Chapter 30 – Joint Operation (Part Three)

-Monster horde spawned in Sector H3.

“Okay, I’ll take it.”

Hearing Jeong Jin-seong over the comms, Lee Soo-yeon checked the location on her watch and replied.

Not only did the GPS show the location of every Aegis team member, but the analysis team also provided real-time updates on the monsters.

The map, displayed with a clean, easy-to-read interface, even showed the monsters’ predicted movement paths with arrows, tracked by precision satellites.

Lee Soo-yeon switched her comms channel and gave orders to her A-Team members.

To prevent chaotic cross-talk, the two teams were communicating across three separate channels.

“Team Leader Jeong is heading in the opposite direction, so Ghost, you handle that area and then head down to cover the R2 zone immediately.”

-Yes, heading there now.

The red circle on the map vanished, indicating the monster horde had been dealt with, and Ghost’s position marker moved swiftly downward.

There was no telling where the monsters would appear next.

On top of that, they were appearing in swarms of over a thousand.

Fighting recklessly in such a situation was inefficient.

They had to fight by constantly tracking the paths and locations of the spawning monsters and calculating their routes.

Prioritizing the most urgent threats to keep them from escaping the city, they moved along optimal paths, skillfully dispatching the monsters.

Lee Soo-yeon gracefully vaulted over a brick wall that, including the hill it was on, stood over four meters tall.

As she landed, well over a hundred monsters turned to look at her in unison.

The sight of so many creatures devouring the buildings and roads was like a scene from a bleak and hopeless monster movie.

‘Looks like there are more than ten Kraigers alone.’

Lee Soo-yeon quickly scanned her surroundings.

The Gate wasn’t even over yet, but more than seventy ace-grade monsters had already appeared.

It was a Gate truly worthy of its B0-rank classification.

*Shing.* Lee Soo-yeon drew her sword, and a black aura seeped into her right arm.

The dark energy soon stained the sword in her hand, and she unleashed a slash at the charging horde.

Before that slash, the monsters’ ranks were meaningless.

The creatures at the forefront of the attack were utterly annihilated.

Over thirty Creeps and Kraigers collapsed, their entire upper bodies gone.

The base-level Creeps even turned and fled from the black aura rising from her body.

Lee Soo-yeon charged forward, cutting down every Kraiger that stood in her way, then prepared to pursue the ones that had fled.

But she stopped in her tracks.

She sensed the presence of someone else who had approached unnoticed.

On the rooftop of a building across from her, a man stood looking down.

Then, he dropped down into the midst of the countless monsters fleeing from Lee Soo-yeon.

The exact moment he hit the ground.

*Whoosh!*

Shadows erupted from the blackened ground, swallowing the monsters.

Hundreds of shadow tendrils shot out like thorns, piercing and consuming the bodies of all the Creeps.

The Creeps’ bodies were riddled with holes as if they’d been hacked to pieces, and they collapsed limply in every direction.

The man emerged from between the mountain of monster corpses.

“I said I’d take this area. What are you doing here?”

Lee Soo-yeon asked, leisurely approaching with her arms crossed.

The man, who had been looking down at the corpses, turned his somber gaze toward her.

“Our paths crossed.”

The man was Jo Yoon, the Team Leader of Aegis’s B-Team.

The shadows that had devoured the monsters were the product of his A-rank Ability [Shadow] and D-rank Ability [Hardening].

Jo Yoon slowly pushed his sword into the head of a twitching, convulsing Creep.

As the sword slid deeper, the creature’s struggles gradually ceased.

“And I had something I wanted to ask you.”

“Ask me?”

Lee Soo-yeon tilted her head as Jo Yoon spoke, pulling his sword from the monster.

Given his personality, she couldn’t imagine him having any particular interest in her.

“It’s about Kang Il-hyeon, the one you brought in recently.”

“Aha, so that’s what this is about?”

Lee Soo-yeon grinned.

“Weren’t you against bringing rookies into the company until just recently?”

Jo Yoon asked, looking Lee Soo-yeon straight in the eye.

Whether it was right or wrong to have prospects join the team under the pretext of nurturing them.

It wouldn’t have been a controversial issue anywhere else, but within Aegis, opinions on the matter were sharply divided.

Every job Aegis took on was tied to immense fortunes and countless lives.

If they failed a mission or someone died, there was no one who could replace them.

Therefore, mission failure was unacceptable for Aegis; they always had to be the best in the world.

So what about bringing a snot-nosed kid onto the team who, under the guise of being nurtured, would only hold them back instead of pulling their own weight?

While recruiting team members was entirely at the Team Leader’s discretion, there was much debate about whether bringing in prospects was the right call.

