Hiding A Logistics Center In The Apocalypse - Chapter 82

Chapter 82: Demons and Holy Knights (3)

TL/ED – Miso

The gargoyle’s fortress wall crumbled rapidly.

The steep slopes of Bukhansan were littered with shattered gargoyle heads, rolling down like broken stones.

The “Battle Hammer” crafted by the dwarves.

Although conditions had not yet been applied, nor had any engraving work been done, its effectiveness was already outstanding.

The dwarves’ craftsmanship also shone brilliantly.

A massive cubic hammerhead protruded on both sides.

Despite having shattered at least a dozen, or even dozens, of petrified gargoyles, the striking surface of the hammer bore not a single scratch.

Moreover, the excellence of the “Battle Hammer” was not limited to mere durability.

“Do you like it?”

“Like it? I love it.”

From the portal I had opened, Cooper peeked his head out.

It seemed he, too, was curious about how well the dwarves’ carefully crafted “Battle Hammer” performed in actual combat.

The long handle of the Battle Hammer was concavely carved like a temple pillar.

The raised linear patterns were made of a special conductor capable of absorbing and transmitting energy, allowing the wielder’s awakened abilities to be channeled all the way to the hammerhead.

Fwoosh!

Crackle!

As a result, those with flame abilities had a faint ember glow on their hammerheads, while those with electric abilities produced electric shocks upon impact. And if neither applied, the power transmitted from their awakening vibrated intensely, sweeping away the gargoyle fortress wall like bowling pins.

Ironically, Fermegon’s chosen strategy ended up leading more demons to their deaths.

“I had my doubts, but I never thought they’d outright build a fortress.”

To construct the fortress, the gargoyles had no choice but to frequently land on the ground.

And it was precisely their heads that the Holy Knights’ hammers came crashing down upon.

They must have relied on their petrification ability to some extent…

Crack…

But seeing their shattered bodies crumble into fragments and scatter across the ground, it was clear that belief had been utterly mistaken.

Fermegon’s demons were being swiftly taken care of.

However, that did not mean they were weak.

“If we didn’t have an infinite supply of hammers…”

Their construction speed was staggering.

Had we not deployed the PAX Men to demolish it in real time, a fortress belonging to Fermegon would have sprung up in the heart of Bukhansan in the blink of an eye.

The claim that Fermegon had dominated Europe was evidently no exaggeration.

And at this very moment…

“Filthy demon scum!”

“Come down here this instant!”

Fermegon adjusted its strategy.

Flap!

Flap, flap!

The gargoyles abandoned their efforts to build the fortress.

Beating their wings, they soared into the sky.

Swoosh!

Swoosh!

Using trees and rocks to push off, they folded and spread their wings, ascending higher into the air.

The moment they emerged from the portal, they immediately shot upwards, making it clear that their objective had changed.

Flapping their wings, the gargoyles dispersed in all directions.

Instead of Bukhansan, they now sought to establish their nests elsewhere, branching out in every direction…

Swish!

Swish!

No matter how fast or skillfully they flew,

they could not evade my “Tracking Delivery.”

Thud.

“…Gah!?”

Petrification could only be used on the ground.

Against the holy spears piercing sharply from above, they had no choice but to take the hit.

“You guys have no options left.”

Though I alone could not cover all of the fleeing gargoyles…

“Fire!”

Fwoosh!

Fwoosh!

Thankfully, I was not alone.

The archers of Elvenheim were covering the skies alongside me.

Thud!

Thud!

Through the dense forest, the gargoyles dropped like wet laundry.

Their bodies were riddled with holy spears and silver arrows, carefully carved by craftsman dwarves.

Since all these weapons were imbued with holy power, they were more than sufficient to pierce through the gargoyles’ flesh.

“Kaaaaah!”

For the demons, this was truly a crisis with no way out.

On the ground, they were smashed to pieces by hammers, and in the air, they were skewered by holy spears.

They could do nothing but resent the fate that had led them out of the gate.

