Chapter 324: Episode 324

I widened my eyes and stared into the sky. That distinct space-tearing effect was something only the Führer could use.

Soon, a massive black dragon poked its head out from the split space. Dozens of other rifts tore open around it, spewing out Fiends mounted on flying monsters. These weren’t your run-of-the-mill, ragtag Fiends. They were the powerhouses led personally by the Führer. Every single one of them had already transformed into their monster forms.

“How unexpected.”

The Führer’s scarlet eyes glared at me.

“I wondered what you were plotting when you disbanded the assault teams, but to think it was for the Magic Tower to push through alone. When even the entire world uniting wouldn’t be enough, you plan to break through with just your forces?”

“Just us is more than enough.”

The corners of the Führer’s mouth curled up into a sneer. Its head was that of a reptile, yet its subtle facial expressions were remarkably human-like.

“Bring me that arrogant bastard’s head.”

As soon as those words fell, the Fiends scrambled and rushed toward us through the air. Utilizing double and triple acceleration to break right through the barrage from our turrets and mages, the Fiends entered my attack range.

Just then, a green squall blasted outward around me. The leading Fiend was caught in the gust and ground to a halt, right before a flashing blur of light sliced cleanly through its neck.

“Haa.”

Ha Yerin, with her Icarus wings spread wide, spoke with a frighteningly serious expression.

“All Sky Castle teams, protect the Tower Master!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Undeniably the true elite of the Magic Tower now, the unit of mages equipped with Icarus wings flapped and soared into the sky.

“Kill him!”

Rifts continuously tore open around the Führer, spitting out more Fiends riding flying monsters.

I sent a signal through my earpiece. Since they were continuously replenishing their troops, I couldn’t just sit back and watch.

“Samia.”

“Initiating, hunter Kim Yusin,” she replied over the radio.

Wooooom!

This time, vibrant blue holes materialized in the sky right above the Sky Castle. What emerged from them were beings with human faces and mechanical bodies.

“R-Robots?”

The hunters muttered in confusion.

Jin Bora stared at me, her eyes wide.

“Sir, weren’t those still in development?”

“They were finished just in the nick of time. Allow me to introduce them,” I said, issuing the attack order. “They’re Earth’s first-generation androids, Adam.”

When the androids pulled the triggers on their staff-like devices, particle acceleration cannons erupted in rapid succession, tearing through the air like beams of blue laser light.

A single flash of light was all it took to instantly evaporate hundreds of monsters. It was a display of overwhelming firepower, hot enough to melt right through the thick plating of high-rank beasts.

The Führer’s face contorted in spectacular fury.

“Do not let yourselves be pushed back by outdated machines!”

Hundreds of Fiends swarmed toward the Adams in a frenzied wave.

But as fast as they rushed in, they plummeted into the churning ocean below. The relentless barrage of blinding flashes left their bodies riddled with smoldering holes. All around the battlefield, jaws dropped at the sheer, unexpected devastation.

It was a more than satisfactory debut.

I have no idea how that bastard Alber managed to hide something like this while he was still alive.

Alber had been a complete madman. Intoxicated by Eve’s ruthless policies, he had sought to mitigate the disaster’s threat by outright culling the human population.

It was an act of pure madness, no different from the cruelty of a Fiend. By slaughtering people without a second thought, he had risked the complete collapse of humanity’s very foundation. However…

Aside from his undeniable evil, the man hadn’t been entirely without a backup plan.

To eventually replace the hunters, he had been secretly developing these androids deep within the Sky Castle.

I had salvaged those near-complete prototypes from the fortress’s underground completely intact. From there, I created an upgraded model, seamlessly integrating technology from the 3rd-floor Golem Workshop and the 7th-floor Magitech Engineering sector.

-Tower Master. I have completed linking the mana diffusion network to all Adams.

I’m leaving it to you, Ea.

The Adams evaded the incoming barrage of monster projectiles through high-speed flight maneuvers, firing their particle acceleration cannons without a fraction of a second’s delay. The bodies of the pursuing Fiends were brutally and efficiently pierced through.

“Why are you letting yourselves be played by pieces of scrap metal?! Shoot them down!”

Just as the Fiends and monsters closed the distance, attempting to overwhelm the androids with sheer numbers, a specialized group of hunters flew past in a tight, diagonal formation. In their wake, the monsters’ bodies were sliced clean open, dark blood raining from the sky.

“Defend the androids!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Ha Yerin led the Sky Castle hunters, dominating the battlefield in every direction. At her flank, the Adams poured out their overwhelming, hyper-advanced firepower without holding anything back.

