“Uwaaahh!!”
The Korean team was currently surrounded by a swarm of ants.
Ma Dong Wook fought; Lim Tae-Gyu fought; Choi Jong-In also fought, and even the cameraman had to kill the ants. However, there was seemingly no end to the waves upon waves of ants.
“Pant, pant, pant…..”
All sounds had stopped and all Baek Yoonho could hear was his own heavy breathing.
‘Is this the end?’
He quickly wiped the blood trickling down below his eyebrow with the back of his hand. With their lone Healer-type Hunter gone, they had no avenue to deal with these many monsters now.
This resistance was a futile one, indeed.
Even then, he couldn’t bring himself to give up – because two of his most precious friends had lost their lives in this damn place. He definitely didn’t want to dig his grave where they were buried, too.
“Uwaaaah-!!”
He destroyed the head of yet another ant. However, countless more replaced the dead one and tried to pounce on him.
Kiieechk!
Kiiehck!!
Baek Yoonho powerfully shook off the ants and stood with his back against a wall. Like this, he at least wouldn’t get surrounded from all sides now.
“Pant, pant….”
He raised his head and searched for other Hunters. His colleagues, who had been fighting alongside him only a moment ago, could no longer be seen, their figures completely buried within the swarm of ants.
No way. He wanted to believe that it wasn’t possible….
He bit his lower lip, but then, was jolted out of his senses with a sudden presence appearing behind his back.
He spun around rapidly and threw a punch, but stopped before he reached his target. Because… the one standing behind him wasn’t an ant.
‘What…. Who is this?’
It was, in fact, a ‘soldier’ decked out in black full-body armor.
This was his first time seeing one, but then again, he heard plenty of times before about this ‘thing’ from Park Hui-Jin who had been involved with the Red Gate incident.
‘Isn’t this….??’
Baek Yoonho cried out in surprise.
“Why is this thing here?”
It was then.
From the soldier, a familiar voice came out.
– “Exchange.”
___________
Jin Woo calmly scanned his surroundings.
‘……..’
The last time he got to meet the members of the Korean raid team in the Association’s gymnasium, he had inserted one of the Shadow Soldiers in Baek Yoonho’s shadow, just in case. What a relief it was that he did that.
It seemed that what he’d been watching wasn’t a live broadcast, as the situation here was far worse than the stuff shown on the TV screen before it got cut off. He managed to save the weakest of the lot, the cameraman, first, but the other rank S Hunters were still surrounded by countless ant monsters.
‘What should I do now?’
The quickest way to deal with this situation would be to summon Fangs out and sweep these pesky ants away in one go with his trademark pillar of flames. But, if Jin Woo did that, he couldn’t guarantee the safety of the rank S Hunters.
So, he needed another solution here.
Jin Woo quickly made his decision and turned his head towards Iron.
“Iron!!”
Iron tapped his chest in a manly manner as if to say, “Leave it to me!”
He then strode forward, his large frame shaking to and fro, before opening his shoulders wide to roar out at the top of his lungs.
Woowuhhhhhh-!!!
[Iron has activated ‘Skill: Roar of Provocation’.]
The effect of that was rather amazing. The ants attacking the Hunters all snapped their heads toward Iron’s direction simultaneously. And soon, they all rushed over.
“Nice work.”
Jin Woo lightly tapped Iron on his back and summoned the two shortswords he got as rewards after killing the demon king.
‘The Demon King’s Shortsword.’
The pair of shortswords with a blue tinge to their blades gleamed threateningly under the light magic’s glare.
Kkiiiieeeehk!
Kiiechk!
When hundreds of ant monsters screeched out and pounced at the same time, his entire view was dyed jet black in an instant. Jin Woo began gripping the hilts of the shortswords even harder. And then, he vanished from view.
Kiiiechk!!
Soon, ants collided with the soldiers in a bloody battle to the finish.
In the meantime, Baek Yoonho, whose status was still better than everyone else, managed to move the injured Hunters to a safe corner. Thankfully, they were all still alive. The cameraman joined soon afterward and helped Baek Yoonho out.
Because Jin Woo, or more specifically, Jin Woo’s summoned creature, attracted the aggro of all the ants present here, he was able to safely finish this task.
“Pant, pant, pant….’
Ma Dong Wook was leaning against the wall, his breathing rough and irregular. He then grabbed the arm of Baek Yoonho, who brought him here and asked.
“W-what’s going on? Who’s fighting?”
Ma Dong Wook’s eyes were unfocused. His eyes were injured and he couldn’t see properly.
Baek Yoonho placed his hand on Ma Dong Wook’s hand.
“Instructor Ma. It’s fine now. Everything will be fine.”
“…..”
