Return of the Sword God-Rank Civil Servant-Chapter 365

[ Mini Breath is activated. ]

Fwooooshhh!!

An overwhelming blaze.

What Su-ho unleashed, breathing fire like a dragon, was none other than Mini Breath.

The destructive power of Mini Breath was beyond expectations.

Even though Yamata-no-Orochi should have possessed extreme resistance to flames, that resistance did nothing against this searing heat.

And that wasn’t all, Su-ho’s Mini Breath didn’t just force its jaws open.

Fwooom!

Flames clung to its entire face.

The terrifying fire constantly devoured Yamata-no-Orochi’s flesh, interrupting its regeneration.

Kiiiiiiiaaaaaaaahhh!!

They say the most horrific agony is burning pain.

Yamata-no-Orochi twisted and screamed in torment.

Each time its body writhed in agony, fluids spattered everywhere.

But it wasn’t blood.

It was venom.

Venom meant to drown Su-ho, the one swallowed whole.

But before the poison could even rise up, Su-ho had already escaped, and the venom that should have pooled in its mouth spewed outward like regurgitated stomach acid.

‘That works nicely.’

Su-ho narrowed his eyes and smirked coldly.

In the myths, Heracles’ Hydra was burned at the neck after decapitation, to prevent its heads from regenerating. That was why he had his companion burn the stumps.

Though unintentional, the Hydra before him was meeting the same fate.

But the battle was far from over.

It might have been the main head, but Yamata-no-Orochi still had nine heads in total.

Only one had been retired.

‘And even that one might regenerate at any moment. I need to finish this quickly.’

Su-ho immediately moved.

He was uninjured.

At worst, he had only gone inside its mouth.

The remaining eight heads of Yamata-no-Orochi fixed their gaze on him.

At that moment, another shadow moved behind them.

Its tails.

Nine of them.

Seventeen spearlike heads and tails lashed out at Su-ho once more.

Boom! Crash! Crash! Crash!

[ Movement Energy Technique is activated. ]

Su-ho moved swiftly.

This Yamata-no-Orochi, controlled by Hera, was unlike the mindlessly thrashing creature from before.

Now each head and tail was guided with precision, attacking cunningly and persistently.

‘Feels like a completely different monster.’

Of course, Su-ho had no way of knowing why.

To him, it was just another monster with a special trait that made it stronger.

But that changed nothing.

Even if it was more complex and powerful, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t dodge.

Still, he couldn’t just keep evading forever.

As he circled and lured it, Su-ho hurled the Guiyeong Spear toward its central body.

[ Shadow Step is activated. ]

Swoosh!

His position shifted instantly.

The moment he reappeared, Su-ho swung his sword.

[ Steel Severance is activated. ]

[ Enhancement is applied. ]

[ The power of Steel Severance grows stronger. ]

Crraaaackkk!

When his blade cut, it rang like crumpling steel plates.

That meant Yamata-no-Orochi’s body was incredibly tough.

But that didn’t mean it could not be cut.

Su-ho was still under Rage Mode.

Slice!

The moment his blade struck, Rage Mode ended.

‘It’ll take time before I can use it again.’

The best option would be to end this fight before Rage Mode returned.

The instant Yamata-no-Orochi’s body split open, Su-ho burrowed inside.

And immediately activated his skills.

[ Heatstorm is activated. ]

It began with Heatstorm. Next was—

“Hup! Fwaaaaaaahhh!!”

[ Mini Breath is activated. ]

With a deep breath, he unleashed another torrent of fire.

That searing blaze erupted once again from deep within Yamata-no-Orochi’s body.

Kiiiiiiaaaaaaahhh!!

The explosion of flames inside its flesh drove it into unprecedented agony, thrashing wildly.

Of course.

What creature could remain calm while its innards were on fire?

For Su-ho, it wasn’t exactly a graceful tactic.

Burrowing into its guts and becoming the gunpowder himself.

But there was no other way.

When he had severed the main head earlier, its mouth had split wide and instantly clamped back together. Further slashes were meaningless.

So he had chosen to rush in before Rage Mode ended.

And that choice was the best possible one.

Fwooooooshhh!!

Kiiiiiiiaaaaahhh!!

Fire burst forth, the monster’s body shook violently.

The leader head was still wrapped in flame, while the other eight heads and nine tails thrashed helplessly, stomping in futility.

Su-ho curled his lips upward.

He had secured certainty of victory.

‘This ends here!’

How could it stop him when he was attacking from within?

So he poured all his strength into the blaze.

Yamata-no-Orochi stomped and writhed.

‘This insane bastard...!’

And it wasn’t just the Orochi that was stomping in frustration—Hera was too.

The Heracles she once faced had been insane as well.

But his insanity came from his extraordinary capacity for trials, not this kind of madness.

‘And this guy is supposed to be a candidate for that one?’

Hera still hated Heracles.

Even if he had saved Olympus.

But hatred was different from respect.

Hostility and respect were entirely separate realms.

‘I will never accept this!’

Hera’s eyes blazed with fury.

