It was human blood.
The blood of contaminated beings sank like dead water. It sagged beneath the air, was crushed beneath the metallic stench, and in the end vanished, mingling with the layer of rotten bodily fluids.
This smell was different.
It floated upward.
There was still body heat left in it, and the thin air brushed over it. It flowed, broke off with a snap, then flowed again. It was a rhythm pushed up from the heart.
Alive.
The scent of blood was in the very midst of the presence of contamination. It was not a trace left behind after being eaten. It was still flowing.
And yet it had not been devoured.
The pattern inside the golden eye turned slowly.
Ocular art.
When I layered the Insight Eye over the scents and presences caught by my spiritual sense, the blurred composition became a little clearer. Inside the narrow sealed-off area, different contaminated beings were gathered. They did not look like one pack. Nor could they hide their hostility toward one another.
And yet they did not immediately tear into each other.
At the center of it all was that blood.
I slid low along the gaps in the metal wall. Before long, the passage bent downward, and murky water was dripping between broken pipes. The smell of rusted metal and rotten bodily fluids clung together damply.
The cavity was closer to a dumping ground.
A low ceiling, burst pipes, a floor seared black. In the middle of it, contaminated beings stood spread out in a circle, each aiming at the others.
There were insect types, beast types, and even things that clumsily mimicked the shape of humans mixed among them. Of them, two beast types resembling wolves especially caught my attention. They were large, but what was embedded in their bodies was different. Metal rings and dark tubes had dug into the napes of their necks, and devices like gags were stuck to the flesh around their mouths.
They did not look naturally made.
Those two were not targeting each other like the other contaminated beings. They were stuck to either side of someone standing at the center of the group, as if guarding him.
At first, it was hard to immediately judge whether he was human.
His body was low and round. Rather than being fat, he looked as though something had been folded wrong and bunched up into a plump lump. An old coat covered his entire body, and on top of it were pieces of metal and scraps of cloth stuck all over, their meaning unknown.
His face was even more grotesque.
A long hooked nose curved downward, nearly reaching his lips. Greasy hair was plastered over yellowed, dead-looking skin. From afar, it would have been hard to tell whether he was a beggar or a monster.
But the blood was clearly human.
The man was clutching his left arm. Blood was seeping little by little between his fingers. It was not a deep wound. Even so, the contaminated beings around him did not rush at that blood.
Even with prey right before their eyes.
The human raised a finger.
A beast type that had lowered its body as if it would pounce at any moment froze in place.
It was not because of words. His lips did move, but what the contaminated beings reacted to was not sound. A thin tremor spread from inside the man’s body.
Back away.
Not yet.
It was not heard as a sentence. Only the meaning reached me.
I narrowed my golden eye.
They understood.
That was the strangest part.
One insect type tried to slip sideways along the wall. It was moving to aim for another contaminated being’s back. The hook-nosed human merely turned his head.
This time, an even shorter tremor spread.
Wait.
The insect type’s legs stopped.
It was not complete obedience. Hunger remained, and so did hostility. But as long as that human stood at the center, they could not cross the line.
It was close to taming.
I narrowed the scene caught in my golden eye again. The two resembling wolves were fast. The devices embedded in their bodies were not simple ornaments either. But the passage was narrow, and there were plenty of gaps between the walls and pipes through which I could slip out.
The rest of the contaminated beings were on the verge of tearing each other apart. If the command was cut off, rather than rushing in all at once, each would first waver on its own.
The problem was that human.
He was injured.
But I could not conclude that he was weak. Even while standing in the middle of contaminated beings, there was no sign of fear in him. The very fact that someone with such an appearance could stand in that position was power in itself.
Still, there was no pressure like the red eyes or the Devouring Ghoul.
I had no intention of clashing head-on for long. Bite and pull away. If things went wrong, slip out through the metal gap behind me. That much was possible.
The problem was the way out. If that human was alive in the middle of contaminated beings, there was a high chance he also knew the paths through this sealed-off area.
I pushed my body a little farther forward. I did not reveal everything. I only extended my head and part of my neck into the cavity, leaving the rest of my body still in the darkness.