And so…

By the time we had dealt with the countless gargoyles pouring out of the gate.

Whoooooosh…

The battlefield, once filled with the roar of combat, fell into silence over Bukhansan.

Not a single creature moved.

Only the shattered remains of the gargoyles, crumbled like stone, drifted in the wind along with the dust.

Ziiiiiing.

The surface of the gate, a blue, swirling blotch, ceased to release anything further.

And that meant…

The enemy had stopped their attack.

“…Is it over?”

Bukhansan, blanketed in a layer of fine white dust from the pulverized gargoyles, lay eerily still.

In the unsettling silence, someone murmured those words.

And then…

Whooooosh!

Whoooosh!

A strange wind burst forth from the gate, sweeping around us.

“…What the hell?”

Whoosh!

Whoooosh!

The wind wove freely between the trees of Bukhansan, through the ranks of the Holy Knights, lifting the white stone dust from the ground and scattering it into the air like ashes.

The pungent dust billowed upward, smothering the battle-driven fervor that had ignited the Holy Knights.

Whooooosh!

Whooooosh!

The wind grew stronger.

At first, it carried only small particles of dust, but soon it gained enough force to lift objects the size of fingers – no, even the severed heads of gargoyles.

At this point, it was no longer just wind.

It was too precise, too deliberate, to be dismissed as a simple gust.

Whoosh!

It brushed past my ear

A scream.

Regret.

Sobs.

I was stunned.

Because the sensation was all too familiar.

“…Wraiths?”

Not exactly the same.

Though the wraiths of Camelot were cursed, each retained a clear sense of self-awareness.

But the wraiths emerging from Fermegon’s gate were different.

They wept and shrieked, only to suddenly break into eerie, cackling laughter as they drifted aimlessly across Bukhansan.

Help me.

I’m alive!

You waited long, didn’t you?

Die!

Disjointed words, fragmented like grains of sand, scraped against my ears.

Like the dust of shattered gargoyle statues, the wraiths collided, eroded, and lost themselves piece by piece.

And then…

The true purpose behind Fermegon sending these wraiths began to reveal itself.

Rumble…

The wind moved like waves.

Swept outward, only to be drawn back toward the portal in a pendulum motion.

And in its return…

The dust from the shattered gargoyle statues was carried back, like sand washing ashore.

In the heart of Bukhansan, a white mound of dust piled up into an eerie sandcastle.

From within it,

Fwoosh!

Crunch!

An unknown force of life began to take shape.

Between the tiny grains of sand, flesh emerged.

And what appeared was.

Grrrrrr…

A massive, grotesque creature with a mottled body, as if white gargoyle fragments had become embedded within it.

Srrrrk.

Srrrk.

The creature’s sandcastle-like body constantly crumbled, spilling onto the ground.

But the wraiths, like Sisyphus endlessly pushing his boulder uphill, scooped up the fallen sand, maintaining the creature’s form.

“What… should I even call this?”

Its shape was difficult to define.

A body composed of broken shards from gargoyles, both large and small.

I thought its body, extending across Bukhansan like tangled roots, resembled the form of a writhing serpent.

Whoooosh!

Whoosh!

I summoned the Skeleton Knights, who had been temporarily sent back to Elvenheim.

After all, the wraiths lingering around the creature remained a problem.

.

.

.

Fortunately, the Skeleton Knights, having completed their mission, were already in subspace.

Ratatatatata!

Aboard a helicopter, overlooking the situation in Bukhansan,

Lancelot confirmed my uneasy premonition.

“There’s no doubt about it. They’re wraiths.”

Then, glancing at me with a bitter expression, he added,

“It’s tragic. To think something like this would happen on Earth as well…”

There was no mistake.

Fermegon, who had conquered Europe.

It was clear that they had captured and turned the people of Europe into vengeful spirits.

Lancelot, too, looked devastated.

He had despised the invaders.

There was no way he wanted to see the same horrors that had unfolded in his homeland, Avalon, repeat themselves in another dimension.

