Chapter 173: The Rainbow Ore

“Attack its weak points!”

“Mages, don’t stop identifying its elemental weaknesses! The battle isn’t over yet!”

“Attack!!”

News of the Dokkaebi King’s weak points spread rapidly among the Hunters.

Especially since Combat 1’s attack had worked perfectly, the Hunters who witnessed it now had confidence about the Dokkaebi King’s vulnerabilities.

“How dare you!” The Dokkaebi King roared in fury.

The head on its thigh, with a Durandal lodged between the brows and its face gone deathly pale, had stopped moving. 

It seemed that one of its weak points was completely finished off.

That must have been the reason for its anger.

We hoped the Dokkaebi King’s power would weaken now that a weak point was destroyed.

But—

“KUU-KWA-KWA-KWA!”

It didn’t.

Instead, the Dokkaebi King began to radiate even more power, as if it had grown stronger.

Its entire body was covered in that unique black energy, and it began deflecting all incoming attacks.

Then—

“It’s sucking us in!”

“Grab hold!”

“Aaaah!!”

The Dokkaebi King’s repulsive force, which had been deflecting attacks, suddenly switched to gravitational pull, drawing the Hunters toward it.

Many Hunters failed to react to this unfamiliar attack pattern.

In an instant, nearly ten Hunters were drawn in by the force and sent flying toward the Dokkaebi King.

“I’ll crush your heads to dust!”

“KWAANG!!”

“Gah!”

“No!”

They were swatted away by the Dokkaebi King’s club, sent flying far into the distance.

Fortunately, they were all equipped with Vulcanus Equipment, so their lives were spared.

Though rendered unable to continue fighting, at least they survived.

The Dokkaebi King, seemingly displeased by this, tried to finish them off.

“Now!”

“TADADANG!”

But the Hunters didn’t just stand by.

Having figured out the Dokkaebi King’s weak points, they relentlessly targeted them.

Arrows flew toward the heads attached to the Dokkaebi King’s body, and spells of every element were unleashed.

The Dokkaebi King, unable to just sit and take blows to its weak points, was forced to abandon its follow-up attack and cover its heads.

However, realizing that simply guarding its heads meant it would continue to take hits, the Dokkaebi King—

“You annoying insects! Raaaargh!”

“Here comes the attack!”

“Focus on the defensive line! Everyone, hide behind the shield wall! If you’re far, don’t try to block—just evade! Only the tanks can take these attacks!”

It braced itself and switched to an offensive stance, accepting the risk of taking hits.

It only blocked the truly threatening attacks aimed at its weak points; for the rest, it twisted and writhed to spread out the damage.

Instead, it unleashed a relentless counterattack.

Two black spheres shot out from its left hand, swirling around each other as if magnetically attracted, tearing through the area and anyone nearby, including Hunters.

Then, came another swing of the Dokkaebi King’s massive club.

With the attacks coming in nonstop, there were even fewer opportunities to attack than when the Dokkaebi King had focused on defense.

Still—

“KURURURUNG!”

The Hunters—especially the Rankers—performed admirably enough to hold the Dokkaebi King at bay.

Dark clouds filled the sky.

Cheongryong, Lee Ga-eul’s magic brought down a deluge that slowed the Dokkaebi King’s movements, while gusts of wind blocked its advance.

A bolt of lightning struck down, aiming right at one of the heads.

“Kraaagh!”

The Dokkaebi King raised its club like a lightning rod, dispersing the bolt, but it clearly suffered a blow.

While the Dokkaebi King was fighting off the storm—

“PHUBUBUK!”

An arrow shot by Cheon Seung-heon, the Spirit Emperor, pierced through the unguarded heads at lightning speed.

Each individual arrow was weak, but Cheon Seung-heon’s firing rate was so fast it was almost invisible.

Because of those rapid, precise attacks on the weak points, most of the heads below now had arrows stuck in their eyes and were writhing in agony.

“Kya-ha!”

The Shadow King followed up with a sneak attack.

In stealth, she climbed the Dokkaebi King’s arm and precisely stabbed the head on its shoulder.

The Dokkaebi King, sensing the threat, swung its hand, but the Shadow King easily dodged and struck again.

The power of the Vulcanus-made dagger erupted, inflicting grave damage on the head.

Others, too—the Berserker, the Spirit Emperor, the Sword Saint, and many Rankers—landed blow after blow on the Dokkaebi King, while the ordinary Hunters did their utmost to block its attacks.

Of course, I wasn’t about to be left out.

“Fire!”

“TUUNG!”

A shell flew.

It was aimed precisely at the weak point.

“You think I’ll fall for that again?!”

The Dokkaebi King generated a force field, deflecting the shell.

It seemed to regard my shells as the most dangerous attack, judging from its reactions since its weakness was exposed.

Compared to its initial panic, we were handling the Dokkaebi King much more smoothly now.

‘Still dangerous, though.’

But that didn’t mean things were going well.

The Hunters were already at their limits, having held back the Monster Wave.

Now they were fighting a Rank 10 Monster on top of that.

No matter how many potions they drank, there was no way to recover from the mental fatigue.

