Chapter 118
Chapter 118
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 118
Chapter Title: Angels Invade Japan
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“Ji-seok, you’re here! You made it!”
Gaph came running up.
“What?”
“Lee Ji-seok Hunter! Angels have attacked Japan!”
From the opposite direction, Bureau Chief Baek Young-shin came sprinting over.
“Huh?! I got here first, though?”
Gaph’s face went slack at Bureau Chief Baek Young-shin beating him to it.
“What’s the scale of the angels? Any confirmation on the situation at the scene?”
“We’ve obtained satellite photos.”
Bureau Chief Baek Young-shin showed him the screen on his tablet.
Angels with white wings were emerging from a gate torn open in the sky. Fortunately, a barrier blocking the angels was holding at the gate, slowing their rate of emergence.
Thanks to that, they weren’t pouring out by the tens of thousands at once—just dozens at a time. But they kept coming, endlessly and relentlessly.
“The gate opened just ten minutes ago, and the angel count has already surpassed ten thousand and keeps climbing. Plus, we’re seeing angel types we’ve never encountered before. Luckily, most of the angels are holding position to guard the gate, but some are attacking people.”
“What’s Japan’s response?”
“Japanese hunters, including S-Rank Hunters Akiko and Takahashi, along with two thousand others, are holding the line.”
“Two thousand? Isn’t that way too few?”
“You’re right. Two thousand is nowhere near enough against over ten thousand unknown enemies.”
“Japan’s got over a hundred thousand hunters, so it’s not like they’re short on manpower. If they don’t hold it back, the whole country could be reduced to rubble.”
“They might resort to strategic weapons. The two S-Rank hunters can escape before any explosion goes off.”
“Nukes? Does Japan even have nukes?”
“Officially, no. But it wouldn’t be surprising if they had some hidden away.”
“Nukes might take out the weaklings, but they won’t touch the strong ones. And if those two S-Rank hunters haven’t wrapped things up yet, there must be some heavy hitters in the mix. We need to head there now.”
“That’s the thing... The Japanese government is refusing assistance.”
“The Japanese government is refusing help? Why?”
“They didn’t give a reason. They claim they can handle it on their own and turned down support.”
“They’re hiding something. Still, we have to go. If we sit this out, it’ll spread across the world.”
An enemy Japan couldn’t repel alone had descended, yet they were turning away help? They were definitely concealing something.
“Hmm... In that case, I’ll get emergency non-selective support authorization from the World Hunter Association. They’ll approve it for sure in this situation.”
If a neighboring country failed to contain a monster rampage in time, it could come crashing down on even passive nations like a bolt from the blue. To prevent that, the World Hunter Association had laws allowing preemptive deployment for self-defense against abnormal monster outbreaks in nearby countries—even without a request.
Such cases had rarely occurred in weaker nations, but never in a powerhouse like Japan.
Most countries disliked accepting aid—due to the massive fees or the destruction hunters caused while hunting—but it beat total annihilation, didn’t it?
“Gaph, any other intel?”
“Uh... well... They came down over there, and there’s a ton of them... And...”
It was all common knowledge. And not even accurate at that, so Bureau Chief Baek Young-shin’s briefing was the more reliable source.
He’d promised to notify first if angels showed up, but Baek had brought more info.
He’d even spilled all the angel details while engrossed in a game. Thanks to that, he’d gotten a rough rundown from 9th Circle to 2nd Circle angels.
There was no reason for Gaph to stick around anymore. Gaph couldn’t use his full power on Earth anyway, and borrowing demon strength was too risky even if he could.
He’d stayed under the pretext of alerting about angels, so now he could be sent packing.
“Thanks. Head back now.”
Leaving the bewildered Gaph behind, he headed for the airfield.
“Hyung! What about training?!”
Sang-heon snapped to attention and asked.
“You think we have time for training right now? Nothing beats real combat for training anyway. Let’s go.”
“..... Then... what was all my training for?”
Sang-heon’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
* * *
“Damn it! When’s the reinforcement coming?!”
Takahashi fired two pistols in rapid succession. Since he wasn’t using bullets—just infusing them with aura—he didn’t need to reload, and the firing rate blazed like twin machine guns.
And despite the volume of fire, every shot struck an angel dead center.
“If you’ve got time to curse, fire one more shot!”
Akiko swung her hand, sending mithril beads whipping around her at high speed to smash into approaching angels. The heavy mithril beads, laced with aura, exploded the angels on impact like they’d been hammered.
Akiko walked, paused, and subtly shifted direction to dodge angel attacks. Her precognition let her anticipate strikes ahead of time, so even without blazing speed, she evaded them by a hair’s breadth.
