There was little time to prepare for the Gate assault. Even if they had wanted to begin in peak condition, the quest’s time limit was so short that they had no choice but to proceed with haste.
Sa-yoon gave a perfunctory report to the Association staff who had belatedly arrived, then turned to his party members, all of whom had restored their health and mana with potions. He called Lee Jaehee over to ask about the nature of Gates created by a Gate Break. Aside from himself, Yi-han, and Ho-cheol, everyone here was experiencing this for the first time. There was no guarantee the pattern would be the same, but it was better than going in with no information at all.
“The Gate that formed from the break was a massive, field-type dungeon,” Jaehee explained.
“A field-type? Like the Ruined World?”
“Yes. It wasn’t limited to a single terrain; it featured a variety of landscapes and corresponding penalties. It seems the characteristics of multiple Gates merged to create it. Because of that, its difficulty was double that of the Gates that had combined.”
Double, huh.
Considering the Gate was already rated as unrankable, that wasn’t particularly surprising. There was a difference, of course: back then, Gates were only measured up to S-Rank, whereas now they could be measured up to SS+-Rank. But even so, considering the strength of their current party, it was a fight they could take on.
“Then we should go in assuming it’s at least an SS+-Rank Gate.”
“SS+-Rank… We barely have any experience with SS-Rank Gates,” someone muttered with concern. Though he hadn’t intended it, Sa-yoon had become the de facto leader of the team, and he opened his mouth to quell the rising anxiety.
“I’ve already cleared an SS+-Rank Gate.”
At his words, the heads of the foreign hunters snapped toward him like meerkats.
“When on earth did you do that?”
The appearance of SS-Rank Gates was a recent phenomenon. For the next rank to appear in less than three months was an unnaturally rapid progression. In response to their bewildered expressions, Sa-yoon glanced behind him, toward the spot where the portal to the Golden Ox Palace had been before it vanished.
“During this Unity Conference.”
“…Weren’t we all supposed to be clearing S+-Rank Gates?”
“We were. But we had a sudden system error. And from what I can see, it seems to be quite related to this Gate Break.”
He answered with a careful mix of truth and lies, and the hunters seemed to accept his explanation with a strange sense of understanding. With a Gate Break already underway, what was one little rank error?
“Even at SS+-Rank, a party of this size has a fighting chance. So don’t tuck your tails between your legs before we even start. If you’re going to participate, do it properly. I’ll be memorizing the faces of anyone who slacks off.”
He made a point of meeting everyone’s eyes as he spoke. Han Geon-joo then sidled up to him and whispered in his ear.
“But hyung, aren’t you terrible at memorizing faces and names?”
This little shit.
The whisper was too quiet for the other hunters to hear, but the impudence was unforgivable. Seizing the opportune moment, Sa-yoon grabbed a fistful of the pretty boy’s hair and yanked. With a yelp, Han Geon-joo was pulled forward before being released. He rubbed his stinging scalp and looked up.
“You just can’t let anything slide, can you?”
“Do you want me to show you what ‘not letting it slide’ really looks like?”
“No need for that.”
He backed down quickly. As Sa-yoon shot him a glare, some of the other hunters let out a faint chuckle. The tense atmosphere, which had been stiff with the prospect of an unrankable Gate, loosened slightly.
Did he do that on purpose?
Sa-yoon looked at Geon-joo, who was smiling at him with downturned eyes, and snorted. He then prompted Jaehee to continue his explanation. Jaehee shared what he knew.
“Some of you might know this from the news reports, but in a Gate created by a break, you will be facing mutant monsters. You cannot rely on conventional strategies. Most of these mutants have evolved to overcome the weaknesses of their original species.”
This was the reason so many hunters had died during the last Gate Break. They had lacked information on the mutants and had charged in, assuming they knew their weaknesses, only to meet a gruesome end.
Sa-yoon watched the man, who had now completely regained his composure, and finished inspecting his own weapons.
“What was the clear condition back then?”
“It was to kill the boss monster of each region.”
This matched what he had read in the articles. If the pattern was similar, they could probably divide into teams by country and take responsibility for different regions.
Their discussion had already eaten up thirty minutes of the time limit, making the remaining time feel even shorter. In the quiet that followed, Sa-yoon assessed his party members one last time and then stood before the portal.
“Alright, head in one by one.”
“Aren’t you going to take the lead?” one of the hunters asked.
“I’ll cover our backs and go in last, just in case.”
Take the lead? What kind of fool would do that?
It was entirely possible that some of them would promise to follow and then bolt. He didn’t fully trust this entire group, filled as it was with foreign hunters outside his direct influence. He watched as each one reached out and touched the portal. Slowly, they vanished into the Gate until only he and Geon-joo remained.
“What about the Demigod Body?” Geon-joo asked once they were alone. Sa-yoon glanced around, confirmed that only the hunters cleaning up the area were left, and lowered his voice.
“Save it for now.”
“But if it looks like we’re going to die, we use it immediately?”
“Exactly. You catch on quick.”
Information wasn’t worth as much as their lives. He patted Geon-joo’s head, who understood him instantly, and gestured for him to go first. But Geon-joo held out his hand.
