The once-quiet ruined city erupted into chaos.
KWAANG!
An explosion roared, and smoke billowed upward.
KUAAAAANG!
The monster’s shriek rang out.
Tentacles stretched in every direction. Buildings pierced by them collapsed.
Old men, children, and women were buried beneath the rubble. White blood flowed from the crushed corpses.
Wiiiiiing!
That grotesque siren was still blaring.
I drove my spear in with all my strength.
Puk!
The spear pierced the monster’s translucent shell and split the black stone in half.
Peoeong!
The moment the black stone shattered, the monster’s body burst apart, spilling white blood everywhere.
I wiped the white blood soaking my hair away and clicked my tongue softly.
“What a waste. If only we’d had more time, I could’ve gathered more.”
Before me was a cocoon torn open wide, and a monster half-emerged from it, impaled on my spear.
Compared to the giant monster, the spear lodged in it looked terribly small.
But since I had destroyed its black stone, there was no way the monster could still be fine.
This was the fourth cocoon.
The only ones whose black stones I had been able to extract were the first two.
For the monster just before and this one, I had been short on time and had no choice but to destroy the black stones.
Sof’s reply came.
[Hurry. It seems to have followed you right to your heels.]
The shrieks were drawing closer and closer.
I had done my best to shake them off, but the distance was steadily closing.
I pulled out my spear and hurled it toward a collapsed wall.
Puak!
A middle-aged woman who had been trying to come inside was knocked back with the spear embedded in her.
Thud, crash.
Along with the sound of impact, I saw humanoid monsters fall outside the crumbled wall.
They were the ones who had been trying to enter alongside the monster that had just been knocked back.
They were the ones that had been nearby.
I had kept dodging them diligently, but now that I had smashed a cocoon, they had no choice but to swarm here.
Monsters were pressing in from every direction.
There were so many that my senses were nearly overloaded.
And on top of that, there was the enormous mass with tentacles approaching at a terrifying speed—the scout.
As Sof had said, it was time to run.
I had killed only four monsters inside cocoons.
They were the ones I had identified in advance when I passed by earlier.
Out of more than forty cocoons that must have been in this city, only four.
Of course I was disappointed.
But there was no time to look for other cocoons.
And this sabotage operation was not over yet.
After glancing at the wall on the opposite side, I threw myself toward the broken wall.
KWAAANG!
Behind me, I heard the sound of a wall exploding.
When I glanced back, tentacles were pouring in through the opposite wall, which had been smashed apart.
The scout’s tentacles pierced through the dead monster’s body and shattered the wall and floor as well.
It was a terrifying sight, but this time too, it was one step too late.
I ran in the direction where my comrades were and stretched out my arm.
Tak.
The spear embedded in the building wall flew into my hand.
A narrow alley appeared before my eyes.
Until just a little while ago, I had been moving through alleys like that, but there was no longer any need.
I kicked off the ground with all my strength.
I leapt onto the roof of an intact building and kept running.
As I ran, vaulting from building to building, I could see the humanoid monsters chasing after me.
There were ones on the main road, ones in the alleys, and even ones crawling up onto rooftops.
There were more than a hundred just within sight, and the ones I sensed numbered several times that.
On top of that, I saw several tentacles surging up onto the rooftops behind me.
The scout had begun chasing me again.
As if it had no intention of losing me this time, it used all of its tentacles to race across the rooftops.
How many buildings had I crossed?
In the end, I had to come down from the rooftops. There were no buildings with roofs left nearby.
I could no longer see any buildings that still retained their shape.
That meant I had almost reached my destination.
In the distance, I saw a half-collapsed tower.
Right below the tower, a glint of light flashed from a broken watchtower.
It had to be an arrowhead reflecting sunlight.
I waved my hand toward the tower.
Hannah was still too far away for me to see her clearly.
But she could see me.
Shuaaaak!
With a sharp sound, an arrow passed over my head.
Puak!
I heard something burst, and sensed one monster being erased.
I knew without looking.
Hannah’s arrow had dealt with it.
