Chapter 90
Chapter 90
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 90
Chapter Title: Into the Gate
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sanghun stuck right by my side. Whether he had used acceleration or not, he wasn't falling behind at all, even though I was pushing a pretty good speed.
"You've gotten faster?"
"This much is nothing."
"I could go even faster, then."
"Huh?"
I sped up and glanced at Sanghun's bewildered face. Ah, so this is how Eres felt when he teased me.
In a fight, you always target the leader first. Without me saying a word, Nayoung already knew that and showered the Ogre Lord with curses.
"Graaak!"
The skin on the right side of its face, neck, and shoulder crumbled away where the Corruption hit.
Seeing the Ogre Lord under attack, the Ogre Shaman raised its staff adorned with dangling skulls.
The Ogre Lord shook off Nayoung's curse as it was struck by the green light shooting from the staff.
"Kraaaah!!!"
Enraged, the Ogre Lord bellowed loudly, and the gazes of the charging ogre horde all turned toward me.
I cloaked my entire body in armor and aura, then plunged into the ogre horde. The ones who collided with me, like a runaway train, had their bodies shattered and went flying in all directions.
The ones throwing axes from range or casting spells fell to Nayoung's mana orbs.
I wouldn't be affected even if those hit me. This was defense for Nayoung herself.
"The number you're firing at once has increased, hasn't it?"
Dozens of purple mana orbs shot out per second like machine-gun fire. Each one precisely struck an ogre's head, thrown weapon, or spell before exploding.
"I practiced a lot when I went to Tellus."
Her confident expression was adorable. And even as she said that, her skill in firing nonstop with perfect accuracy was impressive.
She'd risked her life smashing through the POW camp to rescue me when I went to Tellus, and it looked like her skills had grown just as much.
The distance to the Ogre Lord was almost closed. The thing had already lost all its fighting spirit upon seeing me charging through, smashing its kin.
An Ogre Lord, a B-Rank monster, emerging with thousands of ogres could cause near-catastrophic damage. Assuming no S-Rank Hunters were around.
This one was at least two meters taller than the regular three-meter ogres, but it cowered and backed away in fear. Before it could turn to flee, I closed in, struck it upward, and sent it flying.
As the five-meter giant soared into the air, every ogre looked up at the sky.
Then, as it crashed down, it became a living catapult boulder, crushing several ogres.
And the boulder itself met its end with its belly completely pulverized.
With my charge, Changhee's gunfire, and the Mexican hunters joining the fray, a good portion of the ogre mages were taken out. Finally, the military's missiles and shells began inflicting damage on the ogre horde, tilting the battlefield slightly in our favor.
"We got the Ogre Lord, so now..."
I thought we just needed to handle the ones coming out of the Gate, but then the inside of the Gate grew hazy and visible.
Normally, Gates are completely severed, so you can't see inside. It was like colored semi-transparent glass—opaque—but now, something was clearly visible.
"What is it..."
"What's wrong, oppa?"
"You don't see that? It looks like I can see inside."
"Beyond the Gate? I don't see anything."
It felt like something was there, teasingly out of focus. It seemed like a hint about this anomalous Gate outbreak was right there.
My sharp senses were stimulating my mind, signaling its importance. Far stronger than the usual prickling warning, it was giving me a headache. It was screaming that if I didn't stop that thing right there, danger awaited. But no matter how hard I stared, the other side of the Gate remained opaque.
[The skill level of Acute Perception has risen from A to S.]
Confirming the skill-up, I closed my eyes tightly and opened them again. This time, the other side of the Gate came into sharp focus. Inside were two towers, about five meters tall. They were emitting light connected to the Gate—like the Gate generators from the Empire.
Behind them stretched an endless plain of frozen ogres. There were regular ones, but also tons of mages, twin-heads, and lords.
In the middle of that plain, atop a hill lined with frozen ogres, a dragon was absorbing their chill. The ogres, once icy blue, regained their dull skin tones and immediately rushed into the Gate.
We could block this break from outside if it was just this one spot. But with at least two open now, and more inactive towers visible inside, who knew when others might activate. Plus, that monster horde seemed endless. No hunter could fight nonstop for days without rest.
"Oppa, what's wrong?"
Seeing me sweating as I peered inside, Nayoung asked.
"There are these towers about five meters tall inside the Gate. They seem to be opening these variant Gates. And behind them are countless ogres and a dragon."
"Oppa, remember that bet we made?"
Seeing me deep in thought, Nayoung paused, then spoke.
"Hm? Bet?"
Wondering what she meant, I tore my eyes from the Gate and looked at her.
"When we went on that North Korea subjugation mission, we bet on who would kill more monsters."
"Oh, right. Why bring that up now?"
"If you're going in, I'm coming with you."
She looked at me with firm yet gentle eyes.
It wasn't impossible to enter a Gate during a break.
