Ch.276276. Preliminary Skirmish (2)

“They have no intention of a direct confrontation!”

The Cult of Immortality’s movements changed around the end of Kim Su-ho’s fifth offensive.

It was just past noon after dawn, and Kim Su-ho and his strike team were taking a brief rest while receiving treatment from Yu-na.

Thanks to this, the Cult of Immortality had time to contemplate Kim Su-ho’s storm-like offensive and realized that Kim Su-ho and his strike team had absolutely no intention of directly confronting the Cult of Immortality.

If so, they needed to consider what purpose the Seoul Allied Forces had for this offensive. But their deliberation didn’t last long.

“…It seems they’ve noticed.”

From the beginning, the Seoul Allied Forces were so blatantly demonstrating their power that the Cult of Immortality couldn’t help but notice what they were planning, and the Seoul Allied Forces wouldn’t just stand by and watch.

The black magical energy established at Seoul Station was gradually extending from the ground toward the sky, and its length was increasing bit by bit.

Eventually, this black magical energy reaching beyond the clouds would be the Cult of Immortality’s sacrificial offering to summon Him, and the Cult was preparing their final card to end this war.

The moment that black magical energy reached the sky, the Cult of Immortality would be victorious.

“Then the answer is simple.”

If the Seoul Allied Forces had planned this offensive to destroy that trump card, the action the Cult of Immortality needed to take was extremely simple.

“Recall all undead dispatched to various locations. Abandon the Han River defense line.”

They would abandon the Han River defense line.

Not only the Han River defense line, but they also recalled all undead dispatched throughout Seoul to Seoul Station, focusing solely on defending Seoul Station.

Essentially, undead deployed throughout northern Seoul were gathered at Seoul Station, except for those directly engaged in combat with the Seorabeol-Yamato Allied Forces or the Seoul Allied Forces, and their numbers exceeded hundreds of thousands.

Of course, considering the population of Seoul and surrounding cities, the number of undead concentrated at Seoul Station might seem relatively small, but over 200 undead golems had been deployed to defend Seoul Station.

This meant they were prepared to pulverize anyone approaching Seoul Station with the monstrous throws of undead golems, and even if someone managed to get past the undead golems, Death Knight units were ready to charge.

“A corridor of death.”

Thanks to the Cult of Immortality abandoning the Han River defense line, the Seoul Allied Forces, who had arrived at the Yongsan forward base previously established by Kim Su-ho, fell into serious contemplation after observing the Cult’s current forces through drones.

Once they deployed such space defense with undead golems, the Seoul Allied Forces would need to use siege weapons comparable to undead golems to overcome this golem barrier.

However, the path to Seoul Station was already controlled by the Cult of Immortality, and if they unknowingly set foot on the path to Seoul, traps that would drain their life force through magical flows formed along the city ground were waiting.

Even if they wanted to continue the offensive, even Kim Su-ho couldn’t rashly attack because of these traps, and so the Seoul Allied Forces had to agonize over how to break through the traps prepared by the Cult of Immortality…

“Let’s fire Hyunmoo missiles.”

He wanted to say they had no choice, but unfortunately, Kim Su-ho, who had inherited the legacy of South Korea, had plenty of weapons to break through the space defense designed by the Cult of Immortality.

Yes, until recently they had little presence, but that was mainly because most battles in the current apocalypse were urban warfare or small-scale engagements, mostly using conventional weapons or cold weapons, and there weren’t many wars that seriously mobilized large-scale destructive war machines.

Even in the UK where civil war had broken out, battles were mostly between Awakened using their abilities, not powerful war machines, as such weapons would inevitably destroy cities proportional to their power, and using them increased the possibility of mutual destruction with the enemy. They had been implicitly avoided, but if the opponent was an international villain, they could be used freely without hesitation.

The question was whether the short-range ballistic missiles Kim Su-ho mentioned were still available on the Korean Peninsula.

“Eh? Those were still around?”

“Yes. The NTS secured them but had no use for them, so they were just being stored. We never really had a serious siege warfare situation. And we couldn’t drop them on a city just to kill a few undead, right?”

Having taken control of the NTS in the early days of the apocalypse, Kim Su-ho had plenty of time to recover South Korea’s legacy, and naturally, he had recovered and stored powerful strategic weapons before others could.

Among them were Hyunmoo missiles, South Korea’s main weapon and new model, and considering the impressive range of Hyunmoo missiles, undead golems were merely slow-moving targets.

The problem was…

“We still have the know-how. Hitting the target isn’t difficult. The problem is that nobody knows if these Hyunmoo missiles can take down undead golems in one shot.”

“Undead golems are valuable strategic weapons even from the Cult of Immortality’s perspective. They’ve surely cast protective magic on them.”

The question was whether South Korea’s proud ballistic missiles could take down undead golems in a single strike.

Considering their power and penetration, Hyunmoo missiles certainly had enough power to penetrate and explode undead golems, but the problem was that through engagements with the Seoul Allied Forces, the Cult of Immortality had learned not to operate undead golems alone.

They would have sufficient protective magic and support from skeleton mages, and conversely, undead golems might withstand and intercept Hyunmoo missiles.

“Protective magic, huh. Then it would be difficult to take them down in one shot.”

Considering the power of magic used by high-level Awakened along with the sturdy defense of undead golems, even Kim Su-ho thought it would be difficult to eliminate undead golems with Hyunmoo missiles alone.

