"Poked it broken?"
Elizabeth felt her heart nearly leap out of her throat when she heard those nonchalant words.
That was a holy chain sealing an Ancient God's heart!
It was a restriction set by countless sages and powerful beings from the ancient era who sacrificed themselves!
And you just...
Poked it broken with a needle?!
"Director! What on earth did you do?!"
Elizabeth let out a scream of despair, feeling as if the sky was falling.
"Don't be noisy."
Victor didn't even look up.
He was carefully placing the sample of Ancient God's flesh—which was still slightly throbbing and emitting a dark gold light—into a specialized cryogenic storage box.
His focused expression was as if he were handling a peerless treasure.
"If the sample gets contaminated, this house call will have been a waste of time."
Elizabeth: "..."
What time is it?! You're still worried about your damn sample!
We're about to be crushed into dust by an angry Ancient God!
"ROOAAARRR——————!!!!!"
As if confirming Elizabeth's fears.
The massive heart that Victor had poked with a needle went completely berserk.
It was no longer a weak throb, but a frantic pulse like a war drum.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Every beat caused the entire underground space to tremble violently. The meat pillars on the ceiling snapped like falling rain, crashing to the ground and splashing massive amounts of mucus.
The holy chains wrapped around it let out an overwhelmed 'creak' as the crack continued to spread.
The golden runes on them flickered erratically, clearly unable to suppress this world-destroying power any longer.
"Let's go! This place is collapsing!"
Victor finally tucked away the sample box.
The twelve Abyssal Tentacles on his back suddenly exerted force, scooping up Alice, Elizabeth, and Mia—who were still in a daze—and tossing them toward the incoming tunnel like sacks of grain.
Rumble—!!!
The moment they rushed out of the core area.
The entire underground cavern completely collapsed.
Massive stones and wriggling flesh fell from the sky, completely burying the frantically beating heart and that underground world filled with unspeakable creatures.
"Huff... Huff..."
Victor led the three God-Chosen as they scrambled out of the hole dug by the excavator, returning to the clinic's basement.
"That was close. We were almost buried alive."
Victor patted the dust off his clothes, feeling a lingering fear.
"Director, did we... did we cause a huge disaster?"
Mia's voice carried a hint of crying, her fluffy wolf ears drooping in fear.
"It doesn't count as a disaster."
Victor adjusted his glasses and corrected her.
"This was just a routine biopsy... with minor complications."
However.
Before he could finish.
BOOM————!!!!!
A terrifying explosion, a hundred times louder than the one underground, came from above their heads.
The entire clinic castle felt as if it had been struck head-on by a meteor, tilting violently!
Great cracks opened in the ceiling, and rubble and chandeliers fell like rain.
"What's happening?!"
Victor's expression changed.
"Reporting to Commander!"
Helena's cold electronic voice rang out through the communicator with unprecedented urgency.
"Something is coming out from the ground... underground!"
"Energy readings... are soaring exponentially!"
"It's already... already broken through the S-rank limit!"
"It's heading toward... mythical-grade!"
Victor's pupils constricted.
He snapped his head up toward the ground.
He saw the floor paved with hard obsidian rising and falling like waves.
Bottomless cracks spread at a speed visible to the naked eye.
From the depths of the cracks, it was no longer magma spewing out.
Instead, it was a pitch-black substance, thick as ink and filled with an aura of corrosion and death...
Black mud.
"ROOAAARRR——————!!!!!"
A dragon's roar filled with endless pain and madness echoed from deep underground.
The sound was so terrifying that even the air seemed to freeze.
Outside the clinic castle.
The Red Cross Guards, who were still building fortifications, collapsed to the ground in unison, shivering under the weight of that roar.
It was an absolute bloodline suppression originating from the very top of life's hierarchy!
BOOM!!!
The ground completely exploded.
The herb field in the clinic's backyard that had just been planned, along with the newly built alchemy lab next to it, was instantly swallowed by a black torrent surging into the sky.
Then.
A terrifying head, so massive it was suffocating, rose slowly from the giant pit with a momentum that could destroy the world.
It was a...
Dragon's head.
But it had long since lost the majesty and holiness inherent to the dragon race.
Half of its cheek had completely rotted away, revealing the bleached white bone and wriggling maggots beneath.
The other half was covered in flesh tissue that grew uncontrollably like tumors, with several pupil-less, bloodshot eyeballs sprouting from it.
