Chapter 269: The Last Quest

The street in front of the Hunter's Guild building was filled with daytime noise. A few people in battered armor crowded around the outdoor notice board, thoughtfully studying the latest bounties. Iron and Noah approached the doors unhurriedly and stepped inside.

​The moment they crossed the threshold, the hum of voices, the clatter of wooden mugs, and the laughter in the hall began to rapidly fade. A wave of silence spread from the entrance to the back tables.

Experienced mercenaries and veterans sitting behind the wooden counters hunched their shoulders and froze. Some unconsciously moved their hands away from exposed sword hilts, while others slightly shifted their chairs, clearing space near the aisle.

​Iron stayed behind to wait right by the doors, leaning his shoulder against the wooden frame.

​Noah, meanwhile, walked up to the indoor notice board, snatched the right paper with a short motion, and headed for the main counter.

​Mary, noticing his approach, immediately perked up and straightened her posture:

​"Hello, Noah!"

​Noah placed the torn paper in front of her and said in an even tone:

​"Give me all my coins."

​"Yes, of course," the girl nodded eagerly.

​She took the paper, turned around, and walked to the heavy staff door right behind her. A couple of minutes later she returned, barely holding five tightly packed pouches in her hands, and set them out on the countertop.

​"And what about the mud monster? Did you..." she started to ask.

​Noah cut her off mid-sentence, tossing out dryly:

​"I killed it, but I couldn't get its fragment."

​Mary hesitated for a second, but quickly made a note in the ledger and nodded:

​"Yes, alright. Then we'll process this one quest for you. You're good to go."

​Noah took the paper, scooped up all five pouches from the table, and turned toward the exit. Stepping up to Iron, he silently offered him the money.

​Iron took the bags and, upon stepping out of the room, transferred them straight to the Main Building.

​Then, without stopping, Iron took the quest notice from Noah and fixed his gaze on it. Lumon's dry voice instantly echoed in his mind:

​"Scanning complete. Geographical coordinates of the destination locked."

​Iron took one calm step forward.

​Space collapsed. And in that same second, their feet sank into scorching, loose sand.

​The blinding sun beat down from above. All around, a desert stretched out with towering sand dunes, dotted only occasionally by cacti.

​Iron snapped his fingers.

​Beneath their feet, the spatial vector instantly shifted — the surface layer of scorching sand parted in a circle and slid to the sides, forming a deep funnel. Iron and Noah began to fall straight down. The shift affected not only the loose upper dunes but also a dense layer of dark, compressed rock that lay just beneath the sand.

​Falling into the newly formed chasm, Noah managed to notice the wavy, dark surface of a solidified petrified mass below their feet, showing traces of mud and sediment.

​They landed on this solid layer. Without pausing for a single second, Iron dropped to one knee and pressed his palm against the petrified floor, triggering a resonance.

​The dense rock beneath his hand instantly vaporized, turning into a fine gray mist. The ceiling collapsed, and they plummeted even lower, crashing right onto the stone floor of a dark underground tunnel.

​Noah got up and shot Iron a sideways glance:

​"Maybe that's enough already? This is actually my bounty, not yours."

​Iron, not even turning his head, replied calmly:

​"The faster we start, the faster we finish."

​"Yeah, but it's like, actually my monster," Noah insisted, readjusting his grip on his sword hilt.

​"Doesn't matter," Iron cut him off dryly.

​In that exact second, a beast burst out from the dark passage of the tunnel right behind their backs with a deafening screech. A gigantic, thick serpent was barreling toward them at breakneck speed. Its body looked petrified and was completely covered in deep cracks, resembling dried, parched earth, through which dark red organic matter glowed dimly.

​The serpent swung its massive maw open with a roar, preparing to snap its jaws shut on Iron all at once.

​But the engineer merely reached his right hand backward.

​The massive serpent froze in mid-air at full speed, just a few meters from Iron's back.

​The engineer calmly finished his sentence:

​"...whoever kills it, kills it."

​He clenched his fingers into a tight fist.

​The spatial field around the serpent contracted with colossal force. The monster's petrified torso crumpled with a deafening crackle, fractured, and in the next moment explosively shattered into thousands of tiny fragments and a cloud of dust that coated the tunnel's walls and floor.

​Iron immediately rose smoothly through the breached shaft, back to the surface of the desert, not caring about Noah in the slightest.

​Noah, getting his bearings on the fly, pushed off the floor powerfully with his legs, intending to jump out after him. But right above his head, Iron snapped his fingers again. The entire mass of previously removed sand crashed right back into the funnel.

