Chapter 124

Chapter 124
## Chapter 124: Undead Fortress Assault

Han Sang-ah and I were performing a truly remarkable feat, just the two of us.

The ghouls and spirits, already sapped of their strength by the radiance streaming from the crown I gripped, were being turned into statues of ice by the ring adorning my finger.

These animated corpses, weakened by the crown’s holy glow, possessed no means to resist the flash-freeze triggered by the ring.

As soon as they solidified, Han Sang-ah would swing her blade, reducing the frozen monsters to sparkling dust.

“Isn’t that headwear intended to be worn on your brow?” she asked.

“It’s too cringy,” I replied.

Walking around modern-day Earth with a golden circlet on my head? I’d look like a complete lunatic. Besides, it functioned perfectly well just being held in my palm…

I punctuated my point by using the heavy crown to bash in the skull of a frozen zombie while simultaneously lunging forward.

“It’s surprisingly durable,” I noted.

“I’m fairly certain that isn’t the intended tactical use for a royal artifact.”

“Does it really matter? One way or another, it’s coming into contact with a head.”

Whether it sat atop my own skull or was used to cave in the skulls of the restless dead—the result was essentially the same.

“You’re doing a fine job regardless,” she conceded.

Han Sang-ah was a blur of motion, hovering slightly above the ground as she tore through the ranks of the frozen legion.

A brilliant spark erupted every time she surged past them, neatly detaching bone from sinew and limb from torso.

Watching her work was reminiscent of a master chef effortlessly carving through slabs of chilled meat.

“And here’s something else that’s performing better than I hoped.”

I could finally understand why I’d originally shelved this crown instead of keeping it in my rotation. Its entire existence was specialized for the total annihilation of the undead.

I had anticipated it would be effective, but the sheer level of carnage it allowed was beyond my expectations. Had we lacked the crown’s influence, this breach would have been significantly more grueling.

“At this tempo, we might actually be able to purge the entire stronghold.”

Just as I said that, the piles of severed limbs and shattered torsos littering the stone floor began to vibrate. They crawled toward one another, knitting together to form grotesque new entities.

Naturally, these newborn horrors were instantly turned to ice, only to be promptly dismantled by my polearm or Han Sang-ah’s edge.

“It isn’t merely a buff—it’s active reconstruction.”

I shifted my gaze toward the towering obelisk rooted in the heart of the fortress.

That structure was the source of the rot. It was providing the energy to bolster the undead and stitching together fallen remains into fresh soldiers.

That had to be our primary target. I ensured every lunging corpse was frozen solid before they could reach us, slowly carving a path toward the monolith.

— Halt.

A translucent, moss-colored apparition flickered into existence, obstructing our route. What was this thing? A spectral cavalier?

“Well, if it isn’t a grumpy little phantom. Do I know you from somewhere?”

There was a familiar resonance bleeding off the spirit. It offered no verbal reply, choosing instead to stare at me with hollow intensity.

— So, it truly is you.

It appeared the recognition was mutual. I couldn’t recall a specific bout with this creature, but after a moment of mental searching, it clicked.

“Valea, right? The energy you’re putting off feels identical to his.”

I remembered a deceased hunter who had challenged me a while back. So Hwi, if memory served. This ghost bore a striking resemblance to Valea, the entity that had hijacked that man’s body before losing control.

— Do not speak my lord’s name with such disrespect.

The pint-sized spirit knight tightened its grip on a massive claymore and sprinted toward me. Consistent with its ethereal form, its movements were both incredibly fluid and eerily silent.

“Hate to break it to you, but you aren’t in my league.”

I intercepted the descending greatsword with my gloved hand, then brought the glowing crown down like a hammer. A sharp, crystalline snap echoed through the hall as the spectral steel shattered.

The knight dissolved into a swirling green vapor and drifted backward, reaching into the mist. A duplicate greatsword manifested in its hand instantly.

“I’m acquainted with a hunter who handles a blade much better than you. Lee Se-eun. She’s on an entirely different level.”

Her mastery over heavy weaponry was something this ghost couldn’t even fathom in its wildest dreams.

The surrounding undead were rendered immobile the moment they tried to swarm me, leaving Han Sang-ah to prune them away with clinical precision. This allowed me to completely disregard the crawling vermin nearby.

“Come on, let’s have some fun.”

My focus remained solely on this specter—an entity weakened by the crown’s aura yet still possessing enough will to resist the ring’s freezing effect.

— The master you fought was restricted by an imperfect vessel.

He had been tethered to that second-rate body belonging to So Hwi.

— To be blunt, my current power far exceeds that of the master you encountered back then.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. It was a nostalgic thought. I had been on the brink of death during that particular encounter.

However, the circumstances had shifted dramatically.

“If I had to face him again right now? I’d grind him into the dirt before he could even draw a breath.”

And that went for his servant, too.

— Your arrogance is noted.

The ghost’s form blurred and scattered into the fog. Suddenly, ten distinct phantoms erupted from the emerald mist.

These weren’t mere hallucinations—it was true self-replication. Ten identical knights, each possessing the same power as the original, emerged from the haze, leveling their massive swords at me simultaneously.

— If you boast of such might, then prove it with your life.

In simple terms, one combatant becoming ten while maintaining full strength might seem like a ten-times increase in danger… but in a tactical sense, one soldier who is ten times stronger is a much greater threat than ten separate soldiers.

Because separate soldiers allow for strategy and coordination.

And these copies didn’t even need to coordinate—they shared a single mind.

Even so, my stance didn’t waver.

“This ghost has lost its mind. You’re talking like a nervous student trying to lecture a professor.”

