Bunker Buster
There were a few ways to kill the Glacier Dragon in a single strike.
The most obvious was the Heavenly Demon Series.
It would burn through a colossal amount of mana, but Yujin was more than capable of shouldering that cost now, wasn't he?
With the Heavenly Demon Series, even the Glacier Dragon could be crushed and finished in one blow.
But Yujin didn't use it.
Overwhelming force meant overwhelming shockwaves. A single footstep, a single sweep of the blade—when he had used the Heavenly Demon Series before, it had erupted with power enough to remake heaven and earth.
If he deployed Heavenly Demon's Blade Flourish [B], he could kill the Glacier Dragon more easily—but the price would be the collapse of this entire snow mountain. And at present, Yujin could not be certain he would make it out of that carnage alive.
That was why he had begun by pinning the creature's movements with the Black Shadow Legion.
Yujin became a flowing galaxy itself and drove straight for the Glacier Dragon's thick neck.
The beast's pure white eyes locked onto him. Irritation, rage, and pure killing intent detonated from that gaze.
A prickling pain lanced through him.
A being so powerful that a look alone could inflict real damage.
At this level…
It was definitely stronger than the Subterranean Dragon. If Yujin hadn't full-doped on spiritual elixirs and gone through the process of shedding his old self, this fight would have been genuinely brutal.
But he was fine now.
Meeting the dragon's gaze head-on even as it scraped at his skin, Yujin kicked off the empty air.
Thoom—!
His speed surged higher. The galaxy that had drifted so lofty and serene became a raging torrent, shredding the compressed atmosphere in its path—and in an instant he was right in front of that enormous eye.
"Close those eyes, you bastard."
Yujin bared his teeth and swept the Galaxy Sword [B] upward from below.
KRRRRRRRRRRRRR—!
Whew!
The eye. Not the scales—one of the most vulnerable points on a living body. Even so, sparks sprayed from the edge of the Galaxy Sword [B].
Unlike with the Black Shadow Legion, the dragon had been wary of him. It had concentrated mana at the point of impact. The surface was so dense he couldn't carve in so much as a hair's breadth.
GRAAAAAAAAH—!
Still, the attack wasn't meaningless. A scream tore from the creature's throat. If the Black Shadow Legion hadn't kept binding it, it would have thrashed hard enough to punch through the nest's roof right then and there.
"Hold him tight!"
Yujin snapped the order to the Black Shadow Legion and glanced between his blade and the beast.
It wasn't that it didn't work.
He had tried to burst one eyeball and failed. But the difference was razor-thin. If he focused a little more mana and sharpened the edge a little further…
Yujin bit his lip lightly and charged again.
GROOOOOOOH—!
This time the Glacier Dragon refused to stay still. Pouring everything it had into the effort, it flung several of the shadows aside and swept its tail.
How to describe the sensation?
It was like the sky itself collapsing sideways. That impossibly huge, thick tail warped the space around it as it came for him, intent on smashing him flat.
Insane speed for something that size. It outstripped Yujin's movement so completely that dodging looked impossible.
In that case.
Meeting it head-on while hanging in midair would be amateur hour. The question wasn't whether he could withstand it—the mass disparity between them was absolute. If he blocked the Glacier Dragon's tail, he would be launched clean through the nest.
He needed another answer.
"Instant [C]."
Pa-bat—!
The steadily refined Instant [C] snapped Yujin's body to a place he had cut in a blink.
"Perfect view."
The Glacier Dragon's back. A vantage where the same pure white scales that armored its eyes packed every inch of its spine filled his sight. He could feel the dragon's raw confusion as it searched for the Yujin who had simply vanished.
"What power I lack, I'll fill with something else."
Nothing extravagant. Just a little help—enough to punch through even a fraction of that defense. That was all he needed.
"Chunbae."
He didn't have to say more. Chunbae already understood, jaws cracking wide open.
It was nothing like the usual item retrieval. Chunbae had only ever looked like this once before.
"Chunbae Cannon—activate."
GOOOOOOH—!
From that impossibly stretched maw, something began to emerge.
Length: 6.2 meters. Diameter: 0.8 meters. Weight: 12,304 kilograms. Explosive fill: roughly 2,000 kilograms.
Even the specs alone were monstrous. Its name was the GBU-57 MOP—better known as a bunker buster.
"Fire."
The absurdly oversized bunker buster launched from Chunbae's mouth and drove straight into the Glacier Dragon's crown.
KWADDDRRRRK—!
Scales shattered, hide tore, bone splintered—and then the munition vanished from sight.
The Glacier Dragon's thrashing hitched for a beat. Yujin did not miss the opening.
"Plug the hole!"
A hundred shadow soldiers kicked off the ground and the dragon's scales, soared upward, and jammed their bodies into the cavity the bunker buster had bored.
At the same moment—
KUUUUUUUNG—!
