Floor 16 — The Battle of Pogoren Fortress (6)
The world flipped upside down.
The wall of flames that had swallowed me was gone. In its place, I saw climbers fighting on top of the ramparts.
And right in front of me were Dobby and Seo Harin.
Since my body was in no condition to speak, Ha Heijeong shouted for me.
“Dobby! Harin!”
“Wh-what the—! Oppa! Are you okay!?”
“Kkiik! Suyeok!”
Dobby and Seo Harin gaped at me in horror as they looked me over.
Well, fair enough. I was soaked head to toe in dragon blood. At a glance, anyone would have thought it was my own blood pouring out of me.
“Recovery!”
“High-Speed Restoration!”
Harin and Dobby cast their healing spells at the same instant. As their two voices overlapped, radiance washed over my entire body.
The body that had been screaming in agony slowly began to quiet down.
They must have poured out a staggering amount of mana, because the pain was fading about twice as fast as usual.
Through the shimmering glow, Ha Heijeong's worried voice reached me.
“Suhyeok, let's get you washed up first.”
A chill spread across the crown of my head. Water conjured by magic was trickling down through my hair.
I raised both hands and scrubbed at my face and neck. Sticky blood ran down between my fingers. I was drenched all over.
KWAAANG—!
That was when a tremendous tremor shook the ground.
The Fire Oxs.
Those burning oxen from before had hurled themselves straight at the fortress gate.
I scrambled to push myself up off the ground.
But I couldn't rise, and could only stagger in place.
KWAGAGAGANG!
A chain of massive explosions followed.
Black fireballs roared up over the gate.
Damn it.
The Fire Oxs were showing up faster than expected.
According to Ha Heijeong, they weren't supposed to appear until a while later…
Probably because the dragon had died, the enemy had decided to stop holding back and play their ace.
Burning Nephla.
That was the name Ha Heijeong had given them.
They were burning siege beasts in their own right, but on the 16th floor they charged with magical bombs strapped to their entire bodies.
And if one of those things rammed the gate twice, the fortress walls would shatter.
Simply killing them off was impossible.
Their magic resistance was absurdly high, and they could detonate themselves on the spot at any moment they chose.
Of course, if that were all, I could have stopped them with Ha Heijeong.
I could risk my life using Lightning Flash to kill them, or she could tear open pits in the earth with magic or raise a wall in front of them.
But on their second charge, twenty Fire Oxs would come charging at the fortress at once.
“UOOOONG!”
“UOOOOOONG!”
Barely a moment after the thought crossed my mind, massive silhouettes crested the far horizon.
And it wasn't even a single point of penetration. Fire Oxs were charging from multiple directions.
Ten or so, and Ha Heijeong and I could have found a way to block them. But twenty was impossible.
That was exactly why we hadn't bothered to stop the first charge.
Because we had something prepared.
Ha Heijeong handed the microphone back to me.
Katley Monaka would have been in the medical bay by now, which meant command of the fortress battle had fallen to us.
If I were out on the front lines later, things might be different, but since these orders were directed at the Koshak race, it was better coming from me.
“All personnel at the center of the fortress, above the main gate — evacuate immediately! Koshak forces, come down from the ramparts and form up for a charge fifty meters behind the gate!”
My command carried across every inch of the ramparts.
If things had gone as originally written, the center of the fortress would have been blown sky-high, and more than half the soldiers standing there would have died.
Speed was everything. I urged them on again.
“Hurry! All forces at the fortress center, evacuate now!”
Thankfully — proof that killing the dragon hadn't been wasted — the soldiers at the fortress's center snapped into brisk motion.
Well, it had been a full-power strike on my part. To anyone watching, it must have been nothing short of staggering.
Right now, it felt like they would follow any order I gave.
Considering the faint but lingering cheers I'd heard from atop the fortress, that was all the more true.
Either way, it was time for me to head behind the gate as well.
“Suhyeok, are you feeling better?”
“Yeah, I'm fine. Let's go.”
Ha Heijeong took my hand again. My vision flipped once more.
Along the great boulevard behind the walls, tens of thousands of Koshak stood arrayed in formation.
It hadn't even been that long since I gave the order. Their mobility was hard to believe even with my own eyes.
I turned and passed the microphone to Ha Heijeong.
“Then I'll leave it to you.”
“Mm. Don't get hurt.”
After that affectionate word of worry, Ha Heijeong teleported back up onto the ramparts.
She intended to catch as many of the twenty Fire Oxs as she could.
Even with the personnel evacuated, every additional Ox slamming into the walls meant more casualties.
I turned to face the Koshak.
Befitting a race that lived for raw strength at its peak, Turen's party stood at the very front of the formation.
When our eyes met, Turen winked with one eye and grinned.
He was waiting for my orders.
“The walls will fall soon.”
My mana-laced voice carried over the thunder of the battlefield all the way to the rear of the Koshak formation.
The Koshak who heard it kept their expressions calm and composed.
They had just watched the Ox charge, so seeing the twenty coming from the distance, they had surely figured it out.
“And when the gate breaks, we charge. Not a single one of those things sets foot inside this fortress.”
“WOO! WOO!”
Perhaps it was a tradition of their kind — the moment I finished speaking, the Koshak let out a strange, rolling battle cry.
“That's all. Prepare to charge.”
KWAKWANG! KWANG—! KWAGAGANG!
Deafening blasts rolled in one after another beyond the walls. It was the sound of Ha Heijeong working over the Fire Oxs.
Digging vast pits beneath their feet as they tried to advance, or raising earthen ramparts — she had plenty of methods in reserve.
Between the thunder, Turen roared at the Koshak.
“Dragon Slayer! The Dragon Slayer fights at our side! The last one to run dies by my hand! KOSHAK! PREPARE TO CHARGE!”
