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Chapter 302: Ryuu's Hatred
"Looks like that's the monster that attacked those adventurers."
Hedin pushed up his glasses, staring in the direction the Juggernaut had fled. The faint luminescence of the Dungeon reflected off his lenses.
"There is no record of it in the Guild's database. It really is an unseen species. Its speed is incredible. To dodge two consecutive strikes from you, Ottar, means its strength easily rivals any First-Class Adventurer. No wonder it caused such a massive slaughter in this area."
As he spoke, he bent down, his gloved hand picking up the severed, pitch-black claw Ottar had chopped off.
The claw's texture didn't feel like bone or metal; it felt more like high-density obsidian. It was heavy and freezing to the touch. The cross-section was smooth as a mirror, a clear testament to the terrifying force behind Ottar's swing.
Without hesitation, Hedin gripped the claw and casually swiped it at a pristine, man-sized crystal boulder nearby.
There was no sound. No resistance.
The crystal rock, as hard as steel, was silently cleaved open with a deep, perfectly smooth cut, as if a hot dining knife had sliced through butter.
Several seconds later, a clack echoed as the upper half of the sliced crystal finally slid down the smooth incline and crashed into the ground, shattering into pieces.
Seeing this, even Allen's pupils shrank slightly.
Hogni instinctively tightened his grip on his cursed sword at his waist.
"Such terrifying sharpness." Aiden took a deep breath of the freezing air, his voice grave. "I'm afraid even First-Class Armament shields wouldn't be able to block that."
Everyone present silently agreed with his assessment.
They finally understood why those surviving adventurers were so utterly terrified, and why the corpses scattered in the water had been reduced to such mangled, fragmented states.
Faced with a claw that could entirely bypass physical defense, any adventurer who wasn't overwhelmingly strong would be shredded into pieces instantly.
Ottar remained silent, expressionlessly sheathing his massive greatsword back onto his back.
But internally, he was not nearly as calm as he appeared.
His first swing had been aimed to cleave the monster cleanly in half from head to tail. With his strength and speed, that strike should have been enough to split a small mountain.
Yet, the very instant the blade was about to make contact, the monster had contorted its body using an unbelievable, biologically impossible reflex. He had only managed to take its arm.
His second slash had targeted its waist, aiming to bisect it completely. But again, it evaded by a hair's breadth, and he only managed to cut off its long tail.
Between its speed and inhuman reflexes, it far exceeded the boundaries of what defined a "monster." Add in its armor-piercing claws and the magic-reflecting black shell the adventurers mentioned... Ottar came to a silent conclusion: Anyone below the level of a First-Class Adventurer would be instantly slaughtered upon encountering this beast.
For any team that wasn't exceptionally strong, this thing was an unsolvable nightmare born solely for massacre.
"It escapes very quickly. We have no reason to waste time on something like this," Hedin said, breaking the silence as he adjusted his glasses. "The mission takes priority."
Aiden and the others had no desire to give chase either.
The Juggernaut was powerful, but it wasn't their target. The most urgent matter was locating the Loki Familia members who had fallen into the Lower Levels.
Following Hedin and Ottar's lead, the group moved on without delay, heading toward the entrance to the deeper floors.
Not long after Aiden's group departed, the area that had just hosted the brief skirmish welcomed new visitors.
Two figures silently melted out of the shadows.
Leading them was a lanky Cat Person. One of his sleeves hung completely empty. A hideous scar marred his face, and his beast-like vertical slit pupils gleamed with a cunning, sadistic light.
It was the former Evilus executive, a man who should have died long ago—Jura.
Behind him followed a tall, slightly nervous Werewolf youth.
Jura sniffed the air lightly. Immediately, his gaze was drawn to the severed remnants of the Juggernaut left on the ground. He crouched down and picked up the severed tail, carefully examining the smooth cut. His expression turned incredibly solemn.
"To leave such a clean, decisive slash… It seems it ran into those freaks from the Freya Familia."
But he soon spotted more evidence of the fight—the massive, shattered hole in the crystal rock wall.
"Hahaha! It really isn't dead! Not even the Warlord could kill you. You really are the best."
A sickly, excited joy spread across Jura's face.
"Come on, keep up. We absolutely have to find it."
He gave a low order to the Werewolf youth and swiftly tracked the trail the Juggernaut had left behind, plunging into the darkness of the passageway.
Just as Jura and the Werewolf disappeared completely into the shadows, a slender figure slowly stepped out from the darkness behind a massive boulder not far away.
It was an elf girl draped in a green cloak that obscured her form.
Ryuu Lion.
At this moment, her eyes were radiating a terrifying aura of killing intent and pure hatred. Her gaze was locked dead on the direction Jura had vanished. Her right hand gripped the hilt of her wooden sword, violently fighting the urge to draw it.
Jura…
There was no way she could ever forget that face.
She could never forget that despicable, one-armed Cat Person.
Four years ago, it was him. It was those bastards who laid that cowardly trap, pushing her most precious companions step-by-step into the irredeemable hell known as the Calamity.
But... how could this be?
She remembered it so clearly. On that blood-soaked night of vengeance, she had killed him with her own two hands.
Ryuu's body began to tremble uncontrollably.
From the moment she stepped onto this floor, from the frantic words of those fleeing adventurers, she had already confirmed that the nightmare she could never forget—the Juggernaut—had been born once again.
The scar that had long scabbed over in her heart was violently ripped open. The shadows and terror deeply rooted in her very soul surged up like a tidal wave, madly urging her to run away as far as she could.
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