The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 1242

“We must advance!”

“We’re not ready yet!” Lieutenant General Bonafrot slammed the table and glared at Lieutenant General Bedolph Pareeses across from him.

The plan was solid, but the factional pressure he faced kept getting in the way.

Although Bedolph Pareeses was the same rank as him, not even a full general could casually dismiss Bonafrot’s military achievements and standing.

“I understand your intention, but we’re soldiers. Following orders is what we do.”

“Even if those orders are wrong?”

“Watch it, Bonafrot!” he shouted back.

“I can’t accept this! Sure, we’re a military force meant to protect. But if we just sit around doing nothing and pass the responsibility to someone else, all we’re doing is proving our own incompetence!”

“I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. Even so, do you have a surefire way to eliminate that monster?”

“I do!”

“Have you considered the soldiers who’ll spill their blood for nothing in the process?”

Bonafrot felt like he was about to explode. “If a soldier won’t risk their life to protect civilians, then why the hell are they wearing a uniform or carrying a gun?!”

“You’re not wrong, but why refuse a method that could end this without anyone getting hurt?! Are human lives so cheap to you? There’s no reason your achievements should come at their expense!”

The two felt like they were each talking to a wall, their goals completely misaligned.

Bonafrot rose from his seat. If Bedolph wouldn’t support him, then the number of troops available would shrink drastically, but he also knew wasting any more time could ruin everything.

‘Damn that cowardly old man.’

Bonafrot ground his teeth as he glared at him. “We’re moving out, regardless of what you say!”

“You will have to pay a steep price for this.”

“That’s my business! We’ll see how history judges our two approaches.”

“You’re too ambitious for your own good.”

Done with the argument, Bonafrot turned away and spoke to the aide at his side, “Get the troops ready. I’ll lead them on the battlefield myself.”

“G-General?!”

“We can’t let this chance slip by. A soldier needs to act like a soldier. We shouldn’t be calculating the odds! We should be grabbing our guns and swords and fighting any enemies that show up!!”

* * *

Lieutenant General Bonafrot’s forces quickly began mobilizing.

It was impossible to cut off the monsters created by the Patroshists at their source. Fortunately for him, Bonafrot had no intention of attempting as much.

The role of soldiers on Earth had been shaken left and right by the presence of the Awakened individuals. Bonafrot, a soldier to his core, found it unbearable to see the sacred duty of soldiers treated in such a flippant and hesitant way. The soldiers he had once known long in the past hadn’t been like this.

Grimacing, Bonafrot muttered to himself as he boarded the helicopter, heading swiftly to the battlefield. “That old man Bedolph is just too scared...”

There wasn’t anyone who could break his stubbornness.

“The target is currently standing still after devouring a cluster of abandoned buildings.”

“It needs an enormous amount of energy to move. Before it can start the process, we’ll concentrate our firepower and destroy its energy reserves.”

Bonafrot made full use of the intel the defector from the Patroshists had fed him. He’d heard rumors that there were traitors even within the Alliance. Traitors truly existed everywhere.

Bonafrot had heard about the general outline of the enemy’s plan through the defector, also hearing that the monsters that had appeared were their final card.

If left alone, they’d bring catastrophe. He couldn't allow another disaster like when the Malicious Spirits had appeared.

‘I’m not wrong! I may not have shared the information, or stepped in earlier, but there was no other way.’

Bonafrot wouldn’t entertain the idea of asking Davey O’Rowane for help. While he acknowledged the man’s overwhelming strength, he also recognized that the more people relied on him, the more the military's position would shrink. That, he could never welcome. History may call him stubborn, but all that mattered to him was reaching the goal free of that man’s assistance, regardless of the path taken.

He inspected the tanks loaded with specially prepared warheads and the attack helicopters in front, then looked at the long rows of towed artillery in the rear. They surely had enough firepower. As long as they signaled for air support at the right moment and successfully stopped that monster from achieving its goal, that’d be enough.

“General, it’s too dangerous here! Please, you must—”

“Silence! Do I look like the kind of coward who’d hide behind the lines and watch the battle unfold from a distance?!”

