NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 191
The upper management of the Evil Society finally revealed themselves, but that didn’t mean their offensive was going to ease up.
Oh, they finally found us—like they intended to not give us a second to breathe, the barrage of gunfire that was ricocheting everywhere converged right where the leaders appeared.
For the abilities user managing the Underground Market, there were waves of flames and bursts of water. For the otherwise inconspicuous fire user, freezing icicles were raining down. And for the martial arts faction leader? A barrage of aerial bombardment along with telekinesis to keep him pinned down.
Attacking with counter abilities against the other subdued heroes, they kicked off an assault with the intent of leaving not a single survivor.
Had I been in a position to hear Arman, a supposed ally, I might have picked up on a voice half-heartedly protesting about attacking despite being on our side… but that wasn’t happening.
The final phase of the annihilation operation was, after all, about choking them to death from a distance.
There was no reason for us to engage in close combat; we had no need to voluntarily get up close and personal with them.
The first reason was that in order to fully utilize our greatest advantage—our overwhelming firepower—there couldn’t be any allies nearby. The second was that the lowlands were already consumed by toxic gas, so we had no reason to go in there. The third reason? They could be brainwashed with just a little touch, as the saying goes.
On the flip side, they had to figure out a way to crawl up to us, so we simply needed to surround them and let the onslaught commence.
“Hold your positions! Risk your lives to stop those things from crawling out of the pit!!”
The second-ranked hero commanded in place of the absent Invictus, launching a spear towards a modified human climbing the mountain.
With a thunderous boom, the spear pierced through the modified human’s head, ending their life instantly.
Seolhwa, Alice, Lucia, and others pulled out all the stops to attack beneath the ridgeline, preventing the remnants from climbing up.
I also threw a few things to help out, but it didn’t do much.
As I approached the second-ranked field commander to say I wouldn’t be much help and would head to the frontline instead, he didn’t really hold me back.
He just told me to swiftly join Blanca and cleared a path for me.
“Wait! I want to… I want to go too! Arkon, please let me!”
Suddenly, Yeonhwa left her position and joined my side.
Arkon scolded her for her recklessness, but she ignored him and stressed the necessity of getting to where Blanca was.
“There aren’t enough fire users at the forefront! The pressure here is light, and we have enough firepower! So, can’t we send a spare hand over there?!”
Arkon glared at Yeonhwa like he was about to breathe fire but eventually sighed and permitted her to accompany me.
“But if anything happens, I’ll call for you immediately, so keep that in mind!”
“Let’s go, Minho! We need to hurry and help Ageha and Blanca…!”
I glanced at Lapiz briefly, but she just gestured for me to go ahead.
Then I had to join in right away. Just looking from afar, the situation at the front seemed extremely critical.
Holding onto Yeonhwa in a princess-carry, I flew at the fastest speed I could control and met Changwon and Seolhwa along the way to ask how the battle situation was unfolding.
“They’re making a fuss trying to break through the front. We’re launching our attacks, but they’ve suddenly stopped, and now we can’t help.”
“Even with telekinesis trying to throw some back, they just force it away, so there’s nothing we can do. We’re tossing rock fragments from all directions to hinder them, but it’s getting to the point where the fragments are starting to dwindle.”
“Then let’s break up some ice pieces Seolhwa made!”
“…I was actually thinking of doing that!”
After glancing around, Seolhwa pretended like it was her original intention and tossed some broken icicles to Changwon.
It was a classic ‘Oh, I totally thought of that!’ reaction.
Since we figured it out now, we’d better make it work. More importantly, Justitia!
Bringing Yeonhwa along was a good call. She would surely be able to find openings against Justitia.
When Jinhyeon, who had noticed us late, flew over and asked Yeonhwa what she was doing, she quickly responded.
“Of course, I’m going to help at the front! You said it’s getting precarious, didn’t you?! Even a cat’s paw can lighten the load a bit, can’t it?!”
“But it’s dangerous!”
“Of course I know it’s dangerous, but isn’t jumping into danger what heroes do?! “
Jinhyeon worried about Yeonhwa, but she gave a confident reply, saying that was the job of a hero.
