<171. Hate to Hate (9)>
Humans on Earth had already experienced dimensional leap terminal terrorism twice this year. A historically rare event had occurred twice in a very short span. In truth, the terminal isn't an attractive target for terrorists. It's a low-return, high-risk endeavor, and causing enough damage to disable its function is extremely difficult.
As proof, even in the previous attempts, they couldn't touch the most critical component: the guidance tower.
Many people confuse it with the control tower, but unlike the latter, the guidance tower is an unmanned facility that functions similarly to an Instrument Landing System (ILS) at an airport.
This gigantic magical artifact, as tall as a ten-story building, operates from a corner far from passenger facilities or other navigational systems. It is a landmark symbolizing the terminal and is crucial for drawing in and sending out leap lines. The artifact is protected by the most robust barrier installed directly by the Committee. How strong is it? When Leo unleashed a mountain of lightning in Hong Kong, the guidance tower remained completely unscathed.
Considering all this, a terminal attack is a highly impractical choice.
And yet, a third attack has occurred.
However, even this time, the chances of success seemed slim. Compared to the previous two, the difficulty of breaching the New York terminal was much higher. Not only was there an impregnable barrier, but they had also gathered convicts from all over the planet.
Yet, neither the Committee nor the convicts themselves could have predicted how utterly helpless they would be.
Boom! Boom boom!
"Damn it! Where the hell are they?!"
A heavily armed troll cursed. He was the one who had personally guided William on his first day of duty. Back then, his face had been full of sarcasm; now, it was smeared with dismay, frustration, and fear. He had seen and done it all as a convict, but this was a first.
A magical bombardment whose origin couldn't be determined.
It felt like they were being toyed with by ghosts.
Crash!
The attacks always came from unpredictable directions at unpredictable times. Just when the mana seemed to tangle and concentrate, something would suddenly emanate as if a door had opened in the air.
The most recent one was a firestorm. The explosion that engulfed the sentry post melted the ground into grotesque shapes. The convicts who barely escaped before the blast were fleeing without looking back. Flames, with orange tongues, licked at their heels as they desperately ran or flew away.
With each repeated explosion and detonation, even the trolls far away could feel the scorching heat. The ground shook from the impact, and shattered concrete fragments sprayed in all directions like bullets. Some of the debris even grazed the troll's cheek, but he remained motionless. The red line on his cheek soon disappeared as his skin regenerated. He was too enraged to care. He shouted into his communicator.
"Hey, command! You've got to come up with something! What are we supposed to do if we all get wiped out?!"
Damian in the command room had no clever solutions. All he could do was tell them to hold on as best they could. The troll on the other end spewed a string of curses, but only for a few seconds.
Boom! The connection was cut off with a loud explosion. The troll no longer responded.
Damian felt the blood drain from his face. He stared at the situation board as if answers might magically appear.
'This is strange. None of this makes sense. From start to finish... everything is strange.'
The fact that Asif-666 had such firepower was unexpected.
Even more surprising was the method he used to launch his airstrikes.
Whoosh!
A shadow swept across the ground like a tidal wave.
"Damn it, here it comes again! Run!"
"This is insane!"
The darkness surged wildly, swallowing everything in its path without ever regurgitating it. Those who witnessed it kept their distance from the black boundary, and when it approached, they scrambled to widen the gap.
So what happened to those who were swallowed?
Sometimes, convicts with special abilities would report back, saying they sensed a few survivors inside. Whether those were the last few who managed to survive, a noticeable fraction among many, or merely temporarily spared, no one could tell.
As the convicts fled from magical bombardments and shadow monsters, they faced yet another trap.
"Ugh! Urgh… Blech!"
"It's a curse! That bastard did this!"
An orc convict's chest swelled, and he began to retch.
What he vomited up were small, mucus-coated creatures resembling leeches. He continued to spew them out endlessly. Considering he didn't remember having a bucket of flatworms for lunch, the means of entry was obvious.
It was magic.
Convicts scratched their skin madly, others collapsed as reddish-brown mucus oozed from every orifice, and some lost all their teeth, hair, and nails, succumbing to acute muscle weakness. Still, others grinned maniacally as they chewed on their own fingers.
They all had one thing in common.
"Stay away from that smoke! It seems to trigger curses upon contact!"
