Drake Legion’s Counterattack (2)
Inside Baengnokdam at Hallasan.
Hundreds of drakes were swarming within like a mass of cockroaches.
The lair was already packed to capacity with drakes, yet none of them went outside.
All of them had received an order from their mother: wait.
Wait until the five special eggs hatch and the special elite drakes, who would take on the role of ‘commanders,’ are born from within.
That was why they kept waiting.
And now, those five eggs were hatching.
Crack. Craaack.
Five massive eggs split open simultaneously, and from within them slowly emerged five special elite drakes.
Their bodies appeared almost three times larger than those of the elite drakes that served as ordinary soldier units.
Five enormous drakes, each with a different skin color: red, blue, green, yellow, and black.
These were the ones who would command the hundreds of soldier elite drakes.
Kieeeeeeeek!
As the five multicolored drakes shrieked…
Kraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!
Hundreds of soldier drakes roared in response.
Then, at the same time, they spread their wings.
Having finished preparing for flight, the soldier drakes waited for the multicolored drakes to issue their command.
***
Though it had been quiet for more than four days, Seon Yul continued to watch Baengnokdam without letting his guard down.
Since he had felt uneasy for several days now, he was being even more thorough than usual.
‘The Administration said they’d wait just a day or two more before advancing toward the lair… Is this really just going to end like this?’
At present, the Administration wants to wrap up this incident as quickly as possible.
That was why they had even mobilized the Monster Response Corps.
Now, nearly every nation maintains military units specialized in dealing with monsters, and their role is to block monsters from ever crossing beyond the mana barrier zone.
Modern weaponry might become useless trash inside a mana barrier, but outside it was a different story. An average small monster couldn’t defeat even a single soldier armed with an automatic rifle, and medium-sized monsters could be easily taken down by a single squad.
Even large monsters couldn’t withstand the firepower of a platoon.
Thus, no matter how powerful a monster was, without the support of the mana barrier, it could not properly exert its strength… and that was precisely why humanity had not suffered greater devastation from the Gates’ invasions.
Naturally, every country operated specialized anti-monster units, and so the military still retained its own unique strength.
Furthermore, the state needed to maintain overwhelming power to keep mana users in check as well, to suppress them should they run amok outside the mana barrier. The military served as that deterrent force.
A nation without deterrence would instead be devoured by powerful mana users, and from that point onward, the state could no longer maintain its form as a state.
In any case, having mobilized no fewer than two full divisions of the Monster Response Corps, along with the elite strike team and even the main strike force, the Administration intended to resolve everything within a week and restore Jeju Island to normal.
Thanks to regular brief report-style emails from Cha Seong Hyeon, Seon Yul was able to monitor all of this from atop Samgakbong.
‘Was it really just empty hype…? I had some expectations since it was a Drake hunt… huh?’
Just as Seon Yul felt a hint of disappointment, a single drake rose from Baengnokdam.
The instant it took flight, Seon Yul grabbed the Barrett he had already set up and aimed at the airborne drake.
‘Just a straggler?’
It was strange that only one had come out instead of several, but he had no intention of letting it go.
After carefully aiming…
Baaang!
He fired. Naturally, [Powerful Strike] was applied, so the bullet shot forward with tremendous speed and force, striking the elite drake squarely in the head.
Kwaaaang!
As before, its head exploded cleanly, and it was eliminated.
At least up to that point, everything was normal.
But what happened after Seon Yul cleanly eliminated the lone drake was anything but normal.
As if the drake he killed had been a signal flare…
Suddenly, hundreds of drakes took flight simultaneously from Baengnokdam.
Drrrrrrrrrr.
“Huh!”
Watching through his high-powered scope in real time, Seon Yul’s eyes widened in shock as he lifted his head.
The hundreds of airborne drakes split into exactly five groups and flew off in different directions.
Of those groups, two were heading precisely toward Samgakbong… toward him.
It was as if they had tossed the first drake out as bait to pinpoint Seon Yul’s location.
‘What!’
In that instant, two choices flashed through Seon Yul’s mind.
The first was to immediately close the entrance and ignore the incoming drake swarm.
The second was to leave the entrance open and fight them.
The absolutely safest option was the former.
But it offered nothing but safety.
The Seon Yul of the past would have chosen the first option without hesitation.
But the current Seon Yul was different.
‘Even better!’
He did not panic.
Even as roughly a hundred drakes flew toward him, he maintained his composure.
‘Minigun and GAU-19 first!!’
He set down the Barrett and grabbed the Minigun and GAU-19 from beside him.
Thanks to his prior preparations, switching from the sniper rifle to the two heavy weapons was swift.
All the contingency planning he had done in response to his bad premonition now paid off.
After switching weapons, Seon Yul extended just the muzzles of the Minigun and GAU-19 outside the entrance. He firmly planted both feet on the ground, braced his arms with all his strength, and pulled the triggers.
Wiiiiiiiing. Dudududududududududududududu!
Bullets poured down like torrential rain upon the roughly one hundred drakes flying toward the Absolute Space entrance.
The drakes at the very front were instantly deleted, melting away like ice cream under an intense sunbeam.
Naturally, the drakes reacted quickly, splitting left and right to perform evasive maneuvers.
But Seon Yul did not remain still.
He swiftly swung the muzzles in one direction, tracking them.
