Chapter 19

Chapter. 19

Scathach’s second phase did not activate under normal circumstances.

There was only one condition that triggered it.

If Scathach was killed in a single blow from outside his perception range—in other words, by a long-range snipe.

If that happened, Scathach revived in the form of an Ice Dragon.

This Scathach came with a special effect called [Counter Sniping: Ice Dragon of Retribution].

In exchange for completely losing his strongest passive, [Frost Immunity], his physical body and magical abilities ran wild to their absolute limits.

And he would always use spatial movement to appear directly in front of the sniper.

It was a setup that made it clear he would never forgive being taken down by a cowardly long-range attack.

‘I used to call it “cheap bastard killer mode.”’

So.

I knew Scathach would appear like this.

—And I had intended for it to happen from the very beginning.

***

Flash!

After leaping down from the helicopter, Jin Cheon-jin landed atop a building overlooking the battlefield.

The battle had already begun.

KWA-BOOOOM!

As Scathach’s massive roar tore through the atmosphere,

Flaaash!

A black figure shot through the air as if piercing it, the hem of a pitch-black coat streaming behind him, barely skimming beneath the giant dragon’s jaw.

‘A person?’

At first glance, it looked like a flying ability.

But it was not. He was creating ice platforms in midair and stepping off them, propelling himself forward in a burst of extreme-speed footwork.

Every time his feet touched empty space, blue ice powder scattered in the wake of a sharp crystalline crack, like the trail of a meteor shower.

An extraordinary speed. And in the runner’s hand, a familiar staff.

‘The Apostle!’

Jin Cheon-jin was about to jump in immediately, but then he stopped short.

SHWAAAAA!

Because behind the Apostle, countless sharpened ice projectiles began forming, enough to cover the sky.

‘……!’

Jin Cheon-jin swallowed hard.

It was an overwhelming volume, like the simultaneous volley of an entire legion.

At a glance, there were already more than a hundred!

The sheer calculation ability required to produce that many without even 0.1 seconds of concentration sent a chill down his spine.

The projectiles spun like drills as they flew toward Scathach.

“Ah…!”

A groan escaped Jin Cheon-jin without his realizing it.

Fast, and in huge numbers.

The Apostle’s ability to use magic was unquestionably astonishing.

But there was one critical problem.

It was Frost magic.

“No…”

And Scathach was a boss that came with Frost Immunity.

A legendary trait that made him absolutely untouchable by Frost magic.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Most of the ice arrows were shot down by Scathach’s defensive magic.

Only a handful pierced through and dug into him.

But it was useless.

Just as Jin Cheon-jin was about to squeeze his eyes shut—Thud!

With a heavy sound, blood splattered.

‘It pierced him? How?! Scathach definitely has Frost Immunity!’

Jin Cheon-jin doubted his own eyes.

He had no way of knowing that Scathach had lost Frost Immunity upon becoming the ‘Ice Dragon of Retribution.’

All Jin Cheon-jin could think was that the absolute power of the Apostle’s magic had forcibly broken through even Frost Immunity itself.

But perhaps because so much force had been spent piercing those sturdy scales, the wounds were shallow.

A thin layer of frost formed over the injuries, and in an instant they healed, leaving the damage effectively at zero.

Whoooooosh!

Dozens of blue magic circles rose around Scathach.

Each circle was filled with intricate lines and points, containing magic of such a high order that it was utterly beyond Jin Cheon-jin’s ability to understand.

Whenever those geometric patterns resonated, a pressure powerful enough to stop the heart swept over his entire body.

It was an alien, overwhelming density of magical power.

The instant the fully formed circles began to shine, a blizzard carrying the chill of eternity started pouring forth.

But the Apostle moved as though dancing in midair.

In every passing instant, shards of ice formed and became his footholds.

The way he angled diagonally, turned at right angles, and moved in utter defiance of inertia almost created the illusion that he was passing ghostlike straight through the blizzard before him.

‘Unbelievable.’

Jin Cheon-jin watched the Apostle’s movements in awed wonder.

Even for an ordinary Frost Type mage, creating an ice platform beneath one’s feet demanded tremendous concentration.

But the Apostle seemed to be doing it with nothing more than thought.

Hum—The Apostle’s two hands traced complex patterns through the air. This time, even more ice rounds were created.

‘Two hundred? No, there are more than two hundred fifty.’

When the Apostle thrust both hands forward, every last projectile flew out like a storm.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Scathach blocked the barrage with his wings and immediately launched a counterattack.

Whoooooooo—!

The surrounding atmosphere began to rush toward Scathach, and the dragon’s chest swelled enormously.

Gooooooo—!

A dense mass of blue Mana formed before the dragon’s gaping maw.

