Chapter 102

“Gaaah-aaaah-aaaaah!”

As a low, strange shriek erupted from the monster’s mouth, Jun-sang and the surviving Iron-Blooded Silver Knights were pushed backward. Jun-sang plunged his iron ball into the ground to resist being pushed, calmly observing the creature. Its overall shape resembled a sea cucumber with numerous tentacles on its back. However, its cavernous, wide-open mouth was more like a spoon worm. Its slimy skin, the parasitic tentacles growing on its back… in short, it was definitely not a pleasing sight.

The monster continued to shriek for a long time, seemingly pushing away surrounding enemies, then suddenly began to spew forth fountain-like streams of white, thread-like material from its mouth.

“Tch!”

As the white, web-like threads sprayed forth, Jun-sang quickly used Phase Shift to evade. But the other knights, already being pushed back by the shriek, couldn’t avoid it.

“Aargh!”

“Gah!”

The white substance, reminiscent of sticky threads, pierced through the knights’ bodies like skewers with an unexpectedly tremendous penetrating power. And then, it quickly pulled the writhing knights, impaled by the pain, into its mouth.

“Uwaaah!”

As the knights were drawn into its mouth one after another, like insects caught by a frog’s tongue, enraged knights stepped forward to save their comrades. Knight Commander Tamarel, still fiercely alive, quickly swung his sword to cut the white threads that the monster, Krollovagan, spewed from its mouth.

But, Ting!

With a sound like a piano string snapping, Tamarel’s sword was repelled.

“What in the…?”

The other knights faced the same situation. But as they stood bewildered, new white threads spewed from Krollovagan’s mouth again.

“Kuh!”

“Gack!”

Tamarel gritted his teeth, grinding them audibly. His fury stemmed from the knights’ helplessness against Krollovagan’s hunting method: if they got close, it shrieked to push them back, and from a distance, it spewed white threads to hook them.

But just then, Jun-sang appeared near the monster’s mouth via Phase Shift.

“Hup!”

Jun-sang brought Rangdajal’s Wrath down onto the white threads that extended like spools of thread from its cavernous mouth. At first, Rangdajal’s Wrath seemed to bounce off, just like Tamarel’s sword, but at that very moment, the power of shattering inherent in the iron ball exploded forth.

Pak!

The white threads were severed by the power of shattering, accompanied by a loud bang like a firecracker. As soon as Jun-sang confirmed that the power of shattering also worked on these tough, elastic white threads, he swung his iron ball like a whirlwind, rapidly severing the long, stretched threads one after another.

“Kiaaaaaah!” Krollovagan shrieked, trying to push Jun-sang away, but he instead clung to the white threads hanging from its maw like ropes, continuing to cut.

Jun-sang cut each white thread and shouted at the knights, “You’re in the way! Get out!”

“…” Tamarel bit his lip in humiliation upon hearing those words, but he couldn’t deny that, looking at the current situation, they were only hindering him rather than helping. Ultimately, Tamarel issued this order to the gasping knights, “All units retreat! Fall back to the hill! Run without looking back!”

As Tamarel’s order fell, the knights squeezed their eyes shut and immediately began to sprint towards the hill. With the knights withdrawing from the battlefield, Jun-sang accelerated his efforts to sever all the remaining white threads.

“Kiaaaaaah!” Krollovagan, perhaps realizing its prey was escaping, this time opened its enormous, cavernous mouth wide and began to suck in the surrounding air.

“Tch!” Faced with that absurd attack, which sucked in everything around it like a vacuum cleaner, Jun-sang clicked his tongue, stopped cutting the white threads, and quickly used Phase Shift to escape the dangerous area. Then, he activated Invisibility using the Cloak of Grunwald and then used Phase Shift again to get near its body.

However, the moment he surged from its shadow via Phase Shift, the sticky body of Krollovagan suddenly erupted with blister-like growths, like boiling water. All of them transformed into tentacles and flew at Jun-sang like sharp spears.

“Open Weapon Defense!” Having just used Phase Shift, Jun-sang had no choice but to activate Weapon Defense using his two iron balls to block the attack. Thanks to this, he managed to block the carpet-bombing assault of tentacles, but his attempt to approach secretly and inflict a fatal blow was completely thwarted.

“Troublesome.” Krollovagan had no eyes. Therefore, abilities like Gaze of Fear or Evil Eye were completely ineffective. Also, instead of eyes, it somehow perceived the opponent’s location, so invisibility was also meaningless. For Jun-sang, who had easily dealt with enemies using Gaze of Fear or Invisibility until now, this was a very significant penalty.

Jun-sang saw Krollovagan’s large mouth turn towards him again and quickly used Phase Shift to move away from that position. Sure enough. Once again, a tremendous roar erupted from its mouth, and everything around the wetlands was swept away as if by a storm.

“Taat!” Jun-sang appeared a short distance away from the monster via Phase Shift and then threw his iron ball at its exposed flank. The gigantic iron ball, a meter in diameter, struck Krollovagan’s flank like a meteor falling from the sky.

