Kangwoo pierced the baby spider’s head with his spear and gasped for breath.
Fortunately, with this spider, the attacks from the baby spiders ceased. Kangwoo let out a sigh of relief.
His breathing had almost been pushed to the limit. If more spiders had swarmed, it would have been dangerous.
However, Kangwoo felt a bit puzzled. The baby spiders, who had been attacking so desperately, had suddenly stopped.
He turned his head to look at Jimin. She had already stopped fighting and was staring blankly ahead.
Kangwoo followed her gaze.
A blue radiance was slicing through the air, tearing the spiders apart and scattering them everywhere.
Countless baby spiders leapt toward the radiance, but like moths flying into a flame, they were shattered by the blue light.
“Captain?”
A dazed voice from Jimin came from beside him.
Only then did Kangwoo realize that the blue radiance was light emanating from a sword. The person holding that sword was Yonghoon.
However, the Yonghoon he knew had never been this strong.
Of course, he had always been much stronger than them, but this was on a whole different level.
“Did he level up?”
Kangwoo muttered blankly.
A loud burst of laughter echoed from behind him.
“Hahaha, you monster bastard! Everyone, reform ranks! Cancel the retreat! Strike-types, gather behind the Defense-types! Defense-types, form a shield wall!”
The atmosphere of the battlefield reversed.
Thanks to Yonghoon severing the flow of the baby spiders, their attacks had weakened. The Awakened succeeded in breaking through the interference and forming a formation, while the Defense-types raised their shields together.
Yonghoon felt a strange sensation. It was as if his eyes could see in 360 degrees.
He could see the Awakened dragging away those trapped in spiderwebs behind the spider monster, and at the same time, he could see others staring at him in shock.
He could even see Sunhee, staring at him with wide eyes.
And he saw a spider lunging at him from behind.
Without even turning his head, he swung his sword backward. The charging baby spider was cleanly sliced in half.
Yonghoon began to move forward slowly. At first, his body moved sluggishly, but his steps gradually picked up speed.
He cut down the baby spiders blocking his path with his sword as he advanced. He no longer needed to dodge like before.
He broke through the baby spiders’ interference and, in an instant, arrived in front of the spider monster.
The spider monster was furious.
Right before its eyes, countless offspring had been slaughtered by that human. The spider monster raised its legs and slammed them down toward him in a frenzy.
But the spider monster’s legs could only strike empty ground. Yonghoon dodged the descending legs with just a step, as if he were moving in perfect sync with them.
While dodging the spider’s legs, Yonghoon infused his sword with Dimensional Power. The sword began to emit a growing light.
Once enough Dimensional Power was infused into the sword, he leaped back to avoid the descending spider leg.
He stared at the spider leg embedded in the ground. The thick leg, like a building pillar, looked incredibly solid even without hair thanks to its shell.
Yonghoon gripped the glowing sword with both hands. Veins bulged on his arms.
The spider monster’s leg began to lift again.
Yonghoon swung his sword at the fastest speed he could muster.
Slash!
A blue line was drawn across the spider leg.
From that line, blue-tinged spider blood spurted out, and the lower part of the leg tumbled to the ground.
Yonghoon quickly retreated to avoid the spraying spider blood.
“Kuaaaah!”
The spider monster’s shriek echoed across the battlefield. The surviving baby spiders scurried under the spider monster’s body, and soon the monster’s fur began to glow.
“Ranged attack incoming! Everyone, raise your shields!”
Yonghoon let Instructor Seo’s voice from behind wash past his ears and adjusted his grip on his sword. He should have retreated behind the shields too, but the distance was too great.
It seemed the spider monster knew that as well. This attack was targeted solely at Yonghoon.
It was a highly dangerous situation. Yet strangely, Yonghoon felt calm.
Yonghoon raised his glowing blue sword and stared at the spider monster, its fur standing on end.
He smiled at the monster glaring at him, blood gushing from its leg.
Papapapapap!
The glowing hairs shot out from the spider monster, flying in all directions. Many of them were aimed at Yonghoon.
Yonghoon could see every single skewer-like hair flying toward him.
He reflexively moved his body toward the area with the fewest hairs, but still, many skewers were coming at him.
The skewers were flying at different angles and speeds. Even if Yonghoon could deflect some with his sword, it seemed impossible to block them all.
Yet, as he watched the glowing hairs approach, Yonghoon’s heart remained at peace.
He gathered Dimensional Power to the fullest and swung his sword forward.
The hairs hadn’t yet reached him, but his sword began cutting through the air. His blade passed through the shimmering space.
As his sword passed through the shimmering space, the blade momentarily disappeared and reappeared, and at the same time, one of the incoming hairs was sliced in half and deflected to the side.
His sword cleaved through the air, momentarily traversing dozens of dimensional tunnels.
All the hairs flying toward him were severed by his sword that crossed the dimensional tunnels and scattered into the air.
Not only had his Strike-type abilities grown, but his spatial abilities had also advanced. He had succeeded in creating multiple dimensional tunnels at once.
With this, he could now strike multiple targets in different locations with a single attack.
Yonghoon exhaled lowly and stared at the spider monster. The blood flowing from its leg had stopped.
Its regenerative ability was indeed impressive.
However, with most of the baby spiders dead, the odds were now in their favor.
When Instructor Seo lowered his shield after the spider monster’s hair attack passed, he was utterly shocked.
“How on earth did he block that?”
“No way he deflected them all with his sword, right? I wish we could have seen it, but the shields blocked the view.”
Instructor Seo almost unintentionally joined in the murmuring around him. That was how curious he was.
He had thought Yonghoon would either die or at least be seriously injured.
