Thumbs Up, Level Up - Chapter 278

If they got too close to Korean territory, the aftermath of the battle would affect Yeongjong Island and Ganghwa Island, so they needed to keep a good distance away.

From there, they were going to crash Mount Kunlun and destroy their base.

All the arrangements were made by Director Jung Gyeong-Yeong.

“We have got nine hours and twelve minutes before that damn mountain reaches the Yellow Sea area of operations, and the navy is ready on the move. With the help of the navy, they are also mobilizing fishing boats and military ships to bring in the Hunters. So we can really destroy that mountain, right?”

Sitting at a desk in a separate room set aside for civilian cooperation in a government-created emergency response common center, Gyeong-Yeong looked up at Ji-Cheok and asked the question that was pressing on everybody’s mind.

“People that know us said we can.”

Bernade Itum, Macaw, and Daniel Enzo from the Tama Clan said they were going to take down that mountain.

They said that they had asked for help from several Gods, and Ji-Cheok could only believe them.

Reable had said he was going to join them once the battle started, then he had disappeared. Ji-Cheok knew he was going to suddenly pop up when they needed him the most. Ji-Han had declined to participate in this battle, he was probably doing something important on his own.

“Okay. I have already talked to Director Ji-Han about the rest of the operation, and he said it’s no problem,” Gyeong-Yeong said.

“Thank you so much for the help.”

“This is not just about you. Our entire country is at stake. So go ahead and do what you do best, Director Um. I’ll do my best right here.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

“You too.”

As she turned away from him, Ji-Cheok activated the Steps of Hermes.

Suddenly, he was standing on a cargo ship anchored in the middle of the Yellow Sea. It was one of the cargo ships used for trade by Jungjin, and the Hunters of the company were there, joined by the people from the Tama Clan.

A large shamanic circle had been drawn already on the deck of the ship, and he could see the people of the Tama Clan performing some sort of ritual.

With his transcendent sense, he could understand what they were doing.

Trees were growing with terrifying force from the bottom of the sea. This was possible in the Yellow Sea because of its shallowness.

The water was only somewhere between fifty and one hundred meters deep, so the vegetation that was growing at a tremendous rate looked like it would soon reach the surface.

‘I guess with so many Druids, even something like this is possible. So this is why they were asking for skills like [Fast Growth], [Plant Affinity], and [Blessing of Mother Nature].’

“My Lord. You have arrived.”

Daniel Enzo, formerly a Paladin of the [Bird_that_tricked_the_sky_and_the_sea], had been forcibly disconnected from his God as he was saved by Ji-Cheok in the dungeon. Afterward, he had been reconnected with his God and now somehow managed to serve both his previous God and Ji-Cheok at the same time.

He was sort of like a Dual Paladin!

Just like his other apostles, Daniel was given a small portion of Ji-Cheok’s power. However, unlike the others, he could convert Likes into Points, which he could use to purchase skills in the Hunter Store. Unlike Ji-Cheok, who could buy any kind of skill, Daniel could only buy skills related to his Paladin job and his God, [Bird_that_tricked_the_sky_and_the_sea], but this still made him unusual, given that he was not one of Ji-Cheok’s apostles but a retainer.

‘I do know that retainers aren’t supposed to use the Hunter Store with Likes.’

Ji-Cheok had a hunch that this was because Daniel was a Dual Paladin. Since his intuition was divine, after all, he assumed he was right.

“I told you not to call me that. I was just trying to rescue you by turning you into one of my retainers,” Ji-Cheok said.

“Grace as vast as the sea… In that case, I will address you by your real name, Mr. Ji-Cheok.”

«I think you deserve the respect of a God, Master. Become their emperor! For they desire it too!»

‘What’s the matter with you, Cheok-Liang? You keep telling me to become their ruler.’

“By the way, is your operation going smoothly?” Ji-Cheok asked Daniel.

“Yes. I am even using the power given to me by my first God, [Bird_that_tricked_the_sky_and_the_sea]. So do not worry.”

“Does the strategy involve growing large trees to pull down the mountain?”

“You will have to wait and see. A scene from mythology is about to be reenacted right here.”

Macaw sat in the center of the shamanic circle. He still looked more like a spirit of the forest than a human.

His hands were burning. True to his nickname, Macaw of the White Charcoal, he was literally burning his own hands. At the same time, around him, strange masked people performed a shamanic dance and chant.

Anyone who saw this could tell that this was not a simple skill.

Crack!

Finally, the trunks of the trees broke through the surface. They were countless titanic trunks, tangled together, writhing and growing. In an instant, a tree of enormous thickness shot up into the sky.

“Wow,” Ji-Cheok said in awe.

“There are tens of thousands of trees combined into one. It is about two kilometers thick, and it is going to grow even bigger and taller,” Daniel said.