A few years ago, a Japanese S-Rank Hunter had charged into a breaking Gate to strike the main force, but he never returned until the break ended. When they searched after the Gate stabilized, not even his body was found.
There were other records of attempts, but the outcome was always the same. No one came back.
Knowing that, Nayoung still wanted to go together.
"Why? You think I'm going in?"
"Yeah."
Nayoung met my gaze directly.
"Nayoung-ah, you need to stay out here and look after my mom."
"We can both come back alive."
"Yeah. You're right."
The area around us was already starting to get cleaned up. I had my team, and the Mexican unit would hold the line here too.
But if Gates kept opening like this, we'd hit our limit.
"Let's go."
Nayoung nodded from her perch on my shoulder.
I barreled toward the Gate like a tank, smashing through the endlessly spawning ogre horde.
"Whoa?! Hyung! Where are you going?!"
Sanghun shouted as he saw me charging.
"Hold the line! I'll be right back!"
I left those words for Sanghun and threw myself into the Gate.
Passing through the Gate felt no different from usual. The only difference was that, right after emerging, hundreds of ogres were lined up to pass through.
"Grroar!"
The ogres spotted us, snarled viciously showing their hostility, but for some reason, they didn't attack.
The dragon on the hill stopped absorbing the chill. The cold energy it had taken in flowed from its neck into its chest.
It looked like it was reabsorbing the frost it had spread to freeze the ogres. Coming in before it finished absorbing had been the right call.
[Fearless human. To walk right in here.]
The dragon's words were in a different language, but I understood them just like I had with Demon Gaph or Lady Eres.
The blue-scaled dragon had a long, slender wyvern-like body, but more than twice the size. Its skin was covered without gaps in large scales famous for high resistance to physical and magical attacks.
"Some punks keep barging into my house, so I figured I'd drop by too."
[So what can the two of you possibly do?]
"Who knows... Squirm?"
[That's your right, I suppose. But your squirming ends here.]
The dragon drew in a breath.
I released Giantification, scooped Nayoung up like a princess, and leaped into the ogre horde ahead of us in the Gate. Ice Breath crashed down right where we'd been.
The extreme cold that froze everything in an instant poured out relentlessly, chasing after me.
I dodged the Breath by stepping on the ogres' shoulders and heads, charging straight at the dragon. With every moment the Breath continued, the blue energy in its chest shrank bit by bit. My initial guess was correct.
Even without taking a direct hit from the extreme cold, Nayoung's face turned blue and frost formed on her skin.
I heated my body to shield her.
When I reached right under its jaw, I Giantified again, tossed Nayoung into the sky, and she quickly activated her mantle's levitation magic. Floating down slowly from above, she cast Corruption on the dragon's eyes.
"Grk!"
It wouldn't blind it, but the pain was like a needle in the eye—the Breath stopped. In that gap, I leaped from under its jaw, aura-clad fist slamming into its lower jaw from below.
[Krhek!]
The thing that had been holding its ground let out an un-dragonlike scream.
I grabbed its lower jaw with one hand and slammed its head into the ground.
With my left hand gripping the jaw, I absorbed life force while wrapping my right fist in aura and mercilessly hammered its skull. True to being called the king of monsters, those scales were tougher than anything I'd battered so far.
[You filthy cur! How dare a monkey insult me?!]
Snapping out of the ambush, it spread its wings wide, shoved me off, and took to the air. A single beat of its wings, manipulating the wind, sent its massive body shooting upward.
The eye hit by Nayoung's Corruption showed no damage.
[Kneel!]
The dragon's words shot out like sonic waves, interfering with my mind and body. Dragon Fear and Dragon Tongue magic.
But.
The Fear didn't work on me with my S-Rank Resilient Mind. I could even partially resist mental interference from Eres, Tellus's incarnation— a mere dragon was a joke.
And the invisible force of the Dragon Tongue magic crushed down on my body. It was like dozens of tons pressing down, a powerful pressure, but with my Life Force Boost pumping my stats, it wasn't insurmountable. I shrugged off the pressure with raw strength and leaped up from my spot.
[You... You're... What the hell are you?!]
I grabbed its tail dangling like a rope from the sky. Sharp spines dug into my hand, but that let me grip tighter without slipping.
[Let go!]
"You think I'll let go just 'cause you say so?!"
As if my weight was nothing, it thrashed wildly in midair, but I clung desperately, climbing up the tail to its back.
The dragon flew inverted, smashing me on its back into the frozen ogres. Even as the ogres shattered and jolted my bones, I didn't let go.
Then, as it climbed back into the sky, I unleashed a barrage of aura-packed punches into its side. With my absurdly boosted Agility stat, I landed dozens of hits on the same spot in the blink of an eye.
[Kraa!]
The scales didn't crack, but the internal shock hurt it—it lost balance and plummeted to the ground.