Chapter 28: The Floor of Tests (8)
"…Bull?"
My eyes blinked as I stared at the absurd situation in front of me.
Hwarang looked just as dumbfounded.
The cute Mangdol Whale vanished, replaced by this thing suddenly leaping out of nowhere.
There was no way not to be shocked.
More importantly—that thing shouldn't exist here.
"M-Mangdol Whaaale!!"
Once he regained his senses, Hwarang lit flames in his hand to avenge the Mangdol he… well, he caught it, but never mind.
He hurled a blazing orb at the Bull.
It hit dead on.
Skrrrk—!
The Bull quickly dove into the ocean, cooling itself off, then darted deeper into the distant waters.
Hwarang admitted that fighting underwater put him at a disadvantage and didn't pursue.
But we did have to go after it.
Because while it swallowed the Mangdol Whale, the bastard also swallowed my fishing rod.
An expensive one.
"…What the hell was that? Hoaquin, do you know anything? I don't remember anything like that existing."
Hwarang grumbled, staring at the water where the Bull vanished.
I didn't hear anything like it either.
Even though… I do know what it is.
I improvised an excuse: it was supposed to be a powerful species that would never appear on the 2nd Floor, so I didn't know why it showed up.
And honestly, I really didn't.
The Bull appearing on the 2nd Floor is something that happens just a few years early in Season 1.
But right now?
This era is ancient.
Did Bulls come down here even long ago?
Whatever the reason, the point stands: Something that shouldn't exist is here, and it stole my fishing rod.
I thought about reporting it to an examiner—maybe they'd remove it as an invasive species.
But they didn't touch it in the original timeline, so they probably won't now.
Besides—I had a better idea.
"Hey, Hwarang."
"What?"
"Let's go catch it."
We were bored anyway.
Might as well go play with that thing—and get my rod back.
I generated a sphere of shinsu and enlarged it around Hwarang so he could breathe underwater.
He asked if I wasn't using one too, but I could breathe using the sparse shinsu naturally present in the water, so it wasn't necessary.
"Alright then," he said, diving in.
I followed shortly after.
After about ten minutes of swimming, we arrived at the cave where the Bull likely came from.
Sure enough—it was there, chewing on the Mangdol Whale.
"Are we going in together?"
"No. That'd end too fast."
If we attacked simultaneously and it fled deeper into the sea, that'd be annoying.
One person was enough to fight it; the other should block the escape route.
Besides, the goal wasn't killing it—just killing time.
So we copied Endorsi and Anak's original tactic:
one person fights for five minutes, then they switch.
I lost rock-paper-scissors, so Hwarang went first.
He began by smashing a flame-coated fist into the back of the Bull's head.
Kyaaaaa!
The Bull jerked upright with a roar.
It was huge—far too big for a 2nd Floor shinheuh.
"First, the fishing rod!"
Hwarang, temporarily ignoring his main position as Fisherman/Spear Bearer, hammered its skull again with flaming fists, then yanked the fishing rod from its mouth and tossed it to me.
Fishing rod: recovered.
Expensive rod: safe.
I relaxed and watched as they continued.
But the Bull was faster than expected.
A slicing sound cut the water as its tail whipped through the current.
Hwarang jumped back, dodging—only for tentacles to stab downward from above him.
He twisted midair, rotated half a turn, and kicked the tentacle away.
Impressively fast—but the Bull didn't slow.
It slammed him with the long pole it was holding, sending him flying across the cave.
If this Bull had been as weak as the one I expected, I would've mocked Hwarang and Hwarang would've been embarrassed.
But both of our faces had gone cold.
Skrrrk—skrrrk—
The Bull twisted its neck at an unnatural angle, making a strange, mocking sound.
Then it opened its massive jaws and charged again.
Hwarang's expression turned serious.
"Hoaquin, five minutes aren't up yet."
Crimson-rose flames surged around him, lighting the dark cave.
A spinning vortex of fire swallowed the charging Bull—but even then, its advance didn't stop.
It reached Hwarang, jaws widening further to swallow him whole.
Hwarang bent back, narrowly dodging the bite, and delivered a clean uppercut.
Gwaaak!
The Bull reeled, losing its balance—but its tentacles whipped forward like a flurry of lashes.
Hwarang dodged, but while he avoided them, the Bull recovered balance instantly and thrust its pole forward.
He barely leapt over the blow—only to be smashed sideways by its tail and thrown against the cave wall.