‘A shamanic tree that grows even in salt water… Maybe we can stop the mountain with this…’

“I trust you, Daniel.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ji-Cheok. I ask you to believe in those of us you have saved.”

Daniel smiled gently, a somewhat odd sight for a man his size.

Just then, something was caught by Ji-Cheok’s transcendent senses.

“No…Why would you…”

South Korea had launched an attack.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

The South Korean military was in a very strange state at the moment.

They had modified, mana-forged, and developed a weapon that was able to launch shells so much faster and farther than normal cannons that it could barely be called a cannon anymore.

This insane self-propelled cannon had a range of 1,500 kilometers. Even the United States coveted the technology, but for some reason, they had yet to be able to build one.

Now, these cannons were prepared to fire, all pointing their barrels westward.

The total number of these insane cannons in South Korea was 246, and half of them were concentrated on the west coast.

“Targets?”

In the hastily organized military command center, one of the country’s three-star generals had been brought in for the job. He was here because the President had already given the green light to attack. They could have delivered a direct hit on mainland China, but fearing the possible political and economic backlash, they had decided to take down Mount Kunlun first.

These self-propelled cannons called Black Panther 37 were not the only thing they had prepared. Long-range ballistic missiles were also ready, using the technology that had been accumulated by flying satellites for years while enduring the United States’ scrutiny, China’s bullshit, and Japan’s surveillance.

“It is moving at a constant speed, crossing the Yellow Sea!”

In front of the General was a radar map of the Yellow Sea, showing the mountain on the move. The other screen showed a satellite video of the same mountain.

“Alright, let’s give these secret society bastards a taste of their own medicine. Prepare to fire!”

“Preparing for fire! One minute to target! 59, 58…… 1, 0. Fire ready!”

“Fire!”

On the General’s orders, the cannons of the Black Panther 37 battery at the Yellow Sea military unit started to fire. At the same time, missiles from missile bases all over the country flew out as well.

It was a baptism of excessive explosives that could reduce a major city to ashes with a single attack!

However, soon, the command center turned silent.

Woong~

With a strange twist of space, all the cannon shells and missiles that had reached Kunlun Mountain disappeared.

After that, they saw something bizarre.

Blinding light, as if from an explosion, filled the space around Kunlun Mountain. Smoke rose all over the barrier and dispersed into the air.

“Space distortion… So it was true…”

The General frowned.

“Prepare the Space Shattering Shells!”

“Preparing the Space Shattering Shells!”

The South Koreans, much like everyone else, felt a sense of crisis as they watched the Cyclops dungeon debacle in the United States.

Before that, they had also received a prophecy from a very famous American prophet that the end of the world was near. The prophecy was known to a number of the higher-ups. However, the authorities that took it seriously were mostly those with ties to secret societies. The rest of the world scoffed at the prophecy.

But with the advent of the Cyclops, many of those who had not believed the prophecy originally started to feel a sense of crisis.

They were worried that the apocalypse could actually be coming. Even if it was not the apocalypse, they were still worried that a cataclysmic event like the one that happened when the dungeon first opened would happen once more. That was why Bi-Ga’s barrier was so heavily funded and received so many resources.

For this reason, the South Korean military accelerated the development of several tactical weapons. Projects that had been studied and abandoned in the past were brought back, and some pretty awesome weapons came out of it.

One of them was this—a bomb that shattered space on impact.

“The cannons are locked and loaded!”

“Fire!” the General shouted.

“Fire!”

The Korean-made weapon of destruction was fired by the Black Panther 37s.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Ji-Cheok watched through his own satellites as the attack launched by his country’s military was neutralized.

‘I knew it wouldn’t work…’

«That is a rather unusual kind of spatial distortion barrier, Master. Normally, these barriers just send back whatever enters them, but…»

Since other people were present, Ji-Cheok was communicating with Cheok-Liang telepathically.

‘You think so too, right? It seems like… the function of that barrier is to expand space, or so I think.’

«Is that your intuition, Master?»

‘Yes, it is from my Divine Intuition. Long-range attacks are sucked into a vast expanse of space similar to a subdimension. That is why missiles and artillery shells won’t work. Unfortunately, that spatial distortion barrier cannot be destroyed from the outside, even with magic spells. The source of power is within that floating mountain. In theory, it’s an impenetrable defense, but…’

He looked at the growing tree. It was a giant tree, rooted to the bottom of the ocean floor, and nurtured by countless spells. It was still growing, and soon it would reach the sky. However, Ji-Cheok had one question.

‘What if Mount Kunlun changes its course?’

The tree was already growing high into the sky, reaching a whopping two kilometers in height.

‘That thing is so big. Is it going to snatch up the mountain like a Venus flytrap?’