Partings always brought sadness and regret.
All the more so when death made the parting with someone close permanent.
But this was never the kind of reunion he wanted.
“…Faye Chen?”
The name came out like a groan.
Even from a distance, the face was instantly recognizable. And yet it had never looked so unfamiliar.
No.
The faces.
“Long ago, in the world where I lived, there were some exceptionally gifted beings. They were called warriors or heroes.”
The wicked Dragon’s voice, steeped in old memories, reached Jin Taekyung as he stood frozen like a statue.
“At first, they were a nuisance. I didn’t much care for them coming all the way to my lair and behaving rudely over some trivial matter.”
Morgoth had never quite understood them.
All he’d done was burn a few cities and wipe out a kingdom. Why come all the way to his lair to make a scene?
“At least, that was how I felt until I met one human.”
He had stood out even among the hundreds of heroes who had come before him.
He was strong, resilient, and fought more desperately than anyone.
Perhaps that was why, when the man died without leaving so much as a proper corpse—reduced to a little pool of blood like all the other intruders—Morgoth felt regret for the first time.
Along with it came a powerful desire to possess him, rising from deep within.
“That was when I began collecting ‘trophies’ in earnest.”
Not mere cold, hard gold and jewels, but special trophies, each retaining its own memories and light.
Humans, elves, dwarves. Sometimes monsters.
Those he could force to submit, he did. Those who refused every offer, he killed so he could keep them by his side anyway.
His most precious trophies, given the name Guardians.
And he had continued this fascinating collection in the unfamiliar world called Earth.
“They’re still unfinished, but the material is good. The results are excellent.”
“…!”
“What do you think of my new Guardians?”
Jin Taekyung didn’t answer the question, which was brimming with satisfaction.
He couldn’t. All he could do was look at the bloodless faces now standing at the head of the Dragon-tooth soldiers and recite their names to himself.
Faye Chen, Joel Schumacher, Pablo Albatroses…
Seven names.
Seven S-rank Hunters.
Heroes who had represented their countries. Comrades who had trusted one another to watch their backs.
Over the past several days of the Black Dragon’s great invasion, they had been reported killed in battle, their bodies never found.
Now they stood here.
Denied rest even in death.
Puppets robbed of their very souls.
Shing.
They raised sharp swords, maces, halberds, and shields. They drew their bows.
At Jin Taekyung, of all people.
At the one light that had shown them the way when they could see nothing in the darkness. Their hope.
Fwoooosh.
A cold wind swept across the devastated land.
The monsters had surrounded him on every side. Their murderous intent whipped around him like blades. Beyond the thousand Dragon-tooth soldiers forming an immense wall before their master, the wicked Dragon smiled, his teeth gleaming white.
“Now, shall we begin?”
Those words were the signal.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
A wave of monsters poured in without end, shaking heaven and earth.
At the same time, Jin Taekyung’s frozen expression shifted. His eyes narrowed to half-lidded slits.
Whoosh—KABOOM!
Blue-black flames burst forth, coiling around his spearhead and flooding the whole area with blinding light.
Slice!
He slashed.
Thwack! Thud-thud-thud!
He stabbed.
Crunch!
He smashed and crushed.
And then—
Rumble!
He pushed forward.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
System
You have met the activation requirements for One Against a Thousand!
The effect of the Title One Against a Thousand has greatly intimidated your enemies!
The effect of the Title One Against a Thousand has greatly increased your Intimidation!
Enemies frightened by your Intimidation are beginning to retreat!
System
You defeated the Lv. 98 Enhanced Minotaur Warrior!
You defeated the Lv. 110 Enhanced Twin-Headed Ogre!
You defeated the Lv. 120 Enhanced Death Knight!
…
EXP gained is reduced due to the difference in strength!
You gained a small amount of EXP!
Jin Taekyung let out the breath he’d been holding.
The chimes ringing incessantly in his ears seemed to grow more distant. The monsters’ stench and roars had never felt closer or clearer.
“Gwoooar!”
Suddenly, a shadow fell across hundreds of heads.
A Cyclops—a one-eyed giant as tall as a walking skyscraper—slammed both fists down with a roar that shook heaven and earth.
BOOM!
Compressed air exploded. The mountain of force behind its fists crushed and burst everything they touched.
Everything except the one person it had to bring down.
…!
By the time the giant spotted the human, smaller than its palm, a spearhead wreathed in blue-black flames was already driving into its single eye.
Thud!
The spear pierced the eye as easily as a knife through tofu. The terrible heat carried through its tip melted the giant’s brain, and its massive body toppled.
Whoooosh—BOOM!
A thick cloud of dust billowed upward.
Monsters caught beneath the dead giant screamed. Others lost sight of their target in the dust and hesitated.
They had no idea it was the last mistake they would ever make.
Fwoosh!
