One Arrow Instead of the Spear Thicket?
The entrance to Ghost Cry Gorge had transformed into the gaping maw of a colossal beast.
The blood-red afterglow staining the western sky slowly sank beyond the mountains, ushering in a suffocating darkness.
In the faint twilight of sunset, the bloodlust of the monsters surged even more chillingly.
The snow-blanketed mountain range trembled with the vibration of demonic energy, and at its heart stood the crude wooden barricade erected by the punitive force—and behind it, the protagonist, Kang Jinhyuk.
> [Current Survival Rate: 29.88% - Decreasing]
The System indifferently announced despair in mechanical text.
But Jinhyuk swallowed the number like bitter medicine, locking the sight of his Heavenly Wolf Bow.
Beyond the scope, three apex monsters—known as rulers of the snow mountains—faced off, ready to tear each other apart.
At the feet of those massive beasts, thousands of lesser monsters, driven mad by terror, writhed in a tangled mass.
They were blocked from the gorge's barricade by wooden stakes and salt powder, while behind them loomed the Great Snow Bear and Great Snow Tiger, and above, the Black Wind Bandit's killing intent cut off any retreat.
Screeech! Screeeeech!
Caw! Grrrrowl!
The snow rat horde, crazed with fear, burrowed under the Great Snow Bear's massive paws in search of escape—only to be fried in an instant by searing heat.
The snow hares instinctively scaled the cliffs to flee, but startled by the shadow of the circling Black Wind Bandit, they plummeted back to the ground.
To them, this place was a grand slaughterhouse.
Predators' demonic energy crushed them from behind, while human spear tips gleamed ahead.
With nowhere left to go, the lesser monsters—desperate or deranged—charged the seemingly easiest target: the humans' barricade, like suicide squads.
"Cheolgeo! They're pushing in! Roll the siege wagons forward and trigger the traps! Beom Dal! Don't fall back behind the shields!"
At Jinhyuk's shout, Cheolgeo and the engineers yanked thick ropes.
Crunch! Boom! KABOOM!
Sharpened wooden stakes—hidden in snow piles like massive awls—sprang up everywhere.
The charging snow rats and wolves impaled themselves on the wooden spines, shrieking in agony.
But that was merely the beginning.
As the three apex predators began their frenzy in earnest, the lesser monsters were erased from the battlefield like dust in the wind.
Screeeeech~
Whiiiiiish—!
The Black Wind Bandit dominating the skies let out a roar and shook its enormous wings once.
Blade winds compressed into each feather tore through the night air with explosive cracks.
It wasn't just a flap.
It unleashed tens of thousands of feathers in a volley.
Pababababa! Pabak! Pak!
Like the Tang Clan's secret art Heavenly Flower Rain made real.
The wind-charged feathers rained down faster than any arrow, slamming into the ground.
Those embedding in solid rock shattered boulders; others shredded the wooden stakes to splinters.
Lesser monsters caught in the open became pincushions, pinned to the earth.
"Argh! Shields up! Shields!"
"It pierced! My arm—my arm!"
The Heavenly Wolf Squad hid behind barricades and shields, but the feathers punched through like tofu, skewering shoulders and thighs.
As screams echoed through the gorge, the Blood Cult fanatics began chanting in low voices.
"Asura Salbalta... Asura Salbalta..."
They formed bizarre mudras and slashed their forearms with daggers.
Spraying blood misted like fog, drifting to the wounded squad members pierced by the Black Wind Bandit's feathers.
The bleeding stopped as if by magic; wounds contracted and clotted.
"Whoa, those old guys are walking hemostatics. Better than Medifoam."
...Asura Salbalta? Sounds like something from a gambling flick. Were those dudes really gambling addicts? Got fleeced by a pro and washed up here?
Jinhyuk shook off the modern doubts flashing through his mind amid the chaos.
No time for distractions.
The Black Wind Bandit, having loosed its feather barrage, hovered leisurely in the sky, surveying the ground like a self-satisfied lord.
Groooooaaar—!
Then, with a vibration like a mountain shifting, the Great Snow Bear reared up.
It took the feather rain bare-bodied.
Feathers striking its hide rang like metal on steel, bouncing harmlessly—making "indestructible diamond body" seem understated.
The crouched bear was no lazy predator.
It crushed the trembling lesser monsters at its feet with one paw, then snatched massive boulders with both hands.
Crimson flaming demonic energy flowing over its fur seeped into the rocks.
The cold stone heated to lava in seconds, glowing dark red.
It hurled the right-hand boulder first—at the airborne Black Wind Bandit.
