Ch.3636. The Last Stand of the Mountain Lord

When a sudden, tremendous explosion shook the entire cave, Mountain Lord was momentarily startled, but that confusion didn’t last long.

Before he knew it, the confusion had vanished, replaced by rage.

It was fury directed at the intruders who dared to cause a disturbance in his territory.

Thud.

After tossing the piece of meat he had been chewing onto the ground, Mountain Lord quickly began returning his body—stiffened from prolonged sleep—back to its original state.

First, he activated some of his dormant bio-cores, then channeled psychic energy into his rigid muscles. After heightening his senses to their peak, Mountain Lord wrapped his body in a barrier field generated from his core and majestically exited the cave—

Woooong—KWAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGANG!!!

What greeted Mountain Lord was a barrage of plasma shots fired by thousands of Hive Wyverns and an energy breath from the Hive Dragon ‘Theseus.’

The high-temperature plasma balls formed and launched from the wyverns’ mouths exploded like artillery shells upon impact, while Theseus’s energy breath was, frankly speaking, a laser-type breath resembling Godzilla’s radioactive heat ray.

The rain of plasma balls completely depleted the thick barrier field protecting his skin, and once the barrier disappeared, even his energy-resistant fur couldn’t possibly withstand the lethal attack of a Grade 1 monster.

DWOOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!!

With a strange sound resembling a ship’s horn, the energy breath—a skill implanted in Theseus by the Hive Mind specifically to counter this opponent—pierced through Mountain Lord’s body.

With his head, heart, and largest high-grade bio-core penetrated, it seemed impossible for any living being to survive such an injury.

In a game, the breath’s damage might only be enough to chip away at HP rather than finishing the job in one hit, but now that the game had become reality, things were different.

Since monsters are ultimately living creatures, even Mountain Lord couldn’t survive having his head and torso completely pierced through.

…That is, if what was hit had actually been a living creature.

《KRAAAAAAAAAAA—!!!!》

From the dark depths of the cave, obscured by shadows and dust, a sonic wave erupted like an explosion, blowing away the dust and sweeping through the Hive Wyverns.

And as the dust cleared, what Theseus saw inside was none other than Mountain Lord’s shadow clone—with a hole in its head that was slowly healing—and the perfectly intact Mountain Lord peeking out his head.

Surprisingly, this clever beast had summoned a shadow clone and switched places with it the moment his barrier field was stripped away.

After all, since the shadow clone was essentially an extremely advanced psychic construct, it could restore its form as long as it had energy (HP) remaining to constitute its body, even with a massive hole blown through its head.

‘…Dizzy.’

Anyway, back to the main point. Although Theseus was directly hit by the sonic wave Mountain Lord released, it suffered almost no damage.

The sonic wave had weakened as it spread out to take down the wyverns in one go, and even a direct hit from this weakened wave only pushed Theseus back slightly and caused mild dizziness.

But Mountain Lord, being no stranger to predicting such outcomes, immediately launched into his next attack as soon as he fired the sonic wave.

《KRANG—!》

Whoosh!

After sending his shadow clone charging forward as a shield, Mountain Lord began firing compressed sonic bullets from his mouth.

These bullets, despite being sonic waves, were even wrapped in barrier fields, making them guaranteed to cause fatal wounds if they hit vulnerable areas like wings. And if that wasn’t enough, the shadow clone’s close-range attacks were too powerful to ignore.

‘…!’

Wooong—KUUUUUUUUU!!!!

Therefore, Theseus barely managed to use its psychic ability—Gravity Manipulation (B)—to slam the shadow clone into the ground, and using the brief moment gained in the process, hastily increased its altitude.

It planned to rapidly ascend into the clouds to secure sufficient distance and use psychic abilities to finish off the shadow clone first, but… Mountain Lord was there.

KUUUNG—!!!

With a thunderous sound, Mountain Lord kicked off the ground and leaped, instantly reaching Theseus hiding in the clouds and swinging his claws.

Whoosh—CHAENG!

This was a proper aerial battle taking place above the clouds, with no footing available. Even though Mountain Lord had the advantage in terms of weight class, physical ability, and experience, his aerial combat capabilities should have been inferior to the Hive Dragon’s, but…

HWARARARARARARARARARK—!!!!

PAJIJIJIJIJIJIJIJIJIK—!!!!

Ssssssssssssssk…

‘What is this cat?!!!’

Surprisingly, Mountain Lord was maintaining a slight advantage in close combat against Theseus, who was using elemental psychic abilities to support itself, by kicking the air to move through the sky.