Then a blue beam erupted from its mouth.

It was the dragon race’s ultimate attack, Dragon’s Breath—Breath.

KWAAAAAAAAAA!

The Breath unleashed by Scathach, an Ice Dragon, carried extreme cold as it shot forward like a ray of death.

‘Breath! Dodge it!’

Jin Cheon-jin shouted inwardly.

But the Apostle did not dodge.

Instead, he raised a hand and faced it head-on.

“Crystal Wall.”

A transparent wall of ice rose before the Apostle.

The ice wall split Scathach’s Breath cleanly in half.

‘Impossible.’

Jin Cheon-jin stared with his mouth open. Breath was a finishing move capable of turning even an S-rank Awakened into a corpse in an instant.

You could not block Breath.

You had to evade it to the side.

That was common sense in a boss raid.

But the Apostle had faced it head-on.

And blocked it.

And that was not the end of it.

The surrounding cold was drawn toward the Apostle.

The extreme chill produced by Scathach’s Breath concentrated into him.

The Apostle’s body began to shine with a blue light.

Jin Cheon-jin was stunned.

‘He is absorbing Mana?’

KRAAAAAAA!

The massive dragon let out a roar of fury.

That rage caused the surrounding temperature to plummet sharply.

For a moment, Jin Cheon-jin felt his body freezing solid.

‘Urgh!’

He had witnessed many Awakened fights, but never before had he seen a clash of power this overwhelming.

Perhaps after seeing that Breath had failed, Scathach realized he could not defeat the Apostle with Frost magic and switched to physical attacks.

His heavy tail whipped through the air at a speed difficult for the eye to follow.

Whoom!

But the Apostle’s reaction was even faster.

As though he had teleported, he evaded the tail strike and rushed straight for Scathach’s chest through the opening.

Behind the Apostle, as he leaped from ice platform to ice platform, a sphere of frost was flying after him.

‘That…?!’

At first, Jin Cheon-jin thought it was Han Seol-ah’s finishing move, Permafrost.

But it was different.

He was not a mage, so he could not tell exactly how it was different.

But Jin Cheon-jin was a Martial Classes fighter, one more sensitive than most to the flow of Mana—and among them, an S-rank Hunter at the very peak.

A Mana wave perceptible only to one standing at the summit struck his vision.

‘Has it… evolved?’

To Jin Cheon-jin’s eyes, the sphere of ice storm trailing behind the Apostle looked like an evolved version of Permafrost.

A stronger, more stable Permafrost!

But the number of them was strange.

Spheres began filling the air in quantities that should have been impossible.

Five, ten, twenty…

Cold suns beyond counting multiplied and swallowed the battlefield in azyre.

KRAAAAH!

Scathach emitted Mana laced with a scream, but the magic circles being carved into the air were shattered and torn apart before they could even fully take shape.

It was a bizarre string of misfires, as though his very existence was being denied by a higher being.

When Scathach lashed out desperately with tail, wings, and claws,

the Apostle created ice platforms at bizarre angles, flipped his body in midair, and leaped in unpredictable directions, evading every single strike.

Even so, he never once broke the line of his advance toward Scathach.

And then—the Apostle succeeded in getting close enough to touch Scathach’s scales if he simply reached out his hand.

“Diamond Dust!”

With a short shout, the spheres—which had somehow grown to forty in number—detonated against Scathach’s scales.

SKREEEECH-!

A dreadful grinding sound shook the battlefield.

As the spheres unraveled, the savage ice storms contained within them whirled out and ground away at Scathach’s scales.

Kiiiiing!

As though even forty had not been enough, dozens more spheres formed in succession around the Apostle and burst against the dragon’s scales.

Then, at last, spheres that had penetrated inside exploded within Scathach’s body, tearing it apart from the inside.

Crack!

Ice pillars burst up all across Scathach’s body.

KRAAAAAAGH!

But Scathach did not die.

Even now, a thin layer of frost was beginning to form over the torn areas, as though he were trying to begin self-regeneration.

“No! Don’t let him heal…!”

Jin Cheon-jin shouted without thinking.

The Apostle withdrew from Scathach with relaxed, effortless movements.

Crk— Craaack—

The frost that had seemed to be freezing over for healing twisted in a grotesque way.

Ice blades growing from inside Scathach’s body rapidly began to increase in size.

The giant dragon’s body was pierced through by those ice blades and slowly froze over.

As though he were being trapped inside an ice prison.

Not long after, Scathach’s body had become a complete sculpture of ice.

It looked like a work of art.

A giant dragon statue formed from blue ice.

‘This can’t be….’

Holding his breath, Jin Cheon-jin watched the sight unfold. The irony of an Ice Dragon dying by his own primary element—ice.