"Crazy—that bulk doing pitcher impressions? No balance patch?"
As Jinhyuk gaped, the boulder streaked like an anti-air shell, trailing fire toward the bandit.
The Black Wind Bandit veered sharply upward to evade—
—when a blue afterimage leaped from the ground.
Rooooaaar!
The Great Snow Tiger, cloaked in blue lightning.
Riding the boulder’s slipstream, it defied gravity, stepping on air like a void-stepping grandmaster from legends.
Lightning speared straight from its maw, targeting the bandit's wing.
To the tiger, the bandit was the ultimate aerial nuisance; the bear's attack provided the perfect launchpad.
But the Great Snow Bear wasn't stupid.
It preemptively flung its left-hand boulder—not at the bandit, but at the tiger's landing spot.
BOOM—!
As the tiger struck the bandit midair and descended gracefully, the pre-flung flaming rock detonated the ground into a sea of fire.
Landing point gone, the tiger twisted in panic; its lightning veered, smashing the cliff beside the barricade.
The beasts' interlocking schemes designed to kill each other turned the battlefield into pandemonium.
"Poison Sect! Now! Mess with that bear's qi flow! Strike when they're fighting each other—that's our chance!"
Jinhyuk's order, relayed through Beom Dal, sent the Ming Cult fanatics thrusting their staffs forward in unison.
"True Void Home, Unborn Eternal Mother!"
Black demonic energy rose like fog, blanketing the field.
This smoke paralyzed the Great Snow Bear's senses and slowed its reactions—a vicious debuff.
To the Heavenly Wolf Squad within, it sharpened nerves, spiking reaction speeds with manic exhilaration—a buff.
"Groooar!"
The Great Snow Bear, aiming for the landing tiger after its second toss, flailed blindly in the cult's sensory disruption.
In that gap, the tiger's claws ignited the flames and lunged, embedding lightning into the bear's hide.
Furious at its singed feathers, the Black Wind Bandit spread its wings wide for a second Heavenly Flower Rain.
At the heart of this hellish three-way brawl, Jinhyuk stood tall atop the highest barricade, sighting the bandit's wing root.
Lesser monsters swarmed below, baring teeth, but he left them to Cheolgeo's traps and the squad's spears.
Priority one: down the flyer. Ground fight starts when that bird drops.
Shuuuuw—Thwock!
Jinhyuk's arrow rode the air currents, piercing the Black Wind Bandit's left wing joint dead-on.
Screeeeech!
Balance lost, the bandit wobbled into descent.
Wolves too slow to scatter were crushed beneath its fall.
Jinhyuk nocked a second arrow without pause.
This one targeted the tiger's evasion path toward the bear—forcing it into the bear's range.
The battlefield was no longer humans versus monsters.
It was a grand arena orchestrated by designer Kang Jinhyuk.
Blood Cult hemostasis saved allies; Ming Cult disruption sowed chaos among the beasts.
The sun had fully set; only the monsters' flames and lightning grotesquely lit the Ghost Cry Gorge darkness.
Corpses of dead monsters piled into hills below the barricade, their metallic stench riding the night wind.
"Alright, main course time."
From the quiver on his back, Jinhyuk drew the heaviest arrow, tipped with a serpent demon's qi-infused head.
The all-iron shaft gleamed under moonlight.
The Great Snow Bear gaped wide again—to roar, to swallow another boulder.
Indestructible hide or not, the soft inside of its mouth isn't armored.
Behind Jinhyuk, crimson-and-black sorcery swirled from the Ten Thousand Demons.
He held his breath, waiting for the bear's maw to open once more—then released.
Piiiing—!
A single sonic boom ripped the night; the iron arrow trailed purple qi straight for the bear's pale pink throat membrane.
No general's divine shot, no legendary technique.
Just a human strike—born of piecemeal modern knowledge and engineers' know-how, squeezed for survival and the hunt.
As the arrow vanished into the bear's maw, time seemed to slow.
Disbelief flickered in the Great Snow Bear's eyes for the first time.
Nearby lesser monsters, sensing the apex's peril, fell eerily silent.
Jinhyuk muttered through gritted teeth.
"Legends or bullshit, an arrow to the vitals kills just the same."
The night-piercing shaft buried deep in the bear's throat.
In that instant, the crimson demonic energy on its hide stuttered—then surged faster, emitting eerie sounds.
Night had just begun; the Ghost Cry Gorge hunt raised its curtain of madness, unrelenting until dawn.
Forest beasts screamed by the thousands; the three great monsters roared.
This hellscape, where humans clung desperately, was cresting its peak.