NOVEL WEB Chapter 36
It only took one scratch to paralyze the modified humans.
No matter how much they were altered, at their core, they were still human, and if the poison worked on humans, it would work on them too.
There was no reason to keep the modified humans alive, so I didn’t have to worry about the concentration.
Every time I scratched them with my nails, I just needed to hit them with maximum force until they died.
As I weaved through the crowd, taking down modified humans, I could see other kids starting to converge on the citizens to support me.
The villains were doing the same.
“What the heck are these kids thinking charging in like that?!!!”
Dumas blocked the students’ way, flexing his muscles, and slammed the ground with both hands to unleash a shockwave.
Dumas’s ability was a shockwave.
He could deliver shockwaves through the ground or air. But it wasn’t some insane power you’d see in a cartoon featuring a silver-haired old man.
At least, not right now.
The ground rippled like waves, trying to make a move on the students, but Lapiz countered it effortlessly from the other side.
“Go!!! I can handle this by myself!!!”
“Those horns, that skin tone… that tail… a dragon’s bloodline? Sweet, I’ve always wanted to fight one! Come on, lizard!!!”
“Doma, the earth mage!”
“You think you can handle him alone, horn-head?! I’ll help you!”
“I already told you, I’m Lapiz…!!!”
Darużej and Lionel wouldn’t let Lapiz fight alone, each taking their battle stance to confront Dumas.
“What the hell is this?! Get lost!”
Dumas swung at Darużej, whose body had transformed into blades, but she stood her ground without being thrown back.
Lionel slipped behind Dumas, bound his arms, and bit his neck as they both fought back fiercely.
During that time, Lapiz made the ground Dumas stood on softer, burying his lower half and shaking the ground violently.
It looked like she was trying to completely destroy his lower half.
Lionel was ready to smash Dumas in the back of the head, while Darużej hardened her forearms like steel, repeatedly driving down on Dumas’ head to knock him out.
As if that brute could faint, he was stubbornly holding out.
Well, they were fighting decently.
I wanted to watch longer, but I had something to do, so I looked in another direction.
“Gweeeee…ee…”
In the midst of the modified humans, Eliza was continuously summoning them with her powers, and I needed to do something about it.
Her ability, Mirror Dimension, was incredibly annoying.
The Mirror Dimension allowed her to flick her fingers and move in and out of a world that perfectly mirrored reality.
Only Eliza could stash things inside and pull them out.
Being kidnapped into the mirror world by her didn’t mean death for me.
After all, you didn’t have to eat anything inside it. You could move around.
Just couldn’t get out.
Also, when entering the mirror world, you weren’t teleporting; you were crossing over to it following the same coordinates in reality.
This meant that if she wanted to summon something, she had to move the stashed object near the coordinates she intended to pull it from.
It wasn’t exactly an overly convenient cheating ability.
But seeing her continuously pulling modified humans meant she had prepped a lot of stuff over there in the mirror world.
It was faster to subdue Eliza than to kill all the modified humans.
I could do it if I wanted.
Using a liquid instead of a gas was going to chew through my materials, but since the instant contact would have an immediate deadly effect, the burden wasn’t that heavy.
But then, the citizens would die.
No matter how well you put it, the students’ speed in rescuing citizens was terribly slow.
It was because the modified humans had completely turned to stone.
They had frozen in the positions they were in while clutching or attacking citizens, so the students had to somehow get the modified humans’ arms out of the way to rescue them.
But modified humans had high durability, making that a tough task.
To make matters worse, most of the kids helping with the citizen rescue were like the Heroine of the Order of Command—more of a liability because of their abilities.
But what if we brought in more modified humans?
There wouldn’t be any actual rescuing; it would take forever just to clear them out.
I couldn’t even imagine how the story would collapse if I killed them, but it was already a messed-up scenario.
Did I really care? I had already come too far to think about each consequence.
Since facing them one by one would take forever, I pushed ahead, paralyzing only the necessary ones.
Eliza pointed at me, shivering as if she felt intense dread, and called out to her teammate.
“Kaien! Do something…! I can’t handle that!!!”
“If you die, the burden falls more on me—so why would I help?”
“You crazy bitch, we’re teammates!!!”
“Were we teammates? We just banded together out of convenience, didn’t we?”
“…Ugh! Fine, just bring me some rare metal!!”
“Now that’s a good deal.”
Just as Eliza’s hand was about to reach mine, Kaien finally moved after standing there with his arms crossed.
