Xingyue, is Xiaokai also considered Kai?

"Hahaha, of course!" Beowulf laughed heartily, as if he was genuinely happy, and proudly raised his chest. "After all, I have to do something like a king. Anyway, I don't care if I'm in pain or not, as long as everyone is safe and sound."

A person always fights to protect something.

Live on the battlefield, fight to the last moment of your life, and die on the battlefield.

This is probably not the kind of life a normal person should have, but even so, the blond man at that moment still clenched his fists and charged at Kraken from the bottom of his heart.

Beowulf's childhood was unfortunate. His parents died early, and he was adopted by his maternal grandfather at the age of seven. He lived with his uncles, but a tragedy between his two uncles resulted in their deaths. Not long after, his maternal grandfather also passed away due to excessive grief.

Beowulf records it as follows:

'A mournful wind has replaced smiles: the knights sleep, the heroes lie buried in the yellow earth, and there are no more harp songs, no more courtly feasts, no more of the former liveliness.'

In reality, according to Avia's memory, Beowulf should have become king after killing Grendel. After all, he was looked down upon as a child because of his father and lost a competition. His early ascension to the throne might be due to some kind of butterfly effect.

As a descendant of Cain, Grendel is theoretically immune to any blade, and in a sense, he is a higher form of fantasy. However, Typhon's lava and Odin's runes should be effective...

Just as Avia was pondering, Beowulf continued:

"But to be honest, thinking about it now, I'm still a little scared. After all, I almost died. I was just putting on a brave face."

However, the silver-haired youth shook his head, his attitude resolute:

"It's normal to be afraid of death. No one is immune to the fear of death. Everyone faces death the same way. But you took that crucial step, which is enough to earn your praise. After all, you did the best you could."

“Haha, Avia, you speak very well,” Beowulf chuckled, “but why do I feel like you’re actually a missionary? You’re quite the talker, and oh, you’re also very good at fighting.”

"Oh? Are there any missionaries from the church here?"

Avia asked with some curiosity.

After all, the church in the Western Roman Empire did not treat heretics as human beings, and the Eastern Roman Empire did not have enough people, so perhaps they were the wandering type of missionaries, he thought.

"Yeah, but there are only a few people. Actually, it's quite annoying for me, but their presence does make everyone's lives a bit better, so I don't really care."

As the blond man spoke, he seemed to remember something, and continued,

"Their leader seems to be from Constantinople, and he's currently in Yeat, his name is something like O...

'Augustine?'

"Yes, yes, that's the name. Do you recognize it?"

We could barely be considered acquainted.

Avia truly did not expect that Dr. Grace would come to Scandinavia to preach.

But that's perfect. After dealing with Cain's descendant Grendel and the lurking Norse dragon, I can go and talk to this Augustine.

After all, once the corrupt church authorities of the Western Roman Empire were dealt with, he hoped that Augustine could smoothly write his book, "The City of God."

122: Leviathan's Skin

As the sun sets on the horizon, a colossal figure stands within the ruins of a grand hall.

This grand hall, which once hosted a grand celebration, has long been eroded by a completely different atmosphere.

Initially, the doors were broken down, nearby windows were smashed, and ritual objects used to worship the Norse gods were struck with blunt objects and thrown to the ground.

Everything inside the facility was destroyed, making it look like it had been restored to a barbaric era. On the throne, which was barely undamaged, stood a giant covered in blood.

"...Ah, this smell, is that all?"

A moment later, the giant swallowed his mother's body in one gulp, and then his hoarse voice rang out as he gently raised his blood-stained hand to stroke his cheek.

Although Grendel's mother was an alien being, she was revered as a god by the local Norse fantasy race and could be considered the de facto leader of the Norse fantasy race at present.

"The smell of sin, the smell of injustice, the smell of darkness. My father Cain, bless your child who has fulfilled all your duties."

Glendell smiled and nodded, his body dripping with foul-smelling red puddles.

As for why he ate his own mother?

The answer is simple: anger.

The giant's anger was uncontrollable. The reason was that he was not suited to this era. Theoretically speaking, Grendel and his mother were remnants of the Age of Gods.

He was a being born in the past mythological era, but for some reason he crossed the end of the age of gods and even the beginning of the Western calendar. After four hundred years, he awoke on the island of Scandinavia.

