133. Breaker
The Named Monster, Nihil.
He possessed such innately high resistance that most abilities simply slid off him without effect.
Just as there were monsters especially resilient to physical attacks, he was a type that could effortlessly negate all damage inflicted by mana.
And yet, even a creature with such resistance had not walked out of that fire unscathed.
Fwoooosh!
Nihil, who had been swallowed by the pillar of flame, slid free from its depths.
It was the same body that boasted durability enough to shrug off a direct hit from a mana bomb, but now it was scorched black all over, its skin's surface wounded to the point of necrosis.
The flesh writhed, working to restore the wounds and reverse the damage, but the recovery was incomplete.
The damage was real — real enough that even his power could not fully mend it.
"I was disappointed I couldn't fight you back then. Funny that I get the full show in a place like this."
The High Spirit of Fire, Blea.
She materialized at Oh Hyeon-seong's side in her true form — not the fox, but the crimson-haired woman.
At that, Nihil reacted with what could only be described as disbelief.
"A spirit... You didn't lose everything after all?"
"And you're one to talk, you cockroach of a monster!"
KWAAARGH!
With her shout, a massive surge of flame erupted skyward.
Nihil moved in an instant and evaded it, but every time Blea swept her arm, chain explosions blossomed in his wake, chasing him down.
"Ahaha! Now this is a fight!"
Her red hair streaming, she poured out firepower without restraint.
After all the tedious monsters she'd been stuck dealing with lately, a real battle after so long had her blood boiling.
The heat radiating off her was enough for Oh Hyeon-seong, standing beside her, to feel it on his skin.
"Glad you're having fun, but don't lose your head."
"As if! I'm not about to waste a fight this long overdue."
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
Explosions of immense firepower continued to detonate one after another.
But after landing that first strike, none of her flames touched Nihil again — he was dodging everything she threw at him.
The attacks still had value insofar as they restricted his movement, but even that meant little to him.
SHRRRAK!
"Eep...!"
"Watch yourself. Don't get caught in it."
The incoming slash tore the terrain apart yet again.
Oh Hyeon-seong ducked low in a hurry, and Blea jerked herself aside as well.
A spirit's body could casually shrug off most any attack, but this blow alone she dodged without a moment's hesitation.
Taking a hit from him wouldn't end with a brief forced unsummoning.
Crackle-snap!
In the wake of his slash, the air itself seemed wrong.
Space itself had warped.
It was Nihil's unique ability.
Swinging his spear to hurl out colossal slashes, he wasn't merely exerting physical force — he was tearing the very fabric of space apart.
Which meant that facing him head-on, defenses were meaningless.
No matter how impenetrable a defensive ability one raised, it was mercilessly pierced through, and anyone who tried to parry would simply be cleaved in two along with the weapon in their hands.
When space itself is what gets cut, nothing can stand in the way. It was only natural.
'Even Mertz's rock-solid defenses would mean nothing against him.'
That was why deploying Mertz directly in this battle was difficult.
His greatest strength, defense, had been neutralized — and beyond that, asking a body of Mertz's size to engage in close-quarters combat with this opponent carried far too much risk.
Having already learned that painful lesson once, Oh Hyeon-seong couldn't bear to let his spirit push itself into harm's way again.
'So I'll do it myself.'
Fwoosh!
Oh Hyeon-seong burst out of the flames and swung his dagger at the monster's neck.
Nihil evaded the blade and whirled his spear to counter with a slash, but Oh Hyeon-seong willingly pressed in even deeper.
KAGAGAGAK!
"Annoying pest...!"
He held precisely the ideal range for taking on the monster in close combat.
Never caught in the slashes, yet never clinging too close.
When a hunter and a boss-class monster honestly traded blows hand to hand, the human body was the one guaranteed to be pulverized.
By raw specs alone, it was a truly unfair fight for humankind.
And still, he fought.
Battles are not won by numbers alone.
Covered by Blea, who commanded flame at will, Oh Hyeon-seong harried Nihil with relentless, dogged persistence.
And then the monster's face contorted.
"You truly intend to face me alone? A mere human?"
At first he'd assumed the human was simply pinning him in place — buying time while waiting for reinforcements or searching for an escape route.
There was no way some insignificant human would dare challenge him single-handedly.
But the human attacking him now was entirely serious.
Every movement carried unmistakable resolve — the clear intent to end this, here and now.
"You've already died once, and you still talk too much."
"Back then more than ten of your so-called comrades piled onto me! If only I hadn't fallen into that trap...!"
"I'm enough on my own."
Oh Hyeon-seong raised his blade high.
Crack!
Nihil hastily twisted away and skidded backward.
His shoulder had split open, and viscous dark fluid streamed down over the white of his body.
Had his reaction been even a hair slower, the wound might have taken his entire arm.
Gripping his spear tight, Nihil radiated a thick, murderous aura.
"Fine. Good. Let's finish this."
With the assault on the nest in full swing, Jang Seo-jun continued his surveillance through Absolute Sight.
Battles raged across the field, and complications had arisen at several of the Roots, so he was relaying information at a rapid pace.
"..."
And yet, through it all, one thing kept gnawing at him.
The overwhelming presence filling an entire corner of the battlefield.
"Are we truly all right, leaving that be, sir?"
Jang Seo-jun asked, fixing Baek Ji-soo with an anxious look.