Pop-pop-pop!

Upon impact, the power of shattering activated, causing Krollovagan’s sticky skin to burst like firecrackers. But that was all. Instead, the surrounding undamaged skin rapidly swelled up, threatening to swallow the iron ball whole.

“Damn it!” He quickly flicked his wrist to retrieve the iron ball, but numerous tentacles chased after it like predators. As soon as Jun-sang retrieved the iron ball, he activated Phase Shift again to escape the danger.

“Damn it…” It was a difficult situation, not knowing where or how to attack. But since retreating wasn’t an option, Jun-sang continued his attacks, hitting and retreating with the iron ball, but he was achieving nothing more than infuriating Krollovagan.

“Groooaaah!” Krollovagan once again sucked in its surroundings through its large mouth. Of course, Jun-sang quickly moved out of the danger zone with Phase Shift, and instead, a destroyed and burning Chinese armored vehicle was sucked into its enormous mouth. Jun-sang shook his head at the sight of it swallowing even an armored vehicle whole, then witnessed Krollovagan quickly spitting out the armored vehicle.

“This is…” It felt very strange that the monster, which had been indiscriminately swallowing rocks and trees, would spit out the armored vehicle as if it had burned its tongue. Did it dislike metal? That couldn’t be it. If so, it would have immediately spit out the armored knights too. Then?

Could it be because it was on fire? As soon as Jun-sang thought of that, he called back the spirit he had summoned. And he used the second effect of the combo card, ‘Agelahan’s Spirit Summoner’. The name of that skill, which he hadn’t felt the need to use until now, was none other than Elemental Imbue!

Two will-o’-the-wisps approached Jun-sang and seeped into Rangdajal’s Wrath. Then, the two massive iron balls were enveloped in red flames and began to burn fiercely.

“Haat!” Jun-sang threw the fire-imbued iron ball at Krollovagan.

Pupupupum!

Then, unlike before, a powerful explosion erupted, creating a large wound on its flank.

“Gaaah-aaak!”

It definitely had an effect. However, Jun-sang again reconsidered that the monster hadn’t merely spat out the armored vehicle because it feared fire. Given its massive, damp body, it made no sense for it to be afraid of a small flame. Then? Jun-sang carefully observed the burning armored vehicle again. Come to think of it… He suddenly remembered hearing something like that before. Sea cucumbers were said to be incompatible with oil. He recalled hearing that when handling dried sea cucumbers in Chinese cuisine, which uses a lot of oil, extreme caution was needed.

So, could it be that the reason it spat out the armored vehicle was because of the fuel leaking from it? Of course, petroleum and ordinary oil are completely different, but it was certainly worth checking. Jun-sang quickly used Phase Shift to move to a Chinese armored vehicle that had been abandoned but was still intact. He then put Rangdajal’s Wrath into his inventory and instead took out a can of reserve fuel from inside the armored vehicle.

And immediately, he appeared at Krollovagan’s flank, which was writhing like an earthworm under the effect of the fire-imbued Rangdajal’s Wrath, and poured the diesel fuel from the can onto its body. Its skin immediately recognized Jun-sang’s movement and tried to spew tentacles, but the sticky skin, which had been erupting like hives, instantly lost momentum and began to melt away the moment it was soaked in diesel.

“Gaaah-aaaah-aaaaah!” Krollovagan began to shriek louder than when a hole was pierced in its flank. Jun-sang quickly retreated from its struggling body, took out Rangdajal’s Wrath, imbued it with fire, and then attacked its flank, which was melting from the diesel.

Then, Wham!

With an incredible explosion incomparable to anything before, a portion of Krollovagan’s flank was completely blown away.

“As expected, this was it.” Jun-sang looked around and discovered a group of people on the hill, staring blankly at his battle with Krollovagan. He had found its weakness, but its size was too massive for him to handle alone. Moreover, if he hesitated and it managed to escape underground, everything would be for naught. They needed to concentrate their firepower and finish it off in one go.

As soon as a rough plan formed in Jun-sang’s mind, he gathered all the fuel cans from the abandoned Chinese armored vehicles and repeatedly used Phase Shift to move up the hill. The knights, who had their injuries treated by Heness and were watching Jun-sang’s battle with Krollovagan with their mouths agape, were startled when Jun-sang, who had been fighting so well, suddenly appeared before them.

“Listen!” Jun-sang quickly explained the plan he had devised and then distributed the gathered fuel cans to them. “Be careful! This is highly flammable. If the fire spreads by mistake, everything will be ruined, so be extremely cautious!”

The humiliation they had felt earlier from being called “in the way” had long been erased from their minds. All that filled their thoughts was the fact that they could help write a new legend in history alongside this powerful hero from another world.

“Leave it to us!” At the shouts of Tamarel, who had been completely captivated by Jun-sang’s ability to toy with the enormous monster and had somehow become his follower, Jun-sang nodded and then used Phase Shift again, heading towards the enraged Krollovagan.