From Today, I'm a Player

Chapter 242. A Horrifying Battle Pt. 2

A blue gate had suddenly appeared before the Asgardian Hero could count to ten.

“...!”

The Hunters standing opposite Lee Jun-Kyeong seemed surprised by the sudden scene as they were agitated and unable to keep their mouths shut.

“Puhahahaha!”

However, the sound of laughter soon began to echo throughout the battlefield.

Soon, one by one, the laughing voices turned into sneers of ridicule.

“Pff… pfft!”

“The hell is this? Nothing happened?!”

“And here I was, scared for no reason.”

“I thought you somehow controlled monsters like Lord Baldur or something.”

“Isn’t it such a coincidence?”

They all laughed at the situation, amused by nothing happening.

It was as they had said. Even though the gate had appeared right where the two factions had divided, nothing had changed. The surroundings were the same, and nothing appeared from within the doors.

The Asgardian Hero who had shouted earlier could be seen with a sneer on his lips.

“It’s ten! You son of a bitch!”

Then, quickly running through the numbers he hadn’t been able to finish earlier, he ordered his men to kill the ordinary humans, “KILL THEM!”

Shing!

The loud clashing sound of weapons being drawn was heard simultaneously as the ordinary humans began to scream at the sight of the Hunters with weapons in hand.

“Agh!!!!”

“P…please save me!”

“Please…!”

As the Hunters moved to bring their weapons down on the ordinary humans with faces full of ridicule, the ground began to shake and tremble.

BOOM!

Unable to keep swinging their weapons, the Hunters suddenly stumbled from losing balance due to the shaking ground.

“Wh…what is this?!”

An unknown pressure had frozen them.

“This… This is mana!” the Hero-Grade Hunters shouted at the sudden situation.

“This is impossible! In what world can you suppress this entire area with only mana?”

“The… the Underdog…!”

Moreover, they had realized that all of that mana was being exuded by Lee Jun-Kyeong alone.

“Ru…run away!” the Hunters began to shout with a pale face.

‘I’m sure of it…’

They now knew that something unusual was about to happen.

RUMBLE!

The increasing rumbling was proof of their suspicions.

However, none of them could flee as they couldn’t move from the pressure of Lee Jun-Kyeong’s mana.

It was only then that they had really started looking at Lee Jun-Kyeong.

Although he stood still, doing nothing, by his side stood the white wolf who had shifted into the form of a child, the white tiger still in his massive form, and the woman who had transformed into the dragon that had created the sea of fire.𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝔀𝓮𝙗𝓷𝓸𝙫𝓮𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The Asgardian Hero strengthened his eyes with mana and peered over at Lee Jun-Kyeong’s face.

“We…we’re going to die!”

There wasn’t even a hint of mercy on his expressionless face.

Regardless of whatever was about to happen from this point on, the outcome was inevitable.

“We’re going to kill all of these bastards!”

However, the Asgardian Hero still shouted, trying to grasp whatever lifeline he had left.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to do…!”

A smile spread across his lips once again.

“But we are standing among the ordinary humans! What, are you planning on killing us all?”

It was as he said.

Earlier, because the Hunter had counted to ten and his men had tried to kill the ordinary humans, they were all standing in one place, intermixed with their prisoners.

From their perspective, if Lee Jun-Kyeong were to try to kill them, the ordinary humans would also be swept away as collateral damage.

“If you surrender even now…!”

The Asgardian Hero continued to bark threats in his current situation as he believed they would work.

RUMBLE!!

However, his voice was no longer heard by those around him as the noise of the cracking ground drowned out all voices.

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

A sound similar to an explosion struck everyone’s ears as the Asgardian Hero looked ahead mid-shout.

“Huh…?”

Surprisingly, he found himself unable to see anything. Although he definitely had his eyes open, all he could see was darkness. A bright yellow eye appeared suddenly as he raised his gaze a little further.

Click.

It was overwhelmingly large. The Hunter wondered, could something that large even be considered an eye at this point? That was his last thought as he disappeared with the sound of something closing.

CHOMP!

Disappearing into the mouth of Jormungandr, the snake's voice lingered in Lee Jun-Kyeong’s ears.

–Don’t worry, I will take care of these bastards.

“Agh!!!!”

The screams of the Hunters, who hadn’t been affected by the sudden disaster that had unfolded, rang out as what had appeared before them couldn’t be called a snake. No, it was an indescribably giant serpent that had surrounded the ordinary humans and the Hunters. Then, the next sight that befell them all was terrifying as Jormungandr enveloped them all.

“It ate them!”

***

Ordinary humans and Hunters alike entered Jormungandr’s mouth.

As it had eaten countless gates, strengthening its abilities, its stomach was no different from a dungeon. Using things it created within itself, it could protect ordinary humans while dealing with enemies.

Thus, that was the current situation.

Jormungandr had broken through the gate and consumed half of the enemy camp, among them a mix of monsters, ordinary humans, and Hunters.

However, for the nearly a million ordinary humans that had only been enshrouded in fear, they could now say that they were safe.

Just as it had in the beginning, it had created a massive blue gate once more with a tremendous explosion, sucking them all into its grasp.

BOOM!

The serpent locked eyes with Lee Jun-Kyeong and spoke.

–It’s quite difficult.

