Six beams of energy flew toward him, and Junhyuk put all his trust in his force field as he ran forward.
The force field was a type of armor for him. The only difference was that the force field made him invincible for a time. However, it could still be pushed away with him in it.
He had to dodge the six beams. There was no way he could do that one by one, so he had to evade all of them and move on.
Junhyuk closed in quickly, and somehow, the six beams crazed him from all sides, but he managed to pass them by through the middle of their paths.
When he felt the pressure pushing him back, he put more strength in his footing and kicked forward. Feeling that he was closing in, the elephant-headed monster extended its hands forward.
This time, the beams shot out in sequence. It wouldn’t be easy to evade them all with how close he was to the monster. So, Junhyuk swung his swords at the beams, parrying those he couldn’t evade and closing the distance between himself and the monster even more.
He was really close now, but it had taken him too long to get there. His force field vanished, but Junhyuk triggered his acceleration and moved. The elephant swung its trunk at him.
Junhyuk tensed when he saw the whip-like trunk flying toward him. It was fast.
He tried to slash the trunk with his sword…
Clang!
… but the sword did no damage. Just like the dragon’s scales, the trunk wasn’t even scratched.
Junhyuk gritted his teeth and swung at it again. He had his acceleration triggered, but the trunk was just as fast as him.
“This one is harder than the others that came before it.”
Not all A-ranked monsters were the same, or so it seemed. As time progressed, the A-ranked monsters became more difficult to deal with. Junhyuk also noticed that they were based on Earth’s history and culture, which meant that management had to have created them specifically for this.
The new monsters’ level was entirely different from the Battlefield monsters. Previously, only the transformed Wolf Warlord could match his acceleration. Now, he was fighting a monster that could match his speed with its “weapon.”
It seemed those new monsters had been created with him in mind. Perhaps, the Dimensional Battlefield management didn’t just take monsters from other dimensions. Perhaps, they always made new ones based on those dimensions.
Junhyuk gritted his teeth. Management didn’t make things easy for him, and the managers had to have accounted for him in their plans.
In that sense, he had to be ready as well. From now on, he would attack dimensional tears at full power.
Suddenly, the path of his sword changed, and so did the mana attached to the blade.
“Clang!”
The elephant’s trunk bounced back with the impact. Junhyuk had made up his mind. He had become someone different.
The doubts and paranoia growing in his mind were gone. He had settled himself, and his decision to always go at full strength changed his swordsmanship.
His sword became different.
Junhyuk started gaining the upper hand on the elephant monster. He knew it, and the A-ranked monster knew it too. For that reason, the monster changed its focus. Six sharp beams of energy flew toward Junhyuk, aimed at him.
The monster knew its trunk wouldn’t be enough by itself. However, Junhyuk parried the monster’s attacks and continued with his own attack.
His movements were extremely fluid, which surprised both himself and the monster. Junhyuk swung at it. His acceleration wasn’t simply fast now. It also had finesse.
“Wrraaah!!” the elephant screamed before its voice disappeared.
Junhyuk did not stop there, twisting the sword further. The elephant’s head split in two, and Junhyuk turned around to look back at the group. The allies were retreating, but it would be a long way back.
Junhyuk ran toward them and took stock of the situation. It looked like all of the monsters inside the tear had come out. He wanted to enter it and destroy it, but he didn’t know how long that would take, so he couldn’t do it now.
Saving his allies was his first priority.
Junhyuk saw the Winged Serpent above him. It dropped to the ground in an attack. Jeffrey’s Ghost White Tiger was fighting it.
The Ghost White Tiger could jump high, but it couldn’t quite reach the Winged Serpent. After attacking, it would fly back up, buying itself more time.
Junhyuk ran toward it. The Ghost White Tiger disappeared, and the Winged Serpent swooped down with an army of flying snakes.
Fifty B-ranked monsters was like a natural disaster for novices. Ten novices had already died, and the experts also didn’t look well.
Junhyuk ran toward them, opening a path through the sea of monsters. He easily swung at B- and C-ranked monsters, and they fell dead.
However, there were too many monsters. Although many of them died with each swing of his sword, he had to step over their corpses to get through them. Meanwhile, another novice was killed.
Ling Ling was fighting desperately. She had her hands full fighting the Winged Serpent now that the Ghost White Tiger was gone and, if anything at all went wrong, she could easily die.
