[Translator – Aren]
I crawled beneath the twisted wreckage of the train and lay flat against the ground, steadying my breathing.
-Huuff, huuff—.
It was hard to conceal the sound of breathing through the gas mask.
Whenever I inhaled, the rubber slightly pulled inward, the damp texture brushing faintly against my cheeks. Whenever I exhaled, the breath that couldn’t fully escape swirled around inside the mask before condensing into tiny droplets like dew.
Because of the fog that had already risen to thigh level when we descended, everything beyond the gas mask lenses looked hazy and pale. The cold dampness of the marble floor tiles seeped through my clothes and into my skin.
But moving recklessly was impossible.
Beyond the gray fog, I could see the silhouette of the capillary strands retracting and expanding as they returned toward the ceiling. At the same time, the monster’s grotesque grains overlapped with the sound of footsteps.
-Gurglegurglegurgle...
I had learned Eye-branch magic, not Ear-branch magic. So I had no idea what that creature was muttering to itself. For the first time today, I was deeply grateful for that fact. It was also the first moment I genuinely felt sorry for that Shitmaster, Shin Nain.-Tak.
The priest monster stepped forward, its foot striking the rail line and echoing throughout the underground space.
-Tak, tak.
The being that had once knelt before an altar in prayer no longer knelt. The eyes that must once have gazed upon a cross were nowhere to be found, and yet it still wandered in search of the living.
But a thing without eyes had obvious limitations. The priest monster, walking along the tracks beneath the platform, suddenly came to a halt. Through the fog, I saw its silhouette move.
The priest monster slowly raised its limp arms and gently touched the place where its head had once been. There was no gurgling moan now. Only the empty, desperate gesture of something longing for what was gone.
The thick artery stretching upward from its spine, rooted deep into the ceiling, brushed against its hands.
The priest monster became utterly still, as though time itself had frozen. It cradled the artery with both hands, caressing it gently, feeling the pulse of that alien life from extending all the way into the ceiling.
-Thump.
The capillaries across the ceiling pulsed violently, glowing a vivid crimson all at once. For a brief moment, even the flickering fluorescent lights were overwhelmed.
Beneath the eerie red glow, the priest monster remained silent. Instead, as though conducting some sacred rite, it lovingly caressed and embraced its own artery while singing through its limp, dangling tongue.
That was the attack.
A hymn sung by a priest whose lips, mouth, and vocal cords were no longer properly intact. The gurgling groans and flopping tongue striking against its ruined jaw replaced drums and music boxes alike, and soon grotesque rhythms and melodies began colliding throughout the underground chamber.
The problem was the dizziness.
I clutched at my chest while pinning my rifle beneath my arm, but I couldn’t suppress the nausea surging upward. Back when I lived alone, I once got food poisoning from eating week-old delivery food because I didn’t want to waste money, but this felt even worse. An overwhelming weakness washed over me as my vision spun violently.
If…I kept holding it in, I was going to keep retching.
"Ugh…!”
I tore off my gas mask and immediately turned my head.
"Bleeeeegh…”
Immediately, sour stomach acid poured out of me. Thank god I hadn’t eaten much for lunch. At that moment, I felt endless gratitude toward my past self for developing the habit of eating light breakfasts.
Relieved that I’d managed to vomit before getting any inside the mask, I spat out the remaining saliva and quickly shoved the gas mask back on.
There was still the possibility that blood agents remained in this space. Or maybe that monster could do something similar. Keeping that warning in mind, I tightened my grip on the rifle tucked beneath my arm, and then I felt a chill crawling down my spine, noticing the priest monster was looking directly at me.
It had no eyes, and yet it felt like our gazes had met. The priest monster stood there silently, looking straight at me, who was hiding beneath the crumpled subway car deep inside the fog.
"..."
The burning sensation surged through my eyes again, and when I looked 10 seconds ahead, red footprints were already stamped over my right hand.
At that very moment, I moved faster than I ever had in my entire life.
I curled and uncurled my body like a shrimp. I didn’t even care that vomit smeared across my pants. I just tumbled away however I could. The instant I did, I finally understood what had happened where I’d been lying moments earlier.
Within the gray haze of dust, fog, shattered flooring, and ceiling debris, capillaries had spread across the train car like a tightly woven net.
