Museum Core Chapter 117: The Insanity of a Future Champion

This … this was perhaps not the best way of earning those final ten percent of progression needed to hit the peak of his current rank.

Actually, it was guaranteed to not be the best, considering the sheer insanity of picking this fight.

But as the system kept telling him, the powers it granted weren’t fixed, and could grow well beyond their original parameters, if he managed to achieve something sufficiently spectacular, before he advanced to the next rank, which was not something he could delay by any method, save stopping his progression entirely.

And with how aggressive the beings down here were, he could easily find himself attacked, forced to defend himself with lethal force, and pushed over that threshold whether he wanted that or not.

So, despite the inherent danger of what he was about to attempt, now was the time to do it.

The monster was … well, it would probably be considered a turtle, with a flat, wide, body, four flippers, and a beaklike mouth, but that was where the similarities ended.

Fingerbones that should have been invisible, ensconced within fleshy limbs that served to propel the creature forward stood out starkly against emaciated flesh, a thin membrane akin to the fins of a fish, yet his power told him that the bones were the weakest part of these limbs, and each row of bone, which would have been the fingers on a normal creature, was tipped with a claw that was even more durable than the fin itself, yet so thin that Kim could have easily missed it entirely, had his power not highlighted them in his vision.

A shell made up of countless bands of metal-shod bone covered both its top and bottom, making the truck-sized monster a living tank that had to weigh as much as a fully loaded city bus, and had more spikes than a hedgehog, countless blades with edges facing forward, promising death if anyone so much as swam past too close.

And the beak that topped its body was a lethal weapon of epic proportions, a pair of metal jaws that could slam shut with enough force to crush solid steel and would likely shrug off even an anti-ship missile.

Though the strangest thing was that this particular turtle seemed to have gills within itself, but not really gills. It was as though someone had taken plain reptilian breathing apparatus and jerry-rigged it to be able to work underwater.

Weird … and frustratingly hard to target.

This would be rough. Very rough.

And yet, in the grand scheme of things, could he avoid doing this? And, while that kind of thinking wasn’t proper for a soldier, who should have instead been following the call of duty, did he want to let this opportunity pass him by?

He had already been given a chance to grow, to gain superhuman powers and defend his home against both monsters and people so evil they might as well be running around with fangs and horns, wasn’t it a part of his duty to grow as strong as he possibly could?

Kim continued to stare at the monstrous turtle, looking for any vulnerability he could exploit.

The eyes, obviously, the gaps between armor plates, though those were hard to reach, the base of the fins had muscles that could be reasonably easily struck, and the shell retreated around them … and, of course, if he were to somehow dare to stick his hand into its mouth, well, he supposed its insides were somewhat vulnerable.

And yet, with all those razor blades … could he even use his explosive harpoons? The lines that were meant to pull the pins could easily get accidentally severed, so he’d have to adjust.

This. Was. Going. To. Suck.

Kim patted himself down one final time, ensuring that everything was in its proper place, that he hadn’t lost another knife, not without realizing it, making sure that the pockets he wanted closed were closed, and those he needed easy access to were open, checking his stock of harpoons and bombs … and then, finally, he began his attack.

The monster might have been adapted to this darkness since it lived here … but his vision was borne of magic, and unless the monstrous turtle was actively ignoring him, it obviously lacked any sight-related powers.

Slowly, oh so slowly, he swam up behind it, aimed for the largest opening on that end, and fired.

The hiss of escaping gas was brief, and normally so quiet as to be practically non-existent, yet within the silent void of this place, it was utterly deafening, somehow louder even compared to his memories of literal bombs going off down here.

But the pneumatic harpoon gun worked exactly as advertised, launching the heavy metal spear through the water until it lodged solidly where the sun wouldn’t have shone, even if it had been able to reach down here.

The turtle reacted, of course it did, who the hell would have been able to ignore a strike like that? But it was too slow to prevent him from seizing the line that connected the speargun to the harpoon and yanking, triggering the attached explosive’s timer.

Then, he immediately dropped the harpoon gun in question and yanked his backup, the one that used a rubber band rather than a pneumatic system, to his side and fired that one too, surprisingly landing a clean shot even though the monster was twisting like mad, plunging into the flesh just above its back left flipper … but when he yanked back the line, it moved far too easily. Shit, it had been cut.

Cursing, Kim grabbed the other gun before it could sink any further and slammed both into their holsters, and began to open the distance before the monster managed to build too much momentum. But it didn’t even bother.

Instead, it gnashed its teeth at him and … something happened.

The water around it seemed to vanish, leaving behind an empty space in front of its head that closed almost immediately as the ocean slammed shut the bubble of nothingness with a terrible force that sent Kim spinning through the ocean even though he’d already gotten almost fifty meters from the beast.