The head of Aegis didn’t intervene in the matter.

Then, the C-Team Leader brought in two rookies, sparking controversy within Aegis.

However, the C-Team Leader quickly developed them into Awakened who could be counted among Aegis’s best, which only deepened the divide among the Team Leaders.

Lee Soo-yeon had been one of those who consistently opposed recruiting prospects, yet she had suddenly brought in an unknown, unheard-of Awakened named Kang Il-hyeon.

And this was the same woman who had previously left all recruiting to Jeong Jin-seong, showing no interest herself.

“Hmm… you’re not wrong. But I had a change of heart. I guess it’s because he’s just that desirable. I think I finally understand how the C-Team Leader felt.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“Yes.”

Lee Soo-yeon answered nonchalantly.

Jo Yoon watched her for a moment, then checked the GPS for the location of other monsters and started to walk away.

“In any case… I don’t want to be responsible for looking after someone who’ll just hold us back, so you take care of him.”

“Ha, he’s not someone you need to worry about, so you can just forget it.”

* * *

*BOOM!*

*KREEEGH!*

An explosion of red flames erupted, and the Kraiger fell.

Its body was charred black, covered in scorch marks and several sword wounds.

“*Phew!*”

Exhausted, Il-hyeon let out a sigh of relief.

A B-rank monster was as strong as expected; it had been a tough fight.

“I can’t believe I’ve already taken down six B-rank monsters today alone.”

The monsters were appearing in unbelievable numbers, as if it were some kind of festival.

Even though he had followed a route with a manageable number of monsters, it was still physically draining.

Still, aside from a direct hit from a poison attack that had fried half his coat’s purification functions, he had managed to defeat six B-rank monsters without a scratch.

As Il-hyeon stood there, feeling a sense of pride, a bird wreathed in roaring flames flew toward him.

The majestic creature was a Phoenix.

It was a summon he had always wanted to call, and he had only recently succeeded.

At first, he’d considered naming it Jujak, but the name had a strange connotation, so he’d decided against it.

“Good job.”

Il-hyeon moved the Phoenix from his head to his left arm.

With its wings fully spread, it was large enough to cover half a person, and each of its feathers shone with the luster of a cut gem.

It was very different from a bird simply transfigured from flames.

Having cleared his assigned sector, Il-hyeon used his comms.

“Sector G4, clear.”

-Good, I’m sending you the next coordinates now.

Jeong Jin-seong replied, sending the next location via GPS.

Il-hyeon, weary of the endless stream of tasks, suddenly froze on the spot.

“Hm? Wait a second…”

Il-hyeon’s eyes met with another man’s.

The man, in an awkward posture, was emerging from a half-demolished building.

He had heard that all civilians had been evacuated, and judging by the simple Defensive Coat the man was wearing, he was definitely not an ordinary citizen.

He didn’t seem to be Korean, and with his face covered, he looked suspicious at a glance. Il-hyeon called out to him.

“Hey, who are…?”

“Shet!”

The man cursed with a strange accent, and his body suddenly turned invisible.

Startled, Il-hyeon used his Transfiguration Ability to wrap vines around the spot where the man had been.

But the vines caught nothing, whipping through empty air.

‘Damn it, he disappeared. Is he an Awakened with an Ability?’

Il-hyeon scanned his surroundings in a panic.

Not only was the man invisible, but his presence had vanished so completely that even when Il-hyeon held his breath and focused, he couldn’t sense him.

It was a basic principle of any fight that the stronger side would win.

However, fights between Awakened with Abilities were full of variables.

The outcome could change depending on the compatibility of their Abilities, and many powers that were less effective against monsters and thus received low ranks could shine in person-to-person combat.

‘Dammit…’

He didn’t know if the man was bold enough to attack a member of Aegis, but if he intended to cause harm, Il-hyeon was in a position to be taken down helplessly.

Il-hyeon quickly summoned his creatures.

The ground transfigured, and a golem and a wolf appeared, joining the Phoenix to surround him.

The summons formed a protective circle around him, warily surveying the area.

As Il-hyeon nervously looked around, he noticed something strange.

All of his summons were staring intently at a single spot.

And their heads were slowly turning, as if tracking a moving object.

“No way… can you guys see him?”

In response to his question, the summons all nodded in unison.

It seemed the unknown man’s Ability had no effect on his summons.

Il-hyeon quickly gestured for them to catch the man, and the Phoenix immediately flew in the direction it had been watching.

It swung its legs.

*THWACK!*

A sharp sound echoed through the empty air, and the vanished man reappeared, collapsing to the ground.

“How absurd.”

Il-hyeon let out a dry laugh as he looked down at the unconscious man.