Chapter 221

Chapter 221

Zeon silently looked at the shifting sands that had buried Orca.

Even at this moment, the shifting sands continued flowing endlessly.

Down into the depths.

With a current this fast, Orca should have been driven about a hundred meters underground.

In truth, Orca was detected at roughly that depth.

No matter how much of an Orc Great Chieftain he was, he could not easily resist the flow of shifting sands as fierce as a river.

At this rate, he would be buried several hundred meters underground.

The pressure beneath hundreds of meters of sand rivaled the pressure of the deep sea that had now vanished.

It was not a level where a creature of the surface could survive.

No matter how much of an Orc Great Chieftain he was, he would be crushed flat like an empty can beneath that tremendous pressure.

It was a situation where he could have relaxed, but Zeon never lowered his guard.

A boss-level monster called the Orc Great Chieftain would never die from something as simple as this.

And Zeon’s prediction became reality.

CRASH—!

As if a volcano had erupted, sand burst apart, and a gigantic monster shot out.

It was Orca, who had nearly been buried alive.

He had leaped from a hundred meters underground and returned to the surface in a single bound.

It was an unbelievable amount of power, even when seen with one’s own eyes.

“Ptooey!”

Orca spat out saliva mixed with sand.

Bloodred light streamed from his eyes.

“A shallow trick like that cannot bring me down, human!”

“Seems that way.”

Zeon agreed.

The strength of Orca’s body was on a different level.

With explosive muscle power that allowed him to burst out from a hundred meters beneath the sand in a single leap, and a body as hard as diamond, he could probably crush most large-sized monsters by force alone.

Tap, tap, tap!

Orca rushed toward Zeon.

He intended to overpower him with strength before Zeon could use another trick.

Zeon raised a sand wall.

CRASH—!

The sand wall collapsed helplessly from a single punch by Orca.

Zeon raised another sand wall.

Instead of smashing through the wall, Orca bent his knees slightly, then straightened them.

WHOOSH—!

At that instant, Orca’s body flew through the air like a missile.

His target was Zeon behind the sand wall.

A tremendous amount of fighting spirit gathered in his arm, which was pulled far back.

Orca swung his fist as he was.

CRASH—!

Across a distance of dozens of meters, the wind pressure fired from Orca’s fist shot toward Zeon like a mana particle cannon.

Zeon used Sand Walk and dodged the wind pressure. But Orca’s wind-pressure attack was not limited to a single shot.

“KRAAARA!”

With a monstrous cry, Orca swung his fists again and again in midair.

As many times as Orca swung, wind pressure descended upon Zeon.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—!

Explosions erupted one after another, and sand shot up like pillars.

Zeon dodged the attacks with Sand Walk and murmured,

“A spear that pierces the sky. Sand Spear!”

SHOOO—!

At that instant, a gigantic pillar surged up from the sand.

The enormous sand pillar, shaped like a spear, struck Orca in midair.

CRASH—!

“Krrk!”

This time, perhaps the attack had been fairly effective, because a suppressed groan escaped Orca.

But he was the Orc Great Chieftain.

The true leader of the Orcs, born for the first time in hundreds of years.

His pride would not allow him to show weakness from an impact of this level.

Orca spread both arms wide and shouted,

“Fragments of the Red Moon!”

At that instant, countless red orbs rose around his body.

As the name suggested, they looked like remnants of a red moon.

It was a Skill only Orca, the Great Chieftain, could use.

He had given up on barehanded combat and decided to use Skills in earnest.

After several clashes, he had learned.

Zeon was not an opponent he could defeat with reckless physical combat.

To kill him, Orca would also have to go all out.

That was why he had brought out one of the powerful Skills he could use.

“Die, Sandmancer!”

Whoooong!

Orca swung his fist toward Zeon. Then the countless red orbs surrounding him poured toward Zeon like hail.

SHOO, SHOO, SHOO—!

Red moons were falling.

It seemed impossible for a human to survive within them.

But Zeon neither despaired nor gave in to fear.

The falling red orbs filled his retinas.

Zeon counted the number of red orbs in an instant.

“Viper!”

Matching the number of red orbs, sand snakes raised their heads from within the sand.

Hundreds of Vipers shot into the air all at once.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—!

The Vipers intercepted the red orbs falling toward Zeon one by one.

Brilliant explosions erupted in midair.

If someone who knew nothing saw it, they might have mistaken it for fireworks.

“Insane!”

Aiden, who saw the sight, gaped.

Since Zeon was a Sandmancer, he had expected him to be able to handle sand to some degree, but he had truly never imagined it would be to this extent.

Every grain of sand in the desert was Zeon’s weapon.

Against that mighty Orc Great Chieftain, Zeon was fighting as an equal.

Against a monster whose combat power was overwhelming just to look at.

He thought about how long he would have lasted if he had fought in Zeon’s place. But he soon lowered his head.

‘If it were me, I wouldn’t have lasted thirty seconds.’

He hated to admit it, but because he was colder than anyone else, he made an accurate judgment.

The Sandmancer was not some urban legend of Neo Seoul.

He was a monster who truly existed.

That monster was larger and more ferocious than people vaguely imagined.

Enough to face that powerful Orc Great Chieftain on equal terms.

While Zeon held the Orc Great Chieftain in place, fierce battles were raging everywhere.

It was the battle between the human Awakened and the Orcs.

“Wooheehee!”

Mountain was in a contest of strength with an enormous Orc comparable to his own size, while Giselle used ice magic to freeze the Orcs.

The other Awakened attacked and finished off the Orcs Giselle froze.

Magic-type Awakened were more valuable than martial-type Awakened.

Among them, high-grade Awakened like Giselle were even more valuable.

