Chapter 134: The Tip of the Iceberg (2)
“An internship is a required class? Why should I have to take that?”
“…Because you’re an intern?”
It was the first time Eve obtained a disguised identity and integrated into human society. I dragged Eve along and forced her to attend classes.
The class content was nothing extraordinary. It covered the basic movements, strategies, and tactics that new recruits would need to know to fight while receiving on-the-field instructions as they went to war.
Anyway, Eve attended all the classes. At the time, I thought it was no big deal.
However, when Eve extrapolated the knowledge she acquired and reconstructed it for application in the Legion, it became a dagger that allowed us to attack, accurately striking at the weaknesses of the defensive side, namely the humans.
“Target the commander who is directing the battlefield. If they cannot give orders, they can only remain scattered. Just handle the rest separately.”
Eve instructed Kang Do-yeon to neutralize the attacks of the charging knights and annihilate the command center in the heart of the city.
It was thanks to her understanding of how crucial the commander’s role, serving as the hive mind, is within the human army.
Of course, the enemy knew this too. Therefore, the command center was typically well-protected or hidden away.
The problem now was that there were no small units among the enemies that could keep up with Kang Do-yeon’s firepower and mobility.
I could see the entire battlefield through the screen.
“Black Wings! Evil… monster!”
Upon seeing Kang Do-yeon break down the outer wall and barge in, a middle-aged man, likely the commander, gnashed his teeth and pointed his staff.
However, the spell cast only partially shattered the barrier. The enemies, outpaced by Kang Do-yeon, had yet to catch up to their opponents.
Kang Do-yeon swung her wings and beheaded two knights, who were desperately attacking her.
The commander of the rebel coalition, who had drawn his pistol and was firing wildly, staggered in despair when his bullets were all blocked by the barrier.
“Yes, kill! But you will fail. With your forces decimated by our bombardment, you can’t expect to survive with just a few of you! No matter how strong you are, you cannot defeat us. We will survive!”
The mage, seemingly shocked, pointed a finger at Kang Do-yeon, shouting frantically.
“Fool.”
And Eve laughed at him.
They firmly believed that our nest had been completely annihilated by the last bombing, with only a tiny fraction surviving.
In the meantime, the false information that Eve steadily fed through localized battles had naturally settled in perfectly.
“Ah…”
Given the circumstances, they seemed unable to believe their eyes as legionnaires surged in, scaling and breaking through the weakened walls.
The primary legionnaires rampaged within a city that had already been half-collapsed by Kang Do-yeon’s rampage.
The screams of people echoed, accompanied only by the sound of the silent beasts’ teeth, claws, and stingers.
“This is just the beginning. Move. Move like the wind to cause maximum damage. That will make them let their guard down.”
Eve issued her orders, compelling those who were watching in disbelief to take their own heads as the legionnaires attacked them, causing helicopters to plummet.
It took less than an hour to reduce an entire city to rubble.
And fully exterminating them wouldn’t take much longer.
“They will have no choice but to mobilize their fleet, right?”
While I was engrossed in watching the screen, I heard Eve’s voice next to me, no longer speaking in the collective consciousness.
Her smiling face appeared to be feeling quite euphoric, as if she had just stretched out and moved.
“That has to be the case. They cannot stop us with the forces they currently possess.”
“If it weren’t here, we could charge out over there together.”
Eve sighed, as if in regret. I had no need to respond. We were currently in a vehicle heading to the front lines.
The other hunters sitting nervously next to us, probably trying to pray or hypnotize themselves to cast off their fears, would have no idea what we were discussing.
“Well, the opportunity will come soon. Don’t worry too much. I’m no longer letting my guard down against humans. I won’t fall for ‘sacrifices’ again.”
Eve turned her gaze away again. Since that day, she had shown no hesitation in her movements. I just didn’t stop her.
Now that we had handed over control, all I could do was watch, hoping that she wouldn’t cross the final line.
“You’ve arrived!”
“The enemy is approaching!”
The place we disembarked was right in the middle of the battlefield, where planes and helicopters roared from above, and self-propelled guns and tanks shot sparks from the ground.
The people cheered when they saw us arrive. But right now, we had no time to respond to such cheers.
“Instead, we’ll be the ones to rampage right here. I won’t lose to those filthy monsters. Now, let’s go and dance together.”