At some point, the smoke surrounding them began to glow with an eerie light. The colors evoked the warning patterns of venomous animals. As they struggled to avoid it, the convicts retreated, gathering up their cursed comrades.
Damian clenched his teeth. By now, he had to admit it. Asif-666 was a monster they couldn't hope to resist with the forces they had. The moment he targeted this place, the collapse of the defense line was inevitable.
The Committee had miscalculated.
But there was still one unresolved question.
'Why isn't he killing them?'
As Damian watched the screen, one convict caught his eye. An elf was using a finger bone he had just bitten off as a toothpick, dancing in delirium. Self-cannibalistic psychosis.
If he could successfully curse them like that, it should be easy enough to take their lives. But he wasn't seeing any instant deaths among the convicts.
'They've already become fugitives; they have nothing to lose. It's not like he needs to worry about sparing any more resources.'
Moreover, Asif-666's actions resembled a siege rather than a slaughter. It was absurd. One convict was herding hundreds of others, cornering them. Fleeing from bombings, shadows, and strange smoke, they naturally converged in one place.
Around the control tower.
Damian looked at the map. Their original strategy was to concentrate their forces at the control tower in the terminal's center and hold it at all costs. They believed Asif-666 would eventually target that area. They thought he would disable the operators with something like a "happy bug" and then escape to another dimension.
But Asif-666 didn't seem interested in using the escape craft. Damian glanced at the collapsed maintenance bay and the ship trapped beneath it. He then watched as the convicts guarding other areas were driven toward the control tower like cattle.
'From his perspective, he should be luring out the convicts around the control tower, taking them down one by one to reduce their numbers... but instead, he's driving them all in there!'
At this rate, nearly everyone in the terminal would be pushed toward the control tower.
'Is he planning to wipe them all out in one go?'
If that's the case, why herd them toward the control center? He can't kill the essential personnel there.
Damian was utterly confused.
'What is he up to?!'
He turned his gaze to the inbound slots, where the space was warping and sparking continuously.
The forces from the Committee, unaware of the chaos here, were still drawing closer to this dimension.
Jenkins looked around with an expression of nostalgic reflection.
Dozens of ancient dragons had gathered together to cast a spell. This was the first time since the old war that he had seen such a sight. It was the outcome of the temporary dragon conference held recently in Hong Kong.
Only ancient dragons were summoned, instead of all dragons. The matter was that sensitive, and secrecy was paramount. Opinions were deeply divided, but they had managed to reach a narrow consensus.
It was still too early to go to full-scale war with the Committee. But the proposal from the convict Asif-666, who volunteered to lead the charge, was appealing to some of the ancient dragons. He had also brought compelling evidence.
As a result, the dragons gathered here today. Their goal was to steadily weaken the Committee's forces that had already taken root on Earth or were being deployed to Earth.
And all the blame will fall on Asif-666. It was a kind of scapegoat. Though working for the same purpose, all the guilt would be borne by the prisoner, someone already branded as a criminal. Jenkins felt deep concern, but Minjun was adamant that this was the only way to succeed.
On the other hand, the other dragons were not so much worried about Minjun but were concerned about the consequences this plan would have if it failed. Hence, they too were desperate. It required significant effort to create a perfect picture from a dragon's perspective, avoiding blame while reaping the benefits.
"That shadow... it's really running wild without getting tired! Hey, it's going to jump to some other place again. Seltemerian! Block it properly! The shadow is trying to come into contact with my poison mist!!"
"I'm doing my best. Just wait a moment. I'll change the direction so it can get out of there."
The prisoners at the terminal were under the false impression that Asif-666 was hiding near the airport, controlling the shadow monsters.
However, it was actually the high dragons who were managing this task instead of Minjun. To be precise, the term "managing" wasn't quite right. Instead of directing the monsters, they were merely preventing them from going certain places, creating barriers around them.
It was true that Asif-666 had summoned the monsters. But from the point he released them at the terminal, a high dragon had created a transparent barrier around the monsters and activated gravitational forces. Their job was merely to guide the monsters in the intended direction. This was as difficult as herding a bull maddened with excitement and insanity.
The curses designed to mislead, the magical bombardments, and the attacks tearing through the barriers were all the work of the high dragons.
At this very moment, Asif-666 was not at the New York terminal. He had merely staged it to look that way.
