Chapter 121
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: Let's Finish It Together!
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He'd shouted it boldly, but the words left a nagging unease in Jin's mind as soon as they escaped his lips.
Hold on a second.
These guys aren't using me again, are they?
Thinking back on it...
The original goal of this operation was to investigate Apophis and recover any viable dwarf technology that might still be salvageable, wasn't it?
But what the hell was this? Total unplanned pandemonium.
As Jin ruminated and tilted his head in growing suspicion...
"Still alive?"
The Colonel's voice drilled into his ear.
He'd closed in without a sound, feet hovering over thirty centimeters off the ground—just like you'd expect from an aerokinetic psychic who commanded the wind.
Jin's gaze naturally drifted upward at a slant, meeting the Colonel's eyes as he spoke.
"Looks like you've got a lot to say."
"Was investigating what this meant?"
A Pepsi Man who talks like he's God? A living holy city? None of that was in the briefing. This damn alcoholic...
The Colonel cracked a wry smile, as if reading the unspoken barbs in Jin's glare.
"You gonna believe me if I say I didn't see this coming either?"
"Believe that? When Apophis is up and moving around?"
That was when it happened.
"0.0000719%"
Q joined them with that curt line, adding context.
"The odds of Apophis awakening as a sentient being within the next 250 years. Government estimate based on the exploration team's data from eighty-four years ago."
"Huh?"
"Updating that data—and controlling variables along the way—was part of why we were investigating Apophis."
"You bastard, why tell me now?"
Jin snapped without taking his eyes off the front.
He had no choice.
Apophis had been flung far away but was now rising from the shattered wall, upper body first.
"Couldn't disclose it to outsiders. Hell, even among us, only the Colonel and I knew."
Q's defense trailed off as he too eyed the floating Apophis.
His words quickened naturally.
"It was worthless intel anyway—just gonna stir up trouble. The odds of the full Guide team breaking through the bombardment intact were under thirty percent to start with. No reason to obsess over a possibility in the fifth decimal place."
"But it woke up."
Jin spoke without shifting his forward gaze.
The Colonel let out a hollow chuckle and picked up the thread.
"Yeah. It did. Right in our generation. Beating those insanely low odds."
"Zero point zero zero zero... what percent again...?"
"0.0000719%. Roughly one in 1.39 million."
A number too vast to grasp.
A statistical anomaly where the odds meant nothing.
Even for a high-stakes op demanding utmost caution, probabilities that slim were safe to ignore.
Like not calculating the odds of choking to death on a suction cup from your stir-fried octopus when you sit down to eat.
The problem was, it had actually happened—
"Where's Elina?"
"Couldn't join us, same as you."
"That's bullshit."
As Jin and the Colonel traded barbs...
[Intruder, Alert, Observation.]
Apophis's voice burrowed into their minds once more.
The Colonel's eyes sharpened in sync.
"Formation C. Shock rounds."
His crisp command brought beams of light streaking in from the rear, right on cue.
Bang!!
Precise support fire from agents securing high ground.
The warhead sliced through the air, flipping into a cross shape right in Apophis's face with a click. The explosive core, blooming like a flower bud, ignited on contact with the air.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!
Chain explosions battered Apophis like stoneskipping across water. Flames chased right after.
Sleek limbs thrashed wildly amid the blasts.
Grab.
The Colonel thrust his right hand forward, clenching it like he was seizing the air itself.
A cylindrical vortex whipped up in midair, swallowing Apophis whole. Beyond the howling winds came a screech of tearing metal.
Krraaaang!!
The updraft rocketed skyward. Metal shards shattered and rained down amid dispersing gusts.
But it wasn't over.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!!
A hail of concentrated fire laced the sky, shredding the debris to rags.
Jin unwittingly uttered the cliché.
Did we get it?
That timeless trope, reborn from humanity's vast historical big data as the invocation of revival magic.
Sure enough...
Shraaa-la-la!!
Fresh metal surged from somewhere, reshaping Apophis. Then the voice followed.
[Cycle, Primordial Unity, Infinite Spiral, Ouroboros.]
"Shit! S-sorry!"
Such a noob mistake...!
His gut twisting in embarrassment, Jin quickly apologized.
Q yelled with a look like he'd heard nonsense.
"This is the fifth time. We kill it, and it just revives over and over."
"Oh. Really?"
Good.Fuck.
Not my fault then.
