Fortress Under Siege
The scavengers were raiders in the truest sense.
They survived by ambushing others, killing them, and looting their possessions.
Even a hundred years ago, when the terraforming backlash turned the entire Earth into a desert and pushed humanity to the brink of total extinction, the scavengers had existed.
Rather than fighting monsters, they chose to kill their fellow humans to survive.
Because of them, humanity had to battle not just monsters, but scavengers as well.
Once Neo Seoul had firmly established order, the scavengers lost their footing and fled into the desert. So people thought there were no more scavengers in Neo Seoul.
At most, maybe a tiny handful remained.
But as if to prove them wrong, the number of scavengers raiding the White Bear Caravan fortress was staggering.
Even at a glance, there were over three hundred.
"Heh heh heh!"
"Die!"
The scavengers, who had been disguising themselves in Neo Seoul as normal people or ordinary Awakeners all this time, now vented their pent-up desires like they were letting off steam.
"Those fucking bastards dare..."
"Hold that side."
"Send support this way."
The White Bear Caravan's Awakeners fought without a hint of panic or fear.
The distance from the Akutsuk Colony to the Neo Seoul Colony spanned thousands of kilometers.
No matter how well Demian guided them around dangers, they couldn't avoid every monster.
Among the enemies they'd faced were scavengers.
Even in the harshest environments where no human could survive, the scavengers endured.
The White Bear Caravan's Awakeners had gained experience fighting them.
Naturally, they knew exactly how to deal with scavengers.
One key tactic was relying on the fortress itself.
They deliberately left only a narrow entrance open, luring the scavengers in.
No matter how many scavengers there were, only a limited number could squeeze through the cramped gateway at once.
"Argh!"
"Gah!"
The scavengers screamed and died one after another.
"Fuck! This won't work."
"Climb the walls."
In the end, some scavengers opted to scale the walls. But countermeasures were already in place.
Crackle!
Sparks suddenly erupted across the fortress's outer walls.
High-voltage current surged along the surface.
The scavengers crawling up like cockroaches were electrocuted and plummeted in droves.
"Heh heh! Where do you cockroach scavengers think you're climbing?"
A bald man appeared atop the wall.
His name was Nathan.
He was an Awakener who wielded lightning magic.
His rank wasn't high.
Just D-rank.
Yet he could unleash such devastating power because the fortress walls were made of a special material.
It conducted electricity exceptionally well and amplified it several times over. That's why even a D-rank Awakener's current sent countless foes tumbling like flies.
"Kahaha! Come at us all you want. The White Bear Caravan will never fall!"
"That motherfucker..."
"Someone shut that bastard up."
The scavengers raged at Nathan's mockery.
A few climbed the walls again.
"You idiots!"
Nathan prepared to cast his spell as they swarmed like moths to a flame.
Another surge of lightning would send the wall-clingers raining down.
But Nathan couldn't unleash his lightning magic.
Thwack!
An arrow from somewhere pierced his head.
"Guh!"
Nathan stared in disbelief toward the arrow's origin.
A barrier covered the fortress's top, yet the arrow had penetrated it.
He wanted to know why, but no chance came.
He flailed briefly before plummeting.
Dead.
"A nobody like you acting all high and mighty..."
A distant Awakener sneered at Nathan's falling corpse.
He was the one who had loosed the arrow.
His position was quite far from the fortress.
A group was arrayed around him.
They hid their identities with robes and masks.
They resembled scavengers, but something felt off.
The burliest among them addressed the archer.
"You punk! You barely pierced the barrier with that buff, and you're bragging?"
"Come on, boss! Do you have to put it like that?"
"Quit screwing around and prep for battle."
"Yes, sir!"
The bowman returned to his post with a reply.
Then a slender woman stepped forward from the group.
She spoke to the one called boss.
"It's about time we join the fray, Bricks ton!"
"I'm not Bricks ton right now. Just another scavenger in the horde. Don't forget that, nun!"
"Hmph! Don't call me nun either."
"If you'd just brainwashed them properly from the start, we wouldn't need all this hassle."
The woman called nun was none other than Kim Jae-kyung.
Kim Jae-kyung and Bricks ton had brought their subordinates to seize the Spirit King's Crown.
But they absolutely could not reveal their identities.
That was why they disguised themselves as scavengers.
Kim Jae-kyung glared at Bricks ton briefly before turning back to the fortress.
The battle between the White Bear Caravan and the scavengers was reaching its peak.
Corpses littered the gateway, and the defensive line there teetered on collapse.
Countless scavengers had died, but their momentum held.
"Just a bit more!"
"Fuck! We're almost through!"
