Yujun Rose High into the Sky

Yujun rose high into the sky.

No matter how high he climbed, he could not see an end to it. The instant he reached a certain point, his body stopped short with a jolt, as if something had seized him. No amount of strength, and no expenditure of mana, would carry him any higher.

It was not a barrier. Even when he tried to break through by force, the moment he swung his fist there was nothing solid there to hit.

Well. Whatever.

He had never meant to fly his way out of the forest in the first place.

Looking down on Sourtul Forest from that height, though, he had rarely seen a view to match it. Doing something ugly in a place so beautiful left a discomfort no bigger than a speck of dust in one corner of his heart.

Yujun prepared his meteor magic.

The Meteor spell grew larger every time he cast it. That was no basic property of Meteor itself. It meant his growth was simply that fast.

Before casting, he had already swallowed an elixir.

That elixir was none other than the Magic Amplification Elixir. Precious as the item was, Yujun knew when a thing ought to be spent. And now was the time.

Grinning, he completed the Meteor spell.

Fwoosh—! Flare!

The meteor was still a considerable distance away, and yet the trees of Sourtul Forest began to catch fire. The woods would restore themselves soon enough, for reasons he could not explain, but the sight that unfolded was of half the forest burning—and the meteor had not yet fallen even halfway.

The Predators' agonized howls rang out from every direction. The searing heat reached the party just the same.

Fwoosh—!

"Nnngh……."

Even with a shield already raised, Manuela was in pain. Yujun forged a powerful one with Ancient Magic, a barrier incomparably sturdier than anything she had made. Heat that had seemed ready to melt their bodies whole was shut out completely by that single shield, and only then did the party's faces ease.

High stats did not mean a player could endure heat without flaw. Yujun's attack power, for that matter, stood beyond any measure. The meteor's heat alone was enough to melt the Predators of Sourtul Forest out of existence.

Sourtul Forest burned hotter still, and the meteor fell faster. This ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time the scale itself was different. Every Meteor Yujun had cast until now was truly nothing beside this one—a Meteor from a Yujun grown as strong as strength could make him, and only after he had taken a Magic Amplification Elixir on top of it.

Fwoooosh—!

The meteor drew near enough to fill the sky. The distance was still great, but the thing itself was simply too vast. It felt like standing before the end of the world, and not only Yujun felt it. The whole party did.

Manuela set a hand against his back.

"Y-Yujun! Shouldn't we be running?"

"Why would I run from a spell I cast myself?"

There was nowhere to flee, and nowhere to hide—not so long as they could not leave Sourtul Forest. Huge as the meteor was, it was not large enough to erase the forest entirely.

Krrrumble.

BOOOOOOM—!

At last the meteor struck the ground, and a ringing rose in their ears. The whole world seemed to wash red. A violent tremor. The earth itself heaving. Everything in sight warped and twisted, and then a tremendous shockwave crashed over the party.

Cracks ran through the sturdy shield.

"H-huh?"

Yujun hurriedly generated several more. As a rule he avoided overlapping shields, since stacking them multiplied the mana cost, and he rarely created more than one at a time. But the situation was what it was. Thinking it might truly turn dangerous, he spent mana without stinting.

Looking at the countless hologram windows floating before his eyes, Yujun let out a sigh of relief.

"We'll live a little longer now."

"And where, pray tell, is the herding hunt in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any of this?"

Paranet asked as if he genuinely could not fathom it.

"Number Four—no. Paranet. Do you have a personality problem?"

"I—I beg your pardon? I haven't one, and yet this, however one regards it, is plainly not herding at all……."

"Hold on. Be quiet."

"Yes, sir."

Yujun pressed an ear to the ground. He was certain he had just heard something. There was a space beneath the earth they stood on, and through it he could feel the presence of several living things passing. He could hear them, too.

"Thought so. There were things moving around down below."

One thing, though, struck him as odd. Among the players trapped in Sourtul Forest, had not a single one thought of escaping through a tunnel? Desperation to survive ought to have suggested it.

Then again, hunting for a way out inside a featureless tunnel would be even harder.

There were Predators underground as well. Breaking out of Sourtul Forest while fighting them would be anything but easy.

That was when it happened.

BOOM! CRASH!

Explosions rang out one after another, not far off, and they were not from the Meteor spell. All manner of Predators, and a handful of players, were rushing this way while unleashing skills. The players were few, but they were using every ability they had, desperately trying to break free of the Predators. No—more precisely, they seemed to be fleeing the flames the meteor had birthed. The Predators were doing the same.

"Why are they coming this way?"

"Maybe because this is the only safe place left?"

At Jo Su-a's words, Yujun let out a short "Ah" and nodded. This spot was relatively safe. They were holding off the meteor's aftermath with a single shield, after all.

Yujun drew up more mana. He had recovered enough that he had some to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spare.

"P-please, help us too!"

"……."

The players who had reached them shouted, faces desperate. Yujun only stared.

"Fellow players ought to help each other survive, yeah?"

"We're begging you!"

There were roughly eight of them, and the races were varied—beastkin, and peoples Yujun was seeing for the first time.

Two of them look a bit like aliens.

A pair of tentacles sprouted from their heads. Honestly, it was not a pleasant shape. When Yujun still said nothing, one of the players spoke again.

"Why won't you ans—"

"Did I leave a favor on deposit with you?"

"What? Well, no, but……."

Yujun cast Hellfire.

A massive fireball formed in the empty air, and in an instant it swallowed all eight of them.

"Aaaagh!"

"Gyaaaaaah!"

