‘Thought Projection isn’t working.’
No matter how loudly one shouted through a loudspeaker, in a situation this noisy, it would not reach beyond a soundproof wall.
Song Ji-hu wiped away the blood running down to his lips and narrowed his eyes.
‘If it doesn’t work from outside, I’ll connect from inside.’
To use a comparison, Thought Projection was a one-way transmission. But Mental Link was two-way sharing.
‘If I use Mental Link inside Ollie Barclay’s mental imagery world… would it feel like laying a direct line?’
Of course, there was risk. Mental Link was only fully established when the other party accepted it as well. But the boy Ollie Barclay was essentially in a state where he barely had consciousness.
‘Still, I have no choice but to try something.’
Even as the pouring shockwaves pushed his body back, Song Ji-hu kept his hand on Ollie Barclay’s head and raised his concentration.
“Mental Link.”
HUM-!
From the end of Song Ji-hu’s consciousness, one thin silver thread stretched toward the boy curled up on the floor of the crater.
“It worked…!”
Somehow, the connection was made.
Because he had forcibly used Mental Link after forcing his way into Mental Dive, the connection was, as expected, extremely unstable.
“Even fragments of emotion going back and forth are better than nothing.”
Song Ji-hu focused all his nerves on Ollie Barclay’s connected mind.
“Come on, show me anything….”
He kept transmitting something to Ollie Barclay, but on the other side, silence continued, without even the sound of breathing.
Just as he wondered whether he needed to think of another method.
Very faintly, something stirred and surfaced from the other side.
Not an emotion, nor language, but a single image created by the deepest unconscious.
Someone’s back.
It was a broad, solid back. The silhouette of a huge man standing with his back to a red-burning sunset.
The hem of an old leather jacket fluttering in the wind, rough hands stained with dust.
Without language, without explanation, that single back was protecting young Ollie from every threat in the world, making him feel safer than anything else.
Song Ji-hu could not know who it was.
His father, perhaps, or some hero Ollie had admired. It could have been a scene from his childhood.
But the core was one thing.
‘Standing to protect someone.’
That was the essence of the human being named Ollie Barclay.
The one thing the Abyssal Monarch could not erase in the end, no matter how he distorted memories, amplified guilt, and gnawed away at the Ego.
‘Good. This is enough.’
The value that strong people protect the weak.
Song Ji-hu’s gaze changed.
From more than 100 years, he drew out the single scene that remained clearest.
Im Jae-hyeok.
His comrade, who had stood in his way with his own back while spilling blood, telling him to run.
The person who had stood using his broken shield as a cane and tried to protect someone until the very end.
Song Ji-hu poured the memory of a back belonging to one who stood for someone else into Ollie Barclay in its purest form.
The surging shadows swung their fists. At some point, debris golems approached, shaking the ground.
The surging shadows swung their fists. A debris golem approached from behind. Shockwaves poured in from every direction.
Song Ji-hu endured all of it while injecting the memory and maintaining the connection.
The nosebleed would not stop and wet his chin. The edges of his vision began narrowing into black.
‘Hold out.’
Song Ji-hu bit his tongue and held on to his consciousness as it tried to collapse.
And then-
The boy Ollie reacted.
“I… broke it. I… I…?”
The muttering that had repeated like a broken radio cut off.
The boy’s head turned upward ever so slightly.
Between the golden-brown hair that had hung limply and covered his face, vitality flashed through his empty eyes.
A back.
The back of someone standing to protect him, just as it had in the past, appeared on the boy’s retinas.
The destruction around the crater stopped.
The loop halted, entering a still state without reconstruction or destruction.
The flames scattering through the air stopped, the screams died down, and the world held its breath.
‘It worked…!’
That was the moment Song Ji-hu clenched his fist inside Ollie’s awakened mind.
At that very instant.
At the edge of the crater, black mist rippled, and a form rose up.
A silhouette of a middle-aged man with broad shoulders, a straight posture, and a cowboy hat in one hand.
And a warm, endlessly benevolent smile appeared on his face.
“Ollie.”
He parted his lips. The gentlest voice in the world rang out.
“…Dad…?”
The boy Ollie’s eyes widened. A light of longing entered his empty eyes.
But the moment Song Ji-hu saw that being, goosebumps rose along his spine. At the same time, rage surged from the tips of his feet to the crown of his head.
Shepherd.
A minion of the Abyssal Monarch and the manager who guided the souls of harvested S-rank Hunters to that bastard.
An archenemy Song Ji-hu had faced countless times across the previous six lives. Because of that bastard, the souls of countless comrades had been harvested before they could even fight properly.
Scenes from his past lives flashed by. The backs of comrades forced to their knees, and the black hand slowly falling over them.
GRIND-
Shepherd spoke in the father’s voice.
“Ollie. Do not come closer.”
A warm yet sorrowful voice. He was perfectly imitating the tone of a father worried for his son.
“You are a monster. You will hurt Daddy.”
The boy’s body stiffened. The hope that had lifted its head only moments ago began lowering it again.
“I… I….”
He was about to collapse.
“She…pherd!”
Song Ji-hu explosively activated Residual Thought.
There was no love there, nor any concern.
Only the cold and alien poison of the abyss, rotting the soul.
“Come to your senses! That isn’t your father.”
Song Ji-hu’s voice cut across the crater. Shepherd’s benevolent smile twisted grotesquely for an instant.