No matter how strong a B-rank Strike-type Awakened was, it should have been impossible to block that attack. Even though the blue glowing sword seemed incredibly powerful, he still couldn’t gauge Yonghoon’s abilities.
Unexpectedly, he seemed to have made a deal with an extraordinary Awakened.
Instructor Seo chuckled inwardly and raised his voice.
He couldn’t afford to miss this opportunity.
“Everyone, attack! Don’t give it time to regrow its hairs! We end it now!”
Instructor Seo shouted as he charged forward. The Awakened followed behind him, rushing toward the monster.
Sunhee rose to her feet.
She watched Yonghoon crushing the last remaining baby spiders.
From Yonghoon’s seemingly expressionless face, Sunhee could faintly sense a feeling of relief.
It seemed that what had been troubling him all this time was this level-up issue. She wished he had opened up and discussed it with her and the team, but that just wasn’t who he was.
She was simply happy that Yonghoon’s worries had been resolved.
The spider monster continued to be pushed back by the Awakened’s attacks. With most of the baby spiders dead at Yonghoon’s hands, they no longer posed a threat.
However, it was still difficult for the regular Awakened to finish off the monster. Injuries continued to pile up. If the battle dragged on, there would be heavy casualties.
It was now her turn to step in.
Sunhee turned around. Behind her, the assassin-types were standing by.
“If I fail, I’m counting on you to cover me.”
Attempting to contaminate a B-rank monster’s Dimensional Power with C-rank strength carried a significant risk of failure. At her words, the other Awakened nodded with determined expressions.
Sunhee checked the distance between herself and the spider monster. It was enough. She stepped back slightly and took a deep breath.
‘Here I go!’
Sunhee sprinted forward and leapt toward the spider monster at the start of the trench.
Fortunately, she managed to land on the monster’s back.
On the monster’s back, the corpses of Awakened who had succumbed to the poison swung from the tumors.
She forcibly averted her gaze and ran across the monster’s back. Thanks to the assassin-type’s innate sense of balance, she could move swiftly even on the violently shaking monster.
She quickly made it atop the monster’s head.
Sunhee placed her hand on the monster’s head and began injecting Dimensional Power to probe inside.
“Kuaaaang!”
The spider monster let out a tremendous roar. A foreign Dimensional Power was stirring inside its head. Overwhelmed by fear, the spider monster began thrashing wildly.
“The assassin-type has started the operation! Stop it from moving! Block it with your bodies!”
Instructor Seo shouted as he pushed the monster back with his shield. The Awakened desperately clung to the monster.
But the spider monster, now frenzied with fear, was different from before. Ignoring its injuries, it rampaged, and the Awakened clinging to it were flung away in all directions.
The front of the monster was completely blown open.
The spider monster charged forward. It planned to scrape its head along the side of the trench to shake off the humans.
Squelch!
One of the monster’s legs, which had been running forward, flew up into the air. This time, it was the leg opposite to the one that had been severed earlier.
The monster lost its balance and crashed forward.
Yonghoon took a deep breath. In front of him, the remnants of the dimensional tunnel were fading away.
He barely had any Dimensional Power left. It had seemed like a lot, but there was a limit after all.
Yonghoon sprinted toward the fallen spider monster.
Though it was down now, six legs still remained. If he didn’t rescue Sunhee immediately, it would be dangerous.
Sunhee was falling from the spider monster’s head.
Sunhee, who hit the ground, appeared to have completely fainted.
The spider monster, which had been staring blankly at the scene for a moment, had its four eyes turn red and then raised its body.
The spider monster slammed its head down toward Sunhee.
Boom!
Dust rose from the ground, and from within the dust, Yonghoon’s coughing voice could be heard.
“Safe?”
At some point, Yonghoon had grabbed Sunhee and rolled to one side to evade.
Yonghoon quickly got back on his feet. The spider monster was already charging at him.
Yonghoon looked around, but the other Awakened had been scattered in all directions by the spider monster’s last attack. They didn’t seem able to help.
Yonghoon ran out of the trench, carrying Sunhee. The spider monster began to chase after him.
Fortunately, with fewer legs, the spider monster’s speed wasn’t very fast. Though it was hard for Yonghoon to run quickly while carrying Sunhee, the distance between them gradually widened.
However, the spider monster continued to pursue Yonghoon.
The spider monster’s fur had almost fully grown. It had burned its own life force to accelerate the growth of its fur. No matter what, the spider monster was determined to kill the humans before it.
As the spider monster frantically chased after Yonghoon, a strange sound reached its ears.
Thudthudthudthud!
In the spider monster’s eyes, strange objects appeared from behind the buildings and rose into the air.
Yonghoon let out a sigh of relief as he saw the helicopters rising before him.
The helicopters flew past Yonghoon and headed toward the monster.
Then the combat helicopters and multipurpose helicopters, loaded with missiles, began firing at the spider monster.
The missiles, trailing white smoke, started pounding the monster. The firepower of the missiles was tremendous. Each time a missile exploded, the monster’s body burst apart, and it screamed in agony.
“Kuaaaang!”
Yonghoon stopped running and turned his head to watch the monster being blown to pieces.
The scene he witnessed looked like the final scene of a monster movie where the beast falls to military attacks.
Yonghoon looked at Sunhee, who was cradled in his arms. She had fainted after using up all her Dimensional Power.
As she slept, unconscious, she looked no different from a lover from the other world.
“You and I are both such fools.”
Yonghoon spoke wistfully to the sleeping girl.
That day, Korea became the first country in the world to successfully defeat a B-Rank monster.
And among the Awakened, rumors about the B-Rank Awakened quickly spread.