Chapter 1165

Rrrrrumble!

If light could turn to liquid and overflow, would it look like this?

The ground shook as if an earthquake had struck. Watching waves of aura wash across the horizon and surge toward him, Morgoth knew instinctively:

If he didn’t act now, he might never get another chance to unleash everything he had.

“Answer my call.”

His low voice reverberated far and deep.

Language had power.

And the ancient Dragon’s words, imbued with immense magical power, reached a realm no other race had ever entered.

Craaaack!

The empty air split open.

At the same time, countless eyes gleamed ominously from within the dark rift in space.

“Gwoooar!”

Shadows large and small plummeted to the ground with roars full of killing intent.

With a single Warp spell, Morgoth had gathered his remaining forces from the cities they occupied across the region. He gave the order in a cold voice.

“Kill them all.”

That one command was the signal.

Monsters charged at humans, humans charged at monsters, and soon light and darkness blurred together.

Clang-clang-clang!

Thwack! Splatter!

The shriek of steel and the sickening sound of torn flesh swallowed the battle cries. Blood mist hung thick across the battlefield, and the Black Dragon watched it all without a flicker in his eyes.

His shock had lasted only an instant.

Morgoth had already regained his composure. His mind was colder than ever.

Even if his elite monster legion, the force that had guarded his stronghold, had suffered heavy losses, he still had the reinforcements he’d just summoned. That alone was enough.

No—even if every one of those monsters were wiped out, it wouldn’t matter.

The fate of the world hung on this battle. Its outcome would be decided not by mere numbers, but by whether one human lived or died.

Jin Taekyung.

There he was.

A blue-black flame slowly cutting through the thousand Dragon-tooth soldiers surrounding him like a dense forest.

At the same time, the short vow that small, insignificant human had spoken earlier echoed in Morgoth’s ears—and chilled a corner of his heart.

Me? Morgoth? Becoming just like them?

The Black Dragon bared his gleaming teeth and let out a low growl.

Wrong. He was nothing like anyone else.

With the Demon King Asmodeus gone, Morgoth alone was the true ruler destined to reign over every world—and that was exactly what he would become.

“Fire Lance.”

Fwoosh—KABOOM!

A dozen or so spears of flame appeared out of nowhere, about to rain down on Jin Taekyung.

“Ice Blaster!”

A desperate shout rang out from somewhere. A massive spike of ice tore through space and intercepted the flames.

KABOOM!

Space shook.

The deflected flames struck the empty ground. Steam billowed up, thick enough to obscure everything within a hundred-meter radius.¹

But the Black Dragon’s gleaming eyes saw clearly through it all.

A group of people covered head to toe in blood and dust, their eyes still blazing.

“Clear a…!”

The towering Grand Mage caught his breath, then roared.

“Clear a path!”

Whoosh! Whoooooosh!

With a battle cry that seemed to pierce the sky, the thousands-strong suicide squad—the first to reach this dreadful battlefield—charged toward the Dragon-tooth soldiers.

No.

They charged toward their Alliance Leader, their one and only hope.

It was a battle no one could control.

BOOM!

Clang! Krrrunch!

Flashes and explosions burst and mingled without pause.

Blood sprayed like fountains. Severed arms and legs rolled limply across the ground.

And through the chaos, a voice I’d been waiting for reached my ears.

“Wind Cutter!”

Magic Johnson. There he was.

At the same time, the blades of wind that rushed in passed close by the two Dragon-tooth soldiers charging at my flank.

Shwaa!

Two heads floated into the air.

If he’d aimed anywhere but their necks, even the Grand Mage’s Magic wouldn’t have been enough to kill them in one blow. But Magic Johnson had fought them before, in the Middle East. He knew their weakness exactly.

He also knew this wasn’t the time for a long, friendly greeting.

“Fuck.”

To the man who’d greeted me with a single syllable, I sent a dagger I’d just summoned from my Inventory.

More precisely, I threw it at the Dragon-tooth soldier lunging over his shoulder.

Thwack!

A dagger thrown with all a normal Murim martial artist’s strength would rightly be called a hidden weapon. But my Strength had long since surpassed that of most large monsters.

The dagger flashed forward and shattered the helmet made of some unknown metal—and the head beneath it. Drenched in the enemy’s brain matter, Magic Johnson muttered another curse.

“This is hell.”

“Sorry, but it’s too late to go back.”

“Everyone here knows that. We knew, and we came anyway.”

That was true.

They’d known their lives would be in danger, yet they’d answered my call willingly.

There were only twenty S-rank Hunters left in the entire world—or rather, now only a dozen or so—and they’d chosen only the very best before racing here from all over the globe.

Across continents and oceans.

