Levi woke up, grabbing onto the wall, letting out a groan. These dreams always ended with him having to deal with severe headaches.
“These dreams, or memories, keep getting painful; the more I remember them.”
Seiko, who had never ever dreamt in 20 years of life back on Earth, dreamt when he became Levi in this world. Memories of previous Levi, when he was eight years old, always came as whispered visions to him.
And most of it was always the same. A kid version of Levi, with his mom and dad at the same three-story wooden house eating dinner, gathering woods, sometimes doing laundry together, and sometimes catching glimpses of training with his father.
But the one he saw today was different. The usual atmosphere in the dream had died down. From the start, though Levi couldn’t control anything, he could tell something was wrong.
Not only was it physically painful, his emotion-dead heart tightened and expanded, wanting to let out its agony but also afraid of someone laughing at it. Afraid of being judged by the world.
Seeing his mother, well, the previous Levi’s mother cry, solidified one fact.
‘The worst memories are yet to come. It would be better for me to not know but-.’
He sighed because the inevitable would happen anyhow. Also, he was a bit surprised to know that Levi and Eliza in the past had met before. There were moments in a previous dream where the state of Urn was mentioned, but since Levi didn’t even remember most of the memories because of the pain, he couldn’t make any sort of connection.
Those two did know each other, or maybe even became friends, which didn’t bloom like how their parents would have wanted.
Now, with memories, he could find out why Levi said those things to Eliza. Though he found it better to just hear about it than experience it.
Levi got up from the bunk bed, sorting his thoughts, but then a telepathic message was transmitted to him.
[Master]
The central eye knew that Levi woke up, and even if he hadn’t, it would have to force him to wake up.
[The lesser eyes have spotted a sea beast, heading straight towards us.]
‘Why didn’t you wake me up if we entered the blue region?’
[No, we are still in the green, just a few kilometers away from the blue border. The monster’s den must be at the line of the separated region for it to attack us.]
‘Order the lesser eyes to keep a watch on it. You also join them and start debuffing the beast.’
[As you wish.]
The central eye, without wasting any second, headed straight towards the pathway of the beast.
Sea beasts are extremely territorial creatures. Once they settle and claim a certain spot as theirs, trespassing or causing damage would anger them. Most of the land mana beasts don’t mind anyone entering unless they leave in time without any disturbance.
The sea ones, however, don’t think twice before attacking.
The most effective way to ward off such beasts was simple: to have a stronger aura than them. So dominant that they cower by sensing one’s presence.
Levi was strong, but not to the point where he could scare off a beast by his aura alone. As Levi reached the dock and then near the helm, where Rika was standing on the edge of the dock, looking ahead where the central eye had flown towards and vanished.
Activating his Hunter Eyes, which boosted his vision to over 2.5 km, ripples formed above the surface where the beast swam and approached the boat.
His vision penetrated the ocean as he watched a 15-meter-long snake-like creature, with a fin at the tail, come towards them. It had green scales, with a hint of blue at its tail.
Its lower body was covered with white scales and two fins attached to the middle side. That part of it looked cute, if not for its head. Two pairs of green eyes, the absence of a nose like most aquatic creatures, and its enormous gaping mouth, filled with shark-like teeth, with the front two like that of a snake.
As it swam, it had been opening its mouth, swallowing the water, and peeing it at the same time. The pee had so much force that it was increasing the hydra’s speed. There was a hint of magic in that, but the technique was still a bit weird and gross. It was, as it was swimming towards them, a peeing water rocket.
“That’s a hydra. Green, but some of its scales are blue and it looks really angry.”
Rika looked at Levi and back at the sea, her eyes still not catching anything. How Levi managed to do so, she could only wonder.
“If it’s green and a bit blue, then that means it’s still in its teenage phase. And like a teenage human, it must want to be left alone and not let anyone in its personal space.”
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Rika had seen such hydras across her journey. Hydras are blue and are found in the blue region. They only come to the green region to lay eggs because it is a lot easier for them to raise their offspring in a less predator-filled area.
The green ones aren’t hostile, but the one attacking them was in the middle of its growth. Filled with confidence and ego, it wanted to show the ocean its terror by destroying the ship.
“How close is it?” Rika asked, her tone without the usual quirkiness.
“1 km away. It’s going to take it only 5 minutes if it keeps swimming like this,” Levi replied.
Rika wanted to turn the ship in another direction and take a different route, even though that would take longer if the hydra was far, but now it was too late. The hydra would still chase them, and the ship wasn’t fast enough to get it off their tail, and they could encounter another beast or monster, adding more to their plate.
“Levi. Take out every item we brought. There is something that can stop it in an instant. Running away from it now isn’t possible.”
But unlike what she said, Levi took out his bow and arrow as he walked towards the front edge of the ship.
Rika flew and pecked him on the head, then started pulling his ears. “Do you think an arrow is enough to stop that beast? You are either stupid or too overconfident?”
Though she had never seen Levi fight, the hydra wasn’t an easy opponent. Even the veteran sailors and awakeners avoided fights and used items that provided victory in the safest way possible.
