Chapter 213
Translator: penny
Chapter: 213
Chapter Title: Hellfire Crisis
Shuuuuk—
Meanwhile, while relentlessly tearing into the hatchling's flesh, Jeong-hyeon was multitasking something else.
Attribute-less bolts materialized around him and shot toward the Hell Fires.
They were projectiles flying straight at him anyway, and not small ones at that, so there was no need to worry about aiming.
'I have no idea what this'll do to the Hell Fires...'
A basic spell like Bolt against something leagues beyond it like Hell Fire.
Even with neutral attribute's mana cancellation effect, the gap in power was just too vast.
In fact, nearly a hundred Mana Bolts had already relentlessly hammered a single Hell Fire, poking tiny holes in it that instantly refilled over and over.
It felt just like bailing out an ocean with a bucket.
That's when a voice reached Jeong-hyeon.
"Boss, enchant me with magic too—quick!"
It was Won-ho.
"This fucker's weakened now, right? Three's better than one—hurry!"
Beside him, Ye-rin was looking up at Jeong-hyeon with the same intent.
Come to think of it, the neutral magic he'd enchanted them with earlier had already worn off.
Thud-thud—
Jeong-hyeon kept swinging the pickaxe, half-listening, but that was only because time was precious.
Soon enough, an invisible energy formed on Ye-rin's greaves and Won-ho's axe.
And right away, Seung-jun's scream-like command rang out.
"You two—attack the hatchling's neck right now! The Hell Fires are guided by its gaze! We can't let it see Hunter Han Jeong-hyeon!"
'Good.'
Just like he hadn't given up, the other hunters hadn't either.
Ye-rin and Won-ho immediately charged toward the hatchling's neck.
What they needed to do, in short, was lop off the neck that was serving as the Hell Fires' guidance system.
If it couldn't hold its head up from the attacks, it wouldn't be able to keep glaring at Jeong-hyeon on its back.
Even without guidance, the Hell Fires would keep flying, but that was a problem for later.
"Kuooo!"
Not long after, the hatchling's roar echoed alongside a massive boom.
The surest sign was the vibrations rippling through its muscles, skin, and blood.
'Looks like they're doing well.'
The hatchling must have realized it by now.
That things had reached a mutual destruction standoff with Jeong-hyeon.
Targeting him with Hell Fires when he was already half-buried in its body wasn't a sane choice to begin with.
'All that talk of a dragon's wrath—it's really lost its mind.'
It would desperately fixate only on Jeong-hyeon, paying less attention to Won-ho and Ye-rin targeting its neck, making it easier for the two to attack.
In the meantime, the Hell Fires had already covered about half the original distance.
Cold sweat trickled down Jeong-hyeon's spine.
He wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but the surrounding air already felt scorching.
Maybe it was the hatchling's blood drenching him.
The aura of imminent death gripped his mind.
He was even scared to turn his head.
Instinct told him he wouldn't be able to swing the pickaxe again if he did.
His superhuman combat sense had always saved his life, but right now it felt like a curse.
He could feel the five Hell Fires approaching in real time, and with his entire field of vision overlaid in deep crimson danger signals, anyone would feel the same.
"Mark incoming—another one!"
It was Seung-jun's shout.
He'd stopped casting for a bit, but apparently he'd been prepping one more Flame of Valkyrie.
The edge of Jeong-hyeon's vision flared bright for a moment before dimming.
"Kiyaaa..."
The hatchling's cries had grown noticeably weaker compared to the start.
It was backed into a corner too.
'Neck again?'
Seung-jun knew just as well as Jeong-hyeon where the turning point in this fight lay.
He'd already burned off one scale there before the reverse scale broke, so the odds were high he'd targeted it again.
Jeong-hyeon's combat sense confirmed the hunch.
"Got it!"
Boom—
A cheer rang out—unclear if from Seung-jun, Ye-rin, Won-ho, or all three.
And almost simultaneously, a heavy thud echoed as massive weight slammed into the ground.
'Did they take down the neck?'
It was the only explanation.
With the desperate attacks from neutral-enchanted Ye-rin and Won-ho, plus Flame of Valkyrie, collapsing the weakened hatchling's neck wouldn't be hard.
The five Hell Fires were still flying this way, though, so it was unclear if guidance was broken.
Gritting his teeth, Jeong-hyeon turned to look where the hatchling's head should be.
It was no longer up high.
"No!"
But that didn't mean it was fully down.
The hatchling was a mess.
The middle of its neck was completely ablaze, and just above its chest, the wound was so horrific that even the bones were exposed—no scales left.
