Invasion (2)

A rift was released.

That could only mean the monsters sealed inside were spilling out into the open. A message had appeared declaring that a rift's host was beginning its invasion, and that was proof enough. Hanseong fixed a long, unblinking stare on the list of regions where the rifts had opened. Sendai.

Two days ago. The very place where the Crow Shaman had begged for help. Crow had insisted then that he would deal with it himself, somehow — but a release alert had appeared all the same. In the end, he had failed to hold the rift.

Then, most likely... The odds were high that he was dead. Once you entered a rift, you could not come back out until its owner was slain. He might have emerged together with the release, but even that was uncertain now. A bitter look crossed Hanseong's face.

Only for a moment.

First, find out what's happening. Composure restored, he opened the board at once, hoping the survivors of the released regions might have posted what they had seen.

Not long after, his guess proved right. A survivor who identified himself as a Russian national had written, in the comments, of the very moment a rift was released.

He closed the account by adding that zombie soldiers were still pouring out even as he wrote. Then a survivor in Japan posted.

Survivors living in Dandong, China, posted after them, reporting the same flood of monsters as in Russia and Japan.

What set China apart was scale. Russia and Japan had medium rifts. China had a large one, and so a legion of more than several thousand zombies had appeared all at once.

Russia and Japan can wait. Both lay far from Korea. Irkutsk sat in southern Siberia, some 2,400 kilometers from Suwon. Sendai was half that — 1,200 kilometers. Even if the enemy marched on Korea, the distance would cost them a great deal of time.

Dandong, though... It was closer than he had expected. The city sat just beside Sinuiju in the North; cross the Yalu and the border, and it was right there. Roughly 360 kilometers. Plant an Additional Base somewhere in the North, and it would fall well within observation range. Studying the map, Hanseong chose his site.

There. Hamhung, in South Hamgyong Province. He had only one reason for placing a base in Hamhung rather than Kaesong or Pyongyang. From Hamhung, not only Dandong but more than ninety percent of the North would fall inside his observable range.

Sooner or later I'll have to wipe out the North's monsters too. Champion-grade monsters. Leave them alone, and they might grow into boss-grade. Better to cull as many as he could before that happened.

The plan settled, he put it into motion at once.

Unlike the city he had left behind, Hamhung showed no high-rises at all. The only building of any real size was the train station, so he set the coordinates there. As always, he sent the Collector and the Vampire Tree in first to clear the enemies around the base.

Only after every red dot near Hamhung Station had vanished did Hanseong roll his wheelchair through the Warp Gate.

The moment he entered the base, Open Map's range applied anew. At the landscape that unfolded across the map, Hanseong's face tightened before he quite realized it.

Not a single survivor. Hamhung was, for all practical purposes, annihilated. Not one blue dot showed within fifty kilometers of the base. Red dots, by contrast, teemed so thickly that swarming hardly covered it. Square markers for elite-grade and above numbered in the dozens, and confirmed champions alone came to more than five.

If I had my way, I'd clear them this instant... Their turn would come later. Right now Dandong came first — the city where a large rift had been released. Hanseong touched the vortex over the city and locked the coordinates.

And when Dandong's vista opened before him, Hanseong's eyes went wide.

"...!"

The first thing he saw was an enormous vortex, on an entirely different scale from the ones he had seen in Seoul or Busan. Size alone put it in the hundreds of meters. Was the mouth so vast because this was a large rift? Or had the release itself widened the entrance? The questions were still rising when a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠strange sight caught him.

What is that? The zombies that had poured from the rift were hauling rubble and stacking it into a barrier, and the wall they raised wrapped the vortex completely. One look, and Hanseong grasped what they were doing.

They're guarding the rift. Anyone could see it. Otherwise there would be no reason to build a wall at all. But why? Weren't the beings of the rift here to gather ether? If so, they could simply invade the nearby cities and plunder it. Why go to the trouble of raising a barrier to protect the rift itself?

The questions were still piling up when a tread so heavy it was nearly a roar sounded from beyond the half-finished wall. A vast shadow fell. A moment later, its owner stepped into view.

That's... A giant with three heads. Forearms thicker than a locomotive, a body the height of an eight-story building, and in one hand an iron mace the size of two city buses. It looked every inch a rift's owner. Hanseong used Detection at once.

Was this what came of owning a large rift? Its level was higher than anything he had faced before. He was studying the weakness and the weak point when a doubt struck him.

But... this is the great calamity? A, administrator of the Tower, had said it plainly. Fail to clear a rift in time, and once the limit ran out, a great calamity would follow. The reality in front of him did not feel like a calamity on that scale. The monsters inside had simply come outside.

Of course, if something like that appeared where survivors were packed together, you could call it a calamity... A rift's release could be predicted well enough. Judge a clear impossible, confirm that the time limit was nearly gone, and you evacuated the survivors nearby in advance. Which makes them easier to fight out here. Unlike a rift, which capped how many could enter, the outside had no such condition. More survivors than the limit could join forces and pour their attacks in together.

Or else... What if the true calamity was not the rift's release at all, but something that took another shape? The guess flickered through his mind, and the worry born with it settled on his shoulders — though not for long.

First, clear these. Then he would know what the real calamity was.

Shaking free of the thought, Hanseong used the vision shared through Precise Observation and studied the ground around the vortex in careful detail. He meant to strike first. Look at them, bunched up nice and pretty. Good. There was something he had been wanting to test: Tinder Nova, the skill that had evolved only recently. Before he used it, though, he needed a mana recovery potion in hand.

