Gate Camp (4)

“Is everyone ready?”

Baek In-ha was quick to complain about Lee Na-hee’s declaration.

“Do we have to do it during the day? There’s no bothersome sand swamp at night.”

“The core disappears at night.”

Kang Shin-hyuk also nodded at her words.

“Perhaps the others exploring this gate were looking for hints at night, but that proved to be a trap.”

“Yes, if you don’t know the runes, it’s a mess.”

“Very nice.”

Eleanor, who had lost her time to have fun with Kang Shin-hyuk at the gate, still felt resentment towards Lee Na-hee. Lee Na-hee tried to ignore her and explained it briefly.

“I originally thought we would rush to the sun directly, but it seems the sand breeze grows stronger as you get higher. It’s possible for my junior, but I don’t want to get in trouble.”

She pulled a scratch bullet from her chest.

“I decided to use rune-carved bullets. My junior will shoot them, and all kinds of interference will come in. Baek, you will control the wind so that the path isn’t blocked.”

“That’s easy to say.”

“And Ellie will prepare to intercept the golem.”

“Uh.”

The place that Lee Na-hee pointed to ended up being the center of the desert sand typhoon. Everyone was convinced that if the golem would ever appear, it would be there.

“Let’s finish quickly and leave. Junior, fire.”

Kang Shin-hyuk gently loaded the bullet she passed him and raised both his Wind and Light Mastery abilities. One of the advantages of Phoibos compared to Erebos was that its power amplified both light and wind.

“Okay, I fired it.”

And the speed became incomparably faster as a result.

“Eh? What? You fired it?”

“That’s right.”

“Yes.”

The sandstorm started to rise up at the moment he fired. Baek In-ha let out a sigh as confusion was plain on his face, but then the world suddenly began to shake. The sandy breeze blew hard as grains of sand with deadly power rained down on them.

“Senior!”

“I’m fine, so go to Ellie! The golem will appear soon!”

Lee Na-hee launched a drone as if she had been preparing for this situation. A total of five drones connected around her to form a mana shield. It was probably temporarily reinforced with her rune enchantment, which caused the sand to bounce off in vain.

‘When did you get so strong?’

-All those connected to you are growing rapidly.

Hearing the administrator’s words, he ran to Eleanor. Oh Hye-na was already protected by Baek In-ha, and Eleanor was swinging her spear back and forth, but she was vulnerable to attacks from the side.

“Are you okay, senior?”

“I’m alright.”

Arriving by her side a moment later, he fired projections all around them to create an intricate shield of thread. Eleanor looked blankly at the sight of the soul poison melting away the sand flying at them.

“It’s so powerful.”

“It’s a soul dissolving poison, so it’s strong against soulless enemies… do you understand?”

“It’s a poison that melts the soul. Kuhu.”

Sighing and raising his head, he saw that the red sun scattered and vanished as it was hit by the bullet. Eleanor’s eyes followed his gaze, and she shook as she watched the sun disappear.

“It’s that simple.”

Maybe everyone knew the proper way to attack it, but remained silent because they only wanted the rewards? Kang Shin-hyuk kindly explained this to Eleanor, who was thinking that way.

“It was a structure that couldn’t be broken, not without a specific mana pattern. It was thanks to Na-hee senior that doing so was possible.”

“Like that… these days, Na-hee has changed a lot.”

It was probably not just because her ability had bloomed that she was treating Lee Na-hee differently. Kang Shin-hyuk looked at the sky with a bitter smile. A new blue sun had appeared in lieu of the red one; all magical camouflage had been destroyed by the rune bullet, and the substance hidden within was revealed. That was the real sun of this world… the core.

“If you shoot it again, won’t it end?”

“Then the whole world would collapse, and we would die.”

Because this entire world was the golem, the scorpion was nothing more than a parasite that had penetrated the golem’s body. Each grain of sand in the desert was part of the golem.

“So… that one.”

“Right.”

The sand storm, which was raging around them as if to destroy the world, stopped. The golem was condensing its power into one point at the center of the storm.

“The most valuable thing in this gate is the golem’s core. In order to get it intact, we have to smash the golem to the point that it can no longer fight and completely disconnect the core from its body.”

“It’s a very ignorant way…”

“It’s okay because we’ve considered it. I think that you need to break that first.”

Eleanor welcomed the chance to fight. Holding her spear with both hands and preparing to charge. At that moment, the lance swelled up like a flower in full bloom. Kang Shin-hyuk made it, so the spear grew to a size that didn’t match her small body.

