Chapter 151
Chapter 151
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 151
Chapter Title: Shattering the Warriors' Line
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The Lizardman Warriors’ armor was tough.
Jeong-hyeon didn’t know exactly what mineral it was made from, but it seemed far sturdier than the Marium he’d used before.
Considering that even popular low-rank Hunters couldn’t easily obtain a full plate armor made of solid Marium, the Lizardman Warriors’ armament felt downright unfair from a human perspective.
But there was one unchanging fact.
Clang—crunch—
The pickaxe in Jeong-hyeon’s hands was hard enough to tear through even that Lizardman Warrior armor like paper.
It was even infused with a hefty dose of neutral magic enchantment.
Every time he swung the pickaxe and struck the armor, a hideous hole gaped open in a way that no one could imagine was just the pickaxe blade going in and out.
Of course, Jeong-hyeon mercifully(?) aimed only for spots like the head and chest that could send the Lizardmen off painlessly in one hit.
Thanks to that, more than five suits of armor lay around him, grotesquely shattered and sunk into the swamp.
Jeong-hyeon scanned the remaining Lizardman Warriors, his eyes lighting up.
‘Look at these guys?’
For them, it was as good as losing five comrades in an instant.
Yet the Warriors were excessively calm.
Someone once said the difference between an army and a mob is the ability to march in step.
The temperature difference between the regular Lizardmen he’d faced until now and these Warriors was extreme.
Whether their comrades died or not, the Warriors simply filled the vacancies created, pointed their halberds forward, and advanced—without going berserk and charging at Jeong-hyeon.
With the Warriors packing the open space in front of the narrow sanctuary and even filling the paths through the jungle, it was suffocating just to think about.
At this rate, he couldn’t recklessly dive in to intercept the Shamans.
No matter how mysterious his movements, there had to be a gap to slip through first.
“Ji-hee!”
“Yes.”
And the way to break through this was simple.
Firepower—pure, overwhelming firepower.
Jeong-hyeon’s party had Ji-hee, who could unleash that kind of firepower.
“Blast a big one right in the middle of those bastards!”
Ji-hee nodded, clearly understanding his request.
She closed her eyes, clasped her hands in front of her, and focused.
Until now, she’d attacked enemies by summoning fireballs around herself, but this time was different.
Not just because Jeong-hyeon had specified their ‘center,’ but because their sturdy armor made her usual methods less effective.
Instead, Ji-hee targeted the sky above their heads.
The open clearing where the forest seemed reborn from the blades of the Lizardman Warriors’ halberds.
‘It’s seriously huge...’
Even Jeong-hyeon felt a chill as massive mana gathered there.
Just when he thought this might be it, the magic grew even stronger without end.
Finally, disaster descended over the heads of the armored lizards.
“What kind of magic is that...?”
Su-chan, watching it all, muttered blankly.
A dragon shape blazing with flames over its entire body had appeared in the sky.
Even the Warriors, who advanced emotionlessly, couldn’t help looking up at that moment.
Jeong-hyeon, too, forgot to think about how overpowered S-Ranks were, just for that instant.
Kirelek—
Then, a sharp voice rang out from the jungle.
‘It’s the Shaman.’
The Shaman’s voice had a distinctive quality that set it apart from other Lizardmen, so Jeong-hyeon identified it immediately.
Was it just surprise at Ji-hee’s dragon?
Or did they have some countermeasure?
Ji-hee, eyes closed and sweating profusely as she concentrated, finally dropped her outstretched hands downward with a flick.
That was the starting signal.
Grooooar—
The roar of fiercely burning flames was so loud it could be mistaken for a dragon’s cry.
It shot up into the sky in a flash.
Then, reaching its peak, it plunged straight toward the ground.
Kirek—
Faced with an attack that seemed less like an enemy assault and more like a divine proclamation, the Shaman’s cry rang out again.
Now Jeong-hyeon was certain.
It wasn’t just an expression of shock—it was some kind of order.
As proof, the Warriors watching the flaming dragon plummet straight toward them were far too quiet.
This showed their chain of command was intact, with no panic-induced collapse.
‘What kind of monstrous bastards are these?’
It reminded him of the emotionless slave soldiers from fantasy movies.
At that moment, Jeong-hyeon’s keen senses picked up a subtle change at his feet.
“Water?”
The water surface began to vibrate slightly.
The vibrations grew stronger in moments, turning into violent splashes.
Recalling that Ji-hee was proficient in other elements besides fire magic, Jeong-hyeon glanced at her, wondering.
But she looked pale from exertion, watching her summoned dragon fall.
That left one possibility.
The Lizardmen’s response.
Hirruk—
Just as his thoughts reached that point, a shift occurred in the center of the Warriors’ formation.