Relief washing through him, Jin's eyes suddenly widened.
He kicked off the floor, snatching Q mid-roll as a heat ray scorched the spot they'd just occupied, melting the ground like cheese.
Glancing back in shock revealed a golem.
A cross-shaped cracked face.
A crimson glow at its center.
Undeniably the heat ray emitter.
And it wasn't alone.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!!
The rebuilt ceiling teemed with countless golem heads.
Ziiiiiing—
Light sources dotting it like stars in the night sky.
Jin and Q's faces flushed red in unison as they looked up.
"...We're fucked." "Damn it."
Myriad heat rays plunged earthward.
Cover was impossible, obviously.
For a split second, Jin wondered if he could tank them with his body—
WHOOOOSH!!
A storm's breath whipped through the air.
There stood the Colonel.
Hovering midway between the beams and the ground, warping the space above his head ghostly white.
Air compressed to such extremes it overwhelmed atmospheric pressure, swallowing even sound for a moment.
A hush like the world had paused.
Which made the following explosion all the more dramatic.
CRAAAAACK──────!!!
The hyper-compressed air detonated.
Upwelling currents twisted the rays and pulverized the golems replacing the ceiling in one go.
No time to relax, though.
Reconstruction.
Golem corpses rained down, morphing into dwarf warriors mid-fall.
They swung axes and hammers at nearby agents the instant they hit the ground.
Melee erupted in seconds.
Jin smashed through the surging dwarves one by one.
Blasting with Gravis, pulverizing with fists, grinding to dust with kicks. He didn't skimp on Blink or other skills when needed.
But they never ended.
Destruction's head forever chasing creation's tail.
No matter how many he smashed, something new took their place.
Mazes at times, golems at others—golems, toys, dwarves of every stripe.
Then Apophis plummeted from above.
Q had yanked it down with gravity manipulation after the Colonel's attack staggered it.
Jin charged straight there.
Eyes tracking its trajectory like a striker spotting a cross, he clenched his fist until it creaked.
Instinct pinpointed the impact.
A massive overhand swung right on cue.
KABOOM!!
Not just knocking it flying—smashing it headfirst into the floor like a hammer blow.
Jin seized its inverted legs, ripping them off with both hands, then stomped the remaining arms to scrap before punting the dismembered torso away.
Death number seven.
Apophis revived for number eight.
Reassembling from an agent's ankle behind him. By the time its head formed, it'd already pierced his heart with a hand.
"Guhk."
The agent swallowed surging blood, gripping the metal arm impaling his chest.
With his other hand, he drew his hip pistol, jammed the barrel into its armpit, and pulled the trigger.
The chattering muzzle went limp with a crunch as the heart burst.
Apophis flung the limp body aside and scooped up a fallen sniper rifle and pistol.
The Colonel landed with a head-crushing stomp as it flew in late, but the guns had already melted into its body.
[Intruder, Observation, Evolution]
The evolution was instantaneous.
Bang!
Jin whipped his head toward the searing pain in his side.
A mechanical dwarf stared back, pistol in hand.
A clumsy recreation, but already mimicking form and function to some degree.
Bang—!
He returned fire with Gravis and scanned around.
Changes rippled everywhere.
Click.
Machines that swung mere hammers and axes were now arming sniper rifles.
Power hadn't spiked noticeably.
They'd always fired potent steel balls from palm-mounted organs.
The evolution itself was the problem.
What the hell is this?
A ability beyond comprehension.
Teetering on divine authority.
A rolling clatter drew his eyes down—a grenade bumped his foot.
He punted it reflexively; it detonated lightly at a dwarf's core.
Not quite the full power yet.
But chilling all the same.
Another agent, clipped by long-range fire, staggered back bleeding from the shoulder.
The wall behind—meant to brace him—split open like a lie, swallowing him whole.
Thud! A golem's single eye gleamed through the closing gap. Flickering red. A scream as flesh melted.
Every Guide was an enhanced human or psychic, man for man.
But their foe was a living fortress.
Relentless. Endless. Evolving.
Ammo spent at last, they drew custom cold irons and fought on.
A war of attrition without end.
Pushed back step by step like driftwood on waves, they held formation only by back-to-back.
Jin Blinked.
Appearing before an agent with a broken ankle, he tanked the incoming bullet storm on his back.
A few pierced skin and spin.
Ignoring the searing pain lancing his spine, he scooped the wounded man and Blinked again—to Q's side, where gravity pinned dwarves to the dirt.
