Legend of Legends

"Is it the tree?"

The tree from the Dimensional Battlefield was effective. It could create mana stones artificially, which could then be used to make iron soldiers. If it all worked out OK, the value of the tree would be astronomical. It was the goose that laid golden eggs.

He liked the fact that Elise had planted it in her garden. The tree could change the world, and she planted it in her backyard.

He looked around at his house and murmured, "Right. I will plant my own after seeing it bear fruit."

The tree was worth more than $100 million, but he wanted to plant one of his own. Not anyone could have one, and its value was significant.

He got up suddenly while thinking of planting the tree.

"Whew! I’ll fall behind."

He had to go to the Champions’ Battlefield, but he was too relaxed. He had a lot of work and he kept getting distracted by accidents and other things, but now he had time to train.

He teleported to basement, summoned everything he owned and started swinging his sword. He would meet Gongon soon. The enemies would have a new champion, and Junhyuk would finally know who it was. He wanted to train harder. He wanted to be in best shape possible, so he focused on his swordsmanship.

Thursday.

The going-away party was scheduled for that same day, and Junhyuk went into work unworried. He greeted his coworkers, took a seat and turned his computer on. It was his last day, so nobody would give him any work.

He was at his chair, relaxing as he stared at his computer, when he got a message. It was Eunseo, and she wanted to see him.

The other employees tried to guess at what was going on, but didn’t say anything. He went into her office, and she raised her head slowly. She looked cold and condescending. Suddenly, he felt guilty about something.

"Were you busy yesterday?"

He had gone to Elise’s house and looked at the tree and talked. Elise had told him about what she had been researching up to that point.

They were creating a better R-potion, and the Iron Soldier MK-III was under development. They had talked, and she had made him dinner, and he had gone home. He had been too entranced by Elise’s stories that he had forgotten about Eunseo. Junhyuk had certainly wronged her.

It was his mistake, and he acknowledge that fact, "I went to Elise’s house."

"Her house in Seoul?"

"Yes."

She looked even more cold and condescending.

"I heard she never invites anyone, but you’ve been there?"

He got the cold sweats, but she said, "New iron soldiers have arrived here today. Did you hear about it?"

"I hadn’t."

"South Korea is being attacked by more and stronger monsters, so they’ve sent more iron soldiers to HQ. We will have five iron soldiers on standby now."

He realized what Guardians was doing.

"That’s good. I was worried about the safety here."

"Even without the iron soldiers, we have made other preparations. We supplied the decomposition liquid to the air force. That way the air force will be able to assist the iron soldiers in Seoul."

"That’s good."

Suddenly, a siren went off. He frowned and heard Zaira’s voice.

[Monsters expected to appear in Seoul and Yeouido. Everyone move to the basement shelter now.]

Eunseo sighed and said, "This week is not an exception. They are here again."

He agreed with her on that point. The poring incident had been an issue, and now some other monsters were showing up.

"They must know I’m quitting."

His mind was clear. He didn’t have to step in, and Eunseo was a novice wearing a powerful ring. It increased both her attack and defense. She would be safe and she could use her own power to defend herself.

"Let’s go."

They went to the basement and met the other employees. Eunseo and Dohee went to see Elise, and Junhyuk looked at everyone else.

"Don’t worry. This is not the first time."

The workers looked at each other and smiled awkwardly. When the first monster attack happened, most of them had wanted to resign. They all had good enough resumes to get into any major corporation, but they had chosen to remain there. They were prepared to stay there.

He realized they are more audacious now. They didn’t need him anymore.

If they had popcorn, they would watch the monsters on the monitors like they were watching a movie, and since Junhyuk also knew there were five iron soldiers on standby, everyone was calm.

Dohee walked out of Elise’s office and called for him, "Junhyuk, this way, please."

He went in and saw the images on the screen flashing quickly, so he turned to Elise and asked, "Just Yeouido has been attacked so far?"

