The Enemy Wasn't Simply the Demon God
The enemy was not merely the Demon God Worshippers.
Thud! Boom!
The Predators — those monster test subjects — stood with them as well. More precisely, they were obeying the Demon God Worshippers' commands. The number gathered here had already passed a hundred.
"Insane..."
They really packed the place.
Set against the whole of Sourtul Forest, it was no great host, but a hundred Predators in one place carried a pressure that was nothing to scoff at.
How are they controlling them?
Yujun fixed his attention on Rozi. Not a single Predator failed to watch the man's gestures with rapt focus.
They feel nothing like the Demon God Worshippers I've run into before.
The aura rolling off them was beyond comparison — stronger by a margin he didn't need a clash to measure. The eight Demon God Worshippers were strong. Each one, taken alone, outstripped Jo Su-a.
Rozi opened his mouth.
"So you drew a sword."
"Yeah. Want me to go first?"
Yujun didn't wait for an answer. He burst forward, and a bald Demon God Worshipper cut in, swinging a flail.
Whoosh!
The flail was steeped in thick, clinging dark demonic energy, and the force loaded into it was considerable. Yujun would have liked to take one hit and test his defense, but there was no time for that. He shifted lightly, slipped the blow, and thrust his sword out in the same motion — an attack born in the instant of the dodge.
A shield flared into being before the man. It was the work of a Demon God Worshipper standing behind him. Shield or no shield, Yujun did not pull the blade back. His sword punched through and drove in, and a heartbeat later it bored straight through the bald flail-wielder's skull as well.
The bald flail-wielder died an empty death, and not a soul mourned him. The Demon God Worshippers took it for an opening instead and rushed Yujun all at once. As if that were not enough, Rozi had already given the Predators the order to charge.
More than a hundred Predators, and seven Demon God Worshippers. Standing against that could look like recklessness. Even so, Yujun had no thought of falling back. With a hard certainty that he would win beneath his feet, he advanced instead.
"Tapagol."
He summoned the guide golem.
"Gigantify. Don't let the Predators past this point."
"Understood."
Grrrnnnk.
Tapagol activated Gigantification. His bulk swelled until even those enormous Predators looked small, and the Demon God Worshippers and Predators alike flinched, overwhelmed by the sheer size of him. It lasted only a moment. Their opponent was a golem, and the Demon God Worshippers knew exactly how to deal with golems. They gathered the Predators most efficient against a giant and sent them forward as one.
However high Tapagol's level, however vast his frame, he could not face dozens of Predators alone.
Thud! Thud!
After crushing two underfoot at the outset, he began to be driven back almost at once.
"Paranet. You support Tapagol."
"A-at once, Master!"
"Jo Su-a, I'm counting on you too."
"Got it."
"You sure you can handle this alone?"
Rozi asked it with a face gone faintly tight. Perhaps to avoid repeating their earlier mistake, the seven Demon God Worshippers had come in together, and the gaps between them were extremely narrow.
"Plenty."
At the low word Yujun tossed out, Rozi's mouth twisted as if his pride had been stung.
"Getting that strong in your first year is honestly worth a compliment. Unprecedented, even. But you crossed the line. Once you got a little famous, you should've kept your head down."
"Killing bad people is wrong now?"
"Who decides good and evil, right and wrong? No — who even dares to?"
"Decide? I'll do it."
"You think you've got the power for that? You can barely handle us as it is. Even if you did, making an enemy of our whole faction would be a fool's move."
"I already made you enemies. What are you gonna do about it? Beg now and you'll let me off?"
"As if. You've already crossed a river you can't come back from."
"That so?"
And he still has this much to say.
Yujun poured mana into his sword and activated Super Concentration (EX). The sensation of the world slowing came over him again. Strength welled through his whole body, and the dragon blood inside him boiled as if it were dying to fight this very instant.
Magic's convenient, but maybe because there's no feel in the hands, it gets a little dull.
Rozi was cautious. He set the three largest Demon God Worshippers out front, then drew up his mana and began preparing a spell.
Confident in magic too, is he?
With a club in hand he hadn't looked the type at all, but he seemed to be a player of a similar sort to Yujun himself. Facing the three, Yujun kept Super Concentration active and moved only his sword. The three weapons crashing in met his blade without a pause.
Boom! Crash!
Three of them were pressing him, and still a scene unfolded in which they could not so much as touch his body. Worse, every time they collided with Yujun's sword, the Demon God Worshippers' weapons were shaved away, chunk by chunk. Dumbfounded, they stared at their own arms, then at his blade.
"What the hell is that sword? How is its attack power that high?"
"That's what I'm saying. We even stuck a reduced breakage rate option on our weapons."
"And we suffered so much for that... Was it all meaningless?"
"Meaningless? If we hadn't done that work, our weapons would've shattered after one clash. Two, maybe. Probably."
So that was it. Hearing them, Yujun nodded as if he finally understood. He had thought they were holding up strangely well; a reduced breakage rate option must have been attached to their weapons. Someone on the Demon God Worshippers' side, then, possessed the ability to grant item options — a rare power that bestowed effects quite unlike those of enchant stones, which were consumables. A skill Yujun himself had never obtained even once.