He then shifted his gaze over to Jin Woo.
Other people may not know it yet, but Baek Yoonho had a rough idea already on how powerful Sung Jin Woo was in reality.
Baek Yoonho might have been greatly flustered when the black soldier suddenly vanished, only to be replaced by the youth, but he still ended up shouting out loud even before he consciously realized it.
He said, ‘please, help us.’
And then, after seeing the youth move towards the ants along with his summoned black soldiers, the sense of relief washed over Baek Yoonho; so much so that he nearly plopped down to the ground.
Sure enough…
Sung Jin Woo proceeded to massacre and annihilate the ants that gave him and his teammates so much trouble at a frightening pace as if those creatures were nothing but broken toys to be played around with.
Kiieeehk!!
Screams of dying ants exploded out from everywhere and nearly made Baek Yoonho dizzy in the head. But, he still sighed out in relief.
‘It’ll be fine now.’
He wasn’t saying that to Ma Dong Wook. No, he was telling that to himself. The hope of survival was rekindled in his heart. The aid from one Sung Jin Woo was far more reliable and trustworthy than the 20-plus S-rank Japanese Hunters combined.
‘….Looks like there’s no need for me to step up here.’
Baek Yoonho formed a smile and sat down next to Ma Dong Wook.
All he could do now was to sit down quietly like this and watch Hunter Sung Jin Woo do his thing. He then drew the cameraman’s attention towards Jin Woo.
“You should keep the camera pointing at him. Because you’re going to witness something amazing pretty soon.”
The incident of the Red Gate, and the incident during the raid of the Hunters Guild. This was Baek Yoonho’s chance to personally witness the spectacle he had been hearing about all this time.
“Y-yes!”
The cameraman did his best to maintain his distance so he wouldn’t get in the way and tried to capture Jin Woo’s actions with his camera. The work of the raid team’s Hunters may have been finished now, but his own work was far from over.
Gulp.
The cameraman struggled to swallow his saliva.
Kiiiehk!
At the same time, an ant was split cleanly in half from top to bottom by Jin Woo’s hands. He then took a look around him. The number of ants had decreased significantly, and there were just over half of them remaining.
He killed so many ants that he had lost count now, but his breathing remained even and unperturbed. In all honesty, he found this place far easier to manage when compared to the uppermost floors of the Demon’s Castle.
‘Should I increase my speed a bit more?’
Glance.
Jin Woo sneaked a glance at the floor, and he immediately issued an order to the puffs of black smoke rising up from the corpses of the countless ants.
“Arise!”
After utterly massacring every single ant monster found inside the queen’s chamber, Jin Woo stored his soldiers back inside his shadow.
Even now, ants that had been spread out to the rest of the island were scurrying back to the ant tunnel. He judged that his priority should be placed on guiding the Hunters out of here to somewhere safe before more ants showed up.
‘We have the injured here to worry about, too.’
Jin Woo strode towards the Hunters. Besides Baek Yoonho and the cameraman, the rest weren’t in good shape. Park Jongryeo was still unconscious, and the three others had suffered some serious wounds, as well.
Jin Woo asked while looking around.
“What about Min Byung-Gu Hunter-nim?”
Baek Yoonho shook his head with a hardened expression.
“…”
Not saying anything else, Jin Woo brought out the potions and began treating the Hunters one by one. Since the potions would become useless once they left his hands, he had to personally feed each of the Hunters.
“M-mm….”
After drinking the potions, Hunters began regaining their consciousness.
“What’s this?”
Lim Tae-Gyu quickly raised his upper torso up, touched all over his body, and spat out a gasp of amazement.
“What the….?”
Both Choi Jong-In and Ma Dong Wook recovered from the numerous injuries on their bodies in no time.
“Hmm…”
“Cough, cough.”
Choi Jong-In had no clue on what had transpired here, so as soon as he laid his eyes on Jin Woo, he was taken aback rather greatly.
“Mister Sung Jin Woo? What are you doing here??”
“Let’s talk after getting out of this place first.”
“Oh….”
Choi Jong-In took a look around and nodded his head. They were still stuck inside the deepest part of the ant tunnel. This was no place to idly chat away, indeed.
“Instructor Sung!”
Having regained his eyesight, Ma Dong Wook was able to reach out and grab Jin Woo’s hands.
“Were you the one fighting off those ants? Thank you. Thank you so much!!”
Jin Woo replied in the same manner to him as well.
“Let us get out of here first.”
“Got it.”
Finally, Park Jongryeo.
Standing before him, a frown formed on Jin Woo’s face.
‘Something’s not right… his aura’s far too weak.’
Ever since Park Jongryeo emotional breakdown. Jin Woo felt that Jongryeo has been supressing his power. Jin Woo didn’t ask the reason why he breakdown like that but It must have been connected.
