Chapter 50: Monster Wave (5)
『Quite the appetizing thing has been made.』
The tentacle spoke while gazing at the massive black orb.
It was only natural—after all, the power of a full 300,000 monsters had been condensed into one.
Jin-young stored the orb in his subspace, then turned his eyes toward the remaining monsters still surging forward.
Even after eliminating 300,000, nearly 500,000 monsters remained.
He activated his Acceleration skill for a moment, maintaining a suitable distance from the monsters as he dashed all the way out to the edge of the contaminated zone.
The monsters chased him right up to the boundary.
“Grrrr…”
They refused to step even a single foot outside the Creep, merely growling at Jin-young from within while staring at him.
Without GODS’s control, they would never willingly leave the Creep.
But there was one more way to lure them out.
‘Bring Kim Dae-woong.’
At Jin-young’s command, the tentacle resonated with the parasite implanted in Kim Dae-woong.
Tzzzt—
A subspace portal opened, and it abducted Kim Dae-woong—who had been standing blankly at the Paju barrier—and dropped him right in front of Jin-young.
Shwaak—
Kim Dae-woong, caught by the tentacles, was dumped at Jin-young’s feet.
He lifted his head in shock, saw Jin-young, and immediately scrambled backward.
“I-I didn’t do anything! I was just staying quiet!”
His expression was a perfect mix of injustice and terror.
It was as if the memory of Jin-young casually tearing apart a 2nd-grade monster in the contaminated zone had flashed through his mind.
“You’re so pitiful just sitting around doing nothing, so I’m giving you something to do. Do you want to be dishonorably discharged?”
“……”
Kim Dae-woong inwardly thought that even a dishonorable discharge would be fine if it meant escaping this lunatic.
But he didn’t have the courage to say it out loud.
Jin-young used psychokinesis to drag dozens of monsters out from inside the Creep.
“Kiiiieeeek!”
The suddenly yanked monsters thrashed wildly and charged straight toward Kim Dae-woong.
Watching the approaching monsters, Kim Dae-woong’s face twisted grotesquely.
“If you want to live, run at full speed.”
The moment Jin-young finished speaking, the monsters broke free of the psychokinesis and lunged at Kim Dae-woong.
Snapping out of his daze, Kim Dae-woong erupted with black mana and activated his sprint ability.
Squa-kwa-kwa-kwa—
Trailing black smoke like a fog-spraying disinfection truck, Kim Dae-woong shot away in an instant.
The monsters, drawn by that mana, immediately gave chase.
Kududududu…
Even the ones still inside the Creep poured out all at once.
Jin-young had already floated high into the sky, out of the monsters’ path, and looked down at the fleeing Kim Dae-woong and the pursuing horde.
Before the regression, wasn’t this exactly how Kim Dae-woong had looked when he fled toward Seoul?
‘So-young.’
—Yes?
‘Tell the Association President that the Monster Wave is about to begin.’
After conveying the message to his sister via telepathy, Jin-young immediately headed toward Pyongyang.
***
“Sir! The company commander is running this way!”
A soldier standing guard with binoculars on top of the Paju barrier shouted.
At once, the expressions of the hunters stationed below the barrier—south of the Imjin River—changed drastically.
The sight of Captain Kim Dae-woong approaching meant the monster horde was already right on their doorstep.
Yoon Soo-ho and hunters from various guilds, intelligence agents led by Choi Hee-yeon, and the Awakened Forces all readied themselves for battle with grim determination.
“Monsters are visi— uh, what…?”
The soldier who had been about to report the black monster swarm lost his words.
He had expected perhaps hundreds or thousands at most.
“Why? What is it?”
The senior soldier snatched the binoculars, peered at the horde, and froze solid.
The number was beyond counting.
It looked like a black flood rushing toward them.
Kugugugugu…
Now the vibrations from the Monster Wave could even be felt atop the barrier.
“S-Save me!”
Kim Dae-woong, sprinting at terrifying speed, reached the Imjin River. With one final explosion of black mana—
Squa-aaaa—
He leaped straight across the river and crash-landed among the gathered hunters.
Tzzzt-zzzz…
The black mana flowing from Kim Dae-woong’s body completely dissipated, and he collapsed, unconscious.
“Get him out of here.”
At Commander Kwon Hyeok-gyu’s order, a soldier hauled Kim Dae-woong back up onto the barrier.
