Chapter 155: Killing Intent at 100 Meters Per Second
From a setting standpoint, you could say Ctarnidd of the Abyss possesses abilities that set it apart from the other Unique Monsters.
That wasn't to say Wethermon—who could stop time for the world itself, albeit temporarily, a feat encompassing even his own "death"—or Lycagon—who melded with the night to spawn seemingly endless clones—were lacking in power as Unique Monsters.
But Ctarnidd restored a destroyed city with the same casual ease as rewinding a video to rewatch a scene that caught your interest. It transformed life and death, existence itself, as simply as flipping a switch.
It wasn't about strong or weak. It was sheer absurdity. The same way a fighting game character can't battle beyond the time limit. The same way an RPG's final boss can't escape its role. An insurmountable absurdity that seemed to interfere with the very system of the game itself—that was the Unique Monster, Ctarnidd of the Abyss.
But that was only a limited despair, one that held true so long as you looked at its specs alone. Shangri-La Frontier was a game, and as long as a battle with Ctarnidd existed as a scenario, a loophole had to exist.
I didn't dislike puzzle games. Sure, there were trash games out there with crap like "fetch the key from the other tower to open this door (they tell you after you're locked in)," but I sincerely hoped this scenario wasn't one of those. With that in mind…
Sunraku: "There was somethin' I really wanted to check out."
The Arctus Regalex that had become a meal for the dual-element orca—and in the process, items to line my pockets—wasn't the same individual I'd fought one-on-one during the day. But during that daytime battle, I'd witnessed with my own eyes the immense reality-warping ability granted to the enemy known as Ctarnidd.
I see. Certainly impressive. But a field reset wasn't something particularly special for a game. At the extreme, games where you just popped into a random house and came back out to find the entire field restored were common enough—whether trash, mediocre, or good.
So, Question 1: What were the activation conditions for Ctarnidd of the Abyss's field reset? Question 2: Just how much of this city could be destroyed? And finally, Question 3: How strong were these so-called "Blockers"?
Sunraku: "I'm gonna wreck everything to the absolute limit… and you're gonna do it for me, dual-element orca!!"
Leaping from rooftop to rooftop, I kept my distance from the dual-element orca, scurrying about with relentless persistence. Yes—projecting an exquisitely irritating presence that made you want to just squash me flat, I led the dual-element orca onward. My destination: one of the four towers at the city's corners, each housing a Blocker.
A nasty crackling sound echoed behind me. I frantically upped my speed, leaping off the rooftop just as a violent burst of sparks and the roar of a collapsing building erupted right behind me. The shockwave felt like an open-handed slap to the back.
Sunraku: "Whoa—whoa, whoa! Close one!"
The crumbling debris cascaded down like a mudslide, swallowing the street where I'd intended to land. I touched down on the constantly shifting, wildly unstable footing. Sensing the enormous mass closing in from behind, I fired off multiple skills and leaped again, using the wall and the rubble as springboards to spring back up onto the rooftops.
An instant later, the crystal-feather blades extending from the dual-element orca's pectoral fins tore through the spot where I'd just been—slicing through the debris, a mass heavy enough to crush a person simply by cascading over them, as easily as cutting through pudding.
Sunraku: "………That's incredible."
Not the dual-element orca's firepower. Whether I got bitten, smacked, or electrocuted, a one-hit kill was guaranteed—I wasn't about to be impressed at this point just because it sliced through some rubble. What surprised me was my own evasive maneuver, executed flawlessly. To be honest, I'd doubted whether I could pull off a non-stop sequence of running across unstable footing, kicking off a wall, and leaping back onto a roof. But I did. Picking out a piece of debris stable enough to serve as a foothold from the shifting, second-by-second chaos, pushing off, kicking the wall, grabbing the roof's edge, and hauling myself up in one motion—it was far too ideal a sequence for a desperate, improvised gamble.
Sunraku: "Guess I should call this the power of the latest model—the one they've nicknamed 'commercial-grade'…"
True commercial-grade units were apparently full bed-types, as overblown as X-ray machines. But compared to my home unit—the previous generation's headgear type—there was a definite difference in performance. In real life, unlike in games, your movements don't dramatically improve overnight. Since I hadn't done anything to seize one of those rare "overnight improvements," the secret to this movement had to be the hardware.
