#45 Dark Clouds (暗雲) (3)
#45 Dark Clouds (暗雲) (3)
"......What in the world?"
Beneath the black-stained sky, Eun Ja-rim breathed the words, stunned. In the brief span she'd spent conferring with Kim Joo-seop, a member of the rear unit—or more precisely, the upper half of one—had come sailing through the air and crashed across the ground. Close to twenty. Nearly half the rear unit, slaughtered in an instant. She shut her eyes tight against the impossible sight.
Not because she imagined closing her eyes would let her escape the situation, or because it would change anything. When Eun Ja-rim opened her eyes again, they held nothing but hardened resolve. Sensing her presence, the blood-drenched Armored Monstrous Figure laughed hideously and roared.
"―――!"
The lower body still clutched in its grip—the rest of the soldier who had been hurled here moments ago—was ripped apart with grinding, crunching noises, chewed and swallowed like jerky. Kim Joo-seop sucked in a choked breath at the gruesome spectacle, drew his bow, and Eun Ja-rim raised her spear as she shouted.
"All rear unit personnel! Retreat!"
The rear unit hesitated for only a moment before breaking into a run when Eun Ja-rim urged them again. Kim Joo-seop's eyes flew wide as he shot back a question.
"Disciple of the Spear Saint, right now we should be fighting together—"
"Look up. That thing is nothing more than bait regardless."
Belatedly, Kim Joo-seop registered the thunder-laced dark clouds and nodded. His assessment had lagged in the chaos, but he had never once heard of dark clouds gathering in Sector 2. Nine times out of ten, it was enemy magic. And if that spell was completed...?
"...I'll handle the mage."
"Yes. I'm counting on you."
An archer was the perfect counter for hunting mages. An archer of Okyeon's Lord caliber would track the caster down quickly and put an end to them. That was surely Eun Ja-rim's calculation. But it also meant she would be left alone to hold back that monster...
"...Are you truly certain about this?"
Eun Ja-rim pulled up her mana, spear in hand, and faced the Armored Monstrous Figure head-on.
"......Numbers don't seem to matter against it anyway."
It wasn't that the rear unit hadn't fought back. It was simply that their resistance had meant nothing. Having gnawed down a rear unit soldier at last, the Armored Monstrous Figure's wounds had vanished. Almost certainly the same skill as the Sector 1 boss, the Executioner—False Immortality.
"...I won't ask further. Fortune favor you."
"And you."
The moment Kim Joo-seop broke away, Eun Ja-rim sprinted forward. The spear she drove forward with ferocious speed carried mana that churned without limit.
"Suliţă pentru a-l ucide pe diavol!"
In the instant the spear blazed so hot it seemed about to burst, Eun Ja-rim hurled it with all her strength.
"Spear of Demon Annihilation!"
Her shout was swallowed by an explosion of light—a pure white radiance that blanketed heaven and earth.
That very strike had once obliterated the chimera—the same slime-like mass that had filled a passageway in the underground base on the Night of the Great Battle—in a single blow.
"......!"
Against the Armored Monstrous Figure, it did nothing at all. It merely stripped away the robe the creature wore. When the blood-drenched robe disintegrated, what lay beneath was the shape of a horrifying monster.
What flashed through Eun Ja-rim's mind was the footage she'd seen of the flesh masses that had assaulted the Academy. Spikes, iron plates, chains, sheet metal... all manner of implements had been driven through, bolted into, and wound around those masses to construct the shape of this gigantic Armored Monstrous Figure. No—it was a grotesque silhouette, as though lumps of flesh had been plastered over an armature.
"......!"
Eun Ja-rim swallowed hard at the sight. Not from the horror of its form, but from the realization that her attack had, in truth, landed.
'The wound is there.'
And despite that, in that fleeting span of time, it had regenerated almost instantly. That was the truth. C-rank... no, Regeneration of B-rank or higher, by the look of it.
'...I have to focus on holding it off.'
Eun Ja-rim accepted it without resistance. If that regeneration was truly a skill, she did not possess the power to bring the creature down. But buying time—that she could do.
She stretched out her hand, and as though answering her will, the spear flew back into her grip. The Armored Monstrous Figure tried to snatch it and failed.
"―――!"
Enraged by the failure, it began charging straight at Eun Ja-rim.
***
'...Still in one piece.'
My detection, spread wide, read the battlefield. Eun Ja-rim had stayed behind, buying time while the rear unit retreated. Whatever method she'd chosen, she would hold out.
'It's fine.'
The main force was crossing the river. They would reach Area 2 soon enough. I could afford to leave Eun Ja-rim alone. The more urgent problem was the dark clouds looming overhead. Even the most powerful magic meant nothing if it didn't land. But could anyone escape on mere rafts? Fleeing into the forest would just turn you into monster feed.
'And this river is long.'
The river was long, and even with a scroll, the distance was too vast to clear. In the end, if I didn't bring the mage down, nothing would change. I closed my eyes and focused.
'Found him...!'
Before long, I pinpointed his position—the mana tethered to the dark clouds. There was no mistake.
"Spiritul tunet..."
As the spell neared completion, the mana swelled. The dark clouds had deepened to their limit, now smothering the entire sky. It was an absurd thought, but it gave the illusion that night itself had fallen over this dungeon.
Watching the vast, hideous mana slowly crest, I didn't hesitate. I ignited the flames.
***
Black fire rose up, engulfing the Wolf, and I wrapped myself in wind and ran. There was no hesitation in the steps that carried me at full speed. I scaled the jungle cliff in an instant. The flames surged upward, burning black, but the masked figure's attention wasn't on me.
