#47 United Front (3)
#47 United Front (3)
Riding on Wolf, Lee Eun-ha felt an almost hallucinatory sensation — as though she had become the wind itself. Her bound hair scattered wildly behind her. Amid the violent gusts and the swirling black fog, she hunched low and pressed herself tightly against the neck of Alpha, the Jirisan Warg, certain she'd fall otherwise. She instinctively raised her spear to fend off the incoming spells, only to realize at once there was no need.
'...Perfect.'
Alpha moved with a kind of three-dimensional agility, creating footholds in thin air to spring off, or extending tentacles to anchor to those footholds and haul himself forward. Maneuvering — that was the better word. Experiencing it firsthand let her see the world as Alpha saw it. No — she came to understand it.
'This is...'
He slipped past the Armored Monstrous Figure's hand, vaulting straight upward off a step that wasn't there. Keeping up with the blurring scenery was overwhelming enough, but in the gaps between, Wolf evaded spell after spell, swatting aside those that came too close. The black mana was driven back into mist, carving a path through.
It was not the raw instinct of a beast. There was a precise intelligence at work, a startling ability to read what came next — almost like glimpsing the future. Not a single wasted movement, and every action covered the rider clinging to his back.
Watching that was like having her eyes opened for the first time. Seeing the same scene from the same vantage, she understood with perfect clarity what Alpha wanted — and what she had to do.
Leave the movement to him. Simply prepare the javelin, exactly as he desired. The spear of demon extinction — a weapon meant to annihilate the impure.
'.......'
Lee Eun-ha closed her eyes and turned her gaze inward. The mana remaining within her was not plentiful, but it was still usable. As the mana she drew forth began to pour into the spear, Wolf briefly turned his head, taking in the sight of her concentration.
'This will do.'
Wolf dodged every attack the Armored Monstrous Figure hurled, its eyes blazing with fury, and strode across plate metal, chains, and massive spikes as he pushed forward. The Juggernaut was slowly warping into something resembling a heaving mass of flesh, but a growing restlessness had taken hold inside Wolf.
'No time left...'
Which would come first? The completion of the bastard's spell — or the moment Lee Eun-ha's spear pierced the Juggernaut? Already more than seventy percent of the Juggernaut's shell had separated, but—
[Acolo, moartea ta a fost destinată, așa că acest tunet va fi ultimul sunet pe care îl auzi—!]
—the bastard had finished the final verse of his incantation. And with it, the world began to change. No, not change.
'This is...'
It wasn't as though there had been no warning. All the black mana the bastard had scattered — all of it had been the harbinger. The atmosphere had turned cold and still, and the black mana blanket that had covered the area began to lift.
'......!'
Wolf surged forward, wrapping himself in a whirlwind and driving through the black fog — but the Juggernaut's hand caught the mist. Though it slipped through the fingers, the wind spell Chimmuk-haneun Ip had invoked at last scattered the fog completely.
'...Damn.'
He ground his teeth, realizing he could not pursue further. The black mana gathered into a single mass, seething — a spectacle that looked like something from the end of the world.
—A black sun.
The mana boiled and swelled, growing larger and larger. If that thing came down? Just imagining it was horrifying. In that bleak moment, something clamped onto the back of his neck with immense force.
"Suliţă pentru a-l ucide pe diavol—"
It was Lee Eun-ha's hand. Before he knew it, the spear she held was swirling with a gathered force of noble, blameless mana. When their eyes met, he read the emotions still blazing in her pupils — the same integrity he had seen in the novel. That upright, bamboo-firm nature. That unbending character. She had not given up. Looking at her, the meaningless fears and doubts all seemed to dissolve.
'...It isn't over.'
Before long, the black sun would descend. Certain death would come with it. Not even the black fog could block a sun. If that moment came, the world would end, and nothing would change. Deep in that darkness, Wolf sprinted with everything he had — moving forward, the same way he always had.
—Nothing has ended. Because I haven't given up yet.
