By Zephyria 
They were as tiny as gnats, but their numbers likely reached hundreds of millions. The sound of their wings vibrating the air was a roar like an approaching typhoon, and the blackened sky seemed to possess a physical texture, writhing in place.
The Kun adapted to its evolution faster than the hunters, who had been shaken by the unexpected situation, could regain their composure. The Kun, flapping its wings with the speed of hummingbirds, lunged at the nearest living creatures: the parasitic magical beasts that had been inhabiting it.
The Kun descended like swarms of flies flocking to a corpse, and the bodies of the parasitic magical beasts were covered in black in an instant. There were no death screams. The sound of flesh being torn echoed countless times, as many as the number of Kun covering the beasts, and white skeletons—sucked clean of every last drop of blood—clattered to the ground.
Before they could even grasp the meaning of the skeletons tumbling all at once in the blink of an eye, the Kun, having spotted new prey, flew toward them. The hundreds of millions of man-eating birds surged forward with a thunderous roar, like hungry locusts. The hunters, belatedly snapping back to their senses, hurriedly raised their weapons.
Long-range attacks landed from afar, but even if they had shrunk, the Kun were S-class magical beasts. At most, only a few were knocked down. A mere few out of hundreds of millions.
“Fu—fuck. How is this even possible…”
Despair settled on the hunters’ faces as the blackened swarm of magical beasts closed in. In the moment they stood frozen in shock, darkness suddenly surged like a curtain from the shadows cast at their feet, blocking the path. The darkness fluctuated high in the air, enveloping the swarm and sucking them in.
A massive hole opened in the center of the swarm that had been writhing like black fog, and only then did the hunters shudder.
“Wake up!”
At Tae-un’s shout, just as they gripped their weapons, a barrier made of radiance blocked their front.
Following the familiar light, the hunters shifted their stiff gazes. There stood Kim Si-baek, who had driven Sonas’s blade—formed of divine power—into the ground, with a dome-like barrier spreading out around him.
The magical beasts slammed into the rays of light, but the barrier didn’t budge. The hunters barely managed to breathe a sigh of relief, casting looks of awe.
Because the blackened swarm of Kun blocked out even the sunlight, one of the mages floated a light using a magical tool. The immediate fire was extinguished, but simply enduring was not the solution. If time was wasted, the Kun would abandon the raid team and spread to other regions.
“Great Arrow Guild Master, would aerial attacks be difficult?”
“The means we prepared were for hunting giant magical beasts… it might work to some extent, but there are too many small ones. I’m not sure if our strength alone will deal a meaningful blow.”
“I—I can undergo physical transformation, so if I can somehow open a path…”
Lee Sarang raised a hand, trembling, but before she could finish, Tae-un’s cold voice cut her off.
“You can’t transform your eyeballs, eardrums, and oral cavity, can you? If the Kun burrow into your mouth, it might end with your organs being torn out, but if they pierce through your eyes, your brain will be eaten.”
Having imagined the scene, she shut her mouth with a look as if she were about to cry.
“Seeing that the previous attacks worked, their defense is somewhat lower than when they were fish.”
The point was simple: devise a way to attack while ensuring they wouldn’t be eaten by the Kun, similar to this barrier. Kim Si-baek pondered for a moment and then looked back at Gloiuken.
“If you take over, how long can you hold out?”
“In times like this, you must tell me that I absolutely must hold out.”
Kim Si-baek patted her shoulder and then looked around the group.
“I won’t be able to maintain it for very long, but I can grant you a blessing similar to this—that is, a protective shield.”
After that, one hunter was selected from each guild. They were hunters capable of dealing effective damage to an S-class magical beast and capable of wide-area attacks. From the 7777 Guild, it was, of course, Tae-un.
After blessing them one by one, Tae-un was the last remaining. As he declined with a characteristic grin, saying, “I think I can roughly block it with my own abilities,” Kim Si-baek gave him a different answer.
“It’s something simple, like the purification I did for you before we entered the Management Center.”
“…”
Tae-un’s dark gaze sank silently for a moment, then curved softly. As he bowed his waist, Kim Si-baek bestowed a protection to defend him from the Kun. It was a light blessing, not one that stimulated the magical energy within his body as he had when purifying the invasive magical energy.