Especially since powerful skills always had long cooldowns; even Rankers, once their skills were spent, saw their combat ability sharply drop.

“Kraaagh!”

The situation was roughly even.

At this rate, we might be able to take down the Dokkaebi King somehow.

But even if we did, the losses would be catastrophic.

At minimum, half the Hunters would be lost and not just ordinary Hunters; even Rankers would fall.

Already, Cheongryong’s ability duration was almost over, the clouds blanketing the sky thinning away.

The Spirit Emperor, too, had exhausted nearly all his spirit power and could only maintain one spirit at a time now.

Amidst all this—

“PUH-EONG!”

The mages were detonating spells of various elements to try and determine the Dokkaebi King’s elemental weakness.

Fire, water, earth, wind.

They tried the four basic elements, but none had any significant effect.

It might seem that you could just rotate through all the elements and see what sticks, but that wasn’t the case.

To draw a meaningful reaction from a Rank 10 Monster, you had to hit it with a spell worthy of its power.

If the attack wasn’t strong enough, you’d have to land it squarely on the weak point.

It was obvious just how hard it would be to aim a long-prepared joint spell directly at that weak point.

“PAJEEJEEK!”

Still, the mages diligently continued their efforts.

When the four basic elements failed, they moved on to lesser ones.

Lightning, poison, paralysis, ice, and so on.

Every time the Dokkaebi King showed an opening, a variety of spells would explode at it.

At the moment the mages began preparing their next spell, the Dokkaebi King, deflecting all incoming attacks, suddenly turned its gaze on the mages.

“You dare use your filthy tricks…!”

“KWAANG!!”

And then, it attacked the mages preparing their spells.

Fortunately, the mages had tanks dedicated to their protection, and Combat 5, whose shield had somehow fully recovered, rushed in to block the blow—so serious casualties were avoided.

However, since the Dokkaebi King was now obsessively targeting the mages, it became nearly impossible for them to prepare further spells.

The Hunters fighting in the melee couldn’t grasp exactly what was going on in the chaos.

But from the rooftop of the Vulcanus Guild building, where I was observing the battle, something felt off.

“Nam Bora, could you ask what element the mages were preparing to use just now?”

– “Yes, please wait a moment.”

Nam Bora immediately contacted the Hunter Association and relayed the question to the mages.

Despite the urgent situation, we quickly got an answer.

– “They said it was the Holy element.”

“Holy? Mages can use Holy element magic?”

– “Normally, the Holy element is used by priest classes, but there aren’t many priests in Korea.”

– “The efficiency is lower, but mages aren’t incapable of using it.”

– “Apparently, they were trying to prepare a spell using a holy catalyst.”

‘The Holy element, huh.’

Come to think of it, the Dokkaebi King was called a demigod, but was also a high-ranked evil spirit.

If so, it made sense that the Holy element would be a weakness.

Since the Dokkaebi King was so obsessively targeting the mages, there was no way to check for sure.

Still, I became convinced its weakness was the Holy element, and decided to craft a shell with it.

If we didn’t bring down that monster soon, the casualties would only mount.

[Using Crafting Skill.]

[Please select the form of the item to be crafted.]

[Please set the detailed form.]

“Shell.”

[Please select the material for the shell.]

Here’s the problem.

What material should I use?

First off, S-class Material was out.

Even if I targeted the weak point with the right element, I doubted a shell made of S-class Material would do significant damage.

The Dokkaebi King was, after all, the world’s first Rank 10 Monster.

That meant I needed to find a Holy-elemental material among my collection of SS-Class Material.

“But… I don’t have any…”

The Holy element was especially rare, even compared to other elements.

Same for SS-Class Material.

Naturally, I didn’t have any SS-Class Material with the Holy attribute in my possession.

“Nam Bora, could you contact the Hunter Association and see if there’s any way to get SS-Class Holy material?”

– “Okay.”

– “Hmm… The Association doesn’t have any in storage.”

– “I’m checking with the guilds too, but since it’s the middle of a battle, I haven’t gotten all the answers yet. But it doesn’t look like anyone has SS-Class Holy material.”

Looks like nobody has any SS-Class material with the Holy element.

So what should I do?

At this point, I’d have to make the shell out of whatever strong material I had, and engrave the Rune Script for “Holy” onto it.

That alone might deal considerable damage, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to completely bring down the Dokkaebi King.

“Holy element, huh…”

Still, it’s not like I’m short on SS-Class Material.

I had what I got from the Tower, what I earned from crafting items overseas, and the SS-Class Material I’d just gotten after repelling the Monster Wave.

Counting them all…

I had more than ten.

That probably made me the person with the most SS-Class Material in the world.

Even on a national level, it was rare to have more than five pieces of SS-Class Material.

Yet among more than ten pieces, I couldn’t find a single one with the Holy element.

Just as I was resigning myself to engraving the Rune Script for Holy on another SS-Class Material…

From the very depths of my Space Pocket, I spotted a single SS-Class Material shimmering.

“This is…”

What I pulled out was an ore gleaming with the colors of a rainbow.