Dam Sohye’s toes dragged along the floor.
Baek Mugyeong hooked Dam Sohye’s arm back over his shoulder. Blood slipped in his palm. Whether it was hers or his, he could no longer tell.
“Sohye.”
Dam Sohye’s head lolled to the side.
“Open your eyes. Hey, Dam Sohye.”
Dam Sohye’s lips moved faintly.
Almost no sound came out.
Baek Mugyeong gritted his teeth and hauled Dam Sohye’s body up again. Beyond the cracked purification lens, pale dust surged in. The contamination-zone purification gear issued by the Seonghwi Council had lost half its function. The purification plate at his waist spewed black smoke each time its light flickered, and the filter hanging below his neck gave off a smell like iron filings whenever he breathed in.
His throat burned.
A cough rose up.
Baek Mugyeong turned his head and spat out blood-mixed saliva. There was no time to catch his breath. The wound at Dam Sohye’s side was spreading black again.
“Damn it.”
Baek Mugyeong drew up what internal energy he had left.
Energy imbued with Wudang’s distinctive evil-dispelling nature pressed down on the edges of the wound. The black erosion stopped for a moment, then soon began crawling beneath the flesh again. It only slowed it.
Dam Sohye’s eyelids lifted slightly.
Her eyes were unfocused.
“······Mugyeong.”
A single name barely slipped out.
Strength entered Baek Mugyeong’s grip.
“Yeah.”
Baek Mugyeong adjusted Dam Sohye’s arm over his shoulder.
“Don’t close your eyes.”
Dam Sohye’s head tried to droop again.
Baek Mugyeong clenched his teeth and held on tighter.
Originally, they should have escaped to another sector along the sealed roadway. They should have gotten farther from the contamination zone, left the wreckage of the corporate district, and headed toward where the Seonghwi Council’s rescue signal could reach them.
But that route was too far.
The purification equipment was already at its limit, and the contamination outside the sealed roadway was not at a level their current bodies could withstand. If they followed the road all the way to another sector, Dam Sohye would collapse first.
The inner side of the collapsed Sector 30 was better.
Though it had been smashed apart by an attack, there was still a possibility that remnants of purification zones remained on the corporate district side. Broken bulkheads, dead defense nets, half-burned purification devices. They could not expect proper protection. Even so, it was better than wandering bare-bodied through the contamination zone.
Baek Mugyeong dragged Dam Sohye deeper inside.
His steps were slow.
Every time his heel touched the floor, it felt as if his knees would buckle. Sensation blurred at his fingertips, and the inside of his lungs stung as though someone were scraping them with sharp glass.
Even so, Baek Mugyeong did not stop.
If he stopped, it felt like it would rise up again.
That place.
When the Jaso Guard caught up, Baek Mugyeong thought he might be able to breathe for the first time.
Dam Sohye had secretly left the main house, and Baek Mugyeong had followed her all the way here. After enduring this far with a shoddy vehicle carrying refugees and equipment that did not fit their bodies, they had been caught by the Seonghwi Council investigation team.
It came under the pretext of protection, but even their movements were restrained.
There was no way he could not be uneasy.
Then Wudang’s elite Jaso Guard had appeared.
And it was Commander True Man Hyeonyang himself.
There was no way Baek Mugyeong would not know that name. He was not someone who would move lightly even within Wudang. If such a person had come in person, then at the very least, they would not have to leave the Director solely in the Seonghwi Council’s hands.
Until then, that was what he had thought.
Then, sound cut off.
The vibration of the purification filter, the noise of the comms, even someone’s brief orders all receded at once. True Man Hyeonyang’s mouth moved, but no words could be heard.
An unfitting silence.
Something was there.
As if it had been standing there from the beginning.
The moving formation seemed to realize its presence only belatedly.
Dam Sohye swallowed a breath.
Baek Mugyeong could not move either. He could not so much as twitch a finger. The thought that he had to run occurred to him. And yet his body had stiffened as if nailed to the ground.
At that moment, the red eyes moved.
Baek Mugyeong had never imagined that man retreating. But in that instant, Red Eyes did not face it head-on. The weight pressing down from the front twisted to one side. Those who had been frozen were pushed through that opening, and Red Eyes withdrew.
Its presence alone made it impossible to even dare think of opposing it.
That was when True Man Hyeonyang stepped forward.
The commander of the Jaso Guard did not shout. His orders were not long.
True Man Hyeonyang stood in front, and the scattered Jaso Guard changed positions at the same time.
At the front, swords rose, and behind them, palm stances locked in.
At that instant, someone’s body bent and collapsed, but the sword beside him immediately covered that spot. The one forced backward dug his toes into the ground instead of retreating and held fast, and in that moment, another hand severed the pressure rushing toward Dam Sohye.
Each person’s internal energy circulated greatly within their body.
At some point, as if they were a single body, the Jaso Guard maintained their formation behind True Man Hyeonyang and endured.
The air being crushed open briefly.
Only in that gap could Baek Mugyeong draw breath.
Thud.
Someone pushed Baek Mugyeong’s back.
“Escort the Director.”
Only those words reached him.
The next moment, one sleeve of True Man Hyeonyang’s robe split from the inside.
The Jaso Guard’s formation shook all at once. A knee buckled at the front, and the rear immediately filled that place. Those who had lost their swords braced their hands on the ground, and even with their collapsing bodies, they desperately blocked the pressure surging toward Dam Sohye.
