Chapter 90: The Familiar Boss

Kei was stunned when he heard Do Ae Young describe the Boss.

A monster hidden inside a black hole, with a massive mouth full of sharp fangs.

Just a simple description like that was enough to make memories buried deep in the past resurface, appearing clearly before his eyes.

Twenty years trapped in the time magic circle in the dragon’s nest.

The appearance of the demon general Azel.

And the prolonged escape through Mist Forest that forced the black dragon to sacrifice its own dragon heart.

Those images overlapped, distorted and fragmented. Kei saw thick darkness, heard a low growl echoing from somewhere unseen, then saw countless stark white fangs opening up in the void.

His lips trembled slightly.

Kei slowly turned his head to look at Kai.

The massive black dragon in his memories was now curled up on the sofa, sleeping so soundly that he had no idea the people around him were talking about him. Kai’s sleeping face looked far more innocent than usual. Gone was the arrogance, and gone was the fierce demeanor of wanting to destroy everything as Do Ae Young had described.

He was just someone exhausted after days of grueling battles.

If...

What if the monster Kai saw back then really was him?

Kei clenched his hand resting on his knee.

If that were the case, it was no wonder Kai had gone mad.

A person who had witnessed those monsters with his own eyes, then encountered a similar sight in a Dungeon in this world. No matter how strong his rationality was, memories and fear would make him lose control, even if he no longer had any memories left.

But what unsettled Kei the most was another question.

Why did those monsters still exist in this world?

Could it be that they, too, had crossed the spacetime corridor to get here, just like him?

That thought made Kei’s chest feel heavy.

He had always believed he was the only one thrown out of the old world. A survivor who accidentally fell into a completely unfamiliar place, then tried to rebuild his life from scratch.

If those monsters had also come through the spacetime corridor... then this place had never truly been safe.

And perhaps, Kei’s escape had never really ended, it had only become more dangerous. After all, Kei was no longer the powerful SSS-rank mage who had slain the Demon King; he was just a novice Craftsman.

"So what happened next?" Kim Sora asked.

Her voice pulled Kei back to the present.

Do Ae Young was still telling the story. She sat on the chair, holding a cup of now-cold water with both hands, her gaze fixed on somewhere far away.

"Kai charged straight into the city."

She spoke, her voice hoarse.

"Right after that, he transformed into his dragon form."

"A dragon... how big was it?" Sora asked.

Do Ae Young paused for a moment.

"Around a thousand meters."

The room immediately fell into silence.

Kim Sora opened her mouth, her expression like someone who had just heard an utterly absurd story, but then she flinched, remembering the massive shadow that had once swept across the sky of Dong-San City, which Kei had said might have been a dragon.

"A thousand meters?"

"Yeah."

Do Ae Young closed her eyes, recalling the scene from back then.

Kai’s colossal body covered the entire sky. A single flap of his black wings created gale-force winds that swept away countless debris. The buildings that were already teetering collapsed instantly under his shadow.

Kai landed in the middle of the city.

It wasn’t that he wanted to harm the citizens, it was just that his body was too large.

Half of the small city was immediately crushed. Roads split open, buildings shattered, and countless civilians and hunters who couldn’t escape in time were buried beneath the rubble.

"Even if it was an accident..." Do Ae Young tightened her grip on her cup. "It was still a terrible accident."

Kei said nothing.

He looked at Kai sleeping, and an indescribable feeling stirred within him.

A giant dragon that could destroy an entire city with a single step, but back then, he probably couldn’t control his own anger either.

"After landing in the city, Kai saw the Boss." Do Ae Young continued. "It was inside the Dungeon gate."

"That massive mouth?" Kei asked softly.

"Yes."

Do Ae Young turned to look at him."There’s no head, no discernible body either. Just a mass of thick darkness and a mouth full of fangs. It’s as if the entire Dungeon itself is a monster with its jaws wide open."

Kei’s fingers went cold, and the roar of the past echoed in his mind once more.

"That battle afterward..." Do Ae Young let out a soft breath. "Couldn’t be called an ordinary fight."

Kai swung his claws, crushing the monsters around him. Every time he lashed his tail, the ground shook. The remaining buildings continued to collapse, large chunks of the city being swept into the frenzy of the two monsters.

The Boss opened its mouth.

A colossal expanse of darkness swallowed even the light in the sky.

Kai roared, spewing black flames, forcing the darkness back. But from within that mouth, countless tentacles sprouted out, wrapping around his legs and wings.

Then the fangs snapped shut, trying to bite off the great dragon’s claws.

By the time Do Ae Young reached this point, her voice had almost faded away.

"The entire city shook. We couldn’t get close. Just a few more steps forward, and the energy barrier maintained by the hunters together would have shattered completely."

Kim Sora swallowed hard. She knew the gap between SS-rank hunters, but sometimes it still made her feel a bit sad and helpless.

"So... who won in the end?"

Do Ae Young didn’t answer right away. Her gaze slowly shifted to Kai, who was sleeping on the sofa.

"No one won."

"No one?"

"Kai tore that mouth apart. But before it died, the Boss also bit through the scales on his chest, making blood pour heavily, and even the bone was visible."

Do Ae Young lowered her head, her voice dropping.

"After everything was over, Kai kept attacking its corpse. He wouldn’t stop, just kept roaring that he had to kill it again."

Kei gently closed his eyes, sighing inwardly.

Kai wasn’t just fighting a Boss. He was fighting his own lost memories, against the massive mouth that had appeared in the nightmare that neither he nor Kei could forget.

"It took us three days to calm him down." Do Ae Young said. "And nearly a month to clean up the city."

No one spoke.

The light on the ceiling of the shop flickered slightly, casting a dim glow over Kai’s sleeping face.

Kei stared at him for a long time.

An uneasy question kept lingering in his mind. If that monster had truly made it to this world...

Then how many other things had also crossed the corridor of time and space?

And more importantly, was that mouth really dead or not?

Kei knew very well how terrifying it was, because even an SSS-rank mage like him, entering the Mist Forest with several scrolls of forbidden-level magic, still couldn’t kill them. So Kai certainly couldn’t have completely destroyed them.

It definitely isn’t dead!