Seizing The Initiative (1)

Kang-hoo summoned Mumyeong first.

If Mumyeong steadily dealt with hybrids rich in EXP, his level would keep rising.

Buffs applied to minions too, so with Park Dong-jae here, this was the optimal time for training.

Even if Mumyeong stalled for just a bit, Ayane would back him up with sniping, so there was no worry.

“Let’s move separately for now.”

At Kang-hoo’s words, Ayane and Park Dong-jae followed immediately without complaint.

It was deep trust.

Having coordinated with Kang-hoo up to now, the two of them had always felt it: if they followed Kang-hoo’s words, they would not lose out.

Kang-hoo’s judgment always had grounds. At least in team play, he did not take absurd gambles.

His approach when acting alone and when acting as a team had been completely different.

When moving alone, he used high-risk, high-return strategies at every opportunity.

But when with other teammates, he built plans that put their safety first.

Since the two had experienced similar situations many times, they had no need to doubt the decision at all.

“Dong-jae, your buff rotation cycle is really good. It looks insanely well-optimized?”

“Noona noticed right away.”

“I’ve had plenty of chances to sync with buffers. Just looking at the cycle, you can roughly calculate it.”

“With Hyung Kang-hoo and Noona Ayane… honestly, it feels good to run buffs. I get super excited.”

Seeing the two move while trading compliments, Kang-hoo wore a satisfied expression.

They were syncing, and they had grown much closer.

In the long run, the two of them were essential pieces of Kang-hoo’s plan.

If they became close in advance, it would reduce the adaptation time needed later, so he thought it was unconditionally good.

At first, he had wondered if they would match well since both seemed shy, but it had been a complete misread.

“Shy” had only been Kang-hoo’s assumption. They were busy chatting with each other.

‘We focus on the head.’

Tactic One was clear.

Australia’s hybrids were more structured than North Korea’s hybrids.

In other words, their dependence on leaders was higher. That also meant they showed more strategic movement.

The fact that they had devised a way to bypass visible sightlines or heat detection by setting fires in the first place was intelligent.

They clearly knew that the surveillance cameras along the airport’s outer wall could track them.

So they lit fires, then used a detour behind that to target another place.

Attacking Gate One was not quite a “decoy,” but there was definitely a detachment.

And that detachment was now making a wide detour to target another gate.

Kang-hoo planned to engage directly and gauge the detachment’s full strength.

If the first clash pushed them back beyond handling, he judged they could request support then.

Right now, it was too much of a bloodbath at Gate One to tell them to spare attention for the detachment.

Even pulling a little strength away would obviously let the hybrids that had crossed in large numbers rampage inside and outside the airport.

‘Buffs really are good.’

Kang-hoo nodded as he watched Park Dong-jae’s buffs constantly fill the buff window.

So-called full-buff state.

If you checked the active buff icons one by one, they were all things that layered damage or efficiency.

Like compound interest, if several chained in a row, the effect multiplied further.

Especially for Ayane, whose power per shot was strong, there was no better synergy than this.

Both Kang-hoo and Ayane were hunters who fit the modifier “burst DPS” in the first place.

They were not specialized in landing many small hits, but in driving in one big strike.

If those dealers met a buffer who could add and multiply their damage, from that point on, they became gods of the battlefield.

Just then, the vanguard of the hybrid detachment was seen pushing in through the lowest and weakest wall among the gates.

“Noona!”

“I saw it!”

Without Kang-hoo needing to say anything, the two who were watching the front reacted first.

Park Dong-jae immediately targeted a hybrid and applied a debuff that greatly cut its defense.

Then—

Ayane’s powerful shot, which opened the first volley of the engagement, landed.

It might have seemed like excessive investment for a mere hybrid, but it was more than enough to carry symbolism.

Because—

Crack!

A hybrid that had been boldly climbing over the wall vanished in midair without even a trace.

There was no need to confirm death. The flesh that had burst into dozens of pieces was the proof.

Kueeek! Kueeeek!

The “mere” hybrids, stripped of reason, crossed the wall without even caring about a fellow’s death.

They might have been ordinary small citizens living in Western Australia up until a decade-plus ago.

But now they were only monsters, eyes wide, drooling thickly as they chased prey.

‘As expected.’

Watching the group of hybrids that crossed scatter in all directions, Kang-hoo reaffirmed the existence of a “leader.”

And he also felt that Ayane’s opening shot had taught that leader fear.

To be able to think meant to be able to bring up emotions like fear and terror as well.

If it took an attack like that, the leader must have realized its own body would not survive either.

So it made the hybrids it commanded use a dispersal strategy to reduce risk.

It was a clever response, and precisely because of that, he could infer its emotions.

“Mumyeong, don’t worry about the front. Only target the ones looping behind or to the flanks. And defensively. Just block them.”

“Yes.”

After putting in a clear order specifying what he wanted from Mumyeong—

Tap!

Kang-hoo chained Acceleration and Leap and headed toward the hybrid mass that had begun crossing the wall in large numbers.