Perhaps he had helped me fend off Earth’s destruction in the hope that, at the very least, he wouldn’t witness such a scene here.

“There’s nothing we can do for them now… There’s no way to save them.”

Lancelot spoke grimly.

“If they had been bound to an item like us, they might have retained their sanity. But now… they’ve been reduced to nothing more than raw, blind energy.”

“I see…”

There was no choice.

If they could not be saved, then the only mercy left was to end their painful existence as quickly as possible.

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

But the Holy Knights’ hammer strikes merely passed through the wraiths.

The rapidly launched holy spears did nothing but embed themselves into the sand the creatures had piled up.

Holy power or not, physical attacks had no effect at all.

And the bigger problem was that the creature had finally begun its attack.

Saaaah!

Saaaah!

Like a sandstorm from hell, it swallowed up the Holy Knights.

Had my “Item Retrieval” been even a moment slower, I would have lost several PAX Men.

Sasasasa!

As the creature’s root-like limbs slithered rapidly between the trees, I grabbed the radio inside the helicopter.

“Can you hear me?!”

PAX Men Holy Knights roamed across Bukhansan.

Among them was Glen, the priest we brought from America.

If we could exorcise the wraiths, we could likely stop that monster’s movements as well.

When I asked if purification was possible, Glen responded in shock.

– Wait, those are wraiths?!

Fortunately, he possessed the purification skill.

If we could purify the wraiths, the problem would be solved.

But…

The sandstorm stirred up by the creature was too intense, making purification incredibly difficult.

In the end…

“Send every lost soul you encounter back home. I’ll make sure to scatter them properly.”

The only remaining option was to add another form of physical force.

I had the explosive holy weapon, the H-Beam.

A troublesome item I had set aside for the time being.

Right now, my priority had been fulfilling the conditions for the holy spear by hunting demons.

The H-Beam had an unstable circuit, designed to explode upon the slightest impact.

And I had infused it with the maximum amount of holy power.

A holy explosion.

That was the only way to describe this weapon.

“Everyone, fall back. I’m dropping it now.”

And with that, I deployed the massive holy bomb atop the wraiths’ sand-built fortress.

Boooooooom!

A powerful explosion erupted, sending the powdered remains of the gargoyle statues scattering in all directions.

The fragments that had not been completely destroyed were blasted away by the shockwave of the explosion, scattering like bullets.

The wraiths mixed within were also swept up in the blast and flung outward.

– O vengeful spirits who have met an unjust death…

The priest tirelessly gathered the scattered spirits.

Boom!

Boooom!

Like a blooming and withering flower of white sand, the battlefield of Bukhansan repeatedly expanded and contracted.

As a result…

“……It’s definitely having an effect.”

The monster was gradually shrinking.

A clear sign that the number of wraiths gathering sand for it was also decreasing.

A creature once towering like a mountain,

Now, it had shrunk to the size of a massive boulder.

By the time fewer than ten wraiths remained…

Guuoooooh-

The creature launched one final desperate struggle.

Ssshhhhk!

Extending its remaining sand, it stretched its body like a serpent.

But…

Thunk!

This time, I hurled an intact H-Beam, blocking its path.

Shuuuuk!

Shuuuk!

The creature hesitated, curling in on itself as if in distress.

“That’s not happening.”

Its target was none other than the Gate Core of the Fermegon Dimension.

Rumble!

Rumble!

The grotesque, grimacing core rolled down the mountainside.

Though the demons of Fermegon had hidden it, I had already identified its location through the PAX Men.

“You think you can call it a draw now?”

The intent was obvious.

They didn’t want to drag a losing battle all the way to Europe.

But we couldn’t let this end here.

“Since we received guests once…… we should go pay a return visit.”

The gate had brought Europe’s demons here.

Logically, it could also take us to Europe.

“You won’t die easily, either.”

I couldn’t just stand by.

Not after witnessing firsthand what had become of those humans, now reduced to wraiths.