Chapter 531
Chapter 531
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 531
Chapter Title: Steel Colossus (2)
Just after North Korea's barrage of artillery fire began.
The South Korean higher-ups, who received the information immediately, had no choice but to fall into chaos.
"Interception?! How's the interception going? They're responding properly, right?!"
"O-Of course! Detection and identification are currently underway, and in just a moment, we'll swiftly..."
"Are you insane? There's no 'just a moment' right now! No 'just a moment'!"
The time it took for missiles launched from North Korea to reach Seoul was a mere five minutes.
Naturally, there was equally little margin for air defense operations.
To make the most efficient use of that tight window, it was absolutely essential to obtain attack intelligence in advance and prepare countermeasures ahead of time.
...Of course, the enemy knew that all too well.
"It's been confirmed that our intelligence network was temporarily crippled by the abilities of North Korea's Awakened."
A lightning-fast all-out air assault, timed perfectly to exploit the momentary gap created by the death of Heukyeon, the transcendent from the Ability Management Bureau.
It was an operation they'd planned for a long time, waiting deliberately for the right moment.
"Tch, if it weren't for that usurper!"
For a divided nation like Korea, North Korea was undeniably the primary enemy.
As such, they had been more sensitive than anyone, straining every nerve to grasp the internal situation in the North...
The problem was that the usurper's ability 'Mental Domination,' which had completely swallowed North Korea, was essentially a cheat code in the realm of espionage.
'It was far easier dealing with the original dictator!'
They'd dispatched skilled agents, attempted to sway North Korean high officials—pulled out all the stops—but nothing worked.
On the contrary, agents they'd painstakingly sent often defected, feeding back false intelligence, which naturally led to a more passive stance on North Korean intel over time.
And the result of that slight resignation and complacency was the present situation.
The harsh reality of suffering a powerless preemptive strike.
"Trajectory tracking complete! All anti-air batteries, commence interception as soon as you're ready... Huh? What's this energy signature?"
In the midst of everyone desperately scrambling.
At last, they detected one anomalous phenomenon unfolding in their own airspace.
"What now?! What is it?!"
"J-Just a second... Look at this!"
"What the hell in this situation... W-What, what is that...?"
An enlarged image appeared on the large monitor in the emergency operations room.
A suspicious flying object that had suddenly appeared, captured by a satellite monitoring the outskirts of the capital region.
"A robot? A humanoid robot, no less?"
A colossal structure made of metal, with wing-shaped parts mounted on its back.
Mysterious runes etched across its body faintly glowing—it was undoubtedly no ordinary machine, but a craft incorporating magitech.
"Hold on, does that even make sense? A magitech item that size? It has to be at least 20 meters tall!"
Materials from Earth, untouched by mystery, couldn't be used in magitech.
Gems from the otherworld had practical uses as magical catalysts, but Earth ones were just pretty decorative rocks.
...Which meant that massive frame, easily weighing over 100 tons, was entirely made from those precious otherworld resources.
"Th-The measured energy response is spiking dramatically! And... Huh?"
It also implied that the maximum energy such a creation could hold far exceeded ordinary limits.
Its metal wings unfurled wide, tips locking forward broadly.
As if harboring a massive nuclear reactor inside, a surge of enormous energy concentrated in the wings, scattering faint mana light in all directions.
And then—
"Ah."
"...Insane."
Everyone in the operations room gaped unwittingly.
As if their frantic movements moments ago had been a lie, their eyes were glued to the large monitor.
They had no choice.
Dozens of beams fanning out from the craft in a sector.
Magitech cannons firing them repeatedly at slightly adjusted angles, with energy that showed no sign of depletion despite the barrage—it was nothing short of miraculous.
"W-Wait! Zoom out more! Enough to see the paths of those beams!"
"Ah!"
And the result was even more astonishing.
Not just the agents hammering keyboards in the emergency ops room, but everyone communicating with missile intercept batteries—their pupils trembled as if an earthquake had hit.
"Trajectory tracking complete. They all match the paths of missiles coming down from the north!"
"Report from the intercept batteries! All identification codes on incoming objects from North Korea have vanished!"
"Satellite footage confirmed. The moment beams from the unidentified craft struck the missiles was captured. Everything, including warheads, vanished instantly upon impact. No explosion detected!"
A miracle achieved in under a minute.
The unidentified craft had truly intercepted every missile targeting all of South Korea in that split second.
And it had done so while hovering motionless in midair, merely unleashing its barrage.
"......"
Speechless, they stared blankly at the screen.
The giant robot onscreen was retracting its widely deployed cannons back into its dorsal mount.
Like an angel descended to mete out judgment on the earth, folding its wings now that the task was done and it was time to rest.
"Whew, this is madness."
A faint sigh escaped the lips of the operations room chief.
They had nearly suffered an indelible wound across the entire nation.
Without that robot's aid, such a perfect interception would have been impossible.
'But that doesn't mean we can just celebrate.'
The unidentified craft's overwhelming performance was just as threatening.
It seemed friendly for helping, but from a national perspective, they couldn't ignore the existence of such a dangerous weapon.
'Already so many incidents lately. What is the world coming to, with even this showing up?'
The silver lining was that they didn't need to respond to the robot immediately.
No matter what, the top priority was punishing North Korea for their unprovoked preemptive strike.
'Things are going to get noisy from here on. Hopefully it doesn't escalate into something huge.'
Of course, it was a futile hope.
The steel colossus that had descended upon South Korea's skies.
Its debut—a spectacle far more dazzling than any fireworks, set against the heavens.
How could they possibly hide something like that?
And, somewhat unfortunately for them.