The capillaries extending down from the ceiling began wrapping around the spot I’d occupied with the softness and secrecy of a mother caressing her beloved child. Every time the web of vessels surrounding the subway car pulsed and twitched, it felt like the entire train compartment itself had transformed into a lump of living flesh.
A cold bead of sweat slid down my spine when I saw that.
There was no sound. Normally, an attack descending from above should’ve produced at least the sound of air being sliced through, but there was nothing. It moved quietly, stealthily.
almost as though it was deliberately trying to avoid detection.
One chilling question crossed my mind.
Did it know?
My trembling hand tightened around the rifle. Still lying flat against the ground, I slowly turned my head and stared toward the silhouette of the priest monster with the fog. The creature was still watching the narrow gap beneath the train where I had briefly hidden while vomiting.
I aimed my rifle and made my decision.
I had to shoot. But should I use 2nd Stage Eye-branch magic as well?
My hesitation only lasted a moment.
I always choose the more certain option.
I wedged the rifle beneath my arm, placed my right index finger against the trigger, and finished aiming. Pain had to be fast and decisive. There wasn’t time to remove my gloves or prepare properly.
I clenched my left fist and slammed it against the floor in one swift motion. Doing my best to keep the rifle steady, I pulled the trigger.
-Bang, Babang!
The first thing I heard was the sound of shell casings bouncing across the floor. I only noticed the blood afterward. But in that same instant, someone grabbed the back of my neck and yanked me away with desperate force.
My rifle slammed against the ground, then I rolled over it. Pain shot through my shoulders and back hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.
But before I could even groan, gunfire erupted.
Ratata...
The shots echoed violently through the underground space, loud enough to make my ears ring. Only then did I lift my head to see who had dragged me away.
"The Lord is with us."
One sentence was enough for me to know who it was.
That Shitmaster, Shin Nain… Instead of offering excuses, he jerked his chin toward the place where I’d been firing moments earlier. I couldn’t even manage to let out a groan. The writhing crimson capillaries pulsed violently, tangled together like fishing nets as they stabbed into the spit where I’d been lying. But the strangest thing was the priest monster I had definitely shot was nowhere to be seen inside the fog.
There was no way I’d killed it. I didn’t even know where its weak point was. A few bullets in the torso wouldn’t be enough to kill something like that. While I was still extremely flustered, Shin Nain quickly slapped my shoulder.
"Even if we split up, I can still hear you. Think in your head. I’ll try to coordinate with you.”
"What about Lee Sejun?”
"We’ll regroup with him later."
We immediately split up again.
Shin Nain headed toward the direction where the last gunshots had come from, while I carefully advanced along the intact section of the platform. Now that we understood how bizarre the priest monster’s attacks were and just how dominant it was in this underground space, staying grouped together was a good way to get wiped out all at once.
Just in case, I kept my left hand free.
If I needed to stop an attack immediately, I wanted the freedom to slam it against something or even bite through my glove if necessary.
Keeping my left hand slightly raised, I scanned my surroundings and advanced one cautious step at a time.
Firing from under my right armpit was a terrible shooting stance, but I didn’t have much of a choice here. If I got attacked, it would be better to stop the attack first and let one of the others fire toward the sound of the gunshots.
But as I continued thinking, silence descended upon the place.
The crunch of shattered tile fragments beneath my combat boots echoed softly through the station.
-Crunch, crunch…
My breathing almost became ragged. Worried that the sound might escape through the gas mask, I deliberately held my breath.
Then the pounding of my own heart began hammering against my eardrums.
I slowly inhaled and exhaled. My exhausted body, worn down by tension and fatigue, screamed in protest as cold sweat trickled down my cheek.
Without realizing it, I came to a stop. The echoes were too loud. I had walked perhaps 50 paces through the center of the platform when a horrifying thought crept into my mind. What if I were the only one left down here? Considering how quiet and subtle the priest monster’s ambushes were, had it already gotten the other two?
What if I were the only survivor wandering this underground station?
-Gulp.
I became acutely aware of the sound of myself swallowing.
A terrified voice inside my head screamed at me to run. But intertwined with my most loyal instinct, my survival instinct, my reason coldly laid out the truth.
