“Youngjun! Yesterday I still wasn’t sure, but... I finally remembered!”
When Captain Jo first came toward me saying that.
Same as yesterday.
I thought he was just pretending he’d noticed something, and it wouldn’t be anything serious.
“Why... why your voice sounded familiar, Youngjun!”
“...Excuse me?”
After that.
When words like that came out of his mouth—
A sudden, in-my-face fear of death.
I could feel my whole body shaking, cold sweat running down every inch of my skin.
“Please answer me, Youngjun!”
And.
When Captain Jo said that and came to within about ten steps in front of me—
‘Hold on.’
I.
Felt something with powerful magic power churning in the far distance.
FWOOOOOOSH...
“Goddammit, Jo Jun, you idiot!”
A little later than that.
When I heard that sound echoing from far away—
“Get down!”
I no longer had any room to care.
About what that man had been about to say.
I hurled my body forward with everything I had.
Trying to swat aside whatever was flying toward him...
“You’re the Leg—”
Unfortunately.
I was just a little too late.
KRAAAK!
Far away.
Far beyond the range the Southern Branch had secured as their visible field.
Something that had flown in through that thick blizzard of snow.
Pierced straight through Captain Jo’s body.
‘...’
As if in slow motion.
I saw the body of the man who had been running toward me.
Impaled on something made of ice.
Arcing inward over the top of the Wall.
Watching that, I thought.
‘He was a good man.’
He talked a bit too much, but.
He’d been diligent, humble.
A person who could at least somewhat grasp what was in other people’s hearts.
If he’d just stayed alive.
He also had the ability to be a huge help to humanity’s [N O V E L I G H T] survival.
Even if he’d almost gotten me killed.
Even that had been something he himself was completely unaware of.
THUD!
His body.
Soared over the sky above the Wall.
And then.
I saw him slam gruesomely into the face of a building.
‘This is...’
Unfortunately.
I had no time to think about him for long.
No time even to mourn that sight.
GRIT.
I clenched my teeth.
Forced every last bit of my magic power into my vocal cords and shouted.
“Enemy attack!!!”
*****
“Wh-what was that?”
“Enemy attack?”
A sudden shout, packed with powerful magic.
At that sound, the Awakeners rushed out of the buildings in a panic.
“Shit, what the hell is that...!”
“There’s a person stuck there!”
And.
The first thing they saw when they ran out—
“C-Captain Jo?”
“Captain Jo...? That’s Captain Jo...?”
One of the three leaders of the Southern Branch.
Captain Jo Jun.
His body was skewered on something like a massive spear of ice.
Taxidermied into the central building.
“That arrow, don’t tell me...!”
“...?”
At a glance, anyone would have called the thing a spear.
But someone called it an arrow.
And once you looked at it that way.
Rather than a spear, it was more like... yeah.
A projectile that looked like an arrow you’d only see launched from a gigantic ballista.
“...You’ve got to be kidding me, really?”
Yunseong, the one who had called it an arrow.
Just stared blankly at the arrow and Captain Jo, his face frozen in shock.
“Phew, goddammit.”
“Yeah. I figured sooner or later something would blow up.”
On the other side.
Many of the Awakeners were thrown into confusion by the sudden situation.
But there were also those who started responding with a cool head.
“Gather up, you brats!!!”
[‘Barbaric Roar’ resounds.]
“Y-yes, sir!”
“Northern warband, everyone rally over here!”
At Park Junggu’s bellow.
The Awakeners from the Northern Branch moved in perfect order to gather around him.
“B-Brother Junggu!?”
“Uncle Junggu! What’s going on!?”
At the shaken questions from Gang Jaeho and Han Iseo.
Junggu swung the giant battle axe from his back up onto his shoulder and said.
“What do you think.”
“It’s an attack.”
“...!”
“That shout just now, and the way Captain Jo is stuck there like some kind of decoration... something’s obviously gone wrong. It’s an emergency, so everyone stay on edge.”
Park Junggu, who led the Northern Branch’s combat through long years of battle experience.
