Chapter 337

〈 Chapter 337 〉 Part 1, Chapter 14, 28

<In the skies above Darjeeling, India, at the Dimensional Gate emergence point.>

Keeeek!

The Baegnaroh accurately docked its bow right in front of the Dimensional Gate.

The Executioner on deck maneuvered the ship to align the edge of the deck with the gate. The heroes stepped onto the deck intending to close the dimensional gate, but instead, monsters poured out from the gate and overwhelmed them.

“Where do you think you’re going!”

Leading the charge, Pungbaek jabbed a monster’s neck with his staff, while Tempest Lady followed up by summoning wind to push the monsters off to either side of the deck.

Geeek!

Most of the monsters tumbled off the deck and fell to the ground, but some agile ones dug their claws into the Baegnaroh.

“Guhk…!”

The Executioner barely suppressed a scream as he felt a burning sensation in his side.

“Executioner!”

“I’m fine…! We need to focus on the Dimensional Gate!”

It was impossible to disconnect the synchronization or leave the deck. Trapped in a difficult situation, the Executioner quickly ordered a new strategy.

Piiiiiuuun!!

Karna’s arrows covered the heroes charging toward the Dimensional Gate.

The golden laser shot straight through the crowd of monsters, piercing straight between the brows of Azidahaka who had been attacking the heroes.

“Tough guy!”

“Same to you!”

After failing his surprise attack, Azidahaka appeared right in front of Karna and swung his claws.

Kaaang!!

Appearing like a ghost, Azidahaka attempted an ambush, but Karna calmly countered with Bijaya – though this made it difficult to provide covering fire for the heroes.

Kiiiiieeek!!

Monsters kept pouring endlessly from the Dimensional Gate.

Gongsung ran around the deck, shooting arrows at the remaining monsters to make them fall, while Usa’s throwing stars struck the head of a wolf-like monster that tried to attack Gongsung.

‘This is just dragging things out.’

The Executioner scanned the surroundings. While Hwakwon and Garura were trying to close one gate, two other gates kept spewing out monsters.

Most would fall to their deaths on the ground, but occasionally annoying flying monsters would appear.

And then, an opportunity presented itself.

“Unsah!!”

At the Executioner’s call, Unsah immediately sprinted forward.

Unsah, who had been guarding the Executioner and Cheongnyeon [Phantom], dashed like lightning at the Executioner’s command.

Kieeek!!

Monsters lunged at Unsah. But she pressed forward without hesitation, facing a massive monster that had opened its mouth wide and bared its claws.

“Huuuup…”

Thinking her neck would be ripped off if she continued, suddenly the monster was torn apart by a gale.

Guddeok, gudduk!

Arrows filled with cutting winds drew strange arcs, narrowly missing Unsah and devouring all the monsters blocking her path.

“Hoo.”

This was Gongsung’s covering fire, a curved shot containing Tubulus.

“There are more than just Gaechonkwang providing rear support.”

“…Thank you.”

Trusting the solid support from behind, Unsah charged forward. Though the deck was only about twenty meters long, it was packed with rampaging monsters, making progress difficult.

“Haaaap!!”

But Unsah wasn’t breaking through the wall of monsters alone.

“Charge!”

“Understood!”

Gongsung and Usa provided covering fire, while Tempest Lady created a path of wind for Unsah to run through. Pungbaek cleared the way ahead using that wind path.

“Unsah!”

Pungbaek slightly bowed his head. A house-sized monster stood ahead, and Unsah nodded before leaping over Pungbaek’s height.

“Huuup!”

Pungbaek held his staff horizontally, and Unsah stepped on it with both feet.

Pa-ang!

With a sharp sound, Unsah soared high into the sky, leaping over the monster. In front of her now was the Dimensional Gate belching out monsters.

“Close it!”

At the Executioner’s order, Unsah gripped her spear tightly.

“See you, darling?”

And at that moment, Azidahaka appeared right in front of Unsah, arms spread wide.

“Welcome to your death. If I block the straight line, that crazy woman won’t be able to shoot you, right?”