That prediction proved spot on.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ A campsite on the outskirts of Seoul.
"...I'm lucky after all."
A young man, zooming his high-end camera lens toward the sky, murmured softly.
He gazed at the majestic giant robot on his screen and smiled faintly.
'When the evacuation alert popped up out of nowhere, I thought something big had gone down, but to snag a scoop like this!'
His name was Hong Dushik.
An internet broadcaster who had risen to fame by capturing close-up footage starting from the Gold Dragon's appearance—the raw scenes of the Seoul terror attack and the Hahoe Mask's exploits at the time.
'Worth splurging on this camera! Now, if I just stream this...'
He'd planned to take a break today and just scout the campsite, but now wasn't the time for leisure.
He quickly prepped a live stream to calm his pounding heart.
'Even in this sparsely populated outskirts of Seoul, no guarantee I'm the only one who caught it. Not many got it in this quality, though. Still, to maximize attention, I need to drop it first before anyone else does!'
He was confident.
This would cause an uproar rivaling the dragon's emergence.
And for good reason...
'A freaking giant robot—how do you not freak out?!'
The idol and dream of men since boyhood.
No red-blooded guy could keep his heart from racing when it materialized in reality!
"Hello, bros and sis! Supposed to be my day off—what's up? Well, there's a reason~! You all got that evacuation text just now, right? The second I saw it, I had a hunch and fired up the camera just in case... and..."
In short.
Hong Dushik's broadcast was a massive hit.
Beyond even his expectations.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Kaching—
The Heaven Titan retracted its cannons with a metallic clank.
Hesperon, firmly secured in the cockpit enveloped by the Titan, stuck out his tongue in awe.
"...This is way more impressive than I thought."
The Heaven Titan's barrage wasn't just about unleashing massive energy.
It perfectly controlled recoil by freezing the craft at spatial coordinates, performed precise calculations via detection arrays weaving mysteries from various worlds, and delivered pinpoint strikes without a millimeter of error.
Transcendents who sensed the flow of causality itself might evade it, but against mere missiles flying straight, it was a guaranteed hit no matter the distance.
'And the power's beyond expectations too.'
Thanks to the Doctor's touch, the missiles had their own defenses, but the destructive magitech energy cannons, dense with mystery, ignored all laws and utterly disassembled their targets.
They vaporized entirely before the nuclear warheads could even react.
No chance for radiation or anything to leak.
"Guess I didn't need to prep insurance after all."
For its first real combat deployment, he'd called in Heinz 2nd and Harris just in case—but it wrapped up in the blink of an eye so flawlessly that he felt a bit sheepish for worrying.
'Still, avoided unnecessary exposure of forces, so that's good.'
Heinz's 「Existence Denial」 wasn't omnipotent.
Fine in stealth mode like now, but projecting power to intercept missiles would've been impossible to hide.
Even maxing out the Heaven Titan's sensors, or mobilizing Heinz and Harris's senses—no more missiles detected.
Hela, dispatched to North Korea, had finally suppressed all batteries, cutting off any follow-up barrage at the source.
'Time to withdraw.'
Nuclear missiles inbound to Korea: handled.
Heaven Titan's debut deployment: success.
Nothing more for him here.
Dealing with North Korea's preemptive strike was for the South Korean government going forward.
'...Though there's one last thing I absolutely have to handle first.'
Hesperon and the Heaven Titan's mission was complete.
But that didn't mean he was washing his hands of North Korea entirely.
Especially when the root of all this was still alive and well.
'The usurper.'
He couldn't rest easy until that bastard was finished.
Who knew what other insanity he'd pull if left alone.
'Yeah, I have to admit it—I underestimated him.'
No excuses for the complacency, but if he had one: back then, it seemed the best play.
He hadn't anticipated failure even with 'Hans' stepping up personally.
Figured it could end at the Hans level without exposing hidden cards...
"No helping it now. He's too dangerous. If he fully commits to the Reverse Heaven Society, he'll be even more of a pain."
Time to change plans.
To hunt the usurper for good, he couldn't hold back anymore.
Even if it meant exposing Mind Breaker—Hun, wanted in Korea.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "...Failure? Intercepted by some unknown attack?"
The usurper, clad in Workers' Party attire, twitched his brow.
Of course he'd react that way to a surefire plan going awry.
'Nothing goes right. Fine, the Hahoe Mask crashing the party... but from that dangerous woman to this.'
Suddenly, the veiled woman he'd just encountered flashed through his mind.
A woman radiating such bewitching allure and ominous aura that even he, with his mind ability honed to extremes, nearly fell under her spell the moment he let his guard down.
The instant she smiled at him, he sensed primal danger and severed his link to the host, erasing all traces back to his main body.
He'd abandoned full control of the batteries as a result, but he didn't regret it.
'They were already shaky from her interference anyway. And I dumped the Reverse Heaven Society's max firepower, nukes included, in the first salvo.'
A bit regrettable, but no lingering attachment.
The missiles alone should've inflicted fatal damage on the South, sparking rage to turn this land into a hellscape.
"...Or so I thought."
But it had failed.
Leaving only the hollow news that his enhanced missiles, nukes and all, had been wiped out by some mystery attack.
'Tch, shouldn't have trusted them.'
Naturally, his distrust of the Reverse Heaven Society grew.
But he couldn't cut ties now.
The failure shook his North Korean foundation.
He needed their support until he built a new one.
"No choice. Withdraw for now."
In the end, only one option left.
Flee North Korea and bide time for the next chance.
This time failed, but next would succeed.
He was confident—and had the power to make it so.
Steeling himself, he rose to tidy up his remaining assets here.
...Or tried to.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ [Phew, finally found you.]