Commander of the Beasts
An unexpected encirclement by the Abysses — a trap laid from the shadows, luring their enemies in with calculated precision.
And the hunters who fell for it, helpless to resist.
Of the thousands of hunters who had marched into battle, fewer than a hundred survived. Faced with losses that staggering, the adjutants of the command staff — watching it all unfold in real time — could not close their mouths.
Those whose own guild hunters had been wiped out clutched their heads and wept.
In that atmosphere of utter devastation, the adjutants still capable of assessing the situation reeled in disbelief at a reality they could scarcely accept.
"H-how is this possible… The Abysses… the Abysses know how to form a strategy?"
"Th-this is absurd. Nothing like this has happened once in the past several years. Those things are nothing more than mindless beasts…"
The defeat of their own forces was shocking enough. But for those still able to look at the situation with a cold eye, something far more unsettling — and far more alarming — stood out above the rest.
Creatures long believed to possess no intelligence whatsoever had not simply charged in a blind frenzy. They had dug a trap, drawn their enemies in, and carried out a complete encirclement and annihilation.
It meant that a war against the Abysses — already difficult enough — was about to become vastly harder. It meant that every fundamental assumption they had built about these monsters over the years might now have to be rewritten from the ground up.
For any commander, it was a headache of the worst kind — and a warning that a crisis greater than any they had yet faced might be drawing near.
Recognizing that truth, the remaining adjutants of each hunter guild scrambled to contact what allied forces they still had left.
With roughly forty percent of the main force annihilated, a gaping hole had been torn through their combat strength. If the Abysses launched a full-scale offensive now, even the survivors stood a real chance of being wiped out entirely.
The adjutants urgently relayed the situation to the guild masters of each guild, and the hunters moved at once into defensive positions.
And immediately after — as if on some prearranged signal — the Abysses came surging forward again in overwhelming numbers.
Watching them, the adjutants of every unit found themselves frowning as one. And at the same time, a single thought rose unbidden in every mind.
This… is not going to be easy.
"Hah… hah… hah…"
Yujin and the surviving hunters had barely managed to rejoin the allied forces on the high ground. Moments later, several hunters came sprinting toward them in a panic.
"Wh-what… what happened? What in the world is—"
"Hah… hah… Th-the Abysses… the Abysses set an ambush…"
With those words, Yujin set Sena down. The strength drained from her legs all at once, and she collapsed where she stood.
Looking at her, the hunters who had already received a rough report of the situation found a tangle of emotions rising across their faces.
There was anger and irritation toward Lee Sena — the woman who had ignored their warnings, recklessly pursued the enemy, and driven everything to this catastrophe, only to return alive on a comrade's back, unconscious the entire way. There was grief for the countless allies who had followed her and died. And layered over all of it was dread: the intelligent behavior of the Abysses they had feared but never quite believed possible, now made real — and the knowledge that those same creatures were even now charging toward them.
Even caught in that storm of conflicting feeling, they carried the fallen Lee Sena farther inside and immediately moved back into combat readiness.
A short while later, flashbangs erupted from every direction — and once again, countless Abysses filled their vision.
So began the second battle.
But the conditions now were nothing like those of the earlier fight, when they had driven the Abysses back. The vanguard was already exhausted from the fighting so far, with no strength left to give. And with forty percent of the main force slaughtered, simply holding the line had become nearly impossible.
They managed, somehow, to endure for a day — largely thanks to the terrain — but even that cost the remaining allied forces heavy casualties.
In the end, holding the high ground was no longer possible. The hunters had no choice but to abandon the position and retreat south.
And the moment they withdrew, swarms of Abysses poured into the area like ants, seizing complete control of the region once more — exactly as expected.
The moment we returned to Dreamouth headquarters, the other hunters and I forwent even rest and set out at once to gather more detailed information.
I had pieced together a rough picture of the situation over the phone on the way back, but that alone was nowhere near enough to fully grasp an incident this shocking — even by my standards.
"How could something like this… Even so, I never imagined our side would be defeated so hollowly and forced to pull back…"
"I can't make sense of it either. The forces committed this time numbered in the tens of thousands. Nearly ten thousand of them were hunters — and there were dozens of S-class hunters among them. How…"
Are voiced the same bewilderment I felt. Glass shared it, and so did Jogs, who was normally cynical about this sort of thing.
However rotten the Korean military might be, its raw combat power was nothing to dismiss. Much of that strength came from decades of constant military buildup against a now-destroyed North Korea — but even accounting for that, their performance against the Abysses had been genuinely impressive.
That such a force had suffered a crushing defeat at the Abysses' hands remained almost impossible to believe.
I was digging through the internet for more detailed accounts when Are spoke up.
"Come to think of it, Jinhyun — that woman from before. Might she know something?"
"That woman… you mean Na Jiseon?"
"Yes. The 28th Guild took part in this operation as well, so she ought to know something — assuming she's still alive, of course."
Something subtle colored Are's voice for a moment, but I didn't pay it much mind. She was right either way. With the government burying information as thoroughly as it could, that channel was our best shot at getting fresh news quickly.
Tense, I slowly took out my phone.
"Grrrrngh…"
"Grrr…"
The Abysses that had driven the hunters from the high ground did not press the pursuit any further. Even so, they made no move to advance. They simply prowled the area in restless circles.
Then, all at once, the Abysses that had been milling about without order snapped into formation — ranks as disciplined as any army — and opened a path down the center.
And along that path, slowly… with movements almost languid… a single being walked forward.
Like the ordinary Abysses, it was black overall. But this one carried features that set it sharply apart from the rest.
Parts of its body were pure white — as if the color had been bleached away — and its eyes held a vacant, milky light.
And those white portions took the shape of a human.
More precisely, the form of a human woman.
A naked female body, without a single thread of clothing.
And from its waist, two vast black appendages extended outward — shapes that called dragons to mind.
Those twisted black necks and heads, so like a dragon's, bore the same glowing red eyes as any other Abyss, and they radiated a murderous hunger, as if already searching for fresh prey.
Exuding a presence of an entirely different order from the Abysses around it, the creature advanced at a measured pace. From its mouth, as it turned toward the plateau, a small, warped voice began to spill out — twisted notes, as if something were being wrung from a broken throat.