Ch.121Chapter 121 – Earth Dragon (1)
by fnovelpia
They say courage is foolishness, and Chancellor Behemdorf was utterly shocked by Kwak Tae-woo’s actions—courageous yet foolish.
‘Mana flowing through a human body? And he just connects himself to a mana road?’
What Kwak Tae-woo did was equivalent to grabbing high-voltage power lines with both hands to conduct electricity. Even a kindergartener wouldn’t do something so idiotic—no, something that would literally turn you into an idiot.
If normal mana flow in the body is like a river’s lower stream, activated mana would be the middle stream. But the mana flowing through that mana road right now is a raging current comparable to a waterfall. Pouring a waterfall into a normal human’s blood vessels? It’s a miracle he’s not crippled.
That’s why Chancellor Behemdorf was beyond amazed—he was shocked.
‘Impossible…’
Kwak Tae-woo, fully exposed to the raging current of mana, was somehow withstanding the pressure. In a flow where his blood vessels should have been torn apart and mana should have backflowed, his entire body turned bright red from the strain as he stubbornly transported mana from his right arm to his left.
It was pressure no ordinary human could withstand, but Kwak Tae-woo was no ordinary human. His body, even his blood vessels, belonged to an Awakened One who transcended humanity, and his physical level was comparable to S-rank, at level 600…
But withstanding it didn’t mean he was fine. Like someone being electrocuted whose muscles contract and can’t let go of the wire, Kwak Tae-woo couldn’t remove his hands from the mana road. He was sweating profusely trying to control the mana to prevent it from escaping his blood vessels and destroying surrounding cells. In the process, excruciating pain coursed through him as if his blood vessels would burst.
“Kuh, kuheuk—!”
Despite his unsightly groans, Kwak Tae-woo struggled not to lose consciousness. As he suffered with groans that suggested he might die at any moment, Chancellor Behemdorf frantically offered advice, drawing on his magical wisdom.
“The, the pain and overload you’re experiencing is happening because the speed at which mana flows in from the mana road differs from your internal mana circulation speed! Increase your internal mana flow rate to match the mana road’s speed!”
Even as he gave this advice, the Chancellor appeared uncertain. It was only theoretically possible. Could a human body withstand such speed? Did he have enough mana control to raise the flow rate?
There were too many impossible conditions in reality. The more one knew, the more one could see the likelihood of failure.
Yet somehow, Chancellor Behemdorf had a vague intuition. Perhaps, just perhaps, this recklessly brave young man might succeed—a groundless hope.
***
‘Speed up mana circulation…?’
Through his fading consciousness, the Chancellor’s advice came like a mirage. Kwak Tae-woo focused on the mana flow and desperately prayed. He didn’t know to whom he was praying. He just kept repeating in his mind.
If the Ghost Demon’s judgment wasn’t wrong, if he truly was the type who could only grow when pushed to the edge of a cliff, then please give him the strength to overcome this moment.
“Aaaaaaaaahhh—!!”
With concentration pushed to the extreme, he controlled the mana. He grasped a strand of mana within his blood vessels to start the engine. He pumped hard to accelerate the flow.
But it was futile.
There was a flow that destroyed and surpassed the rhythm Kwak Tae-woo was barely creating. The speed he managed to create was swallowed and scattered by the faster current. He gathered the scattered mana again to create his own flow. The mana emanating from the mana road unfailingly broke that flow and overtook it.
It was like the tortoise and hare marathon. The mana road, like the hare, mocked him and raced ahead. Kwak Tae-woo was always the tortoise chasing from behind. His life had been the same.
Always lagging behind, looking at others’ backs as he ran.
Kwak Tae-woo’s eyes rolled back in pain. His consciousness reflected not reality but his subconscious. He thought unconsciously. Being unconscious, it was his purest, most sincere truth.
…He resented geniuses. Those who were born with something he could never possess. Those who effortlessly succeeded at things he couldn’t do no matter how hard he tried.
Geniuses made his time meaningless. Effort becomes worthless in the face of talent.
They make him despair. Force him to stop running and sit down…
‘Really?’
