“Huuaaagh……!”
Like breaching the surface from deep water and taking a first desperate breath, I exhaled roughly and snapped my eyes wide open.
“Yujin unni!”
“Angel!”
The first things to imprint on my retinas were the sight of Min Aji, pale as a sheet, grabbing hold of me, and Kim Jihu kneeling in prayer.
“……Hah, hah.”
My entire body was drenched in sweat.
An extreme fatigue, as if my knees might buckle at any moment, swept over me, but fortunately, it wasn’t to the point of losing consciousness and collapsing like at the 4th Outpost last time.
‘To think I’m in this state…?’
Since I had already done it once, I had been confident I would do better the second time.
Meaning, instead of being unconscious for a full day, only about half a day.
However, it was by no means to the point where I would be fine after performing such a miracle.
There was only one possibility that came to mind.
‘…The existence I faced this time. Did I grow by facing that being?’
Most likely, that seemed to be the highest possibility.
Of course, the reason I only considered it a high possibility was because my growth remained at a vague, indeterminate stage.
A sort of… spiritual growth, perhaps.
‘…Hoo, that’s enough. I should slowly get up now.’
As I barely steadied myself and stood, the team members’ gazes all turned beyond my back.
Complex emotions of shock, awe, and deep sorrow were tangled in their eyes.
I too suppressed my trembling breath and slowly turned my head.
“……Damn.”
An unconscious sigh flowed from my lips.
The horrific tower of flesh made of hundreds of children tangled together that had been coiled in the center of the intensive care ward just moments ago.
The blasphemous monster called the Incubator no longer existed.
The stench of rotting amniotic fluid and blood that the monster had spewed forth had vanished without a trace, and in its place, only the faint, warm scent of baby formula unique to newborns lingered.
And in the center.
“……What a relief.”
Hundreds of small bodies that had grotesquely melted and fused together had regained their original, whole forms and were lying on the floor.
They were no longer blood-soaked monsters.
They were merely small, pitiful human children who had been caught in terrible malice and had their hides stripped away before ever seeing the light of the world.
Faces peaceful as if in a deep slumber.
Though they had become cold corpses that would never open their eyes again, at least they had been freed from the terrible shackles of suffering eternally as monsters.
But that didn’t mean my heart was at ease. Rather, no one could rashly open their mouth.
Because in the end, these children, born not long ago, were made to lie on the cold floor instead of in their parents’ arms.
How easily human dignity is trampled before the great violence known as the laws of the Otherworld.
The one who broke the long silence was Sir Owl Bear.
The elder spoke in a choked voice.
“……You’ve worked hard. Truly.”
Sir Owl Bear set down his great shield and bowed his head deeply toward the hundreds of children lying on the floor.
The burly orc uncle shouldered his machine gun and silently offered a prayer as well.
Yu Inha and Min Aji were holding each other, sobbing in hushed voices.
“……Magnificent. You are truly the anchor of salvation that the Lord has sent to this hell.”
For now, I couldn’t even bring myself to argue against such sycophantic words.
‘Still…… I did it.’
The heavy lump in my chest, as if clogged tight, felt a bit lighter.
The fact that I had been able to carry out even a small salvation in this cursed space relaxed the taut tension, if only for a moment.
“…We’ll leave the handling of the bodies to the purification unit, the follow-up squad. Our primary objective has been achieved.”
“Will they be okay……? Leaving them in a place like this……”
“…Currently, we have no way to transport so many children. Furthermore, the nearby Uitaesu have all been cleared, so there should be no harm done to the bodies.”
We laid the children down in suitable spots.
It wasn’t a very difficult task. Only our hearts were heavy.
All the work was finished.
Only one thing remained.
“Then now……”
“Yes, we must leave.”
Only then did we raise our heads, which had been hanging low.
It was okay to be steeped in sorrow. But one fortunate thing was that we had something we needed to do next.
The party, steeling their hearts, turned their gazes toward the firmly shut emergency exit.
A door connected to the outside.
Within the Otherworld known as the Dark Sector, it felt rather welcoming.
Now that the Incubator guarding that door had been completely neutralized… our goal had been somewhat accomplished.
“Now, let’s go.”
Captain Kim lowered his gun barrel and took the lead, approaching the emergency exit.
The moment he reached for the cold metal door handle.
“……Wait.”
The first to react was Sir Owl Bear, who had been standing in the middle of the formation.
The elder stopped dead in his tracks and bristled the feathers covering his entire body all at once.
Like a wild beast sensing the presence of an unseen, massive predator, his body trembled.
“Sir? What is it?”
Captain Kim stopped his outstretched hand and asked with a tense demeanor.
Instead of answering, the elder glared down at the floor we stood on with wide eyes.
The half-man half-beast’s uniquely developed hearing twitched, chasing faint vibrations.
