Ch.185Demon Awakened from the Seal (4)

# 185. Demon Awakened from the Seal (4)

‘The Great Being’

Most creatures that humans collectively call monsters lack what could be considered a self. If one had to compare, they move similarly to wild beasts. Particularly wild beasts with an overwhelming instinct for slaughter.

Yet even among them, there are occasionally special monsters.

Either born with mutation-like low probability, or upgraded through prolonged exposure to special circumstances.

Elite monsters are typically created through one of these two routes.

However, the elite monsters currently charging headlong toward Fort Paelm were somewhat different.

They were monsters who had succeeded in ‘enduring’ the overwhelming presence and evil magical power while staying closest to the demon awakened from the seal when it opened its eyes.

Just as people living in high-altitude cities don’t suffer from mountain sickness, the monsters that managed to endure being in closest proximity to the demon awakened from the seal experienced explosive growth in a short time.

And they developed a faint sense of self.

The demon awakened from the seal is a great being.

Thanks to the great being, they evolved like this.

Their reason for existence is solely for the great being.

The great being desires the extermination of the humans before them.

Therefore, their objective is the extermination of the humans before them.

Under this extremely simple yet clear sense of purpose, the elite monsters charged forward as if there was no path other than the one leading to Fort Paelm.

**

By the time the werewolf-like elite monster—which I arbitrarily labeled as Number 1—reached the fortress wall and attempted some sick climbing, our raid party had already arrived at the space above.

Since this had already been agreed upon with the fortress leadership, the forces stationed there vacated their positions to support other areas as soon as we arrived.

To put it coldly, their absence was more helpful to us, and to put it compassionately, they were providing assistance to those who would have to face elite monsters without us.

We allowed Elite Number 1 to climb the fortress wall. After all, we couldn’t go down below the fortress.

“Grrrr….”

After climbing the fortress without safety equipment or footholds, Elite Number 1 landed acrobatically, looked around at our raid party surrounding it, lowered its posture, and growled.

Up close, it was larger and more intimidating than I’d expected.

But still.

“Let’s take this one down quick and catch the others.”

“Obviously.”

Unfortunately for this elite monster, compared to the trials we’d been through, it was nothing more than a mere pebble in our path. Honestly, no one here felt any threat to their life.

So there was no need to form detailed formations.

“Attack.”

“Hyaaah!”

As soon as my order dropped, Yuri let out a battle cry and swung her axe fiercely. Elite Number 1 dodged Yuri’s attack with a single light movement. Of course, Yuri wasn’t one to be disappointed by that. It was just a feint attack to begin with, and we weren’t acting alone.

“Get back!”

“Hot stuff!”

As soon as Yuri moved out of the line of fire, Subin’s fireball and Arang’s crossbow bolt converged on Elite Number 1’s escape route from both sides.

Crossbow in front, fireball behind.

‘Now, how will you dodge this?’

Their attacks were by no means shabby, but I didn’t expect the elite monster to fall just yet. As I predicted, Elite Number 1 dodged their combined attack.

By bending its back completely backward like doing the limbo.

Showing off incredible flexibility and core strength, Elite Number 1 seemed to anticipate a follow-up attack and used the momentum to leap backward, once again warily eyeing us.

“This bastard is fucking flexible.”

“Yuri. Language.”

“Why? It’s just a monster.”

Despite it being just a feint attack, Yuri seemed quite irritated by Elite Number 1’s evasive movements and licked her lips while cursing. I didn’t bother stopping her.

‘It’s pretty good.’

That was the extent of my assessment.

Of course, I didn’t want to drag this out any longer.

So our attacks remained similar in style but became much more vicious.

Soyu and I applied buffs while Yuri swung her axe. Seyeon controlled the remaining space and prepared for any potential counterattack. Arang’s crossbow bolts, Subin’s magic, and Yehyun’s spirit arts were layered in with perfect timing.

A flawless combination and coordination that surpassed Elite Number 1’s evasive capabilities.

Elite Number 1 probably felt wronged. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw a hint of indignation on its wolf-like face. If it had been human instead of a wolf, it might have loudly demanded to fight us one-on-one in a fair match.