They said humanoid monsters were weaker than other monsters, but to take one down in a single shot like that.
The power of her bow had grown stronger than before.
After the first arrow, more arrows kept flying.
Shuk! Shushuk! Shushuk!
The speed was incredible. The arrows continued one after another as though biting each other’s tails.
And the arrows did not miss their targets.
Even if the monsters dodged into alleys or hid behind obstacles, the arrows changed direction as if alive and dealt with them.
The enemies were disappearing quickly, but the number of enemies chasing me only grew larger.
It seemed every humanoid monster in the city had emerged.
Just as expected.
And just as I had intended.
The situation would not change just because I destroyed a few cocoons.
When damaging a factory, destroying the facilities and eliminating the workers and managers was far more effective than breaking the products being shipped out.
Those humanoid monsters were the facilities that made the cocoons, the workers, and the raw materials.
If we wanted to damage this city-factory, the correct answer was to eliminate as many of those humanoid monsters as possible.
[I cannot even call this mere cunning. Just what did you do during the war?]
Sof asked in a startled voice, but I had no particular answer to give.
Special missions during the war were all like this.
Rescue, abduction, torture, destruction of facilities and factories, assassination, and so on.
Ordinary tasks, nothing impressive.
Those tasks were proving very useful now.
Arrows continued flying past me, and just as the monsters chasing me fell into confusion, I saw the trap Magreta had made.
A single rope stretched across the road.
I jumped over that rope and kept running.
Ropes continued to appear after that.
On the road, inside alleys, between buildings—countless ropes were laid out.
After I passed them, the monsters chasing behind me stepped over them.
Chwaaak!
The slack ropes pulled taut.
The ropes imbued with energy lashed the monsters’ legs.
Seogeok!
The monsters’ legs were severed.
Then, a rope hanging from a wall moved as if alive, coiling around a monster’s neck and snapping it.
Ttuduk.
That was not the only rope moving on its own.
The many ropes that had seemed like part of the background all moved as though they had gained life.
Nooses descended from rooftops, and whips flew in from the side.
My pace quickened.
Even though the attacks were not directed at me, my speed rose on its own.
[I had no idea it would be to this extent…….]
Sof’s disgusted voice rang out.
It was an astonishing sight.
It was like watching a scene from a horror movie.
I knew her skills had improved, but I had never imagined they would reach this level.
If the ones chasing me had been human, it would have caused tremendous chaos, but unfortunately, they were not human.
Several monsters broke through the living whips and reached my back.
I had deliberately slowed down so they could chase me, but I had no intention of being wounded.
The moment I turned my head to swing my spear, a rope hidden inside an alley sprang out and coiled around the monsters’ bodies like a snake.
The monsters that had been stretching their arms toward me were wrapped in the ropes and vanished into the alley.
Puk. Puk.
The sound of stabbing with a spear came from inside the alley.
White blood splattered out of it.
‘Sergeant Woo.’
That spear sound belonged to Sergeant Woo.
Sergeant Woo was also helping Magreta take down the monsters.
After the spear sounds, I sensed footsteps moving away.
Ropes shot out from the alley again.
They fired toward their next prey, and I was already running far ahead.
There were more traps.
Kwagwagwagwang.
Near the teleportation base, the last remaining large wall collapsed behind me.
More than ten monsters were buried beneath it.
With that much weight, even the monsters could not withstand it.
I sensed a person running behind the collapsed building wall.
This time, it was Tom.
After bringing down the wall, he quickly ran toward the place where the teleportation device was located.
Sergeant Woo and Tom were each returning after launching their attacks, but arrows were still flying overhead, and ropes were still raging among the monsters.
The team members were fighting far better than I had expected.
I wanted to fight alongside them, but unfortunately, I could not.
It was not only humanoid monsters chasing me right now.
Chuaaak!
A tentacle drove into the place where I had been just moments ago.
The ground burst apart, and stones scattered in every direction.
Behind me was an Akzar scout.
I already had the experience of taking down two of them, but even now, it was not a monster I could face head-on.
