"What do you mean a Dungeon Break!?"
The observers couldn't hide their confusion at Kamiya's exclamation.
The Wandering Demon Sword is a major target for round-the-clock surveillance. Ever since the London Incident, this black-rank magic sword had been wandering the world, and military satellites around the world had been monitoring it in real time, and its traveling routes were known.
Its speed is not very fast. It can fly, but it also needs food and rest to keep their living hosts alive.
It would be another three days before it would reach Japan.....
"There's a gate in the sea all of a sudden? Is it a coincidence?"
A gate appeared on the path of the Wandering Demon Sword. It was a gate that was implicitly called the Dragon Palace Gate.
"According to the information provided by the surveillance team, the demon sword entered the gate at the same time as the Dragon Palace Gate appeared."
"The demon sword entered the gate?"
"Then they say a dungeon break occurred right as the gate appeared...."
This was unprecedented.
Normally, it takes at least ten days for a dungeon break to occur after the appearance of a gate. It took time for the internal magic to overflow and for the gate to expand.
Looking at it this way, didn't the Wandering Demon Sword seem to have artificially caused the gate's dungeon break?
"Is it possible that the Wandering Demon Sword summoned the gate by itself?"
"Boo, it's impossible, there's no precedent for such a thing──"
"It is not impossible."
"...!"
Everyone focused on the voice that came from the direction of Chairman Kamiya and his group, and at the end of their gaze was none other than Leon and Beatrice.
"...What do you mean?"
"He said it's not impossible to artificially create a gate."
"...."
Behind Leon's back, even the president of the association, Oh Kang-hyuk, looked surprised. Chairman Kamiya could guess that it was something that even Oh didn't know about.
"We need to talk...."
"It's an emergency. I'll share the necessary information."
* * * *
"There have been additional dungeon breaks, starting with the Dragon Palace Gate, which occurred 700 kilometers off the coast of Shikoku."
Inside a conference room high ranking Hunters from South Korea and Japan are gathered.
They swallowed hard as they looked at the information on the holographic display shared by Japanese intelligence.
"What was that, a series of gates in the same place?"
Huang Yeon-ha, the younger sister of Golden Lion Guild Leader Golden Chul, looked at the increasing number of gates on the holographic display and expressed disbelief.
It's not uncommon for gates to occur back-to-back in the same area. Right now, there are about three or four gates a day in Seoul.
The problem is that there aren't that many gates at sea, and it's unprecedented for them to cause dungeon breaks one after another.
"Observation video."
The video showed the Wandering Demon Sword in the middle of the ocean and its host, Lake Tianji.
Standing on the ocean like a martial arts master in a martial arts novel, he entered the summoned gate, and then exited it with countless monsters.
"The Wandering Demon Sword… is causing a dungeon break?"
"How is that possible?"
"It's impossible!"
"It's possible, and it's happening in front of our eyes."
The Dragon Palace Gate is itself the seed of a disaster that the nation must exterminate with all its might.
Four such Dragon Palace Gates appeared in a row and the demon sword even caused artificial dungeon breaks before they had time to react.
"Damn, the sea off the coast of Japan is polluted...."
And it's the Japanese Hunters who take it even more seriously.
The gate emits a huge amount of miasma at the same time as the dungeon break, which pollutes the land and demonizes the animals.
On land, this would not be a problem, but in the middle of the ocean, a dungeon break causes serious national damage.
On land, you'd spend money to clean it up, but in the middle of the ocean, the accessibility and scope of the problem is different.
"We've got a lot of work ahead of us."
While the Japanese hunters and government officials were in a terrible mood, the leader of the Divine Sword Guild, Chun Jin-soo, was as nonchalant as ever.
"You think it's someone else's country?"
Takeda didn't like that, and gave him a sharp glare.
"Of course it's someone else's country. It's not like we're f*cked."
"You…!"
"No, I'm not, you wide-eyed little brat, I'm a few years older than you are!"
Chun Jin-soo doesn't let go of his goofy spirit even in this situation. In fact, he felt no remorse for Japan's catastrophe.
He was a patriot, but at the same time, he lived half of his life in a time when Japan and Korea had not established diplomatic relations, and he had been on the ground in a more direct way.
Above all, he was a person who was deeply disappointed by Japan's behavior in the Ulsan tragedy.
He was the only one who participated in Japan's attack on the Demon Sword not to help our hated neighbors, but to deal with his biological son and the host of the Demon Sword.
"That's enough. What are you doing to the young?"
