Chapter 329: Episode 329

“Samia. Begin.”

A colossal warp gate, shimmering like an inverted blue lake, ripped open in the midair above them.

The first structure to breach the portal was Ha Yerin’s magnificent Sky Castle.

“Misteeeeer!”

Ha Yerin leaned over the battlements of the floating fortress, waving her arms frantically as the wind whipped through her hair. Yusin offered a faint smile and waved back.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” her voice carried down to him.

“Yeah, I’m perfectly fine.”

An earth-shattering tremor rumbled from the depths of the gate. A monstrous hermit crab, lugging a reinforced conch shell the size of a luxury cruise ship, scuttled out of the blue portal on dozens of heavily armored legs.

It was ’Shelter,’ the mobile fortress belonging to the Lion Fleet.

“Official rank-2 Sham and the entire Lion Fleet, joining the frontlines.”

The massive beast came to a rumbling halt. A white-haired woman leaped lightly from the top of the conch shell, landing gracefully on the dirt.

“It is an honor to fight alongside you once again, Tower Master.”

Dressed in an immaculate naval uniform adorned with countless military medals, she was Sham, widely feared and respected under the alias ’Admiral.’ She lowered her hand from her earpiece and shook Yusin’s hand with a firm grip.

“You’ve changed again since I last saw you,” Yusin noted. The last time they had met, she had worn the appearance of a young woman in her twenties, but she had since reverted to her true age, proudly wearing the weathered features of a woman in her sixties.

She offered a wry smile. “I do tend to age rather quickly.”

Above Yusin’s head, another warp gate dilated, and an ancient, spectral sailing ship straight out of a ghost story soared into the bleak sky.

“Official rank-2 Marie Gold and one thousand Ghost Corps members have officially joined the attack force,” the Spirit King’s ethereal voice echoed across the plains. “I’m glad you’re safe, Kim Yusin.”

“Thanks for coming, Marie.”

Marie leaned over the prow of the hovering ghost ship, giving him a confident nod.

The piercing cry of a horse tore through the air. A pristine carriage drawn by two magnificent white steeds galloped out of the warp and stopped precisely in front of Yusin. The door opened, and a regal woman stepped out.

Clad in immaculate white holy vestments and bearing a silver cross necklace, she radiated divine authority.

“I offer my greetings, Senior. I am Archbishop Lucia, the one currently leading the Holy Knights.” She bowed gracefully, lightly pinching the hem of her skirt.

“Ah, are you Marcello’s successor?” Yusin asked.

“Yes. It is but a meager effort, but I am doing my utmost to fill the vast vacancy he left behind.”

“He saved my life more times than I can count. I look forward to fighting alongside the Holy Knights.”

As Lucia took her place, the sky above was rapidly blanketed by over a hundred white assault helicopters. It was the state-of-the-art aerial armada the Holy Knights so proudly boasted of.

And there was one more arrival.

“Move out of the waaaaay!”

Yusin glanced up just in time to see a massive pyramid of pure, solid sand plummeting out of the warp gate.

The pyramid hit the earth like a meteor, kicking up a blinding cloud of dust. With a heavy, metallic clanking sound, the structure began to mechanically unfold. Like a perfectly synchronized puzzle, the thick walls split apart and aggressively reassembled, exposing massive inner chambers. The Gravekeepers resting within those chambers simultaneously rose to their feet.

Statues of Anubis and remnants of ancient ruins erupted from the earth beneath them. Countless sand sarcophagi slid open, unleashing an army of undead guardians.

In the very center of the formation, a grand curtain of falling earth parted to reveal a towering staircase. Sitting atop those stairs, legs casually crossed upon a throne of shifting sand, was the Pharaoh herself.

“Official rank-1 Pharaoh Menes and three thousand Gravekeepers have fully joined the battlefield!”

Yusin chuckled under his breath. Han Yoonjeong leaped off the top of the stairs, gracefully surfing down to him on a magic carpet woven entirely of sand.