Run? Run where?
These monsters weren’t mere corpses or mindless abominations. They were creatures born from the twisted remains of human flesh. Predators and parasites capable of patience that knew how to lie in wait to hunt. They were probably waiting for me to run.
It would make the hunt easier.
At the same time, they had no intention of letting me escape. For a hunter, being exposed was fatal. If these things possessed intelligence, and they clearly did, then whether through instinct or calculation, they would never allow any of us to leave alive.
Then where was it watching from?
I decided to stop thinking of the priest monster as something that had once been human. I didn’t care that it still wore a human shape. It was simply a monster.
The moment I made that decision, I began to glimpse something of their grotesque ecology and true purpose.
I lowered my raised left hand and pulled back my poncho. Then I switched on the tactical light clipped to the left chest pocket. Click! With the sound of a mechanical device engaging, proper light finally flooded the underground chamber that had until now been ruled by flickering fluorescent tubes and ominous crimson glows.
As the beam swept forward, the platform floor and rail tracks emerged clearly from beneath the swirling fog.
Bloodstained combat uniforms and torn articles of clothing were scattered everywhere. Things we hadn’t been able to properly see when viewing the station entrance through the reconnaissance drones.
At that moment, I remembered the briefing.
[2 weeks of heavy biochemical exposure for decontamination.]
I no longer hesitated.
I raised my rifle in one swift motion, aiming toward the ceiling where the pulsing veins were. I squeezed the trigger without even checking what my flashlight illuminated.
-Bang! Babang!
The recoil slammed violently into my shoulder.
My ears rang so badly that everything sounded muffled. Without realizing it, my mouth had fallen open. What came out was a battlecry, or maybe a groan. I guess it was part desperate scream that I desperately hoped sounded like a battle cry.
The moment came when pulling the trigger no longer led to shell casings being ejected. Only an empty clicking sound.
I bit down on my left glove and tore it off with my teeth. Then I threw myself aside.
-Thud!
What landed where I had been standing was a corpse. A corpse that was still alive.
However, it wasn’t the corpse I had expected.
Instead of the black cassock with its torn sleeves, this one wore a casual outfit, giving off a delinquent vibe with a string of prayer beads hanging around its neck. Only the lower jaw and a dangling tongue remained of its head, while the artery extending from its spine throbbed violently as it emitted a grotesque gurgling noise.
-Gurglegurglegurgle...
Bosal Geulmun. He had transformed into something similar to the priest monster. The impact of the fall had twisted one of his arms into an impossible angle, yet he continued flailing them while his limp tongue swung back and forth. Then he looked at me.
Despite not having eyes, he somehow recognized me perfectly.
The moment our gazes met, someone grabbed my poncho and yanked me backward.
"Get down!”
Following Shin Nain’s shout, I rolled again, then flattened myself against the ground.
The explosion came immediately afterward.
-Boom!
Shrapnel flew in every direction.
It was immediately followed by a shrill ringing that overwhelmed my ears. I glimpsed the ravaged platform through my half-lidded eyes.
Tiny chunks of flesh and metal fragments swept through the underground station. The shockwave was incomparable to mere gunfire, shaking the very air. Even the fog itself was pushed aside by the blast.
When I raised my head, I saw the Bosal Geulmun monster. Its right arm and lower body had been completely blown away. The artery extending from its spine contracted and writhed as it dragged the creature back toward the ceiling.
Dangling precariously from that bizarre cord, it swayed back and forth. Its tongue, soaked in cold, congealed saliva, stretched even farther from its mouth as it produced another horrifying sound. At first I thought it was merely another gurgling noise, but within 3 seconds, I realized it was something completely different.
The moment I heard it, an overwhelming sense of dread consumed me.
An unpleasant sensation surged through me as if something lodged itself deep inside my brain, scraping and grating against my thoughts. A nauseating sensation washed over me, like an eyelash growing from an eyeball that had suddenly appeared in the center of my brain, brushing against my thoughts with every movement. My stomach twisted and danced as though rejoicing in my suffering. Visceral agony.
The song carried meaning that humanity’s crude language could never fully understand.
