Ch.8686. And, After That

After the exposure of a human trafficking organization disguised as a government agency, South Korea was thrown into turmoil by a series of consecutive events.

Political scandals, monster invasions, psychic entities suspected to be ghosts that began appearing out of nowhere, and mysterious monsters that suddenly revealed themselves—suspiciously good at mimicking human tactics.

Each crisis threatened the very existence of the nation, but the indomitable Republic of Korea somehow endured these crises thanks to the help of an anonymous hero—known only as “Mr. Ha”—who never revealed his identity to anyone.

And after that chaotic year passed, the New Year’s Day finally arrived—

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

As if welcoming the first day of the new year, South Korea received a massive psychic explosion in the northern part of Gangwon Province as its New Year’s gift.

The explosion was so powerful and widespread that despite occurring in northern Gangwon Province, its effects were visible even in Busan.

The massive explosion, powerful enough to shatter all the windows of nearby military bases with its shockwave, naturally flattened everything around it and swept away all nearby monsters. Among the monsters caught in the blast was apparently a Bomb Spider.

Judging by how the Bomb Spider monsters scattered throughout the northern Korean Peninsula began forming groups and fighting each other after the explosion, it’s clear that whatever controlled them must have died after sustaining enough damage to lose control over them.

After this massive explosion, the South Korean government naturally sent an investigation team to determine the cause of the incident—which was partially successful.

By examining the remaining psychic waves, they discovered that the cause of the large-scale psychic explosion was South Korea’s only top-tier hunter, Yoo Se-ah, leading to speculation that she had self-destructed along with the Bomb Spider… but further investigation was impossible.

The enormous amount of psychic energy generated during the explosion remained and infiltrated approaching living beings like radiation, with such high concentration and threat level that a mid-tier hunter from the investigation team, despite entering with full preparations, had his body explode after just 10 seconds due to the effects of the psychic energy.

Although protective suits made from the skin of monsters with anti-psychic properties could somewhat block the energy’s penetration, there was something else that prevented them from investigating the interior.

Namely, “psychic entities” had materialized within this psychic energy and were wandering throughout the explosion area.

Psychic entities—a type of monster that existed only in theory until the appearance of the 0-rank Hive Mind confirmed their existence—are phenomena-like beings that can only survive in the psychic dimension because they have bodies composed solely of psychic energy without physical form…

However, thanks to the continuous influx of psychic energy from somewhere, as if a passage to the psychic dimension had opened due to the psychic explosion’s aftermath, these psychic entities could move with physical form in reality.

The psychic entities wandering within the explosion area were classified into roughly three types.

The first type was psychic entities that took forms similar to the living appearances of those who died in the explosion or its aftermath—regardless of whether they were monsters or humans.

These ghost-type psychic entities could be destroyed somehow using psychic powers, and physical force had minimal effect on them, but the other two types were virtually immortal.

The second type, known as spirit types, were entities where specific psychic phenomena manifested as psychic life forms—essentially psychic elements like psychic flames moving with self-awareness.

Although they would dissipate if their constituent psychic energy was scattered, they would revive shortly after. Moreover, these entities were born too easily and died just as frequently.

Even the weakest of their psychic phenomena had power equivalent to at least mid-tier monsters. To put it extremely, there were at least several hundred high-tier psychic entities within that area.

And finally, there was the worst psychic entity that couldn’t even be compared to these others—a 0-rank psychic entity that seemed to have been born from the remains of the Bomb Spider.

This living natural disaster, taking the form of black fog wandering through that psychic energy-filled space and devouring everything in sight, was a catastrophe that strongly suggested it could neutralize any human weapon.

Its assessed danger level was immeasurable. If this calamity could maintain its form even outside the affected area, it could potentially cause the end of the world. Because of this, the South Korean government, with the support of neighboring countries, decided on a last resort—the use of an anti-psychic bomb.

However, this was never actually used.

