His mouth felt like it would dry up.

His eyes ached as if they would pop out.

His head felt like it was roasting.

Since he had raised his threshold with buffs to exceed his cognitive limits, it was inevitable that this would place a greater burden on him than simply enhancing his physical body.

However, Jung-woo could not stop.

Either he would die, or that thing would die.

One of the looming choices had to be realized, and Jung-woo was on the side where the latter must be fulfilled.

A war of attrition through hit-and-run tactics.

Bluffing for the perfect strike of the Aikio.

He was employing every available means.

As he did so, he processed real-time feedback in his mind, sorting out which tactics to execute and which to discard.

“Squads 1 and 4, retreat. Squad 2, advance. Squad 3, plant mines. Detonate.”

—Kkwarurururung!!!

There was not a single moment to rest.

A single hole in the information could lead to an irreversible sacrifice.

He went as far as collecting data on every single blink of Jormungandr’s eyes.

While doing so, he measured the distance internally.

‘110km. Almost there.’

Just a little more.

Just a little more to the target point.

He had to drain even a handful more of its mana.

“Hunter Shin Jung-woo…!”

Hikaru spoke.

She was drenched in cold sweat.

Her body was trembling violently.

It was not a fear response, but because of the task she had prepared for.

Kwon-seung was no different.

Since the start of the subjugation.

…No, even before that.

The two had been drawing their power to the limit for hours to create Jung-woo’s joker card.

“Just a moment. Just a little more.”

That was all Jung-woo could say.

Inferring the extent of the pressure they were feeling gave rise to a sense of urgency, yet he turned a blind eye to it.

Because he had to.

[Target at 105km!]

[104!]

[103!]

Jung-woo continued issuing commands as he listened to the reports.

He calculated the timing in his head and arranged variations for follow-up measures.

It felt as though his thoughts were splitting into several branches.

With several calculations running simultaneously in his mind, he even began to feel as if his very ego was fracturing.

It was at such a moment.

Finally.

[100km! We have arrived at the location!!!]

They had made it that far.

“Detonate! Now!”

At the same time as the shout, blood trickled down from Hikaru’s eyes and nose.

Kiiiiiiing—!

Over 100km away.

Yet the roar was loud enough to echo all the way here.

Only then could Jung-woo smile.

Eternal Imprisonment.

An Ex-rank skill whose function was the isolation of space.

Simply put, that was how it could be summarized, but delving into the deeper domains of the ability made the story a little different.

Jung-woo had always been the type to ponder.

When it came to the utilization of skills, he enjoyed analyzing how to use even the most insignificant abilities most perfectly, testing the limits of their potential.

Given such a disposition and habit, he had thought up many ways to utilize Eternal Imprisonment.

Then, an idea struck him.

‘This is a landmine.’

Eternal Imprisonment was fundamentally an ability where visual confirmation of its changes from the outside was difficult.

It was only through mana responses that one could barely identify its boundaries.

Let’s think about it in reverse.

There is a land affected by Eternal Imprisonment.

Until the opponent approaches it, they would never know that the place is isolated.

If the very nature of the space is like that, is there any way to know what’s inside?

There was a subjugation method inspired by that.

—Mr. Ha Kwon-seung, could you erase the mana outside the boundary of the Eternal Imprisonment?

—I can, but it will be a burden. It has a repulsion reaction with other skills.

—Please.

To prevent Jormungandr, which was sensitive to mana, from feeling the foreignness of the sea area, he had Kwon-seung buffed to erase the boundary of the Eternal Imprisonment.

Not stopping there, he sought one more means to definitively sink Jormungandr within.

—A storm…?

—Yes, if Ms. Ichijomodori is the master of the domain, I think it would be possible to create an internal environment. Even if she can’t do it alone, she could with Rabbit’s buff.

—I-I’ll try!

After weighing the possibility of environmental creation, they finally realized it.

The very morning before, Hikaru succeeded in creating a rotation close to a storm inside the Eternal Imprisonment.

However, the size was not satisfactory.

He utilized Ho-jong.

—It’s an ability that places the same restrictions on both the opponent and oneself.

—Right?

—Then, by reversing that, couldn’t we dope the opponent’s ability in a contract format?

—…Mr. Jung-woo, you think of wicked things.

—I’ll take that to mean it’s possible.

He even finished assisting the output.

So what would he do with it.

The answer to that was ‘Vertenum’.

—Are you telling me to put all of this inside the domain?

