Atla Raid (8)
"Hey! You're standing close with a staff—looks like you're a healer. Mind giving me a hand over here?"
A man whose ankle had been shattered when he missed his footing shouted toward Baek Do-hee.
"What are you doing? Why'd you suddenly drop to your knees?"
The man looked utterly baffled.
At a glance it seemed she was praying…
"Listen! You can look for God later—aren't you supposed to save people first?"
Just as the man poured out his frustration—
Hwaaaaaah!
Pure white radiance exploded from the woman's body and began to flood his vision.
"Wh-what?"
At first he panicked.
Light pouring down out of nowhere—easy enough to mistake for an attack spell.
So he instinctively threw an arm over his face.
But…
It didn't hurt. It wasn't hot.
It was warm.
And that wasn't all.
Warmth spread from the ankle that had been screaming with pain so sharp it felt ready to tear apart.
The fatigue crushing his entire body melted away like snow.
"I-I'm recovering."
Baek Do-hee's healing, cast while reciting the formulas of the Orthodox Heart School, carried far greater restorative power than that of ordinary healers.
"Ooooh."
"What the hell!"
"The wounds are closing!"
The man wasn't the only one who felt the effect.
"Who is that?"
"Screenshot it first!"
"Everyone who's hurt, gather over here! If you're inside the area, your body starts recovering!"
"Whoa, she has an AoE heal too?"
Every person inside the zone received the benefit.
Naturally, word of Baek Do-hee's performance began spreading through the community at lightning speed.
…Hm?
While she maintained the prayer and checked the wounded, Baek Do-hee's brow furrowed ever so slightly.
Far off, on one flank of the shell, she sensed a strange energy.
It was different from Atla's vast life force—something sticky and unpleasantly alien.
The qi arts of Hundred Herbs Valley.
The foundation of Clear Heart Origin-Restoring Art lay in purification.
It went beyond simply mending wounds and restoring vitality; it filtered out every kind of evil qi and turbid qi that disturbed the root of all things, returning them to their original pure energy.
That was why Baek Do-hee's senses reacted more keenly than anyone else's to such unclean auras.
That is…
It was like mold blooming on a living creature.
She continued watching that energy and finally made up her mind.
Should I go closer?
She was curious.
What would happen if she could drive it out with the Saint's Prayer?
She stopped praying and rose. The radiance vanished.
At once the crowd around her erupted in protest.
"H-hey! Healer, why'd you stop?"
"My friend's hurt and on the way over—could you keep it going just a little longer?"
Voices edged with pleading.
Baek Do-hee turned to them with a gentle smile.
"I'm sorry. I'll go up over there and start again."
At the same moment—
Taat!
Her form, kicking off the ground, was as light as a feather.
The way she glided up the slope of the shell made the Ascenders' eyes go round.
"Wh-what…?"
"That footwork isn't ordinary."
"Is she really a healer?"
It was the fruit of steady physical training and footwork drills.
Right at the spot where the sticky evil qi could be felt.
Dozens of Ascenders were already there as well, sweating heavily as they pounded on the shell.
Baek Do-hee found a place among them and knelt.
Hwaaaaaah!
Once more pure white radiance erupted.
"Wh-what?"
"Ohh, you're here! The Saintess who's blowing up the community!"
"Saintess?"
"Look it up. It's chaos right now."
"Really?"
At one Ascender's words several hurriedly opened holographic windows.
Sure enough, videos and photos of her were beginning to climb to the top of the boards.
The posts all said roughly the same things.
Overwhelming restorative power pouring out in a wide area.
Exhausted Ascenders rising again inside her light.
Praise poured in, along with nicknames that felt excessive.
Baek Do-hee was embarrassed.
Her cheeks even colored faintly.
But she soon shook her head and cast the stray thoughts aside.
This was no time for bashfulness.
She had to focus on her own work.
Her senses sharpened once more, blade-keen.
It's working.
She could see it clearly.
The dark-crimson energy clinging to the shell's surface like parasites touched her holy light and evaporated into smoke.
She felt the curses—or debuffs—that had been gnawing at Atla's life force being erased.
And right at that moment—
"Huh?"
One Ascender let out a dazed sound.
He stared in disbelief at the spot where his blunt weapon had bitten in.
It had sunk far deeper than before.
"Wait, why's it breaking so easily?"
"Yeah? Wait—you're right?"
"The hardness is different from earlier."
Kwachik!
Puseok!
Crisp shattering sounds, incomparable to before, erupted everywhere.
Shell fragments began peeling away in plain sight.
There was only one answer.
