Dungeon Odyssey [EN]: Chapter 284

Dungeon Journal-Episode 284 (284/319)

# 284

Dungeon Journal

Episode 285

Regret always comes too late, no matter how fast you are. The Ceiling Giant Lord found himself staring into eyes that gleamed like a snake’s before he could even voice his surrender.

“You! You were planning this from the start!”

Only then did the realization dawn on him. His opponent never intended a peaceful resolution. His resistance had been meaningless from the beginning.

“I won’t go down easily!”

With a ferocious roar, his muscular body swelled and expanded.

Thud.

The already straining clothes ripped apart as the giant’s body grew rapidly.

Kim Jin-woo watched the ominous transformation with a cold gaze.

“Attack.”

He whispered, looking up at the towering spire of Valhalla.

[In the past, the One-Eyed Lord ruled the underground with unchallenged power. However, even the One-Eyed Lord faced threats.]

[The Ceiling Giant Lord was the greatest of these, a constant rival. The giant warriors he commanded troubled the Einherjar [Valhalla’s elite warriors] for a long time with their innate strength and courage.]

[Until twilight, the battle between the One-Eyed Lord and the Ceiling Giant Lord never ceased. Only the Wandering Lord’s intervention could halt the endless slaughter.]

[Until the end of the war, it wasn’t the fearless One-Eyed Lord or the Einherjar, who transcended even death, who had massacred the most giants.]

[‘Giant Slayer.’ Mjolnir [Thor’s hammer] was the natural enemy of the fearless giants.]

[Now, after a long time, Mjolnir has once again revealed its power in the underground.]

Before he could even process the message, a blinding light erupted from the spire, and lightning poured down.

Bang! Bang!

The solid earth shattered under the sharp lightning, and the whole world flickered.

[Indeed, Mjolnir possessed power befitting its reputation as a giant slayer. But unfortunately, the Einherjar wielding Mjolnir lacked experience.]

[The Einherjar could not unleash Mjolnir’s full power.]

[Due to the Einherjar’s inexperience, Mjolnir’s accuracy was terrible.]

[More than half of the attacks missed.]

The lightning, meant only for the Ceiling Giant Lord, struck indiscriminately in all directions.

“Get back! You’ll be caught in the blast!”

At Catherine’s warning, the Beast King hurriedly leaped away, and Angela melted into the darkness.

“Unnecessarily noisy.”

Kim Jin-woo, standing calmly amidst the intense lightning, offered his assessment of Mjolnir’s performance.

“Kuaaaaak!”

Before him, the Ceiling Giant Lord, struck repeatedly by lightning, was in a miserable state.

The giant, unable to fully unleash his power due to the intense shocks, was a far cry from his notorious past self.

“You, you bastard!”

But his roar remained fierce, even with flames clinging to his body.

“He’s tough.”

With blatant mockery, the Ceiling Giant Lord once again strained every muscle in his body to the point of bursting.

“Hmm.”

Kim Jin-woo narrowed his eyes, observing the scene.

Seeing him focus solely on increasing his size instead of attacking, it wasn’t hard to deduce that the giant’s power couldn’t be exerted through a normal human form.

Otherwise, there would be no reason for him to get angry and not immediately rush in.

“Don’t hide cowardly behind Mjolnir! Come out and fight me fair and square!”

The voice, echoing as if from a deep cave, sounded like a formal challenge.

“If you have truly inherited the name of the One-Eyed, you will not avoid a match with me!”

Perhaps emboldened by his growing size, the Ceiling Giant Lord’s momentum intensified.

“If I lose, I will gladly become your slave!”

Still, he hadn’t completely lost his senses, subtly provoking him while remaining wary of Angela and the other lords – a surprisingly cunning tactic for someone of his size.

“I would like to oblige you, but…”

Kim Jin-woo retorted coldly, seeing through the opponent’s scheme to somehow defeat him and turn the tables.

“The opportunity to confirm the reputation of ‘Giant Slayer’ doesn’t come often.”

No sooner had he spoken than a message popped up indicating that Mjolnir, depleted from the previous barrage, had finished recharging. He ordered an attack without delay.

“Y-You, c-cowardly…”

The Ceiling Giant Lord’s last words were drowned out by another thunderous blast.

“It’s the worst. The compatibility is even worse than I thought.”

“I knew about the existence of the Giant Slayer, but I didn’t realize its power would be this overwhelming.”

Catherine replied with a disgusted expression at the Beast King’s words.

For the umpteenth time, the Ceiling Giant Lord was being unilaterally toyed with by Mjolnir, unable to unleash his true power due to the relentless lightning.

“But even so, isn’t he being too helpless?”

The Beast King lamented, not relieved that his choice hadn’t been wrong. Even though he had surrendered, the vast difference in power between the High Lords was unsettling.

“He acted all high and mighty because he awakened first, but he’s pathetic.”

Catherine also shook her head, echoing the sentiment while criticizing the Ceiling Giant Lord.

