The Trial of Mana (2)
Perhaps the defenders had limited themselves to long-range spells at first, because the moment our army closed the distance, the firepower raining down from the magic tower grew exponentially fiercer.
Of course, our allied forces didn't simply stand by and take it.
"Mages!"
"Open fire!"
Mages arrayed throughout the ranks retaliated with spells of their own, while catapults positioned in the rear hurled massive boulders into the sky. Yet our combined firepower fell drastically short. Neither the retaliatory spells nor the flying boulders could pierce the shimmering barrier enveloping the magic tower.
"This is insane."
"Did they design this expecting anyone to actually clear it?"
Siphoning power straight from the Mana Core, the mages atop the tower possessed a virtually inexhaustible supply of mana. Our attacks, on the other hand, were deflected in their entirety, leaving us no choice but to push forward and weather the storm with our bare bodies. It was a brutal meat grinder—taking a one-sided beating just to advance a single step. Under such circumstances, it was hardly surprising to hear curses spilling from Lee Hongju, a Level 40 knight.
"Do we keep pushing?"
"For now, yes."
Though they were carried along by the narrative momentum of the gate, their situation was undeniably grim. This was a textbook clash of melee versus ranged—except closing the distance felt nearly impossible against such an overwhelming barrage, which only intensified the closer they drew. To make matters worse, the sheer destructive power of the mysterious blast launched from the tower earlier had left everyone shaken. Hadn't the entire impact zone been reduced to rubble in the blink of an eye?
If another one of those comes down, can we even block it?
Its blast radius was colossal. With allied soldiers packed tightly to their left and right, there wasn't even room to dodge. Hongju wondered if it might be wiser to tear the Escape Talisman issued by the Association right this second. While an Escape Talisman was an exceedingly rare commodity, the Association had explicitly instructed them to use it the moment an expedition hit a dead end; elite hunters were far more valuable resources than any item. The only reason Hongju hesitated was the presence of the Dinosaur Guild. Had they not been here, he would have popped the talisman without a second thought.
If we can just close the distance somehow, an opening might appear for the Spatial Mage.
Han Hye's earlier charge alongside the dragon had been nothing short of breathtaking. Hadn't they slipped through a deluge of bombardment with acrobatic flight before leaping straight into the upper sky with spatial magic? Though the tower's sheer volume of fire had forced them to pull back, that brief foray proved a path to victory truly existed. If the Spatial Mage could somehow neutralize that single objective, clearing this gate was entirely within reach.
The moment that sphere shatters, it's game over.
The absurd firepower radiating from the tower defied all common sense, and anyone could tell that overwhelming power stemmed directly from the glowing blue orb. Raid the magic tower. While the initial onslaught had thrown them into disarray, considering the recommended level bracket for this trial, eliminating that core would make everything that followed vastly easier. Even now, the steady rain of spells coming at them wasn't overwhelmingly lethal—excluding that gargantuan sphere, of course.
"Incoming! Another one!"
Right on cue, mana surged violently from the summit of the tower once more. Just like before, a luminous blue sphere materialized—this one roughly the size of a washing machine. Knowing full well the devastation it brought, the sight chilled the hunters to the bone.
"It's heading this way!"
Worse still, the azure sphere was hurtling directly toward their sector.
"Barriers up!"
Mages and healers pooled their strength to erect layered protective shields, their faces pale with dread. Having witnessed the earlier destruction firsthand, every one of them harbored the same gnawing doubt: could their barriers truly hold?
"Here it comes! Brace yourselves!"
Just as the sphere was about to slam into the strike team, Han Hye suddenly kicked off the earth and launched himself into the sky.
"Wh-what...?"
"What is he doing?! Is he crazy?!"
"Get out of the way!"
Frantic shouts erupted from the hunters, but Han Hye paid them no mind. Instead, he simply reached his hand toward the incoming orb.
Wuuung—
Two spatial rifts snapped open in midair before him, expanded wide enough to swallow the massive sphere whole. The azure projectile plunged directly into the first portal—and shot out of the second.
"Huh?"
"...What in the world?"
While the hunters below stared in slack-jawed shock, the sphere emerged from the second subspace rift with its trajectory cleanly inverted, hurtling straight back toward the magic tower.
"Holy shit...!"
Total panic broke out atop the magic tower as the mages watched their own spell rocket back at them.
"What is that?!"
"Intercept it! Block it at all costs!"
The tower mages frantically poured mana into their defensive wards, but it made little difference against an attack of such staggering power. Furthermore, Han Hye hadn't even aimed for the main spire where the magical barrier was at its thickest.
—BOOOOM!
He had targeted the outer ramparts situated just below the tower—a section where the warding was relatively frail. The outcome was instantaneous. The sturdy-looking stone wall was blown clean in half, collapsing into a thunderous cascade of rubble and dust.