From its mouth, there was no dragon breath, only dripping black mucus that could corrode deep pits into the earth.
Then.
Came its massive body, stretched out like a mountain range.
It was a dragon over a hundred meters long.
But it no longer had the protection of scales.
In their place was a thick, asphalt-like black sludge covering its entire body.
Beneath the sludge, one could catch glimpses of a giant skeleton already pitted and hollowed by corrosion.
It had no wings.
Because its wings had also long since rotted away, leaving only two bare bone wings hanging powerlessly at its sides like two broken scythes.
【Ding!】
【Warning! Warning! Mythical-grade creature detected awakening!】
【Creature Name: Corrupted Dragon Nidhogg】
【Danger Level: SSS+ (World-ending)】
【Status: Extremely mad, chaotic, hungry.】
【Description: In the ancient era, the gods dispatched the most powerful Black Dragon King, Nidhogg, to serve as the eternal guardian of the Ancient God's Heart. But under the erosion of long years, its soul was long ago contaminated by the whispers of the Ancient God, and its body was corrupted by the Ancient God's radiation, turning it into a mad beast that knows only destruction and slaughter.】
【Warning! Every breath it takes is spreading the 'corrupted plague' that can cause all things to wither!】
"Nidhogg..."
Elizabeth's face was as pale as paper as she looked at this world-ending dragon that existed only in myths and legends.
"It's over..."
"We... we've woken up the watchdog... that guards the gates of hell."
"ROOAAARRR—!!!"
The corrupted dragon seemed to have discovered these few "little bugs" that had disturbed its slumber.
Its two remaining massive eyeballs, completely consumed by madness, locked onto Victor.
It was this man.
It was the damn scent of "science" on this man that had startled it from its eternal sleep!
Kill him!
Eat him!
Nidhogg opened its bloody maw, large enough to swallow a small mountain.
There was no dragon breath.
Instead, a visible, grayish-black wave of death swept out like a tsunami.
"Corrosive Decay!"
"Get out of the way!" Elizabeth screamed, grabbing Mia to teleport.
But it was too late.
The wave of death was too fast.
Wherever it passed.
The sturdy castle walls turned silently into dust like weathered sand sculptures.
The recently planted Dragon Blood Grass withered and rotted instantly.
Even the air became thin and turbid under this power.
"It's no use!"
Victor shoved them aside, but instead of retreating, he stepped forward.
The twelve Abyssal Tentacles behind him danced frantically, weaving into a thick shield of flesh in front of him.
BOOM!!!
The wave of death slammed hard into the tentacle shield.
Sizzle—
A tooth-aching sound of corrosion rang out.
Victor felt an unmatched, colossal force strike him. He was sent flying backward, slamming heavily into the wall behind him.
The surfaces of the tentacles used for defense instantly became pitted and hollowed, with several of them snapping off directly.
"Pfft—!"
Victor felt a sweetness in his throat and spat out a mouthful of blood.
Just one breath had left him heavily injured!
Is this... the power of a mythical-grade creature?
"Director!"
Alice and Mia cried out, about to rush forward.
"Don't come over!"
Victor barked a sharp command to stop them.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and looked at the slowly approaching world-ending dragon. For the first time, a look of "solemnity" appeared in his eyes.
He couldn't win.
He absolutely couldn't win.
The level suppression was too severe.
Even if he revealed all the trump cards in his hand—the electromagnetic cannons, the Battle Sisters, the stitched abominations...
In the face of absolute power, it would all be in vain.
"Roar—"
Nidhogg seemed to enjoy the despairing expression of its prey.
It lowered its rotting head, its giant eyeball almost pressing against Victor's face.
It opened its mouth.
A stench mixed with death and decay blew against him.
It was going to...
Swallow this bug that had woken it up in one bite.
A desperate situation.
A true, hopeless dead end.
"Lord Director!"
"Victor!"
The cries of the God-Chosen rang in his ears.
Victor looked at that approaching bloody maw, looking at those teeth as sharp as razors.
His brain, with its zero sanity value, was exceptionally calm at this moment.
He was thinking.
Thinking frantically.
Was there still...
A chance to turn the tables?
His gaze was fixed firmly inside the dragon's rotting, massive mouth.
Then.
His eyes suddenly...
Lit up.
"Wait."
It was as if he had discovered a crucial detail.
"Does this guy... have a cavity?"
Rate on N.U.
