Chapter 135

Brenna

Aerial Dominance

Brenna watched as Lykan flew out over the ocean. She could see his determination and resolve slowly wash over his movements and actions. This was a gradual change that Brenna only noticed through months of constantly observing the young man. One of such grace and poise that it was hard to notice when he was ruffled, when he was getting in his own head space. The fact that he even came to her showed two things, first and probably the most important part, to Breena at least, was that it showed he truly had come to value her opinion on all things. That was the moment she knew they had gone beyond the level of trusted companions to equals. This was a moment she would always cherish. The second key part that his coming to her showed was that he was frightened. Well perhaps being frightened was not the correct word.

No, Lykan did not expect to win this battle, at least not at first. He of course was correct, if the way he described this eight finned monster with a spiked tail was at all accurate, then being over confident was the last thing he needed. The monster was something epic and unparalleled in this world. If a monster of this supposed caliber, and Brenna had no reason to doubt Lykan’s measurements. Despite many being simply unimaginable. It is one thing to hear that a monster is nearly four hundred meters long, nearly half a kilometer long and agile. Then it would be an entirely other thing to have to fight such a monster.

She could not disagree with Lykan’s assessment that such a monster could not be left to live on. That was part of the stated goal for these missions. Not only to destroy the dungeon cores themselves, but to also kill the different monster that these dungeons had been designed to house. Monsters that were meant to bend the world to the will of the Titans.

Thus she watched as Lykan flew out and seemed to pause for a moment.

“You can do it!” She shouted for encouragement. This apparently was all Lykan needed as he looked over to her, then dropped down below the surface of the ocean. As he entered, she let out a breath. Then she collapsed to the ground, splash. The ocean water consuming her almost instantly.

Brenna wanted to take this time to spend worrying, but she knew that would ultimately solve nothing. So instead she focused on her own mastery of her core. She had been thinking that the spherical core that Lykan had was not right for her at all, and his description of the core the leviathan had only proved to solidify this claim. The spherical core for Lykan made sense, he was always one to rise above his problems. As for Brenna, she was not capable of thinking about the world in such terms, at least not yet. No Brenna knew she needed something different, she had been thinking of a cube shape, but an elongated diamond type structure was also intriguing. This would require pressure, diamonds were after all created from centuries of intense pressure and force. For her to try to create a similar aspect within her own body would require magnitudes more heat and pressure than would be advisable for a true mortal. Fortunately for Brenna, she was no longer mortal. No as if by random chance, Lykan had chosen her to be his companion.

He had chosen her out of all the hundreds of others he had saved not only that day, but in all the years before. He had companions previously, but none were able to keep up with him. None had the drive or ability to be with him. Thus, why Lykan inevitably left them.

There was also a strange feeling of loneliness to Lykan. One where he almost expected everyone to abandon him. Brenna knew a lot of this likely had to do with his strange childhood and being cast out, so now rather than letting other people cast him out of their lives he dismisses them first. That is why Lykan’s coming to her for her opinion on how to fight such a monster was so monumental for her. That moment proved that he not only valued her opinions but thought of her as an equal. That was why Brenna decided to use these next few moments to perfect her core.

She would go with a pyramid shape. The idea being that she could always fuse a second pyramid to the bottom to get a diamond shape if that is what she wanted to do later. As for now, she only had enough time to make this slight transition of her core before the true battle with the leviathan began. As such she knuckled down and began focusing her energies inward.

Lykan had described the process that he used to create the spherical shapes inside him. A process that she had duplicated, though it involved far too much movement for her liking. Instead she wanted a structure with a powerful base, from which everything could be built upon. From there, she focused on having a point, a singular point directly over top of the base that was roughly one and a half times the size of the base plate. From there she began building and filling in foundation of her structure, until enough qi was made to touch the point. Once everything had been packed in, Brenna compressed the energy as tightly as she could. Not down, not over, not in a spiral pattern. Instead she focused her force in all directions all at once, pushing everything down. Until finally she was left with a mass of qi that was far smaller than what she originally began with. Then she tried the process over again, once again filling in her formation over and over. She had just completed her process, and took a breath of air to witness her gains when.

SPLOOOSH!

A giant monstrous head emerged from the ocean. Its head was massive, easily the size of the bell tower of the temple she had first met Lykan at. The neck of the beast was also wide and impressively long. Even from a distance it was hard to see its true size. Until a glowing mass of metal appeared to come from the depths, wielded by someone who had to be a God of the ocean, rising with his mighty trident to strike down the massive water serpent who would dare defy his dominion.

With water forming at his base and seemingly pulling him up towards the beast, Brenna wondered if Lykan truly was the god of the oceans, reborn into human flesh. Then she watched in shock as two things happened. First Lykan’s glowing hot bo-staff first struck, then easily slid into the great beast. Then once that was done, rather than being affected in any way, the beast just hissed angrily at him.

In a second the coiling neck rotated, as the massive head came around to strike at Lykan. Fortunately Lykan’s small size was an extreme advantage for him in this case as he easily ducked and darted away.

