The days went by quickly. It was Friday now, and Ariel summoned him.

Junhyuk had placed a bet on Ling Ling, Jeffrey and Aleksei for the Champions’ Battlefield. Time flew by normally for the champions. Meanwhile, Ariel offered him a seat and said, [The odds are high this time. If you win, you’ll get three times the amount you bet.]

That was the case because Aleksei was a new champion. However, Jeffrey was reliable, so Junhyuk felt like he would enjoy watching the battle.

The champions had been practicing with new weapons, so they would have to buy better ones from Bebe. Ling Ling was using dual swords like before, but Jeffrey decided to go for a shield-and-whip combo.

Jeffrey’s weapon combination was rather unique, but he was already quite skilled with the whip. Aleksei fought with his bare hands.

Aleksei excelled in martial arts, and he was stronger than ever before.

Junhyuk was anxious with antic.i.p.ation, so he started fast forwarding the battle. Initially, he had just wanted to know which side had won, but soon, he realized he needed to know how his champions had fought and what their styles looked like.

Ling Ling moved with Aleksei, and Jeffrey moved alone. Jeffrey killed his enemy easily and quickly. First, Jeffrey pulled the enemy champion, and then, he made his Ghost White Tiger go berserk on them. The tiger shredded the enemy to pieces.

It seemed like Jeffrey could kill a hero. The enemies would have to outnumber Jeffrey to deal with him. If not, Jeffrey wouldn’t be defeated.

Ling Ling and Aleksei met their enemies. Aleksei acted as bait, and Ling Ling killed a champion. Then, the two worked together to bring down the remaining champion.

Both groups were winning, and Junhyuk smiled as he watched them. The allies would win. That’s what he thought.

Things started to change when the allies changed their strategies.

Jeffrey headed through the upper path, and Ling Ling and Aleksei went after the quest. However, the enemies were already at the quest site. The allied champions had already killed two together, but now, there were three in front of them.

The two allies died, and the enemies went to finish the quest. Jeffrey destroyed the watchtower in the upper path, but the enemies completed the quest and headed to the bottom path.

When Jeffrey reached the enemy castle, the three enemies returned, and since they had the quest buff, they killed Jeffrey in a three-vs-one battle. After that, the allies decided to move together. The enemies also moved as a group and attacked the allied team, but the allies won that battle.

Jeffrey had pulled an enemy and killed them. The other enemies were also easily killed. After that, the allies went to see Bebe and got themselves new weapons, which were better than the ones made by Elise.

The allies kept winning, and it did not take long for the battle to end.

The allies won, and Junhyuk regretted not having bet more. He would do so next time. After he finished watching the battle, Ariel laughed brightly.

[The allies have won! You had placed a 50,000G bet with a 5 percent processing fee, so your final bet was 47,500G. The odds were three to one, so you earned 142,500G. After subtracting the winnings fee, you get 135,375G.]

Junhyuk smiled with satisfaction and thought about Sarang. She had told him that she had bet 200,000G on the allies, so she would get 600,000G. She would have to pay the fees, but it would still be a lot.

It was hard to predict the outcome of the Champions’ Battlefield. It was definitely gambling, but if one knew the champions partic.i.p.ating well enough, it was easier to place a bet. Sarang had earned a lot of gold from her bet this time.

Junhyuk was happy with the outcome. He said goodbye to Ariel and went back to Earth. There, he called Sarang.

She was ecstatic, but Junhyuk still decided to be careful when placing his own bets. There were plenty of ways to accrue gold. Placing bets was a nice option, but he could also lose his gold doing it.

Shaking his head, Junhyuk walked outside. Suddenly, he heard the sound of a siren going off. He ran toward it. Eunseo was running out as well, and she told him, “We’ve detected a dimensional tear!”

“Where?”

“Seoul!”

“Seoul?!”

Eunseo said quickly, “The tear is appearing in Gawnghwamun, and it’s bigger than any we’ve seen before!”

Junhyuk didn’t hesitate.

“Call the military, and evacuate the people! We’ll go!”

Junhyuk got on his drone. The champions had also gotten drones, and they followed him. The experts and novices got on helicopters that were stationed at Guardians HQ.