As time went on, this anger gradually turned into a hunger, leading him to eat his mother who had been awakened.

Grendel didn't really care, after all, Cain's descendants were all unjust. Next, he would eat everything on the Scandinavian islands, and then all the creatures on the distant continents. In his view, inferior creatures existed only as food.

"Oh? Humans have arrived? Is it dinner?"

The last rays of the setting sun were slowly disappearing from the horizon, and a new moon hung high in the dark blue sky of the east. Under the blue sky where the sunset and moonlight met, the silhouette of the ruins could be faintly seen.

Grendel, who was sitting on the throne, stood up abruptly and stepped across the collapsed hall doors and shattered walls. The sound of falling rubble echoed across the empty land.

The giant was thirty meters tall, with two legs capable of crushing the earth and two arms capable of easily shattering mysterious life forms.

After the Age of Gods ended, Grendel, with its own independent mythology, was unable to maintain its existence. Therefore, with the help of its mother, it merged and integrated with the spiritual veins of the descendants of the massive giants in the North Sea pantheon, which were also in a state of extinction, thus surviving in the human history that parasitized Norse mythology.

Grendel was unaware of this, but even if he had, he would have taken it for granted.

His anger was actually traceable, because of his fusion with the spiritual veins of the descendants of the Norse giants, and because he was a descendant of sinners, his body contained a trace of the 'residue of anger' from Surtur, the Norse end-of-the-world device.

In other words, the current Grendel is a hybrid of the evils of two mythologies, possessing both the evil of Cain and the wrath of the fire giants.

Cain's descendant was Enoch, Enoch's child was Methuselah, Methuselah's child was Lamech, Lamech's son was Noah, and Noah's great-grandson was Nimrod the rebel.

Under the cover of darkness, Grendel squinted as he slowly searched for food.

There, three humans sped towards them.

In that instant, the air seemed to change.

".....oh."

Grendel murmured with amusement, noticing the indescribable odor emanating from the youngest silver human, aside from the blond food and the silver one. The giant felt his heart pound.

An exceptionally loud and unusually noisy thumping sound.

With each thud, a strange sound arose, far louder than appetite or anger—

"It doesn't matter, everyone's the same! Let me eat them all!"

The moonlight pouring in from the other side momentarily dyed the giant's hands with a blood-red turmoil that seemed to materialize.

But the giant soon realized his mistake; he could not simply ravage or kill these humans.

The two humans on the left and right lowered their bodies to dodge the blow from the swinging giant arm without slowing down their running speed.

After glancing sideways at the strike that cut through the sky and pierced deep into the earth, Siegfried and Beowulf both began to run sideways.

Their speed was faster than the giant's swinging arms, yet they skillfully dodged the attack, displaying their skills unscathed.

The dragon-slaying hero wielded Balmonk and unleashed several powerful blows at the giant's right foot in one go.

The king, unarmed, flexed his biceps, the thick veins protruding from his muscles resembling a vise, gripping the giant's left hand tightly, leaving no room for error, attempting to break it off.

Avia then nimbly climbed onto the giant's insteps, knees, and chest, before swiftly scaling its head and standing atop it—

That alone concentrated a terrifying amount of magic. Typhon's hands, imbued with power, absorbed the magic and unleashed a violent blizzard of freezing air, instantly freezing the giant Grendel's entire body. Then, crimson molten lava slowly trickled down his head.

But in an instant, flames suddenly rose from the giant's body, protecting him and allowing him to break free from the three men's grasp.

Then, Avia extended her hand, and the runes immediately appeared—

The terrifying thunder seemed to tear the earth apart, just like the silver-haired youth's fingers. Countless blinding lightning bolts, accompanied by flames, struck the giant and formed shackles... But the moves originally used against the Kraken, the giant of the North Sea, were inexplicably ineffective against the giant.

Perhaps for this reason, Grendel sneered.

That crimson joy mocked the power of humanity, that mere inferior beings could only offer him their blood, bones, organs, and brains.

"I'm starting!"

Grendel lunged at Avia from a height of several meters, biting down hard.

Although the silver-haired youth was able to dodge, he chose to use explosive speed to punch the giant's head directly with both arms. Then, there was a creaking sound, the sound of bones breaking.