Dududududududu. Tingtingtingting.
The two Gatling guns spat out shell casings like mad, unleashing hundreds of rounds per second forward.
Controlling both the Minigun and GAU-19 simultaneously with his arms was no easy feat, and merely changing firing direction placed enormous strain on him.
His arm muscles swelled as if they were about to burst, but thanks to his hyper-regeneration acting as a muscle booster, he endured the load.
“Uhaaaap!”
Shouting as he poured strength into both Gatling guns, Seon Yul controlled them with force.
The curtain of bullets they created swept through the air like a massive laser blade, and in reality, the drakes were shredded the moment they brushed against it.
It truly felt like cleaving drakes apart with a giant laser sword.
Overwhelming firepower.
But no matter how powerful the attack, it meant nothing if it did not hit… and the drakes understood that as well. They scattered further, trying to minimize casualties.
Though Seon Yul had already ground dozens of drakes into dust in a brief clash, once the drakes adapted like this, the efficiency of his devastating attack dropped sharply.
To deal with the scattered drakes, he widened the firing angles of the Minigun and GAU-19 to spread the bullet curtain as broadly as possible.
Popopopopopop!
Drakes caught in the barrage still shattered and fell from the sky as dust, but the more that died, the closer the remaining ones drew to the Absolute Space entrance.
Some even counterattacked, spewing fire or powerful winds mixed with stones toward the entrance. And although initially only two drake groups had come, an additional group had now joined, so their numbers had actually increased.
Faced with their strong resistance, Seon Yul was forced to retreat gradually backward, and as he did, his firing range narrowed.
And eventually…
Overwhelming him by sheer numbers, the drakes reached the Absolute Space entrance.
He had turned nearly seventy into dust, but roughly seventy remained.
Moreover, toward the rear stood three drakes larger than the rest, with ominous presences, staring at the Absolute Space entrance.
Kieeeeeek!
Seon Yul, now considerably withdrawn from the entrance, continued spraying bullets toward it.
The circular entrance, roughly 1.7 meters in diameter, was large enough for a drake to enter… but not large enough for several to come in simultaneously.
Thus, even the drakes could not easily push through Seon Yul’s firepower to penetrate deep into Absolute Space.
‘Yeah, keep pushing.’
He actually left enough distance for them to attempt breaking through the barrage and entering, while continuously firing at the entrance.
At this rate, no matter how many there were, it seemed difficult for them to breach into Absolute Space.
But then…
The large red drake that had been observing from the rear inhaled deeply and opened its mouth, releasing a crimson flash.
This crimson flash was an intensely compressed, ultra-high-temperature energy condensed into light…fast and scorching.
Flash!!
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
This was an attack on a completely different level from the fireballs ordinary elite drakes spat.
The crimson flash collided with Seon Yul’s barrage. Astonishingly, the ultra-high-temperature energy melted the countless bullets fired from the Minigun and GAU-19, pushing forward through them.
Kwa-gwagwagwagwang!
Exploding midair, the lava-like beam tore through the curtain of bullets.
Then the crimson flash even passed through the entrance to Absolute Space and poured toward Seon Yul inside.
But Seon Yul’s reaction speed was faster than the flash.
Kwang!!
He threw the Minigun and GAU-19 aside and dived to the side, causing the crimson flash to slam into the Absolute Space wall behind him.
Naturally, the wall was unharmed.
The walls of Absolute Space could not be damaged by any impact whatsoever, so there was no need to worry about them.
What demanded his concern instead were the numerous drakes that, with his barrage momentarily halted, began crawling rapidly into Absolute Space.
At that moment…
Seon Yul could choose.
If he closed the entrance immediately… he could neatly eliminate the four or so drakes that had already entered and end the battle here, or reopen it later after regrouping.
It was not a bad option.
And it was indeed the first one he considered.
Yet as he was about to close the entrance, something made him stop.
Instead of shutting it, he allowed more drakes to enter.
Shrrrk.
Instead, he wrapped a wire around his hand and stared forward.
Kieeeeeek!
In the blink of an eye, around eighteen drakes had squeezed through the entrance into Absolute Space.
“This isn’t Drake’s… It’s cockroaches.”
He muttered quietly.
At that moment, the drakes that had fully entered turned their heads toward him and prepared to attack.
But…
Shrrrrrrrrk, ting!
Faster than their attack, the wire sliced through the air, wrapping around something and yanking it.
What it pulled… was the clip binding together the detonation cords of ten Claymores.
Seon Yul had set up ten Claymores facing the Absolute Space entrance in preparation for an unexpected incursion.
The reason he hadn’t closed the entrance.
This was it.
Let the drakes push their heads deep into the tiger’s jaws… and crush them in one bite.
The moment the detonation cords were pulled…
All ten Claymores detonated simultaneously.
Kwa-gwagwagwagwagwagwagwagwang!
The eighteen drakes caught in the blast were deleted in less than a second.
The aftermath of the explosion was so powerful that even two drakes attempting to enter were blown apart as their heads burst.
The situation inside was resolved in an instant.
But the drakes outside, unaware of what had occurred within, once more shoved their heads toward the entrance.
And at that moment, their heads were shredded.
Wiiiiiiiing. Dududududududududu.
Kwa-dudududududuk!
The Minigun and GAU-19 began spinning once more.
The Drake grinder had resumed operation.
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