Date: March 20, 2021 - 8:39 pm

Location: Merrick

An enormous, train-sized tentacle broke through the water’s surface and slammed into port, breaking apart concrete and sending huge pieces of debris flying through the air. The tentacle slammed down near Virgil’s prior location, but he had already sprinted away a couple seconds earlier. A second tentacle erupted out from the seas and slammed down as well, further smashing into the concrete of the port.

Virgil obviously had zero intention of getting anywhere near the tentacles and continued to flee from the waterside. However, before he could get more than a hundred feet away, one of the giant squid-like monsters started to glow. Forced to act as the hero, Virgil halted his retreat in order to shoot another arrow at the squid to kill it. As with the one before, only small wisps of blue light came out before transforming into the expected black mist. By now, Virgil was pretty confident in assuming that the Boss monster had some kind of ability that allowed it to sacrifice the other monsters and convert them into mana. Why? Well, he hasn’t confirmed it yet, but whatever spell or ritual the Boss was working on must consume more mana that it otherwise has.

As further evidence to confirm Virgil’s thoughts, the Boss monster’s head could now be seen surfacing from the ocean, clearly driven to deal with whomever was interfering with it. The concrete groaned and cracked from the suckers of its tentacles glued onto the port, acting as the much-needed anchors in order to pull its colossal body from out of the water. Its entire body still could not be seen, but without any doubt, nothing fit the description of a kraken more than this creature. Its body was similar to that of a giant octopus and it was almost completely black. A thin layer of fog also seemed to swirl around it. Its head alone was around the size of an apartment building and its tentacles were at least two hundred feet long. Sunken on either side of its massive, long, round head was a giant, oval-shaped eye. There were no discernible pupils or irises, they were both just a solid, luminescent blue.

Before its body was more than halfway out of the water, its grip on the port disappeared as the great pressure from its tentacles’ suckers further smashed apart the port’s concrete. The Boss fell back into the water and large waves of water came surging out over the port, enveloping some of the fleeing giant squids. One particular squid started to glow blue as the sudden tide of water washed over it and then attempted to pull it back into the ocean. This hardly served as an added difficulty for Virgil, though, and he killed it from afar with ease.

An ominous, low bellow could now be heard originating from the kraken, although Virgil couldn’t be sure from what part of its body exactly. It was impossible to read the kraken’s expression, but it was definitely annoyed. If it had full use of all eight of its tentacles, it would not be struggling so much, but five of them had to be used to maintain the flow of mana for its ritual, and a sixth had to be used to collect the mana from the sacrificed monsters. This was an ideal situation for Virgil as he could continue to safely shoot at the squid monsters from afar as the kraken had to try again to force itself onto the port using only two of its tentacles.

However, Virgil still did not want to close to the kraken for any longer than necessary. Confident in his long-ranged shots, he started running far away from the port as the kraken slowly started to drag itself back onto the port. It laid out its two tentacles onto some smoother parts of the port this time to avoid suddenly losing its grip again. Finally, the kraken made landfall, and when it did, the ocean’s fog extended onto the port as well and obscured the remaining giant squids.

Virgil took a second to think. He was now near the military jeep he drove earlier and the bomber planes were set to arrive in just a few more minutes. From this distance, he could no longer stop any further sacrifices due to the fog, but as far as he was concerned, he had already accomplished his mission when the kraken came onto the surface. However, he also realized that he would probably have to continue to stick around. If he left right now, then there was the chance the kraken would just go back underwater. So, he just waited.

The kraken initially tried to move closer towards Virgil, but it found out that it was much more difficult to drag itself across the concrete now that its entire body was on land. Very quickly, it gave up on that and just stayed where it was. Virgil and the kraken were practically in a staring contest with each other, neither making any more attempts to attack. However, as time went on, more giant squids were sacrificed under the fog and Virgil could sense the terrifying source of mana continue to grow. For just a second, Virgil considered running towards the kraken again in order to kill off more squids. Well, not really. Virgil easily convinced himself that all he needed to do was continue to wait for the bomber planes. Surely, they would arrive before the kraken was finished with gathering the mana it needed for its spell.

