Ricardo, panting, threw a glance back at Guts, who had stayed behind.
Ricardo (grumbling between breaths):
"Hey, buddy! What the hell are you waiting for?
We've played every card we've got, and that thing's still floating!
Magic's useless — she takes it like we're throwing pebbles!"
Guts (calm, almost cold):
"I noticed.
It's like she's absorbing your attacks…
I'm waiting for the right moment."
Ricardo (half-laughing, half-tense):
"Oh yeah? And when's that, in your book?
Because we're running out of time.
You better show up at the right damn moment, man.
We're gonna need you..."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and charged back into the fray.
A powerful leap, a roll, a strike — his massive frame danced above the flames.
Guts didn't move.
His eyes stayed fixed on the sky.
He saw them.
Ants around a giant.
Men. Soldiers. Maybe even heroes.
But to the Whale…
They were nothing more than insects.
She barely fought back.
She spun slowly, as if tired of being hurt.
A victim of her own superiority.
And then he saw it again.
Wilhelm.
Still standing on her back.
Still striking.
Tireless. Unyielding.
And this time…
He reached her eye.
The blood-filled globe rolled out of its socket and crashed to the ground with a sickening splatter.
A white geyser burst from the wound.
Then…
A scream.
Not a roar.
Something different.
A shriek of agony — as if something had shattered.
Not in the body…
But in the creature's mind.
Everyone froze.
The White Whale stopped moving.
Her wings suspended in air.
Her muscles paralyzed.
And yet, she still floated.
Hanging there.
Neither dead, nor alive.
Like a celestial corpse...
...that refused to fall.
A low rumble echoed through the valley.
A deep, visceral sound, like the earth itself holding its breath.
The soldiers stiffened.
Their mounts reared.
Even the mages ceased their incantations.
But this was no longer the wounded beast from before.
She was changing.
Pores — or something like them — opened across her pale surface.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Like toothless mouths ready to spew out the void.
And then, she screamed.
A scream —
No… a howl from another world.
It wasn't pain.
Nor fear.
Nor rage.
It was all of it at once.
A cry so intense it made the air tremble, the rocks quake, bones rattle.
Some dropped to their knees.
Others clutched their ears, screaming without hearing themselves.
Even the ground seemed to howl with her.
Then…
The mist.
Thick. Fast. Uncontrollable.
A white fog spewed from every one of those open wounds.
It crept across the ground, crawled up legs, wrapped around weapons, slipped into eyes.
In mere seconds… the entire battlefield vanished.
Everything was mist now.
And with it came a crushing silence.
The Whale had vanished too.
And the hunt…
…was turning on the hunter.