This is a catastrophe.’
A three-story villa collapsed like a toy house.
The hand fumbled over the wreckage before scooping up a handful of debris like an excavator.
‘BAM!
SLAM!’
The rubble rained down on a fleeing car, blocking its path.
A car racing down the road slammed to a halt with a piercing screech, and the vehicle behind it plowed straight into its rear bumper.
A deathly silence descended.
‘Doesn’t it detect movement by sound?
How can it aim so precisely?
It shouldn’t be able to see.’
Dana stared at the Gate again.
As she narrowed her eyes, something she had missed before came into focus.
A strange creature clung to the arm connected to the Gate.
It resembled an orangutan, covered in brown, finger-like fur, with arms so long they dragged on the ground.
‘A low-level demon beast is acting as the hand’s eyes.’
She scanned her surroundings.
Beyond a mangled corpse, she spotted a mid-sized SUV—the one the other students had tried to escape in.
Dana hauled the shell-shocked Jintae over to the vehicle.
The engine roared to life, and Jintae began to hyperventilate, gasping as if he were about to suffocate.
He fumbled in the glove compartment, pulled out a black plastic bag, and pressed it to his mouth, taking deep, ragged breaths.
Once he’d finally steadied himself, his gaze drifted to the window, where mangled remains that could no longer be called corpses were scattered across the pavement.
He trembled, and Dana’s voice cut through his fear, sharp and unyielding.
“Don’t look.
Fear will only paralyze you.
We need to keep our heads clear.”
“Wh-what are we going to do?”
“We have to get away from that monster.”
“But what if it spots us when we move?
L-look!
It’s hitting the cars.”
“Even with that low-rank demon beast acting as its eyes, it can’t be as precise as having its own.” Shifting gears, Dana issued a sharp warning.
“Buckle up.
This is going to be rough.”
The instant Jintae clutched his seatbelt like a lifeline, the car shot forward, not onto the road, but carving a path between the buildings.
Other cars were fleeing in every direction, just as they were.
But not everyone was so lucky.
“I-I have to get out of here!” a young man yelled, scrambling onto a motorcycle.
Just as he gunned the engine, the red eyes of the demon beast on the hand’s arm swiveled toward him.
“Kree!
Kreeee!”
The hand, which had been hurling chunks of concrete, changed its target.
Its talons, sharp as reinforced steel, hooked into the young man’s back.
“Aaaargh!”
Unspeakable terror contorted the young man’s face as he was hoisted into the air like a prize from a claw machine.
The grotesquely long fingers closed around him.
Everyone watched, anticipating the inevitable but unable to look away, as if refusing to believe it could truly happen.
Slowly, deliberately, the fingers tightened into a fist.
‘Splat!’
A thick slurry of blood and flesh dripped to the ground.
The sight of what was no longer human triggered a primal fear.
Denial was the mind’s first defense against such unbearable horror.
The onlookers, watching as if it were a scene from a movie, stared blankly as the massive hand slowly unfurled.
Something coated in a viscous, bloody paste fell from its palm and rolled to the feet of an old man.
It was the young man’s half-crushed head.
‘Thud.’
The old man’s legs buckled, and he fainted on the spot.
A sound like dry laughter echoed through the street.
Dana, watching in the rearview mirror, felt her stomach clench and bit her lip so hard she could taste blood.
A peaceful city twisted into a hellscape—the scene clawed at her trauma.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, her expression was venomous.
‘A demon beast with intelligence.
This is the worst-case scenario.’
Doha had always said that an intelligent demon beast, even a weaker one, was twice as dangerous as a mindless brute.
And this was the power it wielded with just one arm exposed.
The Gate had to be C-rank or higher.
‘Could be B-rank?
It couldn’t be A-rank, could it?
An A-rank Gate would trigger a level-one national state of emergency.’
‘What about Doha oppa?
Where is he?’
A chill of dread snaked down her spine.
In that brief moment of distraction, the low-level demon beast’s eyes locked onto their SUV.
Dana’s own eyes, which had been darting between obstacles, widened in alarm.
She slammed on the brakes.
‘Screeeeeech!’
Debris from a collapsed villa rained down, piling up just inches from the car’s front bumper.
Ten more seconds and they would have been crushed.
She immediately threw the car into reverse, but it only tilted precariously.
“Wh-what’s wrong with it?”
“I think a tire’s damaged.”
Dana hesitated for a second before jumping out of the car.
Thankfully, no steel beams had pierced the frame, but the impact from the falling debris had clearly done some damage.
‘It’s not undrivable.’