Even if penetration was successful, that wouldn’t necessarily lead to elimination, and undead golems were monsters that could be repaired and redeployed by the Cult of Immortality if they weren’t completely destroyed.

“That’s assuming we use unmodified Hyunmoo missiles. But if we apply magical crafting here, I think we can definitely take them down.”

But now in the apocalypse, technology to apply magical processing to modern weapons was beginning to develop, with Seorabeol leading the way.

Bahamut Bullets were representative of this, and inspired by them, many modern weapons were being transformed into magical weapons with engraved magic.

“Crafting?”

[It’s enchantment technology. To explain it simply to you, it’s like modifying Bahamut Bullets into missiles.]

“But still, ballistic missiles are quite large… Is crafting possible?”

In general, this was called enchantment technology, and with Bahamut’s advice, Kim Su-ho understood the concept of enchantment technology itself but expressed concern that enchanting an entire ballistic missile would not be an easy task.

[The Bahamut Bullet itself is made with ordinary technology, with Bahamut coins melted and enchanted onto it. In other words, if you engrave magic on Hyunmoo missiles in the same way as bullets, you can amplify their power while adding magical effects.]

“The Americans are already using this method against monsters. It’s entirely possible.”

America was already using Bahamut coins engraved on missiles to eliminate large monsters.

That technology also came through Bahamut coins, so if they committed to the crafting work, they could quickly deploy prepared ballistic missiles with just the coins.

With Yu-na and Bahamut so confident, Kim Su-ho also made up his mind and boldly…

“Then let’s fire the missiles. Target the undead golems stationed at Seoul Station. About 100 should be enough, right?”

They decided to prepare as many as 100 missiles and launch them from a point undetectable by the Cult of Immortality.

The Seoul Allied Forces immediately contacted Jeong Dong-geon, who was in charge of the Seoul Allied Forces’ supply line, ordering him to join the NTS following Kim Su-ho and recover the Hyunmoo missiles. Jeong Dong-geon followed the Seoul Allied Forces’ orders and successfully recovered the Hyunmoo missiles with guidance from the NTS.

Then he transported the weapons to the Seorabeol Defense Acquisition Program Administration and the Seorabeol Mage Society, where they mobilized all the know-how accumulated while making Bahamut Bullets to engrave enchantment magic on the Hyunmoo missiles. The completed Hyunmoo missiles were smoothly prepared for launch with the help of the NTS, and…

“Execute the scorched earth operation!”

With the Seoul Allied Forces’ order, the Hyunmoo missiles began launching toward their slow targets, and the Cult of Immortality failed to properly observe the launched missiles until they approached Seoul.

Above all, they didn’t think the Seoul Allied Forces would actually launch ballistic missiles toward Seoul, so the Cult of Immortality hadn’t established anti-air defenses against ballistic missiles.

To be frank, it was the Seoul Allied Forces who were strange for trying to turn Seoul into a sea of fire, while the Cult of Immortality had made somewhat sensible assumptions. But from the perspective of the Seoul Allied Forces, who had suffered under the Cult of Immortality for a year and a half, if just part of Seoul collapsed but they eradicated their archenemy, the Cult of Immortality, wouldn’t that be more beneficial? With this logic, they launched short-range ballistic missiles without any hesitation.

After all, they could just rebuild Seoul, which had been damaged by the Cult of Immortality, later!

“Those crazy bastards.”

Soon after, the launch of the short-range ballistic Hyunmoo missiles was detected by the Cult of Immortality, but once they were within effective range, the Cult had only one option.

While shocked at the Seoul Allied Forces’ sanity-breaking actions, they activated the large-scale defensive magic prepared at Seoul Station and ordered the undead golems to intercept. The undead golems roared as they tried to catch the ballistic missiles falling into the heart of the city with their massive hands.

But they were insufficient to stop the ballistic missiles fired at terrifying speeds, and above all, the ballistic missiles had been imbued with holy attributes, which were antithetical to the undead, just to spite the Cult of Immortality.

Even if they were lucky enough to catch a missile, the holy attribute magic would burn the undead golem’s hands, and the fired missiles would penetrate the chest of the golem with protective magic, attempting to completely pulverize its body into meat chunks.

“Activate the magic circle!”

At that moment, the missiles exploded, flashes soared, and mushroom clouds began to rise into the sky.

The undead golems that defended against the ballistic missiles were shattered on the spot, and they tried to demonstrate their might toward the underground of Seoul Station where the necromancers were, but were ultimately blocked by the protective magic prepared by the Cult of Immortality.

However, not only the undead golems deployed as defensive installations but also the defensive structures prepared by the Cult of Immortality around them began to collapse one by one, and some unfortunate Death Knights were annihilated, inflicting enormous damage on the Cult of Immortality once again after the Ulsan disaster.

The 100 Hyunmoo missiles fired devastated Seoul Station where the Cult of Immortality was based, and if the Cult hadn’t used protective magic or if that black magical energy extending into the sky didn’t exist, the Seoul Allied Forces would have literally turned Seoul into a sea of fire.

Conversely, they might have thought that the Cult of Immortality was an enemy that needed to be defeated even if it meant turning Seoul into a sea of fire, or perhaps they carried out this operation because they believed their archenemy would certainly protect Seoul.

“Crazy bastards. Completely insane.”

But what the Cult of Immortality understood was that the enemy was already prepared to turn Seoul into a sea of fire to defeat them.

That madness made the Cult of Immortality tremble with fear.