Ch.107107. Evacuation (3)

Bang! The sound of exploding bombs erupted everywhere.

Rifles loaded with Bahamut Bullets spewed fire, unleashing their true power. Wherever the bullets hit, flames shot up, engulfing both the targets and their surroundings in fire.

“They’re stronger than zombies. But still weaker than mutant zombies!”

“Then we just need to keep shooting!”

The enemies were stronger than zombies. They could use weapons and shields that mindless zombies couldn’t, and their movements and strength surpassed those of ordinary zombies.

But that was the extent of it. Despite having won countless battles, the enemies couldn’t break through the shield wall built by the Balhut Cult. They were helplessly blown into the air or caught in explosions from the unrestricted Bahamut Bullets.

However, among them existed command units similar to mutant zombies… high-ranking skeletons, which introduced variables into the battle.

“No skeleton can stop me! Time to die!”

Jin A-yeon bravely charged into the skeleton horde with fire support from the Balhut Cult, targeting and destroying the command units hiding among the skeleton masses.

As she thrust her spear forcefully, the skull of a command unit shattered. Though it had been a powerful entity serving as a non-commissioned officer in this skeleton army, it was no match for Jin A-yeon, the strongest Awakened at Ulsan Airport.

“Wow. She’s brave, that girl.”

“Charging into a skeleton horde without fear. Just like our captain.”

In truth, these undead non-commissioned officers weren’t easy to defeat. They were always flanked by elite skeleton guards, and in a coordinated attack, even Jin A-yeon couldn’t take them down in one strike, losing valuable time to their combined assault.

“Provide fire support! Target the elite skeletons so Miss A-yeon can deal with the enemy more easily!”

“Roger.”

However, dealing with clustered enemies was the Balhut Cult’s specialty. With Bahamut Bullets imbued with the power of flame, they could easily blast away the elite skeletons blocking Jin A-yeon’s path, allowing her to rush in and smash the command unit’s head.

Though it sounded simple, from Jin A-yeon’s perspective, she had to fight the fear that such powerful bullets might be directed at her.

“That was close…! This is intense!”

Jin A-yeon’s smile faded as she witnessed the firepower displayed by the Balhut Cult. However…

“But now I understand why the old man formed an alliance with these people!”

Far from being frightened, she realized that having such strong allies would reduce the burden on her. With this thought, she didn’t stop but pushed even further forward.

It was a charge full of confidence, perhaps bordering on recklessness. The Balhut Cult’s attacks had only destroyed the enemies directly in front, without inflicting much damage on the approaching army behind them.

At this rate, Jin A-yeon seemed likely to be swallowed by the skeleton horde, but…

“Keep attacking! We must destroy the enemy leader.”

Son Sang-hui, intuitively understanding Jin A-yeon’s impulsive action, ordered her soldiers to attack more fiercely.

It was an order that could potentially catch Jin A-yeon in the crossfire, but the Balhut Cult soldiers fired their bullets without hesitation, following Son Sang-hui’s command.

The ground shook as soil and bones shot into the air. Despite this, Jin A-yeon’s steps never faltered, and she continued to advance.

“Found you!”

Her target was singular: the commander at the center of this army. From her experience fighting these undead, she knew that eliminating the commanding undead first would turn the enemy into a disorganized rabble.

If the non-commissioned officers were the commander’s voice, then the commander before her was the brain of this army. Naturally, a wall of bones stood between Jin A-yeon and the commander to protect this vital head, but…

“Die now!”

Running toward the commander, Jin A-yeon spun her body, using the centrifugal force to launch a powerful spear throw at the commander.

With a harsh whistling sound, the spear flew toward the commander, penetrating the bone wall. The spear lodged precisely in the head of the commander hiding behind the wall.

However, being a high-ranking undead commanding this army, it didn’t fall from just one spear throw. As it tried to pull the spear from its head…

“Move!”

With Jin A-yeon’s shout, the spear lodged in the commander’s head began to thrash wildly inside, destroying its interior. An incredible force was felt as the spear struck not just the head but bones throughout the body, forcibly trying to pull itself out of the skull. When the spear finally popped out with a bang…

“Swing!”

As Jin A-yeon made a swinging gesture, the extracted spear rotated and struck the commander’s skull. Unable to withstand any more, the neck bones shattered, separating the head from the body as it rolled helplessly on the ground.

Jin A-yeon began to flee from the skeletons targeting her, and simultaneously… “Return!”

She recalled the spear that had successfully shattered the skeleton commander’s skull. Despite the bone wall still standing, Jin A-yeon’s spear once again penetrated it, returning to her hand at incredible speed and settling obediently in her palm.

“Unnie! The enemy is in disarray now! Let’s wipe them out!”

“Yes, I see. All troops, switch to offensive formation!”

Jin A-yeon had eliminated the enemy commander. As a result, the undead’s movements deteriorated, or in worse cases, they became disorganized and began attacking random locations.

With the enemy essentially reduced to wild animals, both the Balhut Cult and the Awakened who had joined from Ulsan Airport switched from defensive to offensive postures.

They fired Bahamut Bullets, bravely providing fire support, or if they ran out of ammunition, they courageously advanced forward, smashing enemy skulls with broadswords or rifle butts.

Military boots crushed fallen enemy skulls as they advanced…

“I can’t lose either.”

Jin A-yeon, who had returned to the main force after defeating the commander, charged back into the skeleton horde as if unwilling to be outdone.

Thus, the allied forces of the Balhut Cult and Ulsan Airport successfully repelled the enemy’s vanguard and began to deal with the remaining stragglers.

“The first battle went well, but where did these unfamiliar entities come from?”

