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Although it didn't cause any fatal damage, Darian's "laser hair removal" maneuver had successfully angered Karathen.
It let out a low roar, and four giant tentacles swept through the seawater simultaneously, lashing out at Darian from all directions.
Darian reacted quickly, dodging the tentacle strikes repeatedly. The tentacles slammed into the surrounding ruins, sending stone chips and mud flying. The pristine ancient ruins were smashed to pieces in the blink of an eye, and even the stone throne of the first king had half of it shaved off. Its destructive power was comparable to a Husky.
Just then, Arthur swam through the passage into the depths of the ruins. Upon entering, he saw the scene of Darian entangled in a fight with several giant tentacles, and his eyes widened in shock.
He weighed the situation in his heart; if he were to go up there, he estimated he wouldn't last more than a few moves before being whipped into a spinning top by the tentacles.
"Can't mess with that, definitely can't mess with that."
Arthur quickly shrank his neck and scanned the area.
He quickly noticed the skeleton of the first king of Atlantis on the throne, as well as the holy trident in its hand, which was glowing with gold and constantly emitting ripples.
Vaguely, Arthur seemed to feel a summons from the holy trident.
"This object is fated to be with me!"
Arthur's face lit up with joy, and he immediately swam toward the throne.
He leaned in front of the first king of Atlantis, cleared his throat, and said in the smallest voice possible, "No one wants this, right? If no one wants it, I'm taking it."
Seeing no response, he assumed the first king of Atlantis had acquiesced. Arthur chuckled and reached out to grab the holy trident.
But before his fingers could touch the holy trident, a large shadow suddenly covered his head.
The next second, an incredibly thick tentacle suddenly coiled around him, wrapped tightly around his body, and lifted him straight into mid-air.
"You lowly half-breed bastard! How dare you attempt to steal the holy trident? Your crime is unforgivable!"
Karathen's furious voice made his eardrums buzz underwater.
Arthur could also understand Karathen's words and explained with a dry laugh, "I asked just now; I thought no one wanted it."
Karathen became even angrier upon hearing this.
Another person who could understand its speech.
If this were before, it would certainly have felt happy.
After all, being able to understand it meant having the potential to be a king. As long as one raised the holy trident, they could become the rightful new king of Atlantis, and it would fulfill its mission and leave this place to gain freedom.
But today, two people who met the criteria appeared at once.
As it turned out, one was a human who wanted to roast it and eat it the moment he opened his mouth, and the other was a half-Atlantis half-breed who was light-fingered and came up trying to sneakily steal things.
With these two characters, not to mention whether they were qualified to pick up the trident, if one of them really became king, Atlantis would probably fall within a few days.
Karathen didn't listen to Arthur's explanation at all, and the tentacle gradually applied force, tightening more and more.
Although Arthur's physique was far superior to ordinary people, it was nothing in front of Karathen. He felt all his bones creaking as they were squeezed, his face flushed red, and he could barely breathe.
Over here, Darian caught a glimpse of Arthur being grabbed. He immediately shook off the few tentacles that were entangled with him and turned to rush over.
"Arthur, hang on! I'm coming to save you!"
Before his words even faded, Darian's eyes lit up with a blinding golden light, and two beams of golden electricity shot straight toward the tentacle wrapped around Arthur.
Arthur's face turned pale with fright, and he tried his best to raise his hand and scream.
"Don't come over, no, no, no, no, no!"
Before he could finish speaking, a familiar electric current instantly swept through Arthur's entire body, causing him to twitch violently and uncontrollably.
The tentacle wrapped around him was also scorched black on the surface by the electricity. Karathen felt a slight stinging pain and subconsciously released the tentacle.
Arthur floated down, belly up, his hair standing on end, smoke rising from his body, and his fingers trembling as he pointed at Darian.
"You... you..."
Darian felt a bit awkward: "An accident, this was purely an accident."
Arthur: You just admitted the last time wasn't an accident!?
Before they could say a few more words, Karathen's roar came crashing over.
It was already full of rage, and now that it was injured, it was truly infuriated.
The seabed suddenly bulged, and two even thicker and longer tentacles emerged from the ground, turning into a slave driver. Six thick tentacles lashed wildly at Darian, much faster than before.
Karathen had lived for thousands of years and had been the final boss here for so long that its combat experience was quite rich. The six tentacles swung in a dense, airtight manner, covering almost all of Darian's movable area.