A woman’s voice pierced through his unconscious. Kwak Tae-woo’s pupils flickered wildly.
‘—Don’t make me laugh…’
Kwak Tae-woo’s teeth ground together. Blood flowed from his eyes where capillaries had burst. The blood ran down his cheeks, like tears.
His face, contorted like an evil spirit, cried with tears.
‘Somehow, somehow I’ll catch up…! I’ll prove that my entire life wasn’t worthless! No matter how long it takes, no matter how much pain it brings—!!’
Inferiority complex, the greatest driving force that moved Kwak Tae-woo, paradoxically gave him the will not to give up in this extreme situation. The inferiority that makes others despair ironically breathed will into Kwak Tae-woo.
…He imagined a river. A winding valley stream with incredibly fast currents. A dangerous river where one would drown without being able to swim if they fell in.
He visualized a single droplet. In the raging current of the river, it was a particle moving leisurely at its own pace. It didn’t care how fast the droplets beside it moved. The droplet was whole unto itself.
Kwak Tae-woo focused on the form of that droplet, searching for other particles moving at the same speed. There were quite a few. With superhuman concentration, he bound them together. Droplets intertwined with droplets, becoming a flow. Though lagging behind other currents, it was a flow of slowpokes running at their own intact speed.
Kwak Tae-woo encouraged these slowpokes. It was okay to lag behind for now. Catch up little by little, one at a time.
With his encouragement, the slowpokes began to walk one by one. Starting like a jog at first, then getting faster. They increased their speed to match Kwak Tae-woo’s flow. Faster, increasingly faster.
It was completely free from the surrounding currents. A single, intact melody asserting its existence within the raging torrent.
“Good heavens… did he really do it? W-wait a moment! I need to bring reagents right away…!”
As Chancellor Behemdorf hurriedly left, Kwak Tae-woo lost consciousness. But even unconscious, mana flowed harmoniously like a river through his arms that firmly gripped the sword.
Without resistance, smoothly.
***
Guard Captain Marco anxiously surveyed the battle situation from atop the eastern gate wall.
For hours, his emotions had been swaying like reeds.
When he discovered the magical cannon’s malfunction: panic,
When Shin Jae-hyuk recklessly jumped down from the wall: shock,
When Shin Jae-hyuk alone held back the Demon King’s army on the bridge: hope,
And now, watching demons swarming like insects from both north and south, he felt despair.
A soldier with the same sentiment muttered:
“Goddamn… why are the armies that were attacking elsewhere suddenly coming at us?”
It was a tactically nonsensical movement. Why leave the nearest gate and take a longer route? It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t understand the demons’ scheme of deliberately trying to break through the east gate at such cost.
The problem was that this stupid tactic was actually working. Of all gates, only the east gate’s magical cannon was still not repaired.
The knights and Shin Jae-hyuk were barely holding the bridge and stopping the Demon King’s army, but their formation was gradually being pushed back.
Marco was sincerely grateful they had imported gunpowder weapons from Earth. Without these weapons that turned even ordinary soldiers who couldn’t use mana into demon slayers, the east gate would have fallen long ago…
Even civilians and refugees, recognizing the gravity of the situation, were lending a hand. They transported ammunition to the top of the wall and threw stones to try to stop the demons’ advance.
As the struggle continued both outside and atop the wall, a voice pierced through the despair.
“The wall is glowing!”
Marco reflexively turned his head. A deep blue light climbing through the circuits engraved on the wall filled his vision. Along with the blue-tinted view came a surge of joy. He roared as loudly as his happiness.
“The mana road is fixed! All units fire—!!!!”
“Fire!”
“Fire!”
The order was relayed through the soldiers’ mouths. The artillerymen moved in perfect unison. Powerful lightning sparked in the eyes of the golems receiving the command, and finally, the Empire’s decisive weapon activated.
A shower of blue heat rays fell upon the Demon King’s army.
***
Beelzebub saw through shared vision that the magical cannon he had worked so hard to break was operating again. The sight of his legion simultaneously melting under dozens of light beams.
A wave of anger erupted thunderously.
