The Dragon Emerges
A tremendous crackling roar tore through the heavens as if the sky itself were being ripped apart.
ZAAAAANG!
From empty air, a massive gate of dull gray light began to form.
At the same instant—
THUD!
THUD!
—two enormous arms burst through, seized the edges of the gate, and forcibly tore it wider.
“Kuhahahaha! The time of the promise has come.”
The dragon shoved its face out through the rent gate, spouting words no one present could understand, a smile curling across its snout.
Then someone streaked through the air and planted himself directly in front of the creature.
“Hey, lizard.”
“Wh… what? Lizard?! What kind of insect dares—!”
It was Baek Do-ha.
The moment he casually spat the word “lizard,” the dragon’s pleased expression twisted into something murderous.
“Why are you straining so hard to crawl out? Just stay inside.”
Rumble…
Do-ha slipped a hand into his pocket and drew up his power.
“Get back in.”
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong, Second Step: Muje-gak.
BOOOOM!
He lifted one leg and drove a kick straight at the dragon’s brow. The motion looked no heavier than casually shoving a door shut with his foot—yet the dragon’s head snapped backward as if struck by a siege ram.
“Guaaah…!”
With a wet slide, the dragon that had taken the Muje-gak screamed and vanished back into the gate. In truth it had not retreated so much as been blasted inward.
“Selenia, Canteas—we’re going in. Kang Ji-hwan, Han Se-ah, anything that crawls out, kill it on sight.”
The instant the words left his mouth, Do-ha launched himself through the gate.
“…What the hell did we just watch?”
“He just kicked a dragon in the face…”
“Seriously, what even is Do-ha-nim…?”
Kang Ji-hwan and Han Se-ah stood frozen, half-laughing in pure disbelief.
“Aaaargh!”
Back inside the gate, the dragon clutched its forehead and howled. It had been nothing more than a single kick from a human, yet its skull felt ready to split open.
“A dragon this dramatic?”
Do-ha stepped through after it and smirked. The reaction was actually normal. While delivering the kick he had layered the principles of Internal Heavy-Hand technique into the strike. Only a dragon could have survived with merely a cracked skull; anything lesser would have had the back of its head explode.
“A lowly human dares strike the head of Lord Robeist…!”
“Wow. ‘Lowly human’—I haven’t heard that one in ages.”
Do-ha clapped his hands as though greeting an old friend. The phrase felt almost nostalgic. Back in Belhart, every dragon that had ever spat those words at him was now rotting in the Underworld.
“Those were fun days… running around beating dragons senseless…”
“What nonsense are you—huh?”
Robeist’s gaze flicked past Do-ha to the two figures who had just entered the gate.
“One high elf… and the other is… a Lich?!”
His eyes widened slightly at Canteas. A Lich of equal rank—why was it standing there? And it looked like it was on the human’s side.
“Yet… far too weak. Definitely a Lich, but feeble. A defective product?”
“What?! Who the hell is that lizard calling defective?!”
“Puhahaha!”
Canteas bristled; Do-ha burst out laughing. Fair enough—an actual Lich stuck at five circles really was defective.
Whoosh!
While Do-ha was still laughing, Robeist seized the opening and launched a Silent Spear spell. The human’s kick had been strong; better to strike while the gap was open.
The spear punched clean through Do-ha’s skull.
“Keheheheh.”
Robeist smiled. So the human had a little power—yet still left an opening in front of a dragon.
Then the figure with the hole in its head shimmered and faded.
“Wha—?!”
“You dragons always fall for it. Toss out bait and you bite every single time.”
Hummm!
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong, Fourth Step: Geukma Noegwon.
CRAAACK!
Using Form-Swap Displacement, Do-ha reappeared above the dragon’s head and drove a fist loaded with thunder qi straight down. From his Belhart days he had known the best way to open a dragon was to dangle a fake opening.
“Guaaaaah! I will endure this no longer!”
ZAAANG.
Reverse Gravity.
Do-ha’s body began to lift. Robeist was reversing gravity to peel him off its skull.
The choice was a catastrophic mistake.
“Tsk tsk. Idiot.”
Hummm!
Ten-Thousand-Catty Hammer.
CLUNK!
BOOOOM!
Crushed under sudden, impossible weight, veins bulged across the dragon’s forehead.
In the end Robeist blinked ten meters backward.
ZAAANG!
“Die.”
Hellfire.
An eighth-circle inferno roared toward Do-ha.
Flick.
Dispel.
The column of flame twisted mid-flight and shot harmlessly into the sky. Do-ha clicked his tongue. He had intended to erase the spell entirely; all he managed was to divert it.
Still can’t fully cancel a dragon’s magic…
He could feel how much weaker he had become. In the old days a casual Dispel would have left dragons howling for him to stop.
“What… is this…?”
While Do-ha fretted over his own decline, Robeist reeled from a far greater shock. A human of lower circles had just hijacked the trajectory of its magic. The Dispel had failed to erase the spell, so the human had instantly recalculated the formula and rewritten it on the fly.
He added extra formulas and forced the path to change…
Was that even possible? Something no dragon could do—done by a human?