The battle reminded Brenna of trying to battle a gnat solely with your mouth. But now that the beast was up, it was clearly agitated with Lykan. The two exchanged strikes, or at least they both tried to. The strikes ended up only coming from Lykan, who proved to be too fast and nimble for the serpent to muster any kind of true attack. Every time it would line up its neck and vibrate its neck as it coiled its massive muscles to strike, Lykan would move. Often he would dart around the great beast to its blind spot, once there he would strike first, before darting away in a random direction.

Burning strike after burning strike landed, each seeming to have little effect on the massive beast. This was truly the case of a mosquito trying to take down a person with nothing but persistent stings and bites. Nearly an impossible task. Looking at the creature, even outside of the water it was clear that this beast was nearly impossible to beat. At least not the way Lykan was going about his attacks. As it stood he had to strike out and through the beast’s tough scales. Scales that seemed to block most of the force of his strikes easily.

Still the two fought in a dance of death. Lykan moving constantly, darting around, constantly trying to avoid the strikes and counters of the massive beast. Knowing that with just one mistake, one misstep would mean the end of the battle.

Lykan too seemed to realize this as he began changing his tactics over time. Rather than striking at any random spot like he would when this battle first began. He started striking at the same few spots over and over. Each strike would cause the initial hole he created to be wider and wider. This was still a slow process, but one that seemed to be working, as rifts began to form in the wounds that were created.

Every once in a while the moving leviathan would hiss out in pain as some of the larger wounds would leak out blood into the ocean, causing a hiss to come out of the leviathan’s mouth.

Looking at the droplets of blood that began slowly turning the water a dark brow qi color, Brenna hoped that this would start to work. That things would slowly turn in Lykan’s favor.

Then the unthinkable happened, the beast gave up. The beast having finally had enough of fighting and losing to a pesky gnat dove under the surface of the water. She watched as Lykan looked on in confusion.

Then it hit her, that long pulse of dread. A pulse that told her everything would not be all right, that the beast had not given up on the fight but had instead decided to go with a different plan of attack. Before she could voice out her concern the beast struck.

Spurt.

A giant stream of water shot straight up at Lykan, dousing him with water at speeds and pressures that would easily rip the skin off of a normal human being. Even Lykan with all of his heightened attributes was caught defenseless by the strike.

She watched helplessly as the beast did a massive one two punch combo. First it sprayed Lykan with a burst of water. Then it followed up by lunging up out of the water to catch the stunned prey. As impressive of an attack that Brenna ever saw. The execution was flawless. She watched as Lykan’s small form was completely swallowed by the giant beast.

Watching the exchange, Brenna felt part of her soul shatter. She felt a moment of pain that was so fierce and so unimaginable fill her at the sight of Lykan being eaten whole by the beast. She watched all this, then watched as once again the giant beast went under the water. Its minor wounds still bleeding out into the ocean.

Brenna watched on in horror. The sight too ghastly to watch.

By now a school of the scaled sharks that Lykan had mentioned had been drawn to the thick qi infused blood that the monster was releasing. Feeling that their longtime foe was in a weakened state likely caused all the remaining monsters to come to the surface, to exact revenge.

Perhaps they are conducting revenge on Lykan’s behalf? Brenna thought numbly to herself.

Tears began to filter down her face and cheeks. All she could do was watch on. Watch as Lykan took on an impossible battle single handedly and nearly won. Nearly won, of course is just a simple way to say he lost.

By now the sharks were darting in and biting at the bleeding wounds that Lykan had created. She watched as the giant sharks looked like leeches on the neck of the massive beast.

“ROOOOAAAAARRR!” Still the monster screamed angrily as it flailed about its neck, trying to simultaneously dislodge one scaled shark while bashing about another scaled shark with its over-sized flipper. There was one flipper that had a chunk missing already, no doubt the one Lykan had spoken to her about.

The scaled sharks circled and attacked independently, no true coordination between them. Still there were enough of them that the leviathan couldn’t focus on any one individually.

Then Brenna saw something that looked confusing. A glow started to appear at the center of the beast’s neck. At first Brenna thought this to be some type of fire attack that the beast could summon. One it had kept in secret until now. But there was something odd about the look on the massive water serpent’s face. It looked like it was in pain. Instantly it dove down into the water rather than releasing its fiery breath, it chose to douse the flames within its neck.

Seeing this Brenna began to hope. Could he be… She didn’t want to finish that thought, not wanting to jinx such a thought from coming to life. Even if he did survive, he would still need to somehow first kill the leviathan , and then fight his way past the different scaled sharks.

The leviathan dove deep below the surface of the water, followed closely by the scaled sharks. Brenna watched on with muted horror, as she hoped against hope that a miracle would happen.

She watched on, for first one hour, then a second. Finally, her cares were finally answered.

Splash.

The body of the massive leviathan splashed up to the surface. By the way the beast’s bloated body rested on its side, it was clearly dead. The next minute when multiple scaled sharks all began ripping and tearing away chunks of the monster went to confirm this. Still Brenna watched and waited for the next miracle to happen. She waited for Lykan to emerge. An event that never happened.

“Phew. You were right.” A voice called out from behind Brenna, causing her to jump in shock.

She was up from her seated position and brandishing her axe in a second. Before she turned and saw him.

“You bastard!” Brenna shouted.