Seoul Dragon - Chapter 54

The border wall separating Tijuana in northern Mexico and San Diego in the United States had collapsed.

It was a situation caused by five Undead-type mutants.

The Governor of California asked for help from his country's mutants in this unprecedented crisis, but only Choi Sia, a High Elf-type mutant, responded.

Sia sighed as she looked at the army before her. She didn't come here out of any sense of duty. She was simply following what she had promised to the California Governor.

Of course, other mutants who weren't involved in that agreement quietly backed away. They said they would never sacrifice themselves for the governor.

It wasn't an incomprehensible thought.

After all, the California Governor hadn't been particularly friendly toward mutants.

He had readily accepted Sia's proposal only because he was thinking about the benefits her vision would bring to California.

Sia knew that much. That her relationship with the governor was strictly business.

That's probably why other mutants, knowing what kind of person the governor was, refused to help Sia.

Sia respected their decision as well.

Who would willingly help a governor who had rejected them?

If she hadn't been trying to sprout the World Tree in this world, even she wouldn't have stayed here.

Because she had her own goals, she appeared here voluntarily.

It's just... with this situation barging in, it was giving her a headache in many ways.

The Undead-type mutants she was facing were extremely powerful beings.

The Lich, who could raise corpses and preserve their combat abilities.

The Dullahan, who wasn't affected by modern firepower weapons, clad in armor made of an unknown material that slaughtered the extermination team members.

Moreover, there wasn't just one of them.

Two Liches and three Dullahans.

It was enough to frighten most mutants.

Sia also knew, though she didn't show it, that there was no chance of winning.

Even if she maximized her High Elf abilities, they were fundamentally beings specialized in taking life.

They were essentially natural enemies to her, who dealt with plants.

Still, San Diego wouldn't fall easily.

At the very least, she could delay them to some extent.

After all, San Diego was both a resort city and a military city.

If they burned the corpses raised by the Lich with high-powered weapons, they could at least buy some time.

However, that was the limit.

Hadn't the extermination team already proven it?

That ordinary weapons couldn't even wound them.

To deal with them, they would have to launch a nuclear weapon, but how could they do that?

Using nuclear weapons on their own territory would create a post-war cleanup headache.

But you never know.

If the situation becomes too serious, a nuclear weapon might be launched.

The funny thing is, there's no guarantee that even a nuclear weapon would stop that army of the dead.

Sia sighed.

The situation was giving her a headache in many ways.

She wanted to ask Seohyun for help, but what kind of nerve would she need to ask for help?

No, there's no way someone in Korea would come if she asked.

She would just have to hold out and block them alone.

Though it's uncertain how long she could hold out.

Lich and Dullahan.

Those who were once called Robert, Daniel, Christopher, Kevin, and Brian glared at San Diego in the distance.

Soon.

Soon, they could strike a blow against the United States that had rejected them.

Since the emergence of mutants in the world, they, as Undead-type mutants, had been consistently rejected.

Other mutants could at least blend into human affairs, but they had to endure hateful gazes from the world after losing everything.

Even though they hadn't done anything!

It was caused by another mutant's incident, so why should they become the target of hatred?

They couldn't understand it at all.

Such incidents happened countless times.

The more mutant crimes occurred, the more they were suspected despite being innocent.

Isn't it ridiculous?

Just because they were undead, because of their suddenly mutated bodies, they became suspects for crimes they didn't commit.

Each time, Robert wanted to overturn everything.

The lover who abandoned him, the parents who abandoned him...

The other four comrades were the same. They too had no choice but to be stripped of their respective lives.

They were abandoned by everything and rejected by everything.

Robert headed to Mexico with four other mutants in similar situations.

With the thought that rather than suffering for crimes they didn't commit, they would boldly commit crimes instead.

Thus, they were able to take over the drug cartels in northern Mexico in just a month.

It was only natural.

They were undead.

They were beings that couldn't die.

Even if their bodies were crushed, it didn't take long to recover.

Modern firepower weapons? Even if such things turned their bodies to ash, they inevitably came back to life.

They could tell it was some kind of magical power.

And Robert, realizing this fact, understood that he no longer needed to fear anything.

Nuclear weapons? They were convinced they would come back to life even if directly hit by a nuclear blast.

They raised corpses, created an army of the dead, and took over the drug cartels.

Their purpose was only one: to kill all those who had rejected them.

The indiscriminate chain of hatred had turned them into monsters.