At that moment, the human’s head turned toward me.
Accurately.
It was not that he had happened to see me. As if he had known from the start the direction I was hiding in, his reaction stabbed straight toward me.
A few contaminated beings around him belatedly sensed me as well and twisted their bodies. Teeth, legs, and wet eyeballs all turned toward me at once.
The man was not surprised.
Beneath his long nose, his cracked lips slowly parted.
“White scales.”
It was a low voice.
A thin tremor followed after it. It held both wariness telling me not to come closer and an intent to gauge what I was.
He looked at my golden eye. It felt as though he was even groping along the pattern inside it.
“You’re not from around here.”
The two wolf-like creatures moved.
One to the left, one to the right. They seemed to be spreading out slowly, but the angle of their toes was cutting off the passage behind me.
I did not retreat.
The pattern inside my golden eye turned again.
The demonic power I had been holding down rose thinly. I did not let it burst out 크게. There was no need. For a very brief moment, the presence rising from beneath my white scales swelled far larger than my body.
The air in the cavity sank.
The front paws of the two wolf types stopped. The insect type crawling along the wall also froze. The thing mimicking a human shape stiffened, unable to close the gaping hole in it or open it wider.
Silence settled.
The darkness behind me seemed to deepen slightly.
The human’s mouth hardened.
His bloodstained fingertips stopped for a very brief moment. He glanced over the darkness behind me, then returned to my golden eye.
This time, it was not a reaction of appraising my value.
It was wariness.
And within it, interest followed very late.
“……Your shadow is bigger than your body.”
It was a low voice.
Wet sounds came from inside the throats of the two wolf types. Even so, they did not move any farther. He slowly lowered his hand, and before the gesture even ended, the contaminated beings around him lowered their bodies.
Only then did I push out my meaning thinly.
I will not attack.
I want to know.
They were not complete words. Nor were they sounds. The meaning that rose from within merely mixed with my presence and leaked outward.
He looked at me for a while.
“You know how to send intent.”
His bloodstained fingers rubbed under his chin.
“Is there something you want to ask?”
I pointed toward the darkness outside the cavity.
This place.
Outside.
The way out.
I pushed out only that much meaning.
The human laughed briefly. It was close to a sneer.
“This is District 32.”
Along with those words, a rough meaning followed.
Abandoned place.
Outside the line.
Land discarded by humans.
“The place where people live is farther in.”
He indicated beyond the darkness with the tip of his chin.
“The City.”
It was brief.
This time, the man tilted his head toward me.
“Then it’s my turn.”
His bloodstained finger stopped in midair.
“What did you eat?”
I did not answer right away.
I pressed down so my awareness would not go toward the back of my head. The sealing structure, the voice I had heard within it, and the word core were buried inside.
I had no intention of showing everything. Instead, I brought out something worth watching his reaction to first.
The collapsed station. The twisted humanoid. Arms attached like blades, and dark strands that followed belatedly from behind its back.
At first, the human was receiving it silently. But the moment the sensation of the humanoid reached him, his fingers stopped.
“……A Devouring Ghoul?”
The sounds inside the cavity lowered.
I did not answer.
Only then did I push out the next scene very briefly. The man who had faced it. A bold impression, an aura resembling the Daoist side, movements that did not let go of the sword until the end even while he bled.
The final sword strike.
The Devouring Ghoul collapsed.
That man collapsed as well.
And a name.
Wudang Corporation. Demon-Subjugation Unit. Yeon Mujin.
This time, the expression vanished from the human’s face.
“……Cheongun. You’re saying that Demon-Subjugation Unit leader is dead?”
After that one sentence, the cavity fell silent.
He immediately lifted his head. His eyes moved quickly. The left passage, the collapsed pipes, the gap near the ceiling. The attitude that had been appraising value until a moment ago disappeared.
His bloodstained hand lowered.
The two wolf-like creatures reacted first. With their bodies lowered, they swiftly changed direction.
In that brief silence, the things that had been pushed aside locked together all at once.
Core.
AI.
Sealing structure.
Wudang.
Yeon Mujin.