The problem was that the weakened beast, unable to even hold up its wings and letting them drag on the ground, was desperately lifting its head halfway to glare at Jeong-hyeon.
The Hell Fires had already covered about three-quarters of the distance.
Jeong-hyeon had only seconds left.
'Can't make it after all...'
His prediction was spot on—if he looked away, he wouldn't pickaxe again.
Ye-rin and Won-ho were howling like mad, trying to shatter the neck bones entirely.
But even if they'd handled scales and flesh, a dragon's bones were another story.
Seung-jun was spam-firing fireballs in a panic, but no real effect there either.
The hatchling would die, but so would he—burned to ash.
But then.
"Get outta the wayyy!"
'What?'
Jeong-hyeon whipped his head around.
On the wing the hatchling had let droop.
Someone was sprinting up it like a maniac.
No—he'd already passed the wing and was leaping from the hatchling's shoulder with everything he had.
A single longsword raised high.
It was Ji-myeong.
'Where the hell did he come from?'
Jeong-hyeon felt absurd even as he swung the pickaxe to survive.
Forget staying alive—it was a miracle he could even move.
He was fast, but his tattered body suggested he wasn't properly healed.
Whatever—good things were good.
But.
'What the hell is he planning?'
What could one sword even do?
***
Ji-myeong, who'd found the reverse scale but gotten smacked full-force by the hatchling's wing and sent flying.
"Gu Ji-myeong Hunter!"
Hwi-gon bolted right to his crash site, but what he found was gruesome.
Smashed by the enraged hatchling's full-power tail swing, then blasted by magic on top—the impact was beyond words.
Hwi-gon's first task was clearing the blood filling his mouth.
Next was resetting the bones protruding through skin and even armor in his limbs.
Healing came after.
A-Rank 「Holy Healing」.
True to its name, the effect was reliable enough to revive any human short of outright death.
But it couldn't instantly restore someone in Ji-myeong's wrecked state.
'This is basically him out of the fight.'
Just realigning all the bones would take several minutes at least.
As everyone knew, healing drained the target's stamina, so you couldn't just brute-force it on wounds this bad.
Even if healed, it was questionable when the unconscious Ji-myeong would wake.
They could wait for his recovery before heading to the 10th floor if they just caught the hatchling, but right now every hand was needed.
Hwi-gon carefully set the bones and began healing while scanning the battlefield.
He couldn't predict how things would go after the reverse scale's destruction.
'Guess we leave it to the heavens...'
That's when.
"Ugh..."
"You awake, Gu Ji-myeong Hunter?"
Ji-myeong let out a pained groan.
Arms, legs, even ribs—multiple fractures.
No pain would be the real danger.
"How..."
"Lie still for now. You're lucky it wasn't instant death. The others have the hatchling handled, so heal up first."
Hwi-gon gently pressed down on Ji-myeong's shoulder as he tried to rise.
Even that twisted his face in agony.
"You did great. Thanks to you finding the reverse scale, Hunter Han Jeong-hyeon could jump into the fight. He's just climbed onto the hatchling's back—"
He kept explaining, figuring it'd reassure Ji-myeong more than just lying there healing, but his words suddenly froze.
Ji-myeong squinted up at him.
Hwi-gon had been staring toward the hatchling, but Ji-myeong had no way of knowing anything else.
If he could even slightly turn his neck, he'd look too—but forget neck, not even a finger would budge.
"How..."
Hwi-gon kept the healing steady by instinct, but Ji-myeong's mind went blank.
Only after a brief pause did he realize what had changed.
'It's quiet.'
Until moments ago, countless explosions had battered his ears like a warzone.
Hwi-gon had to shout just to be heard.
But now even that mutter came through crystal clear.
And the next sound sent chills down his spine, even blind as he was.
A cry starkly different from the previous frenzied roars.
"Hwi-gon... Hwi-gon!"
Ji-myeong finally mustered strength to call out.
Only then did Hwi-gon tear his eyes away and look down.
"Heal first... as fast as possible..."
"Y-Yes!"
He didn't know what was happening, but it was definitely bad.
Hunter Han Jeong-hyeon couldn't have failed to destroy the reverse scale.
Did destroying it trigger something?
'If even he can't handle it, then I have to somehow...'
This fight wasn't about following a sure path—it was about creating one variable, then another.
Destroying the reverse scale was a solid success.
But if that wasn't enough?
Then create another variable.
And if even the final variable, Jeong-hyeon, couldn't finish it, the next one naturally fell to Ji-myeong, sidelined from the battlefield.
"Urgh—"
A-Rank healing was undeniably top-tier.
