Chapter 160: The Primordial V

The Primordial’s gaze shifted toward the jellyfish, its broken body still trembling from the Leviathan’s attack. Its voice, when it spoke, was cold and dismissive.

"What is it? Are you angry, lowly creature? I don’t have time to entertain you. Begone."

It turned away, its attention fixed on the distant pulse of the Seed of Destruction. It didn’t see Gray as a threat. It didn’t see him as anything at all.

Gray activated Overcharge and shot forward, the electricity surging through his carapace and into his tentacles. The Primordial didn’t even turn. It simply continued drifting toward its mission, as if the jellyfish behind it didn’t exist.

That was its mistake.

Gray’s electrified blade-tentacles slammed into the Primordial’s back.

The impact was devastating. The lightning arced through the cracked celestial armor, bypassing the weakened divine protection, and tore into the flesh beneath. The Primordial convulsed, a strangled cry escaping its lips.

"AGHGHH!! How is this possible?!"

It staggered forward, its legs buckling, and crashed into the seafloor. Its divine light flickered wildly, its body trembling. For the first time since its descent, the Primordial looked genuinely shocked.

Gray hovered above it, his blade-tentacles spread wide, his carapace still crackling with residual electricity.

’I don’t care if you’re a god or something else,’ he said, his mental voice cold and steady. ’If you hurt someone close to me, you die.’

The Primordial didn’t understand his words. But It understood the killing intent radiating from the small creature above it.

And it couldn’t believe what was happening.

"This... this shouldn’t be possible," it whispered, its voice trembling with disbelief and fury. Its hands clawed at the seafloor, gripping the sand as if trying to anchor itself. Its mind raced, searching for an explanation.

Then it remembered.

The realization came like a blade between the ribs. That Leviathant’s attack had neutralized its Celestial Armor. The divine protection that had shielded it for eons was gone, stripped away in a single, humiliating blow. And now a mere jellyfish dared to exploit the weakness it had never known it possessed.

"You... how dare you!" The Primordial’s fury ignited, burning through the pain. It pushed itself up, its cracked armor flaring with desperate light. But its voice wasn’t directed at Gray. It was directed inward, at itself, at its own failure.

Gray fired Needle Storm, the paralytic needles shooting through the water toward the wounded god.

But the Primordial reacted. Its light flared, forming a barrier of pure white energy around its body. The needles struck the barrier and dissolved, their paralytic toxin neutralized before it could take effect.

The Primordial straightened, its eyes blazing with fury.

"Insects, one after another," it said, its voice no longer dismissive but filled with a terrible resolve. "All of you have interfered with my sacred mission. Fine. I will destroy each of you one by one."

Its light intensified, the barrier around it growing brighter, denser.

The Primordial didn’t unleash its full power.

Because the battle with the Leviathan had drained it, and the wounds from the Spear of Judgment’s recoil still burned beneath its cracked armor. Every movement cost it, every spell chipped away at the divine energy it had left.

So it chose efficiency.

A single lance of white light shot from its palm, aimed directly at Gray’s core. It was a fraction of the power it had used against the Sun Eater, barely a flicker compared to the Spear of Judgment. But it was still a divine attack. It should have been enough.

Gray activated Current Dash and dissolved into the water, reforming ten meters to the left. The lance carved through the space where he’d been, boiling the water in its wake.

The Primordial’s eyes narrowed. It fired again, a sweeping arc of light this time, wide enough to catch a dodging target.

Gray fired Void Reaper’s Lance into the arc, the void-edged spear colliding with the divine light. The two attacks detonated on impact, shockwaves rippling through the water.

[-448 HP]

[GRAY ASHFORD — HP: 380 / 1380]

He took the brunt of the blast but didn’t stop moving. He circled wide, using the terrain, using his speed.

The Primordial watched him, its expression shifting from cold fury to something closer to confusion.

’It doesn’t know what I am,’ Gray realized. ’It thinks I’m just a monster. It’s holding back because it thinks a few attacks will be enough.’

He pressed the advantage.

He fired Needle Storm from a new angle, the paralytic needles spreading in a wide arc. The Primordial raised a barrier of light, but the needles weren’t aimed at it, they were aimed at the seafloor beneath it.

The needles exploded into crescent blades, carving through the rock and destabilizing the Primordial’s footing.

The wounded god stumbled, its barrier flickering.

Gray seized the opening. He activated Phantom Cloak and vanished, circling behind the Primordial. Then he drove all eight blade-tentacles into its exposed flank.

[VOID REAPER’S LANCE — 224 DAMAGE]

[????? PRIMORDIAL ???? — HP: ????? / ?????]

[BLEED — 10 DAMAGE PER SECOND]

The Primordial screamed. It was a cry of outrage, of disbelief, of wounded pride. The sound echoed through the water like a thunderclap, and its light flared so bright that Gray was forced to retreat.

"You dare?!" the Primordial roared, its voice shaking the seafloor. "You dare strike a messenger of the gods?!"

It didn’t understand. It couldn’t understand. In its mind, it was a divine being, an instrument of judgment, a creature beyond mortal comprehension. And yet here was a jellyfish drawing blood from its divine flesh.

The Primordial’s light blazed brighter, its fury feeding its power. The wounds it had suffered, the exhaustion weighing on its body, all of it was forgotten in the face of this insult.

"I will punish you," it declared, its voice cold and absolute. "I will punish you for your blasphemy. I will punish you for interfering with my sacred mission. I will punish you until there is nothing left of you but ash."

The Primordial raised both hands, and the water around it began to glow.

Gray, who felt that energy, realized how weak he still was, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up just like that.

’Here it comes,’ he thought.