My avatar's movements, already beyond what my real body could do, had become even smoother. The response time between a mental command and the resulting motion had improved. Even the sense that the world looked clearer probably wasn't my imagination—had the resolution been upgraded too? I see. So the bigger size wasn't just for show. With this, maybe even a non-pro like me could hold his own in the match against America's strongest team or whatever the day after tomorrow… Ah, right—it's past midnight, so it's tomorrow now. Tomorrow's match. Well, thinking about it, they've got the same hardware, so it's no huge advantage.
Sunraku: "There it is. If I remember what Mold said, there's something like a Clione in there… right?"
They'd apparently only observed from a distance, wary of carelessly provoking it and triggering who-knew-what. But if I didn't test it, I couldn't prove anything.
Thanks to the Arcanum: The Fool, I was cycling through skills nonstop—but even so, I couldn't just spam them with zero delay. Distance-wise, I'd have to wait out a recast cycle once… Can't be helped. Time to pick a fight—not just provoke, but genuinely sell one.
Between the orca's battle with the Giga Oarfish and the chase leading up to now, I'd gathered a substantial amount of intel.
First, the fundamental premise: taking down that dual-element orca in a head-on fight would be extremely difficult. I'd only managed to solo the Giga Oarfish because of the poison slip damage; without any external interference, that fight would've been far tougher.
Those flames blanketing the entire upper half of its body weren't just for show—they dealt actual damage. And "damage" in this context didn't just mean whittling down a player's HP. Weapons and armor had durability. No matter how effectively Duxram, Blade of Aspiration could maintain its durability, taking constant direct damage would eventually break them. That effect was "durability doesn't decrease on critical hits"—not "the weapon won't break."
With the upper half off-limits, my attacks naturally had to target the lower body. But as the debris-slicing earlier had proved, this thing moved with incredible acrobatic flair. Even if I baited it into close range, the number of attacks I could land would be… well, two or three at best. If those hits were from a greatsword like Rei-shi's, maybe you could expect decent damage. But with my firepower, it'd be a drop in the bucket.
So, if I just increased the number of attacks, maybe I could eventually bring it down. But a prolonged fight against that thing would be a brutal ordeal. Sure, in terms of tough enemies, the Golden Scorpion fight had been under even worse conditions. But with that one, I'd ultimately used the Crystal Scorpions to massively shred its HP—and, more importantly, that thing didn't fly.
Sunraku: "Then I've just gotta make the field itself my ally…!!"
The houses were built along the roads, but they weren't packed wall-to-wall like row houses. There were gaps wide enough for a person to pass through. In some places, collapses had buried the gaps, but the rubble that filled them had itself become a path.
I felt like the mole in a game of whack-a-mole. Hiding and emerging, provoking and fleeing—I wove them together to stall out the recast timer as I slowly, steadily closed in on my target.
The dual-element orca, making no attempt to hide its irritation at my incessant scurrying and hiding, rampaged through the cityscape, pulverizing everything in reach, and periodically launching furious charges at me—the tiny insect that kept popping up.
Sunraku: "Hah! Like I'm gonna get hit by a move that needs thirty seconds of prep time!"
That electrical discharge attack required roughly thirty seconds of charging. The fact that it could still act normally while charging was a threat, but when its crystal feathers were so blatantly wreathed in sparks, anyone could tell the lightning was coming. And the thunderbolt sphere it unleashed after charging—centered on the orca itself—covered a considerable area, but after seeing it two or three times, you could gauge its range. As I maneuvered carefully to keep it from closing the gap, maybe I could even guide it into…
Sunraku: "…No."
The flames blanketing its upper body were flaring with an intensity incomparable to before. The electricity crawling across its pectoral fins was being absorbed back into the orca's main body. I instantly concluded that the dual-element orca was about to pull a move I'd never seen. I prepared for an Inventoria escape and started adjusting my position. I mean, come on—what else does a creature do when it stores up energy in its body? Nine times out of ten, it's a beam. Especially since the orca was blatantly putting distance between us, too.
Sunraku: "Alright… aim carefully, yeah…? That's it—you've climbed up nice and high, putting on a real show. Don't miss. Aim straight for me…"
Behind me: the tower where a Blocker supposedly resided. Ahead: the dual-element orca, hovering in the air, the area around its head blazing with light. And sandwiched between them: me.
Positioning was perfect. If I were to be picky, I'd have liked to be a little higher, but even with improved movement, some things were still impossible.
Now came the RNG-free gamble—relying purely on reflexes, intuition, and luck that wasn't just hidden dice rolls. What kind of attack was this? How fast would it come? When would it fire? Since grasping all of that on first sight was impossible, I'd be forced to literally "see it, then dodge." If I couldn't, I'd dodge on instinct. If that failed, all that was left was to pray.
