Guerrilla Warfare

A massive building in the city center.

Shouts erupted from the mayor’s office located on the top floor of the building where only a select few, such as those of noble blood, wealthy business owners, and politicians, were allowed entry.

“You call this a report?!”

Crash!

The demon with blue skin threw his teacup at the deputy mayor standing before him.

Though his clothes were stained by the shattered cup’s fragments and spilled tea, the deputy mayor didn’t move a muscle.

He knew that even the slightest movement would only make the mayor more enraged.

After throwing everything within reach – starting with the teacup, then documents, pens, terminals, and whatever else he could grab – the mayor finally sank deep into his chair once he ran out of things to throw.

“Another power station was attacked.”

“Yes.”

“The core facility under repair was completely destroyed, and most of the technicians nearby were killed. They don’t even know when repairs can be completed.”

“…Yes.”

“It’s already been a week since we implemented the rationing system. Emergency energy reserves are down to less than half, and public sentiment keeps getting worse. When I checked this morning, my approval rating had fallen to single digits.”

The mayor glared at the deputy mayor with bloodshot eyes as he spoke.

“What did you say when we were first attacked?”

“…”

“Can’t you hear me? Tell me what you said.”

“…I said we could catch them within a day, two days at most.”

“And now it’s been a week.”

“…”

Tap tap tap.

The mayor drummed the table at a steady rhythm.

Knowing this was a habit that emerged when he was extremely angry, the deputy mayor swallowed hard.

The mayor’s power in the city was absolute.

Though his approval rating was abysmal, he was still the mayor, and killing someone like him would be nothing.

“I’ll give you one day. I don’t care if you bring them dead or alive, but tomorrow at this time, in this place, bring me those humans. If you fail again, you won’t die peacefully.”

“Understood!”

Fortunately, the mayor gave him one more chance.

Rushing out of the room before the mayor could change his mind, the deputy mayor immediately activated his terminal.

His life was on the line.

He could no longer leave this to others.

“Deputy Mayor, as I’ve said multiple times, we’re doing our best. If you could just give us a little more time…”

“I’ll give you one hour. Mobilize every available force, and I don’t care how much it costs – hire any mercenaries you can find and prepare to march out. I’ll command personally.”

* * *

Weeee! Weeee!

With blaring sirens, the massive iron gates slowly began to open.

Moments later, countless vehicles burst out through the fully opened gates.

Military trucks, armored vehicles, hover bikes, helicopters, multi-legged tanks, and more.

And there were people observing this scene through telescopes.

“There’s quite a lot this time. Maybe double, no, triple the usual number?”

“They’ve mobilized all their reserve forces and recruited mercenaries too. Of course there would be many.”

Yuseong replied calmly while flipping through hologram screens.

The demon realm’s network environment was quite similar to Earth’s internet environment.

No, it would be fair to say they were identical.

There were portal sites, video sites, and even gambling sites.

Naturally, SNS-like sites existed too, and not only their nature but also the users’ consciousness levels were similar.

“Like recognizes like, I suppose…”

The hologram screens displayed numerous posts, photos, and videos related to Tigros City.

The attack on the power station supplying energy to Tigros a week ago.

The citizens’ anxiety and confusion due to unstable energy supply.

Subsequent attacks and failed facility repairs, increasing military casualties leading to deteriorating public safety.

Even today’s events – the mayor’s outburst of anger and the deputy mayor personally leading troops out of the city.

Yuseong knew everything happening in Tigros.

“Well, well?”

Yuseong couldn’t help but laugh while checking the demon realm’s streaming site.

[Can you see this, everyone? This time Mayor Ilgram has really drawn his sword. Or should I say the deputy mayor? According to anonymous sources, there were loud shouts from the mayor’s office and the deputy mayor came out with a grim expression…]

A broadcast by a demon with three eyes.

Judging by the background scenery and surroundings, they seemed to be doing a live broadcast from the subjugation force that had just left the city.

Even from just a brief look at the video, he could grasp the force’s composition, scale, and movement plans.

Did they not think humans could access their network and gather information?

The demons’ security awareness was pathetic, beyond terrible.

‘Though it’s not really something to mock.’

Come to think of it, humans on Earth were similar to demons.

Despite knowing there were monsters with intelligence, they broadcast monster hunting live worldwide over the internet.

NewTube had countless videos thoroughly analyzing Contractors’ abilities and combat styles.

With a quick search, you could find military base locations or information about national leaders.

There just hadn’t been cases of internet exploitation yet, but such things could happen anytime on Earth too.

“Mr. Yuseong?”

“Ah, sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment.”

Snapping back to reality at Teresa’s call, Yuseong turned off his terminal and looked up.

The demon army had already approached nearby.

Waiting until they got a bit closer, when the middle of the formation passed in front of him, Yuseong gave the agreed-upon signal.

Kaboom!

With a flash of white light, the helicopter hovering in the air lost balance and crashed, causing a massive explosion.

As more helicopters fell one after another and the demons fell into chaos, Yuseong began rotating the circle embedded in his heart by moving his magic power.