Jormungandr’s size had now grown to an indescribable size, becoming a being that consumed the other dimensions they called gates and continued to live within one. Because of that, it was difficult for it to impose its incredible power outside of the gate’s domain.

“Rest.”

Even though only a part of its body had been dragged out of the gate, it seemed as though just moving alone had used half of its strength. Although the serpent had grown incredibly powerful, that strength had, in fact, become its weakness.

“You did good.”

Still, it had completed what it had to do quite well, saving nearly a million ordinary humans and keeping them safe. Because of its actions, the biggest obstacle in their path had been fixed.

Lee Jun-Kyeong looked ahead.

Not much time had passed since he had pierced through the veil—about an hour or two at most.

“...”

However, that short time would have seemed as though it had been a millenia for their enemies. The monster army, which had seemed endless, had collapsed, and more than half of them had disappeared.

Saeynkaed’s fire was still burning here and there as the footprints of Fenrir and Sangun were prominent in several areas of the enemy’s camp.

It wasn’t just the monsters.

“We…we’re going to die…!”

Half of the Hunters that had taken the ordinary humans hostage had disappeared into the mouth of Jormungandr while the remaining half collapsed onto the ground as if they couldn’t believe what had just happened. Although there was no longer any mana keeping them bound down, they still stood in place as if nails had been driven down into them.

On the other hand, in the span of less than three hours in which the enemy forces had been utterly decimated, there was absolutely no change in Lee Jun-Kyeong’s camp.

“...”

Everyone just stood in place and looked around at their surroundings.

Shing.

However, this was just the beginning. Lee Jun-Kyeong drew a spear. Testing its weight, it felt good in his hand, almost as if it suited him just as well as Muspel’s Spear had.

‘Is it the same?’

The spear in his hand was one that, by the hands of Park Jae-Hyun and Park Yu-Jin, had consumed Mistilteinn and become perfect in the midst of its imperfect, unfinished growth. It had now abandoned the name of Muspel.

Instead, it had consumed it.

Clang!

A metallic sound rang from the spear's tip as it grew an inch longer. This, too, was a new ability that it had obtained. With a new weapon came a new name.

“Surtr.”

Clang!

Surtur embedded deeply into the ground as Lee Jun-Kyeong felt a massive mana flowing along the ley lines.

“Aha.”

He let go of the shaft of the spear with a small sigh. At this very moment, he had just unlocked the massive amount of mana trapped within the ley lines, opening the bonds of the veins that had been sealed underground.

Through Surtr, he conveyed the energy of fire into the store of mana.

ROAR!

The mana contained within the ley lines radiated through Surtr, causing soaring flames to erupt. Flames spread further and further to the sides, beginning to form a magic circle as the Hunters found themselves unable to move, even after seeing the raging flames emerge around them.

The moment they had come to their senses, all they saw around them was the searing mana flames that had entrapped them.

ROAR!!!

The battlefield was quite expansive, so much so that a million ordinary humans had been able to traverse around as legions of monsters rampaged around them. However, Lee Jun-Kyeong had blocked that massive battlefield with flames throughout its entirety.

Lee Jun-Kyeong looked over at Surtr thrust into the ground for a moment.

“It's now your turn, everyone,” he said in a small voice.

At the same time, the voice of Jeong In-Chang, the person he trusted most in the world, rang in his ears, “Leave it to us.”

He, whom Lee Jun-Kyeong had been apart from for quite some time, stood right next to him.

That wasn’t all, either.

Thud, thud, thud!

Everyone passed by him and began to throw themselves through the flames.

“Run away!”

Looking over at those on Lee Jun-Kyeong’s side, their enemies thought that they, too, could escape the flames. However, it was just wishful thinking on their part.

Drip. Drip.

“AGHHHHH!”

Soon, desperate screams rang through the air as the sound of molten metal dripping echoed through the flames.

“Sorry, they’re under my control.”

There was no way the Hunters could escape the flames created by Lee Jun-Kyeong. The moment the flames escaped beyond the domain of the earth, they became under his thrall.

Except for those who had obtained Lee Jun-Kyeong’s permission, no one was allowed to cross, so the enemy Hunters were trapped in Hell.

***

The monsters were slaughtered. Although the Hunters resisted, the inescapable Hell had already descended upon them.

“How…!”

Clang!

Whenever Jeong In-Chang swung his huge sword, an explosion burst forth. Among the flying debris, Lee Jun-Kyeong could see the enemy Hunters. Moreover, that wasn’t all that he saw.

BOOM! BOOM!

He looked over at those beings that created such thunderous footsteps, which was a race that wasn’t even human. The giants, who were not monsters, rampaged with all their might, destroying everything in their path.

BOOM!

Whenever blue mana burst out of their bodies, some of the enemy Hunters were vaporized into dust. There was nowhere to run.

Drip.

Those who threw themselves into the flames to flee only served to turn into lava and flow onto the ground.

The monsters, which had been their enemies at one point, but were now beings they depended on, were only letting out screams even more miserable than their own.

There was nothing they could do, and it was only then that the Hunters realized.

Those they were facing were elites that couldn’t be compared to themselves.

No.

“A…a Devil!”

The man before them, the Underdog, was someone whose grasp of flames only fell short of the Demon King.

He was a Devil.

As their fleeting echoes lingered in the flames, Lee Jun-Kyeong began to move forward alongside Zeus.

“Let’s go.”