Chapter 316

The appearance of the Kraken delivered a shock as intense as its massive size.

It wasn’t just a metaphor.

The Kraken was actually larger than the warship the extermination team was on. The sudden surge from its enormous body was an attack in itself.

The Kraken, upon appearing, immediately extended its tentacle-like legs toward Marin, who had summoned it, without hiding its hatred and anger.

Marin, who had exposed herself defenselessly to summon the Kraken, seemed like she would be crushed by its legs at any moment.

If I hadn’t jumped out onto the sea at the same time the Kraken appeared, that is.

Whoosh!

While saving Marin, I tried to cut off one of its legs.

But given its size and the toughness of its flesh, which lived up to its name, even with all my strength, I couldn’t completely sever the leg.

─────!!

Perhaps it didn’t expect its attack to be blocked and even countered?

Feeling sudden pain, the Kraken trembled as if screaming, expressing its anger. Even without vocal organs, I felt as if I were facing the roar of a fierce beast and trembled.

It’s been a while since I felt this way.

This is the first time I’ve felt such a threat since defeating the rulers of the Verde Jungle.

At first, the Kraken was focused only on Marin, who had summoned it, but soon it noticed the extermination team and began to show hostility toward us.

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“The ship, the ship is flipping!”

“What, what is this!? This monster!”

“It’s even bigger than the stories! I never heard it was this big!!”

Moreover, its size far exceeded what Marin had initially described.

When Marin spoke of it, the Kraken was said to be about 50 meters, but the actual Kraken was twice that size.

Meaning, it was nearly 100 meters.

And generally, when height doubles, overall size, including weight, increases several times over.

The warship the extermination team was on was by no means small.

Of course.

The team itself consisted of over 40 members, not a small party of four or five.

A warship capable of carrying that many people would naturally be large.

Thus, the warship the extermination team was on was capable of handling a 50-meter Kraken.

But the Kraken far exceeded their expectations.

Each of its legs was as thick as an ancient tree that had lived for hundreds of years, and it soon moved to wrap around the ship’s hull.

As if it intended to crush the warship with the strength of its legs.

No, considering the Kraken’s size, that wasn’t impossible.

An ordinary merchant ship would have sunk without a trace.

If it were an ordinary merchant ship.

But the extermination team didn’t sink helplessly under the Kraken’s attack.

Liche quickly read the Kraken’s movements, stopped her attack spell, and directed the other mages to switch to protective magic to shield the ship.

Thus, the Kraken’s legs, which initially crushed the ship smoothly, were soon stopped from further destruction.

The extermination team narrowly avoided catastrophic damage at the start.

But that was only thanks to Liche’s quick judgment, and it was by no means a good situation.

Originally, the plan was for the mages to unleash maximum firepower upon the Kraken’s appearance to inflict as much damage as possible before the battle began, but now the mages were tied up protecting the ship.

“Still, now that the Kraken’s movements have stopped, it’s our chance! Everyone, target the Kraken’s legs on the warship!”

“Attack!”

But the soldiers and adventurers in the extermination team were veterans with their own experiences.

They quickly assessed the situation and began the battle with the Kraken despite the unfavorable conditions.

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The deck had turned into chaos.

With the mages tied up, the plan to end the battle quickly with an initial burst of firepower had fallen apart.

Instead of projecting firepower, the mages were tied up blocking the Kraken’s legs, making it as if there were no mages at all.

But the trials for the extermination team didn’t end there.

“Man-eating Crabs are climbing up the Kraken’s legs! Everyone, be careful!”

“Be careful! If you fall into the sea, the man-eating piranhas will get you!”

“Why are the Kraken’s legs so tough! It’s like they’re armored!”

“Armor…? Wait! These are barnacles!”

“Watch out! The barnacles are starting to move!”

Man-eating Crabs were slowly crawling up the Kraken’s legs onto the deck, while man-eating piranhas swam around the ship, waiting for anyone to fall into the water.

Not only that, but the barnacles clinging to the Kraken’s legs also reacted to the extermination team’s attacks, making fierce sea sounds and slowly crawling onto the deck in groups, like a massive wave moving.

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How many minutes had passed since the battle began?

No. Had it only been a few minutes?

The soldiers on the deck felt as if hours had passed, exhausted.

Clang!

Clang!

Despite being a clash between monsters and humans, sharp metallic sounds echoed across the deck as if iron were striking iron.

The tough shells of the Man-eating Crabs were like metal, posing a significant threat to soldiers who couldn’t use aura, tying up the extermination team.

Moreover, the barnacles quietly attached to the Kraken’s legs, sensing the extermination team’s attacks as a threat, began to slowly crawl onto the deck, expanding their territory.

Originally, mages would have been the ones to handle such barnacles with wide-area destructive magic, but the mages were already overwhelmed just blocking the Kraken’s legs.

At least the man-eating piranhas weren’t an immediate threat, but that was little comfort to the extermination team.

Splat!

Regina, who had just stabbed a Man-eating Crab in the joint to kill it, felt her breath catching but immediately flipped around to slash at another Man-eating Crab attacking the soldiers.

How many had she taken down already?

Considering her skill level, which wasn’t yet capable of using aura, it was an achievement worth calling remarkable.

But instead of feeling uplifted, Regina felt anxiety rising.

“Are you okay?”

“Re, Regina, Captain!”

“Don’t just stand there! If you can swing a sword, fight to the end!”

After saving one of her soldiers, Regina shouted bravely, but deep down, she too felt the growing despair.

‘We’ve completely lost the initiative. The situation isn’t good.’

The situation was indeed not good.

Even when the mages were tied up, she thought it was a big setback but didn’t think it was an unwinnable battle.

After all, when exterminating monsters, it’s standard to deploy forces far exceeding the monster’s combat strength to minimize casualties.

So, even if the target’s size exceeded expectations, she thought the battle would be tough but not hopeless.

But no one expected the Kraken to command other monsters like minions.

No, perhaps there were hints.

The sea’s instability could be due to the Kraken’s massive size, but the abnormal movements of monsters leaving their habitats were a separate issue.

No, they had thought about it.

But at the time, they thought the monsters’ abnormal behavior was due to being driven out or fleeing in fear of the Kraken’s appearance.

But that wasn’t the case.

The monsters’ migration wasn’t fleeing from the Kraken but the opposite.

They had become the Kraken’s minions, moving according to its will, hence their abnormal behavior.

But realizing this now was too late.

The deck was already being filled with new Man-eating Crabs faster than the extermination team could take them down.

Thud.

“Ah, ahhh! The barnacles…!”

Not only that.

The barnacle swarms, which had slowly but surely reached close quarters as if they had been growing on the deck from the start.

One of her soldiers accidentally stepped on the barnacles, and they began crawling up his armor.

The sight of a person being covered by barnacles while still alive was truly horrifying.

At least the armor protected him from being eaten alive, but that was only a matter of time.

Once the barnacles reached his unprotected skin, they would quickly burrow in, eat his flesh, and make him their host.

As soldiers screamed while being eaten alive by barnacles, even the extermination team members fiercely fighting the Man-eating Crabs began to lose morale and despair set in.

‘The Kraken isn’t even fully acting yet, and we’re in this state… I might have to prepare for death here. If I had known, I would have reconciled before coming on this extermination…’

As despair slowly rose within her, Regina thought of her father, the master of the Inn ‘Red Shell,’ with whom she had never reconciled.

That was the moment.

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