CHAPTER 79: THE BEAST IN HUMAN SKIN

The two monsters—one forged of fragile, battered human flesh, the other a nightmare of green scales and ghostly smoke—clashed beneath the crushing weight of the Grey Sea.

They traded brutal blows like dueling gods, each movement a collision of fury and survival.

Above them, high within the spiraling cylinder of roaring wind and fire, Llarm hovered, staring downward with wide, astonished eyes.

"I’ve never seen him fight like this," Llarm thought, heart pounding. "He’s like a wild beast."

He had entered the wind tunnel minutes earlier, barely maintaining flight in its turbulent spiral. Now he floated near the top, the walls of churning air groaning around him, peering down into the abyss where Lucy battled the leviathan alone. Every instinct screamed at him to fly down and help. But he didn’t. Couldn’t.

If I go in there now, I’ll die. Worse, he’d be a distraction or a liability. Lucy’s only shot was doing this alone.

So instead, Llarm waited, eyes sharp and ready. If even the smallest window opened to support his friend, he’d take it.

Below, amid the chaos of swirling water and fractured magic, Lucy stood alone on the stone platform, chest heaving with ragged breath.

"Oh, you’re mad, aren’t you?" he roared, grinning like a lunatic. "Then come do something about it!"

He could feel the rage swelling in the water. It wasn’t just a sensation—it was pressure. It rippled through the sea like a heartbeat of hatred, pulsing toward him with monstrous intent.

Lucy threw his arms wide, palms facing the broken sky above. The magical tunnel shimmered around him, awash in hues of gold and bruised violet light. Fire and wind twisted in a dance of chaos. His soaked cloak snapped behind him like a torn flag, and blood ran down his forearm in lazy rivulets.

"I’m standing right here!" he shouted into the storm, laughter tearing from his throat—harsh, cracked, a little too loud.

It wasn’t funny.

It wasn’t sane.

But gods, it felt right.

So many nights marching through the Hollow with sleep-starved eyes and wounds that barely closed. The illusions, the screams, the nightmares, his friend’s injuries, almost drowning, and the bone-deep exhaustion of surviving a world that wanted to erase him. He’d held it all in.

Now, at the bottom of a cursed sea, with a monster the size of a fortress charging straight for him, he finally let it out.

Then—

CRACK.

The wind barrier behind him shattered again, and a spear of cold seawater burst through.

Lucy reacted instantly, arms sweeping outward. Divine wind howled to life and stitched the air closed before the sea could devour him.

"Good job, beasty!" he bellowed, not even turning around. His arms were still out wide, head tilted back. His grin had only grown more feral. Salt clung to his lips. His eyes burned red from fatigue. "You’re learning!"

A roar answered.

Not a sound—a force. The leviathan charged forward, its body twisting through the tunnel like a tsunami. The grey sea behind it churned in its wake, disturbed by a serpent of smoke and scale, half in this world and half in the next.

It opened its jaws—massive, glass-fanged, wide enough to crush a carriage. Mist rolled from its maw, glowing faintly with unearthly green fire. Its eyes burned with a hatred Lucy could feel in its marrow.

But this time, he didn’t dodge.

He was done playing mouse.

As the beast surged forward, Lucy planted his feet and gathered wind beneath him. With a sharp inhale and a guttural shout, he launched himself upward, the magic snapping beneath his boots like a thunderclap.

He soared over the monster’s open mouth—heat and mist brushing his legs—and came crashing down with a wet, brutal thud onto the leviathan’s skull.

Its body flickered again—once, twice—but didn’t vanish. The radiation was working. Whatever made it incorporeal before was breaking down.

Scales like broken glass tore into his palms. He didn’t flinch.

The thing bucked wildly, but Lucy stayed on, grabbing hold of the curved horns that jutted from its smoking head like ancient bone spires. They burned hot to the touch—searing his palms—but he held fast.

"Let’s ride," Lucy whispered through gritted teeth, eyes blazing.

And then the two of them—human and monster—disappeared into the Grey Sea.