"How could this be? How could you possibly hurt me...?"

Under Grendel's incredulous gaze, Avia smiled and walked step by step toward him.

"So you're so confident because you're wearing Leviathan's skin now."

123: Still not enough to eat

Leviathan is one of the three beasts of the Apocalypse, and it dies as the dinner of the holy ones. In addition to being invulnerable to swords and spears, its skin can also make all beasts bow down and be slaughtered at its feet.

The phantom Albion, formed by Novia using magic in the first century, mainly consumed Leviathan's heart, while casually tearing off a few bites of other body parts... Of course, it ate the most branches.

After he left, there should have been many remnants of the flesh and blood of the three Apocalyptic beasts at the site of the final battle in Armageddon, so it is not surprising that the magician or some kind of fantasy creature at that time managed to obtain Leviathan's skin there.

I can only say that I ate too little at the time.

"I was wrong, I was wrong. I can serve you, please don't kill me. I am Cain's child. Master, I will do whatever you want. I know I was wrong..."

Feeling his life slipping away at an alarming rate, the giant was consumed by fear. He had no time to think about why his invulnerable body had been shattered by humans; all he could do was plead.

Indeed, in the face of Leviathan's skin, Odin's runes and Typhon's molten lava could only trap it, but could not harm it. Moreover, Grendel's body now contained the 'wrath' of the fire giant from the veins of the descendants of the Norse giants. In theory, it was a monster that occupied the top of Norse mythology.

It's a pity that Leviathan's main body was killed by Avia, let alone just a skin.

The instinct for death clung to the skin of the already dead Leviathan, rendering it ineffective in its ability to make all beasts bow down and be slaughtered before it.

Having lost this ability, Grendel, even as a descendant of Cain, was no match for Avia, whose physical abilities were only slightly inferior to Attila's.

Failure is to be expected.

'Anyway, what's the point of those two humans besides you? Without you, this guy would have killed us; with you, one person is enough.'

Avia shrugged as she heard Typhon's words in her mind.

Even so, there's no guarantee there aren't wolves, tigers, bears, or anything like that around here.

'You'll be fine. How could those wild beasts possibly hurt you?'

The unseen red-haired girl pouted, then grinned.

"Are you confused, Typhon?"

The silver-haired youth stood beside the giant who had fallen to the ground, speaking to the Great Ancestor Dragon in his mind.

'What? Why should I be confused? It was just defeating a weak creature, is that really interesting?'

'That's true. I bet you're pretty happy right now. The armor you wore after killing the Kraken was incredibly shiny, and—'

"Human, you're so noisy! Can you please stop nagging?! Who cares about something like this!"

"That's not right, Typhon, you're the one who talks the most, you can talk nonstop all day long. It was fine at first, but after a while, you'll unconsciously start rambling on about trivial things..."

Avia smiled gently as she felt the temperature of her armor rise suddenly.

But this smile caught the attention of the giant Grendel, and driven by his will to live, the giant continued to plead with the human before him:

"My lord, I was truly wrong. I will never dare to do it again. I will sign a master-servant contract with you. Please, please don't kill me—"

"Do you really know you were wrong?"

Like a silent grim reaper, the silver-haired youth approached the giant shaking its head and surveyed the stench emanating from the surroundings.

On the ruins, which were as hard as rock and piled with corpses, there were countless human and animal corpses, long since turned into skeletons, with maggots still wriggling around. Although there were traces of blood flowing out from under the corpses, it had completely turned black and dried up.

The cold ground and the rows of corpses—these are the humans that the giants devoured.

"Yes, yes, sir, I really am—"

It was a breathtaking punch, so powerful it felt as if it had pierced through the sunlight. In that instant, the cold space seemed to shatter, and a gust of wind erupted around it. Only after the giant's massive body was swallowed up by the molten lava in a few seconds did it return to the original flow of air.

"Actually, I do believe that some people will genuinely realize their mistakes and correct them. If that's the case, it's not bad... However..."

Avia turned and left.

“You just know you’re going to die, Grendel.”

Amidst the drifting cold wind, the pale sunlight shone on the frigid earth, casting a silvery-white glow from the ruins.

Thus, the Kraken, the North Sea giant that plagued Scandinavia, and Grendel, a descendant of Cain, both of the two fantastical species, were dead.