Chapter 243 (1/2)
Act 1
“Son of a…”
“What the hell is all this?!”
“Skeletons? Why are tower monsters here…?”
San Francisco’s AT&T Park stadium.
The baseball stadium designed to house tens of thousands of spectators was also being utilized as another evacuation center. Needless to say, a number of awakeners were protecting it as well.
Countless skeletons had also suddenly appeared around the stadium.
“Did a dungeon nearby become an outbreak?”
“There are just too many of them for a single dungeon outbreak, don’t you think?!”
“At least tens of thou—no wait, can it even be hundreds of thousand?”
“The whole of San Francisco must be in this state then.”
While looking at the skeletons rushing in at them in ridiculous numbers, the awakeners all formed deeply fed-up expressions.
As a monster, a skeleton wasn’t really all that much to write home about. It was considered a weakling that might show up in either red-colored or yellow-colored dungeons.
However, the current issue was their sheer numbers.
There were so many of them that even if a single awakener took on one hundred of them, it would still not be enough to cut their number. Not only that, but skeletons also weren’t alive, to begin with, so they felt no fear about their death.
“Dammit. How are we supposed to stop all these things?”
“Hey, hold on. Wait a minute.” One of the allied awakeners raised his hand and addressed the others. “Don’t you think that something is strange here?”
The skeletons that were heading toward the evacuation center began displaying a different response. The majority of the monsters shuffling closer while shaking their bony bodies around suddenly stopped moving.
The awakeners guarding the evacuation center also stopped moving because of that. They held their breaths and glared at the skeletons.
Shortly afterward…
“All of you…”
A voice could be heard.
“Return.”
Crunch, kwa-jeeeck—
Tumble, drop—
The tens of thousands of skeletons all lost their strength and collapsed on the ground. The monsters that were once heading menacingly toward the evacuation center transformed into mere piles of bones.
“W—what’s going on here?”
“So suddenly…But why?”
“Has there been any damages to this side?”
The awakeners that were planning to step up to the front and fight off the skeletons quickly turned their heads after hearing that voice.
A man with a familiar face stood before them.
“Heo-uhk!”
“K—Kim Su-hyeun?!”
“Y—yes, sir! Everything is fine, sir! No problems here!”
It was as if they had transformed into soldiers as they stood straight at attention and replied back to Su-hyeun.
“The undead that suddenly appeared all vanished again just now. I don’t know what’s going on here, but…”
“Did you only see skeletons?”
“Yes, you’re correct.”
Su-hyeun furrowed his brows slightly at that reply. There were several evacuation centers in the city, so he decided to stop at the nearest one first, but it turned out to be a miss.
He wasn’t at Adel Castle’s location either.
This also didn’t mean other Lichs were present. There was no way of knowing just where they were hiding, but he could make a guess on what they were planning to do here.
Probably busy drawing the “lines.”
They would be performing the preparations necessary to draw a massive magic circle that encompassed the whole of the United States.
The most important source of power for the Lichs, as well as the Lich King, was the life force extracted when a person died. The magic circle, in addition, possessed the ability to absorb the life force of all dying humans.
It’s different this time.
In the previous timeline, the Lich King used the same process to cause the eventual destruction of the massive country of China.
Back then, Su-hyeun couldn’t do anything. His strength, combined with the Chinese awakeners’, was insufficient to stop the Lichs, their undead army, and the Lich King.
Although the dastardly Lich King had somehow been felled sometime later, China was already gone, and one-third of the global population had vanished along with it.
The Lich King.
The number of people that bastard killed was second only to Fafnir.
“Soon, more people will show up this side. If the undead appear again, don’t push yourselves and focus on defending the evacuation center.”
“What do you mean, more people?”
“I have to get going now.”
“B—but…”
Swish—
Just before something could be said, Su-hyeun’s figure disappeared from their view.
The awakener that was talking with him stood there with a dumbfounded expression, wondering just what kind of a storm had passed by.
But just then, a shadow was cast above their heads.
“Is this an evacuation center?”
Ki-aaaah—!
It was cast from a huge dragon covered in blue scales. Several people were riding on the creature’s back.
“Heo-urhk!”
“A d—dragon?!”
“South Korea’s S-Rank awakener…”
It was the awakener who commanded divine beasts, Song Hyeong-gi. He had shown up at this evacuation center along with numerous divine beasts in tow.
Around the same time…
Similar events were happening in various other evacuation centers as well.
* * *
Chwa-rurururuk—
Kwa-jajajajajak—!
Hundreds of spears rained down, and every time each spear landed, dozens of undead were turned into powder and dissipated.
Whoosh—
Gordon Rohan’s figure turned. Right at the same time, a sword that was aiming to stab him from behind collided with his spear.
Clang—!
Pow—!
The moment their weapons collided, Gordon kicked the chest of a Death Knight that tried to pounce on him.
The undead’s body was forced back a long way. In the brief window of time, it tried to regain its balance, a spear that flew out from Gordon’s hand went straight through the Death Knight’s head.
Pang—!
The spear containing a massive amount of magical energy blew past, and the Death Knight’s body shattered into pieces.
Afterward, Gordon looked down at his own hand that blocked the undead’s sword attack just now.
The weightiness he felt was quite considerable. Several fairly high-level undead hid among the skeletons.
More importantly, though…
“Are you going to keep watching?”
The Lich King hadn’t stepped forward yet.
“What’s the matter? Scared?” Gordon continued.
“How laughable if that’s your attempt at provocation. I’m sure you already know what my end goal here is.”
Gordon furrowed his brows deeply at the Lich King’s reply.
A monster should obviously lack intelligence and follow their base instincts to try and kill humans. However, the Lich King was completely different from all the other monsters Gordon had encountered so far.
It’s shaving away at my stamina.
This bastard was waiting for him to tire himself out first.
Indeed, probably the most effective method of dealing with a powerful individual was to send out countless underlings first.
It wouldn’t be a problem if the guy was a weakling, but…
Gordon looked at the Lich King that was floating up in the air while looking back at him.
But it doesn’t look that way, does it?