-Hunter Kim Yusin. The next warp is ready.

Permission granted. Launch it.

This time, a warp gate the size of a massive sports stadium unfolded in the midair, and an entire flying battleship breached the threshold, emerging from the dimensional rift.

It was an aerial battleship of a scale that easily rivaled the Sky Castle itself, the Helios.

Battleships utilizing mana-engine flight systems were a technology already developed in the United States, but with Derrick Rosbash joining our ranks, we had completely overhauled the design, transforming it into a specialized Magic Tower vessel.

-Helios bombardment commencing.

Heavy artillery ports clicked open all across the colossal ship’s hull and sweeping wings, raining down a devastating barrage of missiles.

-Turret reload complete.

-Commencing fire.

Having finished their reloading cycles, Eunsol’s turret golems joined the fray, pouring out another torrential wave of firepower. The mages who had been desperately holding the line until now were finally able to catch their breath and down their mana elixirs.

The airspace was absolute chaos, choking with blinding explosions, thick smoke, and the splattering gore of shredded monster flesh. The Sky Castle pushed relentlessly forward, and the sheer number of monsters and Fiends began to plummet in real-time.

This was the defense system we had meticulously built.

“You lowly insects!”

However, there was an inhuman power present that even this flawless system couldn’t deter. Tearing through the fabric of space, the massive, scaled arm of a black dragon descended violently upon the Sky Castle.

-Helios high-speed launch!

Enveloping its enormous hull in a glowing forcefield barrier, the battleship rocketed forward, ramming straight into the Führer’s plunging arm. Simultaneously, the Sky Castle tilted on its axis, revealing the heavy artillery batteries mounted along its underside.

Ha Yerin pointed her index finger dead at the Führer, and I quickly locked in the exact firing coordinates for the Magic Tower Destroyer.

“Fire,” she ordered.

“Fire,” I echoed.

Two blinding streams of concentrated firepower, possessing enough destructive force to level an entire city in seconds, slammed squarely into the Führer’s face.

The massive black dragon let out an agonizing, ear-splitting screech, violently recoiling before retreating back into the spatial rift.

“Everyone, stay alert,” I ordered, gripping my earpiece tightly. “It’s coming back.”

I was right.

The sky tore open once more. Directly above our heads, the dragon glared down fiercely at the Sky Castle and unhinged its massive, gaping maw.

A concentrated torrent of dark mana cascaded down toward us like a lethal waterfall.

“Ea!” I shouted.

-Helios forcefield activated at maximum output!

Shrouded in a dense, shimmering forcefield, the great battleship maneuvered directly into the path of the falling breath attack, shielding the castle by taking the apocalyptic blast with its entire reinforced hull.

The forcefield immediately began to spiderweb with cracks, the battleship’s upper section glowing a dangerous, super-heated red. However, buying just a brief moment was more than enough.

In that fleeting window of time, I grabbed the handle of the Specter strapped to my back and triggered a teleportation.

The Führer recoiled in shock.

The Specter’s coordinates dropped me right behind the Führer’s massive nape. The beast’s eyes swiveled, trying to react to the sudden spatial shift, but it was already too late.

I unleashed an eighth-order spell that utilized Chaos to forcibly carve out an alternate dimension.

<Alternate Dimension Creation>

Whoosh!

A pitch-black sphere erupted from the Specter, swelling outward like a rapidly inflating balloon until it swallowed the Führer’s colossal body whole.

I stepped onto the Devastar and leaped, boosting the Wing Golem to its absolute maximum speed so I could dive into the rift right alongside it.

As soon as I crossed the threshold, I halted the expansion of the newly formed world.

The Führer fell silent.

We were suspended in a pitch-black expanse filled with absolutely nothing.

The Führer and I stood in the void, facing each other down.

The black dragon. Now that its entire terrifying form was fully revealed, its sheer scale was breathtakingly colossal.

“To drag me out of the ’pit.’ What exactly is this space?”

“Magic,” I replied coolly.

Ethereal feathers fluttered away from my body, rapidly weaving into countless buff magic circles in the empty air. Seeing the display, the corners of the Führer’s massive maw curled upward into a sinister grin.

“It is all well and good that you managed to pull me in here, but are you truly that confident?”

Pitch-black mana began to violently waft from its scales, rising like thick, toxic smoke.

“I seem to recall you rolling around pathetically in the dirt a mere six months ago.”

“Cut the bullshit.”