The cloud of dust split in two.
No—it evaporated.
A spear shot through the air like a ray of light, sweeping through the Liches commanding the monster army that had survived the enormous explosion.
Rumble!
Dozens of layered defensive spells were useless. So were Blink spells cast in the blink of an eye.
The unprecedented force behind the spearhead rendered them all meaningless.
Its power and speed were so astonishing that even overwhelming fell short.
“What an interesting world. Truly.”
Morgoth was genuinely impressed as he watched Jin Taekyung dominate the battlefield like the hero of an ancient myth.
He had seen and fought countless powerful beings over the past several thousand years.
Yet neither an elven Elder who had lived nearly a thousand years, nor a dwarf king blessed by the rocky mountains, nor the human knight called the greatest on the continent had displayed martial prowess like this.
No. None of them had come close.
“Asmodeus, I think I’m beginning to understand why you failed.”
The humans of this unfamiliar world were strong.
They grew stronger through a mysterious power even Morgoth couldn’t fathom. And a tiny chosen few surpassed their given limits by so much that they became superhumans.
Like Cheon Taemin, who was as good as dead now.
Or that recklessly brave young human hero.
And so—
Vwoom.
He had to crush them.
Even if it meant setting aside his pride.
“Ice Wall.”
A short Spell, yet one imbued with powerful Magic no other race could match, rang across the battlefield.
Fwoooosh.
Cold fierce enough to freeze everything swept across hundreds of meters.1
At its far end stood the human who had reduced the endless flood of high-level monsters to a mere flock of sheep.
Rumble!
Suddenly, an enormous shadow fell across the ground.
Ice walls several meters2 thick and ten times as tall erupted around Jin Taekyung, enclosing him on every side. They were less a barrier than a prison.
A prison built solely to hold Jin Taekyung—and a coffin prepared for his death.
“Hell Fire.”
Fwoooosh.
The sky turned red.
A sphere of flame emerged from between the dark clouds, enormous beyond anything a Grand Mage of any world could have imagined. Its terrible heat crashed down upon the ice walls.
KABOOM!
The flash was fierce enough to blind anyone who faced it.
The flames, worthy of being called the fires of Hell itself, melted the ice wall and burned everything trapped inside.
The thousand monsters thrown away as bait—and one human who hadn’t managed to escape the spell’s range in time.
That was what should have happened.
Tap. Tap-tap.
A tiny tremor began among the monsters’ corpses, now reduced to piles of charcoal.
A familiar face emerged from between them. Morgoth licked his lips.
He endured it? That spell just now?
It hadn’t been ordinary Hell Fire.
He had used his own knowledge to push its power and limits to the utmost, then put his full strength behind it.
A direct hit would have left even another Dragon with a potentially fatal wound.
Yet Jin Taekyung had endured all that heat with no way to dodge.
Morgoth muttered, his voice low.
“This is… a little troublesome.”
No, perhaps more than that.
Whenever events exceeded his expectations, some unknown danger lurked behind them.
And this danger was bigger and faster than Morgoth had thought.
Crack—BOOM!
An explosion burst from Jin Taekyung’s toes with a thunderous roar.
True to the meaning of Flamefire Path’s name, he surged forward, carving a path of blue-black flames.
Slice, rumble!
Everything in his way split and shattered.
If the monster army flooding in from every direction was a wave, he was a spearhead piercing through it.
One strike.
Then another.
An ogre’s head burst beneath his fist. A Death Knight struck by his whip-like kick never rose again.
And then, in the eyes of the monsters falling and spraying green blood, Jin Taekyung saw something familiar.
Fear.
It was fear.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
A sturdy dam crumbled.
The instinct that had craved nothing but slaughter faded, and a strange emotion called fear filled the space it left behind.
“Gwoooar!”
The monsters turned and fled, their roars stripped of their former ferocity. Jin Taekyung didn’t bother chasing them.
He still had enemies left.
And the battle about to begin would decide not only the outcome here today, but everything that came after.
Squish. Squish.
His weary steps carried him through pools of blood.
Beyond the thousand Dragon-tooth soldiers still standing like iron towers, Morgoth watched him for a moment, then spoke.
“You’re tired.”
Jin Taekyung answered in a weary voice.
“Thanks to you.”
“Do you think you can defeat me in that state?”
“Who knows? Maybe, if you clear away the guys in front of you.”
“Perhaps. If I were a little more foolish, I might have.”
Morgoth fixed his gaze on Jin Taekyung, his eyes sunk deep, and continued.
“But I’m afraid I’ve already made up my mind. Today, just this once, I’ll set aside my pride.”
Clank.
At Morgoth’s gesture, the Dragon-tooth soldiers stepped forward.
Fwoooosh!
Far away, beyond the horizon where the monster army had vanished, a flash of light flared.
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