While feeling a sense of foreboding, Jin Woo gently raised Jongryeo’s head and cautiously poured the potion down his mouth.
Sure enough, a message quickly popped up in his view.
[When the remaining HP is less than 10%, it is impossible to recover HP with healing potions.]
Jin Woo’s expression crumpled.
When he slowly pulled out his hand supporting Jongryeo’s head, it was soaked in his blood.
‘…!!’
That ant bastard.
That creature inflicted a fatal blow to the strongest person among the Korean Hunters, Park Jongryeo, with nothing but a single blow.
The sole reason why these Hunters were still alive wasn’t that they were strong. On the contrary, that bastard simply toyed with them for a little while, that was all.
Jin Woo’s expression hardened.
‘In any case, I gotta….’
Park Jongryeo’s injuries took priority. If his wounds couldn’t be healed by the potions, then he needed to get out of this island as soon as possible and get a Healer-type Hunter to heal him, ASAP.
“Let’s hurry.”
Jin Woo carefully picked him up and stood up to leave. Other Hunters also stood up.
As they were preparing to leave the ant queen’s chamber, Jin Woo walking in front of the pack suddenly spat out a long sigh.
‘……’
Baek Yoonho could guess the reason why.
Even though he didn’t want any Alpha doing this to his omega. Jin Woo entrusted Park Jongryeo over to Baek Yoonho. Suddenly dumped with the responsibility of carrying him around, Baek Yoonho formed a flustered expression, and he hurriedly raised his voice.
“I would like to help.”
Jin Woo looked at the Hunters present, including Baek Yoonho, and told them all in no uncertain terms.
“Do not ever step forward during the fight. It’ll be faster that way.”
“But, Mister Sung Jin Woo, that means….”
Choi Jong-In was still oblivious to what had transpired before, so he was about to speak up his opinion, but Ma Dong Wook stopped him and shook his head.
He may not have seen the situation unfold with his own eyes, but through his perception, he was able to detect how Jin Woo annihilated the swarm of ants from the beginning until the end.
Jin Woo was right about this.
However, Baek Yoonho still butted in.
“Sung Jin Woo Hunter-nim.”
Jin Woo turned his head to look at him.
“I understand full well that you’re strong. I can confidently say that no one here knows that better than me. However…..”
Baek Yoonho spoke with a serious expression on his face.
“However, you’ve already summoned far too many creatures by now.”
But, why would that be a problem? When Jin Woo stared at him with a confused expression, Baek Yoonho got flustered and quickly added more explanation.
“You must’ve exhausted a lot of your magical energy by now. What would happen if you completely spend them?”
‘Ahh… so that’s what he was talking about.’
Jin Woo guessed from Baek Yoonho’s words that the other Hunters utilizing the summoning magic had to be using a lot of magic energy to summon even a single creature.
‘I’m sure there aren’t any real reasons to reveal that my Shadow Soldiers don’t need any magic energy, right?’
Even without him saying anything, his soldiers wouldn’t look like ordinary summons to these people’s eyes, anyway. So, Jin Woo decided to change the story ever so slightly.
“My summons don’t require as much magic energy as you think. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Excuse me?”
Both Baek Yoonho and the cameraman exclaimed out at the same time.
He controlled that many summoned creatures all at once, yet he was saying that the magic energy usage wasn’t high? Then, just what was his weak point, then?
‘……..’
Realising that explaining would take up too much time, he simply turned towards the cave up ahead, instead. With excellent timing, the waves of ant monsters were rushing inside the chamber.
‘Wow, there are still so many of them.’
Their side had someone in a critical condition. So, he couldn’t afford to waste time here.
Jin Woo activated the Monarch’s Domain for maximum efficiency. The ground beneath his feet was immediately dyed in black.
Just as he was done with preparations to call his soldiers back out again, an ominous, creepy air blew in from the other side of the cave.
‘……..?’
Jin Woo shifted his gaze over to where that eerie aura was coming from. There was this one individual among the masses of ants. It looked similar to the others, but it was a completely different type of monster compared to the others.
‘Ah, so that’s the one.’
Jin Woo instantly recognized the ‘ant king’. And likewise, the ant king recognized Jin Woo as well.
Taking its time, the ant king slowly walked over to him.
“A human… you seem to possess a pretty strong aura.”
It even imitated Goto Ryuji’s speech pattern.
Hunters immediately recalled the nightmare of a few moments ago and flinched grandly as soon as spotting that ant monster. On the other hand, Jin Woo showed no outward ripples and simply stared at the creature without saying a word.
Eventually, the ant king stood before Jin Woo.
“Are you the king of humans?”
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