Chapter 66

Miracle Morning

It was a morning when the sunlight felt unusually bright.

Compared to the past week spent wandering among moldy ruins and wreckage, everything felt absurdly crisp and clean. On a normal day, I would've strolled beneath the roadside trees in the warm sunlight and casually turned up my smartphone's brightness.

But now, beneath that same sun, we felt fear.

Just before leaving the alley and stepping onto the main road, we felt our bodies stagger from vibrations pounding through the ground.

The alley was completely windless.

Yet our organs trembled.

The ends of our ponchos fluttered on their own.

Our reactions were immediate.

Without exchanging a single word, we climbed through shattered windows and hid behind storefront counters.

Me.

Shin Nain.

Lee Sejun.

The pastor.

Hamza.

Each of us concealed ourselves behind counters or broken doors while listening to the advance of the monster horde.

Not one of us even considered raising our heads to peek.

The monsters that had been suppressed beneath the fog were now bursting out of their nests beneath the sunlight.

Within mere seconds, countless grotesque cries and footsteps flooded the alley where we'd been standing moments before.

The screams and groans that had once echoed through the city were once again crossing the desolate streets.

Critical mass.

The moment a city of ten million had suffocated beneath the dense fog, the despair of those who had faced the endless tide of monsters now filled the empty alleys and roads once more.

Months later, we were finally experiencing again the moment when the majority of Seoul's citizens had become monsters.

"Aaaahhh!"

"Mister soldier, help me!"

"Run!"

"Take me with you...!"

The fluorescent lights and hanging electrical wires dangling from the ceiling shook violently.

Dust that had accumulated atop pharmacy shelves already ransacked long ago drifted down little by little.

This was a place where artillery and bombing were drowned out by monster footsteps.

Where aircraft crashed from the sky at the same moment autocannons fired.

Where flesh was torn apart and human screams were vomited from monster throats.

Nobody said a word.

Only Shin Nain pulled up his gas mask and turned away with a deathly pale face.

Apparently he'd become something of a professional at vomiting. Instead of immediately retching, he let it dribble out in a long stream.

That was when Hamza silently pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it over.

After rinsing his mouth with water from his canteen, Shin Nain accepted it.

It was one of those cheap pamphlets we'd found in the church.

Yet even that was apparently precious.

With a solemn expression, Shin Nain carefully wiped the vomit from his lips using the pamphlet and then neatly placed it inside a medicine cabinet.

Watching this, I felt an emotion difficult to describe.

Separated by a broken window beyond the pharmacy counter and display shelves, we shared a strange silence.

A space without even a proper wall.

Yet humanity and monsters were divided by it.

Humans cowered in dusty shadows cast by ruined buildings.

Monsters ran freely beneath the bright sunlight, eagerly charging toward artillery fire.

While I was thinking that, the vibrations rattling my stomach finally subsided somewhat.

Everyone's gaze naturally turned toward Hamza and Shin Nain.

Hamza gripped his rifle tightly.

Shin Nain lowered his gas mask again and exhaled damp breath into it.

"Now."

"We have to break through."

The Supreme Mages rose once more.

We stepped over shattered glass and advanced beneath a sky completely free of fog.

Every footstep carried the vibrations of artillery fire and monster movement through the ground.

My organs no longer shook.

Only my heartbeat accelerated slightly in rhythm with the endless tremors.

Huff. Huff. Huff. Huff.

The breathing inside our gas masks grew harsher.

I desperately resisted the urge to sprint.

Instead, I focused solely on walking quickly.

My heart screamed at me to run.

My mind coldly answered.

If you start sprinting now, you'll burn through your stamina.

And if your stamina runs out here, you're dead.

The 760 rounds we'd entrusted to the pastor, Hamza, and Shin Nain.

The pain that served as the price and recoil of magic.

Even the tiny amount of stamina needed to cross this hell.

None of it could be wasted.

We were heading toward the most dangerous place possible.

The Supreme Mages were advancing toward the center of a city that could be called hell without the slightest exaggeration.

Sob...

Waaaah...

At the edge of my vision, beyond a line of dead roadside trees, I glimpsed child-shaped monsters in a small park.

Their split-open stomachs spilled twitching intestines onto the ground.

Nearby, dead trees deprived of sunlight had sprouted grotesque lung-trees whose branches expanded and contracted in rhythm with the creatures' cries.

The tadpole-bellies inhaled the remnants of fog through worm-like intestines.

The lungs hanging from branches opened like ripe fruit, proudly displaying swollen alveoli.

