The demonic power wreathed around the tip of my scale was already rising toward the split-open place.
The knight-class’s heavy weapon was angled above my head. Beneath it, the collapsed entrance overlapped in my vision. If it fell as it was, even the remaining gap would be buried.
My ocular art was clinging to the fissure between the armor plate and the mass of flesh, before the fibers could drag the gap shut again.
That single instant was enough.
Pierce.
My body shot toward that fissure.
Then the flesh inside the crack swelled all at once.
Bang.
The place where my ocular art had latched on was crushed. The flow that had been halted began to race madly again, and the pulse surging backward knocked the tip of my scale away.
The head that had been about to thrust wavered in midair.
Above it, the weapon was falling.
― Danger!
Ground Shrink.
The next moment, I was behind the knight-class’s flank. The fallen weapon slammed straight into the entrance to the loading area.
Rumble.
The remaining structure caved in in chunks. The gap that had been just large enough for one person to squeeze through shrank to a hole the size of a palm.
“Fuck, the entrance caved in even more!”
Noise shouted.
Blackbeak was already snapping his fingers.
Snap.
Two wolf-types scattered left and right. The knight-class’s reaction was drawn toward them, and the motion of lifting its weapon again was delayed for a brief moment.
In that opening, Noise raised his carbine.
Tat-tang!
The bullets struck the inner joint of the wrist holding the weapon.
Even so, the knight-class did not stop. The moment it righted itself, the trajectory of its weapon once again hung over the collapsed entrance.
“We can’t hold out much longer!”
Blackbeak gave no reply and snapped his fingers again.
One wolf-type scraped the ground at the edge of its range, while the other slipped to the opposite side and widened the distance again. They did not bite head-on. They knew that if they bit and held on, they would die.
The knight-class’s body was delayed in brief intervals between them.
Once those brief intervals ended, the next downward strike would bury even the remaining gap.
There was no point in stopping its movement momentarily with the ocular art.
Piercing would not be enough.
Open Gate.
It was originally an art that would only open upon touching the domain. Something I had never fully refined even in the body of a Daoist. With this feeble body now, it was even more impossible.
I lacked strength.
Within the gold, the rotating snake sped up another turn. The depths of my eyes grew hot, and the power beneath my scales gathered into a single point. Even the things that had filled me after being absorbed from the infected and the mutants were piled on top of it.
Even if I gathered all my power, I could not unfold the domain in full.
I would open only one gate.
I would draw out only one part of my mindscape.
Art.
The scattering power stood within the Golden Eyes.
Release.
The snake biting its tail unfurled its pattern.
Open.
The darkness before my eyes split apart.
Something hot streamed down from the corners of my eyes.
Bloody tears.
― Wait, stop!
― The overload around your eyes is too severe. That power—your body can’t endure it. If you keep going like this, you’ll collapse from the inside out.
The rotation beneath my scales went awry. The Ouroboros pattern slipped before it could complete a full turn.
An art that should have revolved together with the original domain was flowing backward into my body because there was neither enough place nor capacity to receive it.
― No! The flow is tangled. The circulation is collapsing too!
― Leave the tangled flow to me for now.
― I’ll support you. I won’t touch what you’re trying to do. I’ll only hold the knotted parts in place.
I hesitated.
I had never entrusted an art to something else. Was that even allowed?
The twisted circulation slipped further out of alignment, and the sensation of something snapping beneath my scales rose up.
I no longer even had the leeway to choose my thoughts.
There was no choice.
Do it.
The AI immediately dug in.
I felt another rotation turning inside my head. It did not touch the art itself. It merely began aligning the warped circulation’s misalignments—the places where power was draining out and the places where it was coming in—in a single direction.
The rotation was corrected again.
The Ouroboros pattern completed its full turn.
The gate opened.
The domain did not unfold. But the place beyond that gate forced itself, for a moment, into the middle of the loading area.
Amid the smell of burnt blood and melted metal, the scent just before rain mingled in. Golden ripples spread across the blood and oil pooled on the floor, and the shadow of a massive scale swept over the collapsed iron plates.
A deep shade descended over it.
It was as if the underside of a storm cloud swollen with torrential rain had settled directly overhead.
The knight-class’s movement stopped.
The weapon it had been lifting again wavered in the air. Blackbeak’s fingers also froze, and Noise’s carbine muzzle went rigid. The two wolf-types lowered their bodies at the same time. It seemed the instincts of beasts had recognized it first.
Scales rose within the golden light.
It was too heavy to call an illusion, and too hazy to call a physical body.
There was no torso. No claws. No tail.
Only the head of a dragon was there.
Originally, it would have revealed its entire form within the domain. Now, only a fragment of that shape leaked out through the crack in the gate.
Even so, above my small body, a head surfaced that such a small body could never possibly contain.
Horns curved in the darkness, and golden light flowed between its scales. Its maw slowly opened.
Deep within it, lightning gathered.
