Chapter 119
Chapter 119
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 119
Chapter Title: Endless Angel Horde
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Behind me, even more angels were surging forward like waves.
I raised both hands to the sky and fired small, rapid bursts of aura from my palms.
I couldn’t match Na-young’s precise control, but with the enemy blotting out the sky, what I needed wasn’t finesse—it was sheer volume.
The angels plummeted to the ground, spraying blood under the barrage of aura bullets like machine-gun fire.
By absorbing life force from the fallen angels and converting it back into aura, I could keep this up for hours.
“Hong Ryong! Cover the rear!”
At my command, Hong Ryong nodded and intercepted the angels flying in from behind.
We formed up with me handling the front due to our numbers advantage, Hong Ryong on the rear, both protecting Na-young.
Meanwhile, Sang-hun activated his acceleration skill and dashed toward a downed figure. His movements were fluid as flowing water, slicing through approaching angels with his light sword. A winding trail of white light from his blade lingered along his path.
I had no idea what Gaf had been up to, but he’d clearly leveled up at least once. At this rate, he might become Korea’s fourth S-Rank Hunter after Na-young.
Sang-hun hoisted the injured person over his shoulder and sprinted back toward us. Moments later, a missile streaked down from the sky straight at our position.
I’d wondered why Japan hadn’t sent reinforcements—turns out, as Bureau Chief Baek Young-shin had said, they planned to glass the place with nukes. Since we hadn’t gotten official permission from Japan, we hadn’t received intel on the missile strike.
“Sang-hun, hurry! Behind me!”
Sang-hun leaped behind me with his rescuee, set them down, and shielded them with his body.
I gigantified and stood in front of the group, bracing for the blast.
KABOOM! Crunch!
The missile slammed into the ground but didn’t explode—instead, it shattered to pieces from the sheer force of impact.
“What? It didn’t go off?”
Sang-hun lifted his head.
“A dud?”
Hong Ryong, who’d also braced for explosion, tilted his head.
“Hyung! Isn’t this Akiko the Hunter?”
Sang-hun, dusting himself off, recognized the fallen woman. She was Japan’s S-Rank Hunter, Akiko. No clue how she’d ended up alone here, but her body was covered in wounds.
Angels kept swarming, so I couldn’t move. I compressed life force and shot it into Akiko. Her wounds began healing immediately. She wouldn’t die now.
“Sang-hun, go help Hong Ryong on the rear!”
I fired aura forward to hold off the angels, but there were just too damn many.
“Filthy… so many.”
Sang-hun grimaced at the sight of them. So many angels had died that their corpses were piling up, getting in the way of the fight.
While dealing with the endless horde, I glanced back at Na-young—black blood was trickling from her nose.
“Na-young!”
I shot life force her way too.
“…I’m fine… Almost…”
Na-young channeled her mental assault through Angelus’s head, disrupting the angels’ minds. It worked because they were all linked; she couldn’t pull this on other monsters.
Angels that had gotten close convulsed like they’d taken a mental shock, losing consciousness and dropping one by one. Even those farther out fell like a chain reaction, infected by some plague.
Most hit the ground headfirst and died on impact; the survivors had vacant stares.
Na-young panted heavily, released Angelus’s head, and wiped the blood from her nose.
“You okay?”
Her mental attack had halted the angels’ assault, so I moved to her side.
“Yeah… But anything above the fifth hierarchy won’t work. They’re structurally different.”
The fourth-hierarchy Dominions clutching the tome of law and the fifth-hierarchy Virtues wielding dual swords floated in the sky, unscathed by Na-young’s attack.
“Still good enough.”
Their numbers had dropped from tens of thousands to just a few thousand. They weren’t descending anymore, focused on guarding the gate and magic circle in the sky.
“That magic circle seems to be what’s opening the gate. If we don’t destroy it, they’ll keep coming.”
Just as Na-young said, angels were endlessly respawning from the gate. Once they hit a certain number, some would descend to attack. I got why Gaf had called them weeds.
And if that wasn’t enough, a monster was trying to descend from the gate’s center. That grotesque sphere of overlapping rings studded with eyes was a third-hierarchy Ophanim.
“Looks like even Gaf can’t handle something that size easily.”
The Ophanim strained against the gate’s invisible barrier. Lower angels shoved themselves between it and the gate as sacrifices, bursting apart and stretching the barrier thin. It was only a matter of time before the Ophanim broke through.
“Alright, let’s smash the magic circle first. Hong Ryong on front, me on rear, Sang-hun, carry Akiko Hunter.”
Sang-hun scooped Akiko up princess-style and stood by Na-young. He’d been too frantic to notice before, life-or-death and all, but now he kept stealing glances at her face, blushing.
Meanwhile, the gate spat out enough respawned angels to form a squad, and they headed our way.
Na-young and I sprayed aura bullets everywhere as we charged forward. Angels rained down like dust from the sky.
“No work for me here.”
I handled most, Na-young cleaned up the stragglers. Nothing got past to Hong Ryong.
