Chapter 898 – Before the Storm
“The frequency of S-class hunters has decreased drastically recently?”
“Yes. It seems that almost all hunters with special qualities have awakened. It appears that Eden now needs additional human resources.』
After hearing Dana’s advice, Seong-il nods and feels that the time has come to return to reality after a long time.
“All dungeons on Earth will be destroyed before D-Day, which is three days later in real time.”
Seong-il casually blurts out his wild goals in a confident tone. The idea of using a short period of time to eliminate all dungeons on Earth before attempting an operation to rescue humanity by spreading the main force across the Earth in the great battle that will take place three days later seemed crazy at first glance, but his time-stopping power and Game Master Considering his power, Seong-il was fully qualified to say such a thing.
“I am deeply moved to finally be able to sortie. Seeker.”
A few days later, North American-born hunters arrived from the Inner Plane continent created through division of marriage. S-class hunters Darren Smith and Julio Franco, who commanded hundreds of thousands of people. Leaders from North America approach Seongil and talk to him with expressions of great anticipation.
‘I heard nanomachines are perfect.’
Originally, there should have been a problem with language communication, but nanomachines have given the powerful power to implant ‘language’ in the human brain in an instant beyond interpretation, so surprisingly, hunters from North America and hunters from Korea have no particular difficulty in communication. There was nothing.
“Okay, then we’ll go right away. Everyone remembers the strategy, right?”
“Yes!”
The hunters firmly shout out to Seongil’s question. Unlike before, as a huge number of hunters were being deployed to the field, Seongil had been intensively training the hunters for several months to ensure that they could act in an orderly manner in the field.
“Then everyone prepare to rush in!”
As soon as Seong-il’s shout rang out, the 2,000 S-class hunters who served as the advance team all took their stances with solemn expressions. And an intense light shining towards them. Seong-il is thrilled to feel that he has returned to reality for the first time in a long time.
“Operate the portal! Lee Ah-hyeon’s team should rush in immediately!”
“Yes!”
As Seong-il frantically opens a portal located in Brazil, the 40 hunters who followed him as if they had been waiting begin entering the dungeon at incredible speed.
『Selection – Yoo Ji-young from Team A-1! Safety point base secured! We are summoning additional people!』
Seongil’s new power, ‘Dungeon Portal’, was a powerful power that could freely connect portals within a 1000 km radius, but it had a surprising weakness. The point is that the portal itself emits a powerful causal force and is therefore not safe from the gaze of the Transcendental Church.
Therefore, in order to use the ‘Dungeon Portal’ safely without any variables, the assistance of a safety zone created with ‘Twisted Dungeon Core’, another power of Seongil, was essential.
However, although the Safety Zone thoroughly guaranteed the safety of hunters and portals from the perspective of the Transcendental Church, the problem was that it had the fatal weakness of only protecting an area of 10 square meters.
In order to solve this complex problem, Seongil was planning a bold move by distributing 2,000 S-class hunters evenly across the fifteen points he had created on the continent with the help of the Ark some time ago and using them as scouts.
‘Fortunately, everything is going as planned.’
While twenty portals were opened at the point where Seong-il first appeared, other S-class hunters desperately spread out in all directions, creating another safety zone.
Interestingly, the most fun thing about this operation. Even though Seongil brought a lot of S-class hunters, he did not put them into the high-level dungeon, but led them to attack the low-level dungeon.
‘The important thing now is not clearing the high-level dungeon, but securing the low-level dungeon core to create the ‘Twisted Dungeon Core’. High-ranking dungeons can be conquered as long as the safety zone is secured evenly over a wide area…!!’
The biggest blind spot of Seongil’s current operation was that he had consumed all the lower-level dungeon cores that would create the twisted dungeon core while upgrading the game master, so there were very few ‘twisted dungeon cores’. Of course, the game master did not inform me of the clear reward. There was nothing unfair about him to just blame this on Seongil.
“Yu Ji-hyeon! Take the coordinates of the Withgrasil portal! We will move immediately!”
Seong-il sees the last S-class hunter entering the dungeon and urgently asks the first hunter to contact him for the coordinates. In response to his question, a coordinate begins to be mechanically recorded.
‘Dana! As I said before, I will ask my team members to take pictures of the coordinates of the safety zone as soon as it is completed. Can you really calculate the optimal route properly?”
『Of course. To me, doing something like that is easier than turning over your palm.』
Eden’s executives were worried that Seong-il would have a hard time due to confusion if thousands of people frantically poured out reports of securing the safety zone without discipline. Therefore, they tried to form dedicated coordinate setting supporters to help Seongil.
However, Dana laughed at the executives’ opinions and confidently declared that she could not only organize the pouring data for Seongil perfectly, but also calculate the optimal route, thus thwarting the support team’s plan.
