Chapter 176
Chapter 176
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 176
Chapter Title: Leviathan's Rampage
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“Euuuughhh?!”
A scream echoed through the operation control room.
The main culprit behind the majority of that scream was Seo-gyu. Unfortunately, the guy was still doubled over, elevating his life’s genre to a pinball game.
Even ignoring such collateral damage, the gravitational acceleration assaulting the ark fleet was terrifying.
“Oppa! The civilians can’t hold on!”
Lee Ha-yul cried out in a scream-like voice. More precisely, it was the voice of the maid performing knee bends.
“They’re gonna burst like this! Their whole bodies!”
“Got it!”
I immediately drew up my aura.
The sensation was like my deep reservoir—too vast to see the bottom—had its HP slashed in half in an instant. Even for me, a self-proclaimed aura monster, it was a massive drain.
‘If this keeps up, I won’t have enough ammo left to take down Leviathan itself!’
In the end, my aura alone couldn’t cover the civilians with protective barriers. I urgently but delicately distributed the aura flowing in from Awakeners across the twelve arks.
Most civilians had already passed out from Leviathan’s excessively violent movements.
It couldn’t be helped. To lure the ‘Great Downpour’ anomaly right into Busan, we’d needed to pack as many people aboard the arks as possible.
East Asia’s most prosperous bastion of humanity, outshining any other city.
-Krurrrr rumble!
The mythical storm dragon seemed intent on punishing human hubris, thrashing even more wildly.
[Undertaker! The dragon’s diving toward the sea surface again!]
Woooooong!
The ark shook violently.
It was simply falling from above to below.
Yet the excessive drop height and speed turned it into massive violence in itself. The ark trembled like a splintered raft adrift in the Pacific.
Outside the operation control room’s window, the sky blue, clouds, everything flashed by like a panorama in the blink of an eye.
We were plummeting.
From the sky back to the sea.
“Saintess! Give me the timing!”
[Yes!]
Even the voice of the Saintess, who could freely use time stop, carried urgency.
[3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second—Watch out!]
The impact hit.
Even though I’d squeezed out my aura to protect the hull as much as possible right before hitting the surface, I couldn’t fully offset that monstrous shock.
“Hic.”
“……!”
Even in the operation control room, people started fainting one after another. Sim A-ryeon and Noa, whose aura proficiency lagged behind the others, lost consciousness.
No need to mention the other isolated zones. Awakeners with immature aura foamed at the mouth and blacked out in sequence.
Leviathan had merely ‘leapt high into the sky like a dolphin’ before ‘landing back in the sea.’
Yet half the ark fleet’s combat forces—Awakeners—were knocked out of the fight.
‘Was it always this bad!? The Great Downpour anomaly!’
I gritted my teeth. The screams and scent of blood bursting from the arks were all caught by my heightened senses.
“Ah— Ah— Aaaah—.”
Dang Seo-rin’s song spread out.
It was the unplanned fifth melody.
We’d agreed to stop at the fourth verse before the operation, but sensing the enemy’s abnormal power, Dang Seo-rin had started pushing herself.
That melody reinforced the ark’s structural integrity itself. Thanks to it, the crushing pressure my aura had been bearing lightened dramatically.
-Krurrrr rumble!
But Leviathan’s violence didn’t stem solely from its overwhelmingly massive frame.
Fogrrrrr—.
Not long after plunging into the sea led by Leviathan, water began flooding the operation control room.
The weapon Leviathan originally possessed. It was coming at us again.
“Ugh. Ha-yul!”
“Yeah!”
Ha-yul unbuckled with a click and grabbed a bucket. She repeated the motion of bailing water.
“……! ……!”
Leviathan hadn’t been swimming tamely at around 30 knots all this time.
Even now, thousands, tens of thousands of puppet strings constricted Leviathan’s main body.
Its hide and flesh tore away as it writhed in pain and rage. The waves surging from its struggles easily formed 20-meter tsunamis, laying Busan’s cityscape to waste.
East Asia’s sturdiest city (over 80% of residences were shacks) got a thorough cleaning.
Lee Ha-yul slipped inside the ship several times. Gulp—swallowing water, she desperately swung the bucket.
“I’ll help.”
Click.
Go Yo-ri grabbed Lee Ha-yul’s hand.
“……!”
“Heave, hooo.”
Lee Ha-yul instinctively tried to pull away, but Go Yo-ri’s grip was stronger than expected. Unfazed, Go Yo-ri bailed water alongside her.
Lee Ha-yul glanced my way.
*What should I do, Oppa?* her eyes asked.
I nodded. Right now, we needed every hand—cat’s paw or Go Yo-ri’s.
“Saintess! How are the other zones?!”
[They’re fine. I’m role-playing as the Constellations right now, issuing detailed orders for every action. Don’t worry about the other isolated zones! Undertaker!]
That’s right.
A gauntlet of human-endurance-breaking situations kept hitting us one after another, but we couldn’t wail or despair here. The world had never been kind to us to begin with.
I wasn’t an omniscient regressor. I was just a supporter who’d taken on even Old Man Show’s duties.
That’s why I’d endured countless trial-and-error runs to find a strategy of raising ‘party members.’
