The lake nearby was where the grotesque, massive monster had settled, and Sars arrived on its shore without so much as a flinch before dropping into a combat stance.
With his spear and his body charged with crackling thunder, he executed a lightning-fast sprint toward the beast. In an effort to counterattack, the vile creature quite literally used its own offspring as projectile weapons. Luckily, those slimy, unnurtured larvae were easy targets for Sars's electrified spear. After clearing the path, Sars used the chance to leap high into the air and land a brutal slash straight across the monster's face.
The monster screeched out loud in sheer agony.
Of course, it could not possibly be that easy. To Sars's utter dismay, the deep gaping wound immediately began to regenerate. The shock paralyzed the blue-haired warrior, leaving him wide open for a lethal counterattack he had no time to dodge.
Exactly as one would expect, Jin intervened at the last second, blocking the massive strike as though it were nothing at all.
Sars, the once unshakably arrogant fool, was suddenly hit with a reality check, and the show was only getting started.
The monster leapt back to launch another strike with double the previous force. Jin did not even grant the creature the opportunity to swing. With a casual snap of his fingers, he blasted a clean hole straight through the monster's flesh. The cocky boy could only watch the display in stunned silence.
Soon after, the rest of the group came rushing toward the water's edge. They had not even finished catching their breath from the sprint before their jaws hit the floor all over again. They arrived to the sight of Jin blocking the colossal monster with a single hand while the creature strained against him with everything it had.
Jin was genuinely starting to get bored of the exchange. Deciding to wrap things up as fast as possible, he grabbed Sars by the waist and leapt clear. When the smoke and spray settled, the massive monster stood pierced through and through by Jin's energy.
Sars frantically argued that big flashy attacks were useless if the monster could just regenerate infinitely.
Thankfully, Jin had already taken that exact variable into consideration. This was precisely where the nanomachines came in handy, actively neutralizing the monster's cellular regeneration. The damage Sars had inflicted earlier had actually been quite considerable, but the cut had been far too shallow to overload the creature's healing factor.
By now, Sars was practically having a mental breakdown just processing the possibility that this inferior man might actually be their guardian god.
Jin quickly denied having any divine roots that would qualify him for such a grandiose title. What he did know for a fact was that the entire reason for his continued existence was to safeguard the people of the future and slaughter the very monsters standing in front of him.
Enraged, the beast snarled and swung its massive tail wildly, desperately trying to squash the agile man who kept slipping through its defenses like water.
Having quickly formulated a winning strategy, Jin immobilized the creature completely by trapping it in dense yellow ice crystals. As he charged up a critical strike guaranteed to obliterate the beast into smithereens, he finally gave a proper introduction.
He declared himself a monster born directly out of humanity's own tragic foolishness. He was a relic who had survived a hundred million years of sleep. He was the appointed weapon meant to cleanse the Earth of this terrifying threat.
Sars was in no position to comprehend what this man was talking about. The only thing he cared about right now was whether Jin could actually live up to such massive claims.
Of course he could. He was the literal culmination of countless brutal, tragic experiments, a weapon prepared beyond imagination, born from humanity's blood-stained history. He was the first, the last, and the only true human remaining in this world.
With his introduction thoroughly complete, Jin unleashed an energy attack so blindingly intense that it incinerated the monster instantly. The beam was so unfathomably powerful that it shot straight through the Earth's atmosphere and pierced the vacuum of space, guaranteeing zero chance for the thing to ever regrow.
With the monster definitively dead and dusted, Sars completely lost the will to speak, having just had his inflated arrogance shoved right back into his face.
Meanwhile, unseen by the group, there was someone keeping a very close eye on Jin from the bushes. This mysterious woman had originally been sent merely to observe the new type of invader reported at the lake. She certainly had not realized she would be lucky enough to witness an entirely different kind of monster in action.
As far as she was concerned, even the elite top brass of the Holy Knights back in the royal capital would not dare go solo against a threat that size. Yet this unknown young man had made it look like an absolute piece of cake. The spy was so excited that she could barely contain herself as she hurried off to relay everything she had just witnessed back to her guild.
Later that day, Jin finally sat down to listen to the million-year-old holographic message his friend Kagura had left behind for him.
His digital friend kicked things off by acknowledging that millions of years must have passed by the time Jin actually watched this. Because of that enormous jump, Kagura wondered aloud what the future of Earth looked like, and whether the planet's environment had actually healed.
Right off the bat, he delivered the bad news. The Corruptors would never truly go extinct, even if the world itself drastically recovered. That much was already evident, given that Jin had just finished fighting one.
Kagura revealed that while Jin had been in deep hibernation, he had periodically entered cold sleep himself, just to observe the gradual changes happening across the globe. Thanks to the environmental restoration, the overall number of Corruptors had steadily decreased. Unfortunately, as the ecosystem shifted, the Corruptors began to evolve right alongside it. That adaptation was a glaring sign that the world would never be able to rid itself of the menace completely.
To counter this, Kagura explained that he had intentionally and genetically edited the newly emerging life forms, giving them the potential to resist the Corruptors rather than simply falling prey to them.
Besides that, Kagura admitted he had prepared a huge power-up specifically for Jin and left it behind. The ominous syringe full of glowing green liquid was exactly what Jin needed to inject directly into his veins.
Upon doing so, Jin's body immediately began to crackle and radiate with arcane energy. The serum granted him one hundred percent compatibility with the nanomachines. Once the integration was fully complete, Jin gained the insane ability to generate physical objects through nanomachine-shaped transformation.
The best part was that this upgrade was only the tip of the iceberg. His old friend revealed that he had hidden similar power-ups scattered all across the world. He had purposely avoided storing them all in one place, just in case the Corruptors managed to destroy a facility and wipe everything out at once. Plus, the scavenger hunt ensured that Jin would have to travel across the globe and witness the magnificence of the new world firsthand.
Kagura admitted he had no idea what kind of threat the Corruptors would pose in that distant era, but he was absolutely certain the future would be far brighter than the bleak apocalyptic reality they had left behind eons ago.
As the message went on, the holographic projection showed just how much the poor scientist had aged over time. It was a bittersweet thing to watch. Kagura expressed a profound sadness at knowing he would never be able to see this beautiful restored world for himself. After officially passing the torch and handing over the responsibilities of the future to Jin, the message came to an end.