—Yes, all of it.

The amount brought was 3,000 tons.

Excluding the amount to be used for hit-and-run tactics, it was 2,700 tons.

Its destructive power was equivalent to thousands of bombs.

Detonating them all at once the moment Jormungandr passes through the domain?

Not enough.

Even that was not a certain card to strand that disaster of a massive body.

So he changed the method.

It was by utilizing an effect close to the first principle of Eternal Imprisonment.

—Please detonate them in advance.

—In advance…?

—Yes.

All physical phenomena within the domain basically approach an infinitely static state.

That meant that the bombs would also stop in a state of having exploded, retaining only the physical force of the explosion.

A space where the explosive power of thousands of Aikio was trapped.

The only thing that could exert physical force within it was the rotational force Hikaru created.

The storm inside the domain spun the static explosive force like a washing machine, creating collisions between particles.

In that process, the explosive force, unable to be fully resolved, constantly rose.

Forever, as long as the domain was maintained, eternally until the limit Hikaru could endure.

That Eternal Imprisonment was such a domain.

Existing within its movement path as an unidentifiable landmine.

Simultaneously, one that would inevitably reach the end the moment one stepped into it.

…Jormungandr stepped into that space.

A moment of silence, panic, and then rage.

However—

“Too late.”

Hikaru had already given up control.

——————!

The domain collapsed, dyeing the night pure white.

Edmond rose from his seat.

In that moment, what surfaced on his face was pure awe.

His gaze was akin to that of a boy looking at his idol.

The atmosphere blatantly revealed the fact that he was steeped in ecstasy.

Bella fully understood that emotion.

“I never knew Eternal Imprisonment could be utilized like this. This is… truly…”

It was a white night.

The explosion was sustaining its phenomenon over the Pacific Ocean for more than a minute.

All acoustic equipment had blown out.

Due to the aftermath of the explosion, half of the live channels had shut down, and only the few that remained were now constantly illuminating a flickering white light in silence.

The chat window only showed a few intermittent emoticons.

It wasn’t that the channel streaming conditions were poor.

No one dared to move their fingers amidst that explosion.

Bella spoke.

“This is the end. If it’s an explosion like this, I understand what he meant by 100 points.”

Bella had always disliked Jung-woo.

There was only one reason.

Bella was Edmond’s most loyal servant.

The savior who had saved her miserable life and raised her to the top favored him to the extent of giving up everything he had.

Did Shin Jung-woo really have that much value?

For emotional reasons, she had tried to belittle Jung-woo, a little, a lot.

But with things having come to this, she could no longer do so.

The moment the explosion swallowed Jormungandr was thrilling.

Even Bella, who had walked such a rough path of reversal, ended up considering this explosion sacred.

“This is the end. An Out of Rank subjugator has appeared after you. How do you feel, Edmond?”

Bella looked at Edmond with an expression tangled with emptiness and awe.

However, the words coming from his mouth were a denial.

“…No.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not merely an explosion.”

Bella’s eyes widened as if they would tear apart.

Rather than his words, it was because of the change that appeared on his face.

“He’s not aiming for that. Bella. The 100 points are somewhere else.”

Tears were flowing down Edmond’s cheeks.

He was soaked in rapture, wearing a bright smile Bella had never seen before.

Bella couldn’t understand those words at once.

But she could understand afterwards.

Bella jumped up from her seat in horror.

“It survived? That thing is alive!?”

Jormungandr, at the site where the explosion had stopped, was not yet dead.

It had definitely been effective.

As if proving it, cotton had burst out from more than half of its body.

The doll fur, which had been white, was all dyed black and scorched stiff.

Its movements had become extremely minimal.

However, the fact that it wasn’t dead meant it would recover.

Only then did Bella understand the majesty of that monster.

Out of Rank Magical Beast, Jormungandr.

Supernatural Ability, Continental Devour.

That entity was a monster that had given up the special abilities that all ultra-high-rank champion magical beasts possessed, investing all that potential into its physical body.

The result of that was now being displayed.

Her mouth hung agape.

A sense of despair even surged up momentarily.

But it didn’t last long.

“So this was what it was for.”

“Is there a way!?”

“This was what it was for. He was trying to utilize even that.”

Edmond covered his face with his hands.

Bella felt frustrated.

“Edmond! Stop keeping it to yourself and explain!”

“…Antennas.”

Edmond’s voice trembled.

“Magic Antennas. I wondered why he was gathering them.”

Bella also realized it belatedly.

