Chapter 120
Chapter 120
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: The Coming of the Dawn
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Kenyon stood on the railing of a slum building, his eyes narrowing.
Watching the white wave furiously chasing the bikers, he let out an involuntary sigh.
‘My goodness, it's a white tidal wave surging toward the city. To think magic doesn't even work on them... I don't know who made them, but they're a white calamity itself.’
Kenyon took a deep breath and looked around.
Though dilapidated, the slums were still a district where people lived.
From low-rise buildings to all sorts of villas and shabby commercial blocks.
If not a forest of buildings, it boasted a density akin to a field of them.
Lee Si-woo's plan was simple.
Use the slums as a 'barricade' to defend the wall-less Granada.
‘Destroy an entire district to use as a barricade? What a truly insane bastard. Heh, I have no idea what goes on in his head to come up with such an idea, but there's no denying it's an efficient plan.’
As the bikers entered the slums, the Stragglers poured in between the buildings.
Kenyon watched the army of white ants seemingly devour the buildings as they advanced, and he waited for the right moment.
‘Too soon. I need to draw them in further.’
Intermittently, screams echoed from various parts of the slums.
They had tried to evacuate everyone, but at a time with insufficient time and resources...
...there were bound to be those left behind and abandoned. Considering the considerable population of the slums, the number of people left behind was surely not insignificant.
However, even with the screams constantly reaching his sensitive elven ears, Kenyon didn't so much as snort.
He didn't have a grain of sand's worth of sympathy to spare for the deaths of humans.
And the same applied to the bikers.
‘Good work. But the risk of saving you is too great. So... you'll have to be buried along with them.’
Around the time 80% of the slums had been consumed by the white wave...
...Kenyon finally began to draw upon his mana.
In truth, there was a blind spot in Lee Si-woo's plan.
Using a district as a barricade was a good idea, but the problem was how to destroy it.
There wasn't enough time to plant bombs one by one, and using mages created a high probability of openings.
If some of them panicked in the face of the magic-immune corpses and acted rashly, the plan could fall apart.
However, with Kenyon, it was a different story.
*Wooooong.*
Kenyon's mana resonated with the mana in the atmosphere, creating a strange, pulsing sound.
The only 6th-Circle mage in Granada and the master of the Senior Magic Tower.
The reason he could dominate the magical world from the shadows?
Of course, his own strength was a factor, but it was more thanks to the Senior Magic Tower's signature spell, which he became able to use upon reaching the 6th Circle.
Yes, the tower's flagship spell, Granada's only magic-tower-class spell.
Earthquake.
[6th-Circle Elemental Magic: Earthquake]
Waves of mana extended outward from Kenyon.
With a violent tremor, the buildings began to crumble like sandcastles.
The ground split apart like a spiderweb.
Looking down at the Stragglers falling into the dark fissures like ants into an antlion pit, Kenyon arrogantly clasped his hands behind his back.
Having turned the entire slum district into a tomb for the white calamity with a single spell, Kenyon muttered.
“Magic still won't work on them, so they won't die. At most, the ones buried under the rubble might have taken some damage. Well, this has at least slowed their advance. The rest... I'll have to leave to Lee Si-woo.”
With that, Kenyon hopped on a pre-prepared bike and left for downtown Granada.
* * *
*THWACK!*
A hammer smashed the head of a Straggler that had just pulled itself out of the building debris.
As if playing whack-a-mole, Lee Si-woo continuously crushed the heads of Stragglers popping out of the rubble and shouted.
“Everyone, form up and fire! Don't worry about me!”
As soon as he finished speaking, countless grenades flew toward his position, and bullets rained down.
But it didn't matter.
As long as he had his mana shield, modern weapons were useless against him.
*KABOOOOM!*
A cluster of grenades detonated, blowing away the Stragglers along with the debris.
Unscathed in the center of the explosion thanks to his mana shield, Lee Si-woo shot out like an arrow and swung his hammer like the wind.
The Stragglers were helpless before the hammer that pulverized everything it touched like the blades of a blender, and their teeth and claws couldn't penetrate Lee Si-woo's body, which shone with a diamond-like luster.
However, despite all this, Lee Si-woo couldn't view the situation positively.
To harbor hope in the face of the white corpses endlessly rising from the rubble—hope was far too expensive.
“Karis! Hurry up and plant the C4!”
The rain of bullets and grenades could make the white wave falter for a moment, but it could never make it retreat.
Their firepower was woefully insufficient to push back the creatures that charged like emotionless machines and craved blood and flesh like ravenous hyenas.
Moreover, that wasn't the only problem.