No—even for someone like him, my C-rank Stealth wasn't something he could casually detect. In fact, the masked man—Silent Mouth—truly did not notice my approach at all.
His concentration on the incantation was the first reason. Not knowing of my existence at all was the second. And the third reason—
"Spiritul tunetului coboa—?!"
Leaping in a single bound, I crushed Silent Mouth's skull mid-incantation. Ghost Flame (C) burned his head away, leaving not even ash. The spell he had been chanting halted, and Silent Mouth, his entire masked head obliterated, collapsed to the ground. Ghost Flame (C) crawled over his headless body, still burning.
"......."
Even so, I didn't move from the spot.
A short moment passed. Then, shattering all common sense that a headless corpse could never rise, the body pressed its hands against the earth and pushed itself upright. It stood, cocking its remaining neck to one side as though puzzled. That was the third reason. He operated with the unconscious assumption that taking hits didn't matter.
He brushed himself off with a few casual flicks, like dusting dirt from a sleeve, and Ghost Flame (C) was snuffed out. No—he used his mana to simply carve away the portions the flame had covered, like scooping something out with a spoon.
[You seem to know who I am...]
It wasn't a voice. He simply vibrated his mana to produce sound. He glanced at me, watching him warily, and recollection flickered briefly before he spoke again.
[Ah. I heard some stray has been chasing us... Amusing, but I haven't the time...]
Silent Mouth—contrary to his moniker, he began chattering away. I, meanwhile, was appraising him.
[An Hyeong-seop (Human)]
[Height 176.5cm] [Weight 64.7kg]
[STR 243] [AGI 331] [VIT 336] [MP —]
I let out a sigh at the readout. Low-end B-class or high-end C-class. That was about it, but his mana was unreadable. Of course it was. He wasn't possessing his own mana—he was merely using mana transmitted to him.
'Came all this way and it's still not the real body.'
I'd wondered, since he had actually come to Neverland, but he was a puppet. Nothing more than a dead body linked and controlled through mana.
'Damn it.'
That meant piercing his heart or crushing his skull achieved nothing. There were no vital points. I had to destroy the medium hidden somewhere in that body—the receiver for the transmitted mana.
'I assumed the mask was it.'
It wasn't. The medium was definitely hidden elsewhere. Whether I severed his limbs or dismembered him, as long as the medium remained intact, bringing him down was impossible. At least he didn't seem capable of receiving mana in real time to resume a broken incantation.
As we measured each other, Silent Mouth's neck shifted ever so faintly, and I launched myself forward immediately. Lightning belatedly erupted from the ground, lancing up in jagged arcs. I had anticipated it, so dodging wasn't difficult, but the speed was absurd.
As if surprised I had evaded, he extended his hand forward, and powerful mana began to spiral within it.
[—Die.]
Black mana churned and coiled, and the instant he flicked his hand, it came flying. The attack seemed to have pierced straight through my trajectory and movement patterns. I had expected that too. I twisted aside, evading it, and the sphere of mana swept through the jungle, black smoke slithering up from the ignited trees.
[Spiritul tunetului coboară aici—]
Even in the midst of that, he didn't stop chanting. The fourth incantation, the one I had barely managed to disrupt before, he was doggedly reciting to completion. I knew the iron rule well: never give a mage time or distance. But I couldn't rush in recklessly—not when I had no way to know what traps awaited me.
'Even if I do close in.'
Even if I broke through, there was no guarantee I could win. Keeping distance, I sent mana-laced spines slicing through the air. The spines bored through the atmosphere but couldn't penetrate his mana barrier, scattering uselessly to the ground.
'Good.'
Shadow and mana bullets had no physical substance, so they were unusable, but spines could carry Ghost Flame (C). The black fire devoured the jungle and burned onward, gnawing away at the mana barrier.
But the moment his gaze landed on it, the black fire was extinguished, feeble and futile. I wrapped myself in a gust, appeared behind his back in the next instant, and ripped one of his arms off.
"―――."
The arm I tore off exploded, blasting away my upper and lower jaw. Without Mitigation and Hardening, it wouldn't have ended with just that. I tried to dive into the shadows to evade the relentless barrage of mana and lightning, but the mana that had saturated the ground blocked me.
'When did he—?!'
In the end, I had no choice but to leap away with Elasticity. A chain of lightning surged toward me as if it had been scripted, an inevitable follow-up. I conjured Ghost Flame (C) instantly, and it swallowed the chain. But unlike Hong Yuri's Prominence chains, his chain bored straight through Ghost Flame (C) and kept coming.
'This is—!'
I had to summon a gust before I could just barely deflect it. The moment I landed, my eyes met his.
[Ho...]
He stroked his chin with an air of idle interest, and that composure grated on me.
'.......'
I shoved down the thought that had surfaced in my mind—the maybe, the what-if. I buried the half-baked speculation. In the end, even if it was true, nothing would change if I couldn't bring him down. The gust couldn't reach him. The spines were blocked. The shadows were tangled and useless against his mana.
Only the black fire blazed, and the instant his gaze touched it, it died.
If even Ghost Flame (C) couldn't reach him—then I only had to move on to the next step.
[Skill Points 23 → 7]
***
Far in the distance, Gapju watched the raid force crossing the river and opened his subspace.
Drawing his greatsword into his grip at last, he gazed up at the sky, expressionless.
He was remembering a time long past, when he himself had stood among their ranks.