-Eruption
Yasin had not actually appeared before me in person.
His voice flowed out through the speakers on the elves’ trucks.
Yasin was still only showing his face on the trucks’ screens.
But even that lasted only a moment.
The trucks, which had been swerving across the buckling asphalt, finally flipped over with a crash.
From the gaps in the ground that had heaved up and torn open, the vines of the man-eating plant shot out.
It was the same in every direction. Vines and roots were bursting out all over the runways, roads, and buildings.
As the trucks overturned, elves tumbled down.
Screams rang out everywhere.
“Everyone, be careful!”
I looked back at my companions.
The mages had prepared in advance, so they were dodging the splitting, tearing ground well.
I moved with them using propulsion magic, keeping watch on the changes around us.
The vines and roots that rose from the cracks in the earth were different again from the man-eating plant’s appearance up until now.
Green stems and leaves that had even looked fresh from a distance, and flowers that had truly been beautiful.
If one ignored its enormous size, the man-eating plant had looked like a fairly normal plant, but only now did it seem to reveal its true form.
The dark brown vines were covered in wrinkled man-eating pouches, while the pitch-black roots stretched out in grotesque shapes like a demon’s claws.
Not only did they look hideous, they were also spewing a revolting stench.
“Ugh, what is that smell? It’s rotting my nose.”
“Look at those roots. They’re seriously horrifying. It’s like they just crawled up from hell.”
“Everyone, check carefully for any tears in your barriers.”
“First, I need to purify this stench.”
Cheon Danbi quickly took out a bundle of medicinal herbs and lit it. She immediately began purifying the area with the smoke from the burning herbs.
It was a good thing we had prepared plenty on the way here.
The elves were quite impressive as well. Even though their trucks had overturned and they had fallen to the ground, they quickly righted themselves as if they had never screamed and entered combat.
When the elves fired bright waves of light mana, the nearby man-eating plants began to wither.
As the stench began to be purified, the mages also regained their composure.
“Let’s burn them with lightning and fire!”
“Attack the vines around us first!”
“At least there are no flowers now, so we don’t have to worry about mind magic.”
Thor immediately poured out lightning, and Balder poured out flames.
Heimdall and Han Dosu followed suit, beginning to burn the nearby vines with fire magic.
Gil loaded fire magic into his concentric circles of mana and spread it low across the ground. He intended to burn even the roots underground.
Everyone was doing their part well.
But truthfully, it felt like pouring water into a bottomless jar.
No matter how much we burned them, the vines and roots quickly burst through the ground again, and even purification only lasted a moment.
Our territory was hardly expanding.
That was when, as we continued the tedious fight—
“That damned Yasin! To turn plants into monsters like this! Plants possess souls too, but he’s completely steeped them in gray energy to the point that purification doesn’t even work!”
Cheon Danbi was grumbling as she spread the herbal smoke.
Suddenly, the terminal building lit up brightly.
The lights flickered on and off as if putting on some sort of show with the lamps, then it was plunged back into pitch darkness.
Then it lit up brightly again and flickered.
Perhaps Yasin had been the one who caused the power outage in the first place; now he was outright playing around with the electricity.
“How is it? Doesn’t it look like a Christmas tree? Look over here. Everyone, pay attention!”
This time, Yasin’s voice came from the air above the terminal building. His figure was nowhere to be seen.
In any case, he was a strange dark mage who truly loved putting on shows and being the center of attention.
Against the backdrop of the chaotic play of lights, the man-eating plant was growing again on the terminal building.
The stems and leaves that had all withered from the elves’ attacks seemed to grow anew in green, but soon vines began pushing up from below as if the stems were being pulled out.
Vines covered in man-eating pouches and pitch-black, grotesquely bent roots stretched out at terrifying speed.
The roof was pierced through, the building walls burst apart, and the glass windows that had still remained shattered without exception.
Until now, even while wrapped in the man-eating plant, the building had at least maintained its shape, but now its very form was collapsing and twisting as the building began to crumble.
“That devilish bastard! He’s completely wrecking beautiful Incheon Airport! Does he think terrorism is a joke?”
Thor wasn’t even Korean, but it seemed he had cherished Incheon Airport inwardly.
Roaring in anger, he poured down a rain of lightning toward the air above the terminal building, where Yasin’s voice had come from.
The rain of lightning indifferently sliced through the empty air and struck the stretching vines and roots with a barrage.
The parts hit by lightning burned immediately, but it was useless. Newly growing vines and roots quickly filled the spots again.
Now even the light show could not remain.
In the place where the terminal building had stood, all that could be seen were the pitch-black, tangled roots of the man-eating plant.
‘There’s no way he intended to show me only this much of a performance. The man-eating plant can’t be everything. What exactly is he trying to show me?’
Even now, I was merely watching without using any magic at all.
I was waiting for the thing Yasin had said he had saved to show me.
The gray energy was still swirling fiercely, centered on the place where the terminal building had stood.
There was no doubt that was the stage.