"Tch. What an annoying attack pattern."
Tentacle.
Tail.
Pole.
Three attacks chained together at high speed in random order.
Hwarang could avoid two—but the third always hit.
He dodged the next bite and widened the distance, shifting from close-range Fisherman combat to long-range Wave Controller suppression.
But the Bull's speed—and the confined space of the cave—made creating distance nearly impossible once it closed in.
Too strong.
This Bull was far too fast and too powerful.
Had I underestimated Endorsi and Anak too much…?
Comparing to Maschenny, Hwarang was slightly weaker than her.
Endorsi and Anak shouldn't surpass Maschenny—
so Hwarang should be equal or stronger than them.
Yet those two handled the Bull alone with ease…
Meaning there was only one explanation:
Hwarang isn't weak.
This Bull is strong.
This was ancient history—far older than the main timeline.
And just as observers used to be nightmares like Purple Dementors in ancient times, ancient shinheuh were also more dangerous.
This Bull was an ancient Bull—a far stronger variant than the one I knew.
And since every creature varies individually…this one might be even stronger.
Whatever the case, the Bull was formidable.
And the immediate problem was Hwarang.
I reached for the sword at my waist and swam toward him.
"Hey! I'm helping!"
"Wait! I still have 30 seconds left!"
Dodging the Bull's bite by a hair, Hwarang shouted back at me.
Stubborn idiot.
The Bull instantly closed the distance again, unleashing another high-speed triple combo—staff, tentacle, tail.
Hwarang, who kept getting hit by the final strike every time he tried to dodge all three, changed his approach.
The Bull thrust its staff.
This time, Hwarang didn't evade.
He met it head-on, punching it aside with a flame-coated fist.
It hurt—a lot.
But he was still a direct descendant of the Ten Families.
His bones weren't going to snap that easily.
"Pocket! Armor Inventory!"
The moment he deflected the strike, he shouted.
A shield materialized beside him and intercepted the second blow—the tentacle.
The last strike—the tail—sliced toward him.
But Hwarang lunged into the Bull's body, closing the distance to near point-blank.
From that angle, the Bull's tail couldn't reach him.
Unless the Bull was some Arie-style monster, there was no way that attack could connect.
Hwarang jumped high right in front of the Bull, flames blooming around his foot.
His flaming kick struck the Bull at point-blank range, staggering it.
And Hwarang didn't miss the opening.
"You're telling me I have to use techniques on a shinheuh?"
Using the kick's recoil to propel himself back, he sprang away and pulled a spear from his Arms Inventory.
One of his natural positions—Spear Bearer—finally shined.
Whoosh—
The spear in his hand ignited.
At first, it was scattered embers.
Then the flames swelled, brighter and fiercer, engulfing the weapon entirely.
At this point, it wasn't a spear with flames.
It was a spear made of flame.
—Crimson Mountain Bloom
The Bull charged forward, mouth stretched grotesquely wide, unaware of what was coming.
Hwarang hurled the spear with all his strength.
A trail of red fire carved across the water, burning everything in its path.
The flaming spear pierced clean through the Bull's body—and the raging flames swallowed it whole.
Thud—
It died instantly, not even given time to scream.
The crimson flames clinging to its body continued to burn, reducing the Bull to ash by the second.
Beep-beep— Beep-beep—
The alarm sounded, signaling the five minutes were up.
"Haaah— We started this just to kill time, and I ended up using a technique…"
"Yeah… seriously."
Honestly, if he'd just let me help earlier, we could've taken it down much easier.
But he insisted on doing it alone, and he did take it down—even using a technique—so it was better to praise him than nitpick.
…Though now that I thought about it, I didn't actually do anything besides watch.
Feeling a little guilty, I patted the exhausted Hwarang on the shoulder and handed him a bottle of water.
We were planning to sit here a while before heading back.
"..."
…!
"Hwarang!"
I grabbed the back of his collar and threw him aside.
Two tentacles smashed down where he'd been sitting, pulverizing the rock floor.
Another tentacle shot toward me—
Clang!
I drew my sword and deflected the strike, forcing the trajectory aside.
Then I looked into the darkness.
From within it, something emerged—glowing at the tips of their tentacles like deep-sea anglerfish.
Bulls.
No—three Bulls.
They twisted their necks at monstrous angles as they stared at us.
Skrrrk— skrrrkkk— skrrrk—
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