“Wingky, you okay?”
As they climbed higher, the temperature dropped sharply, so Suho went into his subspace warehouse, put on a suit of powered armor, and came back out.
By the time they reached the middle layer, the 50km to 85km range, the temperature had fallen to minus 90 degrees.
One of the powered armor’s basic functions was body-heat maintenance, so Suho had no trouble, but he asked anyway, worried that Wingky might not be able to endure it.
Krrrrr-!
Apparently, it had been needless worry. Wingky seemed completely unfazed, never ceasing its wingbeats even as its entire body became coated in white ice.
As the oxygen grew thin, the powered armor’s life-support system provided auxiliary oxygen. Wingky was a creature that needed nothing but ether to begin with, so it was unaffected.
Crack, crack—
As Wingky repeated its ice-coated wingbeats and climbed higher, the two reached an altitude of 85km, crossing into the thermosphere.
Then, instead of cold, the temperature began to rise in reverse. It climbed higher and higher, surpassing 1,000°C.
Fortunately, the thermosphere had such low atmospheric density that it was close to a vacuum state, so there was almost no heat actually felt.
The powered armor’s life-support system now not only supplied clean oxygen but also maintained constant pressure, preventing bodily fluids from boiling or gases from expanding in the external vacuum.
Wingky needed none of that. Whatever its body structure was, it seemed to maintain a similar state whether it was cold or hot, or whether the pressure dropped or not.
“Wingky, stop here. Let’s not go any higher.”
Finally, an altitude of 100km.
They had reached the Kármán Line, the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space.
With no wind blowing and no medium to carry sound waves, Suho and Wingky silently glided through a world of perfect stillness where no sound existed.
“Woooow...”
The end of Earth, the beginning of space.
Upon reaching the Kármán Line, the Earth spread out below them like a blue marble.
The familiar boundary of the sky that he had always known disappeared. On one side stretched the endless black canvas of space; on the other, the soft blue curve of the Earth continued in all its wonder.
Far below, clouds floated like cotton, and the sight of continents and oceans slowly rotating across the surface came into view.
The coastline sparkling in the sunlight and the sea shining with reflected rays were dazzlingly beautiful.
He could have come here anytime if he had put his mind to it, yet he was only seeing this now.
It was something fully possible with his abilities and resources, and Suho felt anew how much he had left undone simply because he was lazy.
Countries contacted by the South Korean government sought out Suho, who had embarked on a tremendous mission toward the sky, and before long, Suho and Wingky were captured by several orbiting satellites, high-altitude aircraft equipped with filming gear, and countless ground observation devices.
Those few dozen minutes that would decide Earth’s fate.
With no alternative in sight, staring helplessly at the approaching doom, the whole world held its breath and watched only those two.
Finally, a meteorite approaching from deep space came into view.
Although it was quite far, there was almost no scattering of light in the upper atmosphere, so all celestial bodies appeared clearer and brighter, allowing them to be spotted that much faster.
What had looked like merely a dark dot gradually appeared as a large, black metallic mass reflecting light and twinkling.
Minutes later, upon entering the atmosphere, it rapidly heated due to friction with Earth’s atmosphere.
As it entered at hypersonic speed, air molecules were compressed extremely quickly, heating it to extremes and raising the surface temperature to thousands of degrees.
The fragment of Nightferra made of Blacksteel had its surface material vaporize, and the evaporated substances burned with flames—gradually taking on the exact appearance of a blazing meteorite like the ones seen in movies.
“It’s coming. Wingky. No need to be scared. I’ll take care of it.”
Kirurururuk——
As if saying not to worry, Wingky responded to Suho.
Shiiiiiiiiik——
The moment the meteorite pierced through the atmosphere, the noise caused by friction and compression rang out terribly—a mix of a high-pitched whistle and a low, rumbling impact sound.
Wingky began to grow tense, and Suho petted it to calm it down.
Then,
Shiiiii——fuuuuuuuk—— ..........
In an instant, the charging meteorite vanished.
The flames and smoke trailing the Nightferra fragment lingered in the air for a moment, but quickly died down and soon faded.
At the same time, the compressed air at the spot where the meteorite had vanished suddenly expanded, letting out a short “pook.”
It would have been invisible to anyone else, but Suho saw it clearly—the air briefly twisting where the meteorite had disappeared, then filling back in as peaceful silence settled.
NASA’s ground control room fell into chaos.
Warning lights flashed, and various sensors tracked the fragment’s trajectory in real time. The meteorite hurtling toward Earth at hypersonic speed had less than a minute until predicted impact. Just when everyone was in despair, the meteorite’s signal suddenly vanished.
It had evaporated from Earth’s atmosphere in an instant, as if it had never existed.
“Impossible...”
“What is happening...”
Several researchers muttered uneasily.
The marker for the meteorite’s path, frozen on NASA’s large screen, blinked in real time before the signal stopped completely and finally disappeared.
“It... didn’t collide...”
Someone muttered as they looked at each other with shocked eyes.
“...Wo... wo... woooah!”
“Oh my God... we’re alive. We’re alive, aren’t we?!”
The computers analyzing data in real time hadn’t finished their calculations yet, but the result was clear.
The unbelievable conclusion—that everyone had survived—was reality, and people shouted, embraced each other, and poured out their emotions.
It was the same at observatories on the ground.
Astronomers observing the meteorite’s entry, all researchers watching the scene of what looked like a meteor piercing through the atmosphere, witnessed the meteorite vainly evaporating in the sky just before it touched Earth’s surface.
After the shocking moment passed in tension, those staring through telescopes froze in place.
They looked at one another.
“What did... I just see...?”
“...It disappeared...”