But the tide of this Great War, with everything humanity had at stake, was still as dark and damp as the clouds overhead.

“Damn it, what the hell? There are this many of those awful things?”

Anyone who’d ever faced a Dragon-tooth soldier would react the same way.

They had more magical power than even the strongest Death Knights, which ranked at the top of A-rank. Their bodies were horribly tough, and they were stubbornly hard to kill.

Calling each one as formidable as a Named Monster would be no exaggeration.

But even Magic Johnson, who knew all this well, didn’t know one thing yet.

The Dragon-tooth soldiers weren’t the only obstacle we had to overcome to reach Morgoth.

Shiiiiing!

Something shot toward us like a beam of light.

With no time to catch my breath, I angled my spear blade and caught it on the flat.

Clang!

I’d poured plenty of internal energy into the spear, but its shaft still trembled.

Magic Johnson let out a low groan at the familiar face beyond it.

“Faye Chen?”

His mouth fell open. His eyes wavered.

He’d known that old comrade for decades, since the beginning of the Great Cataclysm. Seeing her shook Magic Johnson more than anything had yet. And when the number of familiar faces reached seven, his whole body trembled.

“What is this?”

“Guardians.”

“What?”

“That’s what Morgoth calls them. His Guardians. They protect him.”

“……!”

Magic Johnson clenched his teeth as he understood what I meant.

Even I, who knew nothing about Magic, could clearly sense the magical power controlling them. The Grand Mage would have felt it all the more.

“……Guardians.”

Bitterness, anger, grief.

His voice carried them all. Then it gradually quieted, leaving only one.

Anger.

And Magic Johnson wasn’t the only one feeling it.

“Near the end of the Great Cataclysm, we talked about it when we were all together.”

Boom!

A fist shot forward like a cannonball, followed by a roar.

Chuck Hagel crushed the Dragon-tooth soldiers blocking his path one by one as he went on.

“If we survived this goddamn war, we’d live happier than anyone else in the world until the day we died.”

The fists he kept throwing carried more than the mysterious power called aura.

They carried memories.

The memories of those days, so painful they could have killed him, yet filled with hope that things would soon get better, poured forth with his aura.

“Then why?!”

Krrrunch!

Shattered weapons flew in every direction, along with pieces of the Dragon-tooth soldiers’ armor and bodies.

And the tears of an old soldier who had lost his longtime friends.

“Why are they like this now?!”

His roar held all his grief and anger.

Why had it come to this?

Why couldn’t they keep even that simple promise to live happily for a long time? Why did they have to suffer this humiliation even after death?

But no voice answered his questions.

The only answer was the Black Dragon’s Magic once again filling the sky, and the footsteps of his old comrades as they advanced.

Fwoosh, crackle!

Shiiiiing!

Giga Lightning.

Dozens of bolts plunged down like divine punishment. The seven Guardians and countless Dragon-tooth soldiers charged forward, pitch-black magical power streaming behind them like cloaks.

They came with a force that seemed impossible to stop.

But they didn’t break through.

Because I wasn’t alone anymore.

“Stone Wall!”

A single spell rang through the roar of battle.

Dozens of voices joined in it.

Magic Johnson stood at their head. Behind him were the world’s greatest mages, following humanity’s only Grand Mage.

KABOOM!

The sky darkened, then flashed.

A ceiling of rock suddenly appeared over our allies’ heads. When it met the lightning, a tremendous explosion shook the battlefield.

No—the two spells canceled each other out.

Several mages, unable to withstand the backlash, coughed up blood and fell to their knees. The enraged Black Dragon’s roar thundered across the battlefield.

“How dare you!”

Rrrrrumble!

As immense magical power began shaking space again, I shot straight forward, leaving the falling rocks behind me.

Just as I always had.

But one thing was different.

This time, people were following me.

Whoooooosh!

Another group of familiar faces finally broke through the chaotic battlefield.

The brown-haired foreigner at the front tipped his head toward me.

“Too late?”

“Not at all.”

“Good. Though I wouldn’t have apologized if I were.”

That irritating way of speaking was exactly as I remembered it.

Prince Felix had joined us with four S-rank Hunters. He added, “Go. Now. We’ll handle things here.”

I didn’t answer.

I held back the heat rising deep in my chest and pushed forward with all my might.

Behind me, seven S-rank Hunters clashed with their old comrades.

Slice!

I cut one down, then another.

Krrrunch!

Kept going. Didn’t stop.

And then—

Crack!

Toward the monster who was the beginning and end of it all.

BOOM!

I shot forward like a streak of flame.

“Morgoth!”

In the Black Dragon’s vast, gleaming eyes, a human leaping upward, stomping on thin air, was reflected.