Saturday.
Junhyuk checked on everyone: the champion, the experts and the novices. Two of the novices did no wake up on Friday.
He would divide the reward for the destruction of the New Delhi tear to include those in comas. At that moment, Lucy was in front of the group, briefing them. It wasn’t their first time destroying a tear, so it didn’t feel like it would be difficult.
Destroying the tear was difficult for the people entering it, but outside, the monsters were rather simple. Junhyuk would be the one to handle the A-ranked monsters, and the group could handle the other monsters if they were given time.
Once Lucy finished her briefing, Junhyuk patted her shoulder. He was just about to speak when Brigadier Johnson walked up to him and whispered in his ear, “Starting today, ten iron soldiers will join our battalion.”
“Iron soldiers?”
“Yes. They are older models, but they are better equipped to deal with monster waves.”
There was a big difference between having iron soldiers with them and not.
“Tell Lucy about them.”
“Yes, sir”
Brigadier Johnson went over to talk to Lucy. Meanwhile, Junhyuk went up to the podium and said, “Guardians has sent ten iron soldiers to help us with the monster waves. We’ll advance our timeline in destroying the tear.”
He continued calmly, “More powered people are showing up around the world, so we’ll also build a reserve team. We’ll train them so that we can rotate teams.”
More novices and experts were volunteering, and Junhyuk wanted to build another battalion rather than having them join the existing one.
If Jeffrey and Ling Ling worked even harder, they would be able to get rid of monster areas twice as fast. With each passing day, the world’s economy suffered, and people said that getting rid of monster areas was too difficult.
For those reason, Junhyuk was thinking about speeding things up.
Iron soldiers were better than novices. On top of that, their weaponry was coated with decomposition liquid. With them in play, everyone felt more at ease with the battle ahead.
The novices nodded. A few wanted to complain because another battalion meant less money individually in the long run, but they did not say anything.
Junhyuk looked at them and said, “Then, let’s go destroy that monster area.”
They all got in their assigned vehicles and headed for the center of New Delhi. The city’s center was filled with elephant and ox monsters. The army had lured them to one side of the border, but because the monsters were enormous, the buildings in the area had been destroyed by them.
Junhyuk pulled out his swords and said, “Let’s begin.”
He slashed the elephants and oxen and advanced into the area. The entire group went inside, but they didn’t come across any other monsters. Junhyuk was a little shocked that he couldn’t find anything. At the center of the monster area, he came up against the A-ranked monster. It was a massive, bipedal elephant with six arms. The other monsters were surrounding it.
There weren’t many monsters, but they were all so big that they filled the space entirely. Junhyuk smacked his lips at the sight. He knew he would have to work harder.
He turned to the group. They seemed a bit tense. Behind them, were the ten iron soldiers. The older model carried powerful weapons, and the monsters wouldn’t be able to ignore that firepower.
He said calmly, “Iron soldiers, attack!”
Junhyuk could kill the monsters by himself, but he wanted to use the iron soldiers. The iron soldiers started shooting. A barrage of tiny missiles coated in decomposition liquid flew toward the monster formation, piercing the monsters and exploding inside them.
Junhyuk watched as the number of monsters decreased rapidly, measuring the distance between himself and them. The B- and C-ranked monsters were disappearing, and Junhyuk decided that he would run up and kill the A-ranked monster.
His equipment buffed his magic defense, so he could ignore the flames caused by the missiles. As Junhyuk ran forward, he saw something coming out of the dimensional tear.
“Ling Ling! Jeffrey!” he shouted.
They both looked at the dimensional tear. The group was bunched up, and suddenly, monsters started pouring out of the tear. There was no end to the wave coming out.
Leading that wave, were A-ranked monsters.
Junhyuk had previously come across four or five A-ranked monsters inside tears. Now, there were four A-ranked monsters exiting the tear.
Junhyuk had thought the monsters were supposed to stay in the tear, but they were all coming out. He scowled and ran ahead. Meanwhile, more monsters poured out.
There were flying snakes in the sky. Junhyuk had fought them before. However, among them, was yet another monster flying. It was a flying A-ranked monster. It looked like a snake, but it had bat wings.
“There are five!?”
That wasn’t necessarily correct. Including the original elephant, there were six. He thought that there probably weren’t any more monsters left inside the tear, but the B- and C-ranked monsters’ numbers were in the hundreds.
“RETREAT! Leave the monster area!” he shouted quickly.