Unlike Chun Jin-soo, who was quite outspoken, Kang Jin-sung of the Blue Star Guild was not amused. He's one of the legends of his generation, and his bitterness makes Chun Jin-soo sit up and take notice.
Kang Jin-sung turned to the former.
"It seems that the enemy is still in the process of creating a dungeon break in the sea. What is the scale of it so far?"
"Ah, yes, there have been three dungeon breaks so far, and there are about twenty thousand monsters that came out of them!"
"That's a lot."
Dungeon Breaks are usually caused by a failed strategy.
In other words, the number of monsters inside the gate had been reduced by quite a bit during the process.
However, the dungeon break caused by the Wandering Demon Sword occurred while the gate was still intact, without the raiding party having a chance to enter, so naturally, the scale of the break is not comparable to the previous one.
"Where did the Wandering Demon Sword go?"
"It…disappeared into the sea right after the gate was summoned."
"...It's been hiding its submergence ability all this time."
All of the information and prerequisites for the Wandering Demon Sword so far had been overturned.
Summoning a gate and diving into the sea.
"Diving is one thing. What is summoning a gate, and is a gate something that can be artificially summoned?"
"Let me explain that part."
It was Beatrice who spoke up, the cotton-cloaked magician queen deftly maneuvering a laser point and playing a file sent to her by 'Yappy' from Korea.
"About four weeks ago, our TTG Guild, along with the Hunters of the United States, attacked the East Sea Gate."
One of South Korea's ten guilds, Lee Yong-wan, had participated in it, and the discovery of the Demon Archduke Rakshar had made headlines around the world.
Even Skazakari, the one who caused the Shanghai disaster, was only an Archdemon, but a Demon Archduke?
That overturns the information that the highest-ranking demons are Archdemons.
Of course, since he didn't cause a dungeon break and appear in the real world, it wasn't a big deal, but government agencies took it seriously enough.
If there was a Demon Archduke on top of the Archdemons, there could be more.
"From there, we became suspicious of the 'gate' and the 'system' and the 'quests' it gave us, and we came to a conclusion."
"What… is that?"
Hunters from both Japan and Korea dreaded TTG Guild answer, questioning what they had taken for granted.
Of course, many scholars had suspected and theorized about the gate or system, but it was all speculation.
But this guild of survivors had come to a conclusion, and it could be expected that it would not be information that was desirable to humanity.
"The conclusion was that the gates…were an artificially created phenomenon."
"No way!"
It was such a shocking declaration that everyone was in denial. But Beatrice presented the video footage from Yappy as evidence.
Beatrice had created a gate using a large amount of magic stones, and from there, she could see the "field" inside the gate that Yappy had observed.
"Crazy...."
"She can artificially summon a gate?"
"That would break the whole idea of gate attacking...."
If it is indeed possible to artificially summon gates, then all you have to do is summon a series of gates in the middle of the ocean, just like the Wandering Demon Sword is doing now.
Humanity would lose its oceans and be doomed.
In the midst of the commotion, everyone with their own ideas, Leon spoke up.
"Be quiet."
Leon is, technically, only the most marginalized newcomer here.
He's not even officially qualified as an S-class Hunter, and even though his guild is large, most of the members are C-class Hunters.
There are countless S-class Hunters here, as well as leaders of large guilds.
Still, Leon's words quieted the room.
"It's clear we can handle the Gate phenomenon and once we're realized that, it's clear what we must do."
Deal with the Demon Sword before it creates more Gates. The solution is always simple and clear.
"Prepare for a defensive battle. Prepare for their landing and locate the sword."
"Arbitrary orders──"
Takeda started to say, but Chairman Kamiya cut him off with a wave of his hand. Even in this situation, he made a quick profit and loss calculation.
"The Wandering Demon Sword is strong, and the monsters that are about to land are probably just trying to attract attention."
Chairman Kamiya looked at the Hunters from both Japan and Korea.
"We'll form a separate squadron to maneuver as soon as the Wandering Demon Sword appears, with only the most elite Hunters to attack it."
Kamiya's plan was as follows
Depending on the landing route of the monsters, the main S-class strike force will be divided into three groups and loaded onto transport planes.
The plan is to drop the S-class raiders directly into the area where they appear and respond immediately.
It's a tactic that's only possible because of the availability of aircraft.
"That's good, we'll be able to join them quickly."
Yong-wan thought the plan was perfectly reasonable. The only problem was… how would the teams be formed?
In any case, Chairman Kamiya's plan went through.
* * * *
The first monsters to land were an army of monsters called Mermen.