“So there was an intruder. I wondered why the harvest was taking so long.”
Shepherd threw off the cumbersome mask.
The face of the benevolent father split like paper, and black smoke leaked from the cracks.
The remains of what had been a father melted completely away, and what was revealed inside was formless darkness.
Pure darkness without outline or boundary.
And at the center of that darkness, one blood-red eye slowly focused and flashed.
“My management was negligent.”
Shepherd’s voice rang out.
The warmth disappeared, leaving only a mechanical sound like metal being scraped.
“To think there is a human who can enter mental imagery worlds.”
The blood-red eye spewed killing intent toward Song Ji-hu.
“But you chose the wrong place. To think you would be caught by my eye now, of all times.”
“Graaaaaah-!”
Using his rage as propulsion, Song Ji-hu charged at Shepherd. His dagger cut through the shadow. He raised Mental Barrier and thrust his blade toward the bastard’s blood-red eye.
THUD-!
When Shepherd swung his arm, the ground beneath Song Ji-hu flipped over and sent his body flying.
“A bug that does not even know its place.”
When Shepherd stretched out a hand, an entire collapsed building rose into the air.
A concrete mass weighing dozens of tons became a projectile and flew toward Song Ji-hu.
CRAAAAASH-!
Song Ji-hu threw himself forward, and the building slammed into the ground, deepening the crater even further.
“You dodged this, too.”
When Shepherd raised both hands, the entire city screamed and trembled.
Debris from every direction rose all at once and covered the sky.
Dozens, hundreds of concrete and rebar fragments poured down like rain.
Song Ji-hu spread Mental Barrier in the shape of a dome.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The moment the silver film wrapped over his head, the rain of debris battered the barrier.
The barrier screamed.
When cracks spread, he ground down his mental power to fill them, and when it broke again, he raised it again.
Shepherd sneered and forcibly accelerated the loop.
As the cycle of destruction sped up, the city repeated reconstruction and destruction like mad.
One cycle in ten seconds. One cycle in five seconds.
Every time it was reconstructed, golems regenerated, and every time it was destroyed, rain of debris poured down.
“Die, bug.”
Within a sense of speed as if the world were being torn apart, Shepherd flipped the ground. Red magic power like lava erupted beneath Song Ji-hu’s feet.
Song Ji-hu ran. Avoiding the cracked ground, he slipped between the debris.
The combat instincts sleeping in his soul awakened every cell.
He redeployed the barrier according to Shepherd’s attacks, struck down flying fragments with his dagger, and stabbed into openings to counterattack.
SIZZLE-!
The magic power carried by his dagger grazed Shepherd’s shoulder. Black smoke burned with a sizzling sound.
“Ghk…!”
For the first time, Shepherd let out a groan of pain.
Although it recovered immediately, Song Ji-hu’s attack had definitely worked.
‘I’m not landing any major effective hits.’
But Song Ji-hu did not stop.
Everything was lacking, but he had experience from crossing the line of death thousands of times.
‘When there are no teeth, use the gums.’
Mental Barrier, Thought Projection, Mental Detection.
They were all support or defense skills, but Song Ji-hu used them with astonishing effectiveness to block or interfere with Shepherd’s attacks.
“Graaaagh! You damn fly!”
Bit by bit. One exchange, then two. He chipped away at Shepherd’s stamina.
And even during battle, he did not let go of the thread connected to the boy Ollie. Because the owner of this mental imagery was Ollie Barclay.
No matter how much Shepherd manipulated the environment, he could not seize full control.
Song Ji-hu transmitted the sensation of battle, Shepherd’s deception, and his own rage to the boy exactly as they were.
“That… wasn’t Dad?”
A question flowed from the boy’s mouth.
That one sentence. The effect of that one mere sentence was immediate.
Shepherd’s authority, which had been expanding its territory, shook.
The building Shepherd had been about to throw stopped in midair.
The speed of the forcibly accelerated loop slowed sharply, and the flying debris stopped in the air.
The boy Ollie lifted his head. His eyes were open.
‘Now!’
Song Ji-hu did not miss the opening and poured Thought Projection into Ollie.
The back of one who stood to protect someone. The certainty that his power existed not for destruction, but for protection.
“You bastard! Insolent…!”
But as if Shepherd also knew that if he was pushed back here, he would not be able to harvest, he began his final desperate struggle.
The blood-red eye swelled explosively, and he tried to crush the entire world by forcibly accelerating the loop to its limit.
However, Ollie Barclay’s Ego reacted.
The fingers of the curled-up boy scratched against the ground. His knees straightened, and his back stood tall.
The boy became a young man, then changed into the Ollie Barclay Song Ji-hu had seen outside.
Rage.
Rage toward the monster that had freely manipulated his mental imagery world and deceived him with his father’s face shook the entire mental imagery world.
FWOOSH-!
With Ollie Barclay at the center, a pillar of light rose.
Get out. All of you.
A shockwave spread in every direction.
Shepherd’s form was torn apart, and Song Ji-hu’s body was also swept up in the storm.
Between the scattering black smoke, the blood-red eye glared at Song Ji-hu as if it would tear him to death.
“I will remember your face.”
At those words, Song Ji-hu gritted his teeth and smiled. The same went for him.
“Get out of my world!”
Ollie Barclay pushed both Shepherd and Song Ji-hu out of the mental imagery world.
The world faded into white.