I rolled my shoulders to loosen the tension and swung my arms to stretch.

“That was back in Seoul. There were a lot of innocent people around, so I was just buying time by pretending to lose. Out here, there’s no one for you to take hostage, and no delicate structures like the Seoul Tower to worry about.”

“Such arrogance.”

The Führer shook its massive head and reared back. Dark mana rapidly condensed within its maw, gathering with terrifying momentum.

“That very arrogance is exactly why humanity must be eradicated!”

I pulled back my right arm, centering my focus. The mana in my grasp converged, condensing into a single, blinding point of absolute power.

I prepared the seventh-order spell, Doomsday.

“See for yourself whether it’s arrogance or not.”

I thrust my hand forward, and the two apocalyptic flashes of light violently clashed in the center of the void.

*

“Enemy in the vanguard shot down!”

“We need immediate support at our seven o’clock!”

The battle raged on without a moment’s reprieve.

Countless artillery bombardments obliterated the endlessly surging waves of monsters. Jin Bora, having seamlessly returned to her role as a Supporter, was actively assisting the airborne hunters by tossing potent healing potions up to them.

“Whoa! Move! Get out of the way!”

Bora snapped her head up just in time to see Ha Yerin flailing wildly as she plummeted from the sky, her mechanical wings visibly torn.

Bora hastily took a step back. A split second later, Yerin crashed into that exact spot, her momentum sending her tumbling across the hard deck several times.

“Yerin! Are you okay?” Bora yelled, rushing over.

Yerin abruptly sat up, rubbing her head as she let out an awkward, embarrassed little laugh.

“Ugh… flying is still so ridiculously hard.”

“Hold still, let me look at your wounds,” Bora instructed.

She dropped to one knee, her eyes scanning over the younger woman’s injuries. Raw, bleeding lacerations were visible wherever her tactical suit had been shredded, but fortunately, the damage wasn’t life-threatening.

Uncapping an elixir, Bora poured the stinging liquid directly over the worst of the cuts. Yerin immediately shrieked, thrashing about and making a massive fuss over the pain.

Bora gave Yerin’s thigh a firm, stinging smack. “I said, hold still.”

“Ow, but it hurts…”

Bora offered a wry smile at the whining girl. “Yerin.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit of a tragicomedy for the Lord of the Sky Castle to be this bad at flying?”

Yerin’s face flushed a brilliant shade of crimson. “H-Hey, that’s…!”

“And why is it that every single time you put on a combat suit, it ends up completely shredded?”

“Ah!” Yerin shrieked again, hurriedly crossing her arms to cover her exposed skin. “Isn’t this suit just defective?!”

“That ’defective’ suit costs as much as a fleet of luxury sports cars.”

Having fully healed the last of the superficial wounds, Bora waved over a nearby subordinate and ordered them to fetch a replacement suit.

“I wonder if Yusin is safe,” Bora murmured, her gaze drifting upward to the ominous black void suspended in the sky above.

“Of course he’s safe!” Yerin chimed in. “He’s undeniably the strongest hunter in the entire world!”

Bora flashed a subtle, almost unreadable smile. “I’ve been watching him since our academy days, you know. Honestly? Even if he were just fighting off a stray deer in the woods, I’d still be worried sick about him.”

Yerin blinked. “…Huh? Why?”

“Because no matter who or what he’s fighting, he’s the type of guy who never spares a single thought for his own well-being.”

Just then, anxious murmurs erupted from the surrounding forces. People were raising their arms, pointing frantically at the sky.

As the two women snapped their heads up, they saw something massive plummeting out of the black void.

“Oh my god…” Bora breathed.

It was a sight that made them doubt their own eyes. The massive, decapitated body of the black dragon was free-falling. When it finally crashed into the churning ocean below, a mountainous spray of water surged violently into the air.

At that exact same moment, the distinct, mechanical roar of a Wing Golem’s engine reached their ears.

“Ahhh!” Yerin cried out, startled.

She stumbled backward, landing flat on her rear. Before she could even process what was happening, the dragon’s severed head, easily the size of a boulder, slammed onto the deck right next to her.

And there was Yusin. He had ridden the massive trophy down, his grip tight around the Führer’s horn as he stood atop the severed head, gasping heavily for breath.

His Meister Mode immediately deactivated, the glowing azure robes vanishing as if melting away into thin air.

“Y-Yusin?” Yerin stammered, staring up at him.

Looking down at Yerin, whose eyes were wide as saucers, Yusin managed a tired smirk.

“Well,” he panted. “That was intense.”

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