-The Scene of Fusion
The mages all hurried out of the cafeteria and ran in the direction the sound had come from.
It was toward the classrooms where the evacuated residents were staying.
People were rushing out of the classroom, tangled together.
They were still screaming, and all of them looked as if their souls had left their bodies.
Once in the hallway, the people fled in every direction in a frenzy.
“That’s where the residents we evacuated last were staying. What on earth happened?”
“Were there any police officers or soldiers staying in the classroom with them?”
“No. The police and soldiers are staying somewhere else.”
An Guktae and Yu Jaeseon spoke as they ran.
Ahead of them, Thor, Balder, and Heimdall, who had been the first to leave the cafeteria, were running swiftly.
They would handle the initial response somehow.
I ran a little more slowly, first checking whether the protective barrier covering the entire Chinese school had been breached.
Fortunately, the barrier had not been pierced.
And yet, from the classroom in question, gray energy was billowing up in clouds.
‘Did a chimera infiltrate? How did it get in without breaking through the barrier?’
The mages were probably all running with the same question in mind.
After all, the gray energy was spreading so obviously that everyone would notice it at once.
The presence of gray energy meant that a monstrous lifeform had appeared, or at the very least that a black mage’s influence was reaching this place.
It could also mean that the energy of disease was spreading.
‘Did Nasanhaegyeong open a portal inside here? Was Nasanhaegyeong’s spatial magic powerful enough to bypass the barrier?’
By the time my thoughts reached that point, Thor, who had been running at the front, arrived in front of the classroom.
But Thor did not immediately leap inside. He simply stood outside the door, staring in with a horrified expression.
“Oh! Damn it! What is this?”
Balder and Heimdall, who arrived right after him, reacted the same way.
“Oh my God!”
“Damn it! What the hell is this…?”
What on earth was happening inside that classroom to make them act like that?
Following behind An Guktae and Yu Jaeseon, we soon arrived at the classroom in question as well.
The question was answered immediately, and the same horror took its place.
No one could bring themselves to step inside the classroom. They simply froze on the spot.
Unable to tear their eyes away from the scene inside.
“My God! Is that…? Are chimeras… being made?”
“Ah! Those are people, aren’t they? Right? People are turning into zombies, no, into chimeras, right?”
Unlike the other mages, Cheon Danbi and Gil did not simply let out cries of shock. They were horrified in precise terms.
As if unable to believe their own eyes, they looked at me and asked.
I could fully understand everyone’s horror.
Inside the classroom, zombies were being fused into chimeras in real time. Torso joined to torso, connecting as one amid the gray energy, while heart to heart was being linked together by a core.
The zombies that had become materials for the chimeras were none other than the residents who had been inside the classroom.
There were even some people who had not yet fully turned into zombies, so parts of their bodies were still human as they were being fused into chimeras.
‘There were people who evacuated here while already consumed by the energy of disease!’
Of course, it was not as if I was not shocked to watch the process of humans being made into chimeras with my own eyes, but it was not enough to freeze me in place.
I already knew that the energy of disease transformed people into zombies, and then into chimeras.
That was why, while everyone else stood frozen, I moved quickly.
‘Spatial pocket!’
I formed a spatial pocket enclosing the entire classroom and cast a barrier on the outside.
A simple barrier alone would not be enough, so I had chosen to trap the chimeras inside a spatial pocket.
Since they were still in the process of being assembled into chimeras, sealing them off first would be the most effective.
Unless the chimeras knew how to use high-dimensional spatial magic, they would not be able to break out of the spatial pocket.
But the problem was that the gray energy had already spread outside the classroom.
Not only that, but the people who had been inside and around the classroom before fleeing might already have been eroded by the energy of disease.
“Cheon Danbi, I need you to purify the outside. The gray energy spreading right now contains the energy of disease.”
“I’m ready. I’ll start purifying right away.”
At some point, Cheon Danbi was already holding medicinal herbs in her hand.
Now that I looked, the person who had regained her composure after me was Cheon Danbi.
Seeing us move, the other mages finally shook off their shock and began preparing magic as well.
When Cheon Danbi burned the medicinal herbs, Yu Jaeseon immediately cast wind magic, spreading the purifying energy around us.
Since we had been clearing things together until now, our coordination was seamless.
But right now, there was something else Yu Jaeseon needed to do.
“Mage Yu Jaeseon! We’ll handle this place, so please go with Mage An Guktae and find the people who fled from this classroom just now and bring them back. They may already have been affected by the energy of disease. The energy of disease is what turns people into zombies and creates chimeras. Please hurry.”
“Understood!”
Yu Jaeseon and An Guktae immediately ran off.
Even though I had not said anything separately, Gil took over the task of spreading the purifying energy.
He stirred wind into his concentric mana waves and spread the herb smoke far and wide.
“What should we do?”
Thor asked. Balder and Heimdall beside him also looked at me.
“We take down the chimeras.”
I turned my eyes back inside the classroom.
The process of the zombies being fused into chimeras was now almost finished.
There were eight chimeras in total, made from dozens of people as materials. Since there were not many of them, taking them down would not be difficult.
I intended to leave the attack to Thor’s group.
“I’ve trapped them in a spatial pocket, so the chimeras won’t be able to come outside. To completely destroy a chimera, you need to destroy its core. There’s a black magic core at the center where the hearts are connected. That…”
I was explaining to Thor’s group how to take down the chimeras when Gil suddenly whipped around and spoke.
“You’re going to destroy them? But those chimeras were originally people, weren’t they? You’re just going to kill them?”
“They were people. Not anymore. They’ve already turned into zombies and been synthesized into chimeras. Then what should we do? Leave them like that? When they’ll spread the energy of disease?”
“If we purify them, they might return to normal.”
“You saw earlier that zombie chimeras remain the same even if they regenerate, and that purification doesn’t make the energy of disease disappear.”
“But still…”
Gil appealed with desperate eyes.
We had already taken down zombie chimeras before. Gil knew very well that purification was useless.
Even so, because he had directly seen people turning into chimeras right in front of him, he was reluctant to kill them. It was not as if I could not understand how he felt.
But the truth was, the zombie chimeras we had taken down before had also been made using residents as materials. The energy of disease had transformed them.
We had no choice but to destroy them.
“Fine. Then try purifying them once. They’re trapped in the spatial pocket anyway, so they won’t be able to break out.”
I decided to give him a brief chance.
So that Gil could accept it for himself.
“I’ll try. Danbi noona! Please send the purifying energy to me.”
Then Gil generated powerful concentric mana waves. The concentric circles seeped into the spatial pocket and reached the chimeras.
As Cheon Danbi burned the medicinal herbs and infused them with purifying energy, Gil carried that energy on the concentric mana waves and sent it toward the chimeras.
“Kkiiek!”
“Kkiiek!”
“Kkieeek!”
The chimeras began to run wild. By now, their assembly was completely finished.
Dense gray energy poured from the mouths of the zombies. The energy of disease surged