"There she is~" Skylar smiled as Ver moved through the woods dragging the body of Wu covered in a cloth. The guards over the outer perimeter of the camp all moved aside and let her pass while Skylar rose from his seat and walked towards her, "Wow, you are in a shit shape." "Yeah yeah." Ver said, trying to catch a breath as she pressed her arms to her knees, "This is a heavy boy..." "Well, so long as he is in decent enough shape." Skylar said, walking past Ver and hovering his hand over the cloth around the body, "then we can settle our scores diplomatically." Reaching forward with his fingers, Skylar grasped onto the cloth with everybody in the camp watching silently. "I am...I am coming, little one." The Kraken said, its deep voice rocking Ver to her core and sounding closer than ever. Another wave of heat and burning pulsated throughout her body, and Ver bit down on her lips to try to look normal. "Yeah, about damn time," Ver said through her teeth, rolling back onto her butt as the entirety of her body has turned to black. At the exact same time, Skylar swung his arms, pulling away from the cloth and revealing the man underneath. It was Wu all right. The expressions were exactly spot on, and the appearance matches that of the posters, except for the slightly exaggerated eyebrows. However, there is only one problem. It's made of wood. "What's the meaning of this?" Skylar felt his jaw drop to the ground and as he tried to figure out what the hell is going on, Ver's body has slowly begun to transform as the pitch-black darkness of her skin spread over her clothes and her body itself transformed into a portal for the Kraken to emerge through. She lied down on the ground before a circular black whirlpool formed under her back, and then, it outer radius of the whirlpool instantly expanded twentyfold, covering the entirety of the camp and pulling everyone and everything towards the center. "What.....do you think?" Ver laughed, her face sinking into the black whirlpool, "Nobody tells me what to do...nobody..." "EXCEPT FOR ME!" An almighty roar tore through the forest as a massive eight-legged monster emerged from the massive black pool, its eight legs covered in flames from hell as they ripped through the bodies and tents of the unprepared bounty hunters and mercenaries. A few of them tried to jump onto the various chariots and run away while the rest activated all of their powers in a panic. However, the flaming legs of the Kraken cut straight through their bodies like a hot knife through butter, sending pieces of their weapons, clothing, and flesh splattering off in all directions. Then, at last, the main body of the Kraken emerged. Despite its octopus legs with fire burning over all of their surfaces looking soft and squishy, its main body was actually heavily shelled, and two pupils the size of Skylar's legs thinned up into two haunting lines and focused on him. In an instant, Ver and the Kraken had wiped away nearly the entirety of the bounty hunter forces. Worse yet, these bounty hunters were the stronger ones of all those that Skylar had brought along, as the weaker ones were sent to perform the distraction duties. "Tsk. Useless fodders." Skylar looked at all of the death around him as the bodies of the fallen sunk into the black whirlpool. When Ver brought out the Kraken, he immediately took out his Sky Splitting blade and hopped onto its blade body while expanding its size. This allows him to hover in the air, and now, he's the only one left to face the Kraken. "HO! Is THAT the Sky Splitting Sword?"The Kraken asked, pointing one of its burning legs to it, "How the hell did YOU get it?" "Don't give me this shit! I earned it!" Skylar shouted, leaping off the body of the blade as he free fell through the air. Then, he reached to his side, catching the handle of the blade and shrinking it down to its normal size. As a bright flash of light pulsed from Skylar's body, he slammed the blade right down towards the head of the Kraken. It may be large, and it may have eight arms that are somehow all burning with blames, but being at that size must compromise its agility! Skylar deducted, thinking back to the stories told to him by the last owner of the Sky Splitting Sword, about how it fought against legendary enemies in the last war, including a handful of mystical monsters. Channeling all of his power through the sharp edge of his sword, the sword responded to the surge of the Wave and hummed. It then clashed against one of the Kraken's legs and sliced it cleanly in half. As Skylar landed firmly in the black whirlpool, the massive severed leg also crashed into the ground with a loud BOOM. "How's that for the measly human?!" Skylar asked, shrinking his Sky Splitting Sword to just the size of a single hand blade as he dashed forward, jumping from one corpse that's floating in the black whirlpool to the next before approaching the towering torso of the Kraken. As he neared, the Kraken swung his arms in a frantic circular fashion, though Skylar manipulated his body and kicked away the individual arms, using the momentum of the attacks to propel him closer and closer towards the head of the Kraken. His entire existence was focused onto a straight arrow, his killing intention directed straight at the Kraken's eyes. Like an eagle flying through a thick forest, Skylar's reaction was pushed to its limit as he contorts his body and broke through the arm which flailed diagonally across from his body before cocking his sword back behind him. The Sky Splitting Sword resonated with his body and the flow of the Wave once again, and it glowed white like the sun as he violently slashed his arms down, intending to cut the Kraken and the rest of the Endless Woods in half