Item Option Grant was certainly a fine ability, but its drawback was terrifying. Fail the grant, and the chance of the item vanishing climbed past forty percent. The rarer or better-performing the item, the more one hesitated to use it at all.
Yujun closed his eyes, then opened them. The effect of Super Concentration amplified. Until a moment ago he had suppressed it as far as he could, the better to hold the skill for a long time. Perhaps because of that, he felt none of the exhaustion or fatigue from before. If anything, he was fresh.
So it can be used this way too.
The Demon God Worshippers slowed until they seemed to have stopped entirely. A grub might have been faster. Yujun's foot and sword moved together.
Slice!
In the blink of an eye, one Demon God Worshipper's head flew. He took a single step and extended the blade — and toward that brief sequence, their attacks poured in, an exquisite combined assault so tight that no body, however swift, should have been able to slip it. But as if he had already seen the blows coming, Yujun cast Flash and slid free like a greased eel.
"Hah..."
"Does that even make sense?"
Had he used Blink, the cast time would surely have let the attacks land. Flash was different. The instant the skill was cast, it activated — and on top of that, stealth and invisibility held for five seconds, which made him all the more troublesome. Unless they closed in, they could not tell where he was.
Slice!
In that span, another head flew.
"Group up! Scatter and you die!"
At Rozi's shout, the Demon God Worshippers gathered at once.
They think they're safe if they bunch together?
A smile touched Yujun's mouth as he closed on them.
"He's coming!"
"Don't block — attack!"
Yujun swung again, and one Demon God Worshipper was cut clean through, body and weapon together, upper half and lower half severed with exactness. Their attacks poured in on him.
Boom! Clang! Crack!
It looked like a strategy of giving flesh to take bone, but Yujun's defense was no ordinary thing. Every blow bounced off.
"..."
"...What!"
They were visibly rattled. They had no choice. Attacks loaded with tremendous power had landed one after another, and Yujun had not blocked them with any separate guard — he had taken them on his body, and suffered no damage at all. He was not even pushed back. He simply endured, stubborn and straight, trusting wholly in his own defense and his armor.
As the fight ran that way, the gaps opened on their side instead. Yujun swung twice in rapid succession, and two Demon God Worshippers lost their lives in an instant. Now only three remained, Rozi among them. Yujun wore a satisfied smile.
Not even a scratch against opponents this strong. I'm starting to get a feel for just how high my defense sits.
He acknowledged the Demon God Worshippers who had appeared this time. They were strong. Their equipment was on the excellent side, and the ranks of their skills and traits were high as well — level and standing went without saying. The problem was that, set beside Yujun, they became a shabby standard. In War of the Gods — no, in this world — the value an item held was that great. The Demon God Worshippers understood the point well enough, but they had never imagined Yujun's items would be this absurd.
Rozi's face hardened stiff. The leisurely look from the opening was nowhere to be found.
"Changed your mind a little?"
"..."
Rozi had nothing to say to the taunt. He had known — known very well — that the man was strong. Facing him directly, even calling him a monster from another dimension fell short. It was not simply a matter of items, either. In skills, traits, stats, in every respect, Yujun stood overwhelmingly above them. Rozi only now grasped that fact.
This fight... there's no chance of winning.
Even if they fought again with all eight, victory was no sure thing. Let alone now, with only three left. Rozi sank into thought. Flee from here, and rebuke from above was certain — his rank might fall, and beyond that he might be thrown into the Sky Prison.
Better to die than that.
The Sky Prison. What a horrific place it was. No matter what happened, he did not want to go there. Even if it killed him.
The other two Demon God Worshippers seemed to have reached the same conclusion. Eyes resolute, the three charged Yujun. With no chance of living, they meant to drag their target down with them even in death.
If I can at least kill one of his companions...
Rozi's gaze turned to Manuela. She was pouring every variety of curse onto the Predators. Tapagol, Manuela, Paranet, and Jo Su-a — four of them were hard-pressed to face more than a hundred Predators, and every single moment was a crisis. This was no situation with the leisure to spare a glance this way. Rozi made his decision.
I'll have to aim for the witch.
Through the messenger, he briefly laid out his aim to the other two.
First I have to draw his eyes.
Go for the witch blindly, and Shin Yujun would notice at once.
Doesn't matter if he notices. I just can't give him an opening.
Rozi called ten Predators. Creatures of differing shapes rose before him like a massive wall.
"Attack."
At his word, the Predators rushed Yujun at full tilt.
"Graaaah!"
"K-kill..."
"Kyaaak!"
The ten closed around Yujun. Wearing a smile of confidence, Rozi surged toward the pureblood witch, and the two Demon God Worshippers ran at his side against whatever might go wrong. Until they were halfway there, Manuela had not noticed Rozi or the pair closing in. Come this far, the plan had no chance of failing. The Predators would be marking Yujun well enough—
"...Huh?"
Rozi glanced aside, and shock struck him dumb.
Shhk!
An instant. A span truly shorter than a single second. The bodies of all ten Predators had been split cleanly in half. Through the gap where the monsters' flesh parted and fell open, eyes blazed with a cold blue-green light.
"..."
"..."