​The avalanche of sand buried Noah mid-jump, killing his momentum and trapping him under several meters of loose sand. Noah got bogged down inside, clenched his jaw, and began stubbornly forcing his way through and clawing up through the thick layer of sand.

​At the same time below, in the caved-in underground passage, a small green core began to glow. The surrounding grains of sand and rock fragments started pulling toward it, reforming the long, flexible body of the petrified serpent anew.

​Noah had almost clawed his way to the surface, tearing through the scorching sand with his hands, when suddenly the entire mass beneath him trembled violently.

​The reconstructed Serpent burst from the depths at breakneck speed. It threw its stone maw wide open at full tilt, intending to swallow Noah instantly. In the final millisecond, Noah pumped blood into his right arm and unleashed a powerful swing with his sword — dozens of slashes erupted from the blade, instantly hacking the beast's muzzle to pieces. Sand and stone whistled as they flew in all directions, but they immediately fused back together, restoring the shape of its jaws. The maw snapped shut with a screech, and Noah found himself inside.

​Iron, observing all this from above through his scan, merely landed on the sand further away from the battle and lay down, closing his eyes.

​Trapped inside the serpent's closed jaws, Noah felt an unbearable crushing pressure. Right in front of him, he saw white lines spinning and intertwining at a frantic speed deep within its throat.

​Noah pumped blood into his right arm again and delivered a quick slash. Sand blasted in all directions from the impact, but immediately fell right back, taking no damage. Noah began to strike again and again without stopping — a flurry of slashes repeatedly crumbled the beast's insides, sand flying everywhere, but the overall structure of the maw wouldn't collapse.

​The cluster of white lines finally detonated, turning into a massive eruption of dense yellow-black energy. Noah took a swing — the slashes bursting from his blade struck out to meet the torrent, but were instantly swallowed by the erupting beam. Meeting resistance, Noah took the entire brunt of the blast head-on with his sword thrust forward.

​This solid beam of yellow-black energy punched straight through the thick layer of sand and shrieked right up into the heavens.

​The force of the pulse launched Noah high into the air along with the beam. As he was in freefall, the fabric of his clothes had completely burned away in places, the edges charred and smoking.

​In that same second, the Serpent's giant head broke out from underground again, rising after the falling Noah. The beast opened its maw, and inside its throat, a yellow-black sphere began to rapidly form for a second shot.

​While still in the air, Noah found himself beside the monster's neck in the next instant. He made a quick slash — dozens of deep slashes burst from the blade, instantly tearing apart the sandy neck. But once again, this dealt no direct damage.

​Landing on the loose sand, Noah immediately focused his vision and began to peer intently into the beast's torso, trying to locate its core. However, no matter how hard he stared through the dense layers, the core was nowhere to be seen inside.

​Right before his eyes, the giant Serpent instantly disintegrated into ordinary sand, which crashed to the ground with a loud noise. Noah froze, staring in surprise at the crumbled pile.

​But before he could even take a step, the fallen sand in front of him shifted back into motion and began to instantly build itself from the bottom up, taking the shape of the giant Serpent anew right in his face.

​The Serpent lunged forward, striking powerfully with its snout. Noah dodged at the last moment, taking a quick step to the side, and the beast rushed past at full speed. Pulling a sharp turn in the air and twisting into a spiral, the Serpent hurtled straight at Noah again. Noah rolled out of the strike's trajectory once more, tumbling across the loose dune.

​Kicking up clouds of dust, Noah froze for a second and shifted his gaze to the side. A little further away, Iron was calmly lying on the sand.

​Noah looked at him in bewilderment and shouted loudly:

​"Are you underestimating me?!"

​Iron replied just as calmly:

​"Nah... I'm just way too tired, so I'm trusting you with it."

​Noah was surprised for a moment, but in the very next second, a smirk appeared on his face.

At that exact moment, the Serpent dove down, burrowing deep into the sand with a deafening rustle.

​Noah instantly focused his vision. Through the thick layer of sand, he clearly saw white lines rushing straight toward his feet underground at a frantic speed. Noah made a sharp dash to the side, and right in the spot where he had been standing a fraction of a second ago, the Serpent's giant carcass burst from the ground, soaring high into the sky.

​Hanging in the air above Noah, the beast abruptly cast magic.

​In his peripheral vision, Noah saw thousands of tiny white lines spreading across all the sand beneath his feet.

​Noah immediately began to continuously shift his feet, stepping strictly onto those rare spots where these lines were absent.

​In the next millisecond, hundreds of sharp sand spikes shot up with a whistle from all the spots marked by the white lines. Noah barely squeezed into a narrow gap between two newly sprouted spikes, contorting his torso so the stone edges wouldn't graze his body.