A government research team sent findings that if an anti-psychic bomb were dropped within the explosion’s affected area, the connection to the psychic dimension there would strengthen, causing a grand explosion that could engulf the entire Korean Peninsula.

In this situation where they could neither act nor stand by, an announcement from the nano-tech research team that the affected area would not expand further finally calmed public opinion.

The area of this explosion was officially named the “Psychic Storm” and was proudly selected as one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Though no one in South Korea would want such a distinction.

※ ※ ※

Meanwhile, apart from that emergency in northern Gangwon Province, South Korea was not particularly chaotic.

Although numerous monsters appeared after the Bomb Spider’s death released them from control, these monsters were specimens with lifespans reduced to about 6-7 months for combat purposes.

No matter what they did, they would be extinct after waiting about a year, and since they had split into factions around their respective commander-class individuals, they were no longer a unified force, so perhaps they didn’t need to be treated as hostiles like previous Hive Minds.

Additionally, since the primary targets of these divided monsters were not humans but nearby monsters, people thought that the Korean Peninsula would be peaceful for a while as these monsters fought among themselves.

However, such human hopes were mercilessly shattered.

The Bomb Spider’s remnants in southern Gangwon Province and its vicinity united around their command entity—known as Bomb Spider-04 (Tetra)—and launched an offensive against humans.

Bomb Spider-04, a control-type monster that previously controlled the monsters in southern Gangwon Province during the Mountain Army incident, is a commander-type monster whose raw power may be mediocre but whose various tactics and strategies derived from computer-like thinking are dangerous.

Furthermore, Bomb Spider-04’s territory was found to contain facilities for producing monsters and pipes for absorbing nutrients, and as it served as a forward base, its defensive capabilities were exceptional—with the number of stationed monsters reaching the hundreds of millions.

At minimum, there were 200 million low-tier monsters, 40,000 mid-tier monsters, and even a high-tier—specifically a 1st-rank humanoid monster called Bomb Spider-07 Valkyrie (Theo).

In this situation where most high-tier and above hunters had died in the explosion, the lack of means to stop that 1st-rank humanoid monster, which was also a kind of asymmetric force, was a serious problem.

And yet, those hundreds of millions of monsters were no less troublesome.

The low-tier monsters serving as infantry use mid-tier monsters that function like tanks as shields to advance, then pour heavy weapon fire from the rear.

The land-type mid-tier monsters—Hive Tanks—use their four legs to move through all kinds of rough terrain impassable to regular tanks, engage in close combat with blade-equipped front legs near their necks, and function like conventional tanks using flamethrowers in their mouths, main guns on their backs, and laser machine guns on their tails.

Especially from the perspective of human tanks, these monsters are so dynamically mobile and powerful in close combat that if you don’t hit them with a plasma cannon-type main gun before they approach, you might witness one monster slicing through dozens of tanks.

The infantry monsters also each possess combat capabilities on par with elite special forces, with such high shooting precision that unless facing heavily armed infantry, human soldiers are swept away without even a chance to engage.

Additionally, these infantry monsters are accompanied by close-combat specialized low-tier monsters about the size of bears, which carry heavy weapons on their backs to serve as mobile artillery platforms, making the infantry exchange ratio horrific.

Even when trying to engage in siege warfare by hiding in bases, these insane creatures bring various artillery forces to break through human defense lines.

Monster infantry always bring close-combat monsters equipped with mortars, and they bring Hive Tank variants with howitzers mounted on their backs like self-propelled artillery.

And naturally, being the originators of psychic powers, the monsters always travel with psychic-specialized individuals who hunt heavily armed infantry, putting humans at a disadvantage in every aspect of frontal warfare.

But even in this desperate crisis, humanity somehow found ways to respond to them—

Namely, thanks to various newly developed equipment from nano-tech and the unexpectedly significant contributions of hunters.

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[Author’s note: This is corrupted Yoo Se-ah, brainwashed by monster cells—a gift from the author.]