“N-No, sir!” a colonel shouted, wiping cold sweat from his brow.

“When’s air support coming?”

“They’ll arrive in three minutes, sir.”

The monster still hadn’t moved, yet once it did, it’d surely devour an immense amount of mana and grow even stronger. Bonafrot had received intel that the power of Awakened individuals would only boost its growth further, so he strictly banned any Awakened individuals from interfering in the conflict.

Everyone called his decision foolish and rigid. However, Bonafrot trusted his instincts—the same instincts that had helped him identify the traitor within the Patroshists, even after countless doubts assailed and impaled him with monster truck force.

He had questioned everything, all to prepare for this very moment! He stepped forward without hesitation, fiercely shouting, “Listen up! Who are we?! That’s right. We’re soldiers! What’s our purpose?! To protect civilians from external threats! That is the duty we must uphold!”

To him, soldiers were walls, akin to unshakable barriers that protected the common people from danger.

“Why did you become a soldier?! Each of you has your reasons, I’m sure, but I believe there’s one thing we all share.” He turned his head. “You took up arms to protect your families from outside threats. That’s what we do! Right now, standing in front of us is a massive monster threatening all of humanity. So, what will you do?!”

As if they’d been waiting for the signal, the soldiers all raised their hands in a salute and let out a guttural shout in solidarity.

“Grab your weapons! Aim your rifles! Load your rounds and march forward with courage! Your sacrifice today will protect the smiles of every loved one you fight to defend!”

The officers, commanders, and soldiers couldn’t help but wonder if victory was even possible or if they were just marching to their deaths. Yet, none of them rejected his logic.

Three minutes passed in what felt like thirty years.

A deafening roar came from beyond the horizon, and eight bombers shot through the air at incredible speed. At the same time, communication from the fighter squadron came through, and they began shooting their special warheads toward the massive blob monster.

Click! Boom!!!

A thunderous explosion shook the ground.

Bonafrot had struck first.

General Bedolph Pareeses had temporarily pulled back his forces to observe the situation after Davey O’Rowane suddenly left for Korea, but Bonafrot refused to waste the opportunity.

“Commence bombardment!!”

Following his shout, the artillery rained down on the creature emerging from behind the clouds of dust. The endless wave of explosions resembled a storm of fire.

“It’s working!!”

Indeed, the continuous bombardment appeared to have an effect. The monster let out a distorted howl as its massive body twisted in agony. Its flesh was torn apart, clearly appearing close to death.

The monsters couldn’t be brought down by conventional firepower, and their only weakness was extreme heat. Most high temperatures weren’t enough to deal fatal damage, so they needed firepower capable of generating even greater heat. Bonafrot had thus chosen high-performance incendiary rounds for munitions.

“Prepare for the second wave!” Watching the monster thrashing violently without even getting a chance to counterattack, Bonafrot clenched his fist tightly.

It was working!

At this rate, they could take it down on their own, without outside help.

At least, that was what he believed until the creature, squirming and writhing, let out an eerie sound.

“G-General! Something’s wrong with its behavior!!”

The noise wasn’t a scream, instead more of a song. As the strange sound echoed across the battlefield, the soldiers stopped attacking for a moment, caught in a daze as they watched.

The creature, having absorbed all that heat, finally began to move. Its body was still torn apart in many places, yet the song it emitted felt unnaturally calm.

That sound, like the cry of a massive whale, sent a chill down Bonafrot’s spine. “Don’t give it a chance to do anything! Prepare the second wave of attacks!!”

If something went wrong, he knew there’d be no recovering from it. The creature had to be destroyed there and then!

According to the intel, it was supposed to slowly wither and eventually disappear. The Patroshist defector had claimed he didn’t care who won, before revealing every weakness in their hidden weapon.

Bonafrot hadn’t trusted him easily. He’d even conducted multiple cross-verifications. Yet, he hadn’t heard anything about what he was seeing. Even so, he couldn’t abort the mission just because of an unpredictable variable.

He had to press forward.