Lucy clung to the back of the serpent like a madman on a dragon, thrashing violently as the beast tore through the Grey Sea at breakneck speed. Its jagged green scales ripped into his bare arms and sides—no armor left to shield him. Blood spilled from his skin in streaks, vanishing instantly into the freezing, suffocating depths.

He couldn’t see a damn thing.

Didn’t matter.

He had his prey.

Letting go with one hand, Lucy turned his body sideways, gripping tight with his left. His right hand pressed against the leviathan’s slick, steaming skull. A manic grin curled across his lips, right before a blast of frigid seawater shot down his throat.

He gagged hard, coughing underwater like an idiot. The sudden convulsion almost sent him flying off the monster’s back.

But Lucy locked in again, sucking in a sputtering breath through clenched teeth as the Crucible flared inside him to keep his lungs from imploding.

His palm flattened once more against the creature’s skull.

"I wonder how it feels," he thought, eyes narrowing, "to have atomic radiation crawl through your brain."

Then he let it rip.

Radiation surged from his hand in a torrent, not a stream. Raw, nuclear heat poured into the beast’s head like molten poison. The leviathan shrieked—no sound, but Lucy felt it. Like the sea itself recoiling.

Its body twisted violently. Smoke coiled off its scales. Its flesh warped and boiled beneath him. The creature bucked and spun, slashing through the water like a green missile gone haywire.

Lucy held on.

Barely.

Water pressure hammered at him, threatening to rip his fingers free. His grip faltered. For a second, he almost lost it.

But he gritted his teeth, muscles screaming, and dug in deeper.

"You’re not getting away," he growled under his breath, voice barely a whisper in the crushing sea. "You’re mine."

Another surge of radiation.

Another convulsion from the beast.

Its agony was electric, rippling through its muscles like a thousand snapping wires. Its screams vibrated through the water, and each one made Lucy grin harder.

He was hurting it, really hurting it. And after everything Hollow had thrown at him, this was catharsis.

Then he looked up.

A flicker of orange fire—his fire—still sputtered at the top of the wind tunnel, barely holding. His eyes widened.

"Wait—"

Shit.

The leviathan was barreling straight toward it. A full circle. It was bringing him home to crash through his barrier.

BOOM.

The impact hit like a meteor. Lucy’s body was launched into the air, flailing through the crash of displaced seawater and collapsing magic. His shoulder twisted mid-flight, something snapped, and then—

THUD.

He hit the stone floor hard, like a dropped doll. A larger layer of water coated the platform, chilling his skin as it soaked through his torn clothes.

A groan escaped him. Then a cough. Then a laugh.

Above, the leviathan reared back.

Its body uncoiled like a spring loaded with rage, stretching higher and higher inside the wind tunnel. The smoke-wrapped length of its form brushed near the top, shy of Llarm, who hovered in stunned silence. Lucy hadn’t even realized he was up there.

The leviathan was in shambles.

Chunks of scales missing. Flesh charred from the fire cylinder. Its massive head blistered from the radiation pulsing through its skull. Parts of it flickered like a failing illusion—half-transparent, half-solid.

It should’ve been dying.

But its eyes...

Its eyes hadn’t dulled at all.

They locked onto Lucy—pure fury, nothing else. There was no retreat in that gaze. No fear. Just murder.

It coiled tighter.

And dove.

Lucy’s body screamed at him to stay down. Every muscle spasmed. Bones cracked as the Crucible tried frantically to put him back together again. His nerves lit up like lightning wires. His blood burned.

But he moved.

Gods help him, he moved.

He staggered to his feet with a snarl, summoned wind at his back, and launched upward toward the monster’s open jaws.

The wind shrieked past him, his cloak flaring like dying wings.

And as he flew, he summoned every last drop of mana left in him. The current surged through his veins like liquid fire, coalescing in his right hand—a sphere of power so dense it cracked the air around it.

This was it.

One shot.

He met the leviathan mid-air—just him and a living hurricane of teeth and fury.

And he threw everything he had into the final blow.