D.I.O

Merlin was the one who had caused the Kraken to attack the Dead Man’s Ship. He had been concerned that the two sides wouldn’t attack each other since they were both monsters, but he was relieved to find that this wasn’t the case. Seeing the battle unfold from a safe distance, Merlin was able to tell that the battle had entered its final stages.

The Dead Man’s Ship was the losing party. Though the 10,000 manned undead monster corps possessed a tremendous amount of power, they were at a disadvantage on this battlefield. The undead were virtually powerless in the water, so going up against the Kraken, ruler of the seas, was inevitably going to be an uphill battle. There was essentially no chance for the undead to come out victorious.

Whoosh.

As Merlin awakened his magic power, the sapphire started to glow blue and emit a trembling sound. It contained a large amount of magic power. It wasn’t as much as the Lich used to create the dark dragon, but it was several times more than the usual amount Merlin could use.

“If I let any more time pass, nothing will be left over.”

He clenched his hand into a fist, breaking the sapphire into pieces and releasing a deluge of magic power. He was still about a kilometer away from the Dead Man’s Ship. If he had released the magic in the sapphire an hour before, he would have alerted Heinkel and been countered. However, right now, the Dead Man’s Ship was in a critical situation, and nobody on board had the wherewithal to pay attention to his moves.

Whoosh!

It was impossible to expand one’s spiritual power limit by force, but Merlin had discovered that magic power and internal energy could be expended and then recovered. If that wasn’t possible, then there would be no use in training one’s spiritual power, so he had spent two weeks perfecting this one spell.

“Gear 5.”

The Decian Great Bow appeared in his hands. The magic power, which had dispersed and was wafting through the air after the sapphire was crushed, gathered into a concentrated cluster.

“Phew…”

Merlin went into his inventory and took out a wand. It was the wand that he had received as a drop after defeating the bee-like monster in the last Siege Quest battle.

Whirl!

Merlin applied the gathered magic power that hovered in the air onto the wand, like how one would apply sunscreen on their skin. Soon, the wand glowed blue.

“Ugh!”

Feeling the enormous force of the magic power, which was seventy times his own capacity, Merlin let out a grunt. It was numbing to control such a large amount of magic power. It was highly unusual for someone to try handling a magic power so many times greater than their own capacity. Even though Merlin was talented in magic, he was still just an early-stage, mid-level mage at best. It was unbelievable that he was attempting such an advanced technique. However, with mechanical precision, Merlin was able to control the gathered magic power.

Creak!

Since all his energy and focus was on controlling the gathered magic power, Merlin wasn’t able to expand his internal energy through Mercury and Venus. This lowered his efficiency when he pulled back on the bowstring, but his naturally reinforced body was able to slowly move the bowstring backward into place.

Whoosh!!

The Kraken’s tentacles had moved up toward the sky. It had extended to a length of 400 meters. From Merlin’s distance, the scene looked like something out of an old drawing depicting the legends and myths of yore. The simple upward motion of the tentacles kicked up a massive windstorm, causing giant waves to crash outwards. If Merlin, who was a kilometer away, was a large ship, he would have been capsized.

“Damn, that’s no joke.”

Considering that most modern high-rises averaged about 249 meters in height, the unfolding scene left quite the impression. A monster among monsters, the Kraken was a true, living, breathing natural disaster. It was a shock just to witness that such a monster existed. The existence of such a monster was just, literally, unbelievable.

“It can only exist because this is a game!”

As he spoke those words, all the water within a ten meter radius of Merlin fell calm. The water around him seemed like a flat, placid mirror. Though the rest of the sea was still foaming and turbulent, and chaos continued to ensue all around him, Merlin’s immediate surroundings were infinitely calm.

Whoosh!!

He loosed the arrow with an audible swish of air from his bowstring. The arrow glided through the sky, leaving a silvery-white trail behind it. The Lich and Kraken were occupied by their battle, but the magic power contained in the arrow was so significant that they still belatedly sensed the arrows' presence.

“Go.”

Not caring if his actions were noticed, Merlin activated the spell he had applied onto the arrow.

“The Silver Throne of Poseidon!”

Whoosh!

Once the arrow landed, a ripping sound echoed through the air. Frost and ice began to expand rapidly from the point where the arrow landed. Like an exploding claymore shell, the freezing effect continued to spread. It had happened so fast that no one was able to react to it, not the Lich, the Death Knights, or even the Kraken which still had its tentacles raised to lay the final blow on the Dead Man’s Ship.

Sss!

The chaotic movements of the sea halted instantly. It was as if someone had pressed pause while watching a video. Soon, the entire area became covered in a silver-light sheen.

The undead weren’t living organisms, so they were mostly unaffected by extreme heat or cold. Of course, there were some undead that would not be able to operate properly in extreme cold, but there were also some undead who were totally unaffected. Even if these unaffected undead were thrown into the freezing lands to the north, they would be able to move and operate without an issue. Moreover, no undead creature could be killed by freezing alone. There were even undead monsters like the Specter, a spirit monster that would be totally unaffected by any environmental elements.

“It’s not just a freezing effect, though.”

Right. The spell that Merlin had used wasn’t just a natural freezing effect spell. He had truly utilized the wider properties of magic this time around. He had used a malicious type of magic power for this attack spell. Anyone and anything exposed to the spell was not just frozen solid, but also affected by the magic power that moved within the cold. Even the Specters flying across the sky, and the Ghost Armor that was immune to heat and cold, were affected by Merlin’s spell. All these affected beings started to turn black; then, they turned into dust.

Plop!

Merlin went into the water, without fully submerging himself. Like a dead fish that had risen to the surface with its belly facing upward, Merlin laid down flat on the water. The entire area was still being frozen over. It began to look more and more like Siberia. However, since Merlin had the water-attribute affinity, he was unaffected by the sudden drop in temperature. Even if he was concerned about it, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it anyway.

/Your status has changed to ‘listless’! The status ‘dying’ has also been added!/

“Ugh… it’s not like I’m ordering something… why do they describe it as ‘added’?”

Though he complained, Merlin could sense that he had been greatly weakened. He was unable to even move his fingers. All his powers had been drained. That last spell had tapped almost all of his energy. This was to be expected, given that he had used a spell with a magic power so much greater than his capacity.

His status window read like this…

His internal energy and magic power were almost fully exhausted. On top of this, his Golden Pill Immortal Technique’s circulation had paused. His magic resistance, reaction ability, and magic gathering reinforcement had also stopped operating.

The spell possessed an effect that was much larger than the magic power contained in the spell, which Merlin had coined as ‘Howling Spell’, or [The Silver Throne of Poseidon]. Merlin had used every trick and shortcut he could come up with to execute this spell, so of course, he had now fallen into a thoroughly exhaustive state after casting it.

“My head really aches… damn… why doesn’t the pain controlling system do anything about this?”

There was nothing that could be done, despite his complaints. A user playing a fighting game doesn’t get hurt when their in-game character sustains damage, but if that user gets a headache from how focused they are on the fight, there was nothing the system could do to relieve that pain. This was the exact situation Merlin had put himself in. Of course, if the DIO developers truly wanted to eliminate this pain, they could have done so with ease, but that would likely mean that users’ general skill level would not improve.

“… this is too much. [Log Out].”

/You are logging out. You are immobile for the next 25 seconds. You are susceptible to attack, so please make sure you are attempting to log out in a secure, safe area. If you are not in a position to log out safely, please cancel your log out. 25, 24, 23…/

Once Merlin initiated the log out, a cylindrical pillar fell over and surrounded him. And soon…

Poof.

Merlin vanished without a trace.