Ch.120Chapter 120 – Assault (6)

As soon as the teleport coordinates were calculated, the scenery around me changed. From a devastated village to a devastated imperial palace. Both were chaotic messes, but the difference was that in the palace, the culprit responsible for the destruction was still present.

A giant worm with a head the size of a building. Mages were desperately trying to restrain its movements.

Demons were pouring out from its open wounds like swarms of locusts. Some had been parasites living inside the Death Worm’s massive body all along, while others had infiltrated on Beelzebub’s orders. They all emerged indiscriminately, pouncing on any living humans.

It was truly a cauldron of chaos.

“What’s going on here now?”

Adriano was speechless.

Shouldn’t the imperial palace be the most secure place? She was dumbfounded seeing a Death Worm rampaging in the heart of the empire.

‘With the palace in this state, no wonder we’re not getting support while fighting desperately outside. Pathetic medieval fools!’

She spotted a knight jumping around on the Death Worm, creating wounds. Judging by his superior armor and remarkable swordsmanship, he was clearly a high-ranking officer.

She teleported to him and asked, “Hey, where’s the Chancellor?”

“Teleportation? Not a mage… must be that ability called a skill. You’re an Earthling.”

Sir Frederick was startled by the sudden appearance of a powerful figure, but quickly relaxed when he realized she was one of those called Hunters—an ally.

“The Chancellor went to check if anyone might target the mana collector while this damned worm is causing havoc.”

“Ha. So that’s why the mana cannon is broken.”

“It’s broken?”

Sir Frederick was surprised again. As an experienced commander, he quickly understood the situation.

‘So the Death Worm was just a distraction!’

He thought of the Demon Lord’s main army fiercely advancing outside the castle. If they were willing to throw away such a terrifying ancient magical beast as a mere decoy, how determined were they in this attack? He couldn’t afford to be tied up here. He needed to clear this area quickly and help at the walls…

“Ugh, we need Lord Behemdorf to pierce this creature’s hide… Its magic resistance is too high. Most spells won’t even scratch it!”

As Sir Frederick’s expression darkened, Adriano nonchalantly kicked the Death Worm’s shell with her toe.

“Hey, so I can get rid of this thing?”

“…? Of course. But how—”

She began acting before he could finish speaking. She placed her palm on the creature’s body and surrounded it with magical energy.

‘Kilometer-scale? Damn, it’s huge.’

She felt her magical power rapidly draining. The magic she spread out, thin as paper, coated the Death Worm’s body. And then… teleport.

The worm’s enormous mass vanished instantly.

“It should be in the middle of the ocean by now. It’ll thrash around like the worm it is and suffocate.”

With the body that had occupied the tunnel suddenly gone, the ground collapsed, causing a minor earthquake. The tremor shook buildings, and some partially collapsed.

The soldiers who had been fighting were bewildered when the Death Worm’s head suddenly disappeared. Incomprehensible phenomena are usually magical in nature. The soldiers soon assumed the mages had somehow dealt with it, and their morale soared as they stabbed and slashed at the demons with renewed vigor.

“…Impressive, my lady. A mass teleport of that scale must require the skill of an archmage…”

Sir Frederick, who had landed on the ground, marveled. He had heard that Hunters used abilities called skills, but this was his first time witnessing one.

In truth, moving such a mass at once was considerably taxing even for a teleporter. Fighting through the exhaustion from the rapid mana consumption, Adriano replied.

“Huff, huff. Good that you understand. I’ll finish cleaning up here, so go help at the walls. I’ve already cleared the north gate, so check the east gate.”

“Understood. Thank you for your cooperation.”

After briefly expressing his gratitude, Sir Frederick led his troops toward the east gate. With the biggest problem eliminated by this foreigner, there was nothing to hold him back.

The remaining demons? Not a problem either. With the Death Worm gone, the mages had regained their freedom of action. Their next targets would be the insects attacking the infantry, so he judged the chaos would be resolved quickly.

Indeed, the mages who had been struggling to contain the Death Worm immediately took action once it disappeared. While they couldn’t do much against the worm’s high magic resistance, they were the royal mage corps after all. As the high-level mages collectively drew up their power, the battlefield sky was instantly covered with magic circles.

