Chapter 524: The Slumbering Behemoth
Chapter 524: The Slumbering Behemoth
It didn’t take long for Moon to find what the fog had been hiding.
A behemoth lay slumbering in a clearing at the heart of the mist. Even at rest, the sheer scale of it made Moon’s breath hold for a moment.
The beast was enormous. Judging by its frame, it stood at least seven meters tall at the shoulder. Its body was packed with dense muscle, weighing well over twenty thousand pounds in his estimates.
It radiated malice, with a mass that could flatten buildings and crush ancient armoured tanks underfoot.
Its hide was a deep, dark blue, almost black in the darkness of the fog. The coloration made it nearly impossible to see clearly, its outline blending into the mist around it so that Moon could only make out the rough shape of the creature rather than its specific features.
Moon activated Eye of Truth, but before the information could fully resolve, the beast stirred.
Its eye snapped open.
A single yellow eye, slitted like a serpent’s, fixed onto Moon. The pupil contracted as it focused, and Moon saw something in it that he hadn’t expected from a sleeping beast.
The creature was surprised to see him. As if no one had ever made it this deep into the fog before. As if its territory had never been violated.
Moon held its gaze without flinching.
"Hello there." Moon raised his sword and gave it a casual wave, as if greeting an old acquaintance rather than a six-meter behemoth that could crush him with a single step.
The beast didn’t react with immediate aggression. Instead, it released a low, deep rumble that vibrated through the ground beneath Mirage’s hooves.
Then, slowly, it began to rise.
Its forelegs straightened, lifting the front of its massive body off the ground. Stone cracked beneath its claws. The mist swirled around it as it moved, disturbed by the sheer displacement of its frame.
Inch by inch, the behemoth rose to its full, towering height, until it loomed over Moon like a living mountain.
The yellow eye never left him.
Mirage tensed beneath Moon, his muscles coiling, ready to move the instant his master gave the command.
Moon’s smile didn’t fade. His lightning crackled brighter along his fingertips.
The information from Eye of Truth finished resolving across his vision.
[Hidden Information: A powerful body refiner. Its vitals are top-notch within its rank. It can see in the worst conditions. Weakness: Its eyes.]
Moon’s eyebrows rose as he read through the resolved information.
’Interesting.’
The beast was a body refiner. That explained the dense muscle and the enormous frame. Its strength would lie in raw physical power, durability, and stamina rather than elemental skills. But the detail that caught Moon’s attention was the part about its vision.
’It can see in the worst conditions. So any visual distraction won’t work on it. My own vision is limited in this fog, but its eyes aren’t. The mist is its home advantage. It can see me perfectly while I struggle to see it.’
His eyes narrowed.
’But that’s also its weakness. The eyes. A creature that relies this heavily on its vision in an environment where everything else is blind has built its entire existence around those eyes. Take them, and I take everything.’
The strategy was simple and effective.
’I need to fight at close range. Long-range attacks are unreliable when I can barely see it beyond ten meters. But up close, where I can feel it and track it through Battle Instinct, I can target the eyes directly.’
Moon leapt down from Mirage’s back, landing lightly on the floor.
"Mirage. Let me handle this one." He glanced back at his partner. "Just watch. Wait for the feast. This big boy is going to give you a lot of power once you devour it."
Mirage neighed softly with gratitude and trust in its master, then stepped back several paces. The white steed settled into a watchful stance, ready to observe his master dismantle the behemoth.
Moon turned back to the beast. His sword trailed along the ground as he began walking toward it, a grin spreading across his face.
The behemoth responded with a roar.
The sound was deafening. The air itself began to vibrate from the raw power behind it. The shockwave rippled outward, disturbing the fog and slamming into Moon like a truck.
Blood trickled from both of his ears. He winced at the sudden sharp pain.
He reacted immediately, casting a wind barrier around himself. The swirling currents of air formed a protective shell that absorbed and dispersed the sonic pressure before it could do further damage.
This was familiar territory.
Moon had fought a creature like this before. The black raven in Lunaris, the one that controlled sound. That fight had been brutal. He hadn’t been able to fly to reach it, hadn’t been able to block its sonic attacks, and had suffered tremendously throughout the entire engagement. He had won but at the cost of severe injuries that warranted him to self revive.
The lesson had stuck with him.
Moon was no longer the fighter he had been back then. His affinity for the wind element had grown enormously. His elemental control had deepened through evolution, casting, and comprehension. The wind barrier he cast now was something he couldn’t have managed during the Lunaris fight. It held strong against the behemoth’s roar, neutralizing the sonic threat.
Moon kept walking forward, unbothered.
Lightning crackled to life along his arm and flowed into his sword. The B-Rank blade conducted the energy beautifully, channeling the purple current along its length until the entire weapon was coated in it.
Moon felt the slight delay Tom had mentioned. The momentary lag between feeding mana into the blade and the blade conversion. But it wasn’t an issue. The delay was minor, and easily accounted for.
What mattered was the extra power output it provided him.
Previously, channelling lightning through a blade would have damaged the weapon itself, degrading its structure and weakening the conductivity with every strike. The old sword had fought against him as much as it served him.
This blade welcomed the lightning. It made his power feel like an extension of his own body.
Moon raised the crackling sword, its purple glow cutting through the fog like a beacon in the starry sky.
The behemoth lowered its head, its yellow eye locking onto him, and charged.