As if someone had opened a faucet in the sky, Gates poured down without end.
Countless things from other worlds fell upon Korea indiscriminately.
“Hellfire.”
Lee Gangyeol gathered dark crimson flames that blazed in both hands.
With a cold gaze, he swept his eyes through the air.
“Hellfire.”
He continued to chant the spell.
The flames gripped in his hands compressed endlessly, crushed down upon themselves.
Lee Gangyeol confirmed the Gates covering the sky.
“Everyone, get down.”
His voice flowed into the atmosphere.
At those words, everyone scattered around him looked over.
The operations chief turned pale when he saw the flames in Lee Gangyeol’s hands.
“Get down! You’ll all burn!”
At the urgent shout, everyone hurriedly moved.
The mad mana bursting from Lee Gangyeol’s entire body surged out like a storm, transforming like a dragon.
Clad in a dragon’s eyes and scales, he brought his hands together around the gripped flames and pressed them tight.
‘Cover them.’
“Cover them.”
He released the flames he had been holding and set them free.
The flames of hell covered the sky and expanded without end.
Following his voice, imbued with overflowing draconic energy, the flames danced and burned.
The heat reached all the way to the ground. People hurriedly hid themselves, taking shelter from the heat.
Wielding the terrifying flames, Lee Gangyeol looked around.
“Nothing.”
From within the flames blanketing the area, the Command Sergeant Major suddenly appeared.
Seeing Lee Gangyeol’s expression, she said,
“Hurry up and go find him. That elf bitch and I will take care of this place.”
Lee Gangyeol hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
Within the blazing flames, she drew up her energy and wrapped it around her fists.
Clad in fist aura, she looked at the remaining monsters.
“Move.”
At the Command Sergeant Major’s single word, every member of Hongik who had been crouching to avoid the flames sprang to their feet.
Sensing her surroundings through her perception, she said,
“Catch as many as you can. So the civilians can evacuate.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Elysia led the monsters she had cultivated in the garden.
“Now, my babies, shall we go that way?”
A wolf three times the size of a bull, carrying a blue glow, charged forward.
“Where are you, Sinhyeok?”
Lee Gangyeol roamed the area, searching for the vanished Sinhyeok.
Standing tall in the sky, he shouted,
“Detect!”
Mana instantly swept over the heavens.
Even after searching everywhere with his immense mana supply, Sinhyeok was nowhere to be seen.
“Sinhyeok…….”
* * *
Hongik’s empty base, after everyone had left.
Blue, who had been sprawled out in the barracks enjoying an afternoon nap, shot upright.
Opening its eyes on the bed, Blue shook its head and looked around.
It glanced about as if searching for someone, then froze as though it had broken down.
Soon, its expression rapidly turned vicious, and it ran outside.
It passed the terrace and jumped down to the ground.
Thwap.
Landing smoothly on its soft, jelly-like paws, it bounded forward with passionate, wobbling strides.
Thump, thump, thump.
The logistics chief, who had remained at Hongik, spotted Blue running fiercely away.
“Blue! Where are you going!”
Blue’s body swelled larger and larger until it transformed into the shape of a massive wolf and broke through the guard post.
“Hey!”
With a savage expression, Blue ran toward a Gate that had appeared nearby.
Staring into the space beyond it, it crossed over without hesitation.
Upon arriving there, Blue devoured everything in sight and moved as if searching for someone.
“Kraaaagh! Stop it!”
Black orcs were swept away by Blue and screamed.
“Someone stop that monster!”
Like a machine, Blue repeated the act of devouring and moving.
After swallowing countless things, Blue lifted its head in the empty Gate and stared at the sky.
“Grrrr…….”
Blue’s form, which had always been blue, was dyed ash gray.
For the first time, it let out a faint voice and approached the core that had turned black.
“Krararara!”
Without hesitation, it swallowed the core whole.
Then the space collapsed, and everything scattered.
Blue remained in an empty space.
When it turned its gaze and saw another approaching Gate, it ran once more.
“Kraaa!”
* * *
The three who had been struck by Arisa’s unexpected ambush were sucked somewhere in an instant.
“Uwaaaagh!”
Hong Ichan flailed in midair.
The three of them were falling at high speed.
“Mister!”
Bu Sinhyeok calmly checked their surroundings.
Everything around them was extremely chaotic.
‘What is this place?!’
Countless worlds had formed a belt and were encircling Earth.
No, to be precise, they looked as if they were lingering because they could not enter Earth.
“Hold hands!”
For now, Sinhyeok decided to deal with the fact that they were falling at an insane speed.
Flailing in the air, they struggled to clasp hands with one another.
Sinhyeok spread his legs, and the two clung tightly to him.