The creature continued to sing, dark particles scattering from its body. However, Bonafrot simply ignored them. “It’s just making a last-ditch effort. Take it down, before it gets stronger!”

The moment he solidified his decision, he issued a new order, and the bombardment resumed. Shells flew in with terrifying speed and struck the monster in rapid succession, accompanied by tremors and thunderous explosions.

No matter how special the creature was, surely it couldn’t withstand that kind of firepower without a barrier. Bonafrot figured it’d die any moment.

Unfortunately, when the smoke cleared, the monster was still alive. In fact, it had grown even larger than before.

While Bonafrot stood frozen in disbelief, the creature let out another resonating song and suddenly shot out innumerable tentacles at incredible speed. They began tearing into Bonafrot’s army, despite it having been positioned a significant distance away.

“Gaaahhh!!!”

“S-Save me! Please, save me!!”

The tentacles, which reached across hundreds of meters in an instant, split into dozens—then hundreds, then thousands—and began latching onto everything it could, from tanks to people and equipment. It then began sucking everything towards it.

“Aaaargh. Ughhh.”

“G-General...”

The tentacles attacked everyone and everything in the vicinity.

A young officer leapt in front of Lieutenant General Bonafrot, taking the incoming tentacle strike in his place. His entire body bulged with pulsing veins as he stammered, “R-Run... sir.”

Bonafrot stared blankly at him, until his eyes snapped wide open.

“Ahhh!!!” He snatched a rifle from a nearby soldier and unleashed a hail of bullets at the tentacles. Alas, the rifle’s pitiful firepower didn’t even make a scratch on them. He screamed with everything he had, “Attack!! Don’t let it pull any more tricks!! Keep firing!!”

Even as more high-thermal warheads were launched, they simply just hit the monster with no result. Nothing seemed to be happening to it.

It didn’t make sense—they had seemed effective at first! Well, he began questioning if they really had been effective then either.

‘Did I... get played? I was so careful, and yet it was all within their grasp from the start...’

He couldn’t help but think that the enemy had foreseen all of it. Perhaps he had been dancing in the palm of their hand all that time.

No matter how much the soldiers attacked, it had no effect.

To make matters worse, the creature absorbed the attacks to grow even larger. They hadn’t weakened it, only fed it with more power.

The monster wasn’t drawing strength from the surrounding mana. It was absorbing the special attacks directed at it, turning them into fuel for growth.

He’d been deceived! He couldn’t imagine what would happen once it consumed enough energy.

‘Should I retreat before it's too late?’

Amid the chaos, with the battle devolving into a full-blown disaster, he stared at his trembling hand holding a pistol. “Retreat... RETREAT!”

“General!”

Realizing his own foolishness, he screamed while coughing up blood, “Those still alive, retreat at once! Do not attack that thing!! Spread the word!!”

“General! You have to go!”

“I’m not leaving! A soldier who fails his duty only deserves one end. Death awaits me!” he shouted with conviction. He threw aside his pistol and picked up the standard-issue weapon of a soldier who had been drained to a dry husk. He then charged directly into the battlefield.

At that moment, a short but powerful gust of wind swept through, and every living being turned their eyes to the sky.

Suddenly, they all saw black specks falling from above. It was hard to make out at first, like a meteor crashing from space. Soon enough, the falling object became clearly visible.

Bonafrot, whose eyes had always been unnaturally sharp thanks to awakening a vision-based ability, saw the face of the descending figure. His eyes flew wide.

The figure was falling from the sky headfirst with no protection.

Bonafrot muttered blankly, “He should be in Korea. Why is he here?”

He couldn’t understand it. In the midst of the incomprehensible situation, he shouted desperately, “No... No! That thing gets stronger by consuming power!!”

The monster had devoured the military’s full firepower and only grown stronger. If it then absorbed the power of the Saint of Tionis, there would truly be no hope for them.

He had shouted with everything he had, yet his voice couldn’t possibly reach across such a distance. Bonafrot watched helplessly, his hawk-like vision locked onto the man.

Davey twisted his body slightly mid-air, and a blade of blue and red appeared in his hand.

