Chapter 175 - Diver VII

11

RRRRUMBLE.

As I swept my fingers through the air, the ark fleet launched as one, piercing the currents.

A faint exhilaration tingled inside my skull. I felt like a pianist and a conductor at the same time. The aura power I had accumulated over thousands of years was supplying the arks with propulsion.

'Now I can laugh off that old bastard Scho's sneering about my third-rate martial skills and first-rate aura.'

Old Man Scho might be a Swordmaster who had maxed out his swordsmanship, but all he could do was dabble in remotely controlling swords and moving objects through the air, wasn't it?

I, the Undertaker, on the other hand, was controlling twelve ships right now. Add just one more, and I could see myself debuting as Joseon's naval commander of the three provinces.

"Your driving skills are truly exceptional, Your Excellency."

With uncanny perceptiveness, Yu Jiwon noticed my good mood and sidled closer.

Her approach abruptly brought me back to reality. That was because she carried a very faint strawberry scent—the perfume I had once praised by saying, "Jiwon, you have excellent taste in perfume, too."

Her thorough dedication to flattering those in power with her entire body sent a chill through me. Truly, she lived up to her reputation as the greatest psychopath in all Korea.

"... Thank you, Jiwon. But would you move a little farther away? I'm not planning to take revenge later for cutting off my fingers, so you don't have to flatter me so desperately."

"Flattery? Nothing of the sort. I merely wish to always show Your Excellency my true self—and, if possible, lay even my heart bare before you."

"Keep spouting bullshit and I'll break your fingers. Let's quietly watch the Minimap."

"Yessir."

With my sense of omnipotence and my sense of reality in perfect balance, the voyage proceeded smoothly.

That did not mean we immediately found the Great Monsoon anomaly's "core," of course. A storm reaching roughly 10,000 meters above sea level was no joke.

As anyone who has served aboard a submarine knows, ninety-nine percent of an underwater chase is a battle with yourself. Boredom and patience are your chief enemies.

Even with [Minimap] active as we combed every corner of the typhoon, the enemy's presence remained elusive.

SKREEEE!

SCREEEECH...

Three hours into the search, innocent ancient marine creatures, including megalodons, were undergoing their second extinction.

Sharks and whales were sliced into steak cubes by the web spread between the twelve arks.

"What a fucking romantic aquarium date..."

Noah, commander of the National Road Management Corps, grimaced at the chunks of shark flesh drifting past the window.

The fierce currents meant those aboard could not casually unbuckle their belts. After several hours with their asses planted in their seats, they were bound to get restless.

"Does this core of the Great Monsoon actually exist? With an anomaly like Tenlegs, which anyone can plainly see has a physical form, I could understand. But isn't the Great Monsoon more of a weather phenomenon...?"

"It exists."

I was not the one who answered.

The ark jolted like a plane hitting turbulence. Everyone's eyes turned in one direction, where pink-haired Go Yori was smiling calmly.

"And we're getting closer to it."

"..."

The Operations Control Office fell silent, leaving only the resonating vibrations of waves smashing against the bulkheads.

None of these people was on friendly terms with Go Yori. But I had always stressed one thing: "Beware of the being called Go Yori."

Avoid meeting her if at all possible. If you do encounter her, never exchange a single word with her. Preferably, treat her as though she isn't there at all.

Those were the instructions I had distributed for dealing with Go Yori. They were also why the entire command staff had just shut their mouths.

Faced with such blatant exclusion and avoidance, Go Yori wore a seemingly embarrassed smile.

"Ahaha... Really. You're all so interesting."

"Anyone who urgently needs the bathroom, go take care of it quickly."

I spoke while ignoring Go Yori's reaction completely.

I used polite language because Noah was also in the Operations Control Office. We generally addressed each other respectfully.

"We've searched everything from the upper to the middle portions of the typhoon. It appears the anomaly's core is in the lower portion. We're currently 2,000 meters above sea level. We should find it soon."

"Ah, then, Boss. I'll be right ba—"

It happened the moment Seo Gyu unbuckled his belt and rose from his seat.

RRRRUMBLE!

The ark swerved into a sharp drift. Something enormous had become caught in the Heaven-and-Earth Net of puppet strings spread wide outside the ship.

"Huuuurgh?"

Seo Gyu, the only one standing, got to experience the laws of acceleration firsthand.

His body flew sideways, passing before my eyes, then Yu Jiwon's, Lee Hayul's, Noah's, Dang Seorin's, Sim Aryeon's, and Go Yori's in turn.

CRASH-BANG!

Seo Gyu bounced across the deck like a ping-pong ball. After demonstrating a drive worthy of an Olympic athlete, he finally struck the bulkhead, his back bending like a bow.

And we all turned away and ignored him.

"Found it! Hayul, Morse code!"

"Roger."

"It's unbelievably huge! Dang Seorin, send reinforcement magic through the puppet strings!"

"Okay. Got it."

"Everyone, brace for impact! It's moving!"

RRRRUMBLE.

The thing caught in the puppet strings thrashed. Its size was tremendous. Its strength was overwhelming.

With my nerves connected directly to the strings, every movement it made traveled into my palms and fingers, just as it would for an angler who had hooked a huge fish.

Even if they could not sense it as vividly as I could, everyone could feel the presence pouring out of it. The ark rocked violently, and cries of shock erupted from awakened all over.

"Aaaaah!"

"Wh-what? What's happening?"

