Chapter 255: The Great Raid (17)
Chapter 255: The Great Raid (17)
As they had gathered the elites from Korea's major clans, the S-Rank Awakeners, including Lee Jeong-jin, had little trouble dealing with the demons.
However, those from A-Rank upward found it somewhat taxing... and the B-Ranks were hard-pressed just to defend themselves.
Casualties began to mount, just as they had for the major clans of other nations.
Awakeners continued to be killed or wounded, and demons died in turn. Soon, the rocky terrain of black stone was splattered and flowing with both red and black blood.
The Awakeners, who had initially fallen into chaos and were being pushed back, managed to stabilize to some extent once their leader, Lee Jeong-jin, and the other S-Rank Awakeners stepped to the front to carve out a path.
However, it wasn't enough to turn the tide of battle.
The demons had already seized advantageous positions and surrounded them. Furthermore, having studied information on human Awakeners, the demons realized that the Korean forces lacked priests. Consequently, they primarily employed dark magic that spread curses and poison.
Hazy clouds of poison billowed here and there. The Awakeners, who usually relied on artifacts to counter such threats, panicked when they proved completely ineffective.
"Cough, hack! What... is this! Why... cough! The artifact isn't..."
Artifacts that provided immunity to most poisons were common finds in dungeons, so every Awakener present possessed one.
The irony was that every artifact the Awakeners used had originated from dungeons created by demons.
Naturally, the demons had never provided artifacts capable of truly withstanding their own attacks.
They had given humans items that were just barely insufficient to block their strikes, and this oversight was now proving fatal.
It was a completely unforeseen situation.
Never imagining they would suffer such damage from poison or curses, the Awakeners were forced to retreat, supporting and dragging along comrades whose skin was turning green or purple as they collapsed, frothing at the mouth.
Ultimately, they succeeded in retreating.
The demons inside the dungeon were also unable to completely suppress the S-Rank Awakeners.
They had no choice but to let those blocking the exit go, but in exchange, they tenaciously clung to and harassed the Awakeners of lower ranks.
In the end, out of the thousand who had entered the dungeon, eighty were dead, and three hundred were afflicted by poison or curses.
Including the wounded, nearly half of the force emerged in less than perfect condition.
For Korea, which had been in a much better position than other nations, this was a far more grievous blow than any damage sustained by other countries thus far.
It was the first time such a high number of casualties had occurred since the crushing defeat at Aokigahara in Japan.
The Korean Awakeners became a dejected lot, their pride deeply wounded.
While it was partly bad luck, the primary cause was their own haste and complacency.
They knew the Moon Shadow Party was strong, but they secretly believed that they, too, were powerful enough to subjugate the demons without issue.
Lee Jeong-jin, who led them, was exactly the kind of person who thought this way.
Having tasted such a failure for the first time since reaching his current position, Lee Jeong-jin felt as though he might go mad from the humiliation.
His expression was frozen like ice, and those nearby could tell just by looking at him that he was incredibly furious.
The Korean branch of the Awakener Association was shocked by the unexpected result, and an emergency was declared.
Though they had been tense and prepared for any eventuality, they had trusted the Awakeners, believing that Korea's situation was the best and that the level of its Awakeners was among the highest in the world.
Returning in defeat with so many casualties was nothing short of a nightmare.
'Damn it... I was too complacent as well...'
Park Min-woo reflected on his own actions as he received reports from his subordinates and issued orders to support the major clans.
However, Korea was unable to cope with such a sudden influx of casualties—a scale unseen since the early days of the portals.
In particular, there was a severe shortage of priests capable of treating those afflicted by poison and curses.
Priests were deployed to treat them as quickly as possible, but their divine power was nowhere near enough to heal everyone.
Ultimately, after a brief moment of deliberation, Park Min-woo contacted Wolyeong, explained the current situation, and implored her for help.
When Kang Yujin first received the call, she thought to herself how things could possibly have become so tangled.
'I have to help, if only for Shin's sake.'
The number of demons trapped in Nippur was immense, and even now, the number of demons attacking to cross over to Earth was staggering.
The problem was that, according to what she had heard from Sitri, this was only the beginning; there were far more demons remaining.
In any case, having fewer allies to fight alongside was a bad thing, never a good one.
"I'll go help right away."
"Thank you so much!"
Park Min-woo practically leaped from his chair and shouted when Wolyeong expressed her willingness to help without any complaints.
After hearing the specific details of the casualties from Park Min-woo, Kang Yujin decided to finish the dungeon that had been left uncleared.
She asked Grace and Laysia for their help, and they, too, had no objections to assisting immediately.
They were the type of people who had no aversion to helping others; in fact, they considered it the natural thing to do.
If anything, they were even more eager to help than Kang Yujin.
The three of them left the house, leaving Sitri behind to guard the home in case Han Shin returned.
Since Laysia was a priest who wielded the divine power of Tiamat, she decided to treat those dying from poison and curses.
Guided by Association officials, she went straight to the temporary ward where the Awakeners were being treated and began her work.
Meanwhile, Kang Yujin and Grace listened to a detailed account of how the Awakeners from the Yuseong Clan and other major Korean clans had been defeated by the demons.
Upon hearing that the demons hadn't attacked as soon as they entered the portal, but had instead waited until the Awakeners were fully inside before using hit-and-run guerrilla tactics to whittle down their forces, Grace concluded that the demons had changed their strategy.
"Let's do the same to them."
"I was thinking the same thing."
Kang Yujin and Grace decided to pay the demons back in kind.
Since there were only the two of them, they had no intention of recklessly trying to clear the dungeon. Instead, they planned to slowly bleed the demons dry by chipping away at their strength.
Looking at it another way, the demons were also trapped inside the dungeon with nowhere to run, unable to fully concentrate their forces.
As long as they had time, fighting slowly and without overextending was the best course of action.
The demons, having tasted blood and victory for the first time in a long while, were exultant.
"Kyahaha! I'm glad I volunteered!"
"Exactly! It's been far too long since we've been able to do this!"
Excited by the battle and indulging in the twisted pleasure of destroying and killing other beings, the demons were running wild after their long period of abstinence.
Though they regretted that the humans had escaped, they were amusing themselves with the few remaining corpses while waiting, certain the human bastards would return.
The demons had also sustained losses, but they didn't particularly care.
They were currently in a state of intoxication, as if high on a drug. They felt no fear and were filled with the confidence that they could defeat anyone right now.
And then, Grace and Kang Yujin appeared before them.
As the two entered the dungeon, the demons acting as sentries were startled and immediately alerted the others.
"But why are there only two of them?"
Until now, the Moon Shadow Party had rarely acted individually; they had always been seen entering dungeons together as their numbers grew.
Thus, the appearance of only two of them was highly unexpected.
The demons couldn't help but be cautious.
Many of their kin had already been killed by them, and it was difficult to tell what they were aiming for by showing up with only two people.
"What should we do?"
"Do we attack? Or not?"
"There are only two of them anyway. Let's attack."
"Right. They're the bitches who came here to kill us anyway. There's no reason not to attack."
The demons soon reached a consensus to attack Grace and Kang Yujin.
Unlike before, the demons planned to monitor Kang Yujin and Grace in real-time and set an ambush for a surprise attack.
Having already tasted success through ambushes, it was only natural for the demons to unconsciously prefer the method that had worked.
Furthermore, knowing that Wolyeong's psychokinesis was terrifying, the demons preferred fighting from the most advantageous position possible by setting traps rather than revealing themselves openly.
The demons lay in wait along the path Grace and Kang Yujin were likely to take, anticipating their arrival.