There were some hunters from the Australia Hunter Public Safety Bureau at that gate too, but sensing something was wrong, they fled.

Rather than holding and requesting support, they seemed to have aimed to call support and preserve their lives first.

Since Kang-hoo had predicted the flow would go like this from the start, he was not surprised. He only found it pathetic.

“You two, take out the closest hybrids one by one! Don’t look far! I’ll handle that!”

Kang-hoo shouted to the two behind him. Coordination had long been settled, but this was to underline it once more.

Bang!

Ayane was already doing exactly what Kang-hoo wanted.

Take down the one you can put a mana round into the fastest!

She set that as the highest proposition, and the ones charging at the front dropped into hell without fear.

Krrr…! Krweee!

Seeing Kang-hoo charging into the middle of the pack, the hybrids reacted violently.

Hybrids could endure quite a long time even without eating, but that did not mean they lacked appetite.

The craving for human flesh that came packaged with hybridization was instinct.

So in a situation like now, where the scent of humans was strong at close range, there was nothing that stimulated their instinct more.

Pasa-sat! Pasa-sasat!

The hybrids busily pumped their two legs and stubbornly chased Kang-hoo’s path.

Kang-hoo deliberately moved between them in a zigzag pattern, drawing aggro as broadly as possible.

The effect was pretty good.

Most of the hybrids that crossed first began swarming toward Kang-hoo in disorder.

To them, pressing down one or two human hunters with sheer numbers was the sure-win strategy, so there was no reason to hesitate.

In that process, a few hybrids would be sacrificed, but the result—one human dying—would not change.

And since he was neither a fire mage nor anything like that, but an assassin holding a dagger, even the “leader” expected an easy win over Kang-hoo.

And so.

At the moment dozens of hybrids, expecting a predictable human end, tried to surround Kang-hoo all at once—

Whoooosh!

Kang-hoo ignited every last bit of the dark energy he had released in all directions.

Since he had massively raised his Dark Energy stat in the fight with Vincent earlier, the released amount exceeded imagination.

It was not that dark energy had been sprinkled only around Kang-hoo—its area of influence covered dozens of meters in radius.

For that reason, even the hybrids that had tried to ignore Kang-hoo and pass by became victims of Dark Energy Ignition.

Fwoooosh! Fwoosh!

Ukkieeek! Ukkieek!

The hybrids swallowed by flames screamed in different tones, adding to the grotesqueness.

Hybrids had high toughness despite their seemingly limp exterior, but conversely, their anti-magic resistance was extremely low.

Among those, their resistance to flames was so weak that you could call it negative rather than plus or zero.

And since dark-energy fire—something they could hardly evolve against—had stuck to them, being neutralized was inevitable.

The moment fire caught on their bodies, that hybrid’s fate was already decided.

Death. It was only a difference of whether it was an express train or not.

So perhaps because of that—

Kieeeet!

The hybrids, sensing death, charged at Kang-hoo even more aggressively.

Kang-hoo already knew what meaning the hybrids’ behavior carried—hurrying toward a faster death.

Self-destruction.

A final struggle loaded with nasty malice: using their own bodies as a medium to harass the enemy to the very end.

Since Kang-hoo was already deep inside the hybrid pack, it was not easy to break out.

A surrounded formation!

Because Kang-hoo had positioned himself from the start to chain Dark Energy release and ignition like this,

Being surrounded by hybrids about to self-destruct was, in a sense, something he had foreseen.

“Ah…?”

Even Park Dong-jae, who rarely reacted with a question mark, tilted his head.

It was good that he had gathered the hybrids into a point and wiped them with fire all at once.

The problem was: how did he get out from there?

Since hybrid self-destruction had been discussed plenty beforehand, there was no way Kang-hoo had overlooked it.

Mumyeong was keeping distance from Kang-hoo, so it was impossible for him to open an escape route.

Ayane’s covering fire could stop a few self-destructions, but she could not control the state of all of them.

Yet Kang-hoo was standing in the very center of the surrounded hybrid pack with far too much confidence.

He did not even lose composure while looking at hybrids swelling up, about to self-destruct.

For a split second, Park Dong-jae wondered if Kang-hoo had gone crazy.

With the repertoire Park Dong-jae could estimate, he could not see a picture where Kang-hoo safely escaped from there.

Ayane seemed to be thinking the same, raising the rate of her mana-round fire to the maximum.

She was calculating to somehow loosen the hybrid encirclement.

Even while trusting Kang-hoo, she also could not judge what he was relying on to act like that.

Right then.

As if the timing had been set—

Kyueeeeee!

The hybrids all at once spewed shrieks and threw their bodies at Kang-hoo.

It was simultaneous self-destruction. And it was self-destruction in a surrounded formation with no gap to escape.

Kukwakwakwang!

Explosions erupted in rapid succession.

“Kang-hoo!”

Ayane shouted urgently, unable to confirm that Kang-hoo had escaped even up to the moment just before the blast.

Worst-case scenario!

No matter how she thought about it, this scene looked like there was no way out except Kang-hoo dying or being severely injured.