In this operation—Typhoon Hunt—not a single useless person existed. (The reason for ‘almost’ was Seo-gyu, still floating unconscious.)
[The water levels in all isolated zones are stabilizing.]
[Drownings, none.]
[Some people contaminated by water parasites, but it’s okay. Nearby Awakeners are handling it.]
[Those who fainted from the earlier surface collision are regaining consciousness quickly… Ah. Undertaker, the dragon’s about to surge again!]
I spat a curse. Was this storm dragon planning to keep bouncing up and down forever?
‘It’s turning into a prolonged battle, but I don’t think I’ll lose.’
The problem was our side’s casualties.
The 60,000 aboard the ark fleet weren’t just a number. Their value defied simple quantification.
Residents under the strongest sway of the National Highway Management Corps and Three Thousand Worlds. Warriors who’d volunteered for the most dangerous arks to save other regions.
In this end-times era where all resources were tainted by void poison, they were the last human assets—the future itself.
That mental fortitude. That vitality. That resolve.
Could even one life be wasted frivolously?
‘Should I cut the strings on the other eleven arks now and let them escape? No, that’d make the puppet strings binding Leviathan too shallow. Would it slip away? Do I aim for next summer, next loop?’
That’s when it happened.
-Hwaaaaaah!
A shout that shook heaven and earth echoed from outside the ark, reaching the operation control room.
A roar that literally rattled the horizon.
Someone had deliberately surged their aura for a lion’s roar, making sure every despairing Awakener heard it loud and clear.
My mind flashed. I knew whose voice it was before the shout even ended.
“Yo-hwa!”
Baekhwa Girls’ High School student council president. The peninsula’s sole necromancer. The shaman who’d sealed an outer god in an hourglass.
Cheon Yo-hwa had arrived.
-Sink! You bastard!
The orange-haired girl—once a basketball ace—slammed down on Leviathan’s head, just as it had reared up to soar into the high sky again.
Kuuuung!
An immense vibration engulfed Leviathan. Having poked its head out, it had no choice but to smash back into the sea.
Kwaaaang!
The waves from its plunged head ravaged the beach, even sweeping the National Highway Management Corps HQ—the last intact building in Busan.
-Krooooaaar!
-Baekhwa Girls’ High! Charge! Jump! Don’t cower like cowards! No matter what, don’t let this snake bastard leap!
The operation control room windows couldn’t capture the full scene.
The Saintess spoke quickly toward me.
[It was my doing.]
“You, Saintess…?”
[Yes. After comms cut out, I requested reinforcements from Cheon Yo-hwa.]
[With Sim A-ryeon and Cheon Yo-hwa both away, the northern front might waver, but I judged we had to prioritize slaying the Great Downpour, even if it meant ceding Pyongyang.]
[I told her it was at your request, Undertaker. Sorry for deciding unilaterally without consulting.]
“No. You did great!”
[Yes.]
The Saintess replied as if she’d known I’d forgive her. The urgency in her voice had eased compared to before.
“How did Yo-hwa just stop Leviathan?”
[Aerial bombing.]
Aerial bombing?
[Three Thousand Worlds guild members, originally scouting the Great Downpour’s approach path, are now carrying Baekhwa Girls’ High guild members on broomsticks.]
[When Three Thousand Worlds guild members use flight magic to approach the dragon, Baekhwa Girls’ High guild members drop from thousands of meters up and strike it simultaneously. Using their bodies as missiles.]
“……!”
[It’s Cheon Yo-hwa’s own plan.]
Crude, but effective. Leviathan itself fought crudely, so matching it in kind.
Yoo Ji-won, who’d maintained the most intact appearance in the operation control room, reported.
“Your Excellency. Baekhwa Girls’ High Awakeners are appearing one by one on the minimap. Some are presumed drifting at sea.”
Kung! Thud, kuuung…!
Starting with Cheon Yo-hwa, dozens, hundreds of impact sounds erupted across the battlefield.
Hard to observe from the window, but even now, Baekhwa Girls’ High guild members were blanketing Leviathan with carpet bombing, aura cloaking their bodies.
-Grroooo!
-Teaacherrr!
Cheon Yo-hwa’s voice reached us. It sounded somehow desperate.
-We’re almost out! Before that!
“……!”
I bolted from my seat. I flung open the prepped submarine hatch.
A gale blasted in.
Only then did the full battlefield panorama enter my eyes, unbound by the window’s frame.
First to catch my sight: Leviathan’s colossal body, stretching suspiciously toward the horizon.
“Teacher!”
And Cheon Yo-hwa’s struggle.
Incredibly, Cheon Yo-hwa was buried in Leviathan’s eyeball. Thrashing her limbs, she wildly unleashed ferocious aura, gouging the monster’s eye.
Only then did I understand how Cheon Yo-hwa had halted Leviathan’s ascent.
This mad disciple had leapt from thousands of meters high and speared Leviathan’s eyeball in one go!
“Yo-hwa!”
“Yes!”
“Good job!”
“Yes! Save me!”
Krooooaaar—!
Enraged by a mosquito pup sucking its blood freely in its eyeball, Leviathan went berserk.
Tsunamis relentlessly pounded Busan’s beach. Even the National Highway Management Corps HQ was starting to tilt precariously.
No Do-ha would be thrilled at the urban redevelopment savings.