Darian dodged several of them in succession, but unexpectedly, one of them suddenly accelerated from the side and rear, whipping straight at his lower back.
He reacted extremely quickly, pulling out the spear of longinus with a backhand motion and stabbing it into the lunging tentacle.
But for Karathen's ridiculously massive body, the depth that the spear of longinus pierced was about the same as an ordinary person getting a splinter in their finger.
The tentacle's momentum didn't diminish, and it slammed hard into Darian, knocking him flying.
He crashed through several dilapidated stone walls and broken stone pillars, finally slamming heavily into the mud and sand on the seabed, kicking up a large cloud of murky dust.
Before the mud and sand could disperse, Darian stood up from the pit, having suffered no substantial damage.
"As expected of the ancient Guardian of Atlantis, you really have some substance."
In fact, Karathen didn't have any fancy special abilities. As the saying goes, mass is strength. Relying on its exaggeratedly huge size, it had pushed its strength and defense to a terrifying level, capable of dealing significant damage just with basic attacks.
"Since I'm fighting a monster, there's a prop I can use."
He pulled a potion that looked like an energy drink from his game inventory, unscrewed the cap, tilted his head back, and gulped it all down in a few swallows.
[Item: Giant Potion (After drinking, you can turn into a ten-meter-tall giant for a period of time, but be careful of a certain 1.6-meter dwarf, and at the same time, protect your nape)]
"Gaia!!"
Darian shouted at the top of his lungs, and his body immediately began to expand.
His height rose rapidly, and the clothes on his body expanded and enlarged synchronously, not being torn apart by his growing body.
In just a few seconds, Darian grew into a ten-meter-tall giant, as tall as a three or four-story building, much taller than when he ate the red mushroom. Compared to him, the surrounding stone pillars suddenly looked much smaller.
As his size increased, his various physical attributes also improved synchronously.
Of course, this height was still not enough in front of Karathen.
A single tentacle was a hundred meters long, and its main body was at least a hundred meters in size, much larger than Darian after his transformation.
But that wasn't an issue.
Darian then pulled out a small sunflower planted in a small flowerpot.
[Item: Sunflower (Can continuously produce trace amounts of solar energy)]
The little sunflower swayed gently, spitting out a ball of warm sunlight that seeped directly into his body through Darian's skin.
The next second, the passive effect of the Sin of Pride was triggered.
The current Darian was no longer an ordinary giant, but a Krypton giant.
Whoosh—!
A dull sound of water flow rang out again, and a tentacle swept over with terrifying momentum.
But after Darian's size increased, the tentacle, which previously looked incredibly thick, seemed much thinner by comparison.
He raised his arm to block the tentacle, forcibly bearing the strong impact, and then backhanded his fingers, digging them deep into the flesh of the tentacle, while a large burst of surging Hellfire erupted from his palm.
The flames instantly spread along his palm to the surface of the tentacle. The high temperature made the tentacle sizzle. Even Karathen's thick and tough skin couldn't withstand the burning of the Hellfire. The skin and flesh turned scorched black at a speed visible to the naked eye, and even the surrounding seawater was burned until it bubbled.
"Roar!!"
Karathen felt the pain immediately, letting out a sharp hiss, and the entire tentacle swung wildly, trying to rely on the seawater to extinguish the Hellfire on it.
But the Hellfire was completely unafraid of seawater; instead, it burned even more fiercely in the water, and the aroma of roasted squid instantly drifted through the air.
Darian sniffed and smacked his lips: "You smell so delicious."
"Bastard!!"
Karathen was furious, its roar making the surrounding seawater tremble slightly.
The remaining five tentacles attacked simultaneously, whipping toward Darian with the sound of breaking water, with more force than before.
However, several thick black tentacles suddenly emerged from Darian's body, meeting the attack head-on and blocking all of them.
Karathen was shocked.
Could this guy be its distant relative?
"Get out here!"
Darian grabbed the tentacle in his hand tightly, his single wing flapped violently behind him, and he took off into the air, pulling upward with all his might.
Although the energy provided by the sunflower was not as good as the midday Sun, under the amplification of the Sin of Pride, Darian's strength was comparable to a Kryptonian. Moreover, he was now in a ten-meter-tall giant form, and the mass advantage brought by his size allowed his strength to increase by several orders of magnitude.
Under his terrifying pull, the tentacle instantly straightened, the mud and sand on the seabed were churned up, the rock layers originally buried deep underground bulged and cracked, and large pieces of rubble were pushed aside.