Led by Class A Fieldboss Seiren, thousands of Mermen, with their hideous appearance and sharp tridents, descended on Miyazaki Prefecture, southeast of Kyushu, Japan.
"Gunners stand by."
And before them stood a group of hunters.
Unlike inside the gate, where high-tech equipment could not be mobilized, hundreds of hunters, whose routes had been mapped out by satellites and reconnaissance aircraft, were waiting for the monsters to land.
-Sii-yin…!
The Merman's gills flapped menacingly as they saw the Hunters. They charged straight for the Hunters, and the orderly Hunters opened fire in unison.
"Fire!"
A barrage of ranged fire pummeled the Mermen, and with that, a hand-to-hand combat erupted, swords and spears clashing.
-Bang, bang, bang…!
And in the midst of this landing defense battle a large helicopter carrying Hunters circles the area.
"...."
Even Chen Jin-soo, who usually opens his mouth, Golden Chul, who is full of confidence, Lee Yong-wan, who is busy calculating the profit and loss, and Ha Yuri, who is watching from the sidelines, did not let go of the tension for this moment.
The Korean-Japanese Hunter Alliance was spread out towards the predicted landing site of the monster that had burst out of the Dragon Palace Gate.
Basically, the landing force would be blocked by the Hunters on the ground, and the helicopters would be used to mobilize when the Wandering Demon Sword appeared. The idea is to create a star squadron to deal with the sword.
In other words, the S-class Hunters aboard the helicopter are the ones who will fight the black-rank Wandering Demon Sword.
At this moment, with the world's most dangerous battle ahead, everyone is nervous.
'Damn, why isn't the Lionheart King here?'
Yong-wan was disappointed that Leon wasn't among the three forces that split into Miyazaki, Shikoku, and Wakayama.
TTG Guild is waiting in Wakayama with Park Yong-shin of Hanbit Palace. They're scheduled to join him in the event of an emergency, but he can't help but think he'd be safer with them.
"What about the other side?"
Yong-wan asks and Ha Yuri checks her tactical pad.
"Japanese Hunters are fighting monsters that landed in Wakayama. The TTG Guild is in the rear."
"That's surprising."
Huang Yeon-ha, who had seen the TTG Guild act, said.
"What, My Sister?"
Golden Chul interrupted.
"I thought His Majesty the Lionheart King would say that he would fight first, out of chivalry and honor."
"Certainly. He's the kind of guy who talks like that."
Leon is the embodiment of chivalry straight out of a medieval history book.
Of course, that chivalry is vastly different from the chivalry of modern Earth, but it's not so different that he's obsessed with winning and earning honors.
"I don't think so. He's surprisingly not the type to make the first move."
"Senior Yong-wan, what does that mean?"
Yong-wan shrugged, but he was the one who had fought with Leon the most.
"It's basically a commander's style, whether it's refraining from taking the lead or getting enough information...."
Yong-wan has watched Leon fight and capture gates a few times.
He saw how he acted in the Jeju Island gate and during the Cheongju Gate.
Even in the battle against the Yakt Spinner at Cheongju Gate, where Golden Chul fought, this incarnation of chivalry was not one to take the lead.
"He may be active in the decisive parts of battles, but he leaves the basic outposts to his subordinates, which is probably why his guild is so strangely 'militarized'."
"Definitely…more of an army than a traditional raiding style."
This contradicts the misconception that Leon is known for his knightly style of 'charging in' at random.
Leon knows he's a king, and as such, he's cautious in his actions. He knows all too well that he is irreplaceable.
Still, the image of Leon as a vanguard, smashing everything in his path, is a result of the impact of his combat prowess.
"Enough of that, get ready to fight, we're closing in."
That's when Chun Jin-soo, who was sharpening his blade alongside Kang Jin-sung, pointed to the ground beyond the helicopter's window.
The field bosses at the gate could be seen slowly emerging.
"I can see quite a few large Class A field bosses, we'll have to deal with them──"
Before Yong-Wan could finish his sentence, the sky lit up.
No, more than the sky, higher, beyond the stratosphere.
Somewhere in space, a light flashed and shot down vertically.
A charged particle with no mass penetrates the crown of the field boss's head. It was a pinpoint snipe, with an error of less than 0.01 millimeters.
The heated, sub-luminescent particles hit the seawater, causing it to boil instantly, with secondary damage.
-Eek, eek, eek, eek?!
A whole bunch of mermen were instantly turned into boiled meat.
"...."
"...What is it?"
Ha Yuri nonchalantly replied to the stupid Golden Chul question.
"Don't ask me...."