Thwack!
“Watch your back!”
Akiko took out an angel lunging for Takahashi’s rear.
“Thanks! Comms team! When’s support arriving?!”
[They’re on the way! Just hold on a bit longer!]
“You call this holding?!”
The two had been battling angels for over forty minutes now. Their numbers kept swelling endlessly, yet no reinforcements came. The initial hunters and Self-Defense Forces were nowhere to be seen—probably all dead.
They’d barely held with just the two of them because the angels hadn’t scattered everywhere at once. Most were guarding the gate in the sky and the glowing magic circle on the ground.
Takahashi gritted his teeth and kept gunning down angels.
The weak ones dropped to a single aura bullet, but not all.
An angel hovering regally in the sky, clutching a thick tome, used weaker angels as shields—no hits landed. It was like a queen ant commanding ants.
The greatsword-wielding angel dodged or blocked aura bullets too, requiring multiple shots.
That alone was overwhelming odds, but beyond the gate in the sky, a massive spherical eye monster crackled as it tried to cross over—clearly far stronger than any angels so far.
Under the angels’ endless swarm assault, both Akiko and Takahashi had pushed their aura to the limit and were on the verge of collapse.
[Takahashi Hunter, switching to private channel. Listen quietly.]
A comm came through his in-ear while fighting.
[Leave Akiko behind and withdraw quietly. A new-model missile will reach the target in under three minutes.]
Takahashi’s mind raced.
‘We’re the only ones keeping the angels from spreading everywhere. If I bail, Akiko won’t last long. But fleeing together would just draw the angels after us...’
[This isn’t a request. It’s an order. The missile’s already launched. It’s a new development—even an S-Rank hunter won’t survive the blast.]
That ended his brief deliberation. All die, or one lives? No choice there.
Takahashi kept up the fight as usual but focused fire on the angels behind him, clearing an escape route in advance.
Akiko had shielded both of them with precognition for over forty minutes. Even an S-Rank was waning now, so she didn’t notice Takahashi’s moves.
A high-speed whoosh approached from the distant sky, and Takahashi channeled aura into his legs for a full-power backward leap.
“Takahashi...!”
Akiko instantly knew she’d been abandoned as Takahashi fled without looking back. Whatever streaked from the sky was surely a missile meant to obliterate the area.
She couldn’t match Takahashi’s speed, and with him gone, the angels swarmed her.
Precognition tracked their moves as she desperately spun mithril beads in all directions for defense.
But with hundreds charging at once, even precog showed no escape.
Akiko couldn’t see through the angel horde, but what pierced the clouds wasn’t a missile—it was Regen’s high-speed aircraft. The rear ramp dropped, people jumped out, and the plane flew straight for the gate.
Some angels lunged at it but got shredded by the multi-ton metal mass hurtling at Mach speeds.
But with swarms like locusts clinging on, the plane lost power and began losing altitude.
Crunch!
Panels tore off the fuselage.
Boom!
The engine exploded, killing a few angels.
The plane crashed to the ground, and the angels scattered like their business was done.
Boom!
The instant the angels turned their backs on the crash...
Akiko vanished behind the angel mass, and a flash and thunderous roar erupted from the wreck.
* * *
“Prepare for descent!”
Only I, Na-young, Hong Long, and Sang-heon joined this op. More low-skill hunters would just be numbers—no real help—so we came lean.
Sang-heon took a deep breath and jumped first, the rest following.
On autopilot, the plane flew toward the gate. Angels shredded it, and the engine blew.
“No humans in sight at the site! Blow it!”
I scanned the area, confirmed no survivors, and radioed the comms officer waiting in the East Sea.
Just in case, we’d gathered all the leftover new-model bombs from the sparrow hunt. With only angels around, we could detonate freely.
[Exploding on crash! Brace for impact!]
Mid-fall, I gigantified to cradle the team, and Na-young added a mana shield.
Kaboom!!!
Blinding light erupted as hundreds of massive claymores inside the plane detonated, spraying razor shards everywhere.
Thousands of angels instantly riddled with holes. Even those bizarrely clustered like balls got caught in the blasts and shredded.
As angels flew from the explosions, one person lay collapsed amid them. The angels shielding him had saved him from the blast.
Thud!!
We landed unscathed.
Many died in the blast, but far more waited above. The moment we touched down, angels dove for us.
“Sang-heon! Save that guy!”
Sang-heon charged out as I snatched an incoming Angelus by the neck and slammed it down.
“Na-young. This one work?”
“Yeah. Let’s try.”
Na-young, wearing a new headpiece item, placed her hand on the Angelus’s head.