There have been three catastrophes since humanity has been threatened by the otherworldly threat of the Gate.
The first was the Shanghai Massacre.
Archdemon Skazakari was defeated by the evaporation of Shanghai, but its constant resurrection and reappearance caused the continent to collapse under the weight of the damage.
Second, the Frost Queen of Siberia.
Devouring the snowfields of Siberia, Russia, the Frost Queen was finally defeated, but her heart remained and became an Epic item that expands the snowfields.
Third, the London Disaster.
The first-ever European Union raid cleared a Black Gate, but the real villain was the Wandering Demon Blade, which dropped as an Epic item.
It was a trap set by the murderous Archduke Akasha to find a host, killing 870,000 Londoners and 600 Hunters under the leadership of the first demon swordsman, James Spencer, and causing untold damage as she continued to switch hosts.
Each of these black gates scarred humanity beyond repair.
The lesser of the two evils was the London plague, which killed nearly a million people, so it goes without saying that it was a terrifying disaster.
So when a black gate appeared in the middle of the United States–in its capital, Washington, D.C., no less–the United States acted quite rationally.
[The United States enlists the support of longtime allies]
The United States called on its longtime allies, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Five Eyes, as well as South Korea, Japan, Germany, and France, to send elite hunter assault teams.
-Look at that. It's Cornwall Ong, the Archmage of England, the Lord of the Tower of London!
-There's the League of Gentlemen. Graham the Silver Knight!
-And Günther of Germany! The defending European champion!
-From Japan, Mr. Takeda himself. I thought he'd send his men now that he's so high up.
At the request of the United States, Hunters from all over the world came to represent their respective countries.
This alone exceeded the number of S-class Hunters mobilized at London Gate and the most important American hunter force is──
-The Maverick Guild! Minuteman and Allen Taylor are there!
-The entire executive team!
The McHale Guild from Los Angeles is also here! The American S-class Hunters are here!
There are 60 S-class Hunters. That's crazy.
Indeed, the United States was the world's strongest nation.
The total number of S-class Hunters in the United States is eighty. This alone was four times the level of South Korea, which was considered a Hunter powerhouse.
The Maverick Guild and the McHale Guild, the two guilds with the most S-class Hunters, were the two largest guilds that bisected the United States.
The largest American guilds in the East and West had been mobilized to attack Washington's Black Gate.
"They haven't come yet."
"The real monster power of this attack."
But even they weren't the main players in this raid, as they were led in by a colorful American honor guard and made a formal entrance.
"His Majesty Leon Dragonia Lionheart, King of the Lionheart, and his entourage, please enter!"
It was an alien group in this modern age.
It's not uncommon for hunters to use cold weapons and wear pre-modern armor.
However, modernized versions of pre-modern armor designs and swords and shields with increased magical conductivity have a different vibe than the weapons of the past.
It's a contradictory balance, with cold weapons on the cutting edge.
-Diverse!
But is there any other group that is so anachronistic?
Full plate armor. Standardized, heavy jousting lances. War horses with full body armor.
Heavily armored assault knights with a strict cold-weapon system reminiscent of the medieval French Knights Templar.
The uniqueness of the cavalry in the age of tanks and fighter jets is what draws people's attention.
-Truly medieval.
-They do mounted charges at gates.
-Don't they have jousting tournaments?
Some people on the left laughed at the joke, but as they got closer, everyone held their breath.
They realized that these were not just anachronistic knights emerging from a medieval mural, but warriors who had been on the battlefield since they were born.
"Your Majesty!"
This time, the attack on the Black Gate was to be presided over by the President of the United States, President Hobson himself.
President Hobson greeted Leon's with great fanfare, and Leon and his knights dismounted.
-I see the Men at Arms aren't here.
-Well, if they do, we'll have more Hunters than the United States. The chain of command will be a mess.
No matter how much they'd like the Alliance to help them, the centerpiece of this assault on the Gate must be the United States itself.
-But the Burning Sword Knights and Lord Vulcanus alone.
-Hugely overbalanced. The Knights of Naju are not low level either.
-There are four of them, including the Lionheart King. Especially the Yakt Spinner. You never know what's going to pop up. Are those containers his personal arsenal?
In any case, the number of Hunters assembled in Washington was close to a hundred and fifty, all Class S and above.
But they didn't enter the Washington Gate right away, because there were others waiting for them.
"President Hobson, how long have your scouts been in?"
"Four days as of today."
Each of the black gates had a horrific difficulty level. Most large guilds would try to outbid each other for even the highest difficulty, Red Gate, but a Black Gate was different.
To capture the Black Gate, which is almost an all-out war, Hunters would first dispatch a scouting party to see the situation of the Gate before deciding whether to attack.
"It's about time, but——"
In fact, they were instructed to return last night if they could. However, if not a single one of them has come out yet——
"They can't be wiped out, can they? It was a scouting party that included Trident, an S-class Hunter.
It was best to have the scouts relay as much information as possible about what was going on inside the gate, but even if the scouts were wiped out in the worst case scenario, the gate still needed to be entered.
Even with all of Washington, D.C.'s citizens evacuated, the city is the nation's capital and the center of the United States. Losing it would be an irreparable wound.
"We'll just have to wait and see. Our American hunters are good. They'll be back soon with good news."
President Hobson spoke solemnly, but as the hours passed, his and his aides' faces grew grim.