The pain of one's whole body burning could not be put into words. It was no strange thing that the players screamed. Even so, Yujun—attacking them without so much as a preamble—did not look entirely sane himself.

Jo Su-a startled and stared at him. He spoke.

"Those are Demon God Worshippers."

"I didn't feel that signature aura at all……."

"They were suppressing it. You'd have a hard time noticing, normally."

Jo Su-a started to ask more, then let it go. There was no way he had killed players for no reason. She simply hadn't caught it. She trusted him—not because she had watched him for a long time, but because she trusted his power and his eye.

That was the moment.

"Heh. How'd he know?"

"Wasn't it you who couldn't act? You should've run from the monsters a little more convincingly."

"Anyway…… for a silent-cast spell, that hurt like hell. What even is that guy's attack power?"

The players they had thought dead from Hellfire reappeared, faces twisted. As the smoke peeled away, their condition came clear: nothing but scorch marks, and not one of them physically harmed.

Yujun's eyes widened a fraction. He had thrown the spell together roughly, but he had not expected them to take Hellfire and still be standing. They barely had wounds at all.

"That thing you made. That was your doing, wasn't it?"

One of them addressed Yujun. Fine equipment, and in contrast a head of wildly disheveled hair. A relaxed smile, the sort only the strong wore, hung at his mouth.

Looks like a dokkaebi.

A single horn on his head, and a massive club besides. He was close to the dokkaebi as people pictured them back in Korea.

Yujun nodded.

"It was. Why?"

"You made this a real pain, you know that? You have any idea how much work it took to gather those monsters and make them?"

"You the leader?"

"Hm? Of this bunch, yeah."

"Pretty high up the ranks, then?"

"Friend. Awful lot of questions. How about we start with a conversation between our bodies?"

Friends already, huh.

Yujun quietly stirred his mana.

"I'll at least give you my name. Rozi. That's my name."

"Rozi, is it. Got it. Now come here."

He spoke with all the warmth of someone calling a dog. At those words, Rozi's face hardened.

"Swollen with yourself, aren't you. Drunk on power you happened to stumb—"

"Hey. You planning to fight with your mouth?"

Yujun did not give him room to answer. He formed five Hellfires and launched them.

This time the Demon God Worshippers were ready, and they slipped the flames with ease. Then they struck back, each of them pouring an attack into the shield. A flail steeped in dense, dark demonic energy, and a blaze of brilliant spells, crashed against it.

BOOOOOOM—! CRASH!

The shield that had not so much as flinched beneath the meteor's aftermath began to crack. Hairline fractures spread at speed, and the shield soon shattered to pieces. Before the shards of mana had even finished scattering across the ground, the Demon God Worshippers kicked off the earth and surged in.

Yujun cast Space Domination across their front.

But their movements were anything but ordinary. They closed in while circling around the spell. More than one or two Demon God Worshippers had already been caught by Space Domination, so these eight already understood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it. Three of them launched projectile magic first.

BOOOM!

Yujun raised a shield and blocked it. Then a hologram message covered his eyes.

He glanced back. Manuela stood with one hand outstretched.

Manuela's buff. She was not skilled with curses alone. Magic, curses, buffs—she was proficient across many fields. Feeling himself a notch stronger, Yujun smiled, satisfied.

The Demon God Worshippers were watching Space Domination with extreme wariness, so he decided to gift them a different sort of magic. He cast three attributes at once—Freezing, flame, and lightning—and the spells, formed on the instant, flew toward the enemy.

"In-insane. Three different attributes, silent-cast……."

One of the Demon God Worshippers, a man with real skill in magic, gaped. He raised a shield, too late.

KRAK-KRAK-BOOM!

The shield broke without mercy. The destructive force of a projectile binding three attribute spells together did not diminish in the slightest as it went for the Demon God Worshippers' lives.

"Hup!"

Rozi swung his club into the projectile.

BOOOM!

The magic flew off into empty air, just like that.

"Oh……."

Yujun was impressed. He had not thought they could simply bat that spell aside. It had been anything but weak.

Five Demon God Worshippers closed in around him. Weapons raised and charging, their momentum was deeply threatening. Yujun generated a mass of lightning-attribute magic all around himself. Whatever they were thinking, the Worshippers paid no mind to the sparks leaping from every side and closed the distance.

Let's have a look.

He detonated the lightning drifting through the air all at once.

KRAK-BOOM! KRAK-KRAK-BOOM!

The Demon God Worshippers broke through the blast erupting right in front of them with their bare bodies, not a single shield around them. That surprised Yujun a little.

"Kh!"

"Endure it!"

Five of them rushing him at once left no room to dodge, and their formation being near perfect played its part as well. Yujun used Flash.

In an instant, he opened the distance.

The Demon God Worshippers struck by the lightning were in decent condition. They went a step further and drank potions besides. With that, things were back where they had started.

Magic-resistance items, then? Even if a few are mixed in, it isn't a full set. They shouldn't be this intact.

He was curious how they had taken his magic and still walked away without a serious blow. Then Rozi opened his mouth, a sneer curling his lips.

"We've heard all about how you handle magic, and we've seen it too. We've heard until we're sick of it how you slaughtered millions in the first event. And you thought we'd come looking for you with nothing prepared?"

"What. So you came knowing where I was?"

"That's right."

"You should've said so sooner. If I give my guests a proper welcome, my reputation goes up, doesn't it?"

So saying, Yujun stroked his chin. Ordinary magic alone clearly would not kill them easily. On top of that, they were a group assembled for the express purpose of hunting him. He could not very well face them halfheartedly.

Yujun drew an item from his inventory.

An elegant form. The Absolute Sovereign's Sword revealed itself.