“Aah... this is impossible. H-how are we supposed to stop them on our own?”
“I-I'm getting out of here. How can we fight things like that? They don't stop. They don't feel fear!”
Faced with the savagery of the Stragglers who charged forward while tearing apart the corpses of their own kind with their teeth, the eyes of some of the terrified men turned white.
Then, in the blink of an eye, an organization member who had transformed into a Straggler bit his comrade next to him.
If the virus could spread through the air, was there any chance it wouldn't spread through saliva?
As the bitten man also turned into a Straggler and wreaked havoc, the place became a scene of utter chaos, a living hell.
And in the center of it all, Lee Si-woo screamed as if in agony.
“Shoot your bitten comrades in the head, and shoot those whose eyes have turned white in the heart! Everyone, snap out of it! Even if we run, there's nowhere in this world for us to go. Do you think this white calamity will be confined to Granada? Don't forget! If we can't stop it here, there will be no place left for us on this earth—!”
The hammer swinging from Lee Si-woo's hand silenced another Straggler.
Lee Si-woo pulled the pin of a grenade from his inventory ring with his teeth and detonated it at his own feet.
The surrounding Stragglers were swept away by the blast and died in droves, but Lee Si-woo was perfectly fine.
For some reason, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
That he himself, a mage with physical abilities rivaling a monster's...
...seemed as if he were made to fight Stragglers.
Was this a coincidence?
No, as long as the Butler was the Faceless One, it couldn't be a coincidence.
‘Butler... was this why you showered me with things from Barathrum? Don't tell me you wanted me to stop the white calamity that you couldn't stop yourself?’
As Lee Si-woo mercilessly butchered and massacred the Stragglers with bloodshot eyes, the faint voices of people he didn't know, whose faces he'd never seen, echoed in his ears.
-My brother suddenly bit me. It hurts. Please save me.
-My mother is sick. Her hair has turned white. She's grown old. Please make her better.
-Something's wrong with my father. He suddenly started shaking and bit my mother.
-Somebody help. Please... get me out of here.
Faint echoes.
The voices of those lost in a fog, begging for a signpost.
In the face of their wishes, Lee Si-woo grew even more enraged and indignant.
“Shut—up!”
Lee Si-woo threw some C4 on the ground and shot it with a bullet.
A roar and a pillar of fire.
Leaping through it like a circus lion, Lee Si-woo swung the hammer over his head like a windmill.
Kill, kill, and kill again.
But there was no end to it.
Just like these voices, which felt like they would still be audible even if he tore out his eardrums.
‘I'm not your god or your hero. So why are you praying to me? Handle your own problems! You should at least be able to take care of yourselves! Why rely on others? Why seek a god you don't even know exists? In the end, you're alone in this world, and if you can't make it on your own, you'll just be weeded out!’
He hated their weakness, and he loathed those who had been culled.
And yet, why was he here, doing this?
Why?
However, Lee Si-woo had yet to realize.
That the clearer the voices ringing in his ears became, the more a faint, strange power began to coil within him.
“Lee Si-woo—!”
At Karis's drawn-out call, Lee Si-woo's head snapped back.
There, he saw the crumbling battle lines of the humans and, in their midst, a formless white mass being born.
The Stragglers were gathering toward the mass.
The white mass drew them in like iron to a magnet, or perhaps like a magnet to iron.
Soon, it began to take shape.
*Sssshhh.*
Massive biceps, thighs like pillars.
Clearly defined abs.
A colossal body over 10 meters tall.
A hundred? A thousand? Or even more?
He didn't know how many Stragglers had to merge to create that thing.
But this much was clear.
This mutation phenomenon must have been one of the reasons why even the Faceless One, a god, couldn't stop the Stragglers.
*GWOOOOARRR—!*
With a howl, the giant's arm, like a massive flyswatter, swept away the group of humans who had been holding their ground.
Of course, bullets still worked, and explosives like grenades were still effective.
But the humans couldn't even think of attacking.
They were consumed by a sense of despair, a feeling that they could never overcome that thing, no matter what they did.
*Crunch, chomp.*
The giant grabbed whatever it could—human or Straggler—and stuffed it into its mouth, its jaw working.
With ravenous sounds, the giant's wounds began to repair themselves.
Witnessing the giant that healed by eating and moved to kill, the humans began to fall to their knees, one by one.
And the virus, invading their weakened minds, relentlessly infected them, turning them into Stragglers.
Just as everyone was about to give up, Lee Si-woo, who had restored his wind wings with the Power of Rupture, spread them wide and charged the giant.
“Uwaaaaaaah—!”
With a cry that was part scream, part war cry, Lee Si-woo's hammer struck the giant's chest.