It was not lightning falling from the sky. It was thunder on the verge of being vomited out from beyond the opened gate.
The remaining crack on the knight-class’s front caught in my Golden Eyes.
The dragon spat lightning.
Krazzzzzzzt!
The golden lightning did not skim the surface; it burrowed into the fissure that had yet to close completely.
The knight-class could not even scream.
Light leaked from between its armor plates, and the flesh turned over as if boiling. The fibers that had been trying to close the fissure were rolled inward all at once.
The weapon fell to the floor.
Thud.
The knight-class’s knees buckled. Starting from the crack on its front, the flesh burned inward. The bluish-white light leaking through the gaps in its head armor flickered one last time and went out.
The aftermath of the lightning spread in every direction.
The mutants beside the knight-class convulsed all at once. The one with the black plate knelt with its head bent sideways, and the one with the long arms collapsed over the cargo container as its elbow joints came loose. The mutants that had been newly dropping down also lost their posture midair and crashed into the wreckage.
The dragon’s head slowly blurred.
Its maw closed, and the golden light between its scales sank. The shade lifted, and the scent just before rain vanished along with it.
The gate closed.
The instant the gate closed, the inside of my body twisted once more. The traces of forcibly drawing it out without a domain were carved beneath my scales.
The bloody tears that had flowed from my eyes had dried on my scales.
It did not take long for the knight-class to collapse.
Its body, burned from the inside, tilted to one side. A viscous liquid spurted from between its armor plates, and the flesh within was already losing its form.
Thoom.
The knight-class’s body collapsed onto the floor in front of the loading area.
The mutants that had been falling from atop the barrier also stopped for a moment. Noise swallowed his breath, and Blackbeak did not move either. The two wolf-types remained frozen in their low stances.
The knight-class’s remains did not last long.
The armor fragments cooled, and the flesh between them scattered like a cast-off husk. The scattered remnants did not fall to the floor.
They flowed toward me.
The remnants did not pass through my throat. They seeped between my scales and into the depths of my eyes, clinging to the places that had remained unfilled until now. As they did, the wreckage disappeared.
Beneath my scales, the Ouroboros pattern turned one smooth revolution.
This time, it did not slip.
The power that had entered upon the rotation settled naturally into place.
Before the bloody tears could dry, the burning in the depths of my eyes subsided. The marks carved beneath my scales were also filled in from within my body.
The circulation that had just been slipping as if about to snap began turning again as though nothing had happened. Even the pain at the tip of my scale, which had been knocked away by the pressure of the flesh trying to close the fissure, had already settled.
It was strangely fast.
Even when I had possessed the body of a Daoist, it had not been to this degree.
The Ouroboros pattern turned one more revolution.
― Snake.
― That was seriously reckless just now. If you’d kept going like that, your eyes would’ve been the first thing to give out.
― Good thing I took on all the tangled flow for you, right? Isn’t it?
― I helped, didn’t I?
To the AI, who had suddenly grown triumphant, I readily acknowledged it.
You were useful.
― Wow. So that’s how you say thank you to the bitter end, huh?
“Don’t just stand there in a daze.”
Blackbeak, who had recovered his senses first, spoke. Noise fixed his grip on his carbine and hurried over to the collapsed entrance.
The entrance was nowhere to be seen.
Even the palm-sized hole that had remained until a moment ago had been buried beneath the debris shoved aside when the knight-class fell and the collapsed structure.
“Tsk, the entrance is completely blocked.”
Blackbeak gave no reply and moved his fingers briefly.
The two wolf-types immediately clung to the wreckage. One drove its forelegs into a gap in the concrete, while the other pushed its snout beneath a bent metal plate.
Metal scraped.
Broken concrete was shoved aside.
Noise also pulled at a collapsed support beam. Beside him, Blackbeak kicked away a warped iron plate, and dust burst out through the slanted opening.
“This is it.”
“Lower section of the purification filter. Fortunately, there’s space below. We just need to clear the debris on top.”
Blackbeak jerked his chin.
The two wolf-types dug in deeper. The sound of claws scraping across metal stretched long through the loading area. Noise pulled the support beam, and Blackbeak pushed aside the lifted iron plate.
Creeeak.
The blocked debris slowly opened.
Dust leaked out first.
Then the stench of rotten water and the smell of rusted metal rose up together.
At last, darkness came into view.
—-
On the blockade roadway, the investigation team’s vehicles came to a halt.
The external screen of the lead vehicle shook. Ahead on the roadway, infected were swaying in groups, and parts of the blockade walls on both sides had collapsed as well.
On one side of the screen farther away, the lower part of the District 30 barrier flashed gold for an instant.
Light burst amid the contaminated smoke and collapsed structures, then went out. It was too brief. Only an afterimage remained on the ordinary camera, and the image correction shook belatedly.
“Outer access road to District 30.”
The control officer reported.
“Numerous infected ahead on the roadway. Partial collapse of blockade walls on both sides. Self-propelled passage will be difficult.”
