An emergency had truly arisen for the black magician clan members, including Katalag. The traps laid in layers and the zombie forces were swiftly overwhelmed and breached.
“Where’s that bastard?”
“He’s closing in fast!”
“Send all the ghouls we had left!”
“They’ve been sent! But they’ve all been slaughtered!”
“What? Is that even possible? How long has it been since we sent them...!”
The black magicians were confident. Even if they intended to move quickly, they had enough time to delay if they were serious.
After all, they were the ones who had endured five years in these filthy, foul-smelling sewers.
Five years. A full five years.
That meant they had endured five monsoons and hidden themselves during the subsequent underground searches, conserving their energy.The reason they were able to emerge again now was that this year, particularly, there had been many more bodies to work with.
Stretching their bodies, they revealed their innermost thoughts, backed by confidence and possibility.
But from the very beginning, they were facing a challenge, no, perhaps something far worse.
“Wall of bodies! Use the wall of bodies!”
The wall of bodies was a black magician’s barricade, created by stacking old corpses and periodically channeling dark energy and corruption to make it more potent.
The intense poison and the horrific decay from the rotting bodies blocked the enemy’s approach, and the power behind it was so strong that even a steam suit would struggle to push through.
Otherwise, they would have to burn it down with high-calorie gunpowder.
Regardless, it was a method that wasn’t easily possible in these underground sewers.
“If there’s only one, we can block the way with the wall of bodies!”
The black magician, who confidently shouted this, was immediately silenced as he saw the scene his servant had shown him.
“Huh?”
The wall.
The fortress-like wall they had carefully built up over five years exploded.
A blinding flash of white light tore through everything beyond the wall. The sturdy corpses shattered and scattered, and the black magic, poison, and corruption inside them vanished into the white light.
‘What...what was that?’
The black magician thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Or maybe the enemy had cast some kind of illusion to confuse his vision.
But when he looked again, the wall had crumbled, and the intruder was already inside, advancing at incredible speed.
‘Am I seeing things wrong?’
It was truly the incarnation of light.
Charging through the dark sewers, there was a knight clad in bright white armor.
The zombies blocking his path were swept aside like autumn leaves by the shield the knight thrust forward.
No matter how strong or sturdy they were, it was useless. It was like throwing infantry into a moving tank.
Just in case, a flash golem they had placed beyond the wall didn’t even put up a fight before being cut in half in a single strike.
With a horizontal swing of his sword, space itself was split, and the flash golem met the same fate.
“Bombs! Prepare the bombs!”
“Are you really going to use the last of them?”
“Damn it! Is that really what you’re thinking about right now? If we don’t stop him, we’re all dead!”
The black magicians also had difficulty using gunpowder due to the high humidity in the area. The only thing they had available was the high-explosive powder they had barely managed to acquire from outside.
They had saved it for an emergency, but now was not the time to worry about that.
No, this was indeed an emergency.
In the end, they used the explosives they had prepared to collapse the entire passage.
Boom!
With a tremendous explosion, the underground tunnel shook as if an earthquake had hit.
The force from setting off all the gunpowder at once was even greater than expected.
A part of the waterway collapsed, and large debris blocked the path.
The zombies and ghouls they had prepared were swept away by the blast, but considering the monster they were up against, they felt it was worth the sacrifice.
Boom!
But the black magicians couldn’t relax.
Boom! Boom!
They started hearing a booming sound coming from a place that should have been silent.
The sound grew louder and faster.
At first, the black magicians were confused about the source of the noise, but then they realized and panicked.
“It’s him!”
He was still alive.
And from the way he was moving, it seemed he wasn’t even injured—he was in perfect condition and flying through the air.
Is this even possible? The same question arose in the black magicians' minds.
They had tried to bury him alive underground, but he was still alive? How did he survive that explosion? Was he even human?
The thoughts piled up one after another. They simply couldn’t believe what was happening.
“Where’s the crocodile we prepared?!”
“Damn it! It still needs adjusting! 20 minutes! No, just 10 more minutes!”
“We’ll be breached in less than 3 minutes!”
The booming sound that had been echoing from afar had now grown incredibly close.
The zombies they had set up in advance rushed toward the passage, but immediately, a huge flash of light and debris scattered inward.
Their pale skin, already deprived of sunlight, now resembled the bodies of the dead.
Through the falling debris, Osian finally appeared.
He was dressed in white full-body armor, with a flowing cloak, holding a sword and shield.
It was an anachronistic sight, but knowing that he had made it this far in that condition, no one dared to laugh.
“You were all gathered here.”
Osian’s eyes glinted from behind his helmet.
From the flash golem to the wall of bodies, and the ghoul and zombie forces—by their numbers, he had guessed it wasn’t just a lone individual.
“A small group of around 10 criminal black magicians, huh?”
Black magicians were troublesome to deal with, but after this flood, they had become even more dangerous with the abundance of corpses.
Eventually, criminal organizations had to be wiped out, and since they attacked first, Osian had no hesitation in exterminating them.
Osian immediately gripped his sword and slowly advanced.
“Wait, hold on! Let’s talk! What do you want?!”
The black magician at the front, trying to persuade Osian, had his head cleanly severed.
“Your heads.”
Osian moved past the corpse and approached the next black magician.
He had no intention of talking. The moment they were caught, it was clear he would kill them all.
The only choice left for the black magicians was to find a way to kill Osian.
“Ahhh! Die, you monster bastard!”
The black magicians took out capsules they had prepared and threw them at Osian.
Some used black magic, casting curses or even dangerous spells that could bring instant death.