Eve, who had become proactive in all her actions, raised her sword and took the lead. Since the other side had begun to move in earnest, we could do anything we wanted here.
However, using her disguised identity, Eve had easily acquired a specimen of a sky sailfish, fully resolved to become the strongest in this world as well.
If that were to happen, she could easily obtain everything she desired.
*
“They’re coming… The enemies are coming!”
“Reduce them as much as possible!”
As dawn broke, fighter jets, their backs to the rising light, sliced through the sky while unleashing machine-gun fire.
The machine guns mowed down the black horde of monsters surging toward the city, but those they managed to take down were only a tiny fraction of the whole.
“Guh… What monsters are shooting lasers!”
The fighter pilot cursed as he barely dodged enemy fire.
The creature spewing crimson energy beams was a gigantic lizard crawling on the ground.
This behemoth, modeled after a dragon species, stretched its neck once more, opened its mouth, and unleashed an energy blast it had gathered in its heart toward the fighter jet through a specialized organ in its mouth.
It easily surpassed the limitations of the degenerated progenitor, which couldn’t manipulate formancy, through its fusion with the legion.
“Support winds! Support…”
The fighter jet, which had been valiantly battling the unexpected legion’s anti-air onslaught but had lost all its comrades, was struck by a beam and exploded, with only a portion of its wing remaining.
Around the reptilian, armored beasts with solid muscles surged together.
Although it was a small city, the collective forces stationed in the city resisted fiercely, pouring bullets and magic as they fought for their lives.
“There are too many…”
A private standing on the battlements, firing wildly with his rifle, flinched. They lacked firepower.
And the reason for that was obvious. A superior species rampaging in the urban area, drawing the attention of knights while deflecting all the high-caliber threats, was sucking up all the aggro.
Thus, the defenders had to fight with now-diminished firepower while arming local civilians.
Everyone was startled by the perfectly coordinated movement, as though it were planned, but there was no time to respond again.
“There’s no end! What do we do?!”
Caught off guard by the black wave that had suddenly approached the castle walls, a local boy, who had braced his rifle against the wall and pulled the trigger, turned to the soldier beside him, a panic-stricken expression on his face.
‘I don’t know either.’
His face grew pale, and he could not form any words.
Of course, he was the one who hastily taught the local boy how to shoot.
Yet, even now, that boy was merely an ordinary staff member aboard a survey vessel, not a soldier at all.
Even veteran soldiers, with combat experience against extraterrestrial beings classified as space bugs, had never faced an organized, highly intelligent, and high-firepower army, moving seamlessly like one body.
“Keep shooting until you get an order! Keep… Tom?”
There were no other options. The only choice was to pull the trigger or not.
He fell silent as he saw the body of the boy who had been shot through the head by a large poison dart.
“Ugh… Ahhh!”
Yet the outcome of those two options ultimately amounted to the same thing.
Monsters relentlessly surged, trampling over their dead kin without hesitation. One could not expect hesitation from them.
Even when one was hit by bullets and bled copiously, or when parts of their bodies fell away or burned, if they could muster even the slightest physical movement, they would crawl forward somehow.
This was the foundation of the legion that they had overlooked while dealing with superior species like Kang Do-yeon. An endless tide of diverse breeds generated through evolution and fusion, striking with meticulous collective tactics and ruthless slaughter.
“Gahh…”
A gigantic spider that crawled up the wall burst open, scattering its corrosive venom everywhere as its body was ripped apart while its front legs pierced through his body at the same time.
As the spider’s corpse tumbled down, he rolled backward, clutching the torn-open belly amidst the splattered blood.
His comrades were being slaughtered by the monsters that had ultimately managed to scale the battlements.
With the sole remaining line of defense breached, it was over. There would now only be slaughter in the city.
“Ha… Haha… Haha!”
However, having landed on the roof of a single building, he began to laugh like a madman, even through his hazy vision.
In the distant sky, the clouds parted, and finally, the ship he had longed for revealed itself. Although it was the closest escort ship rushed to the scene, it didn’t matter.
With the firepower of that ship, it was possible to wipe out all the enemies filling the city in one fell swoop.
“Deal with it. Before they come with more than just one ship, with a fleet.”
However, he died without ever noticing the four black wings slipping away invisibly, as if waiting for the ship to appear.