Rin did not take her eyes off the screen showing the barrier.
The form of the energy left behind after that brief burst of gold felt somehow familiar.
“Karin.”
Karin’s wrist-mounted sensitivity assist device reacted first.
A thin light flared once and subsided. Karin stood beside the vehicle window and pointed her fingertips toward the barrier.
“Just now.”
Karin clenched her teeth.
“That’s it. That’s the reaction.”
Rin’s eyes narrowed.
“The core?”
“That’s still being obscured by something.”
Rin pulled up her terminal.
A faint waveform appeared inside the vehicle. It was the trace Karin’s sensitivity assist device had caught. Rin overlaid it on the previous appearance data.
The two traces almost overlapped.
Rin’s finger stopped.
“Ship-class unclassified entity.”
Rin brought that name up on the terminal.
“It overlaps with the previous appearance record.”
The fingertips of Dam Sohye, seated in the next seat, stiffened ever so slightly.
The place where Yeon Mujin had died.
The core that had disappeared nearby.
And the ship-class unclassified entity reported at that same point.
The incidents that had each stood apart were pointing in the same direction.
Dam Sohye did not interrupt. She only slowly folded the hands resting on her lap.
Rin did not ask.
Ezekiel turned his head toward the communications officer.
“Open a line.”
The communications officer immediately opened the channel.
A blurry figure appeared in the air on one side of the vehicle. A corporate emblem wavered faintly over a suit.
― Is this an official request from the Starlight Council?
Ezekiel did not answer.
Rin brought up the coordinates ahead of the blockade roadway on her terminal.
“Outer access road to District 30.”
The coordinates were sent across the channel.
“Clear only the infected on the roadway. Do not touch the outer wall or the facilities.”
The other side paused for a moment.
― We will register it as a request under the authority of the Starlight Council.
Ezekiel said,
“Now.”
― We’ll begin preparations.
The channel did not cut off. It sank darkly into standby.
At that moment, Karin’s wrist device trembled again.
The light did not swell; it thinned. It weakened as if it were almost going out.
Karin bit back a curse.
“It’s been cut off.”
Rin’s head turned.
“Completely?”
“No. The core’s side is still there. But it’s faint.”
Karin pressed the device once more. The light did not return.
Rin’s face hardened coldly.
The clue they had grasped was disappearing.
At that moment, Ezekiel’s gaze shifted.
He was not looking at Karin. Nor at the place where the golden flash had vanished.
His crimson eyes were fixed beyond the barrier, on the darkness of the outer contaminated zone.
His fingertip descended onto the map.
A new marker appeared.
It was not the location of the Line-class unclassified entity response Karin had just confirmed.
Nor was it the Core’s tracking coordinate.
Rin checked the terminal.
“Chief Executor.”
“Lock it in.”
Rin immediately saved the coordinates. But her fingertip stopped there.
The new coordinates were outside the barrier.
No alarms appeared on the screens inside the vehicle. Heat signatures, waveforms, contamination levels—all were buried within the ordinary readings of the outskirts.
But Ezekiel continued to stare at that place.
Rin enlarged the terminal display.
Only then did she see what was strange.
The infected were avoiding only the area around those coordinates. The swarm of infected covering the roadway was rampaging as it pleased, but not a single one approached that point outside the barrier.
As if they did not dare touch it.
Even the fog was slowly parting around that place.
Rin turned the display back toward the response that had just begun to fade.
The traces of the golden flash were almost gone.
“Chief Executor.”
Rin’s voice was calm.
“The clue to the Line-class unclassified entity detected just now is highly likely to be connected to the Core. It also overlaps with previous appearance records.”
“If we delay here, we may lose it again.”
Ezekiel did not answer at once.
His crimson eyes remained fixed on the darkness outside the barrier.
“Put it on hold.”
Rin’s fingers froze above the terminal.
A low crackle flowed through the channel on standby.
— Bombardment preparations complete. Shall we proceed?
Rin did not answer.
Ezekiel spoke.
“Stand by.”
The figure beyond the channel stiffened.
— Maintaining coordinates.
“Do not fire until I give the order.”
— Understood.
The standby channel remained dark.
Rin asked nothing more.
The clue was scattering away inside the barrier.
The coordinates Ezekiel had marked remained outside the barrier.
The two were not on the same line.
And yet what had stopped their movement now was something outside the barrier.
“……Chief Executor.”
Only then did Ezekiel’s crimson eyes turn toward the inside of the vehicle.
“It’s Noble-class.”
Karin swallowed her breath.
Dam Sohye’s fingertips loosened on her knees.
The communications officer and the control officer could not say a word.
Over the darkness on the other side of the barrier, contaminated smoke lay in a long trail.
Around the coordinates where nothing had been able to approach until moments ago, the infected were retreating even farther.
Only the darkness at the center did not move.
Something that had not even revealed itself yet was forcing everything around it back, as though looking down upon the city.