As the two sides remained passive to each other, Virgil heard something from the military jeep.

“Mr. Quinn?! Hello? Please come in, Mr. Quinn?!” Virgil kept his eyes on the kraken as he slowly moved over to answer the transmission.

“Hello,” he said, still cautious of any sudden movements from the kraken.

“Mr. Quinn, are you able to move?” Mr. Cadbury asked.

“Yes.”

“Great, then, please get out of there now. The bomber planes will be here in…two minutes and then they will begin their assault.” Finally, Virgil thought to himself. And then, he thought to himself, wait, you’re only telling me this now? What if I didn’t pick up?

“Alright, got it.” Virgil stared at the kraken again for a bit to see if it was going to suddenly do something else, but it made no unusual movements. If Virgil got into the car and drove off right now, then he should be able to make a perfectly safe getaway. But, his sense of foreboding was still there. Rather than risk suddenly freezing up again, he chose to remain at the port until that feeling of dread dissipated. Two minutes later, he received another transmission.

“Mr. Quinn, are you still there? We have confirmed visual that the kraken is still on land and the bomber planes will be launching their assault in just one minute. Please, confirm where you are.”

“I’m…a bit away from the port.”

“What do you mean? Are you far enough away?” Virgil has always trusted his survival instincts and even now, after being told that missiles were going to be launched into his area soon, his instincts still weren’t telling him to run away yet.

“Yeah, I’m far enough away.”

“Alright, please make your way back to the perimeter,” Mr. Cadbury responded, letting out a sigh of relief.

The attack began with two missiles, fired one after the other. Only two were launched at first to ensure that kraken was not using some kind of ability to distort distance or aim. Both of them connected onto the kraken’s massive head. The missiles blew apart chunks of the kraken’s flesh and left burn marks tens of feet long across its skin. Despite it only looking like superficial injuries, It let out an ominous groan after receiving the blows and it finally started to shift its body, no longer staring at Virgil.

Four missiles came next. Two of them connected with the kraken’s head again, but the other two were blocked by its tentacles. The missiles continued to leave burns across the kraken and the two tentacles also received a noticeable amount of damage. They weren’t blown apart, but if they received another direct hit or two, they probably would be. However, the kraken also realized how serious the damage could likely become. The kraken continued to turn its body around. It rotated slowly using its two free tentacles, five of its tentacles still together at a single point to maintain the magic circle for its spell and the sixth still drawing in more mana from the sacrifices.

Virgil’s sense of danger flared up at that exact moment. The kraken was not turning so that it could better defend against the incoming attacks, but so that it could return to the ocean. Virgil immediately dashed towards the waterside once more. In that instant, Virgil put more faith in the accuracy of the following missiles than his chances at surviving a sudden tsunami if the Boss succeeded in fleeing and finishing its spell.

When Virgil was within two hundred feet of the kraken’s head, he was now running past its five tied tentacles, which made no movements towards them as they were otherwise preoccupied. He was also now able to see some of the giant squids that were still crawling around on the port. He quickly shot and killed one of them right as it was glowing blue, but the kraken did not seem to care. Virgil had to keep running and eventually it came right next to its massive head.

Virgil shot another would-be sacrifice but the tremors on the port did not cease as the mighty beast continued to turn its body all the way around using its two free tentacles. Left with no other option, Virgil jumped onto one of the kraken’s non-moving tentacles and aimed at one of the kraken’s eyes. It did not seem to notice him at all as he took a couple seconds to apply Armour Pierce to his arrow. He fired the arrow and it bounced off its eye. However, it did seem to hurt it. It was like a light poke to the eye, but it was still a sensitive organ.

The kraken paused its retreat and coiled its two tentacles back to slam down on the Dungeoneer behind its head. The first of its tentacles came crashing down on the spot where Virgil stood, but he had already jumped off it and landed closer to its head. This may have been a mistake though, as this area of the body had less even footing and there seemed to be a layer of mucus covering it as well. Virgil nearly slipped as the second tentacle swung in to swat him away. Virgil kicked off of the kraken’s body to fall back towards the ground in order to avoid the tentacle. The force of the wind alone was enough to change the direction of the fall as he crashed and tumbled into the concrete, which was covered in debris.