An hour, two hours–four hours–when they were supposed to be receiving information from —— Gate and organizing operations, the International Hunter Alliance could only wait.
The passage of time could only mean one thing: the annihilation of the scouts.
Even in the United States, the disastrous assumption that the elite Hunter scouting force had been wiped out in its entirety had become a foregone conclusion.
"Your Majesty."
An elderly English gentleman approached the group of Hunter Bureau agents, who turned blue as they realized what this meant.
"Cornwall Ong, may I help you?"
Cornwall Ong, a British duke and archmage not even President Hobson would dare to mess with. As the owner of the Epic Item Twelve Patches, he spoke on behalf of the International Hunter Alliance.
"I think we should move in soon."
"But— our scouts haven't returned yet."
"Although the black gate has a longer dungeon break grace period than the other gates, it's a tougher gate to tackle. We need to enter it as soon as possible to gather information from the inside and begin our assault."
Originally, even running a scouting party was a waste of time. It's just that no one would dare to enter a black gate with an extremely high mortality rate.
"So— what do the Maverick Guild and the McHale Guild think?"
"I think we should enter. It is our regret that the Trident did not come out."
The Maverick Guild was devastated that their S-class Hunter was most likely dead, but they concluded coldly.
"We are of the same opinion as the Maverick Guild. If we lose more time here, it might actually make it more urgent to capture the gate."
"I see——"
President Hobson felt terrible that he had to send an international coalition of Hunters to deal with the crisis in the United States without giving them a single piece of information.
His gaze turned to Leon now.
"Is that how you feel, Your Majesty?"
"This king is not the commander of this coalition. The commander in chief is President Hobson himself."
Leon emphasized that the responsibility of decision rested with President Hobson himself. He's not here as a king, he's here as an ally.
In response to Leon's words, President Hopson made his decision.
"Though it's not the best situation, our International Hunter Alliance is stronger than any other army in the world. I have every confidence that you will rise to the occasion."
President Hobson had made his decision and ordered the troops to march on Washington Gate.
"As President of the United States of America, I order the International Hunter Union to defend Washington and its citizens. God bless them."
* * * *
Although the news of the scouting party's failure was heartbreaking, they were confident that the assault would not fail.
One hundred and fifty Class S Hunters had gathered to attack Washington Gate along with two thousand Class A Hunters.
In the history of world gate assaults, this kind of power has never been mobilized before.
'His Majesty, Lord Vulcanus, Queen Beatrice, and Lord Yappy are also here!'
Among these one hundred and fifty S-class Hunters, Han Ha-ri had even more faith.
No matter how powerful the Demon Archduke or the monsters inside the gate were, she couldn't imagine them being able to surpass Leon.
"What, what? The gate has been moved to——"
"This is not——"
The unexpected turn of events was clearly beyond her imagination.
It was white space that gave an odd sense of floating, like being in outer space but the buoyancy of an unknown force was pushing the raiders somewhere.
They were progressing in an irresistible direction but they were moving frustratingly slow.
"What the hell, what the hell is going on?"
"Don't be impatient, we don't know everything!"
While being pushed by an unknown force, the Hunters tried to interpret the anomaly in their own way, or let their anxiety spiral out of control.
"Calm down, everyone, it's clear we've entered the gate!"
Eventually, an elderly gentleman calmed them down. Active since the early days of the Cataclysm, he was the most prestigious hunter in the world, the Tower of London Master, and he spoke with authority.
"Does the Archmage have any ideas about this phenomenon?"
It was Allen Taylor of the Maverick Guild, who was testing the space-faring movements of his men.
"Hmm–not entirely, but if this old man's guess is anything to go by, the Magician Queen of the TTG Temple is more familiar with this phenomenon."
At that, all eyes turned toward the Temple of Ten Thousand Gods and Beatrice met their gazes as she rode her black horse through the sky.
"I take it you feel the same way I do?"
"Yes, my queen. I have read your treatise to the magical community."
"Papers by the Queen of Magic?"
"I've heard there are several."
After Leon, the Magician Queen is the most publicized member of the TTG Temple.
Her many magical theories are said to be revolutionary in magical circles.
Mankind, with only 30 years of magical history, is said to be like a newborn baby in front of her.
"This is probably inside the gate, more precisely, the subspace between the gate's entrance and exit."
"Between the entrance and exit of the gate?"
"I'm sure many wizards have already experimented with opening gates like in my papers, but— to put it simply, a gate is meant to be entered and exited at the same time."
This has been commonplace for a long time but academics disagree.
"Entering a gate is like entering another world, a leap in space and time— but it physically requires a 'passage'."
We are now swimming in that passage. So far, the Hunters understand. The question was…
"Why are we here now? By now, we should have moved on to the next entrance in a flash."
"There are two possibilities. The first is that the Hunters' magic power has somehow affected the gate with this unprecedentedly large-scale movement, or——"
"Or there are beings who can intervene in this subspace, this passage between worlds."
-Anomalous energy activity. Inactive observation radar at full power.
-Warning.
-Possible enemy presence.
───────
Space shudders. In subspace, a giant passageway twisted and turned, and a figure emerged from it.
The figure was so large, so clear, that everyone recognized it as one thing.
An evil one. A giant. The hero's nemesis.
The greatest incarnation of violence in all of mythology was──
"What is that——?"
A dragon.
The torn pupils of a dragon so huge that it stared at the Alliance from the other side of the subspace.