– What! What’s happening!
Soon, the thing that appeared in the sky opened its eyes and gazed down at the man with its black, vertically-slit pupils. It was the one who was known to have landed a destructive impact on Australia.
“B, black dra…”
The scout’s body started falling from the sky.
His nose was no longer breathing.
Hordes of monsters fell from the sky and landed on his dead body. Tens, hundreds, thousands… Tens of thousands of monsters mercilessly stepped on the scout’s corpse while tangling up to a small mountain, squashing the monsters beneath. Before long, the wriggling mountain dissipated as the monsters scattered like cockroaches.
The fissure continued retching out monsters and at one point, the fissure itself started to tremble. It looked as if it was trying to vomit the thing that laid at the very bottom after vomiting out everything.
– It, it’s coming!!
One of the soldiers shrieked a report.
– Downfall! Firee!!
While hundreds of thousands of monsters were pouring out of the fissure, large existences revealed themselves from behind.
Their overwhelming dignity suppressed the world, as three adult black dragons left the fissure.
– Black dragons!!!
The black eyes were out of focus. These guys did not have rationality either.
KURURAARARARA—!!!
One of the dragons let out a loud roar that quaked and echoed the ground. The predator’s shout frightened everyone as long as they were human.
Oscar Brzenk was not here due to his unwell body. If he was here, he would have been able to fight against a dragon on equal grounds but because of his absence, humanity had to fight against the monster without their sword. They would have to sacrifice one of their limbs in the process.
Yu Jitae thought to himself.
If the three dragons were to move in different directions, he could not do anything whether he was the Regressor or not. It was physically impossible.
There were three adult dragons in total.
Out of those, he would mark one dragon, while Clone 1 fighting elsewhere would come and mark another one.
Up to that point it was fine.
Yu Jitae raised his gaze and stared at the sky. Although he couldn’t see it, he could sense a transparent barrier blocking the sides. 170 grand mages including Valentine, Myung Yongha and Jeanie Inssirem had created a large-scale barrier reaching 300 km in diameter.
Lastly, humanity’s last squad was in charge of another dragon but this side was uncertain. Although they would definitely come out on top if they were to have a frontal fight, if the dragon was to focus on killing the soldiers and breaking the barrier, the remaining monsters would end up spreading like a hail.
But was he nervous because of that?
No.
From a point in time, he was starting to feel uncontrollably excited. His heart was beating so loud that the sound of his heartbeat was reaching his ears.
It was a crisis, yet at the same time, it wasn’t because killing those would let him pass the biggest crisis of the Long Night.
A faint sense of pleasure had been filling his heart even when he was killing small-fries. It was the pleasure that he was heading to freedom but this one was on a whole different league.
He clenched his chin.
Like a beast in heat he became antsy. The long-awaited end of his life was just around the corner and at the face of that sweet pleasure, he kicked the ground and flew towards the dragon.
Towards freedom.
*
They were full adults unlike Myu and were at the level of ancient dragons.
Ripping the dragon’s neck, he cut off its arteries and crushed its body that was trying to recover endlessly. Pulling the dragon that was trying to escape back into the battlefield, he tore its wings and amputated its arms and legs. It still tried to fly with magic so he smacked it into the ground and destroyed its heart.
He was frustrated.
It felt like he was running down a desert in the middle of summer – as if there was a cold oasis as refreshing as icy water in sight which was somehow still out of reach.
It took almost 17 hours for him to completely slaughter one of the dragons.
When he then successfully killed two of them, happiness was poured out from the depths of his brain as pleasure that was on equal grounds with a climax flooded into his heart.
The biggest crisis of the Long Night had definitely been snapped just then.
Standing by himself on the bare ground, Yu Jitae was refreshed. Violence, sex, drugs – no human entertainment in the world could lead him to such an immense pleasure.
“Season killed another dragon—-!!”
The commander who had been keeping a close eye on his fight yelled into the radio to console the soldiers that were becoming exhausted from the endless war despite the positive flow of the battle.
He turned his feet.
The remaining dragon was also dying under the cooperation of the soldiers. He could see BM, Jeanie, Minamoto, Myung Yongha, Christopher and others holding onto the back of the large monster, sticking toothpicks into its body.
It was now up to them.
Those were the ones that he bothered keeping alive – this scene before his eyes was the reason he did something as tedious as being involved in the Association, strengthening them despite his irritation and letting them live even though it would have been easier to kill them off.
It was their job to stop what they could with their own strength.
He looked at the sky.
A strange aura was still flowing out of the greedy mouth of the huge fissure.
Immediately after the [Apocalypse Bringers] showed themselves, he had to face a question due to the murky mana of nature flowing out of the fissure.
That question expressed in one line went something like this.
Apocalypse Bringer + Elf = ?
Bringers of Apocalypse led to serial attacks and were destructive. ‘Weak dimensions’ that failed to deal with them early on would definitely be ruined by them, and that was one of the ways black dragons used to destroy dimensions.
However, the Apocalypse Bringers weren’t deemed very dangerous inter-dimensionally. Strong dimensions could massacre them early on, whereas the Apocalypse Bringers in weak dimensions would wipe the races off of that world without holding back, and end up destroying themselves by devouring each other due to lack of food.
And the black dragon would come down to the world full of corpses to lay its nest.