The hunters froze at the sight of the oncoming monster horde, some breaking out in cold sweat from the sheer tension.
Even the high-grade hunters wore hardened expressions.
Before the battle could begin, Kwon Hyeok-gyu opened his mouth.
“If you run away now, you might survive. But you could lose your homes, your families—everything.”
“……”
“If you fight alongside us, we can protect it all.”
Kwon Hyeok-gyu’s words ended.
“Kieeeek!”
Following the trail of black mana that Kim Dae-woong had so diligently scattered, an enormous number of monsters reached the Imjin River.
Splash—!
Without hesitation, they plunged into the water and began crossing toward the hunters.
At that moment, Yoon Soo-ho, standing at the forefront, gripped his massive hammer, Destroyer, more firmly.
Shh—
In a flash of lightning speed, Yoon Soo-ho burrowed straight into the midst of the monsters.
Whooong— Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!
With a single wide swing of his hammer, cracks spread in all directions, and monsters exploded outward in a chaotic burst.
Immediately after, Commander Kwon Hyeok-gyu shouted in a thunderous voice.
“Charge!”
“Waaaaah!”
Taking that as the signal, the waiting hunters launched their attack all at once.
Kwa-jijijik— Shwa-kwaang!
The moment the monsters crossed the river, they were sliced apart and blasted to pieces.
Since they were defenseless while crossing the water, the hunters’ hunt was effortless.
At least in the beginning.
As the hunters gradually exhausted their stamina, the number of monsters showed no sign of decreasing.
The slower the hunting pace became, the faster the number of monsters crossing the river swelled.
“Fall back to the barrier!”
At Commander Kwon Hyeok-gyu’s command, the hunters retreated to the barrier in unison.
While everyone pulled back, the guild masters—including Yoon Soo-ho—bought time.
As if they had rehearsed it beforehand, the hunters moved with perfect coordination.
Everyone successfully retreated atop the barrier and began recovering their strength by downing mana potions.
Soon, the monsters attempting to climb the tall barrier were swept away by the hunters’ concentrated fire.
Pu-kwa-kwa-kwa—
The ranged-specialized hunters shone, turning the tide of battle once again.
The problem was that the close-combat-oriented hunters were now out of the fight, and the prolonged engagement began to wear them down.
Kududududu…
The monsters started stacking themselves like a living tower, stepping on one another to climb over the barrier.
They even targeted weaker sections of the wall, trying to smash through.
Kwa-jijik—
Cracks began to form in the barrier.
“The numbers are too great. At this rate, the barrier might collapse.”
An officer who noticed the damage immediately reported to Commander Kwon Hyeok-gyu.
“Move Lee Ju-hong and lure the monsters toward the sturdier sections of the wall.”
At the command, Lee Ju-hong was deployed to draw the monsters’ attention.
But it wasn’t enough to control the endless flood of hundreds of thousands.
Kwa-jijijik—
The crack that started on one side spread sideways, then farther still.
“Danger!”
Kwa-jijijijik—
Choi Hee-yeon tore apart a monster lunging at the hunters with blue lightning.
The number of monsters leaping over the barrier to attack the hunters was growing rapidly.
Chae So-young fired beams of light while sending a telepathic message to her brother Chae Jin-young, but no reply came.
‘He said we’d be enough on our own…’
What if Oppa had miscalculated?
Just as worry began to creep in—
Shwooooo—
Something large, resembling a giant flying squirrel, streaked over the hunters’ heads.
Most were too busy fighting to notice.
“What the hell is that…?”
Kwon Hyeok-gyu, who had been directing the battlefield, narrowed his eyes as he spotted a figure floating in the air.
A young woman was awkwardly maneuvering a flight suit with an uncomfortable expression.
When she saw the monsters pouring over the barrier, her face hardened. She began emitting red mana.
In that instant.
Pachachachachang!
The monsters covering the barrier froze solid all at once, and a massive ice wall formed.
***
In the depths of the Pyongyang contaminated zone, Zhu Yinchang and his group were producing monsters.
“Hm?”
Zhu Yinchang narrowed his eyes, sensing something off.
The signals from the monsters under his control had suddenly been severed.
A few had lost connection before, but he hadn’t paid it much mind—whenever he briefly shifted his attention away from the monsters, such things happened.