What poured from the magic circles was a wave of flames that scorched the air. The flying insects turned to ash under the blaze that filled the sky. The tide of battle reversed in an instant. Adriano joined in the slaughter.

“I should make sure to clean up properly.”

As a mercenary, her motto was thorough cleanup. Demons were still emerging from the tunnel where the Death Worm had disappeared. The enemy’s source. The Demon Lord’s army was invading through the tunnel dug by the Death Worm.

“Is this an ant colony? Disgusting vermin.”

Adriano squeezed out her last strength to create a transfer gate. The gate completely covered the hole to prevent monsters from escaping. The other side was connected to the deep sea. Following the great natural principles of gravity and pressure difference, seawater poured from the transfer gate like a waterfall.

The seawater swirled into the tunnel like a flushing toilet, sweeping away all the demons crawling up. The demons struggled to escape the seawater cascade, but there was no way out of the hole blocked by the transfer gate. And the exit on the other side was a thousand kilometers away. The Demon Lord’s army drowned without being able to offer any resistance.

***

By the time the battle at the imperial palace was being wrapped up, Shin Jaehyuk was defending the bridge in front of the east gate against the Demon Lord’s army approaching from north and south.

‘Kwak Taewoo, you bastard, when are you going to fix that mana cannon?’

It was grueling. Unbearably grueling. Reinforcements were joining one after another, but it was still overwhelming. Overcoming such a massive difference in class required an equal expenditure of stamina. With waves of demons endlessly pushing from both north and south, Shin Jaehyuk’s limbs moved frantically.

Dodging toxic substances aimed at his face, Jaehyuk planted his spear in the ground and performed a pole vault-like flip. During the moment he was suspended in the air, his consciousness began to flow slowly.

‘That torture from Belphegor was absolute hell, but thanks to it, I can now control the speed of my consciousness. That makes tricks like this possible—now!’

As he faced the slowly inverting ground and sky, Jaehyuk’s pupils rapidly scanned the Demon Lord’s army’s front lines. He was looking for particularly strong ones—commander-class entities. In what would be one second by human standards, Jaehyuk had already sent lightning spears into the foreheads of the bosses he’d spotted.

Light flashed, and thunderous noise erupted. The sound of the bosses’ skulls being shattered was buried under the thunder. Units that lost their commanding entities became slightly disorganized. Thanks to this, the knights could more easily penetrate the demons’ gaps.

“The power of light!”

While one demon hesitated momentarily, a knight stuffed a grenade down its throat. With an explosion, flesh scattered and acidic blood sprayed. The blood splashed in all directions, melting the flesh of the clustered demons.

“Now! Push forward together!”

Heavy infantry aligned their formation and performed a shield bash toward the group of demons writhing in pain. The demons, in disarray, were helplessly pushed back by the full-body shields and fell into the moat filled with holy water. There was a sizzling sound and the revolting smell of burning flesh, accompanied by screams.

‘Like a scene from 300… impressive!’

Jaehyuk’s admiration was short-lived as new forces filled the empty space. Creatures that had evaded the imperial army’s sight by hanging upside down from beneath the bridge. Their sickle-shaped claws, perfect for hooking, made this possible. True to their specialty in stealth, these demons cleverly infiltrated the gaps in the knights’ formation created by the shield bash, like assassins.

“Ambush from under the bridgehead!” “Watch below!”

The knights struck down with their shield edges at the demons crawling up from beneath the bridge. When the humans’ attention was drawn downward by the sacrifice of one demon, others immediately leaped over the shields. Without even glancing at the knights, they aimed straight for Jaehyuk.

“Radiance!”

A shockwave emanated from Jaehyuk’s body. The jumping assassin demons were all repelled by the shockwave and fell beneath the bridge. Had he dealt with them? There was no time to check. He had to respond to the next attack immediately. A demon that looked like a cross between a bat and a snake was flying toward his face.

‘Why always me!’

Jaehyuk cursed as he swung his spear back and forth. His spear, imbued with a master’s skill, traced a snake-like curve. Demons were skewered in an instant. As soon as they died, a new attack came at Jaehyuk.