There were not many Awakened who could use ice magic.

Even when they existed, they were not greatly valued.

That was because they could not release cold strong enough to overcome the desert’s terrifying heat. But Giselle was different.

She possessed ice magic powerful enough to freeze a massive Sandworm, even if only for a short time.

“You filthy pig bastards! Ice Field!”

She froze the entire area outright.

It would not last long because of the terrifying heat, but at the very least, she could hold the ankles of the Orcs within a radius of several dozen meters.

“Good!”

“This changes things.”

The Awakened attacked the Orcs whose ankles Giselle had frozen.

The Orcs fought back, but their range of movement was limited because their feet were trapped in ice. The Awakened enthusiastically attacked those Orcs and brought them down.

It was the so-called hold-them-down-and-beat-them method.

“Kreeek!”

“Snrrk! Humans are cowardly.”

“Fuck! The cowardly ones are you bastards using human-wave tactics.”

“Die, pig head.”

While a dirty brawl broke out on one side, terrifying purple lightning struck on another.

Levin, in Ghost Transformation, was unleashing Purple Lightning.

Countless Orcs were electrocuted by Levin’s Purple Lightning and collapsed.

POP! POP! POP!

The flesh, muscles, and eyeballs of the Orcs struck by Purple Lightning burst apart.

When one Orc was electrocuted, the current transferred to the one right beside it.

It was what one might call branching.

‘That bastard is absurd too.’

For the first time in his life, Aiden felt the desire to bring someone else into his party.

Of course, he had to survive first.

“Haaah!”

Not far away, Jang Yong-beom’s battle cry rang out.

When Aiden turned his head, he saw Jang Yong-beom attacking the priest with his claymore held in his one remaining arm.

BOOM—!

But Jang Yong-beom’s attack was repelled helplessly with an explosive sound.

It was because of the black smoke swirling around the Orc priest’s body.

The black smoke created unknown letters in the air as it circled around the priest.

CRUMBLE—

Everything exposed to the black smoke rotted away and vanished.

Sand, Awakened, even the corpses of Orcs.

It was the priest’s Skill, Breath of the Dead.

“Become rotten soil and vanish, human!”

When the priest waved his hand, Breath of the Dead flew toward Jang Yong-beom.

Breath of the Dead was a Skill that could be used for both defense and offense.

He could use it freely according to his will.

The priest’s eyes were filled with rage.

Even after deploying thousands of Orcs, they had failed to deal with only a few dozen Awakened.

No matter how strong human Awakened were, this was a serious problem.

“Useless things. Since it has come to this, I will sweep them all away myself.”

Seeing an ominous energy flow from the priest’s entire body, Jang Yong-beom felt a sense of crisis.

‘I have to kill him before he unleashes another Skill.’

Jang Yong-beom threw his claymore at the priest with all his strength and shouted,

“Guillotine!”

The claymore grew several times larger in midair, then fell toward the priest’s head like a guillotine.

A clear Aura Blade surrounded the guillotine.

Anything it touched would be severed.

Living or nonliving alike.

Jang Yong-beom was confident that this one move would take the priest’s life.

But things in the world often departed from expectation.

Unfortunately, this was one of those times.

THUD—!

The guillotine was blocked by a gigantic palm.

Jang Yong-beom’s eyes widened.

That was because what had blocked the guillotine was a gigantic giant.

There was no way a giant should be here.

The average height of Orcs ranged from about two meters to three meters.

The giant that blocked his guillotine was nearly ten meters tall.

It was larger than the Orc Great Chieftain and comparable to most large-sized monsters.

If such a tremendously huge lifeform had existed, there was no way Jang Yong-beom would not have noticed.

The reason he had not noticed it was that the giant had not existed before.

The corpses of the many Orcs killed by the Awakened had gathered into one through the priest’s power and been born as a giant.

It was a kind of Corpse Golem formed by condensing and combining hundreds of Orcs.

He had heard that Golems existed, but this was his first time seeing one in person.

On top of that, the first Golem he ever saw was made by bundling together Orc corpses.

“What disgusting taste. Using the corpses of your own kin as a weapon? Do you Orcs not have even the bare minimum of attachment to kin?”

“Everything is for the Great Chieftain. Look! Are not all the Orcs who became materials for the giant crying tears of joy?”

He did not know whether they were truly tears of joy, but thick tears were flowing from the faces of the Orcs that had become materials for the Corpse Golem.

“You insane Orc bastard!”

Jang Yong-beom swore and swung his hand. Then the claymore caught in the Corpse Golem’s grip returned to his hand.

Seeing that, the priest laughed.

“Heh-heh! For an Orc, those words are the highest praise.”

“Fine! Let’s find out who the truly insane bastard is.”

Jang Yong-beom ground his teeth and drew up his mana.

His chest tingled.

It felt as if something deep inside was about to explode.

If he did not release this resentment, this overflowing rage, he felt as if he himself would burst.

More than anything, he did not want to lose to Zeon, who was displaying overwhelming force against the Great Chieftain.

Even though he knew he could do nothing against Zeon with his current ability.

That was the essence of the man called Jang Yong-beom.

A man full of fighting spirit who absolutely refused to lose.

“I’ll make sure to kill you.”

He charged toward the Corpse Golem blocking his path to the Orc priest.

CRASH—!

His slash struck the Corpse Golem.

An Orc corpse that had become part of the Corpse Golem was torn away. But more corpses than the ones that fell off attached themselves to it, and the Corpse Golem grew even larger.

Jang Yong-beom’s face twisted.

“Fuck!”

It was then.

CRAAASH—!

A thunderous roar that shook the desert sand rang out.

The eyes of everyone who looked toward the source of the roar widened greatly.