“WOO! WOO!”
Having roused his race's morale as their greatest climber, Turen fixed me with a solemn gaze.
“Commander, watching you take down that dragon was truly impressive. Aye, impressive indeed.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I mean that every last Koshak here will hurl their lives into the charge at your word. Just give the order. With the Dragon Slayer beside us, even death holds no fear.”
Instead of answering, I gave him a wide grin.
“Speaking of charging… you'll be at the front, I take it?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Can you keep up with my speed?”
Even with a weakened Lightning Flash, I could probably keep pace, but…
The Koshak's mobility was absurdly faster than I'd imagined.
Hmm. The mana drain might be bigger than expected.
While I was deliberating, Turen spoke up.
“How about riding on my back?”
“Turen! You'd carry someone!?”
“Aye. One as worthy as the Dragon Slayer may ride my back.”
It was a different Koshak who gasped and demanded an answer in my place.
Apparently, a Koshak carrying a rider on his back was far from ordinary.
Hmm. Riding on a Koshak's back, huh.
It certainly did look like the better option…
KWANG—! KWAAANG! KWAGAGANG!
The unbroken roar, loud enough to split my eardrums, cut my musing short. At the center of the fortress, the gate was collapsing.
Victory in the Final War — Defend the Fortress
📍 Objective: Defend the fortress through the final war. If the fortress falls, survive for 6 hours after its capture.
⏳ Time Limit: None
I climbed onto Turen's back.
I stowed the twin-bladed axe at my waist and drew the lance I'd obtained on the 11th floor instead. It was the rational choice.
The twin-bladed axe was a poor weapon to swing while mounted on a galloping horse — and this wasn't even a horse, but the back of a Koshak.
Besides, with Turen wielding a spear himself, if I swung an axe we'd get in each other's way.
A thrusting lance was the perfect weapon for this.
“Prepare to charge!”
Where the fortress gate had stood, black fire and gray dust churned in a thick haze.
Over the wreckage of the shattered gate, the silhouettes of lizardmen flickered in and out of the slowly settling dust.
I adjusted my grip on the lance.
Turen's excited, ragged breathing traveled up through the vibration of his body. He pawed the ground with his hooves, loosening the muscles in his legs.
“CHARGE!”
Before the shout had even finished, the weight of the world lurched backward. A terrifying acceleration — I clenched my thighs and core, hauling my upper body upright.
Upper body slightly crouched, right arm tucked tight against my side, lance locked in place.
I'd used it a few times in the training hall, but I'd never wielded one while mounted. I had to focus.
Turen leapt, planting his hooves on the rubble of the broken wall.
Dudun— The shock beneath his hooves traveled up through my waist.
Hah. Maybe I should have just run with Lightning Flash after all.
It was my first time riding a living creature at such speed, and everything felt foreign.
But my physical talent and battle focus found the optimal posture with startling speed.
The moment I settled into it, the lizardmen burst out of the smoke.
Turen swung his half-moon spear across, and I thrust my lance.
“KRAAK!”
Even so, our speed never wavered. Trampling the fallen corpses of lizardmen, we tore through the fire and the sand-haze.
And when Turen leapt off the last of the broken ramparts, we burst through the black smoke.
Before the fortress — a horizon filled edge to edge with lizardmen.
But something had changed.
When the battle first began, the setting sun had hung above the horizon. That much was certain.
Yet in the time it had taken us to punch through the smoke, the sun had vanished beyond the edge of the world.
And in place of the dusk's pale glow, the darkness of midnight had settled over the battlefield.
It was unnatural — unnatural enough that I wondered if it was the doing of the Shadow God.
Whatever the reason, darkness had come to the battlefield.
“Charge!”
I activated the Lizard Monarch skill.
It couldn't cover the tens of thousands of Koshak in the entire formation, so I focused its effect on the vanguard alone.
Even that would make it impossible for the enemy to gauge our exact distance.
In the midst of the Koshak charge, the wedge at the very front vanished into shadow.
An invisible wedge of darkness surged through the night covering the field.
The truth was, I hadn't planned on running this far and this hard.
I'd meant to block the incursion through the ruined gate and charge only until Ha Heijeong could reinforce the broken walls.
But as I ran alongside the Koshak through the sea of over a million lizardmen, at some point an inexplicable thrill and heat had seized me.
My heart pounded fiercely.
Dudun— dudun—
The thunder of Turen's hooves was beating in time with my own heart. I wanted nothing more than to keep running through this darkened plain forever.
Amid the strange exhilaration, I calmly surveyed the battlefield.
They've thinned out quite a bit since before, haven't they?
The remaining enemy force — maybe a million or so…
The exact number was impossible to tell.
But with the dragon gone and the wyverns stripped of their strength, the sky now belonged to Subreng and the Witches of the Night.
And so the enemy's numbers were dwindling faster and faster.
In that case, why not just keep running?
“WOOOAAAAH—!”
Even as I thought it, a thunderous roar rose from the direction of the fortress.
Glancing over, I saw that the climbers and imperial troops still atop the ramparts were pouring out through the shattered gate as well.
It was Ha Heijeong's call.
From up on the walls, she must have seen the tide turning in the battlefield below.
At the same moment, tens of thousands of spells skimmed over our heads.
The sky-filling magic came crashing down upon the lizardman army in the far distance.
And then I leapt down from Turen's back. Swapping the lance for my axe, I invoked a weakened Lightning Flash to push my speed higher.
Yeah. Let's go — to end this war.
“CHARGE! CHARGE!”
I ran. At the head of hundreds of thousands of climbers,
lightning blazing across the darkened plain with every step.
The war was drawing to its close at last.
[Hidden Message: At the branching point, the defense of the fortress has succeeded. Floors 17, 18, and 19 will now change.]