With the Savior’s information network, she could be shared what had been prepared in the pre-subjugation phase.

Jung-woo had undertaken the task of collecting all the Magic Antennas in the capital region of Japan.

They had not been used until now.

Why?

The answer was being revealed.

Jung-woo’s voice echoed over the radio channel.

[Please prepare the finale.]

—Chwaaaaak!!!

The support squad shot out towards Jormungandr all at once.

Several harpoon guns were hanging from their shoulders.

Why harpoons.

There was no question.

“…He made the Magic Antennas into harpoons?”

The support squad took flight.

And, they shot and embedded the antennas into various parts of its body where the cotton had burst out.

Edmond spoke.

“Yes, it’s a monster that has invested solely in its physical body for 30 years. A guy like that could withstand an explosion like that. Above all, its body is too large. Its length alone is dozens of kilometers. It’s absurd. Its sheer size means it can’t be matched with the weapons the Teddy Bear has.”

“Then…”

“We have to deny that size. We have to make it deny it.”

Edmond’s eyes shone brighter than ever.

“Magic Antennas are a means of gate communication. Fundamentally, the tool itself has the ability to interact with gates.”

He was looking at Jormungandr with a sympathetic gaze.

Surprisingly, the hunter Edmond was looking at the magical beast, his prey, in such a way.

“Hundreds of such things are stuck in the magical beast’s body. And in the body of a magical beast that is frantic to absorb mana, no less.”

Bella held her breath.

Beyond the monitor, the space in various parts of Jormungandr’s body distorted.

What that phenomenon was, was clear.

It was a phenomenon that no hunter could fail to know.

“They’re generating. Gates inside its body.”

—Jjeojeeojeeojeeojeeok!!!

“Truly. An idea only a psychopath would have.”

—Kkadudeudeudeudeudeuk!!!

Jormungandr’s massive body twisted.

It began to be torn apart by the spatial rifts.

“Gate generation. He used humanity’s eternal despair itself as a weapon. Do you understand how incredible this is?”

Edmond became extremely excited.

“Now for the main point.”

“There’s more?”

“Gates are a phenomenon of spatial rifts themselves. Anything in that spot will have its structure twisted and burst. But don’t forget. That is a magical beast. Even if its physical body scatters amidst that change, that’s not the end.”

Edmond approached the screen.

“The Teddy Bear is guiding it. That guy’s next move.”

“Next move…”

“Gates generate magical beasts. There’s plenty of nourishment. That guy will absorb the magical beasts beyond the gates to recover. No, he’ll do more than just recover.”

Jormungandr began to shrink.

“Evolution.”

Its form changed.

“It’s an ecological scenario. Environmental evolution in the midst of crisis. Having realized that its massive body is only a weakness in this battle, Jormungandr will reduce its size to survive. It will invest in speed. Ah, the sea wets the cotton. It must fly through the sky.”

Wings sprouted on the back of the increasingly condensing Jormungandr.

Legs grew.

Jung-woo’s filter was being applied over it in real-time.

“…A dragon?”

“Certainly, it resembles a Western dragon. Its appearance has become cute like a doll, though.”

Smirk. Edmond laughed.

It was simultaneous with Jormungandr, having sucked up all the mana of the generated gates and closing the gates themselves, shooting forward in flight.

“The judgment that if it only reduces its size, it can be caught without variables. But he couldn’t have not anticipated that. Jormungandr has already consumed all its mana in the bombing, and even consumed the gate’s mana for the heat of evolution, so its output is currently lowered. Now it’s the protagonist’s turn.”

Bear Hero.

It was time for Jung-woo’s ultimate weapon to step up.

They were almost there.

Jung-woo caught his balance even as he gasped for breath from his stamina, which had been sucked dry to the limit.

He called the support squad to the coast with a Phase Shift.

A report came in.

“…It is approaching at subsonic speed. The estimated time of arrival to the coast is 5 minutes.”

“Confirmed.”

His vision was dim.

His body had no strength.

It was the recoil of dipping his feet for too long in the cognitive domain beyond his limits.

‘Please, just a little more…’

It was when he was biting his lips like that.

Suddenly,

【[Review Regulation(Ex)] resonates with [All-Ages Filter(L)]!】

【The brutal battle is too violent! But sometimes, there are times when you must show that justice always prevails! You’re not down until you fall! Cheer up!】

The fatigue disappeared from Jung-woo’s body.

‘…No.’

It was postponed.