“There were many routes they could have taken to bypass us, right? Were forces deployed from Auto Valley or Iero? Or were they hidden here all along?”

As the allied forces began to deal with the stragglers, Son Sang-hui sighed at the fact they had been attacked so suddenly. Where on earth had so many undead come from, bypassing their surveillance?

Jin A-yeon provided the answer to that question.

“Could they hide?”

“Look at those farmlands. These bone creatures could easily hide there, right?”

To Son Sang-hui’s question, Jin A-yeon replied as if it were obvious that the farmlands beside the road could serve as hiding places for troops.

“That means…”

“They dumped these bones in the farmland like corpses. Since they move by a mage’s magical power, without a necromancer controlling them, they’re just bones. Even if someone unfamiliar saw them, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“So that’s why they weren’t detected by magic sensing!”

Unlike zombies that make sounds through vocal cords, skeletons without vocal cords made no noise. This meant that while zombies could be detected by sound, skeletons were difficult to search for if they were deliberately concealed.

Moreover, if the skeletons weren’t activated, they would be perceived as ordinary bones by those unaware, allowing them to evade even Son Sang-hui’s detection abilities.

That’s why when the Balhut Cult first discovered bones in the farmland, they simply wondered if it was a grave, finding it strange that corpses were dumped in farmland but ultimately letting it pass.

However, one thing could be inferred from Jin A-yeon’s testimony:

“So without a summoner, they can’t rise?”

“Right. Without a summoner, these things can’t be called. I got this information from interrogating a few small fry. Can’t completely trust it, but…”

These beings could only exist if there was a summoner. In other words, without what’s commonly called a necromancer, they couldn’t be here.

Put differently, it meant there was a summoner who called these skeleton hordes here.

“That means there’s a summoner nearby.”

“That’s right. Usually, the ones using this kind of magic are the Cult of Immortality, so someone related to them must be nearby.”

This meant there was a summoner nearby who had summoned these skeletons. Though they didn’t know exactly where, Son Sang-hui remained vigilant while Jin A-yeon stated that only the Cult of Immortality would do something like this.

“The Cult of Immortality… why would they target refugees?”

“Don’t know. But they seem to want to gather living people in one place. Looks like they needed the refugees for something.”

However, they didn’t know why the cult targeted them. Rather than targeting refugees, it would have been better to focus on reputation and justification for upcoming battles or negotiations, but they didn’t.

Son Sang-hui expressed doubt about this meaningless action, and Jin A-yeon mentioned the cult’s recent activities, saying they needed living people.

“Living people… sacrifices?”

“Don’t say scary things! Unnie. But… it does seem likely. I’ve seen something similar before.”

At Son Sang-hui’s mention of sacrifices, Jin A-yeon said it was scary but couldn’t deny the possibility, saying it seemed likely.

However, as if to say that frightening speculation ended there, Son Sang-hui calmed herself and brought up a more realistic topic.

“The problem is that no one lives in this area. We’ve already investigated it once. Unless they secretly infiltrated through a detour.”

“Yeah. Our evacuation was only announced today, so rather than the Cult of Immortality noticing and dispatching people here…”

She mentioned that the area was already under the Balhut Cult’s surveillance and had been investigated, making it difficult to infiltrate even through detours.

Jin A-yeon agreed with Son Sang-hui, noting that the timing of the attack was suspiciously perfect, raising the question of how the Cult of Immortality knew about this. The answer:

“I’d rather think there’s a spy hidden among the refugees.”

A spy hidden among the refugees.

“Honestly, attacking at such a perfect timing… it’s easier to believe they hid among the refugees, monitored our movements, and activated a pre-set trap, rather than dispatching people to this area.”

She thought it was much easier and more convenient to hide among the refugees and sabotage from within than to send agents.

In reality, for the cult and Ulsan Airport, which could use Ulsan’s administrative network, it was impossible to verify if all refugees gathered in the evacuation procession were truly safe or if their identities were certain. If the Cult of Immortality exploited this gap to infiltrate refugees or had already placed spies near Ulsan Airport, it was entirely possible.

“I think so too. They could easily infiltrate a spy among the approximately 4,000 refugees.”

“What are you planning to do? Go to Gyeongju with the spy?”

Going to Gyeongju now meant planting a spy inside Gyeongju. Of course, since they knew there was a spy, the military forces remaining in Gyeongju could find ways to root out the spy, or they could request the Balhut NTS to identify the spy.

“No. We should root them out here.”

“Can you do it?”

However, it was ultimately a task requiring administrative power, and searching for a single spy would consume a lot of manpower. It would be better to find them now while they still could.

“The method of raising skeletons… it uses magic, right?”

“Yes. It requires magical power.”

“I’m a detection type, so I know these subtle magical patterns. I’ll deliberately move to a good battle location, fight them, and during that time, memorize the magical pattern controlling the skeletons.”

Conveniently, Son Sang-hui, being a detection type, had the ability to identify people by their magical power. She said she would memorize the magical pattern controlling the skeletons to root out the spy.

In other words…

“So we have to fight once more?”

They would have to fight the suddenly appearing skeletons until she could memorize the magical pattern.

However, Jin A-yeon, holding her spear with a confident smile as if she were ready for battle, prompted Son Sang-hui to speak with a light smile.

“Fortunately, reinforcements will be ready and arriving within an hour. It won’t take long.”

“Leave it to me. I’ll cut off the commander’s head.”

“I’m counting on you.”

She truly was a reliable hero.

Son Sang-hui thought of Baek Seol-hwa, who would be fighting the ghost fleet in the East Sea, and concentrated her mind.