Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 260

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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260
When Mei-ling saw the magical circle problem, she was initially furious.
“Sigh… The entire population is watching.”
She soon composed herself and began solving the problem, scratching her head at the difficulty until her eyes glazed over.
“Excellent! The viewership ratings are skyrocketing!”
The Production Team cheered as they captured Mei-ling’s vacant expression on screen.
[Next to arrive is mage Mariel!]
“I’m a K-POP fan! The magical circle is no problem!”
Mariel chose one of the dozens of Gates and stood at its entrance.
[Mariel appears very confident!]
[Something feels ominous about this….]
Jang Mi’s prediction, based on watching many Korean variety shows, proved accurate.
“Huh?! My strength?!”
The magical circle beneath Mariel’s feet flared with light, and her power drained away completely.
[Many recent enemies possess techniques that seal mana! One cannot rely on mana alone! Physical strength is national strength, is it not?!]
Massive stone blocks—dozens of times larger than children’s toys—appeared before Mariel.
[…So we’re supposed to match those stone blocks?]
[Correct! Mage Mariel is intelligent, so solving the puzzle won’t be difficult, but assembling it with an ordinary body drained of mana will be quite challenging!]
“You devils!”
Mariel lifted one stone block and cried out, her legs trembling violently.
[This is too cruel. I’m glad I didn’t participate.]
Jang Mi imagined herself in that position and shuddered.
Jang Mi was confident she could solve girl group trivia and handle physical challenges, but this Production Team would certainly exploit her weak points in general knowledge. Failing to answer trivia questions in front of the entire world? There was no greater humiliation.
[I hope that by watching this competition, other Hunters will take time to strengthen their weak areas.]
While most people laughed and enjoyed the spectacle, Jang Mi and many other Hunters resolved to study and train harder. No one knew when they might be dragged into such a situation.
As Alex, mid-tier competitors, and Yang Sang-heon entered in succession and regained their composure, the problems gradually became easier.
It was the Production Team’s intention to have the Gates cleared at similar times, and indeed, the passage times aligned almost perfectly.
Before entering Mars’s atmosphere beyond the Gate, there were various obstacles including a meteor obstacle course and a space tornado course.
After passing through all of these, the competitors finally entered Mars’s atmosphere.
[We’re now in the final stretch of the competition!]
“Run! Run!”
“Go, go, go, go, go!!!!”
“Faster!”
Since passing through the Gate on Mars’s surface would lead to the World Tree, the final goal point, the world’s cheers grew more intense as the competitors approached the Gate.
[Hmm…. A surprise obstacle we prepared last appears to be visible.]
Benjamin flipped through his cue cards upon seeing the mysterious dust storm before the Gate, but it was an event they hadn’t been notified about in advance.
“…PD, what is that? Did we prepare it?”
The Production Team was equally bewildered. Everything they had prepared was now complete, and they had intended only to compete based on the competitors’ speed.
“That can’t be right! Contact the Control Center! Figure out what’s happening!”
As the dust storm subsided slightly, a monster filling the entire horizon appeared beneath it. The sheer numbers were almost exhausting to describe.
The ground was overrun with low-tier monsters like goblins and orcs, while higher-tier creatures such as trolls and drakes dominated the terrain. Above, wyvern swarms darkened the sky.
“Director! Monsters!”
“I have eyes! The Gate has opened!”
“What do we do?!”
Jae-in clenched her teeth as she watched the screen. What would happen if we halted the race and broadcast the breach as breaking news?
Fear could coalesce into a unified will. However, Jae-in’s assessment was that the willpower would likely splinter—some frozen in terror, others fleeing, still others fighting.
“Director!”
Alice cried out, but Jae-in found the decision agonizing. The fate of Earth hung in the balance.
Before the Control Center and Production Team could even comprehend the situation and make a decision, the competitors moved first.
“Hmph! Testing us, are they?! I’ll freeze them all!”
Unlike the other competitors who froze at the sight of the monster legion, Alex—reckless and fearless—hurled himself toward the swarm.
“Damn it! We came this far—I’m not losing! Kill them all!”
Led by Mei-ling, the Chinese Hunters surged forward, unleashing the rage accumulated throughout the race upon the monsters.
When Marbas and Amy, who had been trailing, joined the fray, the tens of millions of monsters parted like a sea split in two.
“PD… they’re not losing ground?”
“…Keep the cameras rolling! Rewrite the script and send it to Benjamin!”
The Production Team scrambled to adjust the visuals and dialogue to match the unfolding situation.
“How… can they handle such numbers?”
Alice’s jaw dropped as she watched dozens of Hunters carve through the monster horde.

“It’s the willpower boost. The spectators got excited! But it won’t last long. Redirect the willpower flowing through the magical formations to the competitors!”
“Multiple breaches occurring across Earth!”
Before anyone could catch their breath, nightmarish news flooded the Control Center.
The breach wasn’t limited to Mars. Dozens of Gates erupted simultaneously on the Moon and Earth, spewing forth monster legions.
Ji-seok intercepted the Manager’s astral projection descending from above. The Manager exploited even the smallest gaps, forcing fragments of his consciousness through them.
“Holding a competition to gather willpower—a refreshingly novel strategy. But assuming I would send only astral fragments was naive. Let’s see if humanity can maintain their will even as the ground becomes a sea of fire.”
“Don’t underestimate Earth.”
Ji-seok remained unperturbed by the fragment’s words.
“With your main forces depleted, how do you plan to break through?”
