Chapter 421
It was when Su-ho had just come out of the Bambi Gate.
[ As the Second Great Upheaval begins, the generation of the First Big Gate will commence. ]
The Big Gate notice rose before his eyes.
The timing was, ironically, just so.
“Well, well?”
Seeing the notice, Su-ho tilted his head.
Because the Big Gate that appeared as a System alert was the greatest mid-Upheaval event Su-ho had been waiting for.
“This is coming out already?”
Upon seeing the notice, Su-ho immediately checked the date.
Even after reconfirming through the Library of Memory, it had opened a bit earlier than the time he knew before.
‘Well, sure, that can happen.’
He figured nothing would change drastically just because it came a little early.
Either way, all he had to do was clear it.
Maybe that’s why?
Perhaps because it appeared ahead of schedule, this Big Gate was nothing but welcome to Su-ho.
Because the very first Big Gate slated to be generated this time was one of the “Five Great Calamities” humanity had to clear in his previous life—the “First Calamity-grade Gate.”
‘Finally meeting it.’
The so-called Australia Gate.
Right after he and his comrades cleared the Australia Gate in Australia, Su-ho was betrayed and killed.
So the Australia Gate generated this time was, in many ways, a very meaningful Gate to Su-ho.
Su-ho checked the time.
‘About a month from now.’
A Calamity-grade Gate wasn’t a Calamity-grade Gate from the start.
The term Calamity-grade Gate itself, like Sealed Gates, was a label people attached for convenience.
In that sense, what made a Calamity-grade Gate “Calamity-grade” was that it truly became a “calamity” that threatened the world.
Because a Calamity-grade Gate was, in the first place, a Gate evolved from a Big Gate that had run amok; the rampaging Big Gate kept expanding its territory until, before anyone knew it, it swallowed all of Australia.
After swallowing Australia, it began summoning not only ground-force monsters but also sea-type monsters, thereby threatening nearby New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and so on.
‘So this time, before it grows to that extent, we prune the branches in advance and reduce the Gate’s scale.’
This was the sure-win strategy that applied to all Calamity-grade Gates, not just the first one—the Australia Gate.
That’s why he was confident he could put an end to every Calamity-grade Gate by himself.
If you cut its power early from the moment a Big Gate starts winding up to form, then by the time the Big Gate truly makes its grand open, it should be perfectly doable to solo-clear it.
Su-ho immediately summoned Cheolma.
“Cheolma.”
“Neigh!”
“This time, it’s Australia.”
“Neigh!”
In any case, there wasn’t all that much he could do even if he went to Australia right this instant.
But since the schedule had been moved up, he needed to at least check things with his own eyes once before taking the full steps.
‘Just in case.’
With Su-ho mounted, Cheolma kicked through the air and surged forward.
*
“Good call. I was going to contact you about that anyway.”
Somewhere in Australia.
The moment he arrived in Australia, Su-ho called Jeong Cheol-min right away.
Fortunately, perhaps because Korea’s communications network had already been restored early, the call went through.
From the other end of the receiver, Jeong Cheol-min’s flustered voice poured out like a machine gun.
In other words, even from a global perspective, Jeong Cheol-min had learned unusually fast that Mana was abnormally converging in Australia—news hot off the press in Korea.
And yet Su-ho was already in Australia.
He thought there was no way this could be a coincidence.
As Jeong said, WMD was one of the few organizations in the world that actually worked properly.
“Right? I’ll contact the UN side myself. By now they’re probably hopping from one foot to the other, asking not only permanent and non-permanent Security Council members but everywhere around the world to send Hunters. I should help.”
An individual can win a battle.
But an individual cannot win a war alone.
Especially now, at the starting stage, the more hands the better—even one more.
‘And specifically, hands of elite level 200 and up.’
He wasn’t expecting cooperation.
No—in the first place, he hadn’t even considered it.
Su-ho’s sure-win strategy in this life was perfect “control,” where he planned and ordered everything himself.
‘The only one I can trust is myself.’
And for that perfect control, he needed overwhelming power that no one could refute.
Whatever the prevailing sentiment of this world—democracy—people had no choice but to bend in various ways before overwhelming power no one could contest.
‘Not that I’m saying I’ll actually be an iron-blooded monarch.’
Jeong Cheol-min spoke.
Fully active.
At those words, goosebumps ran down Jeong Cheol-min’s arms.
He was already a monster—he couldn’t even imagine how big the shock waves would be once this guy went fully active.
Still smiling, Su-ho said,
“You won’t need to persuade people for me. The organization I found will exist solely for the peace of humanity, and the recruitment targets are skilled Players from all over the world. Of course I won’t force anyone.”
And the same went for Su-ho.
He’d said it with a joking nuance, but it wasn’t a joke.
‘Since ancient times, people flock where power and honor gather.’
Jeong nodded.
That was the end of the call.
After finishing the call, Su-ho tucked the phone into his jacket and unfolded a map.
‘In my previous life, the first Calamity-grade Gate formed at that Gate in the Great Victoria Desert.’
As it was revealed later, a Big Gate wasn’t a wholly new kind of Gate summoned by the System.
Among the Gates that already existed and had grown as much as they could, the System designated one as a Big Gate and bumped it up a tier.
In his previous life, such Gates were called Big Gate candidates—or just candidate Gates.
Once promoted into Big Gates, these candidate Gates saw their Mana skyrocket over time and became the worst calamities no one could lay a hand on... in other words, Calamity-grade Gates.
And Su-ho knew which Gate had been the very first candidate that became the first Calamity-grade Gate.
“Let’s go, Cheolma!”
“Neigh!”
With Su-ho mounted, Cheolma began to cleave through the Australian sky.
*
Australia has two enormous deserts.
The ones called the Great Victoria Desert and the Great Sandy.
Their area is roughly 10.5 times the area of South Korea—an absurd size.
Of the two, Su-ho entered the Great Victoria Desert.
Thankfully, he had come to the right place.
Because through the “Mana Detection” that had been active for a while, waves of a truly monstrous amount of Mana energy were visible to his eyes.
‘Fortunately, only the outbreak time for the Big Gate was moved up; the candidate Gate to be promoted seems to be the same.’
The candidate Gate that gradually came into view was, as expected, already swelling as if about to burst, having been chosen by the System to expand the size of its portal.
Guiding Cheolma, Su-ho landed in front of it.
There was nothing around but sand.
Normally, the soil of Australia’s deserts is reddish like loess, and plants grow in decent numbers—but here, like the Egyptian desert, there wasn’t a trace of life to be found; all of it was parched, dark-red sand.
The candidate Gate designated as a Big Gate was blazing above it like a small sun.
Su-ho approached the candidate Gate that was throbbing as if it would burst.
‘I’ve been extremely curious since my previous life—whether a candidate Gate in the middle of promotion to a Big Gate can be challenged mid-process.’
Five Big Gates had been generated in his previous life.
But humanity missed the golden time for all five of those Big Gates.
So there had been no sample data—but at last, now he could resolve that long-standing curiosity.
It was the instant Su-ho approached the Gate portal and put his hand to it.
BwooOOOOM!!
The portal exploded.