The Hounds of the Labyrinth (6)
The hounds caught in my axe's arc were smashed apart and sent flying sideways.
Even those outside the swing's path convulsed as the lightning coursing along the axe blade leapt into them.
Damn it.
Without a moment's respite, I swung the axe again, but the underground corridor was far too wide, and the hounds far too many. Even now, dozens of them were bounding past on either side of me, panting and snarling. Just how many more of them were there? I'd already seen well over a hundred, yet still the hounds kept pouring out from the far end of the passage, endless as a flood.
Do what I can, for now.
None of them were particularly strong individually. It was the sheer, overwhelming numbers that made them a problem. Still, they surely weren't multiplying infinitely. If I just kept killing, wouldn't the end come into view eventually?
I stopped thinking and swung the axe with everything I had.
"Krrgh!"
I smashed aside a hound lunging from my flank, then drove the axehead down. The beast's skull split apart, its jaw tearing crooked to either side. A popped-out eyeball rolled across the floor.
Watching it, a flicker of regret surfaced. Ah, I'd been too emotional. I'd let irritation creep in. This was no way to fight—two full movements just to put down one hound. Amid the relentless waves of attackers, I'd focused far too much on a single beast.
Efficiently. Multiple targets in a single motion.
That was how the me standing here had to fight.
I swung the axe again, hard and rough. The ones lunging from every corner I swatted down with fists and elbows, and whenever I could spare a hand from the axe for even a moment, I put them down.
About ten minutes into the fight, a nagging sense that something was wrong grew too strong to ignore.
My kill count alone had surely passed a hundred by now, yet the tide of hounds showed no sign of thinning. The mounds of corpses piling around me had become walls blocking the corridor—but true to their name, the hounds simply leapt lightly over them and kept coming. The passage was close to being filled to the brim with their dead.
Are they really going to keep appearing without end?
Then what was I supposed to do? Push through the endless swarm?
But that would leave the party's rear exposed. Heijeong was there, of course... and then it struck me—that sound at the very start, the clang of the chain-link fence dropping.
I have to close it again.
Rather than struggling to shepherd the whole party forward, it would be better for me to punch through these beasts and shut the gate myself.
Good. I'd break through alone, cage these bastards so they could never come out again, then circle back to the party and cut down whatever remained.
"Heijeong!"
"What!"
"I'm punching through!"
"What?"
Heijeong fired back the question even as she swung her staff at a lunging hound, mid-incantation. But I didn't bother to answer.
The instant lightning coiled around my legs, I kicked off the ground and sprinted. She'd figure it out soon enough.
"Krrgh!"
Four hounds charging straight at me. The timing was slightly staggered, but that was no real problem.
I swung the axe up in a diagonal from my left thigh. Starting with the first one to lunge, the hounds were crushed one after another.
"Kyiiing!"
Those already skewered on the axe couldn't even manage a whimper; only the last one let out a groan muffled by the grinding agony of its crushed torso.
Again—I whirled an elbow toward a hound coming from the left. A wet crunch—the sound of its skull caving in was strangely satisfying.
And in that moment, the darkness behind me began to brighten.
I knew it.
My prediction had been right on the mark. Heijeong had read my intent.
A dragon made of flame took shape and surged after me as I broke into a sprint. It quickly overtook my speed, brushed past my head, and shot forward.
The hounds that had been lunging at me yelped and tried to dodge the blazing fire—but this time, their very numbers became their poison. With their packmates packed solid to either side, the ones who couldn't escape were swept up in the flames.
A straight line opened up ahead of me, along the wake of the dragon's tail.
Now.
I dug power into my stride and accelerated again. Mana control, mana control—keeping a thin film of lightning wrapped around my legs, I focused on the flow. It couldn't be too thin, like before, nor could I burn it all in one burst. Just enough to keep pace with the dragon's tail.
But my control was still clumsy. I couldn't manage the distance the way I wanted. I couldn't cling right to the flame dragon's tail, but I could at least hold a workable gap behind it.
"Krrgh!"
I buried my axe in the forehead of a hound darting in through a gap, then kept moving fast.
How far had I come by now? Two hundred meters, maybe?
The flame dragon clearing the path had shrunk noticeably from its original size. Honestly, at this point it couldn't carve the road anymore—it just brightened my view a little—but that was better than nothing.
Still, I made it to the end.
At the end of the passage, in the center, stood a massive iron door—and flanking it on either side were wide-open apertures blocked by heavy iron gratings. Who knew where they led, but from those two openings the black hounds kept pouring without stop.
Left side first.
I charged forward with lightning pouring out ahead of me, cutting through the convulsing hounds struck down by the bolts. The iron grating blocking the passage lay flat on the floor. Apparently I'd have to lift it back up and seal the way shut.
There's a hook on the end.
Once I raised it, the hook would catch and the passage would close. The problem was that this massive grating didn't look light at all—one hand wouldn't be enough.
I swung the axe in a wide horizontal arc, then tossed it aside nearby. Fast—before the hounds could close in. Gripping the edge of the grating with both hands, I heaved it up roughly.
The hounds seized the opening to lunge at me.
"Krrgh!"
I released lightning around my body to buy time, and when the current ran down the grating, even the hounds clinging to it convulsed. In that instant, I shoved the grating forward with all my strength.
"Kying! Kying!"
The hounds caught between the passage and the grating shrieked, spilling their guts.