The moment one travels in the sea, they are at a disadvantage. Humans aren’t creatures of the ocean. No matter how proficient one is in water magic or any magic or spell, they cannot compete with those creatures who have grown to fight on water.
And fighting nature’s law itself never ever took a good turn.
Levi knew this. Just standing on the ship, that kept moving and swaying, messed his stance. It wasn’t easy, but that didn’t mean he could rely on items all the time.
“You are spot on. I am the mix of both, stupid and overconfident.”
Rika shook her head. Now even she could see ripples on the surface and beneath it a dark long shadow, making its way to them.
Levi pulled the arrow on the bowstring. Closing his eyes, he pictured the same thing he did while fighting on Barl. A spark, an ignition, the creation of his will, a fire surging out of thin air, ready to burn anything that it touched.
‘I have the mana of an S-rank.’
[
[Essence] activated.
A new power has started to be part of your soul itself.
]
The status message floated in front of him, which he ignored.
A vast amount of energy surged into him, and he focused not on letting it destroy his body. Waiting for the central eye’s signal, he closed his eyes.
Rika’s grunting and panic reached his ears. The monster got closer, but not once he lost his focus. The central eye never betrayed his expectations, and now too it wouldn’t.
The hydra now also could see the boat up close, which it had only sensed before. But suddenly, the young hydra felt heavier, as if gravity suddenly started pulling it down with much greater force. The strength in its tail and the pee that it was using to swim started decreasing.
It didn’t know how this was happening, and in a rage, it howled. Any creature in the green region started to run away from it to the nearest shore.
Levi now activated Snipe and visualized a fire forming in thin air around the tip of the arrow without burning it. And it happened. The fire started accumulating at the tip, getting larger the more he fed it with his energy.
“Fire? You are using fire to battle a hydra in its habitat?” Rika kept complaining, but her words didn’t reach Levi.
He compressed it to the best of his ability and then let go of the arrow.
*Swish*
It took the arrow five seconds to be exactly in front of the hydra. And it took 0.2 seconds for the hydra to realize it from the depths of its instinct…it had messed up. It manipulated the water and surrounded itself in it. But that wasn’t enough.
The arrow, though it had touched the water, didn’t lose its strength and the fire, which wasn’t surrounding it, didn’t die down. It touched the hydra’s defenses and then-
*Boom*
For a moment, the ocean was torn apart, as the droplets of water exploded into the sky, sending a chill through the atmosphere. The force pushed back the ship a bit and the hydra. Rika could see it being thrown into the air, away to the same place where it came from.
But the most surprising part was - the ocean or the place where the arrow hit was on fire. The surface of the water was burning. Vapors were coming out from it, as its sizzling sound reverberated in the vast, empty ocean.
The central eye soon arrived, removing its invisibility. Levi cupped his palm for it to sit on and rubbed its head with his finger.
“Tell the lesser eyes they did good, and you, too, have done well.”
The puffed fur ball relinquished as it finally felt useful after many unsuccessful attempts in the past to defuff Levi’s enemies.
Rika watched the two interact as if they had been doing this type of stuff every day. Maybe they do it every day, for them to take on this ordeal, with such calmness.
Even though her eyes caught every glimpse of the action, all of this felt unreal. Until now, if somebody said to her they could push a hydra meters away without killing it, within its own domain, she would give them a squeaky laugh.
She flew towards him, impressed, not hiding it.
“That was so cool. You lit a part of the ocean on fire. Wait, those flames.”
She looked ahead to see the fire still there, with no signs of stopping. Levi noticed this and reached his hand out. As he started closing his palm, the fire started dying down, and now it was back to normal, with still some steam rising up.
Rika’s beak opened wide, trying to understand with her peanut-size brain - what the heck just happened?
She didn’t know anything about magic. But Levi’s action, to her, seemed beyond magic. She looked at him and wondered why she had never heard of him before.
During her adventure and now as a companion of one of the greatest merchants, she had met and heard of many geniuses and prodigy in combat, but never did she hear Levi’s name come up.
Maybe he didn’t fall into the prodigy category, someone who wasn’t one in a million, but someone who existed only once in the entire universe itself.
She couldn’t understand all of this, so just let it go, and flew towards the central eye, intruding in his personal space.
“I didn’t know you were cool, Eye. You flew away, then, and then the hydra seemed to be weaker. What kind of spell is it? Can you teach it to me as well?”
The Central Eye puffed up its fur and spanned its bat-wings. Seeing Rika admiring it boosted its ego and also gave it a chance to reign superiority over the stupid parrot.
[Only I can do that. Nobody in the world is capable of what I am doing. And such techniques can’t be taught. Only I, the almighty demo-companion, can do so.]
Seeing the Eye act this way, Rika lost her curiosity and turned away, putting her wings on her head. “You would be so cool if you didn’t act this way. Egotistical fur ball.”
[You green feather ball of annoyance.]
And again, their fight started.
Levi shook his head and put both of them onto the boat’s edge and looked ahead not to the scene but at his status window with two words displayed on it.
“Inferno Genesis”