Atla Raid (6)
Incheon.
Near the Tower of Despair.
Beneath a sky thick with ashen dust, Yoo Jin-hyeok stood atop Atla's shell.
"Wooooooo!"
"Bring it down!"
"Die, you damn turtle!"
He watched the Climbers roaring as they attacked, a look of quiet satisfaction on his face. They were following the orders of the man who had stepped up to take command, and following them well.
"David hyung, shall we get started ourselves?"
"Let's do it."
Beside him, his comrade and former UFC Ranker Jeong David adjusted his grip on his blunt weapon.
Our goal is one.
Contribution Rank 1!
"Even if it's you, Leader—I'm not giving up first place! Hyaaaaah!"
Jeong David roared like a beast. He poured his full weight and power into the mace and brought it down.
KRAAAAAAAAAANG!
A thunderous impact erupted, on a completely different level from anything the other Climbers could produce. David did not stop. His muscles swelled as if they might burst as he hammered down again and again.
How much time passed?
Crack!
Something shattered. A house-sized fragment of shell broke free and went tumbling downward.
A mixed roar of awe and delight burst from the Climbers watching nearby.
"Ooooooooh!"
"He already punched through! The shell actually came off!"
"That's Oracle's party for you—they're on another level!"
"Look at that physique… Is that even a person? Or a gorilla?"
A faint, satisfied smile touched Yoo Jin-hyeok's lips. This was exactly the picture he had wanted to paint.
My turn to show them.
Shiiing!
He drew the pitch-black sword at his waist—a Unique weapon that triggered chain explosions at a certain probability.
"David hyung, if you want my first-place seat, you're going to have to work a little harder."
David answered with a competitive smile. Jin-hyeok said nothing more. He simply set the tip of his blade against the shell and steadied his breath. In an instant his eyes sharpened like a honed edge.
First place is going to be one of the two of us either way.
Ssshk.
His sword moved with fluid grace. It was neither a thrust nor a slash. The tip slid along the cross-section of the shell as if a razor-sharp scalpel were peeling away a thin membrane.
Ssshk—!
A strange sound, nothing like metal scraping—more like something fundamental in the structure itself being severed.
That was the moment.
Along the path the blade had taken, crimson mana-flames began to rise like heat haze. Jin-hyeok grinned.
"Bingo."
KRAAAAAAAAAANG!
His soft murmur was the signal flare. The first explosion went off; the shockwave rattled the shell's internal structure and set off a chain reaction.
KRAANG! KRAANG! KRAANG! KRAANG!
Like a line of dominoes, successive blasts erupted along the trajectory his sword had drawn. A colossal chunk of shell—orders of magnitude larger than the fragments David had torn free by raw force—launched skyward with a deafening roar before plummeting down.
The Climbers who had been cheering fell silent, mouths hanging open in shock.
"That's just item carry, you cheater."
When David shot back, Jin-hyeok snorted a laugh.
"Anyone listening would think hyung doesn't use weapons either."
The two top Climbers were still wearing their confident smiles when it happened.
Screeeeeeech!
From another direction came a sharp, eerie noise like fingernails dragged across a chalkboard. Jin-hyeok's brow furrowed. His gaze snapped toward the sound—and he witnessed a sight that mocked every assumption he held.
A woman was there.
Her form-fitting black sleeveless combat suit revealed the clean, hard lines of shoulders carved from muscle. Her jet-black hair, tied high in a ponytail, cut through the air like a sharp whip with every movement.
Jang Cha-yul.
She held the silver-gleaming Gale Spear and had dropped into a low crouch, like a viper locked on its prey. The tip of her spear began to weave in an uncanny rhythm, then flicked like a serpent's tongue, etching a path through empty air.
Spirit Snake Spear Technique, First Form.
Venom Fang.
Screeech!
Her body launched as if spring-loaded, scraping and stabbing at the shell. The relentless, fang-like thrusts were nothing like the clumsy work of ordinary Climbers.
That spear… Unique grade?
Jin-hyeok narrowed his eyes. It looked like a solid skill—a cut below his own chain explosions, maybe, but still impressive.
Still.
Judging by the way she moved… this had to be one of the members of that hidden seventh-floor clear party the Owl had mentioned. Hell, it might even be EndSeeker himself.
Keep going. First place is still mine.
In that instant, Jin-hyeok's eyes met Jang Cha-yul's.
A glance. Less than a second.
And he read it.
There was no emotion whatsoever in her gaze. No competitive fire. No wariness. Just the indifferent look of someone noticing a pebble by the roadside—yet at the same time a look that seemed to see straight through everything.
What?