Devouring Ghoul.
I did not ask any more.
I, too, immediately turned my body.
The passage behind me was caught inside my golden eye. The gap between collapsed pipes, the shadow beneath a rusted iron plate, the narrow path I had come through.
He snapped his fingers once.
This tremor was short and rough.
Scatter.
The contaminated beings around him all retreated at once. While each scattered toward different gaps and passages, he did not look back.
Taking only the two wolf-like creatures with him, he ran into the passage ahead.
I did not follow immediately.
It was not that I trusted him. But once he moved, the contaminated beings cleared the way first. The one who knew the paths in this sealed-off area was on that side.
The gap the two wolf types had passed through did not close completely either. Enough remained for me to slide in. Their speed was the same. They were not waiting for me to catch up, but they did not seem intent on shaking me off either.
I follow.
If necessary, I break away midway.
I lowered my body further. I passed beneath the collapsed pipes as if grazing them. The sunken passage stretched long ahead. The claws of the wolf type in front scraped against the metal floor, but the sound did not linger.
It was then.
The back of my head rang.
— Uh, wait. What is this?
I did not slow down.
— I picked up an emergency signal? Snake, I’m not done charging yet. Why did you wake me already?
I did not wake you.
— ……Oh, you’re running away. What the hell. What happened? While I was asleep for a bit?
I did not answer.
There was no room to explain right now. The wolf type ahead changed direction again. As if the entire sealed-off area had tilted, the floor of the passage had sunk to one side.
— Don’t ignore me.
— Ah, okay, okay. Let’s figure out the situation first.
A brief silence.
— ……That thing up ahead. Is it human? No.
I kept moving.
— No, it’s human, but not human. The signal is strange. There’s a wavelength similar to contaminated beings mixed in, but the main body is human. I don’t have a case like this in my data.
You do not.
— Yeah. There’s no record of this method in my logs. Contaminated being taming. Guidance. Signal mediation. ……Wow, there’s a human who does this.
You know nothing properly.
— Snake.
The voice rose slightly.
— You said that to me just now, didn’t you?
I did not particularly deny it.
— I feel wronged, you know? I’m basically in a wrecked state. I’m running on a single fragment, and at this level, I’m being incredibly diligent.
I did not answer.
— Ah, seriously. Wait, I’m going to borrow your senses a little.
I never permitted that.
— Oops, I was already using them. Sorry, sorry.
The passage ahead became one layer clearer within my vision. I could clearly feel the AI drawing on my spiritual sense. Rather than annoying, it felt unfamiliar. Senses in directions that were not mine opened at the same time.
— ……Huh?
What is it.
— This path. It’s in my records.
I moved silently.
— Ah, wait. It’s not exact. It’s faint. But it’s definitely there. Above here. The direction you’re heading now.
Those words caught on me.
— ……The worst and greatest city.
What does that mean?
— I don’t know either. It’s just written that way in my records.
But now was not the time to question it.
Ahead, the man stopped.
The two wolf types also slid to a halt.
He slowly turned his head. First to my golden eye. Then down toward the back of my head.
He lingered there for a moment.
A very thin tremor was leaking out from inside my body. It was a residue the AI had allowed to flow outside while borrowing my spiritual sense. It was not large. Even so, that human caught it.
He did not ask what it was.
Only his eyes narrowed slightly.
Soon he turned his head and placed his hand on the nape of one wolf type’s neck. It moved again.
— Snake, what is that person? Why does it feel like he’s looking at me? Ugh.
Because of you.
— Huh? Ah, sorry. Wait, I’ll be more careful.
Ahead, the two wolf types stopped first. Behind them, the round, low body came to a sliding stop.
“Here.”
The ground beneath us rumbled.
The vibration spread long. Metal pipes meshed together with an old grinding sound, and the heavy, sunken air began to be sucked upward.
The structure was moving vertically.
— ……Huh?
— ……This structure is still alive?
He said nothing. With his hands resting on the napes of the two wolf types, he looked upward.
I raised my head.
Through the collapsed gap, an extremely thin light was descending.
It was a kind of artificial light I had never seen below.