The only reason she was still alive was because the Winged Serpent had been preoccupied with the Ghost White Tiger for a while. The new A-ranked monsters were really strong.
Junhyuk gritted his teeth and ran faster.
The Winged Serpent dodged Ling Ling’s wing blade attack and flew even higher. It circled above her, opening its mouth and spewing acid like a fountain.
“Move!” he shouted.
The acid quickly dispersed in the air, and even his force field wouldn’t be able to cover that area. What should he do?
Then, Jeffrey raised his hand up high, and Junhyuk sensed energy coming from it. The energy wrapped around the Winged Serpent’s neck, restraining it. Considering the size of the Winged Serpent’s body, Jeffrey would have a hard time controlling it.
This was another one of Jeffrey’s powers, which he must have just activated. The Winged Serpent froze in mid air, and Jeffrey shouted as he moved it like a kite, “Get under the Winged Serpent!”
People hid under the monster, and the acid fell on the battlefield like rain. It started melting everything it hit, creating a poisonous gas as it did. The powered people held their breaths.
Ling Ling attacked the Winged Serpent with the Wolf Warlord’s claw sword, but when the energy from Jeffrey’s hand disappeared, the Winged Serpent went berserk. It dodged Ling Ling’s attack while making to slam its body on the people underneath it. Those there might end up crushed.
Junhyuk finally got to the Winged Serpent. As soon as he did, he touched the monster and teleported away, to the top of a nearby building. When they appeared, his sword pierced the Winged Serpent’s brain. He twisted it to make sure the monster was dead.
The Winged Serpent could fly and spew acid that created a poisonous gas.
Junhyuk looked around. All A-ranked monsters were gone. The B- and C-ranked monsters were now leaderless and hesitating.
“Get out of the monster area!” he shouted, and the powered people started running.
When he got to the ground, he looked at the monsters on the roads and buildings. He had not expected so many. Junhyuk held his sword tightly, which was exuding a different energy, a murderous intent, and the monsters hesitated to approach him and the rest of the group.
He stepped back slowly, and the monsters stepped forward with him. They kept an even distance, fifty meters. No monsters dared come within his range.
Did the monsters know about the range of his Spatial Slash? He would have to increase that as well. Junhyuk had a lot of work to do.
Junhyuk slowly moved back, and the monsters followed him, but they did not attack. He successfully defended the group’s retreat.
Once he was out of the monster area, the monsters ran up against the border howling and roaring. When hearing those sounds, the only thing Junhyuk could think of was killing them. So, he used his Spatial Slash with the single-point explosion.
Boom!
The loud explosion killed a large quantity of monsters, but Junhyuk did not reenter the monster area. Instead, he turned to look at the group. They were exhausted. They had barely survived.
As he stood in front of them, he asked, “Lucy, casualties?”
“All ten iron soldiers and seventeen novices.” She brought her head closer to his and whispered, “Yonghong, the Chinese expert, is dead.”
Junhyuk sighed and turned to Ling Ling. She had just realized Yonghong was dead. She looked awkwardly at him, and Junhyuk said, “I’m sorry.”
Ling Ling shook her head and replied, “You shouldn’t apologize, DK.”
Everything about this tear had gone differently from before. There was nothing they could have done about that.
Junhyuk said calmly, “Take care of the injured, and we will take a rest.”
He looked at Jeffrey, who was now a champion, but Jeffrey didn’t seem happy. Jeffrey didn’t know about the specific casualties yet.
Junhyuk sent the injured to the medical corp outside of the monster border. Almost everyone was wounded.
The only powered person with healing power was completely pale from the continued use of that power.
Brigadier Johnson walked up to Junhyuk and took him inside a tent. It was over, so now, they had to take care of the aftermath.
Junhyuk called Lucy and Ling Ling to join him. Inside the tent, monitors were set up that contained Eunseo and the other delegates on their screens.
They looked seriously worried. The event had been broadcast to them live.
Eunseo spoke first, “No one is individually responsible for what happened.”
Junhyuk thought about her statement. He had attacked the monster area because he had trusted himself to handle it. However, there was a limit to what he could do.
“This is my responsibility.”
Junhyuk had realized one thing while dealing with that last monster area: management had been prepared. So, he would also be prepared. He would use everything available to him to crush their strategies.
He said slowly, “Now, we move at full force.”