However, contrary to their assumptions, the Ceiling Giant Lord wasn’t significantly harmed. Although his skin was red and scorched black from the continuous lightning strikes, the lightning’s energy couldn’t penetrate his hide.

Furthermore, the skin burned by the heat was quickly restored by the giant’s powerful vitality.

“Kuaaaaak!”

Nevertheless, he screamed with each lightning strike.

Damn it, what kind of eyes are those?

Since when had he lost his will to fight? Following the Lord of Lament, the Beast King had joined the other side, and the Lord of True Blood, whom he barely knew, had volunteered to be the opponent’s slave. He had no desire to fight.

No, that’s just an excuse.

Frankly, he lacked the confidence to defeat the man who had inherited the power of the One-Eyed Lord. Others didn’t seem to notice, but the opponent was fundamentally different from them.

He had only realized this after facing him directly.

The gleaming gaze was like a predator sizing up its prey, and the overflowing, turbid energy was ominous.

The High Lord’s unique sense of superiority was nothing new, but the power contained within was incomparable to theirs.

Were all High Lords not created equal, even if they had inherited the power of the old lords? The Ceiling Giant Lord gritted his teeth at the overwhelming disparity.

You monster.

He didn’t care about the reason for the difference. What mattered now was survival.

So, instead of fighting the terrifying opponent, he chose to be pummeled by the giant’s natural enemy. At least while enduring Mjolnir’s assault, he didn’t have to face that terrible monster.

The miserable spectacle he presented to the other lords was a situation of his own making.

He schemed to escape the situation amidst the endless lightning. It wasn’t easy to think clearly with the shock reverberating through his head, but he had to find a way.

But as if fate was against him, his opponent didn’t even grant him that time.

“This should be enough.”

The opponent, who had shamelessly tested Mjolnir’s power on him and even used it as training for the Einherjar, stopped the bombardment.

The spires, which had been roaring loudly, fell silent, and the lightning ceased.

“Ugh.”

Even though the surroundings were still hot with the lingering energy of the lightning, he felt a chill instead. The sticky energy that had been spreading aimlessly was now focused directly on him, pressing down on his entire body.

“What the hell are you…”

What is your true identity?

Suppressing his questions and fears, he completed his giant transformation, which he had been delaying, and saw the black dragon staring at him with its head held high.

That’s not a dragon.

He felt an instinctive sense of dread at the sight of the dragon’s form, which was too terrible and grotesque to be called a dragon, and forcibly ignited his fading fighting spirit.

“I’m just terribly unlucky.”

Either way, the only way to survive was to win with his own strength. The Ceiling Giant Lord belatedly unleashed his true power.

The black dragon stretched its mouth wide and grinned.

“Kuaaaaak!”

The Ceiling Giant Lord roared fiercely the moment he faced the evil dragon’s terrible smile.

The image of the coward who cunningly schemed to escape was gone, replaced by the brave and invincible king of the giant race who had awakened first and steadily grown stronger.

“You monster!”

The giant fists, which had crushed countless nobles at once, clenched again, each covered with flames and ice. They transformed into giant iron maces and crashed down on the dragon.

The evil dragon rushed towards the flames, opening its mouth as if to swallow the attack whole, and spread its black wings to deflect the icy fist.

Kuaaaak!

The evil dragon’s black blood splattered, its wings were finely frozen and severed, and the giant’s wrist was sucked into the dragon’s mouth, with red blood spraying everywhere.

A terrible bloodbath in which wings were torn and a wrist was lost in a brief collision, but the battle had only just begun.

Black smoke gathered and formed two pairs of wings again, and the severed giant’s wrist soon grew back, wielding even more intense flames than before. Thus, the two monsters tore at each other’s bodies, crushed them, swallowed them, and collided and separated repeatedly.

Catherine and the Beast King, watching the scene, were speechless. They were horrified by the turbid energy of the evil dragon and the violent energy of the giant, which stung their skin even from a distance.

Above all, they were unnerved by the turbid and ominous energy emanating from the evil dragon.

“Is that the power the Naga King originally possessed?”

The Beast King’s voice, barely audible, was subdued.

“No, it’s different. That’s not a Naga or anything like that.”

Catherine shook her head, half-넋을 잃은 채 [넋을 잃은 채 is a Korean idiom meaning ‘in a daze’]. Even for her, who prided herself on having witnessed all sorts of horrors in the underground, the sight of the evil dragon was shocking.

It was as if something that should not exist in this world had manifested in this place, borrowing the shell of a dragon.

The black body made of darkness was a breeding ground for all sorts of impure things, a perfect darkness that could not be illuminated by anything.

What flowed out of the hungry, rattling mouth was the wail of a hungry ghost, a sight that made one want to vomit.

And she knew of an existence that resembled that monster.

“That’s like…”

It’s like night.

Her face turned white as she recalled the name of the terrible monster she couldn’t bring herself to utter.