Junhyuk took his team of champions and headed there. Sarang joined them on the way. When he saw her, Junhyuk spotted a bracelet around her wrist. It was Vera’s gift. He pulled out three ma.s.sive mana stones and gave them to her. She socketed them to the bracelet.

The bracelet was powerful. The scale of her spells was larger than ever before now that she was wearing it.

That day, Junhyuk would see her in action at full force.

“Your magic will help us, but watch out for anything dangerous,” he told her.

“Of course!”

Flying above Seoul, they saw the dimensional tear far away, and Junhyuk realized that the tear wouldn’t stay that size.

Once a dimensional tear appeared, the s.p.a.ce around it went through a cycle of death and birth. However, this time, the size of the area of the cycle was different. Junhyuk could sense it.

“That’s not it’s real size!”

The dimensional tear was enormous. Were the managers thinking of sending one monster or many? Junhyuk winced at the thought.

“Everyone, be careful! The tear is huge!”

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!

Waves of monster rushed out of the tear. Junhyuk watched them and scowled.

“That…”

Jeffrey, who was next to him, pulled out his whip.

“Those are wyverns!”

The monsters were similar to dragons but smaller. Junhyuk himself had never faced a wyvern before.

People were being evacuated, but the streets around Gw.a.n.ghwamun were extremely crowded, so the evacuation was taking a while.

Looking at the wyverns, Junhyuk said, “Attack them before they disperse!”

He moved first, and Sarang said, “Keep them together, and I’ll cast a spell in the middle of them.”

“OK! Do it!” Looking at the champions, Junhyuk shouted, “Keep your distances, but don’t let the wyverns disperse!”

Junhyuk took off on his drone. A few wyverns spotted him and flew toward him. He was closing in on them, and that’s when they opened their mouths and spat out fireb.a.l.l.s. Junhyuk thought of Gongon. The fireb.a.l.l.s looked similar to Gongon’s firebreath during his ultimate transformation.

Junhyuk got even closer and swung his longsword, which stretched for twenty meters and sliced a wyvern’s neck.

The wyverns had thick hides, but they couldn’t withstand a slash from Aksha’s Longsword.

The champions lured the wyverns to one spot, and Sarang raised her arms in front of her. She was casting a spell. Sarang had her Thunderstorm, but she had other electric spells that Vera had taught her.

Once she was done preparing, she shouted, “Bunch them up!”

Junhyuk looked at the champions. The wyverns were chasing them, so the champions changed trajectories and flew toward each other. The wyverns bunched up by following them, and seeing that, Junhyuk shouted, “Dive!”

The drones were flying dangerously close to each other, and suddenly, they changed directions and all headed to the ground. Sarang had her orb out by then.

Two electric orbs appeared in front of her, like the electric blasts, but they were two meters thick. The orbs flew toward the wyverns in a flash, heading to opposite directions of the formation. From them, chain lightning interconnected the wyverns with the two orbs. Twenty wyverns were roasted in the process.

The wyverns weren’t quite A-ranked monsters, but they were stronger than regular B-ranked monsters. Nevertheless, twenty of them had burned and died.

“Mages are the best at wiping out large numbers.”

Junhyuk had been thinking about killing as many wyverns as they sent out. The wyverns could fly, so fighting them was rather difficult. However, Sarang had annihilated all of their numbers.

The dead wyverns fell on the gate below, but the powered people couldn’t care about the structures for now.

The dimensional tear had gotten even bigger. Even the dimensional tears in the monster areas couldn’t compare in size. That tear was at least three times as big as those of the monster areas.

Junhyuk couldn’t understand the managers. A tear that size wouldn’t just release twenty wyverns. Eltor had to be behind all of that, and the wyverns had been too easy to deal with.

Junhyuk knew things weren’t over, so he called for the champions. The experts and novices exited the helicopters, and the air force jets flew above the dimensional tear. There were combat helicopters present as well, and ground troops were getting in position.

Junhyuk watched as the experts and novices took their places. Lucy, the previous team leader, was in command of them.

Everyone waited.

Junhyuk understood that Eltor had been thinking of him with the tear. He knew things couldn’t be that simple. When he raised his head, he saw something coming out of the tear. Its body was gigantic. From head to toe, it was at least forty meters tall, and Junhyuk couldn’t help but scowl.

“That’s a dragon,” Sarang said with a shaky voice.

Covered in bright red scales, a dragon walked through the dimensional tear.