What leaked out of that monster was a prophecy bordering on a curse. Something that could never be spoken by a vessel as fragile and incomplete as a human being. As nausea and dizziness overwhelmed me, there was only one word I could understand.
[... Eternity...]
The second explosion struck at that exact moment.
The Bosal Geulmun monster, dangling from the ceiling while singing, was suddenly hit by something. For an instant I thought it was a rock, but then it exploded.
-Boom!
I instinctively raised my left arm to shield my eyes. Wet chunks of flesh rained down around me.
Only then did I realize Shin Nain was standing behind me with both hands clasped in prayer.
"Almighty Lord God above, let not Satan’s servants deceive me. Though their dreadful power overwhelms me, do not let my journey toward Heaven’s gate end here. Grant me courage and hope… Speak but a single word, and I shall be healed…”
I knew immediately.
I didn’t need to look 10 seconds into the future to know that Shin Nain was unable to exert any strength.
His Ear-branch magic made him far more vulnerable to sound. Then was the one who had thrown those two grenades Lee Sejun?
His aim was insane. The distance was enormous, yet the grenades hadn’t even seemed to follow an arc. They had flown almost in a straight line.
Which meant the monster would likely target him next. After all, he was the one actually capable of inflicting any meaningful damage on it.
My eyes burned, but I had seen enough.
Alteration-type Eyes-branch, Stage 1.
Without hesitation, I decided to dump the rest of my ammunition into the ceiling. I swapped magazines in one motion, racked the charging handle, and raised the rifle. Red footprints appeared across my vision. I aimed wherever they appeared and placed my finger on the trigger.
Now I understood how these things had been deceiving my precognition.
-Babang!
Spent shell casings clattered across the floor. The capillaries writhing across the ceiling contracted and recoiled.
-Bang!
Heavy recoil hammered into my shoulder, but every shot bore down upon the monster lurking above. The priest monster still hadn’t shown itself. It didn’t matter though.
Those veins were the real body after all!
"Shin Nain! Get it together and report to the people upstairs! Tell them to deploy smoke!”
"Lord God…What? Smoke?”
Hearing the confusion in his voice, I shouted back in frustration.
The idea had come to me in an instant. Smoke grenades would increase the density of the fog. The pressure wave from the detonation might even help spread it upward to the ceiling.
Right now, killing this priest monster wasn’t the important part.
An opportunity had appeared. A chance to learn magic directly in the field without relying on that booklet or someone else’s explanation.
Naturally, I had to seize it!
"We need to learn magic! Can’t you see those symbols the veins are making?! We need more fog! Use smoke grenades!”
"Baek Jemin-ssi, in a situation like this…”
-Click.
Just as my rifle ran out of ammo, I turned my head and dropped the empty magazine.
The empty mag struck the floor and bounced among the spent casings. I crouched lower and glared at Shin Nain with blazing eyes.
"We have magic!!!"
Only then did Shin Nain scramble to gather his gear before sprinting toward the stairs.
His movements made the veins on the ceiling convulse. At last, the priest monster revealed itself. It was lurking beyond the tracks where the light couldn’t reach, dangling from the ceiling.
The artery extending from its spine writhed and pulled, moving the creature through the darkness like a claw machine dragging a prize.
Its target was clearly Shin Nain.
In that instant I lifted my gas mask slightly without a hint of hesitation. I then opened my mouth wide and brought my left hand to it.
Alteration-type Eyes-branch, Stage 2.
My suffering stretched longer than any moment humanity had ever known....
-Crunch!
Blood welled up immediately. I felt my teeth tear through my own flesh, splitting my skin apart.
When I pulled my hand away, blood was already leaking through the fresh bite marks, mixing with saliva. Because of the lingering backlash from my earlier wound, the pain hit even harder this time. My spine curled inward and then straightened violently. A searing electric agony erupted from my nerves and spread through my entire body.
Using my trembling, bloodied left hand as a backdrop, I stared at the priest monster, frozen on the ceiling, unable to move. Then I shouted.
"Lee Sejun!”
My voice echoed through the underground station. And from somewhere deep inside the tunnel, Lee Sejung finally emerged.
Lee Sejun showed no sign of exhaustion even in a situation like this. He sprinted forward fearlessly, adjusted his stance, slid behind cover, and nodded.
