When Things Finally Blew Up
In the end, it all blew up.
It was exactly what they had feared. What they had feared more than anything.
"Damn it."
When the guild leader spat the curse, the guild members tensed.
"That bastard! You followed me!?"
Becker still hadn't grasped the situation. He shot to his feet—and then, of all things, grew bold.
How many Agent Guild members were gathered here right now?
"You idiot. There's over a hundred of us! A hundred elites!"
About a hundred elite members of the Agent Guild.
Plus his own older brother, the guild leader!
"You have no idea how strong my brother is!"
Gold Guide ranked among the top swordsmen. The equipment he wore was outstanding as well.
But Gold Guide's expression was anything but good.
Dark energy spreading outward. A debuff washing over every guild member.
Jinwoo looked slowly downward.
Then—snap—he flicked his fingers.
"Ah……."
"A Bone Dragon……?"
While the guild members' attention was fixed on the Bone Dragon, subordinates rose from the dark energy blanketing the ground.
Shaaaaaaaak—!
"!"
First and Pur.
The moment the two subordinates appeared, the Agent Guild members grew deeply tense. The aura the pair radiated was no ordinary thing.
Nether flames. And nether frost.
The two subordinates scattering opposing powers also bore powerful equipment. With Jinwoo's two formidable subordinates materializing before them, the Agent Guild members gripped their weapons.
Jinwoo surveyed the Agent Guild members from atop the Bone Dragon.
Hmm.
Until now, Jinwoo had primarily fought monsters.
Monsters and players are completely different.
Monsters had baseline defense, and their strength was determined by their grade. But with players, you also had to factor in the equipment they wore and the skills they used.
In terms of difficulty, players are far higher.
Until now, Jinwoo had never tested his equipment against players. The fight with Becker had been too pathetic to even call a test. And above all, Jinwoo's true worth lay in his subordinates.
UR+ grade. Let's see how they hold up against players.
To climb to higher grades, confirming equipment through PvP was essential as well.
Shaaaaaaaaak—!
Because of the aura spread by Sanctuary Declaration, the Agent Guild members were frozen in place. A few could still move thanks to their own debuff-cleansing skills, but the rest could not.
"They're coming……!"
The sudden situation left the Agent Guild members flustered. But if the other side was clearly hostile, they couldn't just sit there and take it. They had come here to conquer the tower in the first place, hadn't they!
The moment First and Pur charged, however, they immediately formed up. They had already grasped the situation. What the guild's disgrace of a vice guild leader, Becker, had done had come back on the Agent Guild in the worst possible way.
"Form up!"
For now, all they could do was block the attack.
"We're going on the offensive, Guild Leader!"
On top of that, some of the officers weren't particularly impressed. Jin of Eternal Sunshine. Famous, sure—but in the end, wasn't he just a blacksmith? They didn't think there was any need to be this afraid of a blacksmith. They thought the guild leader might be overreacting. That was why, when the two subordinates clad in Jinwoo's equipment charged, they thought they could trade blows.
"There's only a few of them!"
The Agent Guild numbered around a hundred, and there were only two subordinates. Jinwoo and the Bone Dragon were up in the sky, but they didn't seem inclined to come down yet. That was why the guild felt confident instead.
Thud—.
First stomped the ground hard and closed on the guild members at the vanguard at tremendous speed, war hammer raised high.
"Block!"
Wheeeeeeeeee—!
BOOM—!
He brought it down.
"Gyaaaaaaaaaah—!"
The power was immense. Three men had formed up to block First's attack, yet the damage wasn't even dispersed.
CRAAAAAACK—!
"Gyaaaaah—!"
"Guh……!"
And yet those three went flying backward as if blown by a gale. One hit. Three men left near death.
"!"
"C-crazy!"
Despite the sudden crisis, they couldn't focus on First alone.
"The side! Coming from the side!"
Wherever First swept through, Pur rampaged again.
"There's only two of them! Surround them! Surround them and crush them in one go!"
A hundred versus two. If they surrounded them and attacked as the officers ordered, they could crush them easily.
"Think of it as fighting a boss monster! We came to conquer the tower in the first place! This is nowhere near tower difficulty!"
They'd done combat drills until they were sick of them.
CRACK—!
Boss monsters had also hammered them with blows as fierce as First's.
"It's not a power they can use repeatedly! They'll tire!"
"Dodge and defend!"
"We're in a much better position!"
Numerical advantage. And experience.
"Surround them!"
If they surrounded them and attacked at once, victory was theirs for the taking!
"Surround—"
CRACK—! CRAAAAACK—!
But.
"Surround them……!"
They couldn't surround them.
