“For the Legion’s... victory!”
-!&[email protected]&*($!!!
KWA-A-AANG!!!
The knight blocking the road.
A warrior charged at him.
A powerful knight who alone had jammed the advance line of many soldiers.
Those watching thought the fight would drag on for quite a while.
Contrary to their expectations,
the duel ended very quickly.
-!?
With footwork so light you wouldn’t believe he was shrouded in madness,
the warrior slipped inside as he dodged the sword the knight swung.
[email protected]$, ^#[email protected]...!?
His fist savagely tore at the knight’s armor.
Even while immersed in frenzy—
—They are not living knights.
The warrior... Corporal Jeon Gwangil recalled,
in his head, what a certain monster had told him.
—Only the souls of dead knights are bound to that armor.
—That is why they are such a hellish opponent. There is no clear weak point, and no matter how much you pound that armor you can hardly inflict serious damage.
There was only one way
to neutralize that knight.
—A powerful soul, yes, but without a medium that soul cannot exert any physical force.
—If you dismantle the armor binding the soul, the homeless soul will dissipate on its own.
He ripped the armor up in brutal handfuls.
Tzzzz-rip...
From the black shadow within,
something like the soul’s viscera began to be torn out along with the plates.
Soon after—
[Screeeeeeeeeeech!]
A rending shriek filled the field, unbelievable to have come from that ponderous-looking suit of armor.
[You gain experience points.]
A hard foe that had given even Legion soldiers trouble.
A monster that could fairly be called a boss
was cleared in mere tens of seconds.
“Ptui.”
Armor fragments smashed to bits and scattered everywhere.
The warrior spat on them and spoke as if nothing of it.
“Next?”
“...N-next, sir?”
“Where is the next strong one...!”
The rough tone did not seem possible from someone usually so gentle.
Only then
did the nearby soldiers catch on.
‘The madness hasn’t worn off.’
Still surrendering his body to the frenzy,
the hulking warrior moved, hunting for the enemy.
Each time he appeared on a field,
another hard foe that had stymied the soldiers lost its life.
“H-holy...”
“Is that a person? That’s a boss monster...”
The soldiers following him gaped.
Yet at the same time they felt relief.
“Grrk. Next.”
“This way is next!”
Because they knew that this overwhelming warrior
was a soldier more loyal to the Legion than anyone.
****
The demon’s minions.
There was one order engraved in their minds.
[The contractors’ souls belong to the Master.]
[Protect them thoroughly so none may take them.]
An order from their greedy Master.
In response, the minions
charged those who had come to attack them.
During that—
—Grrrk...?
[Hell Hound]
One minion
halted mid-stride.
—...Grrrk!
The halted creature was hideous beyond measure.
Sinister flames crawled constantly over its whole body, which was covered in burns from being scorched black.
From its face, eyes, and mouth, dark-red fire kept blooming.
Where eyeballs should have been, grotesquely crumpled orbs burned and burned.
A powerful beast called the watch-dog of hell.
It was called a watch-dog not merely because it was strong.
Its eyes were ruined and it had lost sight.
Its other senses—smell, hearing, touch—
every kind of organ for detecting the enemy had developed absurdly.
And
the sentinel’s senses—
step, step...
found an enemy unit
roaming the field alone.
‘Prey.’
The enemy had attacked in groups.
They had coordinated organically with one another, tightening the noose step by step.
Even for minions, exterminating them was no easy task.
But
this one was different.
For some reason,
the fool was wandering the battlefield alone.
—Grrrk...!
The Hell Hound summoned its pack.
To teach a lesson to the foolish quarry.
“Hm?”
Heading for the presence he had sensed,
what stood there
was a man strolling unhurriedly between ruined buildings.
He looked like an ordinary human aside from the cool, hard expression.
If there was anything unusual,
it was this:
[Salmo-neus, the Lightning-Eater]
A yellow snake was perched
on his shoulder.
—Guoooo...
They had no reason to let a conveniently lone target go.
Dozens of hell’s watch-dogs
charged to hunt the man.
If he were an ordinary human,
the attacks would have left not even bones in an instant.
However,
the man was not ordinary.
“Salmo-neus.”
—Kkirruk.
When the man called the snake’s name in a friendly voice,
the translucent serpent trilled happily in reply.
Around the mage’s body,
blue-white current roared to life.
Lightning-element magic.
Among area-attack mages it ranked as one of the strongest for raw firepower.
There were drawbacks.
[Lightning Spear]
[Lightning Bolt], and the like—
most lightning spells were linear.
Against monsters rushing in from all directions, they could only be helpless.
Therefore,
lightning mages always projected fire from a safe rear,
under the protection of a forward line.
That was true only
for a typical mage.
“A million volts.”
When the man spoke the playful phrase,
the current flowing over his body concentrated into his hand.
—Kkiruk...
The yellow snake
ate that current.
It was made of lightning.
Therefore,
if it was the handling of lightning, the snake could assume any form freely.
“Radial.”
—Kkirurururururuk!
At last,
a powerful lightning blast spread in all directions centered on the yellow serpent’s body.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzt!
—Grrrk...!
—Ky-e-e-eeng...
The many beasts that had been charging him
were roasted a toasty brown by the lightning.
The limits of lightning magic were clear.
For Sergeant Lee Minjae,
those limits might as well not exist.
Each time he manifested a spell,
the number of monster corpses climbed by the dozens.
“Hm. Is this the building they say is packed with monsters?”
More than that.
When he set a hand on a wall and murmured,
“A million volts, occupation type.”