I saw the pastor hesitate.

Only for a moment.

Then he ignored them.

They couldn't be saved.

More importantly, there wasn't a single building nearby suitable as a hiding place.

To our right, every small park around the apartment complex echoed with the cries of tadpole-bellies.

To our left stood enormous buildings with blue-green glass exteriors.

A road sign revealed what they were.

The pastor's footsteps faltered briefly, apparently still bothered by leaving the tadpole-bellies behind.

"Those buildings on the left. They're hospitals."

"Amen."

Only after Shin Nain's response did the pastor begin walking again.

Whether it was Shin Nain's own brief act of mourning or an attempt to pull the pastor out of his thoughts, I didn't ask.

The Supreme Mages continued forward.

Crossing between sidewalks and roads.

Moving as quickly as possible, yet somehow still feeling painfully slow.

The only sounds among the boots crunching pavement and metal clattering against metal were our breathing through gas masks.

The countless screams and groans echoing across the city, along with the constant tremors beneath our feet, became nothing more than background music.

Crunch. Crunch.

With every step, cries resembling the lamentations of beings trapped for eternity erupted around us.

Clink.

Water sloshed inside the canteen hanging from my belt.

Then I noticed something.

Among the countless footsteps of monsters rushing toward Seoul's outskirts, a few sounded different.

Careful.

Stealthy.

As if trying not to step on even a single rotten branch.

Approaching heel-first.

Slowly.

Quietly.

Like a mischievous child sneaking up to startle someone while already suppressing laughter in anticipation of their reaction.

I could feel it.

I tightened my grip on my bayonet and considered turning around.

Then Shin Nain spoke.

"Four heads."

His voice was concise.

"They're following us."

After that, we stopped walking and began half-running.

The ponchos that had only fluttered at the edges now billowed behind us.

The farther we went, the more violently they flapped.

We ran along roads clogged with wrecked vehicles and blown-out tires.

We stepped onto collapsed hoods and threw ourselves forward.

Rolled.

Kept running despite our lungs burning.

BANG!

A hood crumpled beneath someone's foot.

The explosive metallic crash echoed once.

By the time we were squeezing between vehicles like crabs, it echoed again.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The ponchos now whipped behind us like capes.

The inside of my gas mask filled with breath until my eyes stung.

The reek of rubber stabbed at my eyes beneath the dazzling sunlight.

The pastor's shout reached me like divine intervention.

"Jemin! We have to stop them once!"

I turned around with my hand on the hilt.

My lips parted involuntarily.

A gasp escaped.

Amalgams.

Those things that had once been nothing more than fodder.

Now they raced toward us beneath the sunlight.

Their melted, tangled faces stared directly at us.

Dozens of limbs flailed wildly.

Yet somehow they never lost their balance.

Even when they collapsed, they bounced back up like springs.

Leaping.

Running.

Bounding over vehicles.

Their drooping faces tangled together with countless limbs.

Eyes.

Noses.

Mouths.

Embedded throughout the stolen bodies of their victims.

I'd long since become too desensitized to feel horror or revulsion at the sight.

But—

BOOM!

I inhaled sharply for another reason.

There was no longer a central face.

No forehead.

No main body made entirely of heads.

Every face had melted and fused into the creature's limbs and torso.

Against that monster, I had nothing but a bayonet stained with [Right-Hand Blood] and my magic.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Target.

Kill.

Monster.

Five minutes.

Route.

Me.

Normally, the papillae on my tongue would split and bleed.

A painful mouth ulcer at worst.

But beneath the clear sunlight, standing in the middle of a fogless boulevard, things were different.

It tingled.

No—

Far beyond tingling.

It felt like standing in the path of a speeding car while crossing the street.

Like staring directly into oncoming headlights.

My body's warning signals tore through my entire mind.

The root of my tongue went numb.

Sour, salty saliva flooded my mouth.

At the same time, something deep within my brain felt as though invisible eyelids were scraping across it.

Dry.

Rough.

Rubbing against soft neural tissue.

The sensation spread through my entire body.

It wasn't mere irritation.

It felt as though every eyelash on those invisible eyelids was poking and scratching every corner of my brain.

Then the colors in my vision melted.

The sky should have been blue.

Or at least gray.

Instead it turned vivid violet.

Pale purple.

And pain exploded through me.

It felt as though a blade were simultaneously slicing through my tongue and my eyes.

Sharp.

Cold.

Metal tearing through vulnerable flesh.