But Osian didn’t stand still. He had already reached the next black magician.
────!!!
A bright white line etched the air.
The black magicians’ eyes widened. They had seen this spectacle countless times through their summoned creatures’ eyes.
It was a strike that could even kill a flesh golem in one hit. At first, they thought it was some kind of supernatural power, but when they saw it firsthand, they understood it was simply the result of a sword swing.
Following the trajectory of the sword, three black magicians’ upper and lower bodies were severed and fell.
Before their severed torsos even touched the ground, Osian dashed toward the next black magician.
The black magician, who had been preparing for this, quickly summoned a [Bone Wall].
A wall made of countless bones rose, and sharp spikes were directed toward Osian.
But it shattered like it had been hit by a bomb, sending shards flying in all directions.
The black magician, who had been relieved behind the bone wall, was torn apart by the shards, and the two black magicians standing behind him were seriously injured.
Katalag gritted his teeth upon seeing this.
“Damn it!”
The clan members had been cut down mercilessly without even having a chance to fight back.
They hadn’t spent all these years hiding in the filthy sewers just to witness such a thing.
Katalag made a decision. If they were going to die anyway, he’d at least make a big move.
“Come forth!”
Katalag took out a purple crystal orb from his pocket and shouted.
The orb glowed with an ominous light, and the light seeped into the massive iron door behind him.
Osian stopped swinging his sword and watched the scene unfold.
Katalag had made some kind of decision, and a huge presence could be felt from beyond the door.
“This is…”
Boom!
With a loud sound, the enormous iron door began to bend. Something inside was trying to break through the door with brute force.
The door was beginning to buckle, and it was clear that something much more powerful than a flash golem was about to emerge.
“What did you do?”
“Heh, heh. We’ve awakened the monster that has been sleeping deep underground for a long time. You’re finished now.”
Katalag poured his magical energy into the purple orb.
The purple light grew stronger, and the movements of the monster behind the door grew more frantic.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The door continued to lose its shape. The hinges popped off, and the external panels of the wall fell off.
“Come out and kill him!”
Boom!
The door was completely destroyed, falling to the ground.
Beyond the enormous door was pure darkness and from within the darkness, the monster’s yellow eyes glowed like lanterns.
Growl…
“Ha ha ha! It’s a success! It’s a success!”
Katalag laughed maniacally.
The monster, which had been controlled over time and carefully tuned, was now following his commands.
Although it wasn’t completely ready and the chances of controlling it were less than 30%, he had still succeeded in dominating the monster.
“Fate is on my side! Rip that crazy bastard in front of me apart as a lesson!”
He poured all his magical power into the orb and gave the monster a command.
The monster, obeying the command, slowly emerged from the darkness.
It had thick, scaly skin resembling a reptile, a long and huge snout, and sharp teeth.
The monster Katalag had sought to control looked very much like a crocodile.
But it was much larger than an ordinary crocodile, and its appearance was far more ferocious.
Its estimated length was about 30 meters, close to the size of a whale with legs.
Osian clearly watched the crocodile monster’s appearance.
“Hahaha! It’s pathetic seeing you frozen in fear like a rat!”
Katalag believed Osian was so overwhelmed by the sight of the monster that he was unable to move.
This monster, which had been fine-tuned with all the clan members’ strength, would ensure their victory. With it, they could rise to the surface and dominate a whole region.
Katalag had no doubts.
“This is… dangerous.”
“It’s too late to think about that now!”
“You idiot. You’re under some kind of misconception.”
Osian scoffed at Katalag’s confident words.
“You can’t see it, can you?”
“What?”
Katalag finally felt something was off. Osian’s gaze wasn’t fixed on the crocodile monster, but beyond it, toward the darkness.
“What are you looking at...?”
Katalag turned his gaze toward the direction of the crocodile monster, following Osian. And he could see it.
Beyond the crocodile monster, whose body was now fully revealed, another pair of glowing eyes emerged from the darkness of the waterway. Unlike the yellow eyes of the crocodile monster, the color of the glowing eyes was emerald.
The owner of those eyes was what Osian had seen and felt was dangerous, and the gaze that conveyed that sense of danger was from that entity.
"What is that?"
That was something Katalag didn't know either.
KWAARK!
Immediately after, the crocodile monster opened its mouth wide and screamed. It started to be pulled into the darkness, as if its tail were being dragged by something.
The massive crocodile monster, struggling with its four legs, resisted, but its massive body was helplessly pulled back into the darkness beyond the passage, as if the creature’s desperate resistance meant nothing.
Even though the monster, which appeared to weigh about 100 tons, put up its maximum resistance, it was pulled in without any hope.
Moreover, for a moment, the reaction from the crocodile monster showed that it was terrified, as if it had encountered an even more fearsome predator.
"T-This is...?"
Katalag was completely caught off guard by this unexpected situation. At that moment, the scream of the crocodile monster, which was being dragged into the darkness, echoed throughout the underground waterway.
Then, a series of sounds followed, like something being torn, crushed, and smashed, and the screaming subsided into silence.
-Gulp.
The sound of one of the surviving necromancers swallowing could be heard, and the surroundings fell into an eerie silence.
And shortly after, something flew out from the darkness and rolled on the ground several times. It was the severed head of the crocodile monster that had just been dragged in.
The cross-section of the bloodied head was irregular and rough, as if it had been forcefully torn apart. Everyone's gaze shifted from the crocodile's head to the darkness of the waterway.
Once again, the emerald-colored glowing eyes emerged from the darkness.