Jaehyuk felt the unfairness. The demons were targeting him with unusual persistence. Had they understood that they couldn’t cross the bridge without defeating Jaehyuk? Somehow it felt more insidious than that. They were acting as if killing Jaehyuk himself, not crossing the bridge, was the objective of the war.

Yet he couldn’t carelessly raise a barrier either. If Jaehyuk hid inside a barrier, the cunning demons would deliberately ignore it and try to circle around to cross the bridge. Whether they intended to lure Jaehyuk out of his barrier or actually attack the east gate, there was no way to tell. Judging by how attacks immediately concentrated on Jaehyuk as soon as he lowered his barrier, he suspected the former.

‘If only I could use that technique I used to kill Belphegor…!’

The spear of light that shattered Belphegor’s mental image and cut off his breath. He tried to summon that spear with power comparable to divine punishment, but for some reason, it wouldn’t work. It was as if some condition was missing…

‘It feels like just one thing is missing… Is it not enough holy power? No, that can’t be it. In Belphegor’s mental image, where holy power didn’t exist, I could summon it just fine. Then what’s the problem?’

He couldn’t ponder deeply right now. Seeing a tentacle that came close enough to touch his hair, Jaehyuk urgently tilted his head back. He moved his lips, and lightning struck from the sky, burning the attacker.

Unable to use the spear of light now, there was only one way to break through the situation. Composing himself, Jaehyuk thought of his comrade who should be in the imperial palace.

‘Taewoo, hurry!’

***

Kwak Taewoo stared blankly at the broken mana rod. He couldn’t connect the causal relationship: Adriano had teleported the Death Worm, causing the ground to collapse, and in the process, falling rocks had broken the mana rod.

Faced with this unexpected accident, his mind was bleached white, barely able to distinguish dream from reality. When he finally came to his senses and grasped the situation, he felt utterly dejected. After painstakingly piecing together an artifact that had been shattered into ten thousand pieces, now the mana rod was broken? It was like fixing a battery only to have the power cord cut…

What made it worse was that the mana rod leading to the north gate was intact, while only the circuit connected to the east gate was damaged. Taewoo had never hated Murphy’s Law more than at this moment.

“Damn it… of all times…!”

Chancellor Behemdorf shouted:

“Stay calm! The mana rod has a very basic structure. Even a novice mage could easily fix it.”

“Then fix it already! Why are you hesitating?”

“The problem is we don’t have the materials right now. To fix it, we need magical electrolyte, a kind of reagent, and we need to go to the supply room to get it… but teleportation is impossible within the palace due to the coordinate-jamming artifact.”

This meant they had to physically run to the supply room and back. Which would obviously take time.

Like most animals, Kwak Taewoo became smarter in crisis situations. He thought of someone as fleet-footed as Shin Jaehyuk.

“Duke August, that guy! That bastard runs away at an incredible speed, if we order him—”

Taewoo and Behemdorf simultaneously turned their heads to where the Duke had been. To that spot where his presence had not been felt for some time. The Duke was already gone.

Due to the unexpected situation, it took a few seconds for this to register. A few seconds later, Taewoo exploded with thunderous anger.

“You son of a bitch!!!”

He ran away at this crucial moment? Already seething from the destruction of the mana rod, the Duke’s desertion snapped Taewoo’s last thread of reason.

Taewoo was never particularly rational by nature. His actions were primarily dictated by emotion and instinct, and even his once inefficient pursuit of Shin Jaehyuk was driven solely by vengeance.

As anger filled his head with blood, his mind hardened as if his blood vessels were clogged. Stupidity breeds courage. With his reason paralyzed by rage, Taewoo was now exceptionally brave.

“Chancellor, as a mage, you’d know this, right?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

The Chancellor stammered, overwhelmed by Taewoo’s intensity.

“That the human body conducts mana well!”

Before Chancellor Behemdorf could even say “yes,” Taewoo, with bulging eyes, pulled two swords from his subspace and thrust them into each end of the broken circuit. The Chancellor was horrified.

“Bare hands on a high-voltage circuit?! That’s insane—!!”

The next moment, a torrent of mana flooded into Taewoo’s arms.