A pain so terrible it interrupted even the act of moving.

The taste of iron filled my mouth.

Only then did I truly acknowledge the pain I'd been ignoring all this time.

My left hand burned.

The aftereffects from using Stage 2 Eye Magic.

The nerve damage left behind from shooting myself.

The scorching sensation spread through my entire forearm.

Compared to that agony, the feeling of being sliced apart by metal.

The sensation of eyelashes scraping my brain.

All of it became meaningless.

I was burning alive.

That pain eclipsed everything.

The illusion of being burned to death was enough.

Pain stopped me.

Tore apart my mind.

Then pain forced me forward again.

Bound my mind back together.

Before the agony of burning alive, fear and logic both faded away.

That's why I could take another step.

That's why I charged forward with nothing but a bayonet.

As my mouth screamed and my mind was butchered by pain, my reason whispered coldly from somewhere distant.

As though I were observing someone else.

Don't get caught.

That single thought drove my arm.

Slash.

I cut one.

A face fused to a little girl's arm split apart and fell away.

But dozens of limbs kept writhing.

Floating.

Approaching.

The fog that once kindly showed me every route was gone.

I only barely recognized the faint red footprints as a path and swung my blade again and again.

Chop.

Slice.

The sounds of severed flesh repeated endlessly.

My right foot, stretched backward to maintain balance, had already retreated three full steps.

My left foot widened my stance desperately.

Yet my legs trembled.

Limbs hanging uselessly by strips of flesh.

Severed hands scattered across the ground.

Beyond them, clusters of fused faces smiled with layered eyes.

They realized I was tired.

My trembling left foot retreated on its own.

My balance shifted.

My right foot followed.

The Amalgam didn't miss its chance.

GRAB!

Dozens of arms seized me.

The melted facial features stared at me.

Pitying.

Sympathizing.

Mocking.

Welcoming.

The vocal cords of what had once been human greeted me with their dying words.

"What's wrong?"

I struggled.

"You've been acting strange lately."

I slashed wildly.

"Did you hear the rumor? Apparently..."

Before my blade could reach them, countless hands reached me first.

Heavy.

Disgusting.

Overwhelming mass crashed into me.

Every time I tried to shake one off, another arm wrapped around me.

It was as thorough as someone making absolutely certain an overturned cockroach wouldn't even be allowed to kick its legs.

He couldn't endure it.

I fell.

Crash!

Plump, pale baby arms landed on the hood of my poncho.

Their short length wasn't a problem.

The melted faces had become adhesive, linking the baby arms together into long pincers.

Clusters of eyes rolled along the tiny forearms as though holes had been drilled through them.

They stared at me.

A pair of elongated pincers made of baby arms.

Compound eyes sprouting from them.

They settled at the edge of my vision beyond the scratched gas mask lens.

My limbs trapped, I could do nothing but watch the Amalgam approach, pinned beneath a grip stickier than spiderwebs.

More precisely—

I watched the compound eyes.

The overlapping eyes.

The only distinct features remaining among the mashed and tangled faces.

Cloudy pupils whitened by cataracts.

Innocent eyes wandering aimlessly.

Eyes trembling with the urge to cry yet unable to close because they no longer possessed eyelids.

Terrified gazes resembling cracked egg yolks mashed together.

All of them slowly turned toward me.

They looked through the gas mask.

Looked directly at my eyes hiding behind the lenses.

Then the torn mouths linked together into a single grin.

A crying smile.

And then they began to pour down.

The tangled, melted faces.

That dough-like mass of compound eyes and overlapping eyes.

It flowed across my gas mask.

My shoulders and neck locked up.

I was still straining every muscle in my arms and legs, yet nothing changed.

The blade in my right hand slashed uselessly through empty air while dozens of hands restrained me.

My hand trembled so violently that merely holding onto the hilt was all I could manage.

Then the faces spilled onto the mask.

Splat.

The eyes cascading over the left lens met my gaze.

Splat. Splat.

Sticky weight settled atop the rubber mask.

The mass pressed against my cheek.

The faces continued pouring down.

Splat! Splat! Splat!

Layering themselves over the lenses.

Mixing together.

Stacking atop one another.

Watching me.

Only then did I hear something else.

A heavy emotion that even the burning agony running through my left arm had failed to suppress shook my lungs.

Something sticky.

Heavy.

Dark.

And hot.

Rose from the pit of my stomach.

Whoever said despair was cold?

"Haaah..."

At this moment, I was hotter than anyone.