—Kkiruk!
BZZZZZT—!
[You gain experience points.]
A powerful surge ran through the entire building
and dealt catastrophic damage to the monsters lurking inside.
“...What even is that.”
He had already been regarded as the strongest in the Legion for area attacks.
He had surpassed level 30, completed advancement to the next tier,
and he had a well-matched vassal that could multiply his power many times over.
With a beast that handled every kind of lightning as if it were its own body by his side,
BZZZZZT!
Sergeant Lee Minjae
had completely shed the limits of an ordinary mage.
*****
“I figured they weren’t ordinary soldiers, but this is another level.”
Watching—
no, being attacked by them—
it was a sight from hell.
That was not all.
Bang...
“That gunshot again...!”
At that sound,
the Awakened huddled in a room flinched and twitched.
Gunfire from far away.
Every time it cracked once,
a huge hole appeared in a monster’s body.
‘A sniper...’
Snipers themselves were not strange.
It was only natural that soldiers would have snipers among them.
The physical abilities of the Awakened surpassed imagination.
That included eyesight.
Even an Awakened who was not that strong often had vision better than that of old Mongols.
High-level Awakened obviously had better still.
Which is why
it was absurd.
“How far away is he... that we can’t even see him...!”
The gunshot was barely audible even to Awakened hearing,
and although the direction of the sound was clear,
even with binoculars,
not a single contractor here
could find even the sniper’s shadow.
“T-that’s... impossible...”
The contractor holding the binoculars
broke into a cold sweat and pulled them from his face.
Bang—
Another distant report rolled in.
Clang!
“...!?”
The binoculars in his hands.
The glass shattered.
“H... holy...”
Moments ago,
that very lens had been against his eye.
What that meant
was only one thing.
“H-he knew we were trying to find him...”
“He knew.”
In that instant,
everyone gathered there grasped the same fact.
‘If that sniper had wanted to...’
Everyone here
would already no longer belong to this world.
****
The Legion’s assault did not end there.
Crunch—
Chomp, chomp...
“W-what is that crazy woman.”
“...She looks more monstrous than the monsters.”
She bit and swallowed a demon’s minion whole,
and the moment it slid down her throat she transformed into a shape similar to what she had eaten, the white-haired witch.
She continued to sweep the field.
[Great Strength Diamond Axe]
“Hup!”
KWA-A-AANG!!!
“The barricade...”
“She split it with one blow?”
Despite a small and slight frame,
there was also a mad soldier who demolished, in a single strike, the defensive works the Awakened had built with all their care.
“That building there, the inside looks packed wall to wall with monsters!”
“What about tank support?”
“They say the approach is choked with monsters. It will be difficult...”
There were
a few tight spots.
“Grrk... Next.”
“Corporal Jeon opened a path!”
“Tanks, move in!”
As soon as the powerful monster blocking the avenue went down,
tanks rolled in along that avenue.
“Twenty-five degrees starboard... fire!”
KA-BOOM!!!
Once the tanks that had pushed in unleashed their firepower,
the building packed with monsters collapsed in one piece.
“Obstacles cleared!”
“Rear fire units, begin support!”
With the sightline-blocking buildings gone,
the Legion’s proud long-range weapons
swept the field without hindrance.
Humans who had contracted with the demon.
And the powerful monsters sent to support them.
However,
it is always humans who hunt monsters—
No.
Strictly speaking,
“Area B-3 clear.”
“Squad 15! We’re moving in!”
it was the soldiers’ job.
****
The soldiers kept exterminating minions and began entering the center.
Their strength beggared the contractors’ imagination.
“...Gulp.”
The contractors watching the battle from afar
fell into silence.
“A-at this rate...”
“Are they really going to get all the way here?”
“For now, we should secure an escape route too...”
The monsters were protecting them,
but that protection was being breached far too quickly.
Their head,
Wonjun, watched the fight and thought.
“Strength is strength, but they are responding as if they know the minions’ information...”
The monsters were numerous.
There were towering buildings and barricades besides.
In this kind of fight, the defenders should have the advantage over the attackers.
Ordinarily there should not have been a collapse this easy.
However—
“Those tanks... and the strange vehicles with the spikes are the problem.”
The tanks boasted terrifying firepower.
The fighting vehicles acted as mobile barricades for the soldiers as they moved.
Those were the problem.
They destroyed this side’s defenses,
while that side’s defenses kept advancing step by step.
“If it were just the minions, even tanks should be destroyable.”
Conversely, if they could just destroy the tanks and the fighting vehicles,
the battle could turn out more favorable to the minions than expected.
The problem was—
“A small number of strong ones who make even approaching the tanks impossible.”
Whenever powerful minions moved
to destroy tanks,
powerful soldiers appeared from somewhere.
Those soldiers culled the monsters trying to take out the tanks with strength that could hardly be compared to the others.
Given the situation,
Wonjun reached one conclusion.
“If we can eliminate just that small number of elites, the minions can hold them.”
And there was a minion
who might be able to erase even those few strong ones.
“There is... one.”
Not long ago,
though it was not something they had summoned directly,
a being had been summoned from somewhere and come to them.
It possessed a power on a different level from the ones the demon had sent down for no price.
Especially—
in the matter of erasing a single existence,
it had power beyond any comparison with the other minions.
A black shadow rippled and rose.
[Searching... for target to erase.]
A demon’s minion,
a being that crossed many dimensions and dealt merciless death.
[Spirit of Darkness]
It was the Spirit of Darkness.