Any ordinary person’s head would have smashed apart when it smacked into the debris but he was a relatively powerful Dungeoneer. Instead, his head broke the debris into pieces and was left without a scratch. What he did need to be concerned about though, was that the tentacles were already coming at him again. He got back onto his feet as quickly as possible, bow still firmly in hand, and started sprinting away again. One tentacle smashed down onto the port, but with his enhanced perception and insight, he dodged just in time and only faced a shower of debris. Before the second tentacle could smash into the ground as well, the next round of missiles finally arrived.

As the missiles exploded against the kraken’s body, even Virgil who was more than a hundred feet away could feel a massive wave of heat and wind blast him from behind. Combined with the deafening sound of the explosion, he was disoriented for just a split second, but that was enough to cause him to trip and tumble. As he did, the kraken’s second tentacle crashed down onto the ground, just a few feet away from him. This added impact shook the port and knocked Virgil slightly up into the air where he also continued to be assaulted by chunks of debris. None of this did any serious damage to him, but it was eating into his stamina.

The explosions finally ended, but even without turning around, Virgil knew the kraken lived. Virgil got back up and glanced behind him just to double check anyways. The kraken’s head was still mostly intact, but there were huge chunks that were blown off. It was also hard to tell since its body was black, but burns were now seared across almost every part of its head. Virgil didn’t know the exact number of missiles that were fired so far, but if there were sixty in total, there should still be more than half of them left. Virgil grimaced about how close this was going to get.

After receiving the second barrage, the kraken decided to ignore Virgil again. It pulled back its tentacles and brought them to the edge of the port. The whole port shook as the monster began dragging itself back to the water’s edge.

Suicidal was definitely not a word that would be used to describe Virgil before today. However, to any onlookers, what else would most people think as Virgil ran as fast as he could back towards the kraken’s head. Not only was he racing towards a creature that didn’t even bleed after getting shot in the eye, but he was also running closer to a point where dozens of missiles were going to start streaming in any minute now.

Virgil easily got back near the kraken’s head. He fired another enhanced arrow at its eye, but it hardly seemed to recoil at all as he continued to pull itself over the port’s edge. If nothing stopped it, it would finally resubmerge itself in about half a minute. Truly bold action was required. Virgil created another arrow, applied Armour Pierce again, but did not nock it onto his bow. He put away the bow into his inventory and jumped onto the kraken right next to its eye so that it could stab the arrow into it using both of his hands. The first blow didn’t work, nor did the second or third. And then, Virgil started just scraping the arrow across the eye in desperation.

Skill upgraded: Archery Mastery D to Archery Mastery C

The arrow finally went through and black blood sprayed out. The kraken recoiled in pain at the unbelievable success of Virgil’s bullshit plan. Virgil lost his footing when the kraken’s body shook. The kraken swung back its tentacles, one after the other, to finally crush this annoyance. Instead of jumping back onto the debris-filled port this time, he moved to behind the kraken’s head and stuck the arrow into its body in order to avoid falling off. The tentacles both narrowly missed him as he was practically hugging the back of its head.

However, he couldn’t stay there since more missiles would be arriving any second now. He also couldn’t risk running straight back down the port either since the two tentacles could close in on him. So, he jumped onto one of the other tentacles and ran as fast he could while still maintaining his footing.

One of the tentacles swept towards him. If he jumped down, he could easily avoid it, but then he would be running on the port in between two tentacles. Those two wouldn’t attack him, but it would be very difficult to avoid another tentacle coming down on him from above. Therefore, his only option was to jump. He jumped over the tentacle as it brushed past the one underneath, and he just barely got enough height to avoid being drawn into the rushing wind of the swinging tentacle.

Now, the second tentacle came swinging at him. If nothing else happened, this tentacle would be brushing past the tentacle he was running along just a second before he landed again. That would mean there probably wouldn’t be enough time to jump up again. That means the safest option would be to drop down on the ground to narrowly avoid the attack. However, doesn’t that just put him in the same spot as before. Virgil’s Skill told him no.