As long as even one remained under control, he could reestablish the link through its bond with the others.
But this time, it wasn’t just a handful.
Dozens of monsters—the vast majority under his control—had their signals cut off all at once.
“Has something happened again? This operation has been strangely full of variables.”
Sandesh Singh turned to Zhu Yinchang and asked.
He was managing the connection between dozens of Manastones eroded by Creep and the artifact ‘Demon Spawn.’
He was controlling it so that the black mana flowing from the eroded Manastones would be directed solely toward Demon Spawn.
Thanks to that, the efficiency of monster production in the contaminated zone had been maximized.
“The connection with the monsters I was controlling has been completely severed. Something is breaking them free of my control.”
“Again with the Korean Zero-grade nonsense?”
Sandesh’s nerves were beginning to fray at Zhu Yinchang’s repeated blunders.
Sensing it, Zhu Yinchang quickly tried to smooth things over.
“Wang Lei, head down to Seohung and find out what’s going on.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Wang Lei—a subordinate from the People’s Liberation Army and a 3rd-grade hunter who had recently joined GODS—moved out.
Once he was gone, Zhu Yinchang looked at Sandesh and said,
“Of course, there’s a high chance it’s the work of a Zero-grade. But no matter how strong a Zero-grade is, it’s impossible to handle hundreds of thousands of monsters inside a contaminated zone.”
“In theory, yes. But how many times has this ‘theory’ failed us already?”
“Don’t worry. The ‘real’ ones are still separate.”
Zhu Yinchang recalled the three monsters he had gathered in the depths of the Pyongyang contaminated zone.
Two 1st-grade boss monsters brought from China’s Yanbian contaminated zone and North Korea’s Hamhung contaminated zone.
And one additional 1st-grade boss monster he was still in the process of taming here in Pyongyang.
“If you try to control even Pyongyang’s boss monster, you might go mad first.”
Sandesh warned Zhu Yinchang.
In truth, Zhu Yinchang had not yet fully brought the Pyongyang boss monster under control.
Part of it was the immense strain from controlling the previous two boss monsters.
But more than that, Pyongyang’s boss monster was stronger than the other two.
It fell just short of being called Disaster-grade, but among the 1st-grade monsters he had seen, it was undoubtedly the strongest.
“At this point, there’s no choice. Concentrate the power of the Manastones on me.”
Sandesh’s brow twitched as he understood what Zhu Yinchang meant.
“Are you truly going to walk the path of suffering?”
“No pain, no gain.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Sandesh’s eyes glowed red, and the black mana flowing from dozens of Manastones surged toward Zhu Yinchang.
Shhhsssss…
“……!”
Zhu Yinchang’s eyes widened as an overwhelming torrent of black mana flooded into him.
He had expected it, but the force far exceeded his imagination—like a raging current—and an involuntary shudder ran through his entire body.
It was a euphoric high, as if dopamine had exceeded its limit, mixed with the terror that his body might explode and die at any moment.
But the ecstasy and pleasure overwhelmed everything else.
Kwa-tz-tz-tz-tz—
Zhu Yinchang converted the incoming black mana into his own power and unleashed his ‘Beast Control’ ability.
Dudududu…
Beyond the toxic fog, a single sword began to tremble violently.
A pitch-black blade with an ornate golden crossguard and a leather-wrapped hilt.
It looked like an ordinary sword, perhaps 1.5 meters long.
Tzzzt-zzzzzt…
It began emitting black mana of its own, resisting Zhu Yinchang’s ‘Beast Control.’
This sword was none other than Pyongyang’s 1st-grade boss monster, known as the ‘Demonic Sword.’
Under the far more powerful ‘Beast Control’ than before, the Demonic Sword’s tremors intensified, as if it were gradually being overpowered.
Of course, Zhu Yinchang was far from unscathed.
Pu-kwak!
Dark red blood burst from his nose.
Blood was also streaming from his eyes and ears.
He was enduring the overwhelming strain on his body to maintain the ability.
“Sub… mit…!”
Shwa-aaaa!
Black mana exploded outward from Zhu Yinchang’s body like a blast.
Kwa-jijijijik!
A bolt of black lightning struck down toward the Demonic Sword.
The trembling stopped.
Tzzzt-zzzz…
Black electric currents wrapped around the Demonic Sword, occasionally sparking.
