Kwabooosh!
The sound of the notification was completely drowned out, but he already caught a glimpse of it and felt fear crawl up his skin.
The Harrier saw him enter the water and immediately picked up speed, circling faster and faster round him.
Jisung, caught right in the middle of it, was hit by waves and pressure too powerful to endure. He grunted, pulling his hands up to shield his face, teeth clenched.
’The pressure is too strong.’
He tried to swim up, a dumb move he only recognized a second too late.
The creature had made one powerful circle around him and launched itself forward creating enough pressure that pulled Jisung almost fifteen meters back, completely beyond his control. He was rolling in the dark waters, his eyes hurting and his lungs burning. When he finally stopped, the creature launched itself at him and Jisung gasped.
He knew that move.
Ever since the system update in the void, he could see and identify the Harrier’s abilities. Over the course of their fight, from the moment he fell off the cliff to now, he’d learned to recognize four of them.
The Velc Fracture Breath, where it released a massive blast.
The Velc Volley, where one blast split into three and struck like missiles.
The Velc Hollow Reversal, where it moved at a speed that made it nearly invisible. And its most common move...
[Velc Crash Lv. 20]
’That one.’
Jisung stayed as still as he could, watching the Harrier close the distance.
He clenched his jaw. He had to think. This was terrifying. The cold, the size of the thing, all of it. But he had to think past that.
’Think, Jisung. Think!’
He couldn’t keep dodging the way he had on land.
’I’ve got no chance against this thing. Less than thirty minutes left, and what can I actually do?’
Realistically, his body should fail from hypothermia before the timer ever ran out. The future wasn’t looking bright for Jisung, and he almost laughed at the thought.
He kept his body steady.
Watching the Harrier line up the charge, he knew exactly what came next. One smooth step left, and he’d dodge it clean. Same as always.
’But is that enough anymore?’
Dodging over and over again had only ever bought him seconds. He’d done it so much that he was now sick of it. This wasn’t a fight he could survive by outlasting, he had to kill this thing, or it would kill him first.
[TIME REMAINING: 00:33:19]
He let out a slow breath, more bubbles slipping from his mouth as he glanced at the message. His lungs burned, but he forced himself to stay still, watching the Harrier close in. He tried to think, but his brain wasn’t giving him anything.
It kept coming. He shut his eyes.
’Breathe.’
The Harrier launched at him, closing the distance and then...
Whuush!
It hit nothing.
It stopped. Scanning the area in confusion. There was nothing but... water. Empty water where Jisung had been half a second earlier.
It spun around, confused and searching for a target that wasn’t there.
’Gotcha.’
Jisung had moved just in time, grabbing a fistful of feathers near the Harrier’s head and locking his grip down hard.
He didn’t have a full plan yet. But for now, holding on was enough.
’I have to save as much energy as I can,’ he clenched his fist. ’...and wait for the moment it’ll actually count for something.’
The creature bucked hard and surged forward. Water pressure slammed against his ears like a slap, and it hurt.
But he held on.
The Harrier launched into a full sprint, dragging him through the water fast enough to rip the air straight out of his lungs. He screamed before he could stop himself, losing what little breath he had left.
His grip started to fail. His fingers cramped as feathers sliced thin lines into his palm, and finally it tore loose entirely, flinging him off.
He kicked hard for the surface with everything he had left, chest already burning.
He was close when suddenly, it struck again from the right. He barely got an arm up in time, catching the hit instead of eating it clean. Thank god the thing was big enough that even a glancing blow gave him something to hold onto.
He grabbed a fistful of feathers on instinct, hauled himself up along its flank, and drove his heel straight into its remaining eye with everything his body had left.
It shrieked, the sound alone nearly costing him the last of his air. He didn’t wait around to see if it would recover, he shoved off and swam up.
He broke the surface gasping, both arms locked around the shattered edge of the ice like it might slide out from under him if he let go.
[TIME REMAINING: 00:29:56]
He let out a deep breath. ’This won’t work either.’
The creature was too big and too fast that every trick that had gotten him this far wasn’t strong enough to land any real weight against something this size.
He floated there, staring up at the pale, uncaring sky, and forced himself to think. He took off his jacket, already soaked through.
"Sorry, hyung," he sighed deeply.
The scarf was gone and now the jacket too. This fucking creature was going to pay for both.
The cold hit his bare skin immediately, he could feel cold air kissing his skin. Thankfully, he was stronger now than he’d been that morning so he could endure it, at least for a while.
As soon as he dropped the soaked jacket onto the ice floor, for a second he wasn’t seeing the ice anymore.
A memory flashed before his eyes.
He was pulling his head up out of a pool water, gasping hard as air slapped his wet skin, eyes darting to the pool deck to check if Daniel had left.
He blinked coming back to the present. The memory let go of him as fast as it had grabbed him.
’...why did I just think about that?’
In the quiet of nothing but cold air blowing and ruffling his hair, a message rang out.
Ding!
[The Criteria Has Been Met]
[Massive Adaptability To Any Situation Lv.0 → Lv.1]
[(Insight): Activated]
Jisung froze.