"I’ve got one more grenade left. I’ll pull the pin and…”
"No, you idiot, don’t throw it!”
"Huh?"
"Wait until the smoke grenades arrive! Keep your gas mask on!”
But my eyelids were reaching their limit.
While fumbling with my gas mask to put it back on with my left hand, still needling heavily from the bite, I must have put it on wrong. The right lens pressed awkwardly against my eyelid. A sharp jolt of pain twisted through my body while tears kept pouring out.
In the end my vision started to blur.
That meant my magic’s effect was fading too.
I had to use it one more time.
"I’ll close my eyes for a second, Lee Sejun! The magic’s going to stop working, so cover me with gunfire! Aim for the veins!”
-Blink.
The instant my eyes closed and reopened, gunfire tore through the station.
"Aaaaagh! Die!”
Lee Sejun’s scream, half battle cry, half panicked shriek, echoed through the underground chamber. The monster’s gurgling song answered it. But the creature had already vanished from my sight. Was there some sort of penalty to Stage 2? Like a cooldown? Did I need a different source of pain?
Whatever the answer was, my magical implement, my staff that was my left hand, had proven itself reliable.
The lingering aftereffects from the shot alone already hurt enough. I’d bitten myself and smashed my hand against the ground. This time, I’d cut myself.
Throwing my rifle aside, I drew my bayonet. I positioned the blade over my palm, ready to slice. My eyes darted toward the source of the ricocheting gunfire.
But this was an underground station. An enclosed space.
Gunshots bounced endlessly off concrete and steel. It was impossible to determine where bullets were striking. And the monster had already learned how to hide itself among the flickering lights.
Still, my magic wasn’t limited to Stage 2.
Ignoring the burning sensation that felt like rubbing mint toothpaste directly into my eyes, I widened them and swept my gaze across the entire platform.
Red footprints exploded everywhere.
It was trying to overwhelm my precognition through sheer area coverage.
The creature had spread its true body thin across the entire ceiling. This way it could attack from anywhere and any given moment from any direction, aiming to exploit the 10-second delay inherent to my ability. Its tactic was to strike within those 10 seconds, taking advantage of the fact that I could only see from 10 seconds ahead onward.
But after experiencing Stage 2—the ability capable of stopping it—it had become reluctant to attack me directly.
The risk was simply too high.
A smart hunter never takes unnecessary risks. Even if it attacked me within the 10-second window, there was always the possibility that I might stop it and wound it before it could finish me off, so the monster’s attention shifted to Lee Sejun.
It must have judged that once it killed Lee Sejun, who was capable of inflicting significant damage on it, it could then proceed to hunt me down.
This was when I realized it once again.
What stood before us had once been human. Now it wasn’t. We were now fighting a monster. A clever predator hunting us as prey. The only difference was that the monster currently held more cards than we did.
Then it tried to neutralize us once again through its song.
-Gurglegurglegurgle…
Nausea surged upward. For a moment I almost closed my eyes, but I endured. Cold sweat streamed down my face. Grinding my teeth, I struck my chest with my fist and forced myself to stay focused while scanning the ceiling.
I finally understood the true nature of that noise.
It wasn’t, in fact, gurgling. It only sounded that way because human ears couldn’t comprehend what it actually was. A language beyond human understanding was leaking through the borrowed vocal cords of a human body.
Then something rolled down the stairs above the platform amid a flurry of voices.
-Ting, rollrollrollroll…
"Signal smoke grenade! Gas mask on !”
The moment I heard Baek Hansung’s shout, the hiss of escaping smoke filled the underground station.
-Fssssh—.
Yellow smoke spread through the air, blending with the white fog and turning everything murky.
That was when the priest monster revealed itself. It had been lurking near the platform stairs, dangling from the ceiling, using its black cassock as camouflage. Its arms had been twisted into weird angels and were hidden beneath the robe. Now, reacting to the sound of the smoke grenade, it moved.
-Gurglegurglegurgle...
Like the claw of an arcade crane descending toward a prize, the priest monster loosened the extended the artery protruding from its spine, lowering itself toward the ground. The artery, formed from countless tangled capillaries, continued to pulse with an alien heartbeat.
-Thump.
