Chapter 42 – No Time to Spare (Part Two)

Crack! Il-hyeon brought his sword down hard on the monster’s head.

The rock golem, created inside Togg’s body, collapsed.

At Il-hyeon’s feet lay the shattered remains of countless other monsters besides the one he had just felled.

But the fight was far from over.

More rock golems blocked his path.

Deceptively quick for its sluggish appearance, a fist shot out.

Boom! It shattered a thin pillar behind Il-hyeon, who had dodged just in time.

Exceptional speed, strength, and durability.

For mass-produced monsters, they were surprisingly powerful.

An average Awakened wouldn’t stand a chance.

An average one, that is.

Crunch!

This time, Il-hyeon raised his sword to block another incoming arm.

He immediately ducked, lunged forward, and swung his sword.

The golem was bisected at the waist, and simultaneously, he severed the arms and legs of others striking from his blind spots.

His senses alerted him to everything—even what he couldn’t see, even what he wasn’t consciously aware of.

He felt far sharper than just a day ago.

With every step Il-hyeon took, chunks of rock fell with a deafening crash.

In an instant, the monsters in the room were defeated, and the sword Il-hyeon threw with all his might pierced the head of one in the back.

And the last one remaining—he caught its descending fist with his bare hand.

As the creature struggled to free its arm, Il-hyeon delivered a powerful punch to its solar plexus.

Crash! The creature’s rocky body shattered miserably, like a piece of tofu.

Il-hyeon clenched and unclenched his fist, looking down at it.

“Hmm, not bad.”

All the monsters in the room, numbering in the dozens, had been dealt with.

He had resolved the situation in an instant without using his ability to summon or transform anything.

Il-hyeon slowly scanned his surroundings.

Phoenix, which hadn’t participated in the battle, circled beside him, brightly illuminating the area.

‘Aside from its sheer size… this doesn’t feel like the inside of a living creature.’

Il-hyeon thought, observing carefully.

The large chamber inside Togg’s belly didn’t look like the interior of an organism.

Togg, which moved purely on Ether, had no need to eat or absorb anything, rendering its digestive organs useless.

Likewise, it had no need for respiratory or excretory systems.

As a result, its body contained nothing resembling organs—only rooms and passages made entirely of rock.

The interior was structured like a model made in the likeness of a living being.

‘On top of that, my ability barely works in here.’

The repulsive reaction between his ability and the core inside the monster’s body.

His ability couldn’t be used easily inside.

Trying to transform the floors or walls as he usually did was completely useless.

It was no easy task, as he was attempting to directly alter the body of an A-Rank monster.

“Is it reabsorbing them?”

The monster corpses scattered on the floor suddenly shattered into pieces and were slowly sucked downward.

It seemed that those killed inside its body were being reabsorbed.

Il-hyeon looked up.

It was the direction where he could feel the Ether core, and it was some distance away.

“I need to move quickly.”

Il-hyeon moved his feet swiftly.

While he was doing this, Togg was still rampaging and destroying the city.

Moreover, the monsters being generated in the room were writhing as if they could move at any moment.

He chose one of the many open passages and moved, encountering monsters along the way.

Unlike the golems from before, various insect-like creatures approached, crawling on the walls and ceiling as if defying gravity.

In the narrow passage, this time Phoenix cleared the way.

Phoenix, shrinking its body while intensifying its flames, shot forward, blasting through the monsters with explosive force.

The passage led to another room, where more monsters were being created.

‘Hm?’

The creatures being formed in the room were familiar monsters.

The humanoid frog monster, Forn.

They were the very first opponents he had faced after becoming Awakened.

The monsters in Togg’s belly took not just one, but numerous forms.

‘Could these be monsters from beyond the Gate…?’

Where the hell did these damned monsters come from?

Despite countless studies, nothing had been confirmed.

But if there was a world beyond the Gate, what kind of world it might be was a question that intrigued everyone, including Il-hyeon.

‘Anyway, fighting them one by one will be endless.’

Il-hyeon clicked his tongue and moved.

There was no time to deal with all the monsters.

Following the direction of the powerful energy from the core, he began to climb the rock wall of a passage above.

The rock Forns fiercely threw their spears at the defenseless Il-hyeon, but Phoenix intervened.

It spread its large wings and blocked all the spears.

“Good, well done.”

Il-hyeon looked down and gave it a thumbs-up.

Pleased, Phoenix fluttered over to him.

Then, as usual, it perched on Il-hyeon’s head and acted cute.

“Hey… I can’t see.”

Il-hyeon grunted and stretched out his arm.

It was a smart creature that knew what to do without being told, but the problem was that it loved to cling to him despite its large size.