Under his orders, the Northern Branch began to move.
“First we head up onto the Wall and check the situation, and then...”
The moment.
He was about to issue that order.
BOOOOOM...
There was the sound of something being fired from outside the Wall.
“What’s that...!?”
“A snowball?”
Something like a gigantic snowball.
Came over the Wall and dropped inside.
“...Shit, cancel checking the top of the Wall!”
Junggu, staring at the huge snowball falling from the sky, barked out.
“Everyone! We deal with the urgent part first!”
“Yes, sir! What’s the urgent part!?”
“What do you think!”
THUD.
When the huge snowball hit the ground and broke apart—
-GRRRK.
“It’s monster hunting!”
Shapes that had been hiding their bodies inside...
Started revealing themselves.
*****
“Eastern warband also fully assembled!”
“You’re late, you bastards! This is embarrassing, seriously...!”
A bit later than the Northern side.
But soon enough.
The Eastern Branch Awakeners also succeeded in gathering in one place.
‘The sudden attack alone is bad enough...!’
The abrupt voice yelling about an attack.
And almost at the same time, the huge, mysterious snowballs hurled into the inside of the Wall.
‘And what the hell are those monsters?’
The snowballs shattered the moment they hit the ground.
And as if they were eggs, the monsters inside burst out.
Even if he counted low, the number of monsters thrown into the inside of the Wall was in the hundreds.
“Anyway, everyone move! This is going to be a hard fight, so brace yourselves!”
“Move where, exactly?!”
The ones who had to deal with the enemies that had just poured in were the Northern Branch Awakeners.
In that case, they had a different job.
‘The enemy deliberately dumped these monsters inside the interior.’
‘Which means, odds are they’re aiming for one thing.’
Rushing out and gathering his forces, the Eastern Branch’s leader.
[Spearman] Heo Yunchang finished assessing the situation and shouted.
“The Wall—head for the main gate!”
“...!”
“They’re planning to open the gate!”
The Eastern Branch Awakeners were the ones who had worked alongside the [Architect] who built this Wall.
When it came to battles fought around a Wall.
There was no one better than them.
“We have to stop them from opening it! Everyone, push through!”
“Yes, sir!”
Like that.
The Eastern Branch Awakeners sprinted off to secure the Wall’s gate.
“Monsters ahead!”
On the way.
They encountered enemy monsters for the first time.
“Wait, hold on.”
And.
Heo Yunchang stared at those monsters with a startled expression.
-GRRRK!
What grabbed his eyes was a monster that looked like some kind of jet-black panther.
It wasn’t anything with particularly special powers.
“...You bastard. Don’t I know you?”
In the early days after Doomsday.
Heo Yunchang had lived on the far eastern edge of Gyeonggi Province...
In other words.
In the place that was now called the Demon Realm.
The monsters that had appeared across Gyeonggi Province had all started migrating toward that Demon Realm.
As if they were one single herd.
Yunchang and his comrades, chased by those countless monsters.
Had to survive through countless brushes with death to escape from the Demon Realm.
Back then.
He had come face to face with a swarm of monsters heading for the Demon Realm...
And one of them was that very thing.
And.
What that meant was simple.
“...You’re not supposed to be here, are you?”
It had zero resistance to cold.
Which was why it had been one of the monsters driven into the relatively warmer Demon Realm.
Now that they had come this close to the source of the cold.
It was not a monster that should even be able to operate here.
-GRRRK...!
But the monster showed no sign of being affected by the cold at all.
It bared its teeth and charged straight at him.
“I don’t know what the hell happened, but...”
Yunchang swept the questions from his mind.
And focused on the enemy right in front of him.
Fortunately.
It wasn’t a monster that appeared often in Gyeonggi.
But it was one the [Legion] had included in the intel they’d sent.
“...Hup!”
As Heo Yunchang braced himself.
The muscles in his arm swelled thick.
[Skill – Vacuum Spear]
[You gather all the magic power in your body into the tip of your spear, unleashing a piercing thrust so intense it distorts space.]