"...?"
"..."
"Are you kidding me?"
It was only natural for the strike team to be left utterly dumbfounded by such a preposterous spectacle. A few hunters were even rubbing their eyes, wondering if their vision was playing tricks on them.
"Mr. Han Hye... you could do that too?" Lee Hongju asked, pulling himself together faster than the others as Han Hye lightly touched down beside him.
"Well, it's just a little parlor trick using subspace..."
"A parlor trick?" Lee Hongju let out a hollow, incredulous chuckle at Han Hye's effortless, casual humblebrag. "If that's just a parlor trick, what does that make the rest of us? People without a single skill to our names?"
He meant every word. Reflecting a catastrophic spell of that magnitude without suffering a scratch was ridiculous enough, but Han Hye didn't even look like he had broken a sweat.
"..."
The strike team wasn't the only group rendered speechless by Han Hye's spell reflection. The allied troops stationed alongside them stood equally frozen in awe. It was their commanding officer who finally snapped out of his stupor and roared at the top of his lungs:
"Charge! Chaarge!"
Perhaps the mages atop the tower were too rattled by their own spell being thrown back in their faces, because the aerial bombardment abruptly ceased for a moment. With a gaping breach torn through the ramparts, the emboldened soldiers surged forward toward the magic tower with thunderous momentum.
Now that felt satisfying.
Ever since my Subspace skill reached Level 2, I had steadily practiced redirecting incoming baseballs. I had even run drills reflecting Minjae's magic every now and then. Still, this was the first time I had ever pulled it off in real combat. After all, the only actual mage I had encountered inside a gate until now was that black magician, and back then, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind.
Those arrows from before were homing projectiles, too, so pulling them back out would've been tricky.
Seeing the fruits of all that training pay off so flawlessly gave me an immense rush of satisfaction. Better yet, wasn't that basically the enemy's ultimate attack? Using it to obliterate the fortress wall and pave a path for the army was pure perfection.
"Man, I don't even know what to say," Uncle Chulgi muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. Beside him, Lee Shinhee nodded in fervent agreement.
Minjae let out a weak laugh. "Remind me to never, ever pick a fight with you, hyung."
"Well, it only works on projectiles," I pointed out.
There were obvious limitations, of course. Magic that erupted directly from the earth or wide-area blanket effects couldn't be redirected so cleanly.
Naturally, Chunbae offered his own praise.
—A magnificent judgment, Master. Both your ingenious application of the skill and your decision to target the ramparts rather than the main spire.
Trust Chunbae to get it.
Aiming for the wall hadn't been a random choice. Hitting the magic tower wouldn't accomplish much when we still had to breach the outer perimeter to get inside anyway. My true objective, after all, was the Mana Core perched way up at the summit. I needed the walls shattered and the battlefield below thrown into total chaos before I could take a clear shot at it.
Just then, another massive surge of mana rippled from the magic tower.
"It's coming again!"
"Spatial Mage!"
Urgent shouts for me echoed from every direction. The strike team and the gate's allied soldiers alike turned their eyes toward me in unison.
Uncle tilted his head in bewilderment. "They're firing it again after what just happened?"
"They probably assumed that was my ultimate trump card," I replied.
That spell—or rather, that monstrous sphere of concentrated mana—carried cataclysmic destructive power. Even with an entire tower full of mages, it was hard for them to imagine anyone could redirect an attack like that without taking damage or exhausting their mana pool.
Of course, for me, the cost is no more than opening and closing two ordinary subspace rifts.
Seeing another sphere roaring through the air, I sprinted forward and activated Leap. One Leap, followed by three more in rapid succession. Twisting my body through the air, I used the consecutive blinks to slip cleanly past the stray spells intercepting my path. There were two reasons I chained Leaps this time: first, to avoid getting caught in the blast if they detonated the energy sphere early, and second, to position the reflected shot inside the barrier surrounding the magic tower.
Wuuung—
Wuuung—
Two subspace gateways snapped open right before the hurtling sphere, capturing the massive payload once again and spitting it back toward the spire.
The magic tower had its own barrier raised, but that didn't matter in the slightest. I had opened the exit portal safely inside the perimeter of their ward. Having bypassed the barrier entirely, the energy sphere plunged straight into the tower complex.
A deafening roar of cheers erupted from below, shared equally by the hunters and the allied army.
"Woooaaah!"
"He deflected it again!"
"Who the hell is that guy?!"
To be precise, the magic tower was comprised of three separate spires: a central main tower soaring high into the sky, flanked by two auxiliary spires roughly one-third its height. Perhaps because of the rapid-fire Leaps, my angle had been off by a hair, and the reflected orb unfortunately missed the central tower. Even so, it scored a direct hit on the spire to the left.