Perhaps because he had painstakingly granted it an ability and put more effort into its creation, it felt a little different from his other summons.

-Ah, are you alive?

Ghost’s voice came through the communicator, asking him.

“Yeah, I’m alive.”

-That’s a relief. We’re almost done over here.

This time, Lee Soo-yeon, who was single-handedly dealing with the other Togg and its monsters, chimed in.

Her voice was so calm you wouldn’t know she was in the middle of a battle.

-Be careful not to get caught by that thing while you’re inside. It could get annoying.

“Caught? I think I was caught a long time ago.”

Il-hyeon said with a laugh in response to Soo-yeon’s words.

He had come face to face with hundreds of monsters since entering Togg’s belly.

-No, seeing as you have the leisure to talk, I don’t think it’s noticed yet. It probably won’t realize you’re just rummaging around in its belly.

To the dull-witted Togg, what Il-hyeon was doing inside was less than a minor stomachache.

Just as a person is unaware of their red blood cells at work, the same was true for the monsters inside Togg.

“Ah, I see.”

With a grunt, Il-hyeon pulled himself up onto the rock face.

In another wide room that appeared, humanoid monsters with pointed ears were being formed.

If not for the rock, their appearance was closer to human than monster.

Il-hyeon once again drew the sword he had sheathed at his waist.

“I’m almost there.”

Standing here, the aura of Ether was so strong it was almost mouthwatering.

He was certain the core was just two or three walls ahead.

Il-hyeon charged forward, smashing through the attacking monsters.

He fought off various creatures in each room, reaching the very doorstep of his destination.

However, there were no more passages in sight.

The core, its very life force, was protected, blocked by a thick wall.

Bang!

Il-hyeon swung his sword with all his might, but it only left a small scratch on the wall.

“This is going to take some time…”

Il-hyeon muttered and reached out his hand.

He tried using his transformation ability, but being so close to the core, in the central part, it had no effect at all.

Having anticipated this, Il-hyeon sought another way.

If he couldn’t change its form, he would weaken its structure.

Crack! Fissures began to spread from the scratch Il-hyeon had made.

The same method he had used against the B-Rank monster in Russia worked again.

It took far more effort than before, but weakening it was not a problem.

Rumble!

Suddenly, Togg’s body shook violently.

It was enough to make Il-hyeon stagger.

-Togg has stopped spitting out monsters. Get out of there, now!

Seok Pil-joon, who was dealing with monsters outside, said urgently.

While it was dull to other things, Togg immediately noticed when Il-hyeon started tampering with the area around its heart.

Thump, thump, thump! He could hear the sound of all sorts of monsters converging on one location.

Togg’s creation of monsters inside its body was a kind of defense mechanism.

It created monsters to defend itself when it felt its life was threatened, and the more threatened it felt, the more it would create, even at the cost of its own life force.

A truly immense number of monsters were being created, swarming toward him like a tsunami.

“Damn it!”

Il-hyeon desperately poured his ability into the wall.

If he couldn’t weaken the wall here, he would be trapped and die a dog’s death.

The cracks in the thick wall grew larger, and in the passage beyond, he could see monsters swarming like a horde of zombies.

“Screw it!”

Il-hyeon summoned all his strength and swung his sword.

Crash! The wall shattered, and a brilliant white stream of light burst forth from within.

A core overflowing with powerful Ether floated in the center.

To Il-hyeon, it looked truly beautiful.

But he had no time to admire it; he quickly reached for the core.

“Ugh…!”

The core cracked, and an immense amount of Ether flowed into his body.

It was his first time absorbing an A-Rank monster, a giant one at that, and it contained an enormous output of Ether.

It was more than Il-hyeon could consume on his own.

“This is dangerous…”

Il-hyeon grimaced and muttered anxiously.

He didn’t have the presence of mind to look back, but he could feel the monsters approaching at high speed.

Forget their attacks; their sheer numbers were enough to crush him where he stood.

But there was still a little more Ether left in the core.

Phoenix pushed Il-hyeon aside and jumped in.

Even as he was shoved aside, a mix of emotions washed over him, and he stared at the creature in bewilderment, wondering what it was doing. But soon, his eyes widened in astonishment.

The Ether remaining in the core after Il-hyeon’s absorption.

All of it flowed into Phoenix’s body.

The white stream of light was absorbed in an instant.

Clang! The core completely shattered.

Groooaaar!

With Togg’s low scream, all the approaching monsters froze, their lifeless bodies tumbling to the ground.

His jaw dropping, Il-hyeon’s gaze turned to Phoenix, who was licking its lips, apparently having enjoyed its meal, just like its master.