Young Master's PoV: Woke Up As A Villain In A Game One Day

Chapter 472: Tides Of War [II]

Seeing the colossal tide coming her way, Casey immediately activated all the Enhancement Cards she had in her arsenal, boosting her physical strength to an absurd amount.

Then she unsheathed her sword and stabbed it deep into the earth just as the roaring flood came slamming into her.

…Only it never came. It never slammed into her.

Frowning, she looked up to find a large, dome-like shimmering barrier shielding her and a few Cadets around her, its glowing surface repelling the rushing water.

Irina stood a few paces behind her, both arms raised, her teeth gritted tight as the massive volume of the river crashed against her protective bubble. Veins bulged along her temples, and her hair whipped wildly in the wind.

“Hold on!” Irina gasped out, her voice straining under the immense pressure. “I’ve got… I’ve got you!”

Through the translucent structure of the barrier, Casey watched in horror as the rest of their formation on land was dismantled.

Cadets were tumbled like pebbles in a flash flood. Anything short of a powerful magic barrier like the one currently being cast by Irina proved useless against the sheer tonnage of moving water.

Thankfully, Casey was safe for now. She could escape and think of a way to—

Wait…

Something wasn’t right.

Out of nowhere, Casey felt a strong pull, as if gravity itself was shifting, slanting and dragging her sideways toward the riverbed.

“What the—?!” The world lurched. The pull suddenly intensified. Casey was nearly yanked off the ground. If not for her holding onto the hilt of her buried shashka with both hands, she would’ve been flung straight into the inner wall of Irina’s barrier.

No one else seemed to be affected.

The other Cadets inside Irina’s barrier stumbled and swayed occasionally from how fiercely the ground was shaking, but they all remained firmly planted where they stood.

Only Casey was being tugged.

Was Ivan using some kind of Spell Card?!

It made sense. If Samael had put Ivan up to this, he wouldn’t have wanted her to escape. Especially her.

For a brief second, Casey regretted being such a blowhard.

Why did she have to go ahead and open her mouth, gloating so smugly in Samael’s face even after she had already figured out he was dangerous?

Damn her and her big, stupid ego.

“Ah, to hell with it!” Casey groaned. To be honest, complained as much as she might, she wouldn’t have liked it any other way. There was a thrill in overcoming a challenge as big as the Tyrant himself. “Irina, drop the barrier!”

“B-But, Lady Casey!” Irina’s eyes widened. Her barrier was already cracking, thin fractures of light spreading across its translucent surface like a spiderweb. “If I drop it now, you’ll be swept away!”

She was going to be swept away anyway.

Ivan seemed to be using some sort of gravity-related Spell Card capable of targeting a single person. He had chosen that single person to be Casey.

Otherwise, she would’ve stored the kinetic energy from the incoming flood into her body and released it in an explosive burst to propel herself away.

That was going to happen now. Duh.

So she opened her mouth to repeat the order, but the barrier shattered first.

The shimmering dome burst apart into countless motes of light as the weight of the river finally overwhelmed it.

The instant the barrier broke, the river swallowed everything. A numbing roar filled Casey’s ears as the wall of water struck her like a moving mountain.

The immense force ripped her hands from the hilt of her buried sword despite every Enhancement Card flooding her body with strength.

Her boots left the ground. For one dizzying second, the world became nothing but sloshing brown water, broken branches, and screaming Cadets.

But at least they had it easy.

Well, easier than her.

Why?

Because the floodwater was pushing her away from the river, but the invisible pull was towing her back toward it.

As such, Casey was stuck there in bone-crushing tug-of-war. The opposing forces threatened to tear her limbs right out of their sockets.

Water churned into her nose and mouth, cold and tasting disgustingly of silt. But even through the haze of river debris and splashing bubbles, she held on.

Things kept slamming into her from all sides, yet she still held on.

She held on… until the water started coming back.

Yeah…

The pressure just flipped. The crushing current that had been trying to throw her downstream suddenly weakened, then reversed entirely.

It was an unnatural phenomenon — a torrential tide reversing course to surge backward toward the center of the river like its water was being sucked down a draining sinkhole.

Just how powerful was that trident?!

Coupled with the invisible pull that was already trying to wrench her deeper into the depths, the reverse flood became impossible to resist.

She was caught in the undertow, tumbling over and plowing through and bashing into uprooted trees, broken rafts, shattered pieces of armour, more than dozen of unfortunate Cadets who had failed to escape the initial flood, and gods know what else.

Her vision was muddy and blurry and chaotic. She couldn’t think, couldn’t react, couldn’t do anything but take the beating.

The Great Divide had become a raging abyss, a natural disaster summoned by a single boy.

And that boy soon revealed himself when Casey’s body was finally plunged into the depths of the central river.

The very first thing she noticed was the silence.