“You must have practiced for hours in front of a mirror to pull off an entrance like that,” Yusin teased.

“Shut your mouth!” she snapped, though a fierce grin tugged at her lips.

Just then, a raspy, utterly repulsive burst of laughter erupted from behind them.

Everyone turned to see the Führer, still helplessly pinned to the dirt by the sealing magic, cackling wildly.

“So you’ve come, you detestable World Guild!”

“What the hell is up with the dragon head?” Han Yoonjeong asked, grimacing.

“It’s the Führer,” Yusin replied smoothly. “Turns out the cockroach is still alive.”

“Huh? That ugly thing is him?”

The Führer’s draconic maw twisted into a mocking sneer.

“Yes, yes. The Magic Tower and the World Guild. That really is the absolute best you can scrape together with your pathetic connections. But look around! Do you see anyone else coming?”

He had a point. Following the World Guild’s dramatic arrival, the warp gate remained wide open, but the stream of reinforcements had trickled to a sudden halt.

“The rest of the world will not move a single inch!” the Führer gloated. “The US Vice President, the Chairman of BHL, Official rank-1’s fourth-place Esper, and even the Alliance’s Military Commander! There is not a single seat of power in this world that our Fiends haven’t poisoned, and every conflicting interest is sharply entangled in cowardice!”

The expressions of the gathered hunters darkened as the Führer spouted the familiar, powerful names.

“No, even without our beautiful sabotage, this is the absolute limit of humanity. A total offensive from the towers is happening on Earth as we speak. Right now, their precious citizens are being massacred in the streets, and hunters are desperately scarce. Who in their right mind would willingly step into this hellscape, banking their lives on a zero percent chance of survival?!”

Ea, Yusin called out telepathically, completely unfazed.

Is it ready?

-It is all finished.

Broadcast it now.

*

Underground Shelter No. 7 in Seongdong-gu, Seoul.

In the dark, damp, mold-infested concrete bunker, countless terrified civilians were huddled tightly together on the freezing floor.

Shrill screams erupted from all corners of the shelter as a heavy, dragging noise echoed from the ceiling. The survivors were so deeply traumatized that even the faintest vibration from above struck them with paralyzing terror.

At night, when the monsters roaming the ruined city grew more active, the sounds became infinitely worse. The unmistakable sound of massive beasts violently sniffing the earth for human scent. The frantic, scraping sounds of claws furiously trying to dig through the rubble.

What if they find us? The silent question hung heavily over the room. People were fraught with debilitating anxiety, forced to endure the agonizing terror while staring blankly into the dark, unable to sleep.

A suffocating silence weighed heavily on the survivors. A young boy, who had been staring anxiously at the cracked ceiling, took a meager bite of his rationed bread. It was stale and hard as a rock, but he worked up enough saliva to force the tasteless lump down his throat.

The boy’s existence in the shelter was a waking nightmare. Unspeakably horrific things had occurred in such a short span of time. His mother had slowly lost her mind to the suffocating terror, eventually hanging herself right in front of him with a final, tear-soaked apology. His father had left one morning, claiming he was going to scavenge for extra rations, and never returned.

And the rest of the survivors trapped in the underground shelter were rapidly losing their humanity, just like the boy’s parents.

They had completely abandoned their dignity. Driven purely by base instinct and primal panic, they acted like condemned prisoners who knew they were going to die tomorrow.

Directly across from the boy, a man and a woman were shamelessly writhing against each other in the gloom, leaking heated moans into the stagnant air. They didn’t care that a child was sitting mere feet away. Driven mad by the end of the world, young men and women would aggressively embrace and grope one another the second their eyes met, desperately seeking physical comfort in the dark.

“God has not abandoned us! You must believe with all your heart to survive! Now, let us all put our hands together and pray!”

A fanatical worship service was in full swing in the room across the hallway. Dozens of men and women of all ages were kneeling on the filthy floor, weeping and praying until their voices gave out.