Unmatched. The two subordinates went completely berserk, making it impossible to form any encirclement. They locked onto one side and kept shattering it, and the Agent Guild members simply couldn't withstand that overwhelming power.
In just three minutes, half the guild members were down.
"Thun.der.Crush."
Thunder Crush
BOOOOOOOOOOM—!
First used the skill. And the moment that Thunder Crush landed, Pur beside him used a skill of his own.
Fury's Mace
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—!
Now only half of the remaining half was left. And the two subordinates didn't even look tired. Of course not. The two of them had cleared numerous towers alongside Jinwoo. They'd expended far more power than this before.
And from the start—
"Un.dead.do.not.tire."
The dead did not tire.
"This is…… this is impossible……."
The subordinates' strength was one thing, but the equipment they carried was far more powerful than expected.
"Their attacks…… are too strong!"
Every single blow was overwhelmingly powerful. Even when five people defended, the entire formation shattered, so it was meaningless.
Of course, that didn't mean the guild was helpless. With the numbers on their side, their own attacks should naturally have a high chance of landing. That should have been the case.
CRACK—!
Attacks landed cleanly—but they still couldn't stop the advance. Common sense didn't apply. So responding to the situation was extremely difficult.
"They never…… planned to block in the first place!"
The two subordinates had never intended to defend from the start. Of course not. The armor they wore was powerful armor Jinwoo had made for them. Even when hits landed the damage wasn't that great, so focusing purely on offense was far more advantageous.
CRACK—!
The remaining half also began to fall helplessly before the subordinates.
"I-impossible. This is impossible!"
Becker watched the scene unfold with a blank, slack-jawed face. Jinwoo hadn't even come down. The guild members were being wiped out by just two subordinates. The difference in power was overwhelming.
"Is this all because of me……?"
Jinwoo was far stronger than he had imagined. No—strong to a degree he could scarcely even imagine. He was overwhelming a hundred guild members by himself.
Right now the Agent Guild stood at a crossroads. Whether they could leap to the ranks of the top guilds through the main scenario—or not. A critically important fork in the road. And it was being ruined because of him.
Becker's once-confident pupils kept trembling. Only now did he understand. Why his brother had spoken that way. Why Han-seom had tried to stop him.
"What the hell have I done……."
But even if he regretted it, it was already too late.
BOOM—! THWACK-THWACK-THWACK—!
The depths of despair.
Then a great noise rose from behind. Additional forces, carrying banners engraved with the Agent Guild's emblem.
"What? What the hell is going on here?"
These were additional guild members the guild leader had called ahead of time for the tower conquest. They hadn't been summoned for this fight, so the moment they saw the battlefield they were thoroughly flustered.
"What the……?"
"They're under attack?"
"Which guild is it!"
Near countless towers right now, small-scale battles between guilds were constantly breaking out. So the newly arrived members naturally assumed this was a fight with another guild. That was why they sprinted over and joined the battlefield at once.
"……Two people?"
A Bone Dragon floating in the sky, and two warriors on the ground going completely unmatched.
"What the hell is even happening here……?"
It was hard to properly understand the situation. They were being one-sidedly crushed by just those three?
"There should have been a hundred of them……."
About a hundred personnel had been assigned for the tower conquest. But the number remaining now wasn't even twenty. Which meant eighty people had fallen to those three.
He urgently looked for the guild leader. Then he spotted a guild member he was close with.
"Welch! What the hell is going on? You got wrecked by those three? Which guild are they from!"
"One person……."
"What?"
"We got wrecked by one person. Not three……!"
Welch pointed at the two subordinates charging like madmen.
"Those are subordinates……!"
"!"
And their master was riding the Bone Dragon.
"Huh."
He'd never heard of a necromancer like that.
"Don't tell me it's Sailboat?"
Among necromancers, there was a player who occupied a unique position: Sailboat. He'd heard Sailboat possessed subordinates powerful enough to conquer an entire city alone. There were also stories that a thousand undead would rise with a single gesture. On top of that, there was information that the undead he could command numbered ten thousand.
"No. It's—"
Then the two subordinates seemed to notice them and began charging like lunatics. The sight of the two subordinates barreling forward, spewing dark energy, was thoroughly impressive. Primal fear. It was so terrifying that for an instant the urge to run away rose unbidden.
"It's Jinwoo!"
"!"
Jinwoo.
At that name, the team leader leading the additional forces shouted urgently.
"Where's the Guild Leader…… Where's the Guild Leader!"
"Back there……."
Through the despairing guild members, Jinwoo smirked, took up his Dragonstone Chain Scythe, and leapt straight down. Additional forces had arrived—so now it was time for him to move as well.
"Shall we get started?"