Virgil fell to the ground as the tentacle swept right above him, the force of the wind pulling his body along slightly and causing him to tumble into the ground. However, he did not get back up, instead, he stayed low on the ground and covered his head with hands. Before the kraken could pull its tentacles back, the final barrage of missiles arrived.

Missile after missile, each within less than a few seconds of the other rained down upon the monster. Virgil remained on the ground, protecting himself as best as he could as explosion after explosion sent shockwaves throughout the nearby area. The kraken realized it was starting to receive critical damage and it used its two free tentacles to block some of the missiles. A couple explosions later, a section of its tentacle was blown off but the kraken continued to defend itself with what remained. Continuous explosions continued to blast off sections of its blocking tentacles until there was nothing left it could use to defend.

In desperation, the kraken canceled the sacrificial magic on its third tentacle and used that to defend as well. For some reason unknown to Virgil, it still would not use any of its other five tentacles to defend. This was to humanity’s benefit, of course, as the third tentacle was quickly blown apart as well and another fifteen missiles continued to blast the kraken’s head to pieces.

The barrage finally concluded, and Virgil slowly got back up after about ten seconds of silence. The kraken still lived. Not only was it still alive, but throughout the entire bombardment, its remaining five tentacles were still dedicated to maintaining its prepared spell. Virgil could hardly believe it. When it looked at the kraken’s head, he could see that nearly half of it was blown apart. Both of its eyes were also destroyed and no longer glowed. Black blood dripped profusely all around what remained of the creature’s head and three destroyed tentacles.

Virgil calmly took out his C-rank bow from his Inventory again. He created another magical arrow and enhanced it with Armour Pierce. He aimed it at the part of its head that seemed to be most heavily damaged and exposed. He made sure his aim was steady as he tried not to think about what to do if this failed. He hit his target and the arrow pierced through the kraken’s burnt skin. When that happened, There was a brief flash of light from behind him and Virgil could sense a mana fluctuation.

Virgil looked back again and saw the magic circle glowing and flashing erratically. He was not sure what that meant exactly, but he definitely sensed that this could be trouble. Well, more troublesome than it already was since the kraken still wasn’t dead. Virgil started running again. He ran away from the kraken, but not to flee the port. This was in preparation for a different plan. He needed the extra distance now and it wasn’t like being another few hundred feet away was going to make a difference for the next shot.

The magic circle’s started to flash even brighter and Virgil could feel himself on the precipice of life and death. Right now, in these next few seconds, if he made the wrong move he would almost certainly die. He spun back around, nocked his final magical arrow and used up the last of his mana to enhance it. He was starting to pant heavily as he struggled to keep the bow steady for this final shot. Right as he sensed the mana spike to what he thought was an impossible level, he fired the arrow at the kraken’s head once more.

Was Virgil insane? The last shot didn’t kill it so why would the second. If anything, from what he could guess about the sudden mana surge, it was clear that that the spell was about to be completed. How was it about to be completed with no more sacrifices? Virgil didn’t know nor care. Maybe it was being used prematurely as a weaker or more risky version for the caster. Maybe the kraken was draining away its own life force. That simply wasn’t important to Virgil and had no bearing on the reason as to why Virgil shot where he did.

Now, back to what Virgil did do, and why. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to try to interrupt the spell by shooting his magical arrow directly at the magic circle? That may sound like a good idea, but there were a few reasons why Virgil did not do this. First, Virgil has no practical experience in dealing with spellcasting monsters, or at least, not with ones that would use rituals or magic circles. As far as Virgil knew, the magic circle was simply made of mana, and therefore, his arrow wouldn’t likely affect it. The arrow was created from mana, and it was also further enchanted, but it still possessed a physical form. It’s not like anything struck by his arrow suffers anything other than only physical damage.

Well, maybe it wouldn’t affect the magic circle, but what about the tentacle itself? Clearly, seeing how the kraken refused to move any of its remaining five tentacles even when it was reduced to this vulnerable state, piercing through one of the tentacles seems to be a more likely bet in preventing the spell from fully activating. This is where the second reason comes in. Virgil simply didn’t think he could deal enough damage to the tentacles. He could barely pierce its eye after his Archery Mastery Skill went up a rank, and the earlier arrow only penetrated the kraken’s head because the outer layer of its skin was blown apart. Each of these five tentacles were fully intact and judging from their strength and use in defending against cruise missiles, they were likely too durable to be pierced.