In that sense, the current situation was somewhat strange…
It was strange even for him, who was a master of hunting black dragons.
Lifting his gaze, he looked at the sky.
Elves… What kind of existences were they? They were a race that almost lived eternally.
Occurring from nature, they lived solely to protect and guard mother nature. They were the only ‘existences’ that managed to escape the discipline of mortals and live without any metabolism.
They did not have a desire to eat, because they could live by absorbing the mana of mother nature.
They did not have any desires for reproduction nor did they have the ability to reproduce. Nature was the one that was in charge of maintaining their numbers.
They did not have any desire to improve, and lived in satisfaction at what they were given.
Up to that point, they seemed unrelated to Bringers of Apocalypse.
…What else was there?
The fact their bodies were unable to be injured because of the remarkable recovery of mother nature?
Or the fact that they built up mana inside their body endlessly, only to return to the dirt and end their lives according to their own judgement when their individual power was deemed dangerous to nature?
Wait.
A red light flashed in his head.
Returning to nature on their own judgement when the mana that built up inside their body might be dangerous to nature, was it?
Wait, that means……
Kicking off the ground, he flew to the sky. There were still a few monsters falling down from above but that did not matter. He made his sword aura as long as possible and indiscreetly swung the 200-metre-blade to destroy anything that approached him. Pieces of flesh and bones began raining down from the sky.
After reaching high above, he gazed into the world behind the fissure. The place where he could feel the strongest density of an elf’s mana was emanating ambiently with blue light.
It’s there.
Going closer towards it, he started feeling a fluctuation of mana that perfectly matched with his hypothesis.
Those bastards – the black dragons were planning something outrageous! In a hurry, he shouted into the radio.
“Jeanie Inssirem! Make the largest barrier you can make!
“Soldiers, scatter! Distance yourselves as much as you can!”
After saying that, he turned his gaze.
Now, even he was starting to feel anxious.
The rarest species out of all the dimensions was the elf. The fore-mentioned attributes of an elf were extremely different to the characteristics of an Apocalypse Bringer’s germ.
He created a hypothesis.
What happens when a germ of an Apocalypse Bringer infiltrates into the land of elves?
It’s not an easy world to go into, so even if millions of germs were thrown into it, only one or two elves would be infected.
Let’s say a germ flies diligently and finds an elf that is walking by itself. Going in, it infects the elf – covering its body with purple dots, it takes control over its body.
But that would be when the germ realises something. Even though it makes the elf act on its instinct, the elf would not bite other elves because their entire race had no individual desire.
The germ would not spread because the elf remains there in place and would stagnate. So, the elven Apocalypse Bringer would probably do nothing but stay still.
However, the problem was that they would build up power within their body endlessly, by simply circulating mana without even eating food. Standing still, they breathe and yet turn more and more powerful.
In the end, they would build up mana inside their body for hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of years unless anything changed next to them, because they could live eternally by endlessly circulating mana inside them.
Because they lose their intellectual abilities from that process, the elf naturally forgets the fact that it should return to nature.
Even after becoming a danger to nature, they would stay there in place and continue building up power.
And that will create a monster that accumulated mana while going against Providence.
The elven Apocalypse Bringer would only move when something changes in their environment. If someone were to destroy the forest, the elven Apocalypse Bringer that became a monster over tens of thousands of years would move on its instinct.
To crush the ‘enemy of nature’ to death.
“Damn it–”
He lamented upon finally realising what the last weapon that the black dragons had prepared for the Long Night was.
Suddenly, dirt, trees and a forest started to fall from the large crevice going down the sky. It came down like a landslide happening from thin air and the abundance of nature made it look as if someone was pouring a whole island.
In the midst of the falling dirt and fragments of nature flickered a bluish black light that began resonating with the sky of the Long Night.
A large number of huge roots resembling those of the world tree came pouring out from the sky, and fell like devouring ocean waves as they intertwined in the air.
And soon, the roots cracked open revealing someone inside.
– W, what in the…!
A commander unknowingly gasped in shock into the radio.
Standing in the air was one that was the size of a human who however gave off a vastly superior presence compared to the adult dragons.
He thought the hypothesis in his mind had been absurd, and had never thought such a thing actually existed.
[Elven Bringer of Apocalypse]
Opening its purple eyes, it observed the world in its darkness.
Then, the elf raised its hand. Bluish black aura gathered to one spot and soared up like a large tree as mana that must have been saved for an epoch, with each unit being at least hundreds of thousands of years, gathered to its immense weapon.
As the unfathomable amount of aura that had been hidden inside its body exuded out and allowed them to see just how immense it was, the soldiers questioned their eyes.
Am I dreaming?
Is something as absurd as that even possible?
Seriously?
Tuungg———
That was when the guy shot its mana.
Out of the rankers that ignorantly jumped in to stop it, thirteen were annihilated in the literal meaning of the word. They literally disintegrated in the air and vanished.
The aura of [Eradication] that was discharged from the weapon followed the trajectory and destroyed the nearby superhumans, monsters and landscape. There was no sound accompanying that strike, and that made it even more frightening.
Soon, as shrieks, yells of commanders and voices filled with shock disturbed his ears through the radio.
– Act with caution!
Yu Jitae soared into the sky with a shout.