The root of the tentacle extended deep into the ground, and the body hidden underneath was pulled up and exposed.
The next moment, a monster of suffocating size was forcibly dragged out of the ground by Darian.
Karathen's true face was finally fully exposed to view.
On top of its head grew a pair of huge horns, and on both sides were three pairs of horns of different sizes, all pointing forward. Its mouth was filled with staggered sharp teeth, and its chin was exaggeratedly sharp, even sharper than those male leads in comics.
Its whole body was covered with strip-shaped armor plates. The front half of its body had a pair of huge pincers, and under its abdomen were several pairs of symmetrically distributed crab legs. The rear half dragged a long, thin tail with a fin at the end, surrounded by several octopus-like tentacles. The entire image was visually striking.
Overall, Karathen was a stitched-up creature similar to a squid, shrimp, and crustacean; it was a total seafood medley.
After seeing the full picture of Karathen, Darian realized he had underestimated this monster. It was simply too big; his ten-meter height wasn't even as big as Karathen's head.
Darian couldn't help but mutter: "Such a big one, if I really boiled it, how long would it take to eat? Besides, there's no pot big enough, right? The Kun is so big that one pot can't stew it all."
Karathen was forcibly dragged out of the ground by Darian. It was stunned for a moment, and then hearing Darian's words, its anger reached its peak.
It actually treated it as seafood!?
It turned its huge body, and those large pincers suddenly opened, clamping toward Darian with turbulent water flow.
With the scale of these big pincers, even an aircraft carrier could be easily crushed.
Darian let go of the tentacle in his hand, his single wing flapping rapidly. Before the pincers could close, he passed through the middle, shooting two golden electric beams at Karathen's body along the way.
After his size increased, the electric beams he shot were several times thicker, no longer at the level of laser hair removal.
The electric light instantly melted Karathen's outer shell, penetrating little by little into its flesh. Karathen roared in pain, its huge body swaying continuously in the water, churning up the mud and sand in the entire ruin area, making the view blurry.
Darian quickly rushed to the front of Karathen's head.
The Giant Potion only synchronized and enlarged the clothes and armor on his body to maintain a viewable rating. The spear of longinus in his hand was still its original size, looking like a small flying stick in his hand.
Darian simply put away the spear of longinus, clenched his fist, summoned all his strength, and punched Karathen hard in the face.
Boom—!
A dull, loud sound spread through the seawater, and the surrounding water flow was churned wildly by the impact.
Darian's strength was too fierce. Karathen's huge head was knocked heavily to one side, and its massive body couldn't help but retreat dozens of meters, stopping only after hitting a large rock wall behind it.
Darian flapped his single wing and flew in front of Karathen, looking down at it.
"Do you submit?"
"Roar!"
Karathen didn't speak, just let out an angry roar.
Darian didn't hold back either, punching Karathen's head again. The hard outer shell cracked, making Karathen's head buzz.
The current Darian was a ten-meter-tall Krypton giant. Purely in terms of physical strength, it had long exceeded the scope of this size, just like the difference between a Kryptonian and a human under normal size.
Even though Karathen's size was much larger than Darian's, the two were completely not on the same order of magnitude in terms of stats.
"Do you submit?"
"Roar!"
Karathen was very stubborn.
It meant that although you knocked me down, I still don't submit.
Darian grinned: "Very well, then I will beat you until you submit."
He used both fists, plus several black tentacles, to launch a series of inhumane beatings on Karathen.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The dull sounds continued one after another, and the entire seabed shook wildly, just like an earthquake.
Karathen was able to roar in resistance at first, but later its roar became weaker and weaker, leaving only muffled groans.
Mera and Queen Atlanna above the cave felt this terrifying vibration and thought something had happened, so they couldn't help but jump into the cave together to check.
As soon as they came down, they saw a huge monster lying in the mud and sand, its head full of cracks, several of its horns broken, its whole body covered with dents and scorch marks, drooping and listless, looking miserable, and even revealing a bit of grievance.
And on top of this monster's head stood a ten-meter-tall humanoid giant.
The giant was surrounded by a terrifying and evil aura, with several thick black tentacles dozens of meters long extending from its back, lashing at the monster's head one by one, and from time to time letting out an extremely creepy laugh, simply not like a creature existing in this world.
Mera couldn't help but swallow, and couldn't help saying: "Queen Atlanna, you were right, this Karathen is indeed terrifying, even such a big monster is no match for it."
Queen Atlanna: "..."