—KABOOOOM!
Had they poured even more mana into it this time? The explosion was noticeably more violent than the first. The entire upper half of the left spire was literally wiped out of existence, reduced to vapor and tumbling masonry.
"Holy shit! ALL! HAIL! HAN! HYE!"
"Wait, what?"
I returned to the formation only to hear someone chanting a phrase straight out of a Hunternet comment section, which made me tilt my head in utter bemusement. The hunter, however, didn't care about my reaction in the slightest and eagerly held out an open palm for a high five.
"Talk to the Association! Demand they renegotiate your contract!"
Wait, wasn't that the exact line Uncle used earlier...? This raid was stacked with hunters far higher in level than us, but my performance had apparently left quite an impression on them.
—It is only natural, Master, Chunbae chimed in. At the strike team's current capability, weathering two of those assaults would have been nearly impossible.
Was it really that bad? I mean, it was devastating, sure, but...
—It is a brutish strike formed by compressing an exorbitant quantity of mana. With our side's mana being strictly finite, their defenses would inevitably have crumbled. Under normal circumstances, evading it would have been their only recourse.
Hmm. Considering the hunter cheering earlier was a mage, he probably understood the mechanics of that spell just as well as Chunbae did.
"Charge forward! The bombardment has stopped!"
In any case, having had their signature attack thrown back in their faces twice, the enemy ceased their heavy artillery strikes. An entire section of ramparts and an auxiliary spire were already in ruins—my counterattacks had inflicted catastrophic damage on the tower complex.
I didn't bother trying to reflect the smaller incoming spells; there were too many wide-area bombardment magics scattered across the wide front line. Instead, I carefully observed the intensifying battle, looking for the right angle.
"Strike team! Stay safe! Focus on defense and preserving our strength! Mr. Han Hye will create our opening!"
By the time the vanguard crossed the breached wall and reached the base of the tower, the exchange of spells had reached a fever pitch. A detachment of allied troops began battering down the tower's main entrance.
Is it because the wall collapsed so quickly? Everything up to this point has been surprisingly fast.
—The difficulty has likely been adjusted to match the scenario, Master.
True. Now that I think about it, their firepower did feel a bit lacking for a full-fledged magic tower.
—To put it bluntly, Master, the abundance of allied troops in a narrative gate serves primarily as meat shields.
He wasn't wrong. This was a gate where the hunters were meant to destroy the Mana Core while the NPC army drew the enemy's attention.
Without someone like me or Uncle who can handle aerial combat, this would've been an absolute nightmare.
If you couldn't take to the skies, fighting your way through the tower's interior all the way to the very top seemed utterly impossible. Not that taking the aerial route was a walk in the park either, of course. There was a good reason Liu Zhen had failed this trial.
Can Yongyong take a few stray hits from the spells, or do we have to dodge every single one?
—He should be able to endure a reasonable level of impact, Master. He is a genuine dragon, after all. Even in his juvenile state, his innate magic resistance is formidable.
Got it.
Even so, manufacturing an opening was no simple task. Even after the allied troops breached the entrance and flooded inside, the barrage pouring from above remained relentless. A fierce battle had to be raging inside the tower, and yet the mages stationed along the upper tiers remained on high alert. Our earlier charge must have rattled them considerably.
"Hye, I'm coming with you," Uncle offered.
"What? Uncle, that's way too dangerous."
Uncle wore the Sand Soldier's Armor, but the spells up there rained down like something out of a bullet-hell game.
Uncle grinned broadly. "I'm not looking to attack that thing. I'll draw their aggro."
"Ah."
His plan clicked immediately. Uncle would take to the skies on Yongyong from a safe distance, drawing their attention and soaking their focus.
"While I scale the tower using Leap?"
"Exactly. Those bastards are only poking their heads out of balconies and terraces. It'll never cross their minds that someone's scaling the outer wall."
It was a solid plan. As long as Uncle maintained a safe distance while circling on Yongyong to siphon away their aggro, he wouldn't be in serious danger. Scaling the sheer spire posed no issue for me either. I had my subspace footholds and Leap.
"Let's do it."
I immediately called out to Lee Hongju. "Raid Leader!"
Though I had only called Hongju's name, every single hunter in the strike team turned to look at us.
"Are you heading in together this time?"
"Yes. We'll be right back."
"We're counting on you!"
Hongju gave a firm nod. I turned my gaze toward Mr. Sang-yeop next. Once Uncle and I took off, Minjae and Lee Shinhee would be left behind with the vanguard.
"Please look after our guild members."
"Don't worry about a thing," Sang-yeop assured me.
With the eyes of the entire strike team upon us, we kicked off the ground and took to the sky.