He easily dodged claws wrapped in flame that burned through barrier fields, and pushed back the tail coated in cold energy and electricity that would slow his body by covering his torso with an overwhelmingly large amount of barrier field.

PUEOK!

As Theseus staggered from having its tail pushed back, Mountain Lord swung his claws again, and when Theseus barely blocked it with a psychic construct shield and psychic barrier—Mountain Lord pushed through the barrier with his head.

‘…Kuk!’

Perhaps influenced by the knockback pattern from the game, Theseus was pushed back along with its shattered psychic construct—when suddenly it heard a familiar voice in its ear.

[Theseus, hold on just a little longer.]

‘Mother?!’

Along with the voice of its mother, the Hive Mind, psychic energy flowed into its mind and manifested into form.

The psychic energy transformed into dozens of rings around Theseus, and inside those rings, black portal-like openings formed—from which massive icicles made of psychic cold energy began to pour down.

Mountain Lord charged forward powerfully, shattering the falling giant icicles with a roar—

—?!!!

Suddenly feeling the connection to his shadow clone being severed—a signal that the clone had been destroyed—he was momentarily stunned and froze in place.

Mountain Lord and his shadow clone were connected, allowing Mountain Lord to monitor the clone’s current status.

Until this signal, Mountain Lord had not detected any major decrease in the energy (HP) needed for the shadow clone to maintain its form from any significant damage.

This meant that Mountain Lord’s shadow clone had been destroyed in a single blow, or by attacks so rapid they felt like a single strike despite being dozens of hits.

Therefore, Mountain Lord was shocked that his clone—which was equivalent to a Grade 2-3 monster despite being weaker than himself—had been defeated in one strike, causing him to momentarily freeze, and in this opening, attacks rained down on him.

‘Go, Hive Wyverns!’

It was the Plasma Blasters fired by the surviving Hive Wyverns that had been blown away by the sonic wave earlier and had now returned.

KWAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGANG—!!!!

Even with the continuous barrage of Plasma Blasters—the most powerful firepower available—it was extremely difficult for the intermediate-grade Hive Wyverns to inflict direct damage on Mountain Lord.

At best, they could only deplete and strip away the barrier field covering his skin, but in truth, this was the most crucial part.

Stripping away Mountain Lord’s barrier field meant that direct wounds could now be inflicted on his physical body.

‘Take this!’

Theseus opened its mouth wide and began activating the biological organs in its throat to condense energy and prepare to fire a breath attack.

Of course, Mountain Lord wouldn’t just stand by and wait. He tried to release a sonic wave from his mouth to disrupt the breath attack, but…

Piyung—PIBIBIBIBIBIBIBIBIBIBI!!!

To prevent this, the Hive Valkyrie Theo—who had single-handedly eliminated Mountain Lord’s shadow clone—quickly flew up to the sky commanding 24 Hive Starlights, and they began firing their equipped weapons at Mountain Lord.

Due to the difference in weight class, the energy blasters of the Hive Starlights merely grazed his fur, but the psychic blaster fired by the Grade 1 monster Hive Valkyrie—Theo—was of a different caliber.

Psychic energy shot from the psychic blasters deployed to cover the entire forearm below the elbow, and where it hit, magnificent explosions occurred, pushing back the enormous Mountain Lord.

[…Switching to close combat.]

And as Mountain Lord’s posture faltered, Theo converted the psychic blasters on both arms into psychic swords, then mercilessly swung them, focusing on Mountain Lord’s back.

Skin and flesh were sliced away, and the pain of bones being scraped overwhelmed Mountain Lord. Unable to withstand Theo, who was too small and fast compared to him, Mountain Lord finally began to descend slowly from the sky to the ground—

KWAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGANG—!!!!

An energy breath extended, grazing Mountain Lord’s back as he descended, and with 50% of his spine destroyed, he crashed to the ground, unable to move his body.

※ ※ ※

Despite having more than 50% of his spine destroyed and falling from a height where clouds were present, Mountain Lord was, remarkably, still breathing.

His extraordinary vitality was almost worthy of respect, but that was as far as it went. With more than half of his internal bio-cores damaged from the impact of the fall, Mountain Lord was captured by the Hive Mind without resistance, and what followed was as everyone expected.

While forcibly incorporating Mountain Lord’s consciousness into the Hive Mind, it also implanted an artificial spine made of nano-spirits that doubled as a control device into Mountain Lord’s shattered spine.

After completely healing Mountain Lord’s remaining injuries, the Hive Mind secretly sent him to Gangwon Province as a surprise gift, and as a result, the Hive Mind obtained something it had never imagined.

‘Jackpot!’

Namely, the body of an active high-ranking Hunter.