"It's that healer! Ever since she got here the shell suddenly got weaker!"
That shout reached the ears of the Ascenders who had been scrambling up after Baek Do-hee from far below.
"That way!"
"Go crack it over there!"
"That's how you get contribution!"
The news also reached—
"Let's go too."
—the ears of Cha Dae-beom and Han Ji-yoon, party members of Yoo Jin-hyeok who were still in Seoul.
Time flowed on like that.
After the Jeju Atla was cleared, good news began arriving one after another from other regions as well.
Seoul-region Atla, subjugation complete.
Clear time: 3 hours 50 minutes
The second region to clear was Seoul.
Everyone had expected it.
As the region with the largest number of Ascenders in Korea, it naturally held the greatest advantage in a raid that relied on sheer volume.
Of course, the achievement wasn't simply a matter of headcount.
Once Baek Do-hee exposed Atla's weak point, every scrap of firepower concentrated there.
And at the very tip of that spear were Yoo Jin-hyeok's party members, Cha Dae-beom and Han Ji-yoon.
The Saintess was one thing, but Cha Dae-beom and Han Ji-yoon's performance had been outstanding as well.
As much attention as Hyun Si-woon's party drew, Yoo Jin-hyeok's party was no less formidable.
And then—
Incheon-region Atla, subjugation complete.
Clear time: 5 hours 12 minutes
Next was Incheon.
It was the result of Yoo Jin-hyeok, Jeong Da-wit, and Jang Cha-yul competitively cracking the shell.
After them, Daegu, Gwangju, and Busan were all progressing smoothly as well.
Posts praising the heroes of each region flooded the community in real time.
Everyone was in a festival mood.
The twelve-hour time limit almost felt generous.
But.
Not every region was like that.
The problem… was Ulsan.
That place felt closer to a funeral parlor than a festival.
I'm seriously crying…… Every other region is having a festival, so why are we the only ones like this. We still haven't properly peeled even one layer of shell. No top Ascenders, no major guilds—just a total ragtag mess. Time keeps ticking and we can't do anything. Is our Tower really getting deleted like this? Have we been abandoned?
Once that single scream went up, posts from Ulsan Ascenders poured out as if they had been waiting.
In truth they had been posting steadily for a while, but they simply hadn't risen to the top under the weight of recommendation counts.
Despair spread fast.
Hopeful news from other regions was poison to the Ulsan Ascenders.
Relative deprivation and the sense of being left behind completely crushed their fighting spirit.
Eventually a video of an Ascender bursting into tears even went up.
In the video a young Ascender stopped mid-swing against Atla's shell, simply sank down, and sobbed.
Around him other Ascenders stared blankly into empty air with vacant expressions.
No one knew exactly what would happen if the turtle wasn't killed.
But they had been told the Tower would break… so growth would be cut off, and the region called Ulsan would soon fill with monsters. That much was obvious.
In the end.
The truth everyone had been looking away from.
Every Ascender instinctively felt that the unavoidable countdown to ruin had begun.
Ulsan seemed ready to be abandoned just like that.
And at that very hour.
"Hoo."
In a secluded corner of Busan, Hyun Si-woon was diligently cracking shell.
Two hours and eleven minutes.
The Jeju subjugation itself had been fast, but the process afterward was the problem.
If he could have called Pungjo right away he would have arrived sooner, but that hadn't been possible.
Because he had been on the coast.
Which meant?
He had to climb back down Hallasan from atop Atla's shell.
No matter how thoroughly he had mastered footwork, the time required for the descent was unavoidable.
After that?
He had broken through the coastal area again and sprinted from the Busan shoreline.
Even so, I'm later than I expected.
He immediately checked the community.
News that Seoul and Incheon had already finished their subjugations caught his eye.
And beneath that, the screams of Ulsan Ascenders were blanketing the boards.
Pook!
Puseok!
Using the power of the spirits, Hyun Si-woon peeled away several shell layers and slipped inside.
It's a little over five hours now, so…
Roughly seven hours remaining?
Time's manageable.
The problem was the Ulsan region.
From what he could see on the community, the Ascenders there had completely given up on the strategy and were flooding out in waves.
There was even a growing trend of gathering parties to move toward Busan.
A de facto declaration of abandoning the region.
If that happened, even Hyun Si-woon could find himself in trouble when he arrived in Ulsan.
Hadn't Ha-wol herself stated it flatly?
That even he would find it impossible to take down Atla alone.
I'll just do what I can for now.
Peogeok!
Hyun Si-woon's dismantling work began to pick up speed.