"A dentist?" Trion sneered. "What is that?"

Without answering him, Vera took a single step forward and the tiles underneath her feet cracked when she leaped forward.

SPLASH!

Her small fist shot forward and was aimed straight toward Trion’s jaw. Watching this, his instincts barely kicked in time. He brought his massive arms up to block and crossed them in front of his face.

BOOM!

The impact created a temporary circle of air between them before the water rushed back in.

Trion was sent skidding backward across the floor, and he dug his talons into the stone ground to stop himself from going any farther.

"Ugh!" Trion grunted as his eyes narrowed in pain. His scales were cracked, and dark purple blood began to leak from his forearms. "How can someone so fragile-looking possess such brute strength?!"

He didn’t understand how any of this was possible. To him, humans didn’t exist. The world inside this Gate was isolated and contained only underwater beings that ruled the depths.

He had never seen a creature from the surface, let alone one that could push him back in his corrupted form.

"You speak too much," Vera muttered.

She didn’t give him a single second to breathe. She launched herself forward again. Every single one of her strikes was aimed at vital points.

CRACK!

BANG!

For the first few exchanges, Vera completely dominated. She avoided a claw strike by ducking under it and drove her knee straight into his ribs, which she followed up with a palm strike that sent him crashing against an already collapsed pillar.

’She is incredible,’ I thought to myself as I witnessed the fight from a safe distance while clutching Vera’s mask. ’Even without a weapon, her physical abilities are off the charts. If this were a normal C-Rank boss, she would have ended it by now.’

But as I watched, the faint smirk on my face began to fade slowly.

The black aura coming out from Trion’s chest continued to grow thicker, the spikes along his spine extended, and his movements suddenly became faster.

"Do not look down on the King of the Depths!" Trion roared, and his voice echoed through the palace walls.

He lunged forward as his hand clamped around Vera’s shoulder and slammed her heavily against the ceiling.

BOOM!

"Urrgh!"

The ceiling cracked, and chunks of stone rained down toward the ground.

Ignoring the pain, Vera gritted her teeth and drove both of her feet into Trion’s chest as she came down.

Both of them were panting now. Trion’s purple blood was floating everywhere, but Vera’s clothes were also torn in places, and a faint trail of red blood was beginning to drift from her shoulders where his talons had struck her.

They were equal now... somewhat. The strength of a world-ending demon form was catching up to Vera’s unrecovered physical power.

"You are strong, whatever you are," Trion wiped the blood from his mouth, and his eyes shifted away from Vera for a split second before locking directly onto me. "But you have a weakness, don’t you?"

As soon as he saw me clutching a pillar farther away from them, a grin spread across his face.

"That pathetic creature in the garbage mask. You care for him."

"Don’t look at him," Vera said and moved in between me and Trion, blocking his view of me.

"Hahaha! Let’s see how well you can fight while protecting a corpse!" Trion shouted.

He didn’t try to attack Vera this time. Instead, he kicked off the wall and charged directly toward me as he passed her.

’Shit.’

My heart skipped a beat, and I reached for the dagger at my waist, knowing damn well a regular Hunter’s dagger wouldn’t do anything against a monster this powerful.

But I didn’t need to move.

SPLASH!

Vera appeared out of nowhere and threw her entire body between me and the prince. She didn’t have time to form a proper stance. She just crossed her arms to take the hit.

SLASH!

"Woo Jin... step back..." she gasped before Trion’s claws sliced across Vera’s forearms, and blood erupted from the wounds.

"Vera!" I called out and took a step forward toward her. However, even though her arms were bleeding and her breathing was gradually getting heavier, she still told me to stay back.

"Don’t! I am fine!" she shouted.

This was the exact moment Trion found the perfect strategy, which was me. So, he didn’t stop and utilized his superior underwater agility to circle around us and launch fast hit-and-run attacks. Every single time, his target wasn’t Vera but me.

SWOOSH!

A dark energy blade flew straight toward my head, which Vera intercepted with a kick, but she stumbled backward.

CRACK!

"Why do you protect him?!" Trion mocked Vera as he swam all around us. "He is nothing! He can’t even breathe without your help! He is just useless!"

"Shut up... shut up!" Vera screamed.

She was getting frantic. Her movements were losing their precision because she was constantly splitting her focus between attacking Trion and shielding me from any debris or any other kind of attack. She was taking hits she would usually avoid effortlessly.

BOOM!

Trion caught her from the side while she was checking up on me. His fist slammed directly into her stomach and sent her crashing into the floor right next to my feet.

"Ugh..." A small puddle of red blood escaped her lips and floated upward in the blue water.

Vera struggled to push herself up. Her hands were shaking as she looked at me through her short hair.

She looked scared. Really scared. Not for her own life, but because she felt she was failing to keep me safe.

"I... I can still fight, Woo Jin," she whispered as she tried to stand between me and the monster. "I won’t let him... touch you."

Looking at her bleeding form, a wave of guilt washed over me. Right now, seeing Vera bleeding and broken just to keep a weak guy like me safe... it hit me hard.

’Damn it,’ I thought and gritted my teeth together so hard I could hear them clicking. ’This is getting out of hand. I can’t just stand here and act like a mysterious mastermind anymore while she gets beaten.’

I reached into the pocket of my pants, and my fingers wrapped around a cloth.

It was a small black cloth that had glowing white lines embedded into it. It was a one-time-use item capable of suppressing regeneration and could even effectively weaken the magic output of the wearer.

But there was a catch.

’It won’t work,’ I thought subconsciously as my eyes moved toward the dark pathway behind the throne room. ’The artifact requires the mana of the Gate to be perfectly stabilized. And that won’t happen unless Seok and the others successfully plant the obsidian trident into the altar’s core.’

If the trident wasn’t in its place, the cloth would simply be completely useless.

Trion walked slowly through the water, and his eyes curled into a triumphant expression as he raised his claws above the trembling Vera.

"It is over," the prince declared. "Die knowing that your weakness killed you both."

I gripped the cloth tightly in my hand, and my mind was screaming at the group behind the throne room.

’Seok... you better hurry up with that damn trident, or we are all going to die down here.’