Nest of the Glacier Dragon
A snow mountain.
It was an ice peak so vast it made the jaw drop, so tall it seemed to pierce the sky itself.
"It's like Everest or something."
Lee Sia had never been anywhere near the real thing, but the feeling was close enough. The sheer, overwhelming grandeur of nature. Even level 63 players couldn't hide their awe before it.
Yujin, of course, was the exception.
"Move. Move. We've got no time for sightseeing."
The moment he snagged the Heavenly Silk Thread [C] drifting around him and looked ready to crack it like a whip, the 3 No picked up the pace. When Seong Yujin said he'd do something, the madman meant it.
They started the climb.
No trees. No grass. A mountain made of nothing but snow and ice. Getting up it was anything but easy—one wrong step and you'd slide, tumbling a thousand lengths straight off a sheer drop. Monsters hidden in the ice kept bursting out in ambushes, so their progress stayed painfully slow.
Two ice golems were shredded by razor-fine silk threads and reduced to shaved ice.
"That's completely broken. Seriously."
Sia let out a hollow laugh at the sight. How much blood and sweat had they poured into killing just one of those things? The bastards were so dense a sword barely bit, and every swing left your palms stinging. And here he was, sprinting uphill while auto-farming them.
Where was the fairness in that?
"If it bothers you so much, go get one yourself."
"Having the Heavenly Silk Thread [C] alone doesn't make it work like that."
Yujin's auto-defense system ran entirely on mana control refined to its absolute peak. Even if the 3 No obtained the same item, they wouldn't match him—they'd be lucky to manage a pale imitation.
A sharp keening cry cut the air as Black Wing [B] split empty space and cleaved open the skull of a snow wolf lunging from the side.
"Aah, these damn bastards. They just keep coming."
Where were they even spawning from? There was nowhere to hide. And yet they still kept bursting out of nowhere for sudden strikes. Nobody was getting caught off guard, but it was endlessly irritating.
"There's a reason the NPCs won't even come near this place. It's that dangerous."
Even while talking, dozens of monsters were being cut down across the ice mountain.
Then—
"There."
Having ground a pack of snow wolves into syrup and poured them over ice-golem snow cones, Yujin stopped and pointed. A massive cave that the peak had hidden until now revealed its full, crushing presence.
"Looks like a black hole."
"It's huge."
"W-what's living in there?"
Each of the 3 No muttered something and pulled up their mana. From the pitch-black depths of the cave poured killing intent thick with glacial cold—a presence that made the monsters they'd just slaughtered feel like nothing at all.
"A Glacier Dragon?" Vivian asked.
"That's right. Its nest."
Yujin nodded. The most dangerous boss monster on the 21st floor—and the one that carried an Ice Crystal [B] inside it. Without any further preparation, he reached into Chunbae's mouth and drew out the Galaxy Sword [B].
"Kkyaaaaaaang—!"
"Quiet."
Chunbae wailed; Yujin flicked its snout. If the Glacier Dragon crawled out of its nest early, it would only get annoying. The snow mountain was enormous, but it was still just ice. Not solid enough to survive the thing thrashing around. Taking a breath head-on would be easier than getting buried under a collapsing mountain.
"Kku-euuung…"
Chunbae made a small, obedient sound. Yujin started toward the cave. Ice shards cracked and grated underfoot—an irritating noise.
"Is it really that strong?" Sia asked, tension written across her face.
Had Yujin ever looked this serious? Except for Didascalia and the administrator fight not long ago, she couldn't remember a time. The man who usually obliterated even strong boss monsters in a single blow was wearing that expression now, and her own nerves tightened in response.
"It's strong. Definitely a cut above every boss we've met so far."
The 3 No's faces hardened further.
"But don't freak out too much. It's a little annoying, not actually dangerous."
Annoying. That was the only word for it.
"Its roar carries a compulsion effect."
"Compulsion?" Vivian tilted her head, asking what that meant.
"Every monster in this area—on the entire snow mountain—is its thrall. The roar forces them all to gather."
Sia swallowed dryly without meaning to.
"How many will come?"
"Hard to say. At least a thousand, I'd guess."
Maybe more.
"So while I take it down, you hold the monsters off."
That was the 3 No's job. If the defense broke, Yujin would have to fight the Glacier Dragon and the swarm at the same time. Not impossible—but the real problem was—
"If I don't lock the Glacier Dragon down properly, the whole mountain can come down. Be careful."
Yujin might survive that. The 3 No almost certainly would not.