Unlike magic like Thorny Vine that could be activated with simple magic power flow, Marcus’s Circle Magic required some preparation.

First, create attraction by rotating the heart’s circle, then absorb the magic power spread throughout the world, dye it with your own magic power, and release it again.

‘Dye the world in my color.’

If martial artists are beings who build their own world, mages are beings who communicate with the world.

Though their will might be weaker than martial artists who form solid egos and don’t get swept up in external laws, the range their will reaches is far wider.

As the circle’s rotation speed increased, the magic power field’s range began expanding.

Though the demon realm’s demonic energy and Marcus’s magic power repelled each other like oil and water, refusing to mix, they had no choice before Eye of Truth, which acted like soap.

“Whew.”

Yuseong unconsciously wore an enraptured expression at the sense of omnipotence filling his entire body.

A magic power field means a space that one’s will can completely dominate.

Within a magic power field, a mage can exert power approaching omnipotence.

-I’ve told you many times that’s only within the limits magic power allows, but you still don’t understand?

Ignoring Marcus’s words, Yuseong continued expanding the magic power field’s range.

And the moment he encompassed the entire demon army within the magic power field’s range, he imagined a massive explosion.

Kaboom!

Imagination immediately became reality.

A huge explosion occurred among the demons.

The explosions didn’t stop at one.

They continued non-stop, one after another.

Not just magic but pre-planted bombs were going off too.

“What the hell? What is this magic power field?!”

The demons who could use magic recognized the magic power field Yuseong had created and were shocked.

A mage’s battle is a battle of magic power fields.

You need to push back the opponent’s magic power field and expand your own to do anything, but no matter how much they rotated their circles to absorb and release magic power, the mysterious magic power field surrounding them showed no signs of being pushed back.

“There’s a mage over there!”

“We need to break their concentration! Do anything to interfere with them!”

Ratatata!

Wheee!

Fire spewed from gunpowder guns and railguns while drone swarms began flying toward Yuseong’s position.

Though it was quite a threatening attack, Yuseong didn’t even flinch.

Instead, Walter who had been behind him stepped forward and swung his sword wrapped in blazing sword energy.

Whoosh!

Traces of sword energy remained where the sword passed.

Before the traces from his first sword strike could fade, Walter immediately swung again.

Two times, four times, eight times, sixteen times, thirty-six times…

The afterimages kept expanding, and when the sword strikes reached a thousand, a perfect, flawless sword barrier formed.

Clang!

Lead bullets vaporized the moment they touched the sword barrier, while railgun shells deflected in random directions.

Walter was one of the Arion Empire’s finest knights.

A few days ago he had struggled against just a few monsters, but now with recovered stamina and proper equipment, he could easily block attacks of this level.

“Nathan!”

Twang! Twang! Twang! Twang!

Blue, red, green, yellow.

Arrows imbued with different elements left trails of four colors as they flew.

Like being erased with an eraser, nothing remained where the arrows passed, and not a single drone from the swarm could reach anywhere near Yuseong.

“How dare mere lower beings!”

“Priority target acquired. Proceeding with elimination.”

While the main force and drone swarms drew attention, demons trained in martial arts and combat androids succeeded in approaching.

A knight busy blocking bullets and a mage maintaining concentration.

The demons and androids all rushed toward the mage at once.

The knight could be ignored.

But the longer they took to deal with the mage, the more damage would increase exponentially.

“Die!”

The demon at the very front launched a sword strike with all their might toward the mage.

A single strike containing force energy.

The demon had no doubt their sword could cut the mage in two.

Clang!

“…Huh?”

The demon momentarily forgot their situation and let out a stupid sound.

Their sword that could split even an ogre known for tough skin in one strike was caught in the mage’s hand.

“If you receive something, you should return it.”

Woong!

Pink energy gathered in Yuseong’s hand.

An alien energy that felt both destructive and holy at once.

It was the result of unifying the Crimson Blood Divine Art’s Blood Energy and Holy Avenger’s light power through Infinite Origin Force.^[1]

At the fierce warning from their instincts, the demon immediately deployed movement techniques.

The demon moved away from Yuseong at such an incredible speed it left afterimages, and the pink energy only managed to leave a very slight wound on their chest.

‘I survived…’

“Argh!”

The moment of relief at surviving was brief.

The demon collapsed screaming as if their entire body was being torn apart.

It was just a grazing wound, but that was enough.

The Crimson Blood Divine Art that surpassed even the Heavenly Demon Divine Art in pure power.

Combined with Holy Avenger’s power that dealt 100% additional damage to demon and undead enemies, the attack was essentially a death sentence for demons.

Poof.

The screaming demon turned to dust and scattered.

It all happened in an instant.

Realizing that the demon who had just died pathetically was one of the top five strongest in Tigros, the other demons hurriedly backed away.

However, their realization came too late.

Crack!

Having cast Shooting Star, Yuseong had already become a beam of light piercing through the demons.

An hour later.

Upon hearing news that all forces had been annihilated, the mayor of Tigros collapsed grabbing the back of his neck.