***
—Preparations for the javelin throw were complete. She had poured in all the mana she possessed — to the very brink of mental exhaustion. Vision blurring, she unconsciously tightened her grip. The coarse texture of fur beneath her hand grounded her as she began the incantation.
"Suliţă pentru a-l ucide pe diavol—"
A radiance bloomed from the spear as she drew her shoulder back as far as it would go. The mana in the raised spear churned violently, boiling. But this same attack had been blocked before — several times. It would regenerate in an instant; she knew that. Would this truly be enough?
When she glanced down, she caught Alpha's eyes — staring straight ahead. The same scene. The same eye level. Unlike her, plagued by uncertainty, Alpha carried absolute conviction. Not a single sliver of doubt remained in those red eyes. She gave a small nod.
'I'll believe in him.'
—All she had to do was throw. The doubt gone, she steadied her breathing and locked onto her target: the enemy she was about to strike. Bringing the Armored Monstrous Figure clearly into view, she bit her lip. Her blurred vision and the incoming spells — both were interfering with her aim.
'Just a little more...!'
The view had to be cleared. As though reading the frustration in her mind — the moment a gale swept in from nowhere and tore every spell away—
"......!"
At last, she hurled the spear.
***
"Hurry inside! Faster!"
Squeezing through the narrow dimensional rift, the members of the assault unit one by one returned to Sector 1. There was no time to linger. Lee Eun-ha bit her lip as she looked up at the black sun that now hovered in the sky of Sector 2, impossibly high above.
'If that thing comes down.'
She knew the moment she saw it — it was a grand magic spell. Though she had never formally studied magic, curiosity had once driven her to ask about grand magic. Hong Yuri had snorted and told her to quit dreaming about useless things and get her own act together first — but perhaps out of boredom, she'd let a few words slip.
'Grand magic,' Yuri had said.
It reveals the ultimate and ideal that a mage pursues. Therefore, there are as many grand magics as there are mages capable of invoking them. You can manage a faint imitation, but no two are identical.
'In that case...'
Just what had that black sun wished for? Simply looking at it was dizzying; a cold anxiety crawled through her entire body. What if she were standing before it right now? The mere thought was horrific. And at the same time, she was furious — furious that she couldn't. Lee Eun-ha clenched her teeth, cursing her own powerlessness.
'...Alpha.'
Right now, all she could do was clasp her hands and pray.
***
The mage was now utterly certain. Both the tenacious Wolf and Changseon's disciple would end here. The range had been somewhat adjusted, true — but it was still a grand magic spell. There was no escaping or evading at this distance. As the black sun slowly blazed, announcing the End, the mage twisted the corner of his lips.
'No. This is nothing.'
Ignorant fools who knew nothing. The inevitable End that would one day arrive — it was nothing like this. The End she had shown him had been different. She seemed intent on stopping the End by creating an Elixir, but honestly, the mage couldn't care less.
Whether the End came or didn't — what mattered to him now was no longer that. Even his organization's goal of producing the Elixir had become a secondary concern. Nice if it happened, fine if it didn't.
—What he had truly wanted, however.
The mage who had once pursued the ultimate boundary of the demonic path — who had abandoned his very identity as a human in his obsession with magic. He had devoted his entire life to it, become what he was now, walked the demonic path even after death — and yet, all of it had been warped in a single moment.
—The End.
He had been entranced by it. The End she had revealed had twisted his inner world. From the instant he had witnessed it, the mage who had pursued the ultimate of the demonic path now pursued the End instead.
—Thus, the mage had mastered yet another grand magic.
A black sun that declared the end of all things. Even watching it now, the mage furrowed his brow. How shabby this was compared to the real thing. What he had beheld was never this meager. Still — for this moment, it was more than enough. He nodded with cool detachment, for the sun was finally descending, beginning to pronounce the end.
[It is over. You vermin...!]
And yet, something traced a path through the empty air faster than the sun.