Like a valve torn somewhere between his eyes, it hit him, so hard he fell backwards, sinking deep into the water. Blood roared through places it had never reached before. His skin prickled as every nerve lit up. The dark water no longer hid the Harrier. He saw it all: the branching rivers of vessels pulsing beneath its hide, the massive, slow drum of its heart behind the throat, the precise bunch and release of muscle fiber with every powerful beat.
He could predict the half-beat hitch before it turned. He could feel the shift in its weight even before it committed.
’Oh my god. This is...’
He was speechless. But a wild, sharp smile tore across his face.
Then the pain came, a splitting spike through his skull.
"Arrhh!" His hands flew to his head as the world blurred. Pain hit him hard like a brick
[Participant Yu Jisung Is Not Strong Enough To Sustain This Ability. Shortening The Activation Time]
[Activation Time: 01:00]
He read the message through gritted teeth and still managed a breathless grin.
’Talk about give and take.’
If Muscle Memory burned stamina like fuel, this one clearly taxed the mind.
The System didn’t hand out power without collecting interest. By the message alone he had understood the ability in theory.
Experiencing it though... was something else entirely. Like his brain had suddenly grown a hundred new eyes.
The Harrier came at him, and the water told him first. Pressure rolled ahead of it like a wave announcing itself. He could hear its heartbeat climbing at the instant it committed to the charge.
It felt incredible.
Then something clicked in his brain like a switch flipping on. It felt like his mind was connecting the dots with millions of thoughts all at the same time. Then it came to a stop abruptly, with one word on his mind.
’Speed.’
That was it. His mind ran through every memory of the Harrier charging at him from time past till this very moment, the same violent, efficient burst it had used in the snow, on the ice, and now here. He understood it all now. This creature’s unfair advantage was speed, and he was going to use that against it.
His grin widened, devilishly.
’Fast things need distance to become fast.’
That was the pattern of anything with the ability of speed. There’s a take off, in-motion and then the final hit. Eliminate one of that and it’s rendered helpless.
He smiled at how quick his mind was mapping out a solution. Every attack so far had needed ’room’ or rather, ’space’ to build into.
’Speed,’ Jisung realized. ’...had a cost. It required a runway.’
Out here, in open water, the Harrier had all the space in the world to gather itself before striking. But what happened if that space disappeared? If there was no gap left between his body and its target, what was left of its advantage?
Two things surfaced in his mind at once, arriving with the strange clarity ’Insight’ kept feeding him.
The first was something he hadn’t thought about in years. It was a stray memory yanked loose from somewhere in the back of his skull.
’High school.’
It was his biology teacher, standing, face focused on the board, chalk dust on his fingers, drawing a crude diagram of a mantis shrimp on the board while half the class dozed through last period.
"Its punch accelerates faster than a bullet leaving a gun," he’d said, half-amused at how few of them cared.
"Because the water can’t compress, all that force has nowhere to go but forward."
Jisung remembered laughing about it with a classmate afterward, calling it a party trick of nature. He hadn’t thought about that lecture once in the years since.
But he was thinking about it now.
The second thing that crossed his mind was simpler. He watched the creature’s body coil, gathering itself for another charge, and understood, with total certainty, that it needed distance the way he needed air.
Just then, a message rang out.
[Time Limit Elapsed]
[Massive Adaptability To Any Situation Lv.1 (Insight): Deactivated]
[Pain Reduced By Health Stat]
Jisung felt his head twitch once and thrust backward like it was about to explode. His chest was tightening in a way he’d never felt before. A pounding headache followed. His entire body was screaming in pain. And in that half second the creature reached him and slammed a shoulder into his side, sending him tumbling end over end through the dark.
’Damn you system! You lie.’
’If this was the pain with relief applied, a normal human would’ve died outright,’ he thought.
He surfaced from the daze with his ears ringing and his skull throbbing in time with his pulse.
’Give and take huh?’ he thought numbly, dragging himself upright in the water, ’I like. I wonder what it would have felt like if my health stat was on Lv.0?’
He didn’t want to know. He shook it off, watched the creature circle back for another pass, and clenched a fist.
He had the theory on what he needed to do. All he needed now was the body to match it.
Ding!
[STAT UPGRADE AVAILABLE]
He didn’t hesitate.
[Speed Lv.3 → 8 / Strength Lv.3 → 9 / Health Lv.7 → 8 / Stamina Lv.3 → 6 / Agility Lv.3 → 5]
[You Have Spent 5100 Coins]
For 300 Coins per level upgrade, Jisung nodded. ’It’s a good investment.’
Strength would decide how powerful the attack would be and how much damage it would deal. No use having the theory without the force behind it.
Speed would decide whether he could close the gap before the creature ever got its runway.
Stamina was the only thing standing between him collapsing from exhaustion and actually finishing this.
Agility would help with his body control and precision of movement.
And Health, well Health was apparently what stood between a headache and his skull actually caving in, so that one wasn’t optional either.
He cracked his knuckles underwater, watching the bubbles rise.
’No more thinking. Let’s kick some ass.’
He launched forward.
’’’
Author’s Note: If you’re enjoying the novel, don’t forget to add it to your library and show some support. It really helps!
’’’