"AAAAAAAH!"

Scalding tears streamed from my eyes.

Foamy saliva spilled from my cracked lips.

I screamed.

"AAAGH! AGH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

That was when the weight crushing me suddenly lightened.

The grip holding my limbs weakened.

The moment I realized it, I swung my bayonet wildly and forced myself upright.

I stood again.

On my own two feet.

Only then did I gasp for air.

Yet the faces stuck stubbornly to the gas mask lenses remained.

I lowered my head and bent my right arm inward.

Positioning the blade so it could stab those disgusting eyes plastered across the mask.

The tip scratched another groove into the lens.

But what I saw more clearly than the scratch was the cluster of eyes being torn apart by steel.

Those eyes.

Were they envious?

Resentful?

Or perhaps the lament of a monster that had failed to reproduce?

I scraped the eyeballs off the lenses.

Scrape. Scrrrape.

[Right-Hand Blood] remained remarkably useful even beneath the sunlight.

Its killing power may have weakened, but it was still excellent for scraping away flesh.

Every stroke of the blade caused the monster remains to stiffen, lose strength, and crumble into dust.

When I finished scraping both lenses clean, the remnants dissolved into mist.

Only the gas mask lenses remained.

Ruined by knife scratches.

That was when Lee Sejun patted my shoulder.

"The thing that jumped you? I beat it to death with the Blood Fist."

"Yeah. Thanks."

That bastard Lee Sejun.

I forgave every annoying thing he'd ever done.

Hamza updated us on the situation.

Coward or not, apparently he'd still been watching the fight instead of running.

"We killed them all. But they don't die easily. Even headshots..."

"Yeah."

I nodded.

"They were strong as hell."

Even without Hamza explaining it, I knew firsthand.

The Amalgams in the fog and the Amalgams beneath sunlight were entirely different creatures.

In the fog, they merely writhed around and bumped into you headfirst.

Under the sun, they manipulated dozens of limbs almost freely.

Even their reproductive instinct had evolved.

Instead of creating new individuals, they used it to reshape their own bodies, fusing flesh together like glue.

As the adrenaline faded, the trembling in my hands became more obvious.

Five minutes.

No matter what, we couldn't last longer than five minutes.

The violet sky.

The crimson cityscape.

Those alone proved it.

Abandoned buildings.

Explosions.

Rising flames.

And despite standing there staring blankly at the scene...

I'd nearly died in less than five minutes.

"Pastor. Ammunition expenditure?"

"Nain and I each burned through two magazines."

Two thirty-round magazines each.

One hundred twenty rounds gone.

Out of seven hundred sixty.

In less than five minutes.

Every Supreme Mage understood the significance of that.

"Combat is impossible."

We couldn't fight.

We couldn't afford to fight.

The cost would destroy us.

"Let's run like hell."

When I turned around, every member of the Supreme Mages looked deathly pale.

It was too late to retreat.

The gunfire had already drawn attention.

Advancing cautiously was no longer an option.

We ran.

Giving everything we had.

Adjusting our spacing.

Focusing solely on never stopping.

A combat regulation drifted through my mind.

Never fire recklessly unless absolutely necessary.

At first I'd thought it was obvious.

Now I understood.

Huff. Huff. Huff.

Hamza's breathing inside his gas mask was becoming ragged.

Shin Nain maintained his rhythm while running with his rifle, letting out short breaths to regulate himself.

Even so, he couldn't hide the faint tremor in his voice.

Some monsters had heard the gunfire.

That fact alone kept us running.

Lee Sejun practically carried the pastor.

Hamza panted desperately but never abandoned his pack.

Shin Nain finally slung his rifle over his shoulder, exhausted from carrying it.

I transferred my bayonet to my left hand and wiped my gas mask lens with my bleeding right hand.

Squeak. Scritch.

Blood seeped into the knife scratches etched across the lenses.

Then I released the mask and gripped my bayonet again.

As we crossed a barricade of abandoned vehicles, a road sign came into view.

[Olympic Bridge]

Beneath the dazzling sunlight, the true face of the city hidden beneath the fog slowly revealed itself alongside the Han River.

Every Supreme Mage looked upward.

Our pace gradually slowed.

A massive bridge spanning the Han River.

A heavy shadow hung above it.

At first glance it resembled vapor.

But it was something more organic.

Just because sunlight was shining didn't mean the sky was cloudless.

Yet today, the sky truly was clear.

The thing covering it wasn't a cloud.

It was a swarm.