If one were to walk through the main corridor, the sheer number of people resorting to fanaticism was staggering. Faced with the crushing terror of a cataclysm that defied all human logic, the masses had flocked to radical religion in a desperate bid for salvation.

And naturally, predators walked among them. A man proclaiming himself a newly appointed pastor wandered the aisles with a plastic grocery bag, aggressively declaring that it was time to collect offerings.

Starving people willingly dropped their only remaining scraps of bread and meager rations into the plastic bag. Then, they dropped their heads and begged God to save them.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna move?”

“You wanna die, you little punk?”

Rough, violent voices echoed from the far corner.

Two men were savagely trading punches, brawling over a few inches of floor space. Fights broke out several times a day now. A middle-aged man violently shoved his opponent to the ground, picked up a jagged chunk of loose concrete, and began mercilessly smashing it into the man’s forehead.

No one stopped them. The surrounding crowd simply watched the brutal bloodshed with dead, hollow eyes. Most of them had completely lost all hope, utterly giving up on life.

It had reached a bleak point where it was literally impossible to tell if the bodies lying motionlessly on the floor were just sleeping, or if they had quietly died.

There was nothing but pure, suffocating darkness, no matter where one looked.

Seeking a brief escape from this suffocating hell, the boy looked away from the bloody brawl and stared down at his cracked phone screen. He mindlessly navigated to the news section of the underground survivor network.

He just wanted a shred of good news. He desperately hoped that maybe humanity was fighting back, and that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to leave this concrete tomb someday.

But then…

There was news. The screen suddenly refreshed.

[Prophet Oracle: Major Announcement in 10 Minutes!]

[100% Accuracy Oracle’s Final Prophecy: Global Simultaneous Release in 10 Minutes!]

The rumor must have instantly spread among the hopeless masses in the shelter, as the weeping and fighting momentarily paused. Everyone began muttering in confusion, frantically checking their own deadened devices.

Just what kind of conclusion will this horrific life have? People couldn’t help but wonder.

And so, the longest ten minutes in the history of the world slowly ticked by.

Finally, Oracle’s message was released to the globe.

“What the hell is this?” a middle-aged woman sitting next to the boy muttered, staring blankly at her glowing screen.

“…Look at the sky?”

*

The Prophet, Oracle.

Before Nemesis had risen, the government and the hunter association had announced a large-scale mandatory evacuation plan…

The citizens were shocked to learn that the reason they were being herded underground was all due to the prophecy of a single seer.

They were doubly stunned to realize the entire world was doing the exact same thing.

-A prophecy? You’re forcing people underground based on unscientific bullshit?

-What is this, voodoo politics? LMAO

-The world has truly gone mad.

Naturally, complaints and criticism flooded in, but strangely enough, the World Alliance and global governments stood completely firm. They relied on Oracle’s words to a bewildering degree.

In truth, the Alliance and the upper echelons of global leadership used to be Oracle’s biggest deniers.

However, over the past few years, Oracle’s prophecies hadn’t been wrong even once. Even if they didn’t want to believe the seer, they had no choice.

As time passed, the hunter world’s dependency on Oracle only grew. The recent drastic reduction in casualties from global disasters and anomalies was entirely thanks to him.

Yusin, who had spearheaded the Oracle Project, had vowed never to use this power for personal gain. There were countless times when using Oracle would have made solving problems significantly easier, but Yusin strictly maintained his neutrality. He strived to provide only objective information, guarding his true identity to the bitter end.

Na Daeyong, who succeeded Yusin as the Master of the Magic Tower, also considered Oracle an untouchable domain. He, too, had protected the seer’s purity.

As time flowed on, Oracle came to wield more influence than anyone else on Earth. Though he never acted directly, he was unofficially the player who had saved the most lives in the world—the savior of humanity.

So, when news broke that Oracle was about to announce a final prophecy, the entire world went on high alert.

“Isn’t it about time for Oracle to make the announcement?” someone murmured.

“I just got out here,” another hunter replied. “I feel like watching it is only going to depress me.”

