Chapter 169: With Seoul**
"The zombies are swarming! Hold them back!"
"Captain! L-Look over there!"
"What is it! What's going on… Hah!"

Hunters were fighting desperately all across Seoul. They were risking their lives to protect their designated zones and shelters. They knew that if they fell, the civilians behind them—their parents, their children, their loved ones—would be next.

What completely unnerved them in their struggle was a shadow that swept across the sky. Looking up, their eyes trembled as they witnessed the dragon in the air.

"A d-dragon!"
"It's not alive! It's an undead!"
"A dragon is still a dragon!"

The very same people who had been courageously facing the undead just moments before were now shaken to their core. Was this the "Fear" ability that dragons were said to possess? The power to make all in their vicinity tremble with terror?

But those who saw the dragon with their own eyes knew. No special ability like "Fear" was necessary. A dragon was a being that could make all of creation shudder simply by existing, just by being there.

Mana swirled violently around the dragon in the sky, and the winds throughout the city began to blow erratically. The Hunters most sensitive to mana began to cough up blood and collapse.

—Guu-ooooooh…

The undead would not miss such an opportunity. The ghouls, who were constantly seeking to tear apart any living thing in the city, advanced on the faltering Hunters.

"Stop them! I said stop them!"
"Get a grip! If you fall now, you're dead!"

The Hunters fought to regain their senses, encouraging their comrades as they clashed with the undead. The dragon hovering above their heads sent them into a panic, but still, they fought. The combat instincts ingrained in their bodies from years of clearing Gates somehow compelled them to keep fighting the undead.

"Gyaaaaaahk!"

Even so, it wasn't enough. From the beginning, the difference in numbers was too great. Worse, the undead were not weak. Even the most common zombies, so numerous they were practically underfoot, possessed physical abilities that could chill a B-class Hunter to the bone.

There was no way to stand against such an undead legion. And above them all was a dragon zombie that could descend upon them at any moment.

Just as the tide of battle turned chaotic and casualties began to mount, they appeared.

—Urk!

Wearing plain, loose-fitting black garments that covered their entire bodies, even their faces obscured by cloth, these unidentified beings appeared and began to cut down the zombies.

Zombies that were difficult for even a team of three or four B-class Hunters to handle were being swept away in droves. A single one of these beings could fell ten zombies, causing a momentary commotion among the undead ranks.

"Wh-Who are they?"

Everyone was bewildered, but there were no answers. One thing was certain: they were not human. Because after dispatching the undead, they appeared from the shadows and returned to the shadows.

If they weren't human, they had to be someone's ability. Were they summoned by a Hunter with a summoning skill? After dealing with the undead, they became shadows and returned to one place.

The Hunters' gazes followed the direction the shadows were returning to. In that direction, at that location, was the shadow of the dead World Tree.

The place where the World Tree had once grown so vibrantly. The home of Hunter Kang Jinwoo.

"Hah! Look over there!"
"The dragon's moving!"

At that moment, the dragon in the sky began to move in earnest. As it opened its maw, an immense amount of magical power gathered there.

The instant the Hunters screamed in terror for everyone to run, the breath attack began to fall upon Seoul.

The breath rained down on Seoul. Chartia trembled as the sheer concentration of magical power made her entire body shake. Unfortunately, the shiver running down her spine was born not of admiration, but of fear.

'To think it's this powerful…!!'

She had faced dragons before. Back in her active days, when she entered Gates as an S-class Hunter, she had encountered dragons on the 5th Floor several times. She had even managed to defeat one by fighting alongside her teammates.

A breath attack was a dragon's signature, ultimate skill—a symbol of violence more powerful than any magic they possessed. The breath attacks of the dragons she had faced in the past were all so formidable that even dodging them was difficult.

That same kind of breath was now falling on Seoul. And it was coming from the mouth of a dragon far more powerful than any she had encountered in the past. She had never seen or even heard of a breath attack of this magnitude.

'I have to block it!'

At this rate, Seoul would be incinerated. A single explosion might not wipe out the entire massive city, but the ensuing shockwave and aftershocks would certainly destroy it. It would be the end of the city's life.

The trees she had grown with her power wrapped around the World Tree to protect it. They didn't seem reliable at all against the breath, but she hoped they would serve as a minimal barrier.

At the same time, she extended more trees toward the breath, but they were too slow. Compared to the speed at which the light fell, the speed at which the trees grew was far too sluggish.

For a brief moment, a vision of the future flashed through her mind: the breath striking, and the tragic sight of Seoul reduced to ruins.

Just then, Jinwoo leaped off one of the half-grown trees.

"Jinwoo!?"

His sword moved. Straight into the center of the light.

A single, slender sword seemed like a mere twig caught in a waterfall before the immense pressure of the breath. A thin branch that looked as if it would snap in an instant, swept away by the fierce current.

But that branch changed the current. It split the waterfall in two, dissipating the colossal pressure. The falling torrent scattered in every direction, failing to unleash even one-hundredth of its original power.

'I can block this!'