Thud.
Zhu Yinchang dropped to one knee atop the Creep.
He had expended an enormous amount of power and was now breathing raggedly, chest heaving.
Kwak Jeong-min, who had been watching while handling Demon Spawn, spoke up.
“The power of the Manastones has been completely depleted. If we leave it like this, Demon Spawn’s durability will wear down rapidly too.”
Unable to reply, Zhu Yinchang remained silent. Sandesh answered instead.
“At this point, we’ve produced enough monsters. It should be fine to stop here.”
Just as Kwak Jeong-min was about to nod—
Ssssh…
The 3rd-grade hunter Wang Lei, whom Zhu Yinchang had sent to Seohung, returned with strangely limp, swaying movements.
“What the…?”
It hadn’t even been an hour since he left.
Unless the man had some kind of spatial movement ability, returning this quickly was impossible.
Even Zhu Yinchang, who had just regained his senses, tilted his head when he spotted Wang Lei.
“Why are you back already?”
“……”
But Wang Lei approached wordlessly.
Now that he looked closer, the man’s eyes had no focus, and he wasn’t even walking with his feet touching the ground.
He hovered slightly above the surface, gliding forward as if sliding on air.
Sensing something deeply wrong, the GODS members immediately assumed combat stances and scanned their surroundings.
In that instant—
Crack-crack-crack!
Wang Lei’s limbs suddenly twisted and crumpled, folding violently until his entire body was compressed into a neat, box-like shape.
“Wh-what the…?”
Even though he was only 3rd-grade, no hunter should be crushed like a piece of paper so effortlessly.
For the first time during this operation, Zhu Yinchang, Kwak Jeong-min, and Sandesh Singh felt genuine tension.
And then, before them appeared a man in a black suit.
It was Chae Jin-young.
Though Zhu Yinchang had never seen him before, he immediately guessed who it was.
“You’re Korea’s Zero-grade, aren’t you?”
“What are you even saying…”
Chae Jin-young muttered while digging in his ear with a finger. Zhu Yinchang turned to Kwak Jeong-min.
“Kwak Jeong-min, you really don’t recognize that man?”
“First time seeing him.”
Kwak Jeong-min shook his head. When Chae Jin-young spotted him, he spoke casually.
“So you’re Kwak Jeong-min? Yoon Soo-ho’s doing fine, by the way.”
Hearing the unsolicited update about Yoon Soo-ho, Kwak Jeong-min’s expression twisted strangely.
Ignoring that, Zhu Yinchang gave a thin smile.
“You arrived at the perfect time. I was just thinking it would be good to test the performance of the boss monsters.”
Kuoong!
Soon after, boss monsters emerged from beyond the toxic fog.
A colossal dinosaur with an impossibly long neck, like a walking skyscraper—‘Brachio.’
A green-skinned monster twice the size of a human, wielding massive twin axes—‘Ogre King.’
And finally, an ominous sword that radiated an extraordinary presence.
Each one was a boss monster bordering on Disaster-grade.
“……”
Chae Jin-young silently scanned the boss monsters.
Zhu Yinchang’s lips curled upward.
“Even for a Zero-grade, handling three 1st-grade boss monsters won’t be easy. Not all Zero-grades are created equal.”
Chae Jin-young, who had no reason to understand the taunt, simply raised one hand indifferently.
Zhu Yinchang flinched instinctively at the movement of a Zero-grade.
But he quickly wiped the startled expression from his face and pointed a finger at Chae Jin-young.
“Kill him.”
The command rang out simultaneously to all three boss monsters.
A chill ran down Zhu Yinchang’s spine, making him shudder once.
But something felt off.
Squa-kwa-kwa-kwa—
“……?”
A tremendous roar erupted behind him. Zhu Yinchang whipped around.
Pu-kwa-kwa-kwak!
The Demonic Sword—now several times larger than before—began tearing Brachio’s body to shreds.
“Kwoooooooar!”
Brachio thrashed in agony, roaring in pain.
Zhu Yinchang’s pupils shook violently in disbelief.
“What the hell…?”
The ‘Beast Control’ ability was still active—yet the Demonic Sword was moving entirely on its own.
And what was with that absurd size?
Then Chae Jin-young’s voice drifted over.
“Who told you to play around with something this dangerous? Confiscated.”
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