I had to lure the scout monster away.
‘I just need to take this thing far away and come back as quickly as possible, right?’
We had already exceeded our objective.
Now all I had to do was buy time for my comrades to retreat and then run away myself.
I waved my hand toward the tower and changed direction.
This time, toward the west, where I had never gone before.
There were fewer monsters in this direction, making it easier to move.
Until now, I had been slowing down to make it easy for them to chase me, but I raised my speed again.
The wind brushed past my ears. Behind me, tentacles tore through the ground.
Buildings rapidly fell away behind me.
Even the scout that had been chasing me right at my back gradually grew more distant.
If it had been flat ground, it would have caught up, but this was still, in any case, the middle of a complicated city.
There was no way something that large could reach its full speed.
And so, with the scout in tow, I entered the western district.
Shweeeeeek!
From behind, with a sharp sound, an arrow shot up into the sky.
Hannah had fired a whistling arrow, a signal arrow.
I had definitely told her to shoot the signal arrow when there was danger.
‘I brought the scout with me, so what danger could there be?’
The humanoid monsters had also fallen behind, but quite a few of them were still following me.
But the fact that she had fired the signal arrow meant that I was in danger!
Buuuuuuuu!
At that moment, the siren that had been echoing through the city changed.
Unlike before, it was an intense, agitated sound.
The scout monster chasing me stopped moving.
The humanoid monsters running toward me also stopped.
And then.
KUAAAAANG!
With an explosion, one building burst apart.
KUAAAANG!
It was not just that building. Several buildings ahead of me exploded in succession as if detonating.
Kugugugugung.
As I stood stunned by the absurd sight, Sof’s words reached me.
[Defensive-type monsters. Ones that had not fully matured have torn their cocoons open and come out.]
When the dust settled, I could see them even from the rooftops.
Black monsters protruding abruptly above the roofs.
Unlike the monsters I had killed, their insides could not be seen, but they were bleeding white blood all over their bodies.
[Those ones were just before completion. Since we approached the control entity, they must have torn out of their cocoons in a hurry. This is good. They will not live long.]
“They came out because we approached the control entity?”
[Did you not know? I thought you were heading west to threaten the control entity.]
This was not something I had expected.
I had heard that the control entity was somewhere deep underground.
To think that such a control entity would react this hysterically just because I had come near it.
While I was dumbfounded, the monsters moved.
Though these monsters were unfinished, they were different from the ones I had killed.
As their enormous bodies moved while streaming blood, the buildings blocking them collapsed.
Bang! Kwaaang! Kwaaang!
It was like watching enormous bulldozers pushing through everything.
I saw the buildings collapse one after another as they approached me.
Like the city was being leveled flat, ten enormous clouds of dust drew closer and closer.
It was a terrifying sight, but instead, I felt relieved.
“Just as you said, Sof, this is an opportunity.”
With this, I learned that the control entity had something it feared. It had a weakness too.
On top of that, as Sof said, we could damage even more cocoons.
And finally, I had gained a chance to escape.
To protect itself, the control entity had stopped the encirclement.
If I had to go toward the control entity, it would have been a dreadful situation, but I had no intention of doing that.
I turned around and started running.
Between the stopped scout and the humanoid monsters.
I heightened my senses to the maximum, evaded them, and headed for the teleportation facility.
***
Avoiding the monsters and reaching the place where the teleportation facility was located was not difficult.
I headed straight for the stairs.
When I spread out my senses, I could feel every member of the team underground.
No one had fallen behind or been injured.
I buried the stairs with magic as I descended underground.
The team members were waiting for me.
Everyone had bright expressions.
Faces that looked as if they were about to boast about what they had done.
At any other time, I would have listened slowly, but right now, there was no time.
I gathered everyone and set the staff upright on the shelf.
A hologram rose, and a large magic circle appeared before us.
A magic circle leading not to this planet, but to another.
Everyone stared at the magic circle with flushed faces.
Unlike other times, even I felt goosebumps rise across my body.
I was nervous, but we had to move now.
Together, we stepped into the magic circle.