"Take him."
One word left behind, he Blinked away.
Next instant.
Dropping from above, he reached for a bloodied agent planting C4 on a golem's head.
"Grab on!"
Hands clasped on reflex. Viewpoint shifted.
BOOM!! The golem's head blew off beyond their rolling shoulders; it crumpled slowly.
Scrambling up, chased by encroaching shadow.
Striding wider, faster.
Soon sprinting as a massive dust wave erupted behind like a tsunami with a boom.
No time for you okay? thanks banalities.
An agent shouldered into a pistol-aiming dwarf, snatching its dropped gun mid-swipe.
"Find the power source!"
"Got it!"
Jin replied, straight-punching an orcish golem to bits.
"Where've you checked? North for me...! Damn, blocked now. Anyway, nothing north. Just a sudden cliff."
The agent blasted a dwarf arm clinging to his ankle—
"Checked around too. Golems posing as doors...! Traps spring when you open 'em, nothing else."
Jin dodged a discus-like axe aimed at his head and curb-stomped the dwarf's face in frustration.
"Still gotta find it. Key thing is, power source can't move. Narrow the options, we'll hit it eventually."
"Sure?"
"Magic circles work like that. Change everything else, core stays put forever."
The agent squeezed words between gasps.
Jin nodded.
"Got it."
Not undeserved agents.
Even in this chaos, the Guides were hunting the core.
"Name?"
"J."
Jin and Agent J.
Their impromptu duo tore through the east wing, a tangle of convoluted mechanisms.
Jin took a blind heat ray to the chest once—ribs exposed—but crushed three golems anyway, earning J's tongue-click of awe.
J looted guns from all sides, covering Jin nonstop.
Yet despite the grind...
No breakthrough. As they pondered the next spot—
"Jin! Here! This is it!"
Bagmar's distant shout sent Jin kicking off hard.
But J couldn't follow.
Rumble!!
A wall erupted from the floor without warning, splitting them.
Glance back—fleeting.
Then Jin accelerated toward Bagmar, cornered with Cloy.
"Heads down!"
Next instant.
A lightning spear sliced the air, crashing amid golems in a blast.
Shrapnel cleared—Cloy enveloped Bagmar.
Right arm gone, face and torso crumpled beyond recognition.
Not from the blast—the half-wrecked fairy mech, fending off foes, finally released him.
Second reunion already.
Skipping pleasantries like with the agents, Jin cut to it.
"Anything ring a bell?"
"Yeah! I feel it. Getting stronger."
Bagmar took point.
The palace shifted by the second.
Side paths would scatter them.
So Jin bellowed at full volume.
"Here!!!"
His throat-tearing roar drew the surviving Guides.
They converged without question.
Colonel in the lead, foes swarming like an army—but they punched through, closing in. Jin deliberately surged his mana as a beacon.
Invisible, but enough. Bagmar, hustling ahead, suddenly muttered to himself.
"God of anvil and hammer."
"Our hearts, forged hot and born."
"Steel."
"Return."
"We are here. Right here."
"God of anvil and hammer."
"Our hearts, forged hot and born."
"Steel."
"Return."
"We are here. Right here."
⟨ Dwarven Chant ⟩
Bagmar groped walls forward; obstacles predictably poured in.
Dwarves popped up, guns blazing.
Worse—the projectiles weren't bullets anymore. Near-perfect grenade knockoffs.
Crazy bastards.
Grenades already?
Jin gritted his teeth at their thousand-year leap in seconds.
He surged up, shielding their sole guide, tanking blasts.
Mana chunks burned fending shockwaves; bile rose—but he hurled the contained force back.
ROAR!! Dwarf frontlines crumbled.
Rebound shoved Jin down; he clawed the floor.
Krraaang!
Nails ripped sequential—but he held center, kicked off, caught Bagmar.
"How much farther?!"
No answer but entranced mutter.
"We are here. Right here."
Cloy had lost her last arm guarding him, yet Bagmar pressed on.
How long in that hell where seconds dragged like hours?
Jin, forcing his body, finally puked blood and dropped to one knee.
Bagmar halted abruptly.
"Ahh—"
Jin strained to raise his head at the soft gasp.
Feeling pounding against his skin by then.
Swallowing the blood sloshing in his throat, he beheld it.
A heart.
Pulsing like majestic war drums, translucent waves so vast they were visible.