, that large body would work against him, and he wouldn’t be able to chase us into the passage. Not even his arm would fit—the best he could do was a tentacle or a finger.
That meant that if we made it out of this space, we could just leave Cthulhu behind.
With that in mind, we kept running, and we soon passed the middle of the bridge.
“E a h... E a h... E a h.” Still recovering, Cthulhu was holding his head with his left hand.
However, the right one was being extended toward us.
He wasn’t trying to grab us, just reaching out his hand—and then it suddenly began to shine.
My eyes widened.
“E a h E A h e A H e a h E a H e a h E A H H H!” Letting out a screech in a voice both maddened and maddening, Cthulhu pointed his finger at us.
“Def— I mean, DODGE!”
As I alerted the girls, Cthulhu’s fingers released a blue-purple beam.
The light was eroding and rotting away everything in its path. It was ruination made manifest.
We dodged just in time to avoid it, but the air it passed through was blackened, the bridge melted away, and even the walls collapsed.
“This is...!”
“It’s like Gardranda’s Purgatorial Flames: Zero...!” That was the terrifying power that had melted away Logan’s Legendary Gigaknight. The destruction before me was more than enough to remind me of that.
“That’s Cthulhu’s Gandr—the Finger of Ruination! Whaddya think?! Do you like it?!” While we were overcome by terror, G proudly explained what just happened.
“Is that a skill from the MVP reward you used on him?”
“Yeah! It was originally a Legendary UBM that lived here in the Depths of Jealousy! He absorbs debuff particles, compresses them, and fires them as a beam! In fact, he’s charging another one right now!”
So instead of negating the debuff-filled environment, he accumulated them and used them as a weapon. That explained why he was keeping his lower half in the poisonous water.
“Hm...” I couldn’t expect to be able to Reverse that. Letting it hit me was a bad idea.
The worst part was that we couldn’t just skip past it now.
From what I could see, the passage on the other side was a long, straight line that went on for quite a while. If Cthulhu managed to get even a finger into the tunnel and fire while we were there, it would hit us for sure.