‘Levitation!’
He hurriedly drew the rune word for Fly in the air, which he had memorized just in case.
Whoom.
They came to a sudden stop in midair.
Ichan trembled and cautiously looked down.
“Uuuugh!”
Arin was just as horrified.
Sinhyeok also looked down.
“That’s high.”
“M-Mister, go down slowly. Slowly!”
Whoosh.
Since it was his first time controlling the magic, Sinhyeok was awkward with it.
“Kyaaaaaagh!”
They dropped several dozen meters in an instant, then abruptly stopped again.
“Uuurp!”
Ichan and Arin’s faces turned deathly pale.
Sinhyeok laughed awkwardly and adjusted the magic again.
“Hwaak!”
Thud.
When they touched the ground, Arin and Ichan trembled.
Sinhyeok immediately calmed himself and looked around.
‘Where are we?’
The only familiar thing was that blue planet, Earth.
A gigantic tree encircled Earth.
“Is that Yggdrasil, by any chance?”
Ichan staggered as he followed Sinhyeok’s gaze.
“I-It seems right. Uurp!”
He immediately turned his head and vomited.
Sinhyeok patted Ichan’s back while checking where exactly the three of them had fallen.
“Outside Earth?”
Baek Arin, who had experienced a sudden high-altitude fall, looked around with a strained face.
“Mister, where did we come to?”
“I’m not sure either.”
When he turned his gaze in the opposite direction, the sight was even more spectacular.
Countless planets were being pulled in, ignoring the laws of physics.
They were slowly breaking apart into fragments, compressing, and being drawn toward Earth.
After retching for a long while, Ichan finally lifted his head.
And when he took in that scenery, his face hardened.
“Ah.”
Seeing Ichan’s expression, Sinhyeok asked,
“Ichan. Do you know where this is?”
Ichan spoke with an uneasy face.
“It seems like a kind of hell.”
As if nightmares from the past were surfacing, his expression kept stiffening.
Arin placed a hand on Ichan’s shoulder.
When faint holy power flowed into him, Ichan barely managed to calm down.
“Phew.”
He exhaled and steadied his mind.
Ichan told them everything he knew.
“As everyone probably guessed, all of those are Gates.”
Ichan pointed at the tree covering Earth.
“Not all of those Gates go to Earth. That World Tree filters them once.”
Sinhyeok looked at some of the worlds heading toward Earth and said,
“So it only lets in the ones it judges to be safe or less threatening?”
Ichan nodded.
“This is the place where only the worlds that were filtered out remain.”
In other words, it meant the most dangerous worlds.
Sinhyeok understood where that female monster had sent them.
“She’s telling us to die here.”
They had no idea what might be here.
They had no idea what dangers might be lurking.
Finding it absurd, Sinhyeok stared at Earth.
[Re…… ach………… ing …… system is …]
A message that felt strained barely arrived.
Sinhyeok said to the two,
“Everyone, check your systems. Hurry and see if there are any skills that don’t work.”
“M-Mister! A few of my skills aren’t working.”
“I’m fine.”
Sinhyeok was fine as well.
“I barely used anything that relied on the system to begin with.”
Arin looked disappointed.
“Most swordsman skills are system-based. Sigh.”
“Haha. That’s why I told you not to rely on the system too much.”
Baek Arin glared at Sinhyeok as he prattled on.
“Then is everything else fine?”
A chill suddenly ran down Sinhyeok’s spine.
“Wait, what about the inventory?”
At Sinhyeok’s words, everyone hurriedly checked.
No matter how they thought about it or called out, their all-purpose pouch would not open.
All three of them wore the exact same expression.
“We’re fucked.”
They had now fallen into some unknown, dangerous place completely penniless.
“Let’s start by scouting. We need to find a safe place first.”
For the moment, Sinhyeok remained calm.
He tried not to rush.
“You two keep watch.”
Leaving the watch to the two of them, Sinhyeok manually cast Mapping for the first time in a while.
‘It’s been a while since I did this manually.’
Since the system usually handled it kindly and neatly for him, it felt a bit awkward now.
A drop of mana broke away.
It floated in the air and slowly moved. As Sinhyeok focused on it, his perception amplified infinitely.
‘I can see it, bit by bit…….’
When he closed his eyes and concentrated, his surroundings became clear.
The terrain revealed by his Mapping was an ordinary thicket and a low mountain.
‘What I can see looks ordinary.’
The unique thing was that there were unusually many stones.
The mountain was also a rocky one, and there were quite a few boulders everywhere.
He turned his gaze downward.
He examined it in more detail.
‘It’s quiet.’
There were oddly no animals in sight.