“Is it okay?” Jintae asked, climbing out after her.
“Get back in, quickly,” she ordered.
As Dana moved toward the driver’s side, the back of her neck prickled with a sudden, icy cold.
The blood drained from her face.
‘No way.’
She whipped around.
Doha had once startled her with a gag toy—a paper snake that shot out of a box.
Just like that, the hand was lunging toward her.
Its reflection filled her eyes.
Death was approaching in the form of a monster.
The world slowed to a crawl, every detail sharp and vivid.
This was the second time she had felt death so intimately.
‘They say your life flashes before your eyes, but I’m not seeing anything.’
Out of habit, she called for Doha—the hero who had saved her from the brink of death.
Just then, a jet-black shadow swept in front of her like a great bird.
‘Oppa?’
The hope on Dana’s face twisted into confusion.
Fire erupted as if from nowhere.
‘Huh?’
The slow motion shattered, and sound rushed back in.
A ghastly scream, loud enough to burst eardrums, swallowed the warm spring sunlight.
The man was, impossibly, floating in the air.
He wore equipment forged from magic stones, and plasma flickered beneath his feet.
Backlit by the sun, his figure was a stark black silhouette.
A strange wave of déjà vu washed over her.
Stumbling, Dana rubbed her eyes hard.
She saw a towering frame, sturdy like a tree, and jet-black hair that looked as if it were cut from the night sky.
Broad shoulders, long legs, casual clothes, and a relaxed posture—all set against the backdrop of a ruined city.
“M-Mujin Park!”
Dazed, Dana snapped to her senses and looked around.
The citizens who had been fleeing in terror had stopped, all of them staring in their direction.
“It’s really him!”
A cheer erupted, a chaotic mix of joy, relief, and tears.
The certainty that they were saved finally pushed back the tide of despair.
The arrival of a single man had completely reversed the hopeless atmosphere.
The hair on the back of Dana’s neck stood on end, but she forced herself to remain calm.
‘Mujin Park?’
Just then, the man moved.
A long ray of sunlight cut through the dust, and Dana could finally see his face clearly.
The awakened beings from the center were Korea’s heroes, and among them, Mujin Park was an Esper who commanded as much media attention as any celebrity.
Though she had never met him, she knew his face.
There were fewer than twenty A-rank Espers in all of Korea, and it was no exaggeration to say that everyone knew of Mujin Park and Doha Lee, both in their mid-twenties.
They hadn’t been mistaken.
Somehow, Mujin Park was here.
“W-we’re saved!
We’re saved!
An Esper is here!
It’s a miracle!”
While others embraced in relief, Dana scanned the area.
‘Did the center already send someone?
Then what about Doha oppa?’
There was no one else.
Mujin was alone.
“Let’s go!” Jintae urged, pulling her along as the car in front of them cleared a path.
“But he can’t do it alone!”
“What are you talking about?” Jintae’s brow furrowed in disbelief.
“He’s an Esper!
A superhuman!
The best way we can help is by getting out of his way.”
It struck Dana that he was right.
‘What was I thinking I could do here?’ She shook her head and hurried forward.
Just then, a voice reached her ears.
“…Ah, monkeys are no fun.”
The voice was like dense, flowing sand, and its languid, almost sleepy tone made Dana turn her head instinctively.
He spoke as if he had come here to play.
Of course, there was no one else there.
It was just Mujin, flames wreathing his hands as he watched the looming hand.
Had she misheard?
‘There’s no way the great hero Mujin Park would treat this situation like a game.’
Dana shut the car door, but her gaze kept drifting back.
Was it just a feeling?
She had a powerful sense that she couldn’t leave just yet.
Through the open window, she saw him hurl a fireball at the monster.
She shook her head reflexively.
‘What’s he going to do with a little flame like that?’
But the moment the fire made contact, the hand flinched, retracting its fingers and pulling back more than ten feet as if startled.
‘Huh?’
It was a bizarre reaction from the creature that had been killing people as if they were toys.
Dana pressed her face to the window.
As Jintae drove away, the distance between Mujin and the hand grew.
The hand’s attention was now fixed solely on Mujin.
The fireball dropped to the ground, and Dana saw it with perfect clarity: the solid asphalt melted like water.
The image burned itself into her mind.
‘Vroooooom.’
Jintae steered the car into an alley between shattered buildings and let out a shuddering sigh.
“He saved us.
We were so close to dying.”
Dana leaned out the open window to check on the Gate.
“It’s too soon to say that, Jintae.”
“What do you mean?”
“Low-level demon beasts are getting through.”