Bonafrot’s eyes once more flew open in disbelief.

Davey spun once in the air, and as his eyes opened mid-spin, Bonafrot collapsed to his knees.

Zzzt!!

Twin arcs of lightning-blue light flashed from Davey’s eyes. Gripping the sword in both hands, Davey plummeted and swung it down.

Slash!!!

The ground beneath the monster abruptly split in a clean horizontal line as time seemed to stand still.

Boom!!

A thunderous roar then followed, along with tens of circular shockwaves that smashed everything in their path.

Bonafrot clung to nearby debris with all his strength to keep from being blown away, letting out a hollow breath. Even from hundreds of meters away, the shockwaves were so violent. He found it beyond extraordinary.

Davey hadn’t even attacked after landing! He’d simply fallen like a meteor and swung his sword one single time.

The horizontal shockwave was then followed by a vertical one. The blue and red blade energy expanded in every direction with devastating intensity, crushing the monster that no weapon had been able to damage.

The creature struggled desperately, writhing to resist, but the blade energy showed no mercy. It crushed, tore, and utterly destroyed the monster until nothing was left of it.

Lieutenant General Bonafrot sat motionless, staring blankly at the scene before him, then lowered his head without a word. The man before him didn’t need to think about matchups or compatibility. Even if the monster had the ability to grow stronger by consuming power, everything had its limit.

Prince Davey—no, the Saint of Tionis—had simply shattered that limit with overwhelming force.

Bonafrot had been a fool, completely deceived. The monster had used them.

While drowning in despair, questioning everything that had happened, he soon felt a presence draw near. Davey, who had stood several hundred meters away where the creature once sat, was suddenly standing right beside him.

Everyone turned their gazes to him instinctively. It wasn’t just awe—it was fear, reverence, and a flood of emotions no one could put into words.

Bonafrot assumed the Saint of Tionis had already known that the monster grew stronger by consuming their power. From a certain perspective, he and his army had done nothing but interfere in the natural course of events.

In the end, it was Davey who had resolved the situation. Bonafrot and his men had abandoned the very duty they were supposed to fulfill, blinded by the chance for glory. They had brought about such a disaster through sheer incompetence.

No one said a word.

Even anger would’ve been justified, yet Davey simply looked at Bonafrot, then turned away. “Your firepower kept its focus. You did well.”

That was all.

Everyone blinked in disbelief. It was clearly nonsense. An utterly unfounded statement.

However, Bonafrot understood. He knew exactly why Davey had said it.

‘He... gave meaning to the fallen...’

Davey had offered a single sentence that gave purpose to the deaths of the soldiers, those who had perished due to Bonafrot’s mistake.

He bowed his head in silence. In the end, Bonafrot was someone who could never compare to Davey.

He slowly rose to his feet in a daze, then saluted the very man he had feared most and trusted least.

He understood the gesture.

Tears streamed down his face. “Lieutenant General Bonafrot Lucius, of the Alliance 3rd Army Corps, reporting in.”

“Acknowledged,” Davey responded in a low, calm voice. His face was heavy with weariness.

“I hereby report the completion of the special operation.”

“You did well.”

It was a worthless play, and the reality of it was so cruel. Yet, it gave meaning to those left behind, and to those who had died in vain.

It had no practical value, but was all Davey could offer. Despite knowing that Bonafrot had distrusted and opposed him from the start, he had still chosen to help them.

Bonafrot couldn’t say anything in return. He simply bowed his head. He showed both a soldier’s gratitude and a commander’s remorse. In the end, Bonafrot had made countless soldiers die in vain.

While it might’ve been his duty as a soldier to pursue an enemy, it had nearly become a meaningless sacrifice, just as General Bedolph had warned.

A general who failed his mission had to carry the full weight of that failure.

“I know, so don’t say anything. I know how heavy it is,” Davey spoke softly, his gaze fixed on the devastated battlefield, never once looking at Bonafrot.

That single sentence made Bonafrot collapse to his knees and bury his face in his hands. He stood there a long time, overcome with emotion.