And when he finally stabilized himself, he was greeted with a monster charging at him while streaming dark clouds of blood … belatedly, he realized that the explosive harpoon had gone off simultaneously with the cavitation bubble attack.

He couldn’t get close, never even make the attempt. If that attack repeated, then … even if the turbulent wave didn’t kill him, getting slammed into that monster’s body would.

Gritting his teeth, Kim drew the pneumatic harpoon gun and rammed home a standard metal spear, its barbed head meant to cause maximum damage both on the way in and as it wiggled itself free as the monster moved. At least in theory.

The turtle launched itself forward, and Kim found himself paddling for his life. Supernatural strength to plough through the water or not, superhuman speed that should have made him untouchable seemed useless … and then it was past.

For the briefest of moments, Kim thought it had missed. Then, as his eyes tracked the turtle, his feet entered his field of view, showing shredded fins and a big toe that had been split completely down the middle, which was suddenly starting to hurt like hell from the very instant he first noticed it.

And the turtle was coming back around, its jaws opening wide …

Cursing, Kim began to jank out bombs, the ones with the longest fuses, from his vest and began scattering them into the water.

Wham!

One moment, he was busy doing that, the next, the world turned into a blur only to coalesce back into a solid form a split second later, one he bodily slammed into, feeling ribs creak in protest.

Then two lines of pain tore up and down his front, something he only belatedly realized stemmed from the tips of the monstrous turtle’s upper and lower jaw … he’d crashed into its head.

And that was a bomb, falling past him with only a handful of seconds left on the clock.

This time, Kim forgot that he was underwater when he jerked his mouth open to swear as he began rapidly paddling away, moving quickly, but not quickly enough … especially as glancing back revealed the monster’s jaws getting ready to slam shut once more.

But that was when the bombs blew, one after another, a string of lethal firecrackers detonating across the monster’s stomach and back, shattering spines, boiling skin, and battering internal organs.

Even through all the water that separated them, Kim felt the warmth of the bombs before it was swiftly extinguished by the bitter cold of the ocean’s depths … yet it was only a small, distant part of his mind that registered it.

Because the majority of him was busy screaming at him about the shockwave that had just slapped him in the face.

Kim wasn’t sure what would be worse: if the blur in his vision was his own blood, mostly rendered see-through by his power, or that he’d taken such a bad blow that he was having trouble seeing straight.

He pulled the harpoon gun up to his shoulder and pulled the trigger, but there was a puff of air, a loud crack, followed by a slightly louder thump, blinding him with a curtain of bubbles as his weapon fell apart.

…

That was why he’d been given a backup.

He began to paddle out of the way of the massive turtle, but it was surprisingly fast when it wanted to be.

Cursing internally, Kim began to angle himself towards its left-forward foot, deciding that if he couldn’t outright dodge, he’d mitigate the impact as much as possible.

And as if realizing that, the turtle twisted away at the last possible moment, bringing the flipper straight down on his back and spiking him into the deep ocean like a basketball, thoguh that had most likely not been the monster’s intention, it was still yet to figure out how water occasionally stopped resisting him when doing so would lessen the damage he received.

Yet at some point, those claws had caught his back, or something else had carved five lines of burning pain into his skin.

Kim glanced down, wiggling his feet, making sure he could still move them. Whatever had gotten cut up back there, his spine was fine … and then he slowly turned back to face the turtle, which was turning around to face him once more, his vision now clear.

Most of the damage he’d done previously was surface level, but everything on the outside of the body had gotten battered.

At least he’d cleared out the spines, the next collision with it would be safer, ri- … shit.

As he watched, the spines regenerated, popping right out of flesh that looked like it belonged on a cooking disasters show. At least the rest of its body didn’t seem to be healing … small mercies.

He needed to target those damn flippers, cripple its mobility, and do so before it killed him. And every time it hit him might be the last.

It tried to swat him again, but this time, Kim lunged even closer to the body, straight into the area that had to be free of spines to avoid destroying the fin itself, and rammed a harpoon into the flesh there at point-blank range, then yanked out the rope at its rear.

The explosion was still far too close for comfort, and at some point in his retreat, a spine had carved off a huge chunk of his right sleeve and a shallow layer of skin, but that was one fin down … and then another cavitation bubble rocked the ocean.

How many more times could he get hit by that, even distantly, and survive?

With a grunt of effort and a puff of blood flowing from his mouth, Kim hauled himself back towards the monster, yanked the harpoon gun up, and sent the harpoon plunging into the flesh at the base of the turtle’s intact front-left flipper.

More blood flowed into the water … and yet another cavitation bubble set him reeling.