No one could deny that some inexplicable force had intervened. Everyone felt an indescribable thrill.
Ordinary citizens trembled in fear, filming the sight of the falling meteorite in the sky with their phones.
An apocalypse no one had imagined.
Everyone who had never expected to face the end so suddenly, without any preparation, stared up at the sky in panic, and at that moment, the meteorite disappeared as if in a dream.
As if time had stopped, people felt an incomprehensible awe beyond confusion and fear.
“Wh-what...”
“Where... did it go...?”
Some vaguely feared even more, wondering whether falling meteorites simply became invisible in certain sections.
But as time passed, nothing happened at all.
The sky retained only the same calmness it had had hours before.
“We survived...”
“It’s... not the end?”
Someone among the confused crowd spoke.
“...We’ve been saved.”
Those whispered words gradually spread. As videos and photos taken from around the world were quickly shared through social media, people felt the emotion of having witnessed a miracle.
Governments of various countries immediately convened meetings, and the media flocked to cover the incident.
Broadcast stations around the world had been live-covering this moment, but they were unable to explain the disappearance of the signal from the screen immediately after the meteorite vanished.
Various media outlets poured out articles with headlines such as “Intervention of Supernatural Forces,” “The Miracle Achieved by Jeong Suho Admitti with His Griffin,” “The Miracle at the Kármán Line,” “The Birth of a Hero,” and “Earth Saved.”
Scientists, politicians, and journalists all could not fully understand what had happened to the meteorite, but they had no choice but to accept these two clear facts: that they had survived on the brink of destruction, and that Jeong Suho had done something.
“Good work, Wingky!”
Suho fed Wingky a piece of SSS-grade Etherium and petted the nape of its neck.
Gliding in a wide sweep to check if he had missed any fragments, Suho then headed toward Wingky’s nest.
Only to find...
“Good heavens... what is all this...”
Countless crowds of people had gathered.
“Jeong Suho! Aaack! Jeong Suho!”
“Wingky! Wingkyyy!”
“I love you! I love you! Jeong Suho!!”
“If it weren’t for you, we would all be dead...!”
“A savior! The savior of the era!”
“Jeong Suho! You are a true hero!”
“Jeong Suho, you’re absolutely crazy!! Take me!”
The crowd of people screaming their heads off was beyond imagination, and Suho was completely fed up. The throng shrieking and cheering looked like a horde of zombies.
“Ugh... Wingky, this doesn’t seem like the right place. Don’t land. Let’s go to Elysium Heights.”
Wingky flew high again, carrying Suho toward Elysium Heights.
“Good heavens...”
But that place was no safer.
No one could enter, so they were blocked from coming in, yet cloud-like crowds surrounded the entire perimeter of Elysium Heights.
* * *
That’s how people are.
Isn’t it human nature to save someone from drowning, then immediately demand to know where your bundle is?
The expeditions and countries that had spent enormous sums mining the Nightferra meteorite brought up the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, claiming that the Moon and other celestial bodies are the common heritage of all mankind and that no country can claim ownership.
Meanwhile, expeditions launched by individuals or companies argued that international space law did not apply to them, asserting that they had the rights since they had been the first to begin mining.
But in the end, things did not go their way.
—Are you crazy?
—Apologize for what you’ve done first.
—You nearly caused a catastrophe, and with what face... Compensate the world immediately for bringing the fear of the apocalypse.
Public opinion worldwide was boiling with anger.
It was not something he had particularly wanted, but naturally, the fragment of the Nightferra meteorite—a lump of Blacksteel 1.5km in diameter—became Suho’s sole property entirely.
Ravi estimated based on its size; the mass of Blacksteel stored in subspace was approximately 1.39 billion tons.
Since he could have received 1,000 trillion tons for an item worth merely 100 characters at the Cheonyangwon, this was truly a minuscule amount.
Still, there was one thing that differentiated it from the other items at the Cheonyangwon that Suho possessed: its source was clear, and it had been revealed to the entire world.
This might seem trivial, but it was important.
Unlike other materials he had stockpiled by the planet-load yet could not properly use, this could be sold freely.
“Well, I’ve suddenly gotten a lot of Blacksteel... but where and how much should I sell? Everyone in the world must be waiting with bated breath for when this gets released. Should I dump it on the Global Ontower Auction House?”
“Hmm, no matter how good something is, if released in bulk it becomes cheap. And lower-tier items that aren’t as good will all drop in price along with it.”
When Suho met Seongsik and Narae and briefly discussed disposing of the Blacksteel, Seongsik opposed releasing it in large quantities.
“Boss, our TDM is already pushing the sale of transcendental materials from the tower as our main business, so how about we handle Blacksteel there too?”
Narae chimed in as well.
“Hmm... that sounds good. Through TDM... But I think we should take this opportunity to expand TDM order reception worldwide. The quantity is too much to be consumed only domestically.”
“Ah...”
“Man, that’s a long-term plan for the future. It’s impossible right now. We haven’t expanded our workforce or space yet.”
“Then how about keeping the rest of TDM’s menu limited to domestic, and opening overseas sales booths exclusively for Blacksteel?”
“Hmm... that much should be possible.”
“Okay. Then let’s proceed that way.”
He requested that they create PR materials and sales channels for the massive amount of Blacksteel, and delegated full authority regarding the sale to the two.
It would undoubtedly amount to a huge sum, and he felt deeply grateful to have people he could trust and leave this to.
Relieved, Suho returned home and opened the Global Ontower Auction House.
“Even if I don’t list the Blacksteel here, I should sell the S-grade failures and A-grade trash here.”
It was purely a personal standard, but it was time to clear out the unpopular inventory.