Atla Raid (5)
“I-insane.”
“We have to take that thing down?”
Atla, the colossal turtle that had risen with a mountain for a shell.
Every Climber who laid eyes on it froze solid.
Whoa… can you even call that a turtle?
A thousand people? Ten thousand? No… even if a hundred thousand of us piled on, I don’t think we could kill that.
Just climbing onto the shell is already a mission on the level of an actual ascent.
No one dared move. Their will to fight had already hit rock bottom.
In that frozen moment—
“Everybody snap out of it! We have to attack!”
A middle-aged man roared, voice raw with desperation.
“What did we gather here for if we’re just going to stand around staring?! If we do nothing, we’re all finished!”
He had found his courage.
Someone had to climb that shell, peel it open, and destroy the gravity core said to lie within. So he ran.
“Hah!”
He vaulted the cliff face, scrambled onto the shell, and shouted with everything he had left.
“Look here! This turtle isn’t attacking us!”
His cry rippled through the despair-soaked camp like a stone dropped into still water. Every vacant stare snapped upward to the mountain-range of a shell.
He was right. After that single, hostility-laced roar toward the Tower, Atla had gone completely still—like a statue whose time had stopped. Nowhere on that vast body was there the slightest hint of a counterattack.
“It’s… not attacking…?”
“He’s right. It’s just… standing there.”
Through the rising murmur someone suddenly shouted in realization.
“Time! There has to be a time limit!”
It made sense. Logically it was the only explanation. If some entity had staged this catastrophe of an event, total slaughter of every Climber could not have been the goal. If it had been, Atla would have crushed the entire island the moment it appeared. This was a test—a trial designed for them to overcome. And the price paid for that overwhelming bulk and defense must have been something else: aggression, and time.
Several Climbers frantically opened the community boards. The forums were already exploding in real time.
Reports flooded in from every region by the second. Every Atla was holding the exact same motionless stance. Their prediction had been correct. And then the decisive post finally surfaced.
“Twelve hours!”
“Are you kidding me? We’re supposed to clear that in twelve hours?”
“Is it even possible with the numbers we have right now?”
“Who cares! No time to stand around talking! Get up there! Just start beating it!”
“Yeah! We need every last person on that shell!”
“Waaaaaaaah!”
The Climbers who had been standing frozen surged forward like a dam bursting, charging the giant body of Atla. Sword, spear, blunt weapon, shield—Climbers scaled its legs like rock climbers. Staff and bow users poured supporting fire from range.
“Break!”
“Shatter, you bastard!”
Clang! Kaaang! Clang!
In moments the mountain-like shell was blanketed by hundreds of Climbers. They looked exactly like miners who had just discovered a rare ore vein in a vast quarry.
Clang! Kaaang!
Dull impacts rang out without pause.
“It’s way too hard!”
“Is any of this even doing damage?”
“Don’t know! Keep going! Full power!”
Atla’s shell was so dense that not even a scratch appeared. Hyun Si-woon had already claimed a convenient spot of his own. Unlike the others struggling upward, a few efficient steps brought him to a relatively flat, sparsely populated stretch of shell.
Shing!
He drew the Formless Sword. The four spirits he had already summoned clustered around him.
Shall we begin?
The spirits moved as one. First was Gnome.
— Noung!
The earth spirit laid both tiny hands on the shell. Through their link, Si-woon felt the structure of the shell map itself inside his mind—an eerie, vivid sensation. Layer upon layer of interlocking dense rock. And among them, one point stood out clearly: lower density, more vulnerable to shock than anywhere else.
Found it.
Kyaaaa!
Reading his intent, Kasa immediately belched a savage stream of flame at that exact spot.
Whoooosh!
Fire began to heat a single point of the shell cherry-red. The air shimmered with heat haze as murderous temperature rolled outward.
Kyarr!
Next Undine moved. At her gesture a freezing stream of water appeared and poured precisely onto the superheated patch.
Hissssssssss—!
A massive plume of steam erupted accompanied by a sharp cracking sound. Unable to endure the sudden temperature shock, hair-thin fractures spiderwebbed across the surface of the shell.
Ihihit!
Last came Sylph. The wind spirit beat her wings and razor winds became invisible blades, driving deep into the cracks.
Pajijijik!
The fissures widened—slowly, but with absolute certainty.
“…Good.”
A perfect chain. One single weak point forged by the combined power of four spirits. Si-woon drew a deep breath and condensed every scrap of energy in his dantian into the tip of his blade.
All power compressed into a single point—one absolute strike.
Thuck—!