"R-right."
"Yes, sir!"
"Got it."
Three serious faces scanned the surroundings. Aside from the corpses, not a single monster was in sight. But they could surge back at any moment, in any form. They were masters at using the snow mountain's terrain to vanish.
"Baekbaek, run the Hyper Spacetime Information Collector [C] at full. You and the kid seal off the approach to the cave."
Yujin roughly assigned roles and started walking.
Tch.
The closer he got to the nest, the more his face stung.
Stronger than I expected.
Compared to what he'd heard in the first timeline, it felt two or three times more powerful. The fight might drag longer than planned. Frowning, Yujin finally stopped at the cave mouth.
A howling gale of blade-sharp frost wind slammed into him—strong enough that it felt like it might tear his body away. Leaving the endless flurries to scrape past his Dragon Scale Armor [B] and Moonlit Black Divine Robe [C], he walked slowly inside.
Like a candle snuffed out in a single breath, the world ahead went black. Mana compressed to its absolute limit refused to let even a sliver of light enter. Yujin abandoned sight and simply walked. The God-Infused Body [S] and the mana gained through his metamorphosis had already pushed every other sense to its peak. Not seeing didn't mean feeling nothing.
"Hmm."
He felt every ice shard rolling across the floor as he walked, and scratched his head.
"Deeper than I thought."
The creature was huge, so of course its nest was huge. He hadn't expected just entering to take this long. Still, he refused to rush. Just slow, steady progress.
Then, suddenly—something registered.
Breathing.
Through the storm-like wind, a steady current of air. He'd arrived. The instant he realized it, he kicked off the ground without hesitation.
A soft impact. His body cut through darkness and wind as naturally as water flowing, climbing the space itself.
A flash—
Light. Two pure-white pupils, each larger than a human body, lit the dark. Killing intent.
The Glacier Dragon, its sleep disturbed, awoke and erupted with ferocious murderous will. Its roar detonated mana and shook the entire nest.
"Damn it."
He'd planned to put a hole through its skull while it slept.
"More sensitive than I thought."
Now that it had howled, chaos would already be erupting outside. The 3 No had gotten decent, but he didn't believe they could stop a tidal wave of monsters completely. Too many bodies, too few hands. Fully sealing off creatures that hid in their own territory and charged was, no matter how he ran the numbers, impossible.
Yujin didn't care. He'd walked in expecting exactly that.
"Not like I'm out of options."
He closed the distance on the Glacier Dragon fast, drawing up his mana.
"If I'm short on hands, I'll just match numbers on this side."
He had a new skill, after all—one he'd only recently acquired. He'd never used it, so its true power was still unknown.
"But it's B-grade. It should at least cover the basics."
Seven Night Demon Realm [B]
From the darkness already drowning the nest, a second darkness erupted upward. Exactly one hundred. Shadow-born, they were the First Night: the Black Shadow Legion.
"Whew."
Yujin whistled without meaning to. Even with his mana swollen to absurd levels, the drain left a hollow emptiness for a moment. Not quite Heavenly Demon Series territory, but still a cost so steep it was hard to believe the skill was only B-grade.
Which meant—
A grin cut across his face.
"The effect's going to be just as vicious."
The hundred shadow soldiers accepted his will as naturally as breathing and moved as one. Clad in heavy armor and greatswords that looked carved from the nest's own darkness, they charged the Glacier Dragon.
Shadows racing through darkness—a contradiction in motion. Watching it, Yujin followed at a measured pace behind the Black Shadow Legion.
At last the Glacier Dragon rose.
Not a lesser dragon. A true dragon, kin to the subterranean wyrms. Its presence was like a new ice peak thrusting up from the earth. At least fifty meters. Maybe seventy. Even the slightest shift of that colossal body was enough to shake the entire snow mountain.
But—
"Bind it."
At Yujin's command, the Black Shadow Legion became a vast snare, moving to lock down the Glacier Dragon's limbs. Shadow greatswords punched through its scales like tofu and reduced two of its legs to shredded rags in an instant.
Not bad.
No—better than not bad. Cutting true-dragon scales that easily…
The Glacier Dragon, a hundred blades buried in its legs, screamed. A howl of mixed agony and fury strong enough to shred eardrums.
Yujin only laughed.
"Shadows don't have ears."
No matter how loud it roared, the Black Shadow Legion couldn't hear it.
"Kill it."
At his order, darkness began to blanket the Glacier Dragon's massive body—slowly, fatally, devouring it piece by piece.