SSS Rank: Spellcraft Sovereign
Chapter 124: Drift Core (5)

Chapter 124: Drift Core (5)

The doors didn’t open with a click this time.

They peeled back. Slow. Heavy. Stone scraping metal like it hadn’t moved in a decade.

Lucen stepped through first.

Then stopped.

His boots met smooth stone, flat and pale. But what caught him wasn’t the floor.

It was the space.

The chamber stretched wide, far beyond what should’ve fit beneath the drift. The ceiling was so high it vanished into mist. The air smelled clean. Cold. Like glacier wind, but still.

Dead center?

A lake.

Perfectly round.

Flat as glass.

Not a ripple.

Lucen stared for three seconds before muttering, "Okay. That’s ominous."

Varik stepped up beside him, scanning the space like he was reading a page that didn’t want to be read.

"That’s not water," he said.

Lucen frowned. "Looks like it."

"It’s mana. Liquid concentration. Condensed to mimic fluid form."

Lucen crouched near the edge. "So if I fall in—?"

"You’ll die."

Lucen stood back up. "Cool."

The silence settled again.

Then, movement.

Beneath the surface.

Just a shift. A roll of shadow. Something massive gliding just beneath the fake water, its outline dragging behind it like a tail on fire.

Lucen’s eyes narrowed.

"...Was that a fin?"

Before Varik could answer, the water cracked.

Just once.

A small, low plink, like a drop falling into a bowl.

Then the surface split.

Not fast. Not sudden.

Slow.

Massive.

A shape rose.

Black-blue. Scarred. Like someone had carved armor plates out of obsidian and melted them together. A head crested the surface, long, wide, serpent-jawed, with gill slits that pulsed and smoked with mana fog.

The eyes opened last.

Two of them.

Size of car wheels.

Both locked straight on Lucen.

Lucen didn’t blink.

He just whispered, "That’s not a dungeon boss. That’s a weather event."

Varik muttered, "Leviathan. Ancient-type."

Lucen turned. "You’ve fought one?"

Varik said nothing.

Lucen nodded. "Cool. So no."

The monster rose further. A tail the length of a train curled just beneath the surface. Its chest plates flared, revealing layered glyph lines running like veins up its torso.

Lucen’s system pinged once.

[Entity Detected: ???]

[No Rank Match]

[Mana Density: Critical]

[Combat Advice: Run.]

He ignored it.

’Yeah, no kidding.’

Varik reached slowly for the sword at his side.

"I’ll draw it. You flank."

Lucen raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"

"I’m not sure of anything in this place."

Lucen cracked his knuckles once.

Then muttered, "Okay. Let’s piss off a god."

The Leviathan moved.

Not fast. Just there.

It burst upward.

And the fight began.

—

The lake didn’t churn.

It seethed.

The surface rolled like a heartbeat, steady, slow, way too calm for something that size to be moving underneath. The leviathan arched upward, its body casting long shadows across the platform.

Its head turned. Just slightly. _{freew\e bnovel.com}

Enough to track Varik’s footsteps.

The man didn’t flinch.

Didn’t draw yet.

Just kept walking across the platform until he was a dozen feet from the edge.

Lucen stayed back. Arms half-raised. Spell logic hovering around his right wrist in lazy curls.

’Not gonna lie. I’m kinda curious how far he can push this thing.’

Varik finally stopped.

Right at the lake’s edge.

Then said, casually, like he was talking to a vending machine:

"You waited."

The leviathan blinked.

Slow. One eye. Then the other.

Lucen muttered under his breath, "Don’t tell me it understands him."

Then the thing moved.

A surge.

Massive head reared up, water flying in all directions. The glyphs across its neck lit violet, flaring like mana veins spiking through overdrive.

Lucen flinched back, one hand tightening.

Then Varik drew.

Not like a showman. No flourish.

Just one smooth, quiet motion, steel clearing the sheath in a whisper that got louder than the leviathan’s roar.

The sword didn’t glow.

Didn’t change shape.

But the air around him did.

Lucen felt it from fifteen feet away.

The temperature dropped. The pressure dropped. Like something just unhooked from the room’s natural laws.

And Varik moved.

The leviathan struck down, jaw first, fast enough to create wind shear.

Varik sidestepped. Not a full dodge. Just a lean.

The jaw missed.

The sword hit.

One line.

Horizontal.

Barely visible.

Lucen didn’t even see contact.

But the impact showed after.

The leviathan’s neck split open, not deep, but clean. Like someone shaved a fraction off the edge of a skyscraper.

It pulled back with a roar that shook the water.

Lucen muttered, "Okay. That’s new."

The beast shifted.

Its back arched. Then three glowing fins burst from its spine, casting long light into the mist above.

Lucen’s system ticked again.

[Enemy Adaptation Detected]

[Spell Reflection Nodes: Active]

He called out, "It’s charging counter-magic!"

Varik didn’t turn.

He adjusted his grip on the blade. Not tense. Just recalibrating.

Lucen reached into his spell pool.

Quick logic.

[Burn Logic]—set wide. Not cast. Just prepped.

Varik lifted his sword again.

The leviathan lunged.

This time?

Faster.

Full-body whip, tail surging behind it.

Lucen launched [Soundlash] behind Varik, disrupting the mana pressure trailing the tail.

It worked.

Barely.

The slam hit wide, missed by a meter.

Varik slid under the arc and cut upward, this time aiming for the glowing node on the creature’s throat.

Contact.

Not a deep strike. Just enough to pulse.

The node dimmed.

Lucen hissed. "One down!"

The beast roared again, a deep, grinding sound like steel breaking underwater.

Then dove.

The whole lake convulsed.

Varik backed off, breathing a little heavier.

He said low, not turning, "If it charges again, I’m going high. You keep pressure on the left flank."

Lucen blinked. "You want me to distract the spell-immune serpent god?"

"Yes."

Lucen flexed his hand.

"Cool."

He stepped up.

This time?

He was part of it.

—

The leviathan dove.

Not into the lake.

Into the platform.

The entire floor trembled as it curled its massive body under the surface like a spring winding up.

Lucen’s eyes snapped wide.

"Under—!"

Varik didn’t move fast enough.

The creature burst out directly below, its tail crashing up through the floor in a spiral of debris and mana shock. The explosion sent Varik flying backwards, body slamming hard against the stone wall behind them.

Lucen flinched.

Then ran.

"Varik!"