Amid her shock and astonishment, Chartia reacted swiftly. Her ingrained instincts kicked in, and she commanded the newly grown trees to absorb the light.

KRA-KRA-KRA-KOOM!

Countless clusters of light, like small meteors, rained down and destroyed parts of the city. But Chartia somehow managed to prevent a catastrophic collapse.

After absorbing all the impacts, she collapsed onto the ground, her legs trembling.

"...D-Did we succeed?"

As Chartia asked this, she stared at the flickering light in the empty air. The light from the sky was reflected in her pupils as if in a mirror.

In that sky, Jinwoo's sword was slicing through the dragon's neck. Effortlessly. It was so light that it created the illusion that the act of cutting a dragon's neck was easy.

THUD—!

The dragon plummeted, a lifeless corpse that had lost all power.

Normally, an undead wouldn't die just from having its neck severed, but Jinwoo's sword had strangely neutralized the dragon zombie in a single blow.

Jinwoo's mana enveloped the fallen, headless dragon and shattered it into tiny pieces. This time, he was meticulous, grinding it into dust so it couldn't be picked up and reassembled. As if that weren't enough, instead of scattering Silbaern's dust randomly, Jinwoo sealed it within his own Seed.

An immense amount of energy that should have returned to the world to nurture new life was now sealed within Jinwoo's Seed. It was far from the natural state Jinwoo desired, but he had no choice.

"Yuberis…"

Yuberis, the Lord of Eternity. That creature was one who twisted the laws of nature's cycle to make them his own power. If he returned this corpse to the cycle, there was no telling when Yuberis might seize it again and use it as his puppet.

Having finished the job, Jinwoo looked at the fallen Chartia. He walked over and offered her a hand.

"Ah, thank you…"

Chartia hesitated for a moment before taking his hand. It was such a small thing, yet she felt strangely embarrassed. It might have been because her face was a mess from the dust and dirt.

"Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine. What about you, Jinwoo? Are you hurt?"
"No problems here."

Like the battle-hardened Hunters they were, they first checked on each other's condition. In the end, neither had any major injuries. Minor scratches would heal quickly with their natural recovery abilities.

'To behead a dragon without a single scratch…'

Chartia marveled silently, looking at Jinwoo, who showed no signs of fatigue despite such an intense battle.

The dragon just now was an opponent she couldn't have even hoped to defeat. Even a dragon from the 5th Floor was a difficult foe, but this one was beyond that. She could feel a power greater than any 5th Floor dragon.

"Normally, it should have been much weaker since only the corpse remained… It seems the weakened parts were reinforced with the power of Erosion."
"Oh, is that so?"
"Dragons become extremely weak without their souls."

It wasn't just dragons; the same applied to divine spirits. They cultivated their power through a balance of body, mind, and soul. When that balance was broken, they suffered a severe loss of power.

Therefore, no matter how powerful Silbaern's corpse was, it shouldn't have been that strong on its own. Originally, it would have been at a level that even Chartia could have managed to deal with somehow.

'Yuberis's Seed compensated for the lost soul and mind, restoring the balance.'

And now, the power of that Seed had been reclaimed by Jinwoo. That was why the dragon zombie was neutralized in a single slash. A normal zombie wouldn't die from decapitation, but Silbaern, having the power of the Seed severed, lost its balance in an instant and was incapacitated.

'He can't win with this kind of power in the end… What is he planning?'

It was the same with Prycia and now Silbaern. By reviving them, the Seed created a balance with their bodies, and once Jinwoo severed that power, they were easily neutralized.

Of course, their power was still considerable, so it wasn't exactly "easy," but it was nothing compared to Jinwoo.

'Perhaps it's an unavoidable limitation for a necromancer.'

Considering the nature of necromancers, it might be their inherent weakness.

From the very beginning, those who dealt with corpses and wraiths could not achieve the trinity of balance. A corpse is only a body, and a wraith is only a soul. They are beings that, by their nature, cannot achieve balance.

Filling an army with such beings would only result in a half-baked legion. They could never possess truly powerful entities. Even with the body of a strong dragon like Silbaern or a Lord like Prycia, Yuberis failed to achieve that.

In that case, how on earth was he…

'Hm?'

As he was thinking, he felt the power of a Seed. But that alone wasn't what surprised him. He felt two sources of power. In other words, he detected two Seeds together.

But…

'The Black Flame is… one?'

There was only a single flame harboring two Seeds. From the context, it was likely Yuberis himself, the Lord of Eternity.

At that moment, the ground in Seoul split open, and a single sword shot out. Seeing it, Jinwoo realized his mistake. It wasn't one flame holding two Seeds.

The flame was one, and the Seed it held was also one. It was just that he was wielding another Seed.

A giant sword imbued with a Seed.

'Rondar's sword!'

It looked exactly like the sword he had seen on the 3rd Floor, the one he had obtained from Rondar and now possessed.

Yuberis, slumbering somewhere beneath the earth, swung the giant sword, attempting to cleave Jinwoo—and Seoul along with him—in two.