The giant stumbled back three steps, bared its shark-like teeth, and roared.
*GWOOOOARRR!*
The giant's fist slammed into Lee Si-woo.
Lee Si-woo rolled across the ground several times, then sprang up and swung his hammer upward at the fist.
As if possessed by some monstrous strength that belied his small frame, the giant's fist shot high into the air.
Lee Si-woo ducked into the giant's guard and drove his hammer into its abdomen.
*BOOM!*
With one hit, the giant's legs staggered.
*BOOM!*
With the second, the giant fell to its knees.
*KABOOM!*
With the third strike, Lee Si-woo slammed the giant's head into the ground. His face covered in blood, he let out a battle cry and brought the hammer down again and again.
How many times did he strike?
Standing tall before the giant's corpse, its head smashed beyond recognition and leaking brain matter, Lee Si-woo straightened his back.
A hard-won victory.
But no one could rejoice.
They saw hundreds more giants rising from the rubble of the slums, one by one, as if coalescing from the debris.
Lee Si-woo laughed.
Yes, this was how it should be.
Humans were powerless in the face of crisis, weak in the face of despair.
Therefore, his efforts were meaningless, and his presence here was worthless.
Lee Si-woo tilted his head up and looked at the sky.
Beyond the red barrier, he could see a clear blue sky. A high, red sun.
‘On such a perfect day for running away, I just had to stick my nose where it didn't belong and ask for trouble. Lee Si-woo. Real smart. You should've stuck to what you know. This is what you get for trying to be something you're not, isn't it?’
But Lee Si-woo did not back down.
It was already too late to run.
Perhaps because he had seen and heard too much, the burdens on his shoulders had grown too heavy.
So he moved forward.
To see how far he could go.
And then, a voice like an incantation echoed across the battlefield.
“I am one who steps forward. One who knows not my place.”
From within the ranks of the humans who had broken and were thought to be retreating, an uninvited guest wearing a faceless mask burst forth and charged a giant.
But it was not enough.
No sooner had he charged than he was swatted by the giant's palm and sent rolling wretchedly across the ground.
Yet he stood up again, and despite a broken arm and leg, he charged once more.
Like a moth to a flame, he knew no surrender.
“I am one who is foolhardy. One who is reckless.”
One by one, more reckless challengers appeared.
They all wore faceless masks, some with five-digit numbers carved on their foreheads, others with four.
Though their numbers were different, their actions were the same.
Even if the one before them died, even if the one ahead was silenced, they did not stop.
“I am the light that reddens the night. A foolish mayfly chasing the dawn.”
Charging with swords instead of guns, they looked foolish and stupid.
To any observer, it was a pointless act, a meaningless struggle.
But someone found meaning in their struggle and once again tightened their finger on the trigger of their gun.
Like a lost wanderer encountering a firefly in the darkness.
“We are the Dawn.”
With their unified, thunderous cry, countless others wearing faceless masks poured out from behind.
They neither faltered nor feared the white giants they were seeing for the first time in their lives.
Their charge, like a runaway locomotive, resembled the Stragglers in a way.
The only difference was that while the Stragglers were like emotionless machines, these people were like fanatics consumed by some belief or ideal.
Was that why?
For the first time, the white calamity began to be pushed back.
The spirit of the faceless-masked warriors was such that calling them a match for a hundred men would not be an exaggeration. And their tactics and strategies were as effective as interlocking gears.
And before their brutish valor, willingly paying with their own lives to sever a single leg and arm, even the white giants began to fall one by one.
*Sssshhh.*
An old man with a diminutive frame suddenly rose above the army of the Dawn.
The physique of the old man, who wore a faceless mask engraved with 'No. 44', was strange.
Where his arms and legs should have been, there were only flapping sleeves and pant legs.
As the limbless old man, nothing but a torso, let out a ragged breath, hundreds of giant spears, like rebar from a building, floated above his head.
Unbelievably, the old man was moving the impossibly massive spears with telekinesis alone.
This was something impossible even for a 6th-Circle mage, let alone a 7th-Circle one.
Telekinesis was merely an auxiliary tool for those who had awakened to mana; developing it as an offensive tool was too inefficient.
To some, it was a near-miracle. But Lee Si-woo alone knew that this was not a miracle, but a trade.
‘Master... don't tell me... with the Yellow Eyes...’
Autoreu, who had paid his limbs as the price to maximize his telekinesis to fight the magic-immune Stragglers, muttered in a dry voice.
“I pray that someone will be inspired by my foolishness today...”
At last, the hundreds of massive spears floating above his head flew toward the giants.