[Because of that overwhelming power, the surrounding area is transformed into a vacuum.]
THWOOOM!
At terrifying speed and power.
The blow surged toward the monster’s weak point!
CLANG!
Heo Yunchang’s spear.
Pierced its heart in a single thrust.
Back when he’d escaped the Demon Realm.
Just seeing it from afar had made him tremble in terror as if he’d met the grim reaper.
That monster had burned itself into his memory.
‘And now that thing goes down in one hit. Heh, guess all that hell I went through to get stronger actually paid off.’
Yunchang felt a bit of deep emotion...
But at the same time.
‘Still... CLANG?’
He noticed that something about the sensation at his fingertips.
Was off.
“What the hell is this.”
He looked at the monster impaled on his spear.
At the very spot the [Legion] had told them was its weak point.
At that spot—
“...Ice?”
He saw something.
Ice that reeked of some ominous magic.
Embedded there.
Apparently.
This one wasn’t the only thing that was strange.
“Damn it... these bastards!”
Most of the monsters were ones they’d already fought before.
Or ones they knew indirectly from intel.
After the Legion’s Radio began to spread.
The Awakeners had gained an incredibly efficient and powerful combat method:
Rapidly targeting enemy weak points.
Thanks to that, under normal circumstances, even with this many enemies, they wouldn’t have seen them as that difficult.
“These are definitely monsters from [Legion] intel...”
“But it’s hard to punch through their weak points!”
But.
This time, things were a little different.
SLASH!
One Awakener swung his sword.
And cleaved down at a weak point.
CRACK!
“What is this...!”
Right before he could strike the weak point.
A shield of ice abruptly formed to guard that spot.
It was that ice that was making it so hard to exploit the weak points.
“Oh, really? Well, in that case...!”
[Vacuum Spear]
KABOOOOOM!
Of course, they were all fairly seasoned Awakeners.
Even if the weak points had gained protection, it was still possible to kill the monsters.
“...This is a pain in the ass, though!”
It was true that the difficulty of the fight had gone up significantly.
“Captain Yunchang!”
“What!”
Like that.
When they finally, barely managed to secure the area near the Wall’s gate.
One of his subordinates looked around and shouted, face full of anxiety.
“These monsters are pouring in without end!”
“Yeah... I can see that too.”
Just as he said.
When he looked up at the sky, the snowballs full of monsters were still plummeting down.
And not only that.
KABOOM...
KA-BOOOM...
‘Southern Branch artillery has started firing.’
Monsters must have been swarming outside the Wall as well.
The artillery batteries on top of the Wall had opened fire.
“What are we supposed to do!”
“What else!”
Yunchang swung his spear and took down another monster.
Then shouted to his subordinates.
“Same as last time I told you!”
“Sir?”
“It’s strange that an attack this sudden came even though we finished installing the defenses, but... the job we have to do is simple!”
Yunchang definitely had the ability to act as a battlefield commander.
But in a mass battle, the command structure had to be unified.
“The expeditionary force’s commander is General Jo Beomseok!”
“...Ah!”
“Captain Jo might be out of the fight, but... General Jo Beomseok is still alive!”
The combat personnel from each Branch understood this well.
“For now, we just keep killing these monsters and hold the gate, no matter what! And we wait for the General’s orders!”
“Yes, sir!”
Like that.
The Eastern Awakeners resolved to push back the countless monsters trying to swarm the gate.
And wait for the expedition commander’s orders.
‘...Something’s wrong.’
On the other side.
As he skewered yet another monster in that battle, Yunchang thought.
Holding the most important gate and waiting for the commander’s orders.
That was clearly the right call...
But.
From the time the monsters had come over the Wall.
And the time it had taken the Eastern Awakeners to fight their way through and secure the gate.
At least a few minutes had passed.
Which meant.
He couldn’t help but think it.
‘Why... why haven’t we heard any orders yet?’
The commander’s orders...
Shouldn’t they have come down already?