But, why the head again? Isn’t it just a lost cause, then? Isn’t his only remaining course of action to just continue fleeing to survive the oncoming storm? At the very least, the kraken didn’t seem to be in a good enough state to try anything else. Well, here’s where the third, and possibly most important reason comes in. Virgil wasn’t the greatest swimmer and he didn’t know what else to do. He was hoping to just get really lucky here.

The arrow pierced through the kraken’s head, this time going in just an inch deeper. The kraken’s damaged brain registered the impact just before the spell was about to finally be completed. This caused the kraken to completely forget about its magic for just a split second. But it was a split second at the most critical time for a spell that required far more concentration than normal. The spell backfired and there was an instant backlash of mana. The concentrated mana rapidly began to disperse, and much of it traveled throughout the kraken’s body. It ran through its tentacles, causing them to overheat, burn up, and then explode, all in very quick succession. As the tentacles fried up from the mana, the surging magic continued to the kraken’s head and reached the brain. Even after dispersing and radiating throughout the tentacles, more mana reached the brain than the kraken’s ordinary maximum capacity. Its brain overloaded instantly and exploded as well.

It didn’t end there, though. The backlash of mana completely destroyed the kraken’s mana, but there was still tons of mana left over from all the sacrifices. The instant after the kraken’s body was blown apart, another massive explosion of mana occurred. Everything within a hundred feet was completely disintegrated. From there, a powerful shockwave radiated across the port. Virgil, who was already running away again right after firing his arrow, barely managed to get behind a warehouse right as the shockwave hit. Everything not tied to the ground was immediately launched up into the air and even the walls of the warehouses shook violently. Before the shockwave dissipated, the roofs were blown apart and the closer warehouses to the explosion were completely ripped off the ground as well.

Miraculously, Virgil’s warehouse, despite losing its roof and having two of its walls cave in, was still relatively intact. However, after the shockwave had dissipated, something else happened. When the explosion destroyed a section of the port, it also created a massive hole in the water as well. When the shockwave dissipated, the tons and tons of water that was pushed back was now surging back to fill in the massive gap. A massive wall of water, at least sixty feet high came crashing against the port. The already damaged warehouses could not withstand any longer, and they were swept into the rushing flood, including the warehouse Virgil hid behind.

The warehouse walls were swept up in the wave and slammed against Virgil. His stamina was almost completely drained and he could only desperately hug onto the walls as they were dragged along by the water. As his grip started to slip and the potential of drowning started to surface, he received a notification.

B-rank Dungeon Boss (Servant of the Sea God) defeated.

Strength increased by 50

Stamina increased by 50

Magic increased by 50

New Skill acquired: Water Magic Affinity D

Skill Upgraded: Vigilance B (Unique) to Vigilance A (Unique)

With the increase of Stamina, Virgil managed to hang on and survive. He was bashed up against other solid objects multiple times along the way, but they were nothing much for a Dungeoneer of his Stats. By the end of it, he found himself seated on the ground more than a thousand feet away from where he started, with his clothes torn up and drenched. He was exhausted once more due to his struggle in staying above water and he had also lost his C-rank Bow in the water at some point.

“I guess I have to go…and find it…” Virgil said weakly, coughing up a bit of water. His body had come to rest at this point, but he was still surrounded by water that almost reached his shoulders. With great effort, he pulled himself back onto his feet, but nearly slipped and fell back in. Overhead, he could hear the sound of a helicopter flying nearby. “Yeah, can’t forget to find my…bow…”

Virgil could now see a spotlight shining down on the water about a hundred feet away from him. Perhaps still in a daze, Virgil made no attempt to shout at the helicopter as he tried to spread his feet for better footing in the flood. Eventually, despite his silence, the helicopter’s light shone upon him and they called out to him. Instead of responding, Virgil continued to look for his bow somewhere in the water. At that moment, there were only three things going through his head. His bow, not drowning, and then probably retiring.