A sound utterly different from the previous dull impacts—something driving deep and true. The same impregnable shell that hundreds of Climbers had been hammering with everything they had… Si-woon’s sword sank into it as if sliding into soft tofu.
“…Huh?”
“Did anyone else just hear that?”
“L-look over there!”
Weapons mid-swing froze. Every gaze locked onto one spot. The sight was unbelievable. A single man stood motionless with his blade buried in the shell—as casually as sticking chopsticks into hot tofu.
“Wh-what?”
“It went through?”
“Impossible! Who the hell is that guy?!”
Si-woon drew the sword free. Crunch! A sizable chunk of obsidian-like shell came out impaled on the tip. Where he had stood, a deep black hole large enough for a grown man’s head gaped open.
But it was nowhere near enough. Atla’s shell was built of dozens, hundreds of rock layers. He had pierced only one.
No time.
The surrounding stares of awe meant nothing to him. Only one thing occupied his mind: shaving seconds off the clock. Jeju had to be finished as fast as possible so he could move on to Busan, then Ulsan. Fail even one location and the entire plan collapsed.
Again.
At his short command the four spirits sprang back into motion. Gnome located a new weak point, Kasa heated it, Undine quenched it, Sylph drove the cracks wider. And at the end of every cycle Si-woon’s sword drove home without fail.
Thuck—!
Crunch!
Another hole opened. He never stopped. Like a master stonemason striking a chisel at predetermined points, his movements contained not a single hesitation or wasted motion.
Thuck—! Crunch!
Thuck—! Crunch!
At measured intervals the shell continued to be punched through, the sound repeating with mechanical precision. Faced with that overwhelming spectacle, the Climbers who had been randomly pounding the shell around him unconsciously lowered their weapons.
“Th-that’s… possible?”
“He’s peeling the shell by himself…”
They understood. A single thrust from this unknown man was more efficient than the hundreds or thousands of blows they themselves could deliver. This was no longer everyone’s raid. It had become a one-man dismantling show of pure wonder.
In that moment a flash of information streaked through someone’s mind.
“…Wait.”
A quiet mutter, yet it cut through the surrounding noise with strange force.
“No way…?”
He frantically opened the community window. The post that had set all of Jeju Island ablaze with hope only days earlier.
Especially to the Climbers of Jeju Island—do not give up under any circumstances. Support will absolutely come.
“…Support.”
His pupils shook as though struck by an earthquake. The promise that someone would come to this abandoned island everyone else had written off as impossible… was the man performing miracles right in front of them the owner of that promise?
“I-it’s him!”
His shout spread like fire along a fuse.
“The support Owl talked about! The other party that cleared the 7th floor! That’s him right there!”
“What?!”
“For real?!”
“Ah—right! He said he was coming to Jeju as support!”
The moment the puzzle pieces clicked, an explosive roar erupted among the Climbers. The hot flame of hope rekindled in eyes that had been drowned in despair and helplessness.
“Waaaaaaaah!”
“Support! Real support has arrived!”
“He’s the 7th-floor Climber!”
“No wonder… no wonder his strength was on a completely different level!”
They no longer saw Hyun Si-woon as some unknown powerhouse. He was the hero who had descended into the darkness to save them—hope itself that had crossed the sea to keep a promise.
“Stop standing around like idiots and clear a path!”
It was the same middle-aged man who had first found his courage back at the camp. He shoved aside the Climbers milling near Si-woon and bellowed until his throat tore.
“The hero is carving the road for us! Our job is to keep the area clear so he can focus, and to widen the holes he opens!”
His shout snapped everyone back to themselves. Right. This was no time for dumbstruck spectating.
“He’s right! Let’s make a path!”
“Leave the good spots open for shell-cracking! No point hogging them ourselves!”
“Yeah! We just widen those holes! Even if it’s pickaxe work!”
“Waaaaaaaah!”
The Climbers began moving as one coordinated body. Some filmed Si-woon. The rest latched onto the holes he had already punched and set about enlarging them with their own weapons. The earlier helplessness was gone without a trace. Certainty that they could do this, and the duty that they must, burned in their eyes.
Si-woon felt their movement yet remained wholly absorbed in his own work.
— Hoh. At this pace, two hours should be more than enough.
Ha-wol smiled.
That so?
A faint smile touched Si-woon’s own lips. Far faster than expected—thanks to the Jeju Climbers’ unexpected cooperation and explosive morale. This was exactly the picture he had wanted. Not a hero who carried everything alone, but a pathfinder who showed the correct road so everyone could advance together.
His sword began to move even faster.