aircannonsinc Chapter 141: Shattered Morale (1)
Chapter 141: Shattered Morale (1)
The Iron Demon finally fell.
His colossal body crashed into the ancient ground of Ashvarn like a black meteor, shaking the old streets violently as the aged stone split beneath his weight.
A wave of dust and black blood surged through the ruined alleys, and for one very brief moment, it felt as though the entire city had stopped breathing.
Then the Iron Demon dissolved into nothingness.
His body vanished as if erased by magic itself.
Proof that he had finally been defeated.
Then the interfaces appeared.
...
You have slain: Iron Demon — King Rank.
Souls obtained: 50,000 Souls.
...
That message appeared specifically before Jackson.
Similar notifications surfaced before everyone who had inflicted real damage upon the demon during the battle, though the numbers varied greatly from one person to another.
Jackson received the overwhelming majority without question. He had carried the true burden of the fight from beginning to end, and even the boss’s soul itself had gone to him.
Moon also received an enormous amount of Souls after burning the monster from within using the flames of the phoenix. She had dealt the second highest amount of damage.
As for Ethan...
He only received four thousand Souls.
Despite his contribution at the end, and despite the fact that his spiraling strike had been one of the reasons the path to victory had opened... he simply had not dealt much damage compared to the others.
So his share was visibly small.
But Ethan did not care.
Quite the opposite.
His eyes remained fixed on the notification in silence while his mind replayed the entire battle over and over again, analyzing every movement and every mistake he had made since the moment the Iron Demon first appeared before him.
’Four thousand...’
’Makes sense.’
He did not feel disappointed.
If anything, he found it fair.
Because if Jackson had not been there...
Every single one of them would have died.
’A King-ranked monster...’
Until now, Ethan had only understood the difference between the ranks in theory. He knew Kings were stronger. He knew the gap between them and Elites was enormous.
But he had never truly understood it until today.
The Iron Demon had forced him to face reality.
An Elite-ranked Hunter could not fight a King head-on.
Not in reality.
The game and the real world possessed differences that had become painfully clear to him recently.
He had never once managed to truly wound the monster during a direct confrontation.
He had not even come close.
Everything Ethan did throughout the battle had merely been survival.
Dodging.
Buying time.
Creating tiny openings for the others.
As for the power that had truly killed that monster...
It had been the power of another King.
"Cough... kuh-ha..."
The sound of bloody coughing cut through his thoughts.
Everyone turned toward Jackson.
His condition was horrifying.
The giant looked as though he had crawled out of a war grinder. Blood continuously spilled from his mouth, nose, and even his eyes, while dark blue and crimson bruises covered his chest and abdomen from the sheer brutality of the blows he had endured.
His long red hair had become completely disheveled, and his flushed face was smeared with blood and dust.
As for his arms...
They looked as though they were on the verge of tearing off his body entirely.
And yet...
He was still laughing.
"Hah... that son of a bitch... almost killed me for real..."
Jackson laughed hoarsely before his enormous body staggered forward.
But Raiden was faster.
He caught him before he could fall, then pulled one of the giant’s arms over his shoulder and tried dragging him away from the battlefield while his own feet sank into the ground beneath the sheer weight.
"Stop moving, you monster..." Raiden said through gritted teeth as he struggled to pull him away. "If you keep messing up your body like this, you’re actually going to die."
Jackson laughed again, though the laugh quickly turned into another fit of bloody coughing.
"Die...? Hah... it’ll take two Iron Demons to bring me down...!"
"I told you not to move," Raiden snapped.
Jackson looked at him from the corner of his eye, the bloodstained grin never leaving his face.
"Since when... did you start giving me orders... brat?"
"Since you started dying."
Raiden frowned as he carried him farther away.
The battle still was not over.
The Iron Demon’s final howl had summoned nightmares from the depths of the ancient city.
Gustav and the remaining Hunters were still desperately trying to hold them back while slowly retreating.
They could not afford to turn their backs on the monsters.
Death was the only thing waiting behind them.
The creatures attacked in overwhelming numbers, and the second battle quickly descended into complete chaos.
There was no real formation anymore.
No clear strategy.
Only desperate attempts to survive as the hordes slammed into them from every direction. The monsters were so numerous that the old streets themselves disappeared beneath their bodies.
Ethan fought silently.
The Executioner’s Sword cleaved through every creature that approached him with cold precision while his eyes continuously monitored everything around him.
Raiden continued protecting Jackson even as his own arms began trembling from exhaustion.
Moon burned the monsters endlessly with phoenix flames while Luna continuously unleashed spells to slow the maddened advance of the horde.
As for Gustav...
He fought like a madman, his eyes bloodshot with fury after losing one of his squad members.
They fought viciously.
But despite that...
The situation worsened rapidly.
Before long, two more Hunters died to sudden attacks from the monsters.
One of them belonged to the First Squad...
A seasoned knight with agile movements, though his body had always been frail.
One of the monsters’ claws pierced through his body from behind without mercy, catching him off guard and ending his life instantly.
Gustav witnessed it with his own eyes.
And although he never stopped fighting...
Something inside him shattered in that moment.
Even though he immediately avenged him, brutally cleaving the monster apart with his greatsword and scattering its entrails across the street...
It brought him no relief whatsoever.
He simply continued swinging his blade left and right, slaughtering anything foolish enough to approach him.
But his frenzy changed nothing.
If anything, even more of them would have died had Luna not intervened.
At last, the young witch raised both hands as dozens of blue magic circles formed around her, spinning above one another at astonishing speed.
Mana erupted violently.
"Sleeping spirits of frost beyond the veil of winter... release the breath of night and open the gates of eternal frost!"
With a tense, exhausted look on her face, Luna unleashed another high-tier spell.
The ground beneath the monsters instantly transformed into jagged ice, countless frozen spikes erupting upward and impaling the creatures where they stood.
Even the air itself froze.
A massive wave of frost swept through the streets, freezing dozens of monsters at once while slowing the rest long enough for the Hunters to carve open a path to escape.
"Retreat!!"
Moon shouted at the top of her lungs.
And for the first time in a very long while...
The Hunters ran.