♠Coordinates 24X, 36Y… Go to the John Smith team.』
“Yes.”
Without any doubt, Seong-il calls up a portal created using the branches of the World Tree towards the coordinates set by Dana.
“Get ready right away!”
“Yes!”
As soon as they complete the safety zone, the hunters immediately enter the rush stance upon seeing the seeker popping out. Instead of responding to that trustworthy appearance, Seong-il quickly begins to open the dungeon portal.
『Next are the coordinates 2346X, 1608Y…』
As soon as Seong-il opens the portal, Dana immediately recites the next optimized route. Without any response, Seong-il opens her portal to the location she tells him about and then repeats mechanically opening her dungeon portal.
『Ahyeon Lee’s team completed clearing the D-class dungeon. Waiting for core.』
『Wait until the rest of the team completes their strategy.』
Lee Ah-hyun and his subordinates succeeded in quickly clearing the dungeon while he was opening dungeon portals in about twenty safety zones. Seong-il breaks into a cold sweat and frantically opens the portal repeatedly.
『All members of Lee Ah-hyun’s group have been cleared.』
“Whoa…”
While she is sweating profusely and opening her portal, when he hears her final clear report, Seong-il sighs and moves back to the space where she is.
“Core.”
“Here it is.”
Following Seong-il’s words, group leader Lee Ah-hyun immediately gives him twenty low-level dungeon cores that he had collected in advance.
“… You guys do this.”
Seong-il orders his two Jinshin clones to create a ‘Twisted Dungeon Core’. Meanwhile, Seong-il desperately tries to recover even a little of his rapidly depleted stamina by revealing the highest level mana potion.
“Clear.”
“Hmm.”
As the two Jinshin clones quickly created a twisted dungeon core in one breath, Seong-il nodded and this time he really opened 20 ‘top dungeons’, allowing S-class hunters to attack the ‘real dungeons’.
“The Julio Franco group from the second team has arrived!”
While Seong-il was opening a portal at the first point, a group of A-class hunters appeared behind him like machines. Instead of answering, Seong-il throws them the twisted dungeon core he created a while ago.
『Later team 2–1 moves to N-2413 World Tree point. Latecomer 2-2 Team E-4432 World Tree Point Move…』
To them, Dana designates the most remote location among the points created by the S-class hunters a while ago at an incredibly fast speed and orders them to move.
Instead of wasting time replying, the A-class hunter team that received Dana’s orders created a town portal using Withgrasil’s branches like a machine and began running to the point.
“Whoa…”
Seeing the second team of latecomers frantically driving their maglev bikes and desperately running to a place most unrelated to the existing point, Seongil wipes his sweat and moves to another safety zone, where he creates a twisted dungeon core and calls in another latecomer team.
If there is no clear team, teleport to the S-class team waiting for you and open the high-level dungeon portal. Send them all to the high-ranking dungeon, and when the advance team is quiet, find the A-class reconnaissance team that has moved to the most efficient location and order it to create a safety zone there.
When the new safety zone is completed, Seong-il, who moves there, summons another 3 latecomer teams and repeats opening 20 A-level dungeons appropriate for their level.
The Eden Hunter begins wiping out dungeons like ghosts all over the world at such an insane speed. The speed was so fast and mechanical that even Seongil, who could use enormous internal power + combat meditation + clones, was unable to handle the power consumed in an instant and had to drink elixir at some point.
Even though they took extreme medication by taking elixir, by the time the last 5 teams arrived, a bottleneck occurred as Seongil could not handle the incredible speed.
‘Whoa… It’s nice to be in a group!’
Although the hunters are extremely weak compared to him, Seong-il feels once again today that there is a strength that only overwhelming numbers can show.
‘It can’t go on like this. I need to stop time.’
Later, Seong-il, who felt limited because he could not handle the low-level dungeon cores that were accumulating, eventually ordered all the dungeon cores to be gathered in Eden so that he could move more efficiently.
『Order! Teams with low-level dungeon cores will return to Eden immediately! I command you once again…!! I’ll give you just 5 minutes from now on. All low-level dungeon cores…』
Seong-il, who urgently returned hunters with low-level dungeon cores from all over the world to Eden, immediately returned to Eden after 5 minutes and stopped real time.
“Fuck… I thought you were searching…”
Seong-il smiles bitterly as he realizes that she underestimated the power of the hunters he raised.
『Isn’t that still a good thing? It means that the hunters performed better than the owner expected.』
“Yes, that’s right.”
Seong-il smiles bitterly at Dayna’s consolation and nods his head.
“First… I’ve stopped time… I’ll take a break today, convert all the lower-level dungeon cores I’ve collected into twisted dungeon cores tomorrow, and then resume the operation…”
Seong-il, feeling extreme fatigue for the first time since reaching the level of half-body, moves to his office with a strange smile mixed with joy and bitterness.