“……Something is coming up from below.”
“From below…… You mean the 3rd floor?”
“Yes. A very sharp…… unpleasant metallic sound is——”
The tips of Sir Owl Bear’s feathers twitched as if convulsing.
And before his warning could even finish, that alien noise finally began to reach even us with ordinary hearing.
Shrrk. Shrrrip—.
A sound like a gigantic blade slowly slicing through thick meat.
That ominous friction sound grew louder from beneath our feet and soon transformed into a sharp bursting noise, as if tearing through eardrums.
At that, everyone shouted at once.
“Let’s get out, hurry!”
At my cry, we immediately ran toward the emergency exit.
But whether we were too late, or whether the determination of the thing coming from below far surpassed our desperation.
Crack! Craaaaaash—!
Something burst up before our eyes.
“All personnel, evade—!”
Sir Owl Bear, who had been leading the way, was thrown backward.
Shattered tiles, rebars, and sticky chunks of cement flew in all directions.
Amid the thickly rising smoke and dust mixed with powdered bone, it finally revealed itself.
Skreeee—!
That sound Sir Owl Bear had heard. The source of that unpleasant friction, like a gigantic blade slicing through meat.
“……Fuck.”
A curse laced with horror burst from the orc uncle’s mouth.
What had burst out was a gigantic spike.
But soon, we realized it was the nail of something enormous.
Furthermore, what formed the nail of that enormous something was yet another nail.
Thousands, tens of thousands of yellowed, blood-soaked human nails clustered densely together like fish scales.
Skree—.
It slowly surveyed the surroundings, as if searching for something.
A movement as if seeking something.
The small mercy was that it wasn’t targeting the babies’ corpses.
It paused before the room where the corpses were gathered, then turned away as if uninterested.
“……Land Leviathan. Why is that here……”
Captain Kim muttered.
A designation I had heard before.
I had heard it operated near the Dark Sector and crushed tanks exceeding a certain weight.
“……But didn’t you say there was nothing else in this area besides the Uitaesu?”
“……Yes. That’s right. Besides, the Land Leviathan isn’t even something that operates inside the Dark Sector to begin with……”
From those words, one guess came to mind.
It had come for me. More precisely, it had undoubtedly come for that transcendental collective I had been connected to.
Just as the Incubator had been, it too was not without the possibility of being a creation of that existence.
Because they are the same collective.
Then had it come here chasing the traces of its parent?
Of course, I didn’t have long to entertain such thoughts.
Clack. Click.
Because the movement of that bizarre cog-like spike wandering through the air stopped precisely on me.
It didn’t have anything like eyes to provide sight.
But I could instinctively tell that its predator’s senses were honed in on the Halo blazing fiercely above my head, or the remnants of divine power residing within me.
Skri-i-i-i-itch—!
A spine-chilling metallic sound, like nails on a chalkboard, tore through the corridor like an explosion.
At the same time, the Land Leviathan’s gigantic nail spike scraped against the floor and charged toward me.
“Yujin unni, get out of the—!”
Min Aji screamed and shoved my body away hard.
Almost simultaneously, Sir Owl Bear thrust his great shield forward and stalwartly blocked my path.
Boom—! Crunch—!
With an enormous bursting sound, the elder’s thick shield crumpled like paper.
Even that massive half-man half-beast’s enormous frame couldn’t withstand the shock and was flung backward.
Considering that this was merely one finger of a great being, and the nail attached to it, this was an overwhelming amount of power.
“Fucking hell!”
The orc uncle glared and pulled the trigger of his K3 machine gun.
But the proud K-firearm chose this moment to revert to its true nature.
Click. Click.
“Damn it, why now of all times…!”
Of course, even if that machine gun had jammed, that didn’t mean all the other guns had.
Ratatat—!
Gunfire instantly filled the space from both sides.
But it didn’t mean much.
Some of the nails composing it fell off in droves, but because its body was so massive, it didn’t leave a trace.
“Fall back! Firearms aren’t working!”
Captain Kim shouted.
Ignoring the raining bullets as if they were less than flies, it twisted its massive body toward me once more.
That appearance had a desperation like a youngling searching for its mother.
I felt a sudden sympathy for it.
Of course, that was from the standpoint of my situation being targeted by that damned monster.
‘……Fuck, I can’t dodge……’
The moment it soared high into the air and ruthlessly plunged toward the floor……
Crack! Craaaash—!
“The floor…… is collapsing!”
My spine ran cold.
There was no way the old concrete slab of the 4th floor could withstand the rampage of that overwhelming mass, which supposedly devoured even tanks outside.
“Everyone, evac——!”
Before Captain Kim’s desperate cry could even finish.
The entire corridor floor we stood on split like a spiderweb, and soon, with a terrible roar, lost its bearing and collapsed wholesale downward.