Sunraku: "At times like this, I really wish I had binoculars or something…"
Let's see… Hard to make out clearly from this distance, but… The crystal feathers were glowing like electric lamps. They'd glowed during the lightning attack too, but that had been sparks crawling across their outer surface. Now, the light was coming from inside the crystals. And the most significant change: the azure flames covering the upper half of its body were weakening—dying down so much you could almost say they were flickering out. As the flames peeled away, something was exposed—its… skull, maybe? It looked so much smaller compared to the lower half; were the skin and muscle being converted into those flames? Even from a distance, it was glowing bright enough to see clearly—packing firepower that made the lightning discharge look like nothing—
It flashed.
Sunraku: "UWOAAAAAAH?!"
Y-You bastard! Normally, when a charge-up finishes, there's some kind of signal—an effect, a motion, something!! Firing it instantly is just cheating!!
Sunraku: "Guh— [Transfer: Storage Space — Enter Travel]!!"
Dodge. Yes, the dodge itself succeeded. I'd avoided the worst-case scenario—a direct hit from that laser-like attack that flew at terrifying speed. But even the aftershock alone sent me flying more easily than a dead leaf in the wind. Transported into the storage space, I managed to bleed off the momentum by sliding and tumbling across the floor.
Sunraku: "Shit… yeah, of course. Against a goddamn artillery piece like that, the normal move is to just keep running to throw off its aim… damn it."
I checked my stats. Remaining HP: 4. So even the aftershock, at full HP, could be survived once… Which meant—of course—a direct hit was fatal.
I threw aside the weapons I'd been clutching—just in case—and hurriedly attempted recovery. But of course, at times like this, the RNG kept tilting the wrong way. I burned through twice the usual consumption and finally managed to heal to full. I was in no position to complain, having leaned so heavily on its benefits, but at moments like this, the Arcanum felt like a nuisance.
Sunraku: "Tch… Whatever the case, nothing starts until I get back out there."
I transferred from the storage space back into real space. I'd known I'd emerge in midair, so I dragged the memory from just before the escape, grasped my orientation, and twisted my body to survey the aftermath of that attack.
Sunraku: "Tch… Indestructible object? Or did the landlord Ctarnidd kindly fix it up…?"
Before my eyes, the tower stood utterly unscathed, as if the dual-element orca's attack had never happened. Damn—retreating into the storage space had cost me. I couldn't confirm whether it hadn't broken or whether it had broken and then been repaired. First, land, and then figure out my next move— …ah.
The sound of something tearing through the sky rang out from directly above. An oppressive weight, like an invisible hammer of air bearing down to crush me. I hadn't forgotten the orca's existence. But I had forgotten one other fact.
I looked up. There, its jaws—an upper jaw of flame and a lower jaw of flesh and bone—yawned wide, impossibly wide. This sensation… I'd felt it somewhere before. Déjà vu. Ah, right. The Crystal Scorpions. After that patch, they'd started lying in wait even if you escaped via transfer. Come to think of it, the patch notes had mentioned "certain monsters"—not just the Crystal Scorpions. Don't tell me a huge number of monsters had been given anti-transfer-escape countermeasures…?
Sunraku: "Ah, well. Everything's trial and error."
Even if I rack up a hundred errors, if I can produce a single success, none of it was wasted. I'd secured a save point. If I got chomped up here—dessert after the Arctus Regalex main course—I'd just respawn. That's right, dual-element orca—just so you know, my body's not sweet at all. As a dessert, I'm a total failure.
Sunraku: "Too bad for y—"
???: "Ordinarily, that is not the moment to laugh scornfully, I think…!!"
Sunraku: "Uwah?!"
A ferocious tug—one that felt like it would yank my arm clean out of its socket. The dual-element orca's gaping jaws, the street that had been gouged perfectly in half—was that from the laser's aftershock?—all of it stretched vertically, long and distorted like a photo taken with violently shaking hands—
Sunraku: "—Araba?!"
Araba: "You… what in the world did you do wrong to end up picking a fight with the King of the Deep?! Even those mermaids possess slightly more sense than this!"
Delivering an extremely sound scolding, the speaker grabbed me and swam through the sky—a being halfway between shark and man, impossible to tell if he was person or monster.
I see. Apparently, I was now flying.
Because I'm a bird, after all?