It wasn’t peaceful by any means. Above, the storm of churning murky water was still roaring, but deep below the surface here, it felt distant and muffled.

The second thing she noticed was Ivan himself.

The boy looked so… different down here.

It felt like seeing him for the first time to see him in the water, to see his brown hair whorl around him and his blue-tinted eyes shine metallic under the waves.

He was rather unassuming on land — not exactly plain-looking, just humble and quiet, gentle and always trailing a half-step behind his two friends.

But here, submerged in the aquatic pressure of the Great Divide, Ivan looked terrifying and magnetically attractive in his native element.

Her heart thrummed, and then it thrummed even louder when she noticed a devilish smirk curling on his lips.

He was far from her, his free hand outstretched as if pulling on an invisible rope tied directly around her waist.

Casey coughed as the invisible pull yanked her forward again, a cloud of precious air bubbles escaping her lips and floating toward the surface. She clamped her mouth shut, her lungs already burning.

Her shashka was gone, lost somewhere above the surface. So she dismissed its Card and started resummoning it.

But it would take time for her sword to manifest again, and time was exactly what she didn’t have here.

Her body was being dragged inexorably toward him through the water.

Fortunately, before she could get anywhere into Ivan’s striking range… a megalodon attacked him.

•••

Ivan grunted in surprise and then in pain as a monstrous, spectral blur slammed into his side from the murky shadows of the river.

It felt like being struck by a speeding truck. Before he could gather himself, two massive jaws clamped down on him from above and below.

Rows upon rows of jaggedly sharp teeth bit into his skin, tearing flesh and drawing blood. White-hot pain flared across his ribs, but even through the panic, his mind realized this was the summoned beast of Anya — a naval specialist, and a high-ranked one at that.

Groaning, he exerted strength into his arms and legs, and the jaws that were capable of grinding entire boulders to dust started slowly prying apart.

The spectral megalodon thrashed uncontrollably, its massive body twisting through the water as it tried to crush the tiny human.

Any normal B-rank Hunter would’ve struggled to survive that bite.

But Ivan made it look almost effortless as he pushed against the beast’s upper jaw with the one hand that held his trident and the lower jaw with both his legs.

Once he had enough room to comfortably maneuver, instead of escaping the death grip, Ivan drew back his free hand and balled his fist.

At C-rank, Ivan’s innate ability allowed him to breathe underwater for seven minutes. That aspect of his power hadn’t changed even after ascension.

So what had changed?

Well, now he could burn away those seven minutes to pack explosive amounts of force into his blows.

Just like how he burned fifty seconds right now to throw an uppercut against the megalodon’s jaw.

His fist accelerated from zero to a near subsonic speed so fast it turned the surrounding water into a compressed shockwave.

The local water pressure dropped, forming vapor bubbles around his fist.

So when Ivan’s punch connected and the bubbles collapsed against the megalodon’s jaw, they created intense heat comparable to the surface of the sun.

KAABOOOM—!!

A blinding flash ignited, followed by a thunderous shockwave that went rippling through the surrounding water like an undersea explosion.

When the light faded, the megalodon was… gone. Its enormous spectral body was pulverized into fragments of pale blue Essence that scattered through the dark river like glowing embers before vanishing completely.

A girl with short, dark-green hair was floating a few dozen meters away, shock and agony etched across her face. That was Anya. She must’ve been riding on the megalodon’s back and had probably been caught in the periphery of that cavitation shockwave.

Poor girl.

Anya choked out a stream of dark red blood and air bubbles, unable to do anything but brace for impact as Ivan thrashed his trident forward. Before it struck her, though, she was whisked away. Eliminated.

But Ivan’s trouble didn’t end with her.

The other Cadets had started regrouping.

He whirled around to see more than ten— no, fifteen Casters and Supporters in the distance preparing to launch all kinds of debuffs and artillery spells on him.

Despite how strong he was in the water, he was still fighting against an entire army. And there was no way he could continue doing so while under the crippling effects of hexes and curses.

That’s why he was very grateful to Samael, who had the decency to at least give Ivan a divine weapon before he issued him this mission. It was going to save him a world of trouble.

Ivan took a wide stance, the open wounds on his arms and legs still bleeding. Then, he whipped his trident upward.

The river answered his call.

From far underneath those Cadets, massive columns of water erupted into spiralling vortexes, carrying them straight up toward the surface.

Whatever spells they had been charging were dismissed. Their bodies were flung out of the river by those churning skyward gushers.

Ivan didn’t watch them go.

He snapped his gaze toward Casey. She was swimming away.

Ivan activated a Card that allowed him free-flowing movement underwater and started after her. The water parted against him with minimal resistance. He reached the Snowrite heiress within the blink of an eye.

Sensing him, she turned around, her hand going to the now manifested shashka at her hip. But Ivan’s arm was already cocked back.

KAA-BOOOM—!!