Dozens of interlocking formulas twisting every second, and the man had chased them down and rewritten them mid-cast?
For a heartbeat Robeist felt as though it had slammed into an immovable wall.
A… again.
ZAAANG!
Hellfire.
Whoosh—!
Again!
“Hey! Is Hellfire the only spell you know?!”
Do-ha snapped, thoroughly irritated. How long was this boring, flavorless Hellfire going to keep coming?
“This is impossible!”
Robeist finally screamed. It had double- and triple-checked: the human was not merely keeping pace with a dragon’s magical computation—he was rewriting it to suit his own whim.
Zang.
Zaaang.
Zang.
“Let’s see just how far you can follow.”
Robeist spread five simultaneous magic circles—Quintuple Casting—and looked triumphant. Even the so-called geniuses among humans could not manage four.
“If you truly exceed my expectations, try matching this.”
“…What kind of bullshit is that.”
Hummm!
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong, Third Step: Cheonhyeon Geumgang.
A colossal arm of golden force erupted behind Do-ha’s back.
“Why the hell would I need to match you, you moron.”
BOOM!
The giant arm smashed Robeist across the face. He had been playing along for a while and the lizard had started thinking this was some kind of test.
“Hey, Canteas. Wreck this thing.”
“Got it!”
Do-ha gave a casual nod. Canteas and Selenia immediately opened fire on the dragon.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
Shhk-shhk-shhk!
“Grrrk.”
Han Se-ah drove a poisoned needle into the forehead of a charging monster; its eyes rolled white and it dropped dead. Against a hidden-weapons specialist, charging head-on was a one-way ticket to the Underworld.
Flash!
Musang Geumgang Gong, First Absolute: Oho Gwangpok.
BOOOOM!
Kang Ji-hwan, blazing with golden light, punched from a standstill; the surrounding monsters rocketed skyward. Exactly as Do-ha had ordered, they were cleaning up everything that spilled out of the gate.
Thud-thud-thud—
One hunter tried to dive through the gate and bounced off as if hitting an invisible wall.
“What? Why’d he bounce?”
“Do-ha-nim said the second he went in he’d seal the entrance.”
“Why?”
“Why else? He’s fighting a dragon in there. Extra humans would just get in the way and get themselves killed.”
“He’s… seriously something else.”
Han Se-ah shook her head at Kang Ji-hwan’s words. Normally every available force would be thrown at a dragon. Do-ha had simply decided they would be a nuisance and locked the door.
“Other countries’ hunters are starting to show up.”
“Makes sense—an Unknown Gate just opened.”
Reporters were already swarming; foreign hunters kept arriving.
Rumble…
“Here comes another one.”
A new monster emerged; both hunters moved at once. Higher-grade creatures were appearing exactly on the schedule Do-ha had predicted.
But monsters were not their real targets.
Ssssss…
“Found them.”
“Found them.”
Spreading their senses, the two locked eyes on the same prey. Golden light flared around Kang Ji-hwan; purple poison qi coiled around Han Se-ah.
BOOOOM!
Pssshhh!
“Guaaagh!”
“Ugh—p-poison!”
It was the Demon God Cult, come to exploit the Unknown Gate. Before the dragon had even appeared, Do-ha had ordered the two of them to intercept the cultists. Their goal would be either to trigger a wave or to force entry into the gate itself.
“Not happening.”
“You die here.”
While Argentine hunters continued clearing monsters, Kang Ji-hwan and Han Se-ah slammed into the Demon God Cult.
Tap!
Whoosh—
Thud!
Sssssssss—
“An elf dares—!”
Selenia darted in every direction, loosing arrows; Robeist’s brow furrowed. One human was already a headache—now an elf was adding to the nuisance.
ZAAANG.
Volcano.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Gurgle… gurgle…
Eighth-circle magic split the earth; lava fountained upward. Against an elf who lived on mobility, simply erase every place she could stand.
The instant the volcano rose, Do-ha moved.
Hummm!
Mokhon-sura-gong, Second Form: Haesin Beomram.
ROAAAAR!
A colossal wave smashed across the lava-spewing ground.
Hissssss!
“Cheon Seol-gyeong—go!”
“Dragon hunting, is it…? This should be entertaining!”
Canteas summoned Cheon Seol-gyeong and joined the assault.
Slash-slash—
Thud!
“These insects…!”
Robeist ground its teeth in fury. A Death Knight and an elf—lowly creatures all, swarming without end.
KUUOOOOOH!
Vast mana finally erupted from the dragon’s body.
“Everyone back.”
At Do-ha’s single command, Selenia and Canteas retreated without hesitation.
ZAAANG!
Ground of Grave.
The moment they cleared, Robeist unleashed one of the highest eighth-circle spells—an earth-overturning burial that would swallow everything alive.
ROAAAAAR!
The enchanted ground began to flip.
Do-ha simply drew in power of his own.
Baek-bo Myeol-hwang Gong, Ninth Step: Yeokcheon.
He stamped once.
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!
The earth reversed direction and swallowed the Ground of Grave whole.