"Why don’t you send more iron soldiers to there?"

"We will get support from the military. The first attack will be handled by the iron soldier, but additional attacks will be handled by the military."

"That’s good."

"Did you warn the people in Yeouido?" Eunseo asked.

"I did. The attack is at the financial district, which is very heavily populated."

Eunseo sighed and said, "There is nothing we can do now."

Even a one-second change in the stock market could have catastrophic results, but there was nothing Guardians could do about it. While dealing with the monsters, they could only have the people evacuated and the market shut down.

Zaira chime in.

[Monster arrival expected. Iron soldier already on site.]

"Give out the evacuation order," Eunseo said.

Zaira’s voice boomed over Yeouido.

[Monster attack imminent. Evacuate immediately.]

Junhyuk watched the people rushing out through the monitor. The monsters were getting more intelligent. It was likely that the one that was about to appear would be hard to deal with.

While he watched the evacuation, a dimensional tear appeared. The ground cracked, and a jelly-like substance rose from it. He scowled.

"A poring?"

He knew how hard it was to kill a poring.

"Is it possible to kill it?"

Elise answered, "Difficult to say. I don’t have a solution yet."

"Can’t you do anything?"

Elise measured her options.

"It’s downtown, so we can’t use napalm bombs."

"If you have a solution, don’t hesitate to use it," Eunseo said.

"Are you sure?" Elise asked, and Eunseo nodded.

"It’s fine. Kill it as soon as possible. We don’t want a similar situation like the one last time."

"Understood."

Eunseo asked, "Can the poring affect humans too?"

"I haven’t had a chance to find out. I didn’t have the time."

Junhyuk glanced quickly at Elise. If she had had the time, she would’ve run the experiments.

The poring looked like a three-meter tall pudding, and the iron soldier fired small missiles at it. The missiles contained small amounts of napalm, so when they exploded, they raised the surrounding temperature by a lot. They had been engineered specifically to be used in downtown areas.

Eunseo was ready, and Junhyuk shook his head. The missiles exploded.

Boom!

The poring was torn into pieces, but the problem was that the pieces scattered everywhere.

"How many pieces are there?"

[A total of 1,720 pieces.]

"Gather them!"

With the poring pieces everywhere, if people could in fact be affected by the poring, they would have a huge problem on their hands.

[Additional monster attack expected.]

"Already?"

Before the military had gotten there, more monsters were on the way, and the pieces of poring were scattered about.

If a monsters died, but a piece of poring got to it somehow, the monster would live again. The monsters had to be killed and remain dead.

"Collect the pieces. When is the military arriving?"

[Five minutes away.]

The whole thing would be over in five minutes. However, the detection machine rang loudly.

[Monster appearance expected in Paju. Monster appearance expected in Guri.]

Junhyuk heard the reports and frowned.

"They must know we have more iron soldiers today!"

Like Elise had said, they were giving them a hell just difficult enough for them to endure.

"Permission granted for two iron soldier deployments," Eunseo said.

The two iron soldiers left the base, and Eunseo calmly gave out orders, "Tell the military deployments to go to Paju and Guri."

Elise made the calls, and Junhyuk murmured, "We will be attacked as well."

Everyone looked at him. The pattern of attacking Guardians HQ every time had been set. They just didn’t know which monster would come.

The detection machine rang aloud again.

[Monster attack expected here soon.]

"They must think we are easy targets," Elise said, smiling cooly, and added, "Zaira, activate our highest-level defenses."

[Activating highest-level defenses.]

She turned around, and Eunseo nodded.

"Permission granted for iron soldier deployment."

On iron soldier went to the roof, and another set up at the basement. Dohee looked at Elise and said, "Give us weapons."

"There is no such need. It would only create unnecessary casualties."

Dohee bit her lips, and Elise turned away to look at Sora, who grabbed the longsword and got up.

"If everything fails, I’ll step in."