At that moment, her power flowed into her incarnation, Yamata-no-Orochi of the Red Net.

Kiiiiiiaaaaaahhh!!

It howled.

But strangely, its cry was not one of pain.

This was a roar of hatred, born of enmity and rage.

[ Yamata-no-Orochi of the Red Net uses Ultra Regeneration. ]

[ Yamata-no-Orochi of the Red Net releases Venom Fountains. ]

System alerts.

At the same time, corrosive poison like hydrochloric acid flooded its body.

The split flesh sealed shut completely.

‘Damn...!’

Now Su-ho was trapped inside its body.

A prison of flesh.

Even with Heatstorm and Mini Breath, nothing worked for some reason.

‘Why?’

It felt like its flesh had turned into an entirely different substance.

He had already cut it open and calculated his way in.

But before he could dwell on it, survival took priority.

The venom rising within blocked his windpipe.

Gurgle!

Its body filled with poison like a sealed aquarium.

Su-ho was forced to endure the venom flooding every pore of his body.

‘This insane...!’

Su-ho summoned a blood sword from Blood Armory.

Then he swung.

But even with all his strength, the strike underwater lacked power.

Even if it had ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) more force, this strange flesh couldn’t be cut.

He needed another method.

If cutting didn’t work, he had to pierce through with brute force.

Su-ho transformed the blood sword into a towering blood pillar.

Then he expanded it madly.

The so-called “Staff Strategy.” Even Yamata-no-Orochi couldn’t withstand that.

After all, every other monster before had failed to.

At least, that’s what Su-ho believed.

No, he was certain.

Thunk!

But the pillar hit something and stopped.

‘It’s not working?’

It wouldn’t expand further.

It was as if its internal organs were denser, blocking the pillar’s growth.

How could that be?

Something was very wrong.

But there was no time for doubt.

Even holding one’s breath in normal water was hard, let alone in venom.

His skin and every orifice burned painfully. Even with his superhuman body, his time was limited. And then—

[ You have been poisoned by the Red Net’s Venom. ]

A dreadful alert.

He did possess the Poison Body he had gained from the Library of Martial Arts, but this venom was far superior.

The lower-grade Poison Body could not resist it.

‘I need a way... fast...!’

Then one thought struck him.

Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner?

With the answer, Su-ho instantly activated a skill.

[ You enter the Subspace House. ]

Flash!

Su-ho vanished into the Subspace House.

Here, he didn’t need to fight to escape from Yamata-no-Orochi’s body.

Safely inside, he quickly activated recovery skills.

[ Heal is activated. ]

[ Recovery is activated. ]

His body recovered, granting him some composure.

But it wasn’t a full recovery.

[ You have been poisoned by the Red Net’s Venom. ]

Su-ho frowned at the system alert.

The poison effect still lingered.

It was that potent.

But it wasn’t unbearable.

As long as he cast Heal and Recovery regularly, he could manage the risk.

‘What matters is what comes next.’

Yamata-no-Orochi had suddenly changed.

Why?

There had been no alert signaling a second phase.

That made it harder to accept.

Even Su-ho, a veteran of the Cataclysm era, had never encountered this.

But there was nothing he could do.

No matter how much this world’s system borrowed from games, it wasn’t like a game developer listening to player complaints.

‘If I’m the thirsty one, then I’m the one who has to dig the well. I need to find the answer myself.’

Su-ho began thinking.

He spread out every memory in his Library of Memories, piecing them together into a plan.

How much time passed?

After long contemplation, Su-ho came up with his first provisional plan.

‘Let’s try this first.’

It was provisional because he couldn’t guarantee success.

If it failed, he would come back and form a second plan.

His arm tingled.

He looked at his forearm, numb from the poison.

Then he summoned the Poison Dragon.

“Poison Dragon.”

“Sssaaaah!”

“Bite.”

*

‘Pointless resistance.’

Hera narrowed her eyes in irritation.

Su-ho had vanished from Yamata-no-Orochi’s body, but she didn’t believe he had truly escaped.

She had been watching Su-ho for a long time.

She also knew of his Subspace House.

That was why she called it meaningless resistance.

She knew its conditions.

‘You can only exit where you entered. That is the rule.’

That meant when he emerged, it would be inside Yamata-no-Orochi again.

So she wasn’t impatient.

Like a fish in a trap, he would return, and then she could drown him in venom once more.

About a day passed.

Then—

Ziiing!

A glow erupted.

From inside Yamata-no-Orochi’s belly.

The effect of the Subspace House skill.

Hera’s eyes widened.

And her lips curled upward.

Finally, he had returned!

Now, hurry and show me how you die drowning in venom.

She readied herself for the ecstasy of that sight.

But the Su-ho who reappeared was not writhing in agony.

He was swimming calmly inside Yamata-no-Orochi’s body.

‘What the...!’

Swimming smoothly, Su-ho reached the inner wall of its stomach.

Then he pulled something from his chest and slashed across the wall.

And then—

Screeeeech!

Unbelievably, Yamata-no-Orochi’s inner wall split open, and poison poured outward.