The priest monster twisted its body. The arms stuffed inside the shredded cassock emerged. Broken arms unfolded outward, as if preparing for an embrace. Its dangling tongue twitched weakly as it continued singing in that bizarre and ominous rhythm.
[... Eternity...]
Not yet.
As the yellow smoke mixed with the fog and spread across the station, the priest monster entered it and faded into a shadow. I remained calm.
The footprints were gone.
And at that moment, I finally knew the time had come. I looked up at the ceiling.
The fog responded to the smoke grenade as though alive. It surged upward rapidly until it nearly reached the tip of my nose. The sharp, nauseating scent of chemical smoke filtered through the gas mask. At the same time, the lenses became clouded, obscuring my view.
But when I strained my eyes to look wider, the fog swirled around me.
More accurately, around the veins spread across the ceiling.
The capillaries trembled.
And the symbol became clearer. This time the magical symbol didn’t rearrange itself. Instead, the veins forming the relevant portions of the symbol glowed brighter than the rest.
Two sets of five lines intersecting horizontally and vertically.
What began rearranging itself wasn’t the symbol, but my own brain.
Even an idiot like me couldn’t help but understand. The magical symbol forcibly twisted and reshaped my thoughts until I comprehended its meaning. As if proclaiming an undeniable truth that even the dumbest fool in existence would be forced to grasp.
My vision flashed. This symbol represented a hand. Two sets of five fingers. A left and right hand crossing each other.
The evolution that began when humanity became the dominant species. The very foundation that made humanity what it was.
A jolt of pure exhilaration raced down my spine.
This…
This was a Hand-branch magic symbol.
A magic that symbolized human intelligence itself.
A branch of magic the military had yet to discover…
A branch I might have been the very first person to awaken!
At that moment, I instinctively understood what Hand-branch Stage 1 was. That realization made me change the way I held the bayonet that had been poised to cut my left palm.
Instead, I used my burning eyes to look 10 seconds into the future.
The future revealed itself.
Red footprints covered the back of my hand and up my arm. I immediately understood that the monster had realized the fact that I had become more dangerous than Lee Sejun.
But that 10-second delay gave both of us room for unexpected moves. Without hesitation, I tore off the glove from my right hand.
Then I reversed my grip on the bayonet and slashed across my right palm.
-Slice!
Blood welled up immediately. I’d been careful not to cut off any fingers, but the burning pain arrived a moment later.
Then I immediately raised my bleeding right hand toward the capillaries descending vertically from the ceiling. It was as though I was offering my hand and blood to the monster.
The capillaries eagerly accepted.
It was a chance for it to feed and reproduce. This clever predator assumed it had found prey that wasn’t resisting, so the tiny vessels pushed into my skin.
I could feel it. The sensation of the monster’s capillaries slipping beneath my flesh, trying to connect themselves to my veins. A horrifying feeling as though our circulatory systems were becoming one.
But the instant the creature’s vessels were about to join my own, it realized something was wrong. It immediately tried to pull away.
Of course, I didn’t allow it.
I clenched my hand into a fist. My blood-soaked right hand wrapped tightly around the bundle of capillaries, and at last Hand-branch Stage 1 activated.
Hand-branch magic, Stage 1.
The blood shed from my right hand could harm those monsters.
The capillaries that had absorbed my blood began withering rapidly as if they had been poisoned or as though they were slugs drenched in saltwater. They started dissolving.
-Riiiiiip—.
Across the ceiling, sounds erupted like scabs being torn from healing wounds. Powdered flakes of dried blood burst apart overhead, drifting through the yellow smoke and fog.
At some point, the bundle of capillaries I held had transformed into nothing more than a handful of dried blood crusts. I crushed them without hesitation.
"Uhuhuhuhuhu…”
A laugh escaped my lips.
At the same time, Lee Sejun, who was still recovering from his panic, approached me while gasping for breath. With a series of groans and strained noises, he hauled himself back onto the platform.
"Baek Jemin-ssi, what is this?”
He certainly worked hard.
And because I happened to be feeling unusually generous, I decided to grant him a special privilege.
Holding up both my left and right hands, both stained with blood, I gave him a bright smile.
"From today onward, you shall address me as Archmage Baek Jemin.”