The hunters gathered in the New Continent were buzzing about the impending message.

“Ah, come to think of it, I crossed over without seeing the prophecy,” Han Yoonjeong said, as if suddenly remembering. Not even she knew Oracle’s true identity.

Yusin held up his phone, pretending to check the screen. “The message just popped up.”

“Oh, we have a signal?” Yoonjeong asked, leaning in. “What does it say? Tell me!”

Yusin lifted his head. “It says to look at the sky.”

“…Huh?”

At his words, everyone looked up.

Perhaps at this very moment, every single person on Earth was doing the exact same thing. The people hiding underground were likely watching through their screens.

However, all that was visible above them was a cold, horrific reality.

[5,781,909,322 -> 1,000,000,000]

[00:00:00]

It was a countdown announcing the apocalypse, written in blood-red letters.

“What about that… wait, huh?”

“The numbers are changing!”

As the entire world watched with bated breath, clear blue letters painted over the dreadful countdown. While everyone murmured in confusion, Yusin simply curled the corners of his lips.

Right now.

Oracle was going to lie for the very first time.

For this single moment, he was going to shatter the neutrality he had painstakingly maintained for years.

“That’s…!”

Using field magic, he drew the words across the sky. His final prophecy as Oracle.

[Humans will survive.]

A flat-out lie.

“…Ah.”

And yet, despite that—

“…Ahhh! Ahhhhhhh!”

It was exactly what humanity needed.

“Oooooooooooh!”

Faces flushed with adrenaline, the hunters threw their arms up and cheered. Tears spilled down their cheeks as they embraced one another and thrust clenched fists toward the heavens. The cheers swelled into a massive roar, spreading through the ranks like wildfire.

“What a pathetic joke!”

The Chancellor, having seen the sky, shrieked in a frenzy.

“Do you really think humans would believe such garbage?!”

Yusin smiled brightly.

That was exactly the point. People would doubt it.

Is Oracle’s Prophetic Ability even real?

And even if it is real, is Oracle truly telling the truth right now?

Even if Oracle saw a future of absolute destruction, couldn’t he just be lying to reassure the masses and quell the panic?

People would endlessly doubt the message.

—Certified Rank 1, Gabriel, is joining the assault squad.

Precisely because of that.

—Certified Rank 2, Heinz, along with 100,000 U.S. troops, are joining.

The people who had felt a fleeting sense of hope would begin to think.

—Certified Rank 1, Wang Ya, and seven management companies have joined.

To turn Oracle’s prophecy into reality, how do we need to move?

What do we need to do to have a fighting chance?

Where do we need to go right now?

The sky dyed blue. Over thousands of warp gates tore open, and through them, hunters from all over the world converged on the New Continent.

American mobile battleships breached the clouds, followed by the heavy tread of German mana tanks and Russian mechanized infantry. It was a sight more thrilling than anything else in the world. Every single hunter’s face was flushed with fierce excitement.

Certified Rank 1, Gabriel, emerged from a portal.

“Heh! Hehehehe!”

With bloodshot eyes, he tore off his shirt, unable to contain his surging adrenaline. Thrusting his index finger toward the sky, he screamed, the veins in his neck bulging.

“Humans!”

The surrounding hunters threw their arms high and roared back in unison.

“Will survive!!!”

They howled, cheered, and steeled their resolve.

“Wooooooaaahhh!”

“Let’s go!”

“We can do this!”

“It’s not over yet!”

“Death to Nemesis!”

Humanity’s assault squad was an elite force strictly composed of Rank 3 hunters and above.

There were 100,000 in the 1st assault squad.

150,000 in the 2nd.

And now, the number of troops gathering in the New Continent had surpassed a staggering total of one million.

“W-What is this…! How on earth could this happen?!”

The Chancellor’s face distorted before draining completely pale. Yusin crouched down, meeting his eyes, and flashed a sharp grin.

“Sorry, Chancellor.”

Then, he slowly plunged Specter straight into the center of the man’s heart.

“We are going to win.”

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