“That’s it!”

“Kaaang!”

“Yeah! That’s how you handle a dog!”

There’s a limit to evasive maneuvers in confined spaces, and eventually Elite Number 1 fell victim to Yuri’s axe. It was chilling how it twisted its body in an uncanny way to minimize the damage, but that was enough to tip the scales decisively in our favor.

Whether from blood loss or sensing its impending defeat, Elite Number 1 began thrashing about in heightened excitement. Its movements became much more ferocious but lost the precision they had before. And that was a major mistake in what appeared to be (at least on the surface) an even fight.

No matter how much we needed to avoid wasting time, we didn’t rush but repeatedly hit and retreated, wearing it down methodically. Eventually, under the merciless attacks of our raid members who kept striking the same wounded areas, Elite Number 1 collapsed with all four limbs bent in directions they shouldn’t bend.

It was an overwhelming victory by anyone’s standards.

It was enough to boost the morale of the fortress forces, and we immediately moved to intercept another elite monster.

“Watch out for friendly fire!”

“Knights! Hold your positions! Protect our allies!”

“Rotate! Rotate! Rotate! Regroup quickly! Don’t let gaps form in our firepower!”

Though we took it down in just a few minutes, chaos had already spread throughout the fortress. This was because firepower was being divided between dealing with elite monsters and the still numerous regular monsters.

In such a situation, one hundred times out of one hundred, they focused more firepower on reducing the number of regular monsters blackening the area around the fortress, but…

“Hold on! Hold until reinforcements arrive!”

“Don’t rest for a moment- guhk-!”

Like ink spreading in clear water, once the line was breached, the territory of elite monsters on the fortress walls rapidly expanded, which led to regular monsters climbing the walls.

The fortress forces couldn’t afford to give up the overwhelming advantage provided by the walls, so they delayed as much as possible, but contracting the front line seemed inevitable.

The damage was growing rapidly.

“Captain. At this rate.”

“Boss, why the hell isn’t this boss showing up yet?”

But the boss—the demon awakened from the seal—who should have appeared by now still hadn’t shown up.

Should we be glad that we could buy time by reducing the number of monsters alongside the fortress forces?

Or was this a strategy to wear down our forces as much as possible?

We were handling things well, but an anxiety that wasn’t there before began to grow. I felt it even as we ended the life of another elite monster.

Then, as I casually glanced far beyond the fortress walls, I swallowed the curse that was about to escape my lips.

“Everyone, pay attention.”

“Huh?”

“The number of elite monsters hasn’t decreased.”

“…What?”

“See for yourselves.”

At my words, the raid members who were separating regular monsters’ heads from their bodies in various ways while simultaneously observing the battlefield took less than 10 seconds to reach the same horrified conclusion as me.

“This is ridicul—!”

“Shh!”

I hastily covered Yuri’s mouth. Instead of speaking, I rolled my eyes to indicate the surrounding soldiers, and Yuri seemed to understand, nodding obediently. We naturally lowered our voices.

“How is this possible?”

“I don’t know either. What’s important now isn’t figuring out why or how this happened, but deciding what to do.”

“Because we don’t have time.”

“Exactly. But at this rate…”

It wasn’t good. It was very bad.

When the boss—the demon awakened from the seal (DFTS for short)—appears, the environment to fight it naturally forms outside the fortress, not inside.

The vast majority of monsters couldn’t withstand the DFTS’s presence up close, and the few elite monsters that could were busy attacking the fortress.

Of course, the DFTS had patterns that forcibly drew in nearby monsters or created them, which was very annoying, but that was a separate issue from the current situation.

‘Surely we won’t have to break through those monsters to meet the boss directly?’

That was truly an absurd assumption. The DFTS was definitely nearby. This was certain. But it’s also true that the boss, which should have appeared long ago, hadn’t shown up.

I don’t know why it was dawdling, but if that’s the case…

“If it won’t come out of its house, we’ll have to burn the house down.”

“Huh? What did you say?”

“Subin. Soyu.”

Could it remain still even if we scattered the calamity of the mountains that had descended like divine punishment on those who tormented the Ayors?

“Want to play with fire a bit?”