The scavengers howled and thrashed wildly.
Bricks ton, who had been watching intently, spoke up.
"Perfect! It's nearly breached, so we can jump in now. Sweep through in one go—wipe out the scavengers and the caravan Awakeners alike."
"Yes, sir!"
His subordinates replied in unison.
But their eyes, visible above their masks, looked strange.
All bloodshot red.
Kim Jae-kyung shook her head at the sight.
Those crazy berserkers.
They were berserkers, through and through.
Fanatics who believed their god fought alongside them, ready to throw away their lives without a second thought.
Kim Jae-kyung fanatically followed Yohan, but even she felt daunted by these even more zealous berserkers.
"Let's go! Clean it up and get out before anyone else interferes."
"Yes, sir!"
Bricks ton and the berserkers charged toward the fortress.
"Crazy bastards!"
Kim Jae-kyung shook her head and followed.
With Bricks ton and the berserkers joining, the battlefield descended further into chaos.
"Argh!"
"What the hell are these guys?"
"Fucking kill them all!"
Screams and roars filled the air as blood sprayed everywhere.
Thus, the White Bear Caravan fortress became a field of death.
News of the White Bear Caravan fortress under attack spread throughout the slums.
People gathered on rooftops of tall buildings on the slum outskirts, watching the desert battle from afar.
"What's going on? A new group just joined."
"Too far to tell."
"Damn, wish we had binoculars right now."
Ordinary folk could only grasp that a fight was happening, not the details.
They wouldn't dare approach the fortress.
People like them would die in seconds if they got close.
A frustrating distance, but it was the safest spot.
Then—
"Out of the way, you vermin!"
"Clear 'em all out."
A group appeared on the tallest rooftop.
They drove off all the slum dwellers there.
The slum folk didn't even think to resist and hurried down.
The group's leader gazed at the battlefield and muttered.
"They're fighting well."
He wore a suit, with a coiled rope incongruously at his waist.
The Jailer's Rope item.
The leader was Cha Jin-cheol.
Kim Hyun-soo's right-hand man from the West District, who had attended the auction as his proxy.
Kim Hyun-soo had gifted him the Jailer's Rope he'd bought at auction.
It had cost a whopping ten tons of magic stones.
An item of immense value handed over without strings attached.
Naturally, Cha Jin-cheol's loyalty to Kim Hyun-soo deepened even further.
Cha Jin-cheol issued an order.
"No time. Prep the railgun for firing."
"Yes, sir!"
His subordinates moved with crisp efficiency.
They began assembling the long metal tube they'd brought.
A ten-meter barrel for the railgun.
Railguns originally fired via powerful electromagnetic fields.
The problem was generating enough power in this era.
The West District substituted with magic and Awakeners.
Enchanting the barrel and generating massive electricity via mechanized Awakeners—that was the key.
It guzzled so much power per shot that it was useless against mobile targets or monsters.
They wouldn't wait for it to charge.
But a stationary fortress was different.
No matter the magic reinforcements or barriers, a railgun would punch through those thick walls in one shot.
Once the railgun was set up, dozens of Awakeners swarmed it.
"Charge it."
"Charging!"
The mechanized Awakeners pressed their arms to the barrel.
Whirr!
Their arms transformed with mechanical whines, fusing like chargers.
The mechanized Awakeners began supplying power.
Vrrr!
A resonance hummed from the barrel as it charged.
The massive railgun took ages to fully charge.
Finally, it reached full power, and the human batteries detached.
"Urk!"
"Hah!"
Their faces were ghostly pale, mana depleted.
Thirty Awakeners collapsed in exhaustion, but Cha Jin-cheol ignored them and commanded.
"Fire."
"Firing!"
The sole standing Awakener triggered the shot.
Boom!
The shell rocketed out at insane speed, obliterating one side of the fortress in an instant.
The sudden explosion stunned the scavengers and East District Awakeners, halting the fight briefly.
They hadn't expected the wall to blow open like that.
But only for a moment—once they grasped the situation, they surged forward.
"The wall's down!"
"Fuckers are dead now!"
"Wipe 'em out!"
With the massive barrier gone, scavengers and East District Awakeners flooded inside like a tide.
Alarm flickered across Aleksandr's face.
"What hit us? Shattering the wall in one blow..."
"It's fine. We expected something like this."
Demian, however, stayed calm.
No matter the reinforcements, magic, or barriers, he hadn't thought the walls would hold forever.
It had crumbled faster than anticipated, but that changed nothing.
Demian muttered while eyeing Neo Seoul.
Hurry up and come, elves! The thing you've wanted so badly is right here.