Hundreds of thousands.

Perhaps millions.

Human-Skin Jellyfish.

They dyed the transparent sky flesh-colored, waving their long tentacles while filling the heavens.

Above them flew something else entirely.

At first glance, it resembled a centipede.

Then I realized it was wrapped around something.

Falling.

And the moment my eyes discerned the details, my asshole clenched instinctively.

Hundreds of thousands of people.

Merged together.

Where the centipede's legs should have been, long bat-like membranes extended outward.

Every wing was made from human bodies.

The torso had been crushed and melted beyond recognition.

A long slit ran down its center.

Inside the mouth, enormous fingernails made of keratin interlocked in place of teeth.

The flying centipede coiled around a fighter jet.

Its body moved like a leech.

Like a worm.

Its nail-teeth scraped at the canopy while both it and the aircraft plummeted from the sky.

The sound of aircraft crashing into flesh.

That was the source.

The Sky Centipede willingly fed its own body into the fighter jet's engines.

It didn't care if its flesh was shredded.

Burned.

Torn apart by shells.

It wrapped itself around the aircraft with what looked like infinite maternal devotion.

Then both plunged toward the Han River together.

The fighter jet that had ruled the skies became debris floating on the river in mere seconds.

KRAAAAAAASH!

The explosion was tremendous.

Despite the distance, I almost felt as though droplets from the impact were splashing against my mask.

Nobody spoke as the water column rose skyward.

Then we finally saw the war unfolding throughout Seoul.

A brutal aerial battle raged overhead.

Fighter jets unleashed autocannon fire and missiles.

Sky Centipedes curled their bodies and launched themselves at aircraft.

The Human-Skin Jellyfish swarms absorbed bombardments with their own flesh.

Chunks of meat rained from the sky.

Artillery from Seoul's outskirts caused the bridge beneath us to tremble.

Individual gunshots were impossible to hear.

Countless weapons battered the monsters occupying both earth and sky.

Monster blood.

Monster flesh.

Filthy bodily fluids.

Aircraft fuel.

Spent shell casings.

All of it rained down instead of water.

Only one place remained hidden beneath dense fog.

The area around Lotte Tower.

Gangnam.

Jamsil.

I glanced unconsciously toward the territory of the Gaze Monster before continuing forward.

Humanity was pouring every weapon it possessed into the battle.

Yet even modern fighters and missiles couldn't handle everything.

Across the Han River, among the aerial monsters, something translucent floated through the sky.

It continuously vomited flesh-colored sludge.

It looked harmless.

Something a single missile could obliterate instantly.

Yet no fighter attacked it.

No missiles targeted it.

No artillery shells struck it.

Even the pastor narrowed his eyes and stared at the floating mass.

"Can they not see that thing?"

"Yes. Probably."

Now wasn't the time to worry whether pilots or observers could see monsters.

Listening to Shin Nain's answer, we continued weaving between abandoned vehicles.

Then we started running again.

Our boots hammered against the asphalt.

We were desperately trying not to forget the sound of our own footsteps amid the apocalypse.

Huff. Huff.

The smell of rubber filled my lungs inside the mask.

Then a familiar voice echoed behind us.

Hungry.

Monsters were faster than humans.

If all we did was run, we'd eventually be caught.

Even so—

We didn't stop.

Beneath the brilliant sunlight.

Under a cloudless sky.

Amid exploding flesh and the ruins left behind by a city of ten million.

We came face to face with a simple truth.

The sun is equal to all things.

Therefore, it will not save humanity.

People must save themselves.

Anyone who heard Odoki's cry and felt only despair and fear was an amateur.

Beyond that hot, heavy, pitch-black despair, the rational mind of Grand Mage Baek Jemin spun like a turbine.

"Everyone... huff... huff..."

I steadied my breathing and voiced my idea.

"This is an opportunity. Match Odoki's speed. Keep our distance and run with him."

"Baek Jemin! Have you lost your mind?!"

"That bastard eats monsters."

I heard someone suck in a breath behind me.

We had forgotten.

This place was an ecosystem.

A hunting ground.

The fragile alliances between monsters would collapse naturally whenever prey became scarce.

We couldn't fight every monster hiding among the wrecked vehicles and ruins lining this endless road.

Humans were slower than monsters.

But—

"Odoki! Let's eat!"

—we were faster than monsters that stopped to take bites out of their meals.

For the first time, I liked this twisted ecosystem.

A beautiful world of survival of the fittest.

Where different monsters devoured one another.