They cut out the last remaining shred of humanity and tortured and tore the extermination team apart in the most brutal way.

And so, now.

They crossed the Mexican border and were ready to advance into the United States.

Sia looked at the soldiers spread throughout San Diego.

In their gaze, only fear could be felt.

It was natural. The extermination team assembled by the U.S. wasn't made up of ordinary personnel.

If such an extermination team was annihilated... it meant they were also in danger.

But Sia considered this entire situation to be their own doing.

Why did they project indiscriminate hatred toward innocent mutants?

If they hadn't, at least this wouldn't have happened.

'They say people only regret when it's too late, and that's exactly the case.'

Sia stood up from her place.

She didn't know if she could stop them, but all she could do was try her best.

Because she didn't want her World Tree to be trampled by these incarnations of hatred.

She raises her hand. Natural elements that heard her call rise with their own will.

Then, thousands of trees with will begin to intertwine.

Crackle-!

'...There's no guarantee this will stop them.'

Tree roots intertwine, forming a massive figure.

A root giant.

The most powerful force to protect the World Tree's agent appeared at the border area.

And the moment the giant appeared, the Lich and Dullahan moved.

Robert scoffed as soon as he saw the massive root giant that had risen in the middle of the border and the High Elf perched on top.

He had heard about it vaguely before.

The story of a peculiar High Elf who was frantically growing a Giant Sequoia.

That elf living in California supposedly won people's favor with her distinct appearance.

She probably lived in luxury. Unlike themselves who were miserably rejected.

It's laughable.

That there's such a difference in how people are treated based solely on the difference in mutated appearance.

Robert couldn't accept this point.

No matter how much the world is said to run on luck, isn't this too much?

The directionless anger intensifies. The spirit of his other comrades was the same.

Two Liches, Robert and Christopher, raised their hands.

Then, countless corpses, once residents of northern Mexico and U.S. soldiers, gathered together to form the shape of something massive and disgusting.

A skeleton made of human arms and legs, and wings made of human skin.

A head made of human faces.

A being that would inevitably instill horror and disgust just by looking at it was finally completed and revealed.

A corpse dragon.

The corpse dragon's body melted the earth just by exhaling its breath. A terrible level of corpse poison.

Probably if an ordinary human just approached it, their body would melt instantly from the dragon's toxic energy.

-Go.

Along with the corpse dragon, the Dullahans charged forward, rushing at the root giant.

Sia felt at a loss. How on earth was she supposed to stop that?

There was no answer.

The overwhelming corpse dragon was one thing, but those crazy Dullahans were an even bigger problem.

The root giant would collapse soon. Once that happens, there would be limitations to what Sia could do.

Moreover, modern firepower weapons didn't work at all on the corpse dragon. Even dropping grenades or carpet bombing, the dragon remained intact.

'What kind of thing is that? How many months have they been mutants?'

Honestly, in terms of danger level, it was incomparable to the Demon-type mutant that had appeared in Korea.

What was the U.S. thinking, turning mutants like that into enemies?

Sia began to feel increasingly uneasy. It seemed impossible to stop them.

And the moment she thought that, the root giant couldn't withstand the corpse poison and the Dullahans' attack and shattered into pieces.

'We're doomed.'

The root giant was her maximum defensive line. Because the World Tree wasn't yet complete, there was a limit to the power she could exert.

If she made a wrong move, she might die.

The corpse dragon approached gradually. Sia shouted.

"Run!"

And just as she shouted that and the U.S. soldiers were urgently trying to flee, suddenly the surroundings darkened.

"...Huh?"

Looking up at the sky, wondering what was happening with the sudden darkness, Sia could only gape in astonishment.

There, was a real dragon that couldn't even be compared to the corpse dragon crawling on the ground.

Seohyun had finally arrived in the United States.

I saw the massive, disgusting fake dragon.

As soon as I saw it, I felt anger rising within me.

It was made from human corpses.

Moreover, these damn things had the audacity to imitate a dragon's form with that pile of corpses.

How dare they.

Such thoughts came to me automatically.

Whether it was a species characteristic or something else, the dragon's pride within me urged me to clear that thing from my sight.

Without hesitation, I gathered all the seething power within me.

Around the mouth of my true form, an immense power gathered.

Judging that enough power had gathered, I released it all at once.

Kwaaaaaaa-!

A dragon breath at maximum output that I could release was shot toward the dragon made of corpses.