The Apostle lightly snapped his fingers.

Snap.

Baaang!

Scathach’s perfectly frozen body shattered into pieces.

Countless ice fragments scattered in every direction, reflecting the light. It was beautiful, like diamond dust cast into the air.

At that moment,[Notice: 94th Floor Tower Break Boss: Ancient Azure Dragon—‘Ice Dragon Scathach’ has been defeated.]

The defeat notification appeared.

Only then did Jin Cheon-jin finally let out the breath he had been holding.

His legs nearly buckled beneath him as the tension left them, but he somehow managed to stay upright.

He had lived.

They had survived.

The Apostle slowly descended to the ground.

Stepping down on the staircase of ice that formed beneath his feet, he looked like a hero out of myth.

***

‘Man, would you look at this old guy’s eyes.’

A heavily built, hairy giant of a man was looking at me with sparkling eyes, and it was enough to make me feel sick.

Anyway,Phase two was over too.

I had saved time.

Saved Mana.

And I had not overexerted myself.

Most importantly, I had been able to preserve the reserve Mana stored inside Eternal Winter.

Well, anyway.

It had not actually been easy.

Managing the footholds. Dispelling Scathach’s magic. Casting. Dodging physical attacks.

And on top of that, adjusting my firepower so the old man Jin Cheon-jin—who had suddenly spatially moved over here—did not die.

It had been a mission that required a lot of hands-on control.

Still, I had done it.

If I had only been S-rank, it probably would have been difficult.

But who was I?

An EX-rank Hunter, that was who.

“Thank you… truly, for saving the Republic of Korea.”

Old man Jin Cheon-jin approached and bowed his head at a perfect ninety degrees.

“I am going to Pyongyang.”

I appreciated the old man being grateful, sure.

But I had to keep up the Apostle act to the very end.

“Pardon? Why Pyongyang…? Wasn’t that thing annihilated?”

I also had to retrieve Han Seol-ah, whom he had left behind there.

“It is not over yet.”

And while I was at it, I might as well save this country too.

Ding-!

[Notice: The difficulty of the Tower Break is increasing sharply.]

“…Hup!”

Jin Cheon-jin sucked in a startled breath.

‘I knew it would happen.’

Let’s think back.

When Han Seol-ah killed the Frost Dragon, the Tower had immediately shoved Scathach out next, like it was saying, ‘Well, look at this bastard.’

It sends out an enemy you cannot defeat?

The meaning was obvious.

‘It is telling us not to hold out.’

The Tower was making it clear it would not tolerate people overcoming a Boss Break this way.

In truth, we were only doing this because we could not clear the Tower, but still…

—You cannot clear the Tower? Then die.

From the Tower’s perspective, why should it care?

Anyway.

We had killed Scathach.

We had held out yet again.

So was that the end of it?

Would the Tower say, ‘Good work,’ and let it slide?

‘No chance.’

It would go, ‘Well, look at this bastard,’and send out yet another enemy that could not be endured.

[ Tower Break – 94th Floor ]

[ Tower Break Boss: ‘Wondrous Echo’ — Resonant Entity Resonar ]

‘Oh, fuck.’

The curse slipped out before I could stop it.

I had expected something difficult for Han Seol-ah to kill.

But of all things…

‘It had to be this fucking garbage mob.’

I could feel the Tower’s intent loud and clear.

You are relying on a single outstanding individual named Han Seol-ah?

—Then I will send out a monster that can never be cleared by one person alone.

That was it.

[Notice: The number of clears of the 94th Floor Tower Break has exceeded the baseline.]

[Notice: It has been confirmed that the difficulty of the Tower Break is inappropriate.]

[Notice: The intensity of the Tower Break will become extremely powerful, and its cycle will shorten drastically.]

“A-Apostle….”

[3 Days Until Start]

Beep—

[Climb the Tower.]

“….”

Old man Jin Cheon-jin collapsed to the ground.

‘…Reasonable enough.’

The moment he thought they had won, a new despair had appeared.

No one could have expected it.

But.

‘I did.’

The plan I had made was not something as simple as killing Scathach and getting applause.

…It did not end at that level.

Killing Scathach was, by my standards, the easy part.

The real problem was the next crisis that would come after Scathach’s defeat.

‘If this keeps repeating, we will never survive.’

Say we kill this revolting boss that is coming out next.

Then what?

The Tower would just send out something even worse.

—Not climbing the Tower? Then die!

Because the Tower’s attitude would never change.

So the question was how to solve that structure.

My operation had been for that from the very beginning.

Operation Name: ‘Echo of Death.’

In other words…

Clearing the Hidden Quest.