There were limits to how much one could bluff. The ten hazy knights moved with silent grace, slowly forming a perimeter around me.

As they circled, their individual auras began to bleed into one another, creating a heavy, suffocating pressure that sought to pin me down.

It was a classic combat formation. I had no intention of allowing them to set the stage. Before they could lock into their positions, I lunged.

— What manner of freak are you?

I moved with foresight, stepping into the exact spots they intended to occupy and disrupting their rhythm. Their formation would never find its equilibrium.

If you couldn’t read the flow of the battlefield, you’d be trapped. But I could see exactly where their intent was leading them.

“I’ve got more experience in my pinky than you have in your whole ghostly hide.”

If you want to trap me in a formation, you’d better bring at least a hundred of your friends.

Realizing the array was a failure, all ten ghosts abandoned the strategy and charged at once. They hoped to stall my momentum with a flurry of strikes and complete the formation in the chaos.

Dark corruption clung to their sweeping blades.

“I have no clue what you expect to achieve with this.”

Dozens of slashes carved blue streaks through the air in a fraction of a second. I didn’t even have to manually parry most of them—the floating blue trajectories I projected intercepted all ten incoming strikes.

In the middle of the exchange, my spear suddenly lengthened, darting toward a specific knight. It barely managed to bring its sword up, but the weapon crumbled under the force of the strike, launching the ghost across the room.

“…”

I knew where it was heading, what its objective was. I knew the origin of the next blow and the purpose behind the current one.

I dismantled them systematically. There was no reason to feel overwhelmed just because the headcount had increased.

I possessed a physical form that could execute any movement I envisioned. And I had the mastery to command it.

I slipped past the strikes that needed dodging and halted the ones that needed blocking. Methodically. Like an unbreakable wall, I forced them back.

I was narrowing their world while expanding mine. Within the frantic clashing of steel, the ghost knight struggled with increasing desperation to regain the upper hand.

“You lack composure, you lack seasoning, and you lack precision.”

Those frantic attempts only served to create more vulnerabilities. Every desperate gamble to fix the situation only dragged the spirit closer to the brink of annihilation.

Ending this wouldn’t take much longer. I saw no point in playing with my food. I hadn’t even felt the need to ignite the Paradox Flame.

— Urgh… Gaaah!

My spear tip found its mark, delivering lethal punctures to the ten ghosts one by one.

“A shame toxin doesn’t work on your kind.”

Poison was useless against spirits, obviously. I gave my spear a stylish twirl and looked at the fading foe.

“Regardless, it was an interesting chat. You gave me some things to chew on. Take care, Casper.”

The skirmish wasn’t lengthy. It had taken roughly five minutes to break its spirit. My weaving spear point had left neat little holes through the center of each phantom’s chest.

“Well, if you keep fighting the same war with no progress, you’d naturally look for a shortcut.”

I watched the last of the green mist evaporate, then turned my attention back to the obelisk.

Among the tide of monsters we fought, there were clearly those with high-level intelligence.

Korea, unlike many other territories, had remained standing for a significant duration. The defense was cracking, sure, but it was far from broken.

This meant their Erosion Cores and Erosion Zones were hitting a wall.

“Pacts and contracts. These scumbags always default to the same playbook, running the same schemes everywhere.”

The entity I had just defeated was the smoking gun. It was a subordinate of Valea, birthed directly from an Erosion Core.

That implied that the incidents involving Kim Ji-hyun, So Hwi, and the international enclave were all interconnected through the Erosion Cores and Zones.

The monsters were inventing workarounds for this grueling war of attrition. A few of the horrors within the Erosion Zones had discovered a loophole.

They offered to fulfill desires through a contract, only to seize the human host’s body later on.

It was the equivalent of holding the front line while dropping elite saboteurs behind the enemy to create internal collapse.

The real tragedy was the Korean government thinking they were clever enough to harness this. If they hadn’t been so greedy, that enclave disaster would have never occurred.

“I can follow their logic, but still…”

I shattered another group of frozen ghouls while letting out a heavy breath. This was just a broader version of the project started by Dangun’s Heirs.

They dreamed of domesticating the Erosion Cores. They wanted to tame the very things threatening the planet to secure global dominance.

The government’s experiment in the foreign enclave was almost certainly an extension of that hubris.

“They are vastly overestimating their own hand.”

I could see a future where I’d be forced into a direct confrontation with the Korean authorities. Han Sang-ah and I continued to grind the undead into dust until we reached the source of the problem, finally toppling the obelisk and smashing it to bits.

“I’ve heard that talking to yourself is a symptom of a crumbling psyche. Do you need a referral for a therapist?”

Han Sang-ah, who had finished clearing the immediate area, leaned against her sword. I looked at her, thinking she was the one who would drive a sane person to madness.

“Shouldn’t you be the one getting checked out? I’m just engaging in deep reflection.”

“My last evaluation said I was perfectly stable.”

I wondered how much she had to pay the doctor for that result.

“Anyway, what’s weighing on your mind?”

I laid out my theory for her.

“If they actually managed to control that power, it would be an incredible advantage,” she mused.

“Do you know why people get caught in scams?” I asked.

Usually, it’s ignorance. But on a deeper level…

“It isn’t about making a deal with a demon. It’s about the fools who think they’re smart enough to trick the demon, take the prize, and escape before the bill comes due.”

They walk around thinking they’ve won, right up until the moment they start burning.

“Let’s finish this.”

With the obelisk destroyed, the fortress had lost its ability to summon reinforcements.

The corpses that had been fighting with such ferocity moments ago now withered away like plants caught in a sudden frost. Cleaning up the remaining stragglers was a simple task.