The Glacier Dragon's vast bulk shuddered. Two tons of AFX-757 high explosive had detonated inside it, torching its innards completely.
PWHAAAAAAK—!
A delayed shockwave bloomed outward in concentric rings. It wasn't especially fierce. The dragon's famed thick hide and scales had swallowed most of the blast.
CHAAAAAAK—!
From the creature's slack, gaping jaws, transparent blood poured like a waterfall—blood cold enough to freeze anything it touched, like liquid nitrogen.
Even so, it wasn't dead yet. With its organs shredded and burning, the Glacier Dragon still turned its head toward Yujin, pouring out a killing intent stained with madness.
But—
"Good work. Now die."
The Galaxy Sword [B] crossed space and brushed past the Glacier Dragon's neck.
With most of its mana and life force already spent, the beast could not endure that single cut.
ZZZZEEEEEOK—!
Unlike moments before, the flesh parted with almost insulting ease. The Glacier Dragon stared at Yujin for a long moment with eyes full of bitter resentment—then closed them for good.
KWAAAAAAAAANG—!
A body that size didn't fall quietly.
"Whew."
Yujin wiped a brow that hadn't shed a single drop of sweat and let out a breath.
"That was almost a disaster."
He hadn't expected the bunker buster to hit that hard. If he hadn't sealed the hole with the Black Shadow Legion—if the blast had escaped the Glacier Dragon's body and torn into the surroundings—it would have been no different from using Heavenly Demon's Footsteps [B].
He had sacrificed most of the hundred-strong Black Shadow Legion to contain the explosion. Not that it mattered. He could always summon them again.
Yujin waved a hand at the remaining sixteen shadows. They slipped away into the dark with a soft rustle.
"Let's see here."
He strolled over to the Glacier Dragon's corpse and laid a hand on it.
Wuuuung—.
Mana resonated, and something popped free from the carcass—an ice jewel a little larger than a fingernail.
Ice Crystal [B].
"Nice."
Yujin picked it up without thinking.
"Whoa. Freezing cold."
Remarkably, the Ice Crystal [B] was cold enough to leave his hand stinging on contact. If one of the 3 No had touched it, the freeze would have climbed all the way up their arm.
Yujin whistled softly and held it out to Chunbae's mouth.
"Think you can eat this too?"
"Kku-a-a-a-ang—!"
He had worried it might be too cold, but Chunbae snapped it up without a second's hesitation.
"Right."
Yujin huffed a quiet laugh. However freezing the Ice Crystal [B] was, Chunbae's true form was the A-grade Gluttonous Avarice. An A-grade item had no reason to flinch at a mere B-grade chill.
"Almost got messy there. Good thing it worked out."
You have triumphed over the Hidden Boss: Glacier Dragon.
Acquired 100 Coins.
"Hmm."
Yujin frowned at the notification window. For the difficulty, the rewards were stingy. Ice Flower [C], Ice Blade [C]—objectively not bad, but nothing he would use himself.
"Don't really suit the kids either."
In the end, he would probably just sell them. The hundred Coins were the only real consolation.
Yujin turned away without a second thought. In the old days he would have cursed a blue streak, but for the past few days he had grown remarkably generous toward the Akasha System.
"Hard to complain when they gave me that."
The reward that had only arrived a full seventy-two hours after he killed Omophnes. Just remembering it was enough to settle his mood.
"For a while I'll put up with D-grade material drops. Right, Chunbae?"
"Kku-a-a-a-a-ang—!"
The little beast answered as if that went without saying, and Yujin left the nest laughing.
"AAAAARGH! These goddamn bastards!"
"Nuna! Hold your position!"
"Thunderbolt [E]."
KRRRRRRRRRRRUMBLE—!
Outside was pure chaos. Monsters of every kind poured in without end, and the slaves were hammering them with everything they had. Blood and ice, screams and roars—another hell entirely.
"They held surprisingly well."
Had he underestimated them? He had fully expected one or two monsters to slip through after about five minutes. Amazingly, the 3 No hadn't let a single one past.
Baekbaekie's role is huge.
This wasn't simple brawling. Under Vivian's command, they were fighting with maximum efficiency and effect. The Super Space-Time Information Collector [C] was surveying the entire battlefield, leaving no variable unaccounted for. Of course, Vivian's talent was sharp enough to exploit that fully—and Lee Sia and Park Ji-hoo had been fighting well too.
Yujin stopped for a moment and watched them. How far could they go? How much had they grown? He wanted to see how they would handle a crisis without him.
Sia's a little short on mana. The kid's fine.
Those once-clumsy movements had grown noticeably smoother since he obtained the Soaring Sky Flowing Cloud Steps [B]. If Yujin had to pick a flaw, it was only that his striking points were still off now and then. Vivian was perfect, no notes required.
Not bad at all.
He found himself thinking, not for the first time, that he had raised his slaves well.
An hour passed, then two. The battle ended on Lee Sia's furious roar.
A perfect victory.