As if they’d heard him, instead of small fry, a swarm of fifth-hierarchy Virtues descended. Virtues were only B-Rank Hunter level—not too tough individually—but there were way too many.
Ten ten-year-olds charging an adult aren’t scary, but a hundred or thousand coming to kill? Even an adult couldn’t handle that. Their mass assault was a real threat.
I extended a long blade from the back of my right hand, gripped it with my left, and ripped it free. Infused with aura, I hurled it like a javelin.
The blade pierced a Virtue’s chest and sliced through the sky, skewering every angel in its path before vanishing upward.
“Keep running!”
We’d get buried in falling angel corpses if we stood still.
Luckily, the magic circle wasn’t far—we arrived quickly.
Light beams shot skyward from its perimeter.
“This… a barrier or something?”
I pushed against a pillar of light with my hand, but even my strength didn’t budge it.
“Cover me.”
I left the angels to the group and charged my hand-blade with aura, thrusting it straight into the light pillar like a punch.
Crunch!
The blade didn’t break, but it didn’t penetrate either. Just like the gate resisted physical force, this protective light ignored raw power.
I stabbed and slashed again—nothing.
“Oppa, hold on.”
Na-young approached the circle; I swapped and covered the rear.
“…This magic circle’s almost out of time. Seems powered by magic stones— the light’s fading.”
She pointed to the magic stones embedded around it.
“Any idea how long?”
“The gate opened about… 50 minutes ago, and it’s this low now… Probably 10 minutes tops before the energy runs out.”
I’d cleared one wave, but thousands of angels still swarmed the sky, numbers growing.
“Block that for 10 minutes?”
Sang-hun paled, pointing at the endless descent. Even for an A-Rank like him, it was overwhelming.
“Hmm…”
“Akiko Hunter! You okay?”
Sang-hun approached the groaning Akiko.
“Huh? Lee Ji-seok Hunter, Hong Ryong Hunter, Bae Na-young Hunter too? Here to help?”
Akiko replied fluently in Korean to Sang-hun’s English.
“You speak Korean great?”
“Who…?”
We three S-Ranks recognized her, but Sang-hun didn’t. He looked disappointed.
“Introductions later—we gotta block that now.”
“Ah… I was hoping it was a nightmare.”
“It’s nightmarish, sure. But doable. Just 10 more minutes.”
“Support in 10?”
“No, the gate’ll close in 10. Sang-hun, fall back if it’s too much…”
“10 minutes? Piece of cake!”
Sang-hun amped his light sword brighter than usual and stepped to the front.
Head over heels for Akiko already. Crushing on a world-famous S-Rank.
Na-young downed a mana potion to recover and gripped her staff again.
Akiko raised her palms upward, pulling like she was summoning—silver orbs leaped from the ground.
“With this lineup, we can hold anything.”
Hong Ryong shook out his hands, stretched, and assumed his Tai Chi stance.
“Incoming.”
A horde of at least a thousand angels poured down on us.
Purple energy spread from Na-young’s staff.
Corruption enveloped hundreds of meters, corroding the angels’ wings on contact. At least half in range were combat-ineffective.
“That kind of power… You’ve got a girlfriend, but eyeing another girl? Ballsy.”
Hong Ryong glanced at me, impressed by Na-young’s spell.
“Never eyed another girl.”
“Adriana sure thought you were staring holes through her.”
Na-young chimed in mid-cast, casual as ever. She’d been bottling that up.
“That was just her training style—I liked it. Why bring it up now? Eyes front, everyone!”
Na-young’s Corruption was wide-area, so lower power; fifth-hierarchy and above broke through the curse.
I gigantified, stood front, and swung my massive blade at the incoming foes.
Hong Ryong, Akiko, and Sang-hun handled what I missed.
The fourth-hierarchy Dominions watched us slaughter from the sky, then lifted its tome. The book opened on its own, pages flipping rapidly.
That instant, over a hundred Principalities outside Corruption’s range aligned in the sky.
“Something’s coming! Everyone behind me!”
Principalities’ light attacks wouldn’t hurt us much individually, but concentrated fire from that many was another story.
Fwoooosh!
Beams from the Principalities’ staves merged into one. The massive light, as big as my gigantified form, burned angels in its path as it bore down on us.
I crossed my arms over my face and crouched.
Na-young threw up a shield behind me, protecting everyone as we endured.
KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM!!!!
My armor cracked and burned under the beam, but no major damage. Wounds healed in real-time.
Plenty of angel corpses around for life force recovery.
The 20-second beam finally ended.
Seeing we survived, more angels swarmed.
“Eight minutes left?”
“Only two passed?!”
Sang-hun yelled at Hong Ryong’s words.
“But it’s manageable.”
Just as Hong Ryong said. Burdensome attacks, but four S-Ranks and A-Rank Sang-hun? We could hold.
Once the gate closed, Japanese forces and the global hunter alliance could mop up the rest.
ZZZAP! Rumble…
As we killed angels, the sky tore with a bursting sound.
“It’s descending…”
The Ophanim had broken through the gate. Blood from the sacrificial angels rained down around it like a storm, remnants of the barrier they’d shattered.