Damn it. The trapped bodies kept it from shutting completely. The hounds threw themselves at my defenseless back. I could scatter lightning, sure, but I couldn't keep that up forever.
Ignore it for now. Again.
Bang! Bang! I rammed the grating up twice, hard. On the second try—clunk—the hook caught.
Whew. One down, at least. Twisting my body, I seized the throats of the two hounds gnawing at my shoulders.
"Yip! Yip!"
"Grrrr!"
Desperate to tear into me, the beasts thrashed in my grip, wrenching their heads this way and that.
Whose skull is harder, I wonder?
I yanked the two beasts in my hands together with the force of an applauding clap. Their heads rushed toward each other at terrible speed. Crack—along with the sound of snapping vertebrae, the head-butted hounds went suddenly limp, as if they'd never been thrashing at all.
Hm. Let's just say they were both weaklings.
More hounds lunged into that gap. I grabbed the already-dead ones and swung them, and only after hurling the attackers to the floor did I release the corpses from my hands.
No serious injuries.
Was it thanks to the pricey leather armor? My forearms were a little scraped, but fortunately nothing serious had happened to the rest of me.
I quickly scooped up the axe I'd tossed aside earlier. The hounds' relentless assault left no room to breathe. I swung the axe up in a diagonal arc.
Now the right side.
Swinging horizontally, diagonally, striking out with fists and elbows, I charged for the right-hand passage. Using the Essence of Lightning, I accelerated in an instant. Having done it once already, it wasn't as hard as before.
Before lifting the second grating, I blasted lightning forward to scatter the hounds, and this time I could seal the passage with far less trouble.
"Yip yip!"
From beyond the grating, the furious howls of the caged hounds rang out sharp and shrill. I merely snorted at the trapped beasts, then turned away.
Countless hounds still swarmed the corridor behind me. It was time to return to the party.
"Whew. Good work, Suhyeok."
"It was nothing. The path you carved, Heijeong, made it pretty easy."
"Right? Hah! Heijeong, that flame dragon earlier was seriously cool."
"It really was, unnie! So awesome!"
"Oh, come on. It was nothing."
Heijeong smiled with a flat, indifferent expression. If she'd shown even a hint of embarrassment, I'd planned to pile on the compliments and tease her as revenge for earlier... A little disappointing, honestly.
"Everyone's all in one piece?"
"Yes!"
"Heh heh, we're fine."
"With the rear sealed off, it wasn't all that hard, honestly. Hosu-ajusshi had the roughest time."
"Aigoo, Heijeong caught everything with her fire anyway. What's he saying."
Fortunately, the rest of the party hadn't taken any serious wounds either. The corridor widened gradually around the staircase, making it an ideal position for facing large numbers. Still, any other party would have had a rough go of it. Without someone like me or Heijeong, every single party member would have had to cut their own way through the hounds.
"Hm?"
Just as that thought crossed my mind, a strange ripple of mana burst out from the far end of the passage.
Clatter— And with it, the fallen hounds began to rise from where they lay.
"Uh, undead?"
"A black mage!"
"Battle stations!"
The eyes of the hounds wreathed in blue spectral flames glittered countless times in the darkness.
Damn it. I'd killed several hundred of them already. When was I supposed to put them all down again?
It was an endless horde. I'd be fine, but the party members' stamina didn't seem anywhere near enough for it.
"Haah... and we're short on time."
Just as I readied my weapons to prepare for battle, Heijeong's sigh drifted out from behind me.
Time remaining... about five hours. Not exactly leisurely. We'd walked nearly three hours to get here, so the way back would take about as long. And since there was no telling how much longer we'd need in the hidden room, time was genuinely tight.
"Suhyeok."
"What?"
"If I use this, I won't be able to cast magic for a while. You can handle it, right? —"
"Huh?"
Before I could even answer, Heijeong had already begun her incantation. While she murmured her short chant, the risen hounds began their charge.
"First, let's figh—"
A colossal wave of flame surging up before the party cut my words short.
It was a breathtaking blaze that drove the darkness of the underworld completely away. Hmm—should I even call it a tsunami of fire?
The enormous wave of flame began to roll forward, sweeping down the corridor. Where the fire passed, the hounds—reborn in their grotesque forms and lunging anew—collapsed in burning heaps.
For a long while, I couldn't take my eyes off the flames as they rippled and flowed into the distance.
Ah. So this is magic.
"Unnie! Are you okay?"
"Mmh, I'm fine. Just burned through all my mana, that's all."
Seo Harin hastily caught Heijeong as she swayed on her feet. Heijeong gave an awkward smile to the party members who'd spun around in alarm.
"We're short on time, aren't we? Let's wrap this up quick."
"H-ha ha... now that I think of it, Heijeong was ranked second, wasn't she? She's just been overshadowed by Suhyeok—her skills were nothing to sneeze at either..."
"Compared to Suhyeok, well, I've still got a long way to go."
"No, but still... wow."
Even Kolma, who always kept his composure, stood with his mouth hanging open, unable to finish.
Honestly, I was awed too. All this time, Heijeong had been holding back her strength for the party members' growth—which was why even I hadn't known her true power.
So this is Heijeong's real strength.
And that was with her mana pitifully scarce compared to before the regression. I couldn't afford to lose, either. The thought crossed my mind that I'd have to push myself that much harder.
"Then we'll move out. Like Heijeong said, there's not much time left."