The space between his outstretched arms revealed glinting blades.

“……!!”

Karna, Unsah, Azidahaka, Dimensional Gate.

All lined up in a straight line, Unsah hesitated internally. Could Karna’s attack reach the Azidahaka right in front of her? Would it pierce through her and hit Azidahaka?

‘I trust.’

Since he told her to trust, she does. Without hesitation, Unsah fell straight forward, clearly surprising Azidahaka.

“Eh, eh?!”

The spot where Unsah was falling was exactly where Azidahaka had spread his arms.

Though Azidahaka had positioned himself to stab her, faced with Unsah’s unexpected challenge, he gritted his teeth.

“This—”

Piiuuun.

A golden arrow curved through the air, piercing Azidahaka.

Azidahaka dissolved into black mist, and Unsah passed through the dissipating darkness, forcefully driving her spear down.

‘There it is.’

Right in the center of the Dimensional Gate.

Something seemed to be coalescing there.

To Unsah’s eyes, something finally became visible – the flow of energy covering the world.

Pu–uk!!

Unsah accurately thrust her spear into the core of the Dimensional Gate and twisted it.

Kwa-dek.

With the sound of something breaking, the Dimensional Gate began emitting purple smoke. A four-legged monster rushing through the gate swung its claws at Unsah, but the gate disappeared before it could reach her.

Uuuuung-

The Dimensional Gate dissipated, emitting purple smoke.

Successfully destroying the Dimensional Gate, Unsah landed sliding to the end of the Baegnaroh. One misstep and she would have fallen with the monsters.

“Hooouu….”

Unsah stood up. Karna, having repaid her trust, returned his bow to his waist and shrugged with his newly glowing green bow.

“……Where did Gongsung go?”

“We’ll explain later.”

Karna pointed his bow at another Dimensional Gate.

“Still, shouldn’t we close this one faster than that one?”

One of the Dimensional Gates handled by the Baegnaroh was closed.

Two Dimensional Gates remained.

“To the next point!!”

Without hesitation, the Executioner began increasing the ship’s speed.

“We can’t expect just these two to close all the gates!”

Hwakwon and Garura.

They had already closed one gate, were guarding the Baegnaroh while intercepting monster birds, and were preparing to close the next gate.

* * *

“Hhhhaa!”

Hwakwon’s fist slammed into the beak of an incoming monster bird. The bird met its end after receiving S-rank power and dissolved in blue flames.

Haa—aak!

Garura also unleashed flames in all directions from her true form, keeping the surrounding area in check. Freely flying through the skies, Garura became the main target for the monster birds due to her size.

“Aargh, why am I so useless! Can’t they handle their own flight?!”

“I’m human!”

“How come everyone else on the deck can fly just fine but you can’t do more than this?!”

“Sorry!”

Hwakwon shot flames forward. Garura extended her wings horizontally and began rotating her body clockwise.

Whoosh!

Garura started spinning like a top. She simultaneously ejected strong magical power backward, becoming a whirlwind of flames infused with Hwakwon’s flames.

“Put all your strength into it! I’ll get hurt if your magical power runs out halfway!”

“Absolutely not gonna let that happen!”

Hwakwon firmly vowed while holding onto Garura tightly. As Garura’s rotation reached its peak, she became a spinning whirlwind of flames heading toward the monster birds.

Pabababak!

The combined technique of Garura and Hwakwon caused the monster birds to explode. Garura focused solely on flapping her wings, while Hwakwon concentrated entirely on creating a magical protection barrier in front of Garura.

It was a thoroughly divided technique, yet the combination of Garura’s speed and Hwakwon’s magical power destroyed numerous monster birds before returning to near the Baegnaroh.

Thud.

Garura reverted to her human form and landed on the deck of the Baegnaroh with Hwakwon.

“Haa, haa….”

Garura complained of fatigue while sweating profusely. Karna helped calm her magical power while grinding his teeth.

“That witch Azidahaka….”