Jin-hyeok couldn't understand it. The woman had clearly registered him. She had to. He was the raid commander for this Incheon operation. At the very least she ought to have shown something like respect or awe. Every Climber who had crossed his path so far had.
But this woman was different.
She's not even treating me as a rival?
Ssshk.
Jang Cha-yul broke the stare and climbed higher. Then she dropped her hips, drew the spear all the way back, and the silver internal energy condensed at the tip writhed and roared as if alive. The surrounding air began to spiral around her.
Huh?
Jin-hyeok tilted his head.
Another skill? On top of the one she just used? That shouldn't be possible. Most Unique weapons only had one.
While he was still reeling, the energy at Jang Cha-yul's spear tip detonated.
Spirit Snake Spear Technique, Second Form.
Flood Dragon Emerges from the Sea!
KRUUUUUUUUUUMBLE!
A silver dragon's phantom coiled around the spear and began to scrape the entire outer surface of the shell clean. A hole opened in Atla's armor that made Jin-hyeok's chain explosions look like child's play—deep enough that the next layer of shell was faintly visible inside.
Crashhhhhh—!
Dozens of house-sized fragments rained down like a storm of stone.
The cheering Climbers clamped their mouths shut in pure shock. Jeong David's jaw hung open.
"What the hell… is that?"
"…!"
Yoo Jin-hyeok had no answer. He couldn't find the words.
A dragon comes out of a spear?
A technique that made no sense according to any of the old Tower of Despair data. On top of that, the base gap in their stats meant the destructive power was far beyond anything he had imagined.
This is one hundred percent.
Jin-hyeok was certain.
That woman is EndSeeker.
Only now did that earlier gaze make sense. It hadn't been arrogance. It hadn't been the wariness of a rival. Anyone with power like that—EndSeeker—had every right to look at the rest of them that way.
Of all places, why Incheon…
He bit down on his lip.
KRASHHHHH!
Even now Jang Cha-yul was sweeping across the shell in the distance, spear in hand.
"Leader… that doesn't look like something we can beat."
He was right. That wasn't a person. That was a natural disaster—a typhoon or earthquake no human strength could stop.
"Damn it."
A low curse slipped from his mouth. Contribution Rank 1 for Incheon looked like a lost cause.
"For now, let's put our faith in the teammates in Seoul and Daejeon."
At that same moment, the community boards were flooding with raid footage from every region.
Hyun Si-woon. Jang Cha-yul. Hwang Dae-un. No matter where they fought or how they performed, the camera angles always found them.
Daegu in particular had become a festival.
It was all because of a video one Climber had uploaded.
The attached clip stole the soul of anyone who pressed play. In the footage, Kang Si-a was unleashing rapid fire so fast her hands were a blur.
Piiiiiiiiiiiiing!
The arrows moved so quickly they looked like continuous lines. The "auto-retrieve arrows" option on the Autumn Wind's Bow made that insane rate of fire possible.
KRUUUUMBLE!
And once the shell finally gave way under the pressure? Arrows kept pouring through the hole without pause.
The comment section exploded. Once Kang Si-a's identity was confirmed, the shock only grew deeper.
But her performance still wasn't finished.
Just as the shell was nearly punched through—
—Haaah.
She drew a long breath, stopped the rapid fire, and pulled the bowstring all the way to full draw. In truth she wasn't even looking at the turtle. She was listening only to the voice of her new master, Chu Pung.
— Houyi. You must learn to sever the grain of the shell. Even a body that vast has meridians through which power circulates! Find those meridians and cut them, and the creature will collapse under its own weight.
— Good. Very good. The shell has grown soft and weak. Now use Soul Pursuit.
Yes, sir.
She felt the energy of her entire body condense into the nocked arrow.
First Form.
Soul Pursuit.
Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing—!
With a roar on a completely different scale from before, the energy-laden arrow streaked toward the deepest point of the shell.
KRUUUUUUUUMBLE!
A massive crack split open through the center of the armor as if a giant wedge had been driven home, then spiderwebbed outward in every direction. The overwhelming single shot tore a cheer from the Daegu Climbers that went past mere shock into pure ecstasy. The video ended on that exact frame.
In Seoul, one of Yoo Jin-hyeok's members—Han Ji-yoon—was making a name for herself. True to her background as an aerial acrobat, footage of her dealing damage with elegant mid-air movements was circulating. The healer Baek Do-hee, unfortunately, had not yet drawn much of the spotlight.
While regional heroes kept appearing one after another and the community burned hotter by the minute, a single post dropped that united every board and shook the entire server.
At first, no one believed the title. They assumed it was bait. It didn't make sense. Not Seoul, where the strongest forces were gathered. Not Busan, which came close. Jeju Island? The island everyone had written off as abandoned?
Climbers who had been chipping at shells began clicking the video.