He jumped in between us, blocking my attempt to reach her.
There wasn’t a single human-like quality left in him. When he took off his black coat, Kaien was literally a chunk of metal.
That was his… whatever he was capable of. Iron Man. Just like that.
His insides and brain were solid metal.
“Looks like you got overconfident, thinking you had no poison resistance—too bad. In this body, there’s not a single spot for your poison to work—”
“I know.”
Pushing Kaien away as he tried to grab my wrist, I distanced myself and coated my hand with diluted sulfuric acid before jumping back in.
Kaien just stood there, looking at me as if I was a joke. As if almost challenging me to touch him.
But as soon as I made contact, he quickly realized something was off and swung his arm wildly to resist.
“…You can’t only use poison?”
The moment I had touched him, Kaien’s torso was slightly corroded.
“You figure it out, metal-head.”
My reaction speed and outright speed were absolutely superior. Even if Kaien was sturdy, he wasn’t fast enough for me to be at a disadvantage.
But ignoring him was tough; the modified humans were piling up like a wall.
So what’s the plan? Should I take the risk and let the damage occur?
If I just closed my eyes and sprayed gas once, I could get through pretty easily.
“What kind of lunatic is that…!”
Eliza, seeing me move freely between poison and acid, seemed horrified and endlessly flicked her fingers to keep bringing more modified humans.
“This level of annoyance…!”
Kaien, enduring the corrosion eating away at his body, was still fixated on me.
If things continued this way, I’d be the one getting worn out, so just as I was about to tough it out and spray gas, I heard.
“I’m here to help, Blanca!”
Minho swooped in, flying alongside Jinhyeon and Yeonhwa into the battlefield.
Surprised by the sudden allies, I wasn’t the only one; Kaien and Eliza froze for a moment, staring at my main characters.
“Why the hell are you here—wait! Yeonhwa, there are no citizens around, burn them all down!!”
I knew there was nothing more pathetic than asking why they were here, so I told Yeonhwa to burn them all down with the excitement of hitting the jackpot.
Yeonhwa hesitated for a moment, but upon seeing my face, she struck the match and summoned that fiery tornado, incinerating the minions.
“Minho, you take care of the sniper up on the roof! We’ll handle this!”
“Do you mean the roof…?”
“The huge X-shaped sign behind the bus stop! Watch out for icicles flying at you! You can do it, right?!”
Minho looked at me as if he had plenty to say.
“…Just trust me!”
But soon he replied confidently and flew directly in the direction of Alexei.
I figured I could trust Minho to handle that.
Although it was still early, he was pretty capable.
He was the main character, after all.
As I entertained those thoughts, attempting to finish off Kaien, who was withstanding Yeonhwa’s fire breath, and the trembling Eliza behind him, I suddenly sensed something.
A clone of Wang Tai-lun was approaching us with a sinister smile.
Jinhyeon immediately hurled a chunk of ice to attack the illusion, but of course, it couldn’t be harmed since it was just an illusion.
“Wow. For just a bunch of students, this is impressive. Scary, really. I picked these guys up off the street, but I didn’t expect them to push this far.”
“What the hell is your goal?!”
“What do you think? It’s right in front of you. I even kindly told you. Cross-eyed loser.”
“Blanca will always be Blanca! I won’t let things go the way you want!”
In the meantime, Jinhyeon was just picking the worst things to say. Do I look like I need help right now?
“Yeah, go ahead and try. Man, I envy the young ones—so much passion.”
The clone of Wang Tai-lun slowly approached Yeonhwa.
Yeonhwa unleashed flames at the illusion.
The illusion didn’t even flinch in pain and suddenly manifested just right in front of her.
Despite the flaming agony, this guy actually punched Yeonhwa away.
“Yeonhwa!!”
Of course, things wouldn’t be going smoothly.
A quick glance around showed clones of Wang Tai-lun materializing and vanishing while attacking the students all over the place.
There were illusions littered around Jinhyeon and me, keeping us on our toes.
Just then, Justitia was trying to join us, but she, too, seemed utterly helpless against the illusions of Wang Tai-lun repeatedly manifesting around us.
Why the hell was a second-year issue showing up now?
Forget about capturing the higher-ups; I needed to focus on eliminating at least one modified human within the given time.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard loud shouts.
“Hail, Suicide creatures!!!!!”
It was an entirely unexpected intrusion.