“Ohoho, thought you could fly around and avoid attacks, didn’t you?”

Appearing right above the deck, Azidahaka mocked the heroes while covering her mouth with her hand. There were scratch marks all over Garura’s body from Azidahaka.

“Garura, isn’t fighting on the deck better….”

“No, no. Actually, taking hits while fighting is faster time-wise.”

Garura blew a raspberry while enveloping her whole body in magical power. Red flames surrounded her entire body, instantly healing all her wounds.

“…Should we really keep slowly tackling them one by one?”

The Executioner pondered whether to cancel his current strategy. Though dividing tasks through feints was efficient, he never imagined Garura would move so recklessly, disregarding her own safety.

“No, I’ve recovered. Let’s fly again.”

Garura cracked her neck left and right while building up magical power.

“Don’t we need to close it within an hour? I’m fine. These little scratches are nothing, let’s close the Dimensional Gates quickly.”

Within one hour of the Dimensional Gate appearing.

That was generally when the Demon Dragons appeared, and it was also when other countries could intervene.

Recently, there were many cases where Demon Dragons appeared before the hour was up, but still, closing it faster was better. Accidents could happen if Dimensional Gates were deliberately left open to obtain cores.

“But you keep getting injured because of those clones. It’s dangerous. What will this guy and Phoenix think if something happens to you?”

“Uh.”

When Phantom mentioned Karna and Phoenix, even Garura lost her spirit.

“But even so, I’m fi-”

Kaang!

Suddenly, Hwakwon’s fist grazed Garura’s cheek. Though there was nothing behind Garura, when Hwakwon’s punch reached its maximum speed, Azidahaka appeared out of the shadows.

“Biiint-Hyaak?!”

As soon as Azidahaka stuck her face out, she was pushed back by Hwakwon’s flaming punch.

Bu–uung!!

Azidahaka’s sneak attack with a dagger failed completely, and instead, her hair caught on fire with blue flames.

“A, A, A?!”

Azidahaka screamed like someone had triggered her trauma switch and disappeared into the darkness. Karna, passing by on the Baegnaroh, burst out laughing.

“Hahaha! Good one, always causing a fuss about not touching her hair!”

“Y, Y, You bastards!!”

Seeing her hair burned up to her shoulders, Azidahka cut it off at the shoulder level.

Before the traces of Chang-yeom’s flames could spread throughout her body, thinking she needed to cut her hair since the opponent wasn’t Phoenix, Azidahka unknowingly chopped off her own hair.

“Never forgive! You, I’ll never forgive you!”

Azidahka shouted at Hwakwon with bloodshot eyes.

“You, I’ll make you crawl beneath me someday and make you believe you can’t live without Mistress Azidahaka!!”

Whoosh!

Garura spat out a fireball from her mouth. Azidahka disappeared into the darkness, and Karna showed no intention of messing with her hair that had been burned into an unsightly mess.

“Ugh, Ugh! Can’t take it anymore!”

Azidahka stretched out her hands toward the two Dimensional Gates between them. The two gates slowly pulled toward where Azidahka stood, and the magical power of the gates began to surge.

Just 20 minutes since the Dimensional Gate appeared.

The Executioner and heroes shivered at the ominous black and golden magical power flowing out from the two Dimensional Gates.

“…Damn it.”

Pungbaek spat out curses at the Dimensional Gates that emitted such eerie vibes. The appearance of monsters that had been gushing out like water from a burst pipe quieted down, and the surrounding area sank into silence like the calm before a storm.

“…Magic pattern confirmed. Comparison results.”

The Executioner bit his lip after clicking his tongue.

“Great Demon Dragon, Dark Demon Dragon. Two of them are coming out simultaneously…!”

■■■■■■■■■!!

The roars of the two Demon Dragons echoed through the skies above Darjeeling, India.

“So now we just shoot that thing, right? Brahmastra-”

“Wait a moment!!”

The first thing the Executioner did upon the Demon Dragons’ appearance was grabbing Karna’s waist who was about to pull the string of his bow and wriggling around.