“Let’s go together.”
“What, you think I’m going to run away?”
“It’s just… I’m anxious.”
Such a coward.
Sa-yoon looked at Geon-joo’s unusually tense face, then let out a soft laugh and took his hand. They stepped into the portal together. A notification announced their entry into the unrankable Gate, Pandemonium.
- Annihilate all monsters with fewer than 7 incapacitated party members. Warning: One death will be counted as two incapacitated members.
Along with the helpful notification, a wind began to blow.
Whoooosh.
It was a savage wind, the kind that accompanies a tempest, and its howl was far too fierce to be dismissed as a simple breeze. It began to batter the party. Sa-yoon checked the ground beneath his feet.
A canyon.
He and the assault team were positioned on the upper ridges of the terrain.
A canyon is unusual.
So it really is a field-type Gate.
The rare terrain prompted him to look around. As Jaehee had said, the Gate was vast enough to be called a field type, but it wasn’t a diverse mix of extreme environments like deserts and mountains.
In that case, there was usually only one type of Gate to expect.
A monster wave.
Considering the quest objective was annihilation, it seemed likely they would have to fight until every last monster was dead.
Rumble…
As if to confirm their fears, the ground began to tremble. The number of monsters was likely to be even greater than the horde they had faced just before the Gate Break. Sa-yoon spun his sword and spoke.
“They’re coming.”
At the quiet warning, the hunters began to cast their buff skills. Multiple energies washed over his body, and the flow of his mana felt smooth and clear. His preparations complete, Sa-yoon stared down into the canyon below. The monsters had begun to enter, their roars echoing off the walls.
“……”
The hunters’ shoulders tensed.
There are more than we thought.
The number of approaching monsters far exceeded their expectations. The front line alone looked to be about a thousand strong.
And that was just the front line.
Is this really a monster wave?
Sa-yoon revised his assessment as he watched the monsters march forward in five distinct divisions. It was too large a number to be a simple wave. Furthermore…
BWOOOOOOO!
One of the creatures was blowing a horn.
He could also see five particularly powerful-looking monsters, one for each division, each exuding an aura comparable to an SS-Rank Gate boss. And surrounding each of them was a retinue of five or six powerful monsters that could easily pass for an elite guard.
That was all he needed to turn his suspicion into certainty.
This was no monster wave.
This was a war.
“Ha. They said the war of the gods was near, and they’ve graciously given us a chance to hold a mock battle.”
Sa-yoon muttered to himself as he watched the advancing army. They were still so far away that they looked no bigger than his thumb. The real battle would begin when they grew to the size of his palm. He checked the status of his allies. To say the foreign hunters looked positive would be a lie.
Even at a rough estimate, there were over four thousand of them.
No matter the geographical advantage of holding the high ground in a canyon, annihilating thousands of monsters with fewer than a hundred people was akin to throwing an egg against a rock.
And it wasn’t just annihilation; they had to fight while ensuring no one became incapacitated. This meant no one could focus solely on combat.
Amidst the heavy atmosphere, Sa-yoon spoke.
“Frost isn’t a specialized attack skill.”
At the sudden, out-of-place comment, the hunters’ eyes turned to him. Feeling their gazes, Sa-yoon kept his own fixed on the monsters as he drew a breath and filled it with frost. He then slowly exhaled the cold air.
A notification window appeared before everyone. The allies felt their bodies grow lighter, while the charging monsters’ advance slowed noticeably. Sa-yoon clenched his fist, and ice walls shot up from the ground, locking firmly into place.
“It also defends.”
A smirk played on his lips.
“So fight with confidence. If your stamina drops, use the walls for cover. I can at least provide that much support.”
Even amidst the roar of the advancing horde, a sound caught between a shriek and a war cry, Sa-yoon’s voice rang clearly in his allies’ ears.
Sssssst!
Simultaneously, hundreds of ice spears materialized in the air. Poised like catapults ready to fire, the spears held until the distance between the monsters and the team closed to about one hundred meters. Then, as if loosed from a bowstring, they shot forward, tearing through the air.
Fw-fw-fw-fw-fwip!
A rain of countless spears fell, halting the monsters’ advance. The sound of sharp points piercing flesh followed one after another.
—KRAAAAAAAH!
The monsters’ screams echoed from the bottom of the canyon, and the battle began.
Sa-yoon watched the hunters begin to move and chewed on another Frost Pill.
KRR-CRACK!
Ice thorns erupted from the ground and the canyon walls. The monsters that had tried to climb the walls yelped and fell back. Sa-yoon drew his sword.
That’s right. The Frost skill isn’t specialized for offense.
He was the one specialized in offense. The skill itself was designed to shape the environment to the user’s advantage.
Sa-yoon exhaled a frosty breath and gestured toward the canyon floor. This time, ice arrows formed, harrying the monsters.
Arrows embedded themselves in the foreheads of the monsters that were tenaciously climbing the thorns, and all C-Rank and lower creatures froze solid. On this day, the hunters would learn firsthand what it truly meant to be an ally of a Frost skill user.