​Using the tips of the spikes as footholds, Noah executed a series of rapid jumps and popped out right next to a lone cactus standing among the dunes.

​With one precise swing of his blade, he chopped the stem down at the root. Noah immediately caught it with his hand, wincing from the sharp pain.

​Noah hurled the chopped cactus with all his might straight at the Serpent. The Serpent failed to notice it and simply swallowed it whole.

​Noah lowered his arms and shook his hands forcefully, knocking off the cactus needles stuck in his skin.

​Iron got up from the sand and, looking at Noah, said:

​"I'll give you a hint — just look down."

​In that same second, Iron vanished.

​Noah looked around and lowered his gaze, but saw nothing.

"So what?!" Noah shouted.

​The Serpent lunged forward again, opening its maw. Noah made a sharp lunge, slicing the beast's torso, but in the next moment, the entire surface of the desert beneath his feet violently shuddered. The grains of sand trembled, and hundreds of individual grains slowly levitated into the air, hovering over the dunes.

​Focusing his vision, Noah saw white lines spinning at a frantic pace inside each suspended grain of sand. Sensing mortal danger, Noah dashed backward, trying to open up the distance. However, during his jump, one single grain of sand still managed to graze his face.

​In the next split second, all the sand grains suspended in the air instantly expanded, turning into sharp sand spikes that completely blocked out the space. The grain that hit Noah's cheek also instantly grew into a thin, prickly needle, slightly piercing his skin and leaving a short scratch. Noah opened his palm, trying to grab the falling spike, but it immediately lost its density, crumbling into ordinary sand and spilling through his fingers.

​At the same time, Noah noticed that at the very bottom there was some kind of dense cluster — dozens of white lines spinning wildly.

​Noah pumped all his blood into his right arm. He raised his sword above his head and delivered one incredibly powerful vertical slash downward.

​A colossal cleaving arc erupted from the blade. The force of the strike punched cleanly through the massive layer of sand and the solid rock beneath it. The several-meter-deep layer of sand parted to the right and left with a deafening roar, forming a deep chasm.

​Wasting no time, Noah jumped down before the sand walls started to cave in.

​The Serpent instantly lost its form, collapsing into sand, and in that very moment reconstructed itself at the very bottom, building itself right around the green core.

​Appearing before Noah, the beast thrust out its glowing stone snout, preparing to fire a beam of energy, while dozens of new sand spikes materialized around its body.

​Right in mid-air, Noah lightly tossed his blade forward and up. Pumping blood into both arms, he swung and clapped his palms together in front of him with all his might.

​The massive wave created by the clap instantly vaporized the surrounding spikes and slightly flattened the beast's sandy snout.

​Snatching the falling sword on the fly, Noah pumped the blood back into his right arm and delivered dozens of lightning-fast, seamless swings. Hundreds of slashes burst from the blade.

​For the first moment, hundreds of perfectly straight, motionless lines were merely traced across the Serpent's sandy head. But in the next split second, the accumulated kinetic momentum detonated, and the entire mass of its sandy snout blew outward with a whistle and flew back, completely exposing the green core.

​Noah made one precise vertical slash. The azure blade pierced right through the core. A few cracks ran across it, and it immediately crumbled into tiny shards before completely vaporizing.

​In that same second, the massive walls of sand around Noah shuddered and collapsed. Noah delivered a quick slash upward, punched through the thick layer of sand, and with a powerful push, popped out onto the surface, landing on the leveled sand.

​Noah exhaled heavily. Silence hung all around.

​He looked around. A few steps in front of him, space rippled slightly, and Iron stepped calmly right out of thin air. In his right hand, he held a small slice of cake.

​"Congratulations, you finally killed it," Iron said, looking at Noah.

​"Yeah," Noah replied dryly, sheathing his blade.

​Iron walked closer, casting a glance over his torn, scorched clothes.

​The engineer touched the charred fabric with his fingertips.

​In that very moment, a barely visible bluish outline swirled beneath his palm. Iron instantly began forcibly restoring the broken bonds between the molecules.

​Right before Noah's eyes, the burnt fibers of the fabric rapidly began to rebuild and weave back together, recreating their original structure. In a fraction of a second, the holes closed up, the soot vanished, and the clothes took on a brand-new appearance.

​Iron lowered his hand, inspecting the result with slight dissatisfaction:

​"Soon I'll make a technology that stops clothes from getting ruined during a battle."

​After that, Iron raised his hand, snapped his fingers, and they vanished from the desert.