‘Is this space originally like this?’
He searched for quite a while after that as well.
He carefully checked whether there was anything dangerous.
When nothing particularly unusual seemed to appear, he withdrew his gaze.
When Sinhyeok opened his eyes and caught his breath, Arin and Ichan relaxed their vigilance and looked at him.
“There doesn’t seem to be any immediate danger, but this is very suspicious.”
At the strange scouting result, Arin grew a little tense.
“So we have to be careful about everything?”
“Yeah.”
Sinhyeok sat for a moment and looked at Earth.
“We need to get there. Ichan, how did you come here when you came before?”
He asked the person who would be most helpful in this situation.
Ichan answered with a troubled face.
“I don’t really know. At some point, I left my hometown and was drawn toward Earth. When I opened my eyes, Battalion Commander Lee Gangyeol had saved me.”
“Ah, huh?”
For a moment, Sinhyeok wondered if he had misheard and asked again.
“Who saved you?”
Ichan answered calmly.
“Battalion Commander Lee Gangyeol.”
“Why? No, how?”
“How would I know? Battalion Commander saved me, that’s all.”
“Ah, right. So you knew him originally?”
Ichan quietly nodded.
Baek Arin also stared at him with her mouth hanging open in disbelief.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Just because. And Battalion Commander told me from the start not to talk about it.”
“Ah…….”
For some reason, it felt like he had been punched.
For now, Sinhyeok set Ichan’s past aside and thought about a way to return to Earth.
“Do you think we can get there if we just keep walking?”
Ichan shook his head.
“No. There’s a barrier, so you can’t get close to Earth. At least, that’s how it was in the past. I don’t know about now.”
Sinhyeok took note of those words.
“You said Yggdrasil filters them. Then in the end, we have to reach that tree. Somehow, we need to let them know we’re here.”
There was one thing that bothered all of them.
Baek Arin said to Sinhyeok,
“But we have to let only the system know we’re here. How are we supposed to do that?”
“If the demons find out instead of the system.”
That was the biggest problem.
Demons—in other words, the Demon Realm. If word of them reached those beings, what would happen to the three of them?
“We’ll die. That’s exactly why she sent us here in the first place.”
‘Maybe even now, at this very moment, they’re searching everywhere for us.’
The situation was extremely bleak.
With a hardened face, Sinhyeok looked at Earth.
He slowly closed his eyes, then looked at the two of them.
“It might be extremely hard to go back.”
Baek Arin dusted off her clothes and checked her equipment as she said,
“We still have to go. Mister, take the lead. You have to guide us.”
She naturally pushed Sinhyeok to the front.
Ichan also grinned and stood behind Sinhyeok.
“Seriously, me again?”
Ichan smiled broadly and said,
“Then who else would do it?”
“Mister, this is your calling. Hurry and take the lead. We need to go home.”
Sinhyeok laughed and, for now, chose a direction based on what he could see.
“Let’s go where we can see first. I need to look with my own eyes.”
At last, the three of them rose from where they had been sitting and began to move.
Sinhyeok checked the items he had on him.
“I’m completely empty-handed.”
Ichan nodded as well.
“Same here.”
Arin checked her belongings.
“I have one emergency assembly-type sword and about two knives.”
Her equipment was thoroughly combat-focused.
Ichan quietly held out his hand.
“What?”
“Noona, could I have one knife…….”
“Tsk.”
With a very reluctant face, she held one out.
Ichan snatched it deftly.
“Return it properly.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Arin looked at the empty-handed Sinhyeok.
“Mister, should I give you something too?”
“I’m fine. If it comes to it, I’ll melt anything nearby and launch it.”
At those words, the two looked at him enviously.
“Amazing.”
“You’re practically a mage!”
“If you’re jealous, become an alchemist.”
Ichan found that even more absurd.
“Alchemists can’t do that either.”
“I can.”
Rustle.
As they walked while making idle chatter, stones slid down from a boulder beside them.
At the sound, Sinhyeok looked to the side.
He glanced briefly at the sliding stones, then passed by.
Tuk, tuk.
Before they had taken more than a few steps, the sound of falling stones came again, and everyone fell silent.
Tududuk.
Sinhyeok looked around and checked the path.
“Reduce noise.”
After confirming there was no path to flee, he gave the order quietly.
Everyone walked silently and shut their mouths.
Sinhyeok turned back and checked their surroundings.
He paid close attention to the boulders filling the area.
‘Mapping again.’
He concentrated and sent out a small piece of mana.
He swept through the surroundings thoroughly.
He even checked for vibrations.
The moment he released and flowed out his mana, the boulders filling the area shattered all at once.
“Retreat! Run for now!”