When he'd crashed after the direct wing hit, Ji-myeong had thought he was done for.
A few seconds later for Hwi-gon, and he'd have been gone.
But not even long into the healing, he was already sitting up.
"You can't get up yet! You need to lie there longer!"
The pain was enough to shatter his mind any second, but no choice.
He had to see the situation to respond instantly to whatever happened.
And the reality he witnessed was beyond anything he'd imagined.
'What the hell is going on?'
The hatchling had its head raised, still belting out eerie cries.
And on its back stood Jeong-hyeon.
Swinging the pickaxe right at the reverse scale spot he'd found.
"Ooooo..."
Finally, the hatchling's cries cut off completely.
It whipped its head back around to glare at Jeong-hyeon.
He hadn't expected the fight to end just from breaking the reverse scale.
'So what's left?'
Nothing came to mind.
But Seung-jun's next shout jolted him alert.
"That's Hell Fire!"
'Hell Fire?'
He'd heard the name plenty, but in all his hunts, Ji-myeong had never seen it for real.
Hell Fire wasn't considered practical combat magic to begin with.
It was the kind you spent time manifesting for big events to show off.
After the shout, five fire orbs entered Ji-myeong's sight.
"Hell Fire... five of them?"
Even an A-Rank mage struggled to produce one, and this thing made five at once?
Meanwhile, Hwi-gon, watching alongside, was so shocked he was speechless.
"Can Hunter Han Jeong-hyeon block that?"
Ji-myeong asked.
He knew it sounded absurd.
If one person could block it, Hell Fire wouldn't be infamous.
"Impossible. Unless the caster cancels it voluntarily, or..."
There was more, but it all boiled down to unblockable.
Twitch—
Ji-myeong tensed to spring up.
Since becoming a hunter, he'd always stood when he wanted.
No matter the body state, no matter the foe, he rose on his terms.
But not this time.
"Too soon! More bones cracked than intact. At least 10 more minutes of healing..."
"Where's 10 minutes?!"
Ji-myeong bellowed over Hwi-gon's pleas.
Not even one minute—they couldn't hold.
Hell Fire wasn't blazing fast, but just over 20 meters away.
"Urgh... legs first, max priority."
"What're you gonna do?"
Hwi-gon asked incredulously, but Ji-myeong didn't reply.
Even talking wasted time.
In the end, Hwi-gon shifted hands to envelop Ji-myeong's legs.
Warmth spread through the mangled limbs, pain easing rapidly.
Meanwhile, those battling the hatchling grew frantic.
Jeong-hyeon hammered the pickaxe like mad.
Won-ho and Ye-rin, freshly enchanted, charged the neck to break its guidance.
But despite the agony of pickaxe blows twisting its body and spraying blood.
Even as Flame of Valkyrie whitened its neck bones a second time, it refused to drop its head.
Boom—
Its head finally crashed to the ground, but it still strained desperately to glare at Jeong-hyeon.
That's when Ji-myeong rose.
Crackle—
Legs weren't fully healed.
Just reaching this state had drained him utterly.
'Still—gotta run!'
But he had to.
The five Hell Fires were nearly on Jeong-hyeon.
Each step felt like his body shattering.
Yet Ji-myeong didn't stop.
"Now arms—heal the arms!"
He ran across the hatchling's wing, limp on the ground, body too wrecked to even twist.
"Get outta the wayyy!"
Nothing to block him now, but he had to yell to keep moving.
Healing weakened with distance.
No expecting leg-level results.
Shing—
In that sense, roughly drawing his sword was near-miraculous.
Wing, shoulder, nape...
"Uwaaaah!"
Ji-myeong screamed nonstop but kept running.
And at the point where the neck began bending downward,
Thud!
He leaped high.
Felt like the barely-set leg bones splintering again—but so be it.
In that instant, nothing else entered Ji-myeong's eyes.
Only one target.
The spot where his battered body could land one solid hit.
Ji-myeong raised his sword overhead and began falling.
'Faster—faster!'
Even gravity's descent felt too slow.
The Hell Fires would advance further.
No—too late already?
Had Jeong-hyeon already turned to ash?
As ominous thoughts surged.
Ji-myeong felt their eyes meet for a split second.
Vertical slit of golden pupil.
Staring into that abyss-like gaze,
Stab—
He slashed at the burning neck.
Right where two Flames of Valkyrie had burned the scales clean off.
Scales gone or not, a dragon's neck wasn't fragile.
The clash sent excruciating pain surging through the hilt into his hands.
But Ji-myeong never let go.
He just swung.
Swoosh—
Kept swinging.