The Named Monster was unleashing staggering amounts of energy, nearly inverting the surrounding terrain itself.
Whatever way you looked at it, this was a being beyond all standards.
He wasn't even facing it directly — merely sensing it from this great distance, and even that felt like more than any human could reasonably endure.
"Hmm. Seems to me you're worrying about the wrong side."
"... I beg your pardon?"
"Back in the service, we had a saying. The most useless thing a soldier can do is worry about the squad leader."
Her answer left Jang Seo-jun flustered.
There was no way she didn't grasp how powerful the enemy was — and yet she seemed utterly unbothered.
"Do you know what they call a hunter who's taken down a Named Monster in this industry?"
"A Named Breaker... is it not, ma'am?"
At his words, Baek Ji-soo nodded.
Any hunter who defeated even a single Named Monster — one of the creatures that had inflicted devastating losses upon humanity — earned the title of Named Breaker.
In this world, it was a credential recognized as absolute, carrying more weight than any mere hunter grade.
It proved everything at once: a hunter's skill, their contribution to humanity, and hard-earned combat experience.
"And among those, the hunters who've defeated five Named Monsters get treated a little more specially."
Five Named Monsters, hunted down single-handedly.
That alone placed them among a tiny, elite handful — you could comb through every hunter on the planet and count them on your fingers.
Even at the height of the China Front, when countless hunters were being thrown into the war, only a vanishingly few ever took the heads of five Named.
And yet, even back then, there had been someone who made that number of five look almost embarrassing.
"The only hunter in history with a kill record in the triple digits against Named individuals... Who do you suppose that is?"
"... Whew."
His breathing considerably ragged, Oh Hyeon-seong straightened his stance.
A dull, throbbing pain pulsed at his side.
He'd been cut fairly deep there, and it was bleeding.
But a moment ago the choice had been simple: give up his flank, or lose his head. There had been no real decision to make.
'Just as I thought — no pushover. Nothing like Chatergil.'
The Named Monster, Chatergil.
Back when he'd fought that one, ending the battle had been far easier than this.
Chatergil hadn't yet recovered its full past strength, and Oh Hyeon-seong had managed to kill it before it could bring its signature 'Enhancement' ability to bear.
Nihil, by contrast, already wielded power equal to what it had possessed in the past.
Comparing the two Named Monsters he'd faced recently, Nihil held the clear advantage.
Had his physical specs not been steadily climbing all this time from eating the Special Crops, he would have been in serious danger.
"... That's not the dagger from before, is it."
Then Nihil, facing him, spoke.
Their furious exchange had kept him from noticing until now, but he'd finally registered that the dagger in Oh Hyeon-seong's grip had changed.
No longer that unsettling, crawls-under-your-skin weapon that had radiated vague menace — now it was a dagger so utterly ordinary it looked almost plain.
'So he noticed.'
Oh Hyeon-seong gave a faint smirk.
The monster had looked properly.
What he held now was his original blade, Danwol — the dagger he'd carried since his days in the Special Task Force.
Not forged from any monster corpse. Not even an artifact.
Whoosh.
Chasing away the unpleasant sensation, Nihil's gaze slid sideways.
There stood another dagger, planted alone in the earth.
It was the very weapon he'd glimpsed earlier.
"You didn't drop it mid-fight. So what little trick are you playing?"
"You're about to find out."
Chatergil's Dagger, drawn from behind his back — it had been stuck in that spot since the moment the battle began.
For exactly this moment, right now.
VRMMM!
A bluish light bloomed and spread across the ground.
A colossal magic circle, hidden beneath the earth, revealed itself.
A formation of enormous scale, enclosing not just the two of them but a radius of dozens of meters.
"Wh-what is that!"
"A gift. For you."
Mertz had been unable to take a direct role in this battle.
But that didn't mean he'd been idle.
While the two of them fought overhead, Mertz had spread his master's mana through the soil below, quietly constructing a massive spell formation.
All of Blea's flashy explosions and searing flames had been nothing but a means of pinning Nihil's attention overhead.
The result: five layered spell formations, stacked in secret beneath the earth.
CRACKLE!
A mass of ice erupted around the ankle of Nihil as he tried to bolt.
It was a cold forged from mana woven so densely that even Nihil couldn't shake it free in the span of a heartbeat.
An intensity of frost that should have been impossible.
But with the power of a National Treasure Grade Artifact behind it, anything was possible.
The effect of Chatergil's Dagger, planted in the ground, was precisely Enhancement.
Until now, that enhancement had been used to amplify the effects of the Special Crops — a farming tool, nothing more.
But in combat, it could grant an enhancement every bit as devastating.
It was the very reason Chatergil, the ability's original owner, had enjoyed such a vicious reputation.
"When I said I was enough on my own — that was actually a lie. I've been fighting as four from the very start."
"You... you...!"
TSSSSSSH!
The light of the formation beneath his feet erupted in blinding brilliance.
At the same instant, Alvern, the High Spirit of Water, revealed himself and wrapped both arms around the trapped Nihil.
"Then I'll see you back home later."
Oh Hyeon-seong said to the monster.
If he needed firepower capable of shutting down Nihil's innate resistance in a single stroke,
then the answer was simple: slam into it an absurdly gigantic formation, backed by an absurd amount of mana.
CRACKLE-SPLASH!
The surging torrent of frost swallowed the monster whole.