[Whyyyyy noooooow—!!!]
As rage clouded his reason, some insects that had broken free from the main body’s control devoured a few demons who were cleaning the lord’s castle. Beelzebub was both an individual and a collective of 200 million insects, and even the small portion that lost control was extremely numerous.
Like hungry piranhas, they frantically clung to the flesh and finished their meal, leaving not even a skeleton where the demon had been. The servants trembled at their master’s anger, not daring to make a sound. For there is no law protecting the weak in hell.
Even as his army was being annihilated in real-time, Beelzebub did not withdraw his forces. His greed for the sacred blood, the precious item that knight possessed, was too great. Since greed often stems from feelings of inferiority and jealousy. Currently, Beelzebub could be called a symbol of greed rather than jealousy.
He wanted it. Wanted it so badly. With that, he could gain power like a god. It could make him an even greater being.
Even if he had to sacrifice all his forces, he couldn’t give up on Longinus, that human. But that magical cannon, that cursed beam protecting the wall, was too irritating. Even though he ordered his legion commanders to destroy the magical cannon as top priority, every demon sent for that purpose melted and perished in the dense current of mana.
There were no demons in that place with enough magic resistance to withstand that high-purity mana. Such demons would be at least ancient demons of duke rank, and such great beings rarely appeared on the battlefield themselves.
Beelzebub wanted to descend himself to take the sacred blood, but he couldn’t due to the gate’s restrictions. It was frustrating. Two hundred million demon brains wracked for a solution.
[Someone who could go in my place…]
A being flashed in his mind. His most cherished subordinate. A creature he had subjugated using as many as nine precious neural parasites.
Beelzebub prayed to the Demon King to request:
[My Demon King, I request the deployment of the Earth Dragon Hydra. Please lend me the power of the Demon King…]
***
In the sky above the fierce battlefield, a spot as dark as ink appeared.
At first just the size of a fingernail, it swelled by greedily devouring the surrounding void.
The first person to notice this anomaly was a hunter shooting fireballs from atop the wall.
“A gate? At this timing?”
The sphere growing in the void blocked the light, casting darkness on the ground below. Sharp-eyed Shin Jae-hyuk noticed the change and recognized the gate’s existence.
‘Reinforcements now that the magical cannon is repaired? What confidence…’
Even now, demons were being shredded by the second from the destructive beams shooting from the statues’ eyes. Did they think increasing numbers would change something? It was a naive judgment. Sending reinforcements now would only increase casualties.
Yet even as he was confident of victory, Shin Jae-hyuk couldn’t take his eyes off the gate.
“Why doesn’t it stop growing?”
The gate kept getting bigger. Like a balloon that didn’t know its elastic limit, it continued to expand. Eventually, the gate grew large enough to cover the sky, its form resembling a black sun descended upon the earth.
“Oh, Lord…”
“Eloah, have mercy…”
The holy knights groaned. Religious people tend to cling to supernatural symbols, and that sun was clearly an ill omen from any perspective. A black sun? Even its form was excessively blasphemous.
Shin Jae-hyuk groaned for a different reason.
‘The size of a gate usually corresponds to the number or size of demons coming through it…’
Unprecedented size, both in Eden and on Earth. It meant the Demon King’s army had really opened the gate with determination. Whatever would emerge from that hell gate so ostentatiously opened, it was extremely ominous.
By now, the black hole had stopped growing. Its ominous presence hovering there reminded one of a black hole. Generally, a black hole refers to a hole that sucks in everything, but this hole instead spat out one being.
Watching the massive body emerge from the gate, a soldier stupidly muttered:
“That size and appearance… a Death Worm? Again?”
“Yeah… but it doesn’t seem to be just one.”
The reason the other soldier judged so was because there wasn’t just one head. The Death Worm had multiple vicious mouths. Counting, there were nine in total.
However, it wasn’t nine Death Worms summoned as the soldier guessed. It was just one. The system message announced the appearance of a boss.
「 ===
Hydra.
With nine heads on one body,
Who dares call it a worm?
It is a dragon living beneath the sand.
=== 」
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