I honestly wanted to burst out laughing.
Now, even just approaching this area made the monsters’ bodies catch fire with Paradoxical Flames.
“Hiiiek… heeek…”
The sea of Paradoxical Flame spread all around now drained the enemies’ stamina in an instant, like how a wildfire consumes everything in a flash.
The ones whose stamina had nearly burned away now got winded just walking a few steps and couldn’t move properly.
“It’s fine. I’m planning to kill you soon, so just rest for now.”
If I killed them now, the fuel for the Paradoxical Flame, their stamina, would disappear.
“Then the mana concentration in the atmosphere would stop increasing too.”
Standing still, I absorbed the mana emitted by the Paradoxical Flame, and kept expanding and strengthening the meridians in my body.
“Idiots. Did you get sprayed with insecticide or what?”
The ones collapsed on the ground, occasionally twitching their limbs, then gasping as even that became too difficult, looked exactly like flies that had been hit with bug spray.
“Where’s the leader and what is he doing?”
I couldn’t see the core of the Erosion Zone. It had to be much stronger than these others.
“You’ll have to show up eventually.”
I calmly sat down, focused my mind even more, and kept absorbing mana. After a couple of hours, the burning Paradoxical Flames gradually weakened, having nothing left to burn, and soon extinguished completely.
“This is about 20% of the mana Kim Minjae built up.”
Twenty percent of the mana Kim Minjae had stored in his body, this was the maximum amount of mana my strengthened meridians could absorb consistently.
“It’s good that I powered up all at once.”
But it’ll be hard to get this strong again so suddenly. I was just lucky this time.
— I will... kill you.
Hearing the voice, I stood up.
“Oh my, it’s talking now.”
A giant with a bat’s head was staring at me. All sorts of ornaments hung from its neck, fingers, and ears, and it wore sturdy-looking armor, as well as a properly forged steel greatsword.
“Looks like you waited for the fire to go out huh?”
It seemed smarter than the others.
Looking around, it was the only surviving monster. That meant it was the core of this Erosion Zone.
— Fire... gone.
That’s what it said as it pointed the greatsword at me.
— It’s, over.
“Yeah.”
Faint breezes blew in toward me from all directions. This was the result of absorbing mana from the atmosphere.
“For you, that is.”
At the tip of the spear in my hand, a Paradoxical Flame the size of a basketball clung and burned. Even after creating this much, I still had enough mana to strengthen my body and weapon.
Though my body was still undertrained and immature, I reinforced it with mana.
With a whoosh, the spear danced from my fingertips. Compared to when I first arrived on Gyodong Island, my movements were now far more precise and fast.
“Come on. If I wanted, I could play with you for over a month.”
In fact, if I didn’t get tired, I could play forever. Even after burning things with Paradoxical Flame, the fatigue left behind is like residual ash and there’s still a lot of it.
“Let’s see, if I’ve regained this much strength…”
I could probably pull off four consecutive strikes. I gripped the spear tighter, infusing it with more mana, and charged at the monster.
“Dual Spiral Spear.”
With Paradoxical Flame clinging to it, the spear slashed through the air, leaving behind faint blue trails as it struck the monster.
The monster blocked my attack, as if proving it was truly the core of the Erosion Zone.
“It only starts now.”
As I launched the second attack, the blue trail lingering in the air mimicked my first strike exactly.
— Grr… agh?!
It had blocked my initial attack successfully, but the trailing blue arc pierced into its body.
“My head nearly exploded when I first made this thing.”
Without that blue trail mimicking me, this would’ve been just a basic four-hit combo technique.
Like this.
But when the blue trail began to mimic my attacks one beat late-
A kind of duet with double spears was created. The four-hit combo now paired with four additional strikes, creating a pincer attack.
This created a nasty dilemma. Block or dodge one, and the other would still hit. A no-win situation for the enemy.
“For now! Since I don’t have enough mana! I can’t even do a triple spiral, let alone a quadruple!”
This technique was originally designed to corner the opponent with four-layered spiral strikes, a true nightmare for them.
But to make that happen, I’d need to maintain three separate blue trails. That would cut the power of each to a third.
That kind of reduced power would be easy for the monster to just tank. Weak attacks weren’t worth doing at all.
— Gakh! Khhh!
But against this monster, Dual Spiral Spears were more than enough.
Eventually, the monster went on full defense to block the relentless strikes and started to exert itself to reduce damage.
It worked, the strikes grazing its body only left faint scratches.
— Khuhh… urgh…
Its eyes burned fiercely as it defended with all its might.
It was probably hoping I’d run out of mana and wouldn’t be able to maintain the blue trails any longer.
“This won’t end until you’re dead, you idiot.”
I directly drew on mana from the atmosphere. That meant I wouldn’t run out, so this looping attack wouldn’t end unless I wanted it to.