They began evacuating the area directly under the falling dragon.
Of course, in that short gap, not many could escape.
The density was too high, and there wasn’t much space to flee to begin with.
But the Lizardmen’s response didn’t end there.
‘What the hell is that?’
An ominous purple energy flickered into existence along the dragon’s descent path.
The dragon’s momentum visibly weakened as it passed through.
It was the Shamans’ curse.
He’d never seen a curse applied to magic before, so he hadn’t anticipated it.
And decisively,
Pshooo—
A massive jet of water erupted from the ground.
Similar to water magic, but different.
This was using the muddy swamp water pooled in the area.
The Shamans’ doing, without a doubt.
All this happened in the brief span between the dragon’s rise and fall.
In other words, the dragon, still intact after the curse, collided with the rising water jet in an instant.
Boom—
A massive explosion erupted with a thunderous roar.
Jeong-hyeon instinctively covered his eyes with his arm and crouched low.
First came the scorching heat and hot steam.
Then, countless water droplets hit his body with tangible force.
“Damn it...”
When Jeong-hyeon opened his eyes, the clearing was a mess.
Dozens of Warriors had been reduced to metal scraps and chunks of meat, embedded across the swamp.
Some had survived without instant death but were gravely wounded.
Excessive heat was lethal to heavy infantry, after all.
But that was the end of it.
The Shamans’ counter had worked more effectively than expected.
The direct impact zone was devastating, but overall, the affected area was narrower than anticipated.
The formation hadn’t collapsed, and the Warriors on the clearing’s periphery remained intact.
Meanwhile, Ji-hee—the party’s strongest firepower—would be on cooldown for a while.
It wasn’t a clean trade by any means.
The enemy numbers were still overwhelming.
‘And not just one or two.’
Jeong-hyeon’s gaze measured the jungle edge at the rear of the clearing.
Shaman spells were highly effective on Lizardmen but weak against others.
Considering the scale of the curse on Ji-hee’s magic and the counter that gathered swamp water into a jet, it required multiple Shamans.
At least ten.
Even if they broke through the Warriors now, intercepting all the Shamans would take considerable time.
‘And what’s next...?’
Even assuming this mission had five waves total, two remained.
This one was already nauseatingly tough.
‘Merrillium Mine’s Gems’ had oversized bosses, but here the trash mobs were overkill.
“Tch... Cocky for monsters.”
Jeong-hyeon gripped his pickaxe tighter, veins bulging.
If they’d just crumbled when he applied pressure, it could’ve ended smoothly for everyone.
When Ji-hee summoned the dragon, he’d thought it was a perfect game-changer.
Even with over 200 Warriors, one blast could’ve taken out 100 easily.
But the result was underwhelming.
Only one option left.
Jeong-hyeon would have to charge straight through.
He still had his artifact pickaxe, which shredded Lizardman Warrior armor like paper.
Thud—bang—
“Hirruk!”
The Lizardmen hadn’t expected him to rush in immediately and scrambled to block him with roars.
But the closest one already had a hole in its head from the pickaxe.
Jeong-hyeon didn’t stop.
Bang—bang—
Heavy infantry fundamentally relied on overwhelming power.
They operated on the ironclad belief that no fellow infantry could breach them.
In fact, Lizardman Warriors were notoriously hard-to-crack defensive monsters.
Field encounters usually involved three at most, five if lucky, yet they earned that rep.
Jeong-hyeon?
If there was no gap, he’d make one.
Bang—
He killed one, then immediately occupied the space as it fell, burrowing into the rock-solid formation.
From the Warriors’ view, letting him close the distance was a fatal mistake.
Their weapon was the long-reach halberd.
If the first two ranks had held their halberds forward to maintain formation, even he couldn’t have slipped in so easily.
Still, Jeong-hyeon had his own regrets.
‘Still short on strength.’
Against regular Lizardmen, he could’ve shoved through faster with raw force, but Warriors required killing each one methodically.
He always missed the extra muscle, but especially now.
His A-Rank 「Transcendent Blunt Technique」 was rotting unused in his storage slot.
Knowing how much it boosted strength made it sting more.
‘Not sure if this guy benefits from Blunt Technique bonuses either...’
The pickaxe he was swinging now seemed blunt-weapon-ish too.
As an artifact, it probably synergized with some blunt trait.
Not sword or spear arts—blunt felt most natural.
Crunch—
“Oh.”
How long had he mindlessly smashed through Warriors like breaking concrete walls?
Finally, a donut-shaped gap from Ji-hee’s magic opened before him.
Small consolation: she’d targeted the rear, so the wall was thinner than the front.
Still, facing the remaining Lizardman Warriors, Jeong-hyeon grew annoyed even with that.
“Why stick to the path?”