“Stop worrying; I’m not going to die! Oh, and I have just one favor to ask: Once Lapiz is in better shape, move her to the front!!”
“Why me…?”
“Come on, Minho!”
Without giving Jinhyeon a chance to object, Yeonhwa made her unilateral announcement and then urged me to move.
I wondered if that was okay, but honestly, I hoped so, so I headed toward the front as quickly as Yeonhwa wanted.
Leaving Jinhyeon’s grumbling behind, I made my way to where Blanca and Ageha were dealing with Justitia and Arman.
Even as she flew, Yeonhwa rubbed her sleeves together to ignite flames, sending the fire to our opposing side and making it grow.
Seeing this, I could kind of discern Yeonhwa’s intent and, when we joined the frontlines, I shouted out loudly.
“I, have descended!!!”
– – – –
As soon as Arman’s location was revealed, he charged towards us with Justitia and her troops in tow.
While the heroes lingering in the air provided supporting bombardment, Justitia directly countered by individually destroying or shooting down the strikes using other abilities.
We managed to successfully divert Justitia’s attention by mounting our own attacks, but it was just a temporary diversion.
It seemed like Justitia had received some sort of unmentionable modification from the Evil Society, as she displayed remarkable resilience against both our attacks and the falling support bombardments.
By dodging our attacks while buying time with the falling strikes, she calculated her escape route and then halted her offensive against us while smoothly making her way out through the path she had just traced; it left us utterly bewildered.
Even when trying to attack her in a fit of rage, she was able to glance at us intermittently, which derailed our assaults from connecting properly.
The only silver lining was that support from the air was ongoing, giving us brief moments of freedom.
But even that wouldn’t last forever; the magical energy of the heroes flitting about in the sky had its limits, so it was ultimately a race against time.
“Everyone, I di…”
Ageha tried to say something but instantly halted as Justitia’s gaze fell upon us, leaving her no choice but to stop.
No matter how much they wanted to block her sight to create a blind spot, there was just no room for that right now.
The moment a blind spot emerged, Justitia would simply shift her attention away, halt the aerial assault, and come right at us.
So the reason we were safe even while getting trounced by Justitia was that the bombardment was pouring down like a torrential rain from the sky, constraining her and Arman’s movement.
If Justitia came close, she wouldn’t be able to bomb us like this out of concern for hitting her own comrades.
In that case, we might as well be dead.
That’s why there seemed to be no real solution to break out of this predicament.
…Well, I did have an idea, but it couldn’t be used just yet. For it to work, at bare minimum, I needed Justitia’s movements to slow down a bit.
If I messed this up, I could never hit her again.
So I was just shifting the slime I had laid in ambush underground, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
“Ugh, seriously! Words…”
As Ageha’s frustration grew with the interruptions, she became rigid again.
“I, have descended!!!”
I couldn’t move my head to see, but Minho’s voice rang out from above.
At that moment, Justitia’s gaze turned toward Minho.
Only then did I notice Minho had brought along Yeonhwa.
With Justitia’s attention fixed on them, Minho and Yeonhwa became frozen in mid-air, but Yeonhwa’s flames dodged her line of sight, allowing her to loop around to target Justitia’s back.
Justitia’s flaw—she could anchor a target but couldn’t suppress their use of abilities.
So despite being fixed in place, Yeonhwa could still aim for Arman.
As the fiery orb charged at Arman, Justitia immediately dove toward him.
Arman’s flaw? Controlled subjects move simply. A controlled subject will always strive to protect their controller above all else.
In that brief moment, I could read her trajectory, which had previously been chaotic and entirely unpredictable.
The time was short, but through drugs and hormones ramping up my cognitive speed to its peak, I barely managed to pinpoint a location for the attack.
Right there.
With a clenched fist, I signaled the slime, which had been waiting on the softened ground.
On my signal, the slime erupted, taking on the form of a blade and shooting up from beneath Justitia just as she passed overhead…
But it didn’t slice through Justitia’s waist.
It made a deep gash in her right side, inflicting major damage and just shifting her trajectory slightly.
What I aimed for was to split her in half.
But that was more than enough.
It was sufficient to prevent Justitia from looking up at the sky and allow her to take on the barrage pouring down upon her.