-Vol 5: A New Life-

-Five Seconds!-

“This!” for a second Kenshin felt like the whole world had become fast-moving train for him. The flashing thunder, the massive, deadly whirlpool, the loud sound produced from the combination of first moving water and thunder flash, everything vanished from his point of view. The only thing remained was specks of light, that moved so fast that it resembled small pillars.

An instant, Kenshin experienced this world only for a moment, before his vision restored and the sound that vanished reached his ears again. It made him dizzy for a second, to come back from that light-filled world to this loud and dangerous world, his conscious and brain couldn’t take the strain, and hence, he felt like vomiting.

“Hm! Can’t you handle this much strain? It's just a little below the speed of light, you know!” the lady knowingly smiled at him. She always loved to see the face of people who had traveled to ‘Light Dimension’ with her. Especially, she loved to take those stoic types, who would behave like something struck on their ass. Although she was already this old, her mischievous heart still remained young.

“Speed of Light? How come we didn’t cross the Time Barrier?” Kenshin asked with wide eyes that shined with a strange excitement. During his school days, he would often watch sci-fi movies or read comics, so he asked what he had seen on those movies and cartoons. He especially loved those technical jargons.

“Brat! Don’t believe in those movies you see. Time barrier is not something that we can easily cross. Besides, we didn’t travel at a speed of light just now, just a little below the speed of light. Forget about that, look below.” The old woman reprimanded Kenshin and then pointed below with her stick.

“Hmm!” narrowing his eyes, Kenshin looked below and found them standing in the middle of the air. To both sides, the water was rotating dangerously with lightning pillars dropping every few seconds. Below them, a pool of water, spanning several tens of meters gathered. Although it looks still, Kenshin knew better. In fact, if he falls down to there, within seconds, he might find himself down the sea bed with hundreds of thousands of pascals of pressure weighing down on him.

Even with his higher stats body, he will die in seconds. Even now, where they were standing, he could still feel pressure, but it was still bearable.

Boom!

Suddenly a pillar of thunder crashed atop them, but the old woman just waved her hands to swipe it away. Looking below the strangely still pool if water at the center of this massive whirlpool, Lady Sachiko’s old face twitched. Sighing, she looked at Kenshin, who was also looking below with a frown marring his face.

“Did you find that monster?” she asked.

“Yeah. It's right below us and now glaring at us alright. It seems to create such a natural disaster had drained a lot from it. It looks like it couldn’t even stand on its own.” Kenshin said as he checked on the Dilong’s stats. In fact, what he said wasn’t just empty talk. When he scanned that thing again just now, not only its HP reduced from 98% to 99%, but also nearly all its stats had a (?) symbol. What’s more, he could see its Level which still ??? was gradually changing, though all he could see was ‘??’ this.

Its implication was clear now, the Dilong was growing weaker after using this skill. The longer it maintains this whirlpool natural disaster, the weaker it becomes. Sooner or later, it would die on its own after its HP drains out completely.

“That thing is trying to take us all to hell with it. It's using its life force to create this natural disaster. Unless a monster of its race reaches level 200, they couldn’t tap into their ancestral power of controlling natural disasters.

That being said, ultimately, it was a monster born to control floods. Controlling the waters and the climate was on its blood. It might know a method to trigger it in emergency situations. That’s what it’s doing right now.”

“Lady Sachiko! You seem to know a lot about this dragon? Have you also faced one before?” Kenshin asked curiously. From the moment he met her to now, she had already rambled on details about this dragon far surpassing what one could find on an online forum.

“I did. Twice before. Although both times, the monster was stronger than this.” As she spoke these, her eyes felt lost as they glazed over. She seems to be remembering a distant memory that gave her both a sense of thrill as well as the pain of loss. Kenshin tactfully didn’t delve on the matters. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at the monster and gritted his teeth in anger.

His [Replication]’s level had already reached 21, and still, he couldn’t be able to copy even a single skill of this monster. If this continues, the only option left for him was to kill it while it was under the effect of Replication. But by doing so, he could at most copy one skill only.

‘It better than nothing!’ Kenshin shook his head and consoled himself.

“Listen, that monster is extremely weak right now. With your current strength, you can even kill it with a single strike. The problem is this curtain of still water. I will tear open a pathway for you.

Remember, 5 seconds. That’s all the time you will get to kill it, before hundreds of thousands unit pascals of pressure weigh you down, and grind you to meat paste. You have to finish that dragon and come back here into this platform. Remember, 5 seconds.” The lady said gravely. Actually if not for the hundreds of meters of whirlpool around them, she wouldn’t have given the warning.

Kenshin nodded with narrowed eyes. Just by looking at the bottom, he could already tell how much dangerous it would be. The dragon was laying on the sea bed like a beaten snake taking its last breath. Except for its big yellow eyes that were looking at Kenshin with unhidden hatred, not a single part of it was moving.

Grabbing the hilt of his sword tightly and taking a deep breath to calm his rapidly palpitating heart, Kenshin made up his mind. He would do it no matter what. He had already resigned on his life. Before this lady came to play, he had already thought of dying and reviving once. That didn’t change even now. The only thing that changed was the opportunity to kill this thing and gain EXP, the chance to copy at least one of its skills. The opportunity to learn a mysterious skill of a mythic beast that formed from people’s imaginations.

‘Though, why didn’t I trigger a quest until now? Isn’t this dangerous enough? Or there is something more required to trigger?’ this was what made Kenshin surprise. He didn’t trigger any quest despite facing situations far more dangerous. For now, though, he could only shelf this doubt to the back of his mind.

Taking a deep breath, Kenshin looked down determined. Without even turning at her, Kenshin shouted: “I am ready.”

“Heh! That’s the spirit. Remember, 5 seconds. That all you get. If you can’t kill it, then come back immediately. Even if you can’t kill it, you can still break its skill. The pressure of water might ruin it later.” After shouting this, Lady Sachiko’s body glowed yellow. A strand of light shined on Kenshin, as he also started to shine yellow.

At that time a notification popped into existence.

[Ding* You have affected with buff-skill ‘Holy Blessing.’]

[All your stats gained 200% boost for 10 seconds.]

[Your recovery ability increased by 200%]

[Your pain tolerance ability increased by 200%]

[Your fatigue factor decreased by 200%]