Jenkins turned his gaze.
"It's almost done."
Where his gaze fell, other high dragons were working hard. They had been focusing solely on memorizing one spell from the beginning to now. They had refrained from interfering with the bombings ravaging the terminal, concentrating on just one spell.
Fwoosh!
And finally, it was complete.
Minjun reminisced about the past.
The tentacled beings that slaughtered test subjects almost identical to humans.
Having decided to intervene, he pondered how to stop their actions.
Should I give the test subjects the power to repel the tentacles?
This was both a low-probability and exceedingly difficult task.
Or should I drive away those tentacles myself?
But then what?
Monitoring beings with the ability to swim through the sea of stars forever was an extremely tedious task.
He reached a conclusion.
He needed to give the tentacles a reason not to kill the test subjects.
But how?
If the attack was due to hunger, it would be simpler. However, the tentacles were reacting solely because they found the test subjects repulsive. They killed them purely out of physiological disgust, like swatting flies.
Is there a way to forcibly remove the hatred one group feels for another?
He shook his head. It was impossible naturally. Unnatural methods were also out of the question. The planet would turn into a dead star in the process of mixing appropriate feed for the tentacles.
Moreover, since the hatred arose from a practical judgment rather than a natural one, it could not be removed by logical methods or persuasion. The tentacles had no shred of sympathy or empathy for coexistence. They exhibited only the opposite repulsion.
I can't stop the hatred.
And he couldn't command them not to feel emotions.
Instead, there was something possible.
I must separate the two groups.
So they cannot see each other.
So the haters and the hated can never face each other forever.
But he couldn't make the test subjects leave the planet. Only invaders could do that.
So, how could he make the tentacles voluntarily leave? It would be a waste of effort to go to that planet and sort things out himself...
No, must I descend in person?
It was enough to make it look like he had.
Yes, that would be best.
He decided to persuade the tentacles.
And he should appear to the race as if he was someone they should listen to and be persuaded by.
"The situation seems to be quite challenging, Representative."
"I'm watching too."
In response to his subordinate Dotes' words, Del replied while staring at the screen.
They were at the Earth headquarters of the Pan-Dimensional Intelligence Redistribution Committee, just like any other day. The criteria for the location of the headquarters set by the committee's leaders about 70 years ago were simple. In 1945, the aliens had made contact with Earth through the UN on its official establishment date. They waited for an organization that could represent the will of the majority of Earth's people before making contact.
The UN headquarters at that time was in New York. Thus, it was only natural for the committee's headquarters to be established in that city.
In other words, the Princess of Endelion was now in New York.
More precisely, the entrance leading to where she was was connected to New York.
"It seems Asif-666 has appeared, but we haven't managed to catch him."
The tentacle's deep gaze focused on the screen. Explosions continued, and prisoners were flying in all directions like ants blown by the wind.
She muttered to herself.
"Does he really intend to escape like this? It's not impossible if he knows the emergency jump code... But causing such a huge commotion and drawing attention can't be beneficial."
Just then, a sudden realization struck.
Kwah-kwah!
Her subordinate, Dotes, momentarily doubted his ears. The explosion sounds transmitted through the screen were replaced by a much clearer and more intense roar. Had the tentacle suddenly turned up the volume?
Unlike her subordinate, the tentacled being did not doubt the source of the sound. Her physical senses were too precise to mistake the sound from the screen for the one coming from nearby.
To prove her senses were accurate, an artificial voice echoed throughout the building.
Warning! Warning! Intruder detected! Intruder in...
"What, what did you say?!"
Dotes screamed in panic, his eyes wildly darting around.
Who could have invaded here?
The Earth headquarters had not been attacked by radical groups for a while due to its vacancy. Ironically, after the long hiatus and the appointment of a new representative, it had become even less likely. Even the decision to send prisoners from here to support the terminal was considered reasonable.
After all, the species residing in this spatial distortion created on such a grand scale was...
Endelion.
Who would dare to challenge a 'den' guarded by a tentacled monster with a 6 km radius?
Boom!
"Ugh!"
The deafening roar, now much closer and sharper, echoed, and Dotes' last view was of the dense darkness enveloping everything.
And then, his thoughts ceased.
< 171. Hate to Hate (9 > End