Tinder Nova burns ten mana a second. Hold it for even five minutes and three thousand mana would be gone. He had no idea when he might run ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dry, so it was better to be ready. Preparations complete, he locked the coordinates at the vortex's center and cast the skill.

At the base of the enormous vortex, a vermilion magic circle etched itself into the asphalt. A small ember caught at its heart, and in moments the circle was awash in brilliant light.

And then — BOOM! KRA-KA-KOOM!

A huge blast, and a wave of fire rolled out in every direction. Like the ripples from a heavy weight dropped into a still lake, the circular tide of flame burned everything it touched. It rushed and roared, and its power was on a level with Tinder — no, a little beyond it. Zombies swept into the blaze did not last even ten seconds before they crumbled to ash. The instant every zombie around the barrier had been reduced to powder, a new notice appeared. Tinder Nova's special effect had revealed itself.

The notice had barely finished when, from the ash of the zombies, a Lava Golem wreathed in hellfire revealed itself.

A roar that shook the whole field. The instant the Lava Golem bellowed, the zombies outside Tinder Nova's range turned as one and charged it — from those that had only just left the rift to those still gathering rubble for the wall. All of them. The golem's taunt.

"Graaaaaah!"

"Grrk! Kyaaah!"

Like moths to a lantern, the zombies threw themselves at the Lava Golem, and not a single one escaped the flames. When the zombie in the lead crumbled to ash, the fire leapt at once to the next, and in the blink of an eye more than half of several thousand were gone.

Hanseong let out a hollow laugh. There's nothing for me to do. The Lava Golem spewed waves of flame and taunted everything around it without pause, and the zombies ignored even their commander Urkan's shouts, running at the golem alone. It was automatic hunting if he had ever seen it.

And... As the pattern repeated, the Lava Golem's bulk swelled until it nearly matched Vanguard Captain Urkan himself. Urkan, who had lost his entire force in a stroke to Tinder Nova and the golem, shrieked in a language no one could parse.

Hanseong could not make out a word of it, but the thoroughly crumpled face carried the meaning well enough. Nine times out of ten, it was a curse. From a distance Urkan kicked off the ground and closed on the Lava Golem, then swung the enormous mace and smashed it aside.

WHAM! KRAAANG!

The Lava Golem went down under the blow. It had not simply taken the hit. Just before the mace landed, it had closed the gap and set fire clinging to Urkan's body.

Still an incomprehensible tongue. He did not look as if he were in pain. Even while his body burned, Urkan pressed the Lava Golem with undiminished force, driving it onto the defensive. And the clinging flames did him no real harm. At most they scorched his hide.

If Tinder doesn't work... While the Lava Golem held the giant's eyes, he would pour a light-attribute skill down on its head. As it happened, he had one with real power: Thunder Storm, an attack skill that had evolved alongside Tinder Nova over the past two days. He tipped back a mana recovery potion — glug, glug — replenished what he lacked, and locked the coordinates at once.

A thunderhead formed above Urkan and the Lava Golem. Unlike Call Lightning, this cloud spanned a full kilometer. Noticing too late, all three of Urkan's heads wore a look of plain panic.

That shout was probably more of the same. Spitting out his shock, he seemed to realize something had gone badly wrong and tried to flee without a backward glance. He could not. The Lava Golem had seized his body outright.

Urkan swung the mace again and again. The Lava Golem, body breaking apart, held on to the end. That self-sacrificing bid to buy time meant something. Because of it, more than ten bolts were able to fall on Urkan's heads.

RUMBLE! KRAAANG!

KRA-KA-KA! Bang! KRAANG!

More than ten bolts struck him square. Because light-attribute skills were his weakness? Unlike Tinder, his flesh charred to a cinder in an instant. A few more bolts and he could be finished. Hanseong had no intention of stopping there.

As long as it's come to this... He would see Thunder Storm's special effect too. Spend more mana and keep the lightning falling, and it was supposed to trigger. Ignoring Urkan's condition, he cast bolt after bolt.

His mana dropped fast. Bolts just as fierce hammered Urkan's body in succession. By the time not even a twitch could be seen, Thunder Storm's special effect had come clear.

Judging by the bolt count that had met the condition, the effect seemed to require ten further casts before it would manifest. Use twenty bolts in all, and from then on he could pour out more of them at a far better rate. This time, though, he would have to be content with merely learning what the effect was.

Crumble. Rattle. Struck twenty times, Urkan's body could endure no longer and collapsed. Only a blackened mace remained atop the powder of his remains. Confirming the giant's end, Hanseong smiled, satisfied.

Only for a moment.

"Huh?"

A wrongness struck him, and its source was soon clear. Beyond Urkan's remains, the enormous vortex leading into the large rift had not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vanished.

"What? Why..."

Why wasn't the rift disappearing? Bewilderment was still coloring his eyes when a sight even more startling unfolded.

Thud. Thud.

Zombie soldiers were coming through from beyond the rift. Hanseong's face hardened. It had to. This was proof the rift's owner still lived.

Don't tell me... There had been more than one owner? Face set hard, Hanseong cut down every zombie that had come outside with Wind Cutter. Then he drew the Phantom he had kept stored in Inventory.

He sent Phantom into the released rift, to uncover the true reason the rift and its minions refused to disappear.