***
The spear cut through the air and flew. Thrown in faith toward Wolf, it transformed into a ray of light, streaking forward in a single bound — only to meet the Armored Monstrous Figure's hands, which had been waiting, stacked to block.
'......!'
Its trajectory had been read. It wouldn't penetrate. It had been blocked the same way several times now. Lee Eun-ha ground her teeth — and then something began to ripple.
"Ah..."
Before she knew it, the black fog had wrapped itself around the spear. And when the tip of the spear began to blaze with black fire, it met the Armored Monstrous Figure's palms — and pierced straight through in a flash. But Lee Eun-ha only furrowed her brow.
'It's been twisted.'
The spear's momentum was too light. It had certainly pierced through, but the trajectory had wobbled from the lack of force. At this rate, it would miss. She bit her lip in frustration. But Alpha — there was no way Alpha didn't know what she was seeing and foreseeing. The brief glance they exchanged showed eyes still brimming with certainty.
"—Wind?"
A single word escaped Lee Eun-ha's lips. A violent gale erupted from the spear's tip — the black mist scattered, and a spiraling current surged. When the compressed burst of wind at the spear's base finally detonated, the insufficient momentum and the skewed trajectory were both corrected in an instant. At that moment, Lee Eun-ha shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Spear of Demon Annihilation—!"
And the light erupted.
***
In the radiance that blanketed heaven and earth, Wolf bounded off another foothold and leaped upward. Within the glare that slowly faded, Wolf saw the deep Malice hidden inside the Juggernaut's body. A little more — just a little more! But before he could close the gap, the black sun descended.
Everything across the area — everything except the Juggernaut — was swallowed by the black sun. Watching Wolf vanish into that darkness, Chimmuk-haneun Ip twisted his lips. There was no way to survive inside that. Changseon's disciple had been dealt with. The infuriating Wolf had also been dealt with. The black sun, settling onto the ground, bored down dozens of meters and hollowed a bottomless pit.
'It is over.'
The mage allowed himself certainty — and then the Juggernaut's body writhed. Well, yes. Before long this wound, too, would heal. The mage smirked. All that remained was to sweep away whatever ragtag remnants of the assault unit still squirmed.
"———."
In that instant, a low growl sounded, and the mage's gaze snapped around.
'......!'
He had certainly been caught in the grand magic. How? The moment he saw Wolf's back — saw Changseon's disciple and the small dragon perched on her shoulder — he understood everything.
'Th-this...!'
—It was meant to be impossible. Blink could not be used as long as black mana lay over them. But the black mana had all become the harbinger and formed the black sun.
A grand magic, no matter how vast, always has a place of safety. Unless you intended to die alongside it, you would never involve the caster. And so, the grand magic had swallowed everything except the Juggernaut — and right before the moment of engulfment, he had used Blink and slipped into the exposed wound, deep inside the Juggernaut's innermost core. The searing flames and black fog were slowing the Juggernaut's regeneration.
"—I told you."
As though everything was laid bare before his eyes, Wolf tore savagely into the chunks of flesh and pulled out a deeply stained orb from within.
[Clairvoyance (E) Lv.3 proficiency has reached its maximum. Clairvoyance (E) Lv.3 → Clairvoyance (E) Lv.4]
The end fate of a mage who had lost his fleshly body. Facing Chimmuk-haneun Ip's true self — his Life Vessel — Wolf radiated an unadulterated killing intent. The full force of that malice directed solely at the mage; within the blackened interior of the Juggernaut, Wolf's eyes scattered a deep red glare.
"Keep waiting."
The moment that voice was heard — incantation, spell, mana, the End — everything was forgotten, and only pure fear and terror began to rise. When the mage recalled the words he had once heard over the radio, his mind went utterly blank.
[......!]
Thrashing, the mage expelled all his remaining mana — but the black fog would not permit it. As Wolf's fangs were bared, Chimmuk-haneun Ip, in a final spasm of resistance, sent every scrap of internal mana into a rampage. But—
"Until I come to collect your life...!"
—before he could finish, Wolf swallowed the mage whole.