The preparations were complete. When Kim Si-baek pulled Sonas out of the earth, the Kun rushed in like a flood, but the barrier unfolding from Gloiuken’s shield blocked their path once again.
The hunters’ attacks flew toward the swarm of Kun, which let out an enraged cry.
The surroundings were dark, as if a thick fog had descended. The difference from actual fog was that the darkness before their eyes was packed densely with a swarm of small birds.
The attacks of the Kun were defended by Kim Si-baek’s so-called power of faith, but the thickness of this shield was very thin. Witnessing countless birds fluttering their wings so close that they seemed ready to peck out one’s eyeballs was not a particularly healthy experience for one’s mental state. Even Justina, who had been through everything as both a mercenary and a hunter, got goosebumps on her arms.
“Giving us a hell of a parting gift for our homecoming!”
She raised her voice intentionally and drove her lance down. Magical beasts pierced by the slashing attack of the extending lance fell in heaps, and the wings of beasts swept away by the wind pressure of her wide spear swings were snapped. The sky opened up and bright light poured in, but it was only for a moment.
The void that had appeared for an instant was once again covered in black by the Kun. Justina gnashed her teeth, glaring at the swarm whose numbers showed no sign of decreasing no matter how many she killed.
A magical beast that forms a swarm has a separate individual that acts as the core. Among these hundreds of millions of beasts, they had to find that one.
‘I wouldn’t have even dreamed of this if it weren’t for Si-baek.’
Not only her, but the hunters harbored a similar sense of awe, which in turn returned to Kim Si-baek, replenishing his divine power.
[Death and Beauty are waving glow sticks to cheer on my apostle.]
At the divine utterance of Biyendwe, whom he had left by Gloiuken’s side for safety, Kim Si-baek sent a smile and gauged his divine power.
His divine power was recovering faster here than at any other time he had experienced on Earth. This was because the hunters vividly realized that without him, most of them would have become food for the evolved Kun, and furthermore, Korea would have been devastated. Their awe returned as divine power.
〈It will be a good thing for you too, brother.〉
Words he had heard from Tae-un in the past drifted lazily through the folds of his brain. Just as Tae-un had looked joyful, like a child before a gift, Kim Si-baek’s reputation rose once more as he raided the dragonfish in the individuality field.
Kim Si-baek thought. If he had decided to go to the Management Center instead of the magic stone exchange, would the injured have remained where they were instead of being moved to the exchange? If the quest had guided his path to a place other than the amusement park, would the anxiety fog have appeared there?
Thus, he was certain.
Only he would be able to find the core of the Kun amidst the swarm of hundreds of millions of magical beasts.
As their bodies became smaller, the individual attacking power of the Kun weakened. They could devour something soft like flesh in an instant, but they could not break bones. Realizing they could not pierce that barrier of light with their weakened attack power, the Kun shifted their form.
“L-look over there!”
The swarm of Kun began to gather where the hunter pointed. With a roar that tore through the air, the gathered Kun soon formed the shape of a single, yet hundred-million-fold, giant bird. From the colossal avian monster that looked as if it could stretch for thousands of li, as recorded, the hundreds of millions of birds let out a simultaneous cry.
As it flapped its wings, a gale roared, and debris from broken buildings flew up violently. As rusted buses with peeling paint slammed into the barrier of light one after another, Gloiuken’s arm, holding the shield, trembled.
Not stopping there, the Kun flew directly into the air and attacked the barrier with its beak. The barrier of light vanished in an instant, as if it had been extinguished. The Kun, as if not wanting to miss this chance, opened its beak wide to chew up the humans, but this was also the hunters’ opportunity.
“Fire!”
Simultaneous with the shout of the Great Arrow Guild Master, the anti-aircraft cannons the aerial attack team had been waiting with were fired. An explosive heat magical tool, hitting accurately inside the Kun’s throat, detonated internally.
“Kiiirrrr!”
The face of the Kun, engulfed in flames, scattered into hundreds of millions of birds before returning to one again and surging toward the hunters.