Junhyuk also had a limit, and there were too many A-ranked monsters. He had to retreat immediately and take a select team of people to kill all of them. His force field could only cover about five people at once.
Lucy, the novice team commander, shouted, “Form up and retreat! Defensive line! Iron soldiers, attack the flying monsters!”
As she gave out the orders, the iron soldiers flew up. However, they had already used the bulk of their weaponry to deal with the monsters on the ground.
From his perspective, Junhyuk had gotten help from the iron soldiers so that he would be able to fight inside the tear more at ease. However, thanks to him, the situation had turned out really bad.
Junhyuk scoped out the A-ranked monsters. There was a Ghost White Tiger, a Salamander, a Wolf Warlord, and a Giant Gorilla on top of the others mentioned. If they all attacked at the same time, the allies wouldn’t be able to retreat. There were too many of them, and they were about to move.
Junhyuk ran forward and looked up to see the flying snakes and the A-ranked flying monster. He couldn’t reach them. He wanted to kill them first, but under the open sky, they were too high up.
As he ran forward, he shouted, “Ling Ling, make a path! Jeffrey, cover the rear!”
“Yes, sir!”
Junhyuk had asked Ling Ling and Jeffrey for help, but he wasn’t sure if they would be able to stop the Winged Serpent. It would be possible for them if Jeffrey summoned the Ghost White Tiger while Ling Ling covered him. There were fifty B-ranked flying snakes.
Usually, fifty was the total number of B-ranked monsters within a monster area. The flying snakes filled the sky, aiming for the powered people. Could they fight against that?
Junhyuk would do his best. His work had been getting easy, so in his overconfidence, he had acted carelessly this time. However, even if he had know about what would happen, nothing would have changed. He had been delivered a decisive blow that had spurred a mindset change.
Junhyuk ran ahead, and the flying snakes swooped at the group. There were a lot of monsters attacking the allies at once, and it would be nearly impossible to kill them all.
The A-ranked monsters started to move toward him. Their goal was to keep him busy.
“OK! Let’s see who wins!”
Junhyuk accelerated, quickly closing the distance between them, but the Wolf Warlord triggered its transformation, becoming just as fast as he was.
However, there were other A-ranked monsters around—not just the wolf—and Junhyuk had to kill them as fast as possible.
He measured the distance between the A-ranked monsters and him and teleported. As soon as he got close, he used his Spatial Collapse on the Salamander. The monster was crushed, and the Giant Gorilla and Ghost White Tiger nearby were sucked in.
Junhyuk used his Spatial Slash on the gorilla’s neck. Due to the Spatial Collapse, the gorilla was off balance when the Spatial Slash hit. With that, Junhyuk killed two A-ranked monsters. However, three remained in front of him.
The Wolf Warlord rushed him then.
Clang!
He blocked its attack, but the Wolf Warlord continued to combo him. However, because Junhyuk had been sparring against Sarang’s electric arrows, which weren’t restricted on Earth, his swordsmanship had improved.
The Wolf Warlord’s claw was blocked, but when he was about to counter, he felt something. Without his spatial sense, he wouldn’t have noticed it.
Junhyuk dodged the energy beam, which tore through where he had been standing and smashed against the ground.
When Junhyuk turned to look, he saw the A-ranked elephant-headed monster smirking at him. One of its hands was moving.
The Wolf Warlord attacked him again, and the Ghost White Tiger joined the fight.
Junhyuk was fighting with every bit of his senses. When he sensed the elephant’s energy beam again, he dodged it. At that moment, he was sure. The elephant was a long range attacker.
The monsters were already inside the allied formation, and Junhyuk gritted his teeth.
“Fine! Let’s fight for real!”
Junhyuk raised the force field around himself and ran at the Wolf Warlord. The monster tried to kick him, but since the force field was covering him, he slashed the Wolf Warlord’s leg.
The Frozen Rune Sword debuffed the Wolf Warlord’s speed, and he cut the Wolf Warlord’s neck, killing it.
Another energy beam came from the distance, and Junhyuk dodged it again. Then, the Ghost White Tiger started running. It was heading in the direction of the other powered people.
Gritting his teeth, Junhyuk teleported. The Ghost White Tiger tried to swat him with its tail, but Junhyuk blocked it with one of his swords, stabbing the monster’s neck. The swords pierced the Ghost White Tiger’s spine, killing it instantly.
Junhyuk turned around and saw that the elephant was moving all of its hands.
“Shit!”