with a single devastating swing. "SKY SPLITTER!" Skylar shouted as the blade made contact with the Kraken's skull, and a spherical blast wave formed at the point of impact before the very fabric of space around it rippled. Skylar's body was sent jetting backward one way, while the Kraken leaned back as its head whiplashed in the other direciton. The blast wave then traveled outwards with the two of them at its epicenter, snapping the trees within their immediate vicinity and blowing back those that are slightly further away. The animals that were unlucky enough to get away were sent flying through the air, a few of them caught by the stray branches. Even with himself shielded with the Sky Splitting Sword expanded, Skylar still flew through rows of trees until the momentum of the Kraken's hit finally dissipated. He looked back at the monster standing in the middle of the black whirlpool, and its head slowly rolled forward once again, revealing a shell that appeared untouched. "Impressive!" The Kraken complimented, "You had potential! Shame this is as far as you will go." What?! Skylar's eyes widened, and he finally noticed his own trembling hand from the impact. That last attack, the Sky Splitter, was a certified high Mountain-Splitting level attack, and yet, the Kraken acted as if it did nothing...no...it actually did nothing. The Kraken's merely toying with him! As he charged forward once again desperately, now with killing the monster in front of him being his only goal for living, he saw the Kraken open its mouth as a massive jet of lava shout out from his mouth. Before he could react, his body was already buried underneath the layers of lava. The heavy fluid immediately started breaking down his body, tearing through his Wave-reinforced defenses and his toughened skin. In his last moment, all Skylar saw are the burning hell around him as his flesh sizzled right in front of his eyes. His Sky Splitting blade floated to the top of the lava pond and the Kraken reached one of its legs forward and picked it up. Tossing it into the clear, it scanned around before realizing that despite being freed by Lera's Store and Release attack , it actually can't physically go anywhere. Her body is still not ready to be completely taken over, and it is to be expected. The developments of humans are fast compared to that of ancient monsters such as themselves, but it will still take some time. "Thanks for the exercise, little one." The Kraken said, slowly submerging back into the black whirlpool as its radius started shrinking until the blackness all returned to Ver's body and some semblance of life was breathed into the forest again. Then, after all of the black is cleared away from out of her body, the darkness also retracted away from her extremities and everything spiraled back around her eyes as she slowly opened them up. Everything hurts, and Ver felt as if her entire body had been torn apart and put together carelessly. Her muscles felt sore, and her bones felt weak yet even the slightest movement of her tendons are enough to make her wince. She grunted in place and covered her right eye with her hand. "Stupid squid..." Ver said, rolling her head side to side and seeing the massive opening she has just created in the forest with not a single sighs of the bounty hunters left. Trying her hardest to sit back up, she then spotted a massive blob of volcanic rock that looked exactly like a coffin. She wondered what the deal with the volcanic rock is, then her eyes immediately caught onto the sight of the Sky Splitting Sword sitting on the ground. "Ah." She made a sound of understanding before forcing herself up and heading towards the legendary sword. Picking it up, it sprung into life and started registering her own patterns of the Wave. Now, the Sky-Splitting Sword has a new owner. Scanning around the opening created in the aftermath of her destruction, Ver took a deep breath and stiffly turned around to start heading back to the Dweller's settlement. Depending on whether Wu was successful in his attempt, everything should be over by now. She tried to teleport back to the settlement with her Whirlpool Purple, but a sharp pain from her right eye acted as the perfect discouragement. Her physical pains, all of a sudden, are far more manageable in comparison. By the time she stumbled back into the Settlement with the Sky Splitting Sword wedged behind her, the Dweller's tribe had already taken out and chased away the weaker of the bounty hunters. They all cheered when they saw Ver returning, and so did Wu. Urging the fighters to get the non-combatants back out from the caves that they were hiding in, Wu then came towards Ver. "You actually did it." They both said the same thing at the same time before they shared a smile. "Easy peasy." Ver said, stumbling forward and nearly falling as Wu caught onto her, "Nevermind...it was a right idea to not kill you...Let's go get Lera." "Well.....Didn't I promise to fix your eyes?" Wu reminded, "Before then, let's be friends, shall we?" Ver smiled before shaking her head, "You crazy one. You actually made me drag your stupid statue all the way there." "Well, did it work though?" Wu laughed, "I hate that statue anyway. Makes my eyebrows excessively massive." "It did. Somehow." Ver laughed with Wu and she thought back to the brief yet hilarious moment of respect she received from the mercenaries and bounty hunters as she dragged the statue through the camps, "Maybe you really are something." "I'd hope so." Wu nodded as he put her hand around Ver's wrist. As they walked towards the other exit of the settlement, Ver couldn't help but fixate her eyes on his face and his smile. At that moment, parts of her heart started to soften.