They went back and forth like that several times, the fact that the muscles around the fin were constantly moving causing the damage from the harpoons to grow ever greater until they finally wiggled themselves free, though the sheer damage inflicted on the way out was … both impressive and nauseating.

The turtle was slower now, slow enough for him to avoid with relative ease.

Kim unleashed the final harpoon, then glanced at the inclinometer and began to swim “up,” positioning himself above the turtle, and began dropping bombs.

Adjusting the timers to the point where they blew right in the monster’s face took a few tries, but he managed it.

Of course, it wasn’t like his foe would just let him wail on it until it died, so it began to trigger the cavitation bubble over and over again, but Kim just retreated further back and kept dropping bombs, until he was down to his last three.

And then, finally, the monster’s body and the clouds of blood that darkened the water around both of them, was hidden behind a system window.

Razorspine Archelon (E-Rank)

The body of a particularly lethal variant of turtle, covered in bladed weaponry and capable of inflicting extreme levels of injury even in death, if handled poorly.

It contains a series of bony armor plates that can be transformed into durable but stiff armor, and countless razor-sharp spines with equally countless uses.

Its flesh is edible and considered tasty, but consumption can be dangerous, or potentially even lethal, if spines are accidentally swallowed.

And as seemed to be the normal way of the System of the Titan Hunter, he was almost immediately bowled over by a flood of notifications.

Due to slaying a truly powerful enemy, a titan of the deep at a higher rank than you, while using your power to its fullest extent, Studious Hunter’s Awareness has evolved into Gaze of the Predator!

Gaze of the Predator (F-Rank, optimum-evolved)

This is the power of a man who sees all the world’s creatures as potential prey.

It grants that man the power to see under almost all circumstances, regardless of light conditions or clouds of obscurant particles; furthermore, it grants partial 360° vision by compressing the view of your surroundings into a ring around the edge of your field of view (this effect is toggleable and will require training to use).

Furthermore, Gaze of the Predator is far more capable of analyzing enemy physiology and weak points.

Finally, when striking a weak point with a melee weapon, you may pay a tithe of mana to empower the next attack against this target, striking deeper, better penetrating armor, and suppressing healing.

This effect scales with the number of weakpoints struck before the energy is discharged. when discharged into a weakpoint directly, in exchange for a significant mana tithe, the energy can be instantly re-accumulated at the previous level.

This effect resets after five minutes without use.

Now, wasn’t that an impressive little upgrade?

If only he’d had more than a couple of seconds to read over the description …

Congratulations, Hunter!

You have reached the second stage of the Path of the Titanhunter, without losing any limbs, no less. But there is oh so much further to walk …

Now, select your next power:

Leaf in the Wind

Weakness Sight

Titan Trapmaster

Slaughter’s Heart

Lance of the Slayer

Toxin Lord

Divine Boarspear

Kim could feel his lips pull into a wicked grin, one that grew ever-wider as he scanned descriptions. These things were great!

Like this one:

Divine Boarspear (E-Rank)

This is the art of letting your enemies kill themselves against your defenses, and deflecting their strikes not by blocking them, but by shoving your weapon down their throats.

Any hunter wielding this power gains the ability to stand their ground against powerful foes at the cost of mana, locking themselves down while bracing their weapon in the path of the attack to allow an enemy to impale themselves, even if an enemy’s momentum would force them back. In addition, an enemy will take increased damage from their own momentum.

However, the true utility of this power comes from gaining resilience and a temporary defensive shield while attacking, based on the damage the attack is inflicting, making facing down a charging rhinoceros surprisingly safe.

This power optimally evolves from defeating tenacious foes, or those that prefer to use momentum-based attacks, or blocking a considerable amount of force from a formidable enemy.

Although his favorite was a different one.

Leaf in the Wind (E-Rank)

This is the art of casually avoiding even the most powerful of attacks, and riding the wind or waves created by your foes attempting to squash you to dance around them with ease.

Any hunter wielding this power can spend mana to decrease their own resistance to being moved, turning many attacks that would crush them into merely being brushed away.

In addition, they gain the ability to ride the currents created in the surrounding medium, especially those created by an enemy, to fly/rapidly swim across the field of battle and rapidly hunt a retreating foe.

All effects of this power require mana to produce, but not much.

This power optimally evolves from defeating foes of considerable size, strength, and durability, or defeating a powerful foe without ever touching the ground (fighting underwater does not count).

The ultimate agility power, as far as Kim was concerned, and one that perfectly synergized with his evolved F-Rank power, as Leaf on the Wind allowed him to stick very close to an enemy to better target weakpoints until he’d built up enough stacks in Gaze of the Predator to blow his enemy’s head off.

How long did he have until he’d have to come up for air, again?

Long enough for him to become a legend.

… after he returned topside and got himself fixed up.