Of course, if that were all I had, I’d just be some lunatic trying to kill with a spoon.
But I wasn’t crazy.
“I lit your body on fire.”
I had the Paradoxical Flame.
The black flames that had spread across the monster’s body were burning its muscles.
“Even if my attack only grazes you, it’ll become fatal over time.”
If I’d seen you in the world I already saved, I would’ve felt bad for you, trying a war of attrition against me of all people.
With a thud, the monster dropped its weapon. It no longer had the strength to hold it.
“It’s over. Still, you lasted a while.”
I leapt and thrust my spear toward the monster’s head. With a crack, its head shattered at the tip of my spear.
Once the monster died, the bodies scattered across the ground turned to dust, gathered before me, and formed a small box.
“What’s this?.”
Inside the box was a pair of gloves. I examined them with a suspicious look.
I could feel mana from it. It clearly wasn’t just for cold hands. Maybe I could analyze it?
After studying the gloves for a while, I let out a quiet exclamation.
“Whoa.”
They functioned like a kind of mana battery, storing ambient mana.
To others, they’d probably just help a bit with their own mana usage.
But for me, this was more than that. Considering the maximum mana storage this glove-shaped battery could handle…
“About five minutes?”
I could even fight on equal terms with Lee Se-eun for five minutes. After that, the stored mana would be depleted and I wouldn’t be able to keep up.
It looked like it would take a whole day for the mana to recharge. A bit disappointing, but…
Still, being able to power up way beyond my normal strength for five minutes a day, that alone made me happy.
“There are tons of things you can do in five minutes.”
A skilled cook could make steamed eggs in that timeframe. And I could easily steamroll most opponents too.
“Oh, is it starting now?”
I felt a force slowly wrap around my body.
When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the place where the Erosion Zone had been just like Han Sang-ah said.
“Not that much time has passed.”
It looked like it had taken about three hours.
“What now all of a sudden?”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. When I checked, I saw a flood of messages and one missed call.
I opened one of them.
[Hunter Yoo Chan-seok. If you continue in that direction, you’ll approach the Alpha Erosion Core. Return now.]
[HunterYoo Chan-seok. Return immediately.]
[Return! Do you have a death wish?!]
[Hey!]
It was a message from one of the staff assigned to today’s request. I guess they were on duty and I lost contact after I rushed into the Erosion Zone.
“Looks like it caused a fuss.”
There were tons more messages. Evacuation guidance? Rally point info? I had no idea what was happening outside while I was in there burning things down.
After thinking for a bit, I sent a message to the handler.
* * *
The government official in charge of the Gyodong Island monster and Erosion Zone cleanup assignment was clutching his hair with a tired expression.
“This crazy rookie bastard. Trying to ruin someone’s job, huh?!”
Of course, they’d given a warning not to approach the Alpha Erosion Zone in Gyodong Island. Strictly speaking, the disappearance of Hunter Yoo Chan-seok, who was now giving him headaches, wasn’t the government’s fault.
But that didn’t mean the handler had no responsibility.
Tracking the location via smartphone and preventing Hunters from approaching the Alpha Erosion Zone, that was part of his job.
And the rookie in question headed straight for the Alpha Erosion Zone, after which his phone signal vanished.
“I’m going to go insane.”
Now they couldn’t even connect to the device. Instead, the phone was blowing up with calls because he’d reported the situation.
— You little punk, how the hell did it get to this point?!
‘What do you want me to do? I can’t go in and drag him out.’
Thinking that to himself, the handler kept apologizing out loud.
“I’m sorry. I kept sending warning messages and trying to make contact…”
Even while enduring over an hour of scolding, he stared at the monitor persistently, and then his expression turned pale.
“Excuse me, I have something to report.”
Fortunately, the boss who’d been yelling still had the composure to prioritize urgent matters.
— What is it? Report.
“Some of the Hunters from group 5 have lost signal.”
— What are you talking about now?!
But that composure vanished instantly, like sugar cubes dropped into boiling water.
As the handler rushed to continue the report, a message came through on his phone.
The official checked the message and his face stiffened.
[Yhis is Eun Sung-hyuk frim griup 5. We barelt escaoed. These arem’t the kins of mondters that comr fron ordinary Erosion Zones.]
They clearly sent it in a hurry judging from the typos.
Eun Sung-hyuk wasn’t famous, but he had built up solid experience and was fairly reliable.
Then, more Hunters from various teams started to lose signal. Another message followed.
[We managed to escape. These things are moving in an organized way.]
After reading that, the handler immediately spoke into the phone.
“You need to come now. This is an emergency. I’ll activate the emergency contact network and request immediate assistance from nearby Hunters.”
— I saw the messages too. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in about 15 minutes.
This was no longer just about a missing rookie Hunter. The superior, now aware of the situation, stopped yelling and ended the call.