The terminal site was already packed so densely with vines and roots that there wasn’t a single gap, and the place where we stood was filled with man-eating plants until there was no space left.
They were even winding around the mages’ barriers and crawling up them.
However, the growth of the man-eating plants that had seemed as if it would continue endlessly was gradually subsiding.
It seemed Yasin’s preparations were finally complete.
I focused my mind and watched the vortex of gray energy.
“The time has come. Life Water of the Demon Realm, erupt!”
At last, Yasin’s voice rang loudly through the air.
This time, unlike usual, his tone was rather solemn.
Then the gray energy that had been lying so thickly around us it was suffocating was all swept into the vortex around the terminal and began to whirl violently.
Once again, the ground began to rumble and shake, forcing the mages to rise into the air with propulsion magic.
“Fall back farther!”
“Strengthen the barriers!”
While my companions moved busily, I quickly raised my mana.
Before the thing Yasin had prepared could activate, I intended to launch a preemptive attack first and offset its effects even a little.
From what I had observed so far, it seemed Yasin had installed a core of dark magic beneath the terminal building.
And perhaps he was trying to activate that very core right now.
‘Red Burning Meteor!’
I raised a vast intent. Waves of mana surged upward.
My plan was to maximize my fire magic and drive a burning meteor deep into the terminal site to destroy the core.
That would destroy the terminal building completely, but it could not be helped.
It had already been shattered, twisted, and broken by the man-eating plant, and was collapsing anyway.
Shiiik!
From the tip of my raised hand, a white wave of mana stretched out.
The vortex of gray energy Yasin had created was now forming a black hole, a single point like a black hole.
Directly below it, the fire magic I activated forged a red burning meteor.
For an instant, white light flashed, and the red blazing meteor fell straight toward the terminal building.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang!
When the meteor struck the building, a fierce explosion erupted.
Everything shattered into pieces and scattered.
Perhaps that sound was the screams of the man-eating plants. The vines and roots that had flourished with all their might were torn into pieces beyond recognition and sent flying.
The man-eating plant, which had turned the inside and outside upside down and dragged the hideous scenery beneath the earth up to the surface, burned violently in the path of the flaming meteor.
Acrid, poisonous smoke and odor rose as if garbage were being burned. The man-eating pouches popped and burst as if exploding, and the roots twisted and burned madly as if they were fuel for hellfire.
By now, the meteor had gone deep underground and could no longer be seen.
“Hurry and erupt!”
Yasin’s voice burst out, sounding slightly impatient.
The next moment, the black hole made of gray energy dropped as if falling, following the path of the meteor downward.
Then the mutually repelling energies caused a powerful backlash, and sparks flew in every direction.
A wave like pain spread outward in concentric circles.
“Everyone, dodge!”
The moment I shouted to my companions, a massive eruption like a volcanic explosion burst from the deep hole the meteor had fallen into and carved out, where the black hole had sunk.
Black-red lava surged upward like a fountain, then began to pour and flow in all directions.
The boiling lava, that mass of energy, was the core of the man-eating plants and highly concentrated gray energy.
Yasin had called it the Life Water of the Demon Realm.
What other secret was hidden within it?
Even though I had dropped the Red Burning Meteor in advance to offset the core’s energy, the erupting energy was enormous.
Even now, if the meteor’s waves had not held it back, the lava would have swept over an even wider area.
While floating with propulsion magic, I retreated far backward and checked on my companions. Fortunately, everyone in our group was safe.
It seemed they had already fallen well back by the time I dropped the meteor.
The elves were nowhere to be seen, as if they had fled at some point. Only the overturned trucks remained, covered in the vines and roots of the man-eating plant.
‘This way! Come with stealth magic equipped!’
Han Dosu signaled to me with his hands.
For now, I did as he said and used stealth magic, then moved to where my companions were.
Everyone had gathered in the shadow of the cargo terminal building, which was still intact.
All their gazes were fixed on the lava surging and flowing from the site where the terminal building had stood.
The entire area was boiling. The heat of hellfire reached out toward us.
‘It’s horribly hot. But if this happens……?’
I quickly looked around. I searched for the tentacle monsters that had been frozen while densely covering the runways.
Sure enough, the ice imprisoning the tentacle monsters was melting.
Even though it was ice from freezing magic that would not easily melt under ordinary flames, it could not withstand the heat of the boiling lava.
“Damn it! The tentacle monsters are coming back to life.”
“It looks like the man-eating plants are regaining vitality from the lava too. They’re all writhing like mad, aren’t they?”
“What do we do? It’s been completely taken over.”
My companions quietly talked as they analyzed the situation.
I looked over the entire airport and thought carefully.
Now, fighting the man-eating plants or the tentacle monsters was not the problem.
The core of dark magic was overflowing across the area as lava.
I thought again about how Yasin had called it the Life Water of the Demon Realm.
‘Once all the lava finishes overflowing, what will remain in that place?’
I stared at the deep hole gouged into the place where the terminal had been.
I was not merely looking at it; I pierced through it with my golden sight.