Within seconds, Josh was face to face with the huge beast that stood like a monolith with its tentacles raised, ready to attack.
The storm-darkened sky cracked open with distant thunder enhancing the image of the monstrous behemoth.
The Kraken loomed ahead like an ancient god of chaos — a grotesque silhouette of writhing tentacles and abyssal fury. Its massive limbs curled and reared, ready to bring down devastation with a single strike. The ground beneath Josh trembled, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of the creature's rage.
The air was thick with tension and the sharp scent of salt, blood, and magic. Josh's breath came in tight bursts. His chest rose and fell beneath his battle-worn armour, but his eyes—burning behind the blackened mystic sheen of his new mask—remained steady.
He didn't hesitate.
In one fluid motion, he summoned the one weapon the beast couldn't anticipate: the 1kg bag of Sand of Aphrota. The sack shimmered faintly in his hand as if it pulsed with ancient malice. Without wasting another second, he plunged his hand into the grains and flung a fistful at the Kraken.
It was a gamble.
The beast's face was distant—towering high above the battlefield—but the moment the sand left his fingers, it howled through the wind like a cursed whisper. The particles rode the wind with supernatural speed and precision, striking the Kraken's sprawling form in several places.
The Kraken hesitated. Its soulless black eyes blinked in confusion.
"Aha... Ahahahahahahaha!" it bellowed suddenly, voice deep enough to quake the sky. "What is this now? Playing with sand? Are you mad, human? Is this your last act of desperation?"
It sneered, amused—until Josh stepped back, putting some space between them and smiled.
A slow, deliberate curve of the lips. Quiet. Controlled. Mocking.
That smile... the Kraken hated it.
And then came the sting.
The beast let out a guttural grunt. It twitched. For the first time, it recoiled—not from an attack, but from something it didn't understand. Its tentacles thrashed slightly, confused. A burning sensation spread across the areas where the sand had touched, like tiny needles clawing at its flesh.
That's when it began.
The pain.
Tiny, invisible mouths seemed to suck greedily at its flesh. The draining wasn't just physical—it felt spiritual, as though pieces of its ancient soul were being stripped away grain by grain. It screamed—not in anger, but in pain.
"What… is this...?" it roared, voice now wild with panic. "What have you DONE?!"
Josh said nothing.
Instead, as the beast twisted in agony, he reached for the vanishing powder. A soft puff of smoke and his form dissolved into thin air. No sound, no shimmer—just absence.
The Kraken screamed again, its tentacles slamming into the earth with fury, throwing up chunks of rock and dust.
From beneath one of those massive limbs, a shimmer of movement clung to the beast's flank like a second shadow.
Josh.
He reappeared just long enough to leap silently onto a lower tentacle, gripping a coarse patch of the beast's slick, cursed hide. Every inch of its skin radiated pulsing heat—ancient magic, writhing fury. But Josh climbed.
Scaling one of the undulating limbs, he moved like a shadow, silent and swift, using the beast's own agony as cover. Each movement was precise, calculated. Inch by inch, he climbed, until after thirty excruciating minutes, he was near the head.
Because the Kraken wasn't aware of the devastation that the sands of Aphrota could cause, it didn't defend against the sand as it was thrown at it, but now, it was deeply regretting it.
"Human, you will pay for this..." The Kraken became really enraged to the point where it was no longer senile. It continued to trash Its tentacles around as the pain became unbearable.
Unbothered, Josh climbed, not with strength alone, but with vengeance humming through his veins for all the hits he had been dealt and also the suffering of the people of the wastelands.
The wind battered him. The Kraken bucked and twisted, slamming into boulders and mountainsides, but Josh moved with the grim patience of a hunter. Upward. Steady. Relentless. His breaths were shallow, timed between tremors. His fingers bled where they scraped bone. But he did not stop.
The climb took nearly thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of dodging the unpredictable coils of death. Thirty minutes of clinging to the very creature trying to kill him. Thirty minutes during which the Sand of Aphrota continued its merciless work, eating away at the Kraken's strength and sanity.
A while later, Josh was already close to the head of the Kraken, by this time, the Kraken had started paying attention and was looking for the perfect opportunity to swat Josh off its body like one would swat a mosquito or annoying fly.
Josh continued his graceful climb, unaware of the thoughts of the Kraken.
And then… he was there.
The top of the Kraken's head—flat, glistening, and pulsating faintly. At its center, barely visible beneath a thin membrane of flesh and enchanted bone, lay a dull glow. A faint violet light, like a heartbeat.
The crystal.
A core of concentrated life-force. The ancient pact of the sea. The source of the Kraken's immortality.
Josh's fingers trembled as he reached for one of the high level weapons that he received as a reward from the system, drawing that powerful blade from a sheath that shimmered into view.
The gold-grade, high-level sword.
It was no ordinary blade
"Josh had never used it—not in a tournament, not in a war. It had slept in silence, waiting for a worthy target.
And now… the moment had come.
He knelt on the Kraken's skull, the wind howling around him, the earth groaning beneath. The beast shifted slightly, sensing him, feeling him—a tickle upon its flesh.
Josh raised the sword.
And spoke, not a battle cry, but a vow:
> "I strike with purpose. I strike to end you."
Then, with both hands, he drove the blade downward—past flesh, through bone, into the pulsing light of the Kraken's crystal.
The reaction was immediate.
The Kraken convulsed.
Its scream was not a sound—it was a rupture in reality. The sky fractured with lightning. The ground beneath the Wastelands tore open, sending gouts of steam and magic into the air. Storms erupted. The wind turned violent, as though mourning the fall of a god.
The blade sank deep into the core and then shattered the crystal with a flash of blinding gold light.
CRACK.
That was the sound of finality.
Josh was flung violently into the air by the Kraken's last desperate thrash, his body spiraling through the storm like a torn banner. For a moment, the world was a blur of light, sound, and wind.
And then… silence.
The Kraken's form slowly collapsed, its monstrous limbs folding inwards like the petals of a dying flower. It let out one final breath—more like a whisper than a roar—and then its eyes dimmed.
It fell.
The crash shook the mountains.
Dust and magic spiraled into the heavens as the earth roared. The battle was over.
Josh landed hard in a heap, rolling over debris and scorched stone. Every bone ached. His vision swam. But when he turned and saw the fallen form of the Kraken sprawled like a sunken cathedral, a smile broke across his bruised face.
He had done it.
Fortunately for Josh, that attack had pierced the crystal of the Kraken, because, without destroying that crystal, no matter how many times he attacked or how fiercely so, the Kraken would just keep fighting and it would get more ferocious and strong, but Josh's well struck and well placed attack had saved the day.
With nothing but sand, steel, and the sheer will to win—he had slain the immortal Kraken.