The formation bent as though it might collapse at any moment, but in the end, it did not fall.
They were not trying to subdue that presence.
They were creating an opening for Dam Sohye to escape.
Baek Mugyeong held Dam Sohye and fled backward as if running away.
He did not dare look back.
If he looked, he felt he would stop again.
“Sohye.”
Baek Mugyeong’s voice cracked.
Dam Sohye’s breathing had grown even shallower.
Baek Mugyeong tapped Dam Sohye’s cheek with the back of his hand. Blood was smeared there as well.
“Dam Sohye.”
Dam Sohye’s eyelids trembled.
“Hold on just a little longer.”
There was no answer.
Baek Mugyeong’s lips hardened.
“Please.”
Even so, she was still breathing.
Baek Mugyeong walked again.
The path ahead kept being blocked. The wreckage of the shattered corporate district obstructed the way, and black dust veiled his vision. Even so, he moved his feet. One step. Then another.
Dam Sohye’s toes brushed the floor.
Blood smeared the place where she was dragged.
In that way, the two disappeared beyond the dust.
For a while, there was no sign of anything.
Black powder slowly settled. Only at the bloodstained spots did the powder avoid falling. Red dots grew distinct in their places.
The shadow beneath the broken outer wall distorted once.
Then sank back down.
Its shape remained the same, but something within it seemed to have shifted.
The same thing happened behind a tilted streetlamp. In a gap in the collapsed access road, where black powder had piled thickly, and deeper within the overlapping debris. Inside the darkness, outlines slipped out of place one by one.
There was no crying.
No sound of breathing.
Only, above the places where blood had fallen, a handful of black powder did not settle.
From within the powder, a head slowly lifted.
Beside it, another head rose.
And beside that one as well.
The red dots continued in one direction. Toward where Baek Mugyeong had dragged Dam Sohye and disappeared.
A dense shadow swelled along that path.
—-
― So, you’re saying we should hunt a little more here and refine the talismanic arts further?
Yes.
A dozen or so Vajra Talismans had already settled on the outer scales.
Even after inscribing that many, the circulation did not waver. Every time I tore into an infected being, power entered me, and that power naturally layered itself onto the flow inside my body. More accumulated than was consumed.
The fallout was not a problem that would cling as long as I had first worried, either.
The black dust stuck between my scales and left a murky taste on the tip of my tongue along with the heat. Even so, it could not penetrate the flow inside my body. As I continued hunting several times, the reaction the AI had worried about also subsided.
This place was becoming closer to a hunting ground.
Danger remained. In exchange, that danger became prey. When I caught an infected being, power entered me, and that power became the foundation for inscribing talismanic arts again. Even while I inscribed Vajra Talismans on my scales, my body endured. The flow had become smoother than before as well.
It felt regrettable to leave a place like this too soon.
― True. You’re damn cautious and careful about everything, but this time it’s awkward even for me to stop you. The efficiency is insane.
It sounded like an insult aimed at me.
It was not wrong.
I had enough Vajra Talismans to use for now. What I needed now was not only cards that could help me endure.
I recalled the sensation of lightning that had brushed past me when I opened the Opening Gate.
The shape of a dragon’s head.
The blue lightning that had spread from the corner of its mouth.
I could not draw up the thunder power of that time as it was. Even so, I could grasp a fragment of it. Talismanic arts were originally techniques that called forth a great flow through a small form.
Five Element Arts were the most basic of basics.
Among them, this body was unusually well suited to thunder power.
If I could inscribe it on my scales, then the next one should be the Thunderbolt Talisman.
I chose one scale and laid my spiritual sense upon it.
It was different from the Vajra Talisman. The flow of the Thunderbolt Talisman was fast. If even one stroke went awry, the lightning would leap to the adjacent scale, and the remaining power would scatter as heat.
With the power I had now, I could create the shape.
The problem was how many I could inscribe stably.
― Thunder power? That thing from when the dragon head spat thunder?
Something like that.
The might of the Thunderbolt Talisman could not reach the lightning from that time.
But if used together with the ocular technique, it would be different.
The instant the ocular technique twisted the senses, I would drive the Thunderbolt Talisman in like a wedge.
Not lightning spreading on the outside, but a talismanic art that shocked the interior.
That was the sort of thing I needed.
― Good. Especially if it’s electricity, that’s my field of expertise.
Right. You should be useful somewhere like this, at least.
― Hey.
Instead of answering, I spread out my spiritual sense.
Prey nearby had grown scarce. There were still things crawling through the heat, but the power they carried was shallow. Even if I tore into more of them, it would not be enough to inscribe a single stroke on one scale.
I needed a strong one.
It did not have to be knight-class. At the very least, one that carried enough power to inscribe a Thunderbolt Talisman.
I sent my spiritual sense farther out.
The smell of burning, the heat of melted metal, and the stench of blood buried beneath dust mingled together. I let the weak presences flow past. One creature with dense energy was better than many small fry.
At that moment, a disturbance caught my attention from the outskirts.
It was similar to a fight.
Impacts cut off in short bursts.
The sound of metal.
Vibrations traveling through the ground.
Contaminated energy swelled in one place, then scattered. Amid it, a human presence was faintly mixed in as well.
I could not be certain.
But there were infected beings there. Not just one. And among those presences, another power was mixed in.
The disturbance caught in my spiritual sense shook again.