“What is that spear?”

“You might’ve noticed, but that pistol and that spear were made by Shinyuk.”

Meanwhile, Oh Hye-na, who was being protected by Baek In-ha, opened her mouth wide open in surprise as she looked at the massive spear.

‘It defies common sense!’

Over the past few days, she had been keenly aware of how special this group called Mask Bacchus was, even though it was made up of only students from Shinyoung (except for the Alchemist Claire Boyle). However, more and more unexpected things kept popping up, so Oh Hye-na felt like the world she knew was shattering around her.

‘That person is at the center of it. I hate to admit it, but he’s a great person…’

She felt like she now knew why Baek had brought her to Kang Shin-hyuk, who was not only skilled in combat but also artifact production. If she wanted to succeed in the superhuman society in the future, she had to stick close to him. He was trying to teach that to Oh Hye-na.

I can’t end it while looking pathetic like this.’

She had been protected all throughout her stay at this gate. It was unacceptable for the person who would be the next leader of Vanguard to hide because it wasn’t safe.

‘But even if I try to intervene, then…!

In the middle of the desert, the sand was clumping together to form a huge human figure. It had a grotesque appearance and enormous amounts of mana gathering around it. Oh Hye-na’s eyes brightened as she saw the little girl rush in without hesitation towards the giant that was easily a hundred meters tall.

‘If that’s what it is… it’s dangerous!’

The girl jumped over. The moment the heavy spear pierced the golem’s body, Oh Hye-na activated her abilities to the fullest. Her ability was to freeze and dull her target. It was difficult to influence that giant golem, but she was able to somehow [Stop] it momentarily. Now, she just wished they would run…

-Bang!

Shortly after, a bullet of dark shadow penetrated the same spot that Eleanor’s spear had struck. Thousands of cracks split across the golem’s body, but the shadows dug into its body and held it together.

-Bang! Bang!

Dozens of shadow bullets hit the golem and stopped it from falling apart. It was like seeing the ability of the Dark Curtain, the world’s ranked three, to confine his opponent in darkness. But that was just the ability of an artifact he created. Now he could only admire it.

“What is it? You used it in vain.”

So, that nasty man had predicted the golem would explode and had prepared a countermeasure. However, his gaze now landed on Oh Hye-na right after he fired off his bullets. It seemed that he understood that she had used her power.

‘But I’ve shown as much as I could.’

She was sick of being capable of only this much, but that was her limit. It couldn’t be helped. As she let out a sigh and sat down, she saw Eleanor, the head of the Wyvern Knights, using her spear to bore a hole through the golem’s torso. The golem, whose self-destruction had been forcibly stopped, gave up and instead tried to crush Eleanor with its body, but Kang Shin-hyuk used his dark bullets to restrict its movements and slowly poison it. In the end, Oh Hye-na even felt a sense of pity at the golem slowly melting down into the ground, struggling hopelessly.

“The hidden boss of this gate… nonsense. They treated it like a regular mob.”

“Get used to it. When you do, you’ll be strong.”

Baek In-ha, who had been protecting the party from the sandstorm throughout the battle, responded with a laugh.

“Are you finished?”

“I don’t know; I did block all the mana from this side… oh, looks like it’s over.”

The others didn’t know, but there had been a profound trick to the battle. In order to extract all of the energy from the golem’s core, as Kang Shin-hyuk had told Eleanor, they had to deal with the golem until it could no longer run berserk, which required some extra steps. As a result, the energy contained in its core was concentrated, and its shape was fixed with Erebos’s ammo. Then, the energy had been exhausted by hitting it repeatedly.

“Oh, it’s getting dark.”

“Shinyuk!”

Only

“Alright.”

The blue sun, its energy exhausted, fell to the ground. It was a big sphere, but he was able to put it in his inventory.

“How wide is your subspace bracelet?”

“I’ve upgraded it recently.”

“You’re dealing with an entire space system!”

Actually, it was a feature he had purchased from the Hero Universe, but he thought that could be made one day since he learned the Space Coordination skill. Kang Shin-hyuk appeared behind Oh Hye-na and then returned to his spot, showing off the skill he was proud of.

“Ah, aaaaaah…!”

Oh Hye-na, unable to overcome the excessive shock, eventually passed out in Baek’s arms. Kang Shin-hyuk avoided Baek’s gaze as Baek looked at him in disbelief.