The Manager’s fragment grew anxious at Ji-seok’s composed demeanor.
“You’ve sacrificed much sending countless astral projections—your true form must be weakened. Next time, I’ll come for you. Prepare yourself on your planet.”
The Manager’s expression hardened as Ji-seok’s words proved true; the toll had been considerable. He was immediately sealed away by Ji-seok and the drones.
Ji-seok wanted nothing more than to descend to the surface immediately, but he had to intercept the Manager wherever he attempted to breach through the sky.
“I have no choice but to trust them.”
Ji-seok extended his perception to ensure no new Manager fragments were approaching.
On the ground, under Director Baek Young-shin’s command, Hunters moved in perfect synchronization to seal off the Gates.
Though the elite Hunters were absent, participating in the race, the overall Hunter level had risen significantly, and cutting-edge weapons and magical formations were positioned at every Gate.
“Open fire!”
The moment the Gate Commander’s order rang out, Hunter attacks, magical formations, and modern weaponry unleashed their fury simultaneously.
Under the overwhelming barrage, monsters dissolved the instant they emerged from the Gates.
Up until now, with a nearly perfect defensive system in place, not a single monster had slipped through the breach.
The problem was that breaches were occurring simultaneously in far too many locations.
Without additional reinforcements, the Hunters’ strength gradually waned, yet the monsters continued to multiply.
The monsters used the corpses of their fallen kin as shields, spreading outward from the Gate.
“Damn it! Should we detonate?!”
At the first defensive line, one hundred meters from the Gate’s perimeter, bombs capable of sweeping away monsters in an instant were positioned, but they were a last resort for retreat. The moment they detonated, the defensive line would collapse, and the monsters beyond would scatter in all directions.
[Reinforcements have arrived!]
Just before the unit commander placed his hand on the switch and ordered the Hunters to retreat, hundreds of drones descended from the sky.
The drones, positioned diagonally above the Gate, unfurled an enormous magical circle and fired white light toward the Gate.
“What?! The monsters are collapsing!”
The monsters pouring from the Gate lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground.
[We replicated the Administrator’s mental attack and turned it against the monsters! They can’t resist!]
“That’s Park for you! I knew I could count on you! What are you waiting for?! Push forward!”
The Commander, closing the switch cover, issued orders to the Hunters.
“Director! Sending drones into the Gate is depleting the willpower we’ve accumulated so far! At this rate, we’ll be completely drained in two hours!”
“Chairman! Did you hear?! If we don’t seal the Gate, we can’t even construct the defensive magical circle to block the Administrator’s avatar!”
Jae-in pressed the earpiece button and called out to Ji-seok.
“I’ll seal it completely.”
Green, who had been guarding the sky, reluctantly descended to the ground before the Gate. There, he unfurled an enormous domain. Even an S-rank monster would be helpless and incinerated before Ji-seok’s domain.
Green extended branches from his body, grasped the edge of the Gate, and squeezed it shut.
The Gate gradually contracted until it closed completely, and the monsters pouring out were severed as they caught in the closing aperture.
“Excellent!”
“Ji-seok! Ji-seok!”
“Did you see that?! You monsters! This is the power of the world’s strongest!”
The Hunters present at the scene, witnessing the closing of a Gate for the first time, erupted in cheers.
[It won’t work.]
Gaia sent a telepathic message to Ji-seok.
“Gaia?”
[A Gate will open elsewhere. This is meaningless.]
Just as Gaia predicted, a new Gate tore open several kilometers away from where Ji-seok had sealed the first one.
Since there was no defensive line at that location yet, monsters scattered freely.
“Damn it!”
Green rushed forward and unfurled his domain before the Gate. Expanding it widely and firing his aura in all directions, he captured every fleeing monster.
Bae Na-young, Violet, and even Jang Mi from the relay stone headed to the scene to fight, while Jae-in and the research team, along with Director Baek, turned the Control Center into a war zone.
Even as this unfolded, the willpower they had barely accumulated continued to dwindle.
If they concentrated willpower to block the Administrator’s astral form, the ground would be devastated; if they used willpower to protect the ground, they couldn’t stop the Administrator from descending.
“…Damn it…. This is the one thing I didn’t want to do.”
Ji-seok squeezed his eyes shut. I couldn’t simply give up here.
“…Gaff! Are you listening?! Gaff! It’s time to invoke our contract!”
“I thought you’d never call.”
Gaff approached from behind Green with a smirk, appearing today not as a child but as a full-grown demon—one I had summoned.
“With your power, escaping this situation should be possible, wouldn’t it?”
“Of course. But there’s no point in me blocking if you don’t make a contract. Make a pact with me, and I’ll grant you the strength to resist.”
“Fine. Let’s do it.”
“Whoa, hold on. We need to settle the price first.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ll take your soul thirty years from now.”
“…”
“Why are you hesitating? Do you want to live forever? Thirty more years should be plenty, shouldn’t it?”
“That won’t work.”
“What?”
At my firm refusal, Gaff stared at me with a dumbfounded expression.
“I said no. Offer something else.”
“You’re a funny one. Then, how about the souls of one hundred million intelligent beings from Earth?”
“No. Next.”
“Are you not in a hurry at all?”
“Regardless, that won’t do. Propose terms I can actually agree to.”
“Why do all the crazy ones seek me out? Sigh… Fine! This is an unprecedented contract! Once this crisis is resolved, come to the Demon Realm and obey my commands for one hour.”
It was genuinely an extraordinary condition—if there were no hidden traps.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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