"It's coming! It's starting!"

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

The warning siren Lee Hayul urgently transmitted blared throughout the ark.

Those who, like Seo Gyu, had stood up at the wrong moment screamed, while everyone else double-checked that their belts were securely fastened.

Lee Hayul shouted, "Begin charging!"

From that moment, the ark's puppet strings took on every color imaginable.

It was the aura of the awakened aboard. They began assisting me by pouring as much aura into the strings as they could spare.

And it was not just Ark One. Though there was a slight delay between them, thousands of awakened replenished the aura in succession aboard Ark Two, Ark Three, Ark Four, and eventually all the way to Ark Twelve.

The operation exploited the fact that Lee Hayul's puppet strings were essentially room-temperature superconductors for aura.

Spread like a spiderweb through the depths of the water, the strings shone brilliantly in the colors of the Milky Way.

RRRRUMBLE...

Then its movements slowed.

The enormous anomaly heaved its body as though trying to shake off the puppet strings and swim away. Its struggles flung the twelve arks about like wood chips, but the strings, covered in Dang Seorin's magic and the aura of thousands, did not snap easily.

Instead, the harder it struggled, the more tightly the strings clung to its entire body.

RRRRUMBLE...!

The anomaly's roar reached us from far away.

I could feel the puppet strings, already lethal weapons in their own right, digging into its flesh.

'This anomaly is impossibly huge!'

It moved its body, surging in every direction.

Though the puppet strings held, the arks—Ark One in particular—were rapidly drawing closer to its main body. Tremendous acceleration swept through the ship. Everyone squeezed their eyes shut and groaned.

Instinctively, I looked through the reinforced-glass window in the Operations Control Office.

"...!"

Our eyes met.

Yes. It was an "eye."

An eye far too enormous to seem like any living creature's stared wide open in the depths. Compared to that eyeball, even the ark was no more than a tiny speck on its iris.

The being that was both a void and an anomaly, called the Great Monsoon. Its "eye of the typhoon" was staring directly at us—at me.

RRRRUMBLE!

We were still locked in a contest of strength. Our gazes had met for only a fleeting instant.

The anomaly thrashed again. It slipped through the water with a speed utterly at odds with its immense bulk.

Now only its body, rather than its eye, appeared outside the window. That vast body was closer to an ecosystem than an organism; it deserved to be called both a landscape and nature itself.

A form far too massive for the window's rectangular frame to contain swept past in an instant.

"A dragon..."

Someone murmured it. The description was so apt that, from then on, everyone saw the anomaly's form as a dragon.

An enormous eye. A vast body. A tail difficult even to follow with the gaze.

The Great Monsoon's true form, which even I, a regressor, was witnessing for the first time, embodied the mythical creature regarded as the most mysterious in the East.

At the same time, I realized its other name—and why it had been bound by the "ark," the ritual magic of Genesis.

"Leviathan!"

The name of a sea dragon that also appeared in the Old Testament.

A monster that the omnipotent, omniscient Yahweh himself had to defeat. In other words, a source of terror that none but a god could dare kill.

"This—the Great Monsoon wasn't a weather phenomenon!"

I shouted. With the ship's interior shaking so violently, I had to shout at the top of my lungs.

"What looked like an enormous typhoon was actually Leviathan's body!"

"...!"

"The typhoon itself is Leviathan. Those insect-shaped droplets were all parasites living inside Leviathan's body! That's why the infected patients kept melting. After all, it's only natural for 'foreign things that enter a body to dissolve in the stomach and be digested'!"

Thinking back, the clues had already been there.

When the Great Monsoon traveled up through the North Pacific and made landfall in Busan, the Saintess had described it this way:

["It's made landfall in Busan. Right now, ah. The typhoon's waters are rapidly converging on Busan."]

["This can't be. The typhoon... It's changing from a giant spiral into something shaped like a straw, ah. The water, the tsunami on the horizon. It's all converging on Geumjeongsan. Everyone, be caref—"]

Her description of a typhoon spinning like a giant spiral suddenly stretching into a long straw shape and rushing toward Busan.

Wasn't that precisely the shape of a dragon?

Since ancient times, water had been likened to dragons in the East. Taming a ferocious dragon—in other words, controlling the waters—was considered a feat only an emperor could accomplish.

In Norse mythology, it is said that Jormungandr's mere appearance poisoned the world's air and water and swept the land with floods.

Thus, this anomaly was Leviathan, a dragon, and Jormungandr all at once.

The anomaly embodying the boundless terror of the sea and water was roaring.

RRRRRUMBLE!

Had it decided it could not shake off the puppet strings clinging to its body?

Leviathan changed its movements. In other words, the movements of the typhoon submerging the arks changed.

The typhoon began to "shrink."

The storm, whose diameter had remained large enough to cover all of Busan, was rapidly compressing.

[Under■aker, Undertak■r!]

At the same time, communication with the Saintess returned. Her Telepathy, distorted by the thick curtain of the great void, had recovered.

[Are you all ri■ht, Undertaker?]

"Yes. We're still holding on!"

[The Great Monsoon has changed shape! A huge—truly enormous dragon is heading into the sky, coiled around you, Undertaker, around the arks!]

At that moment, the water suddenly washed away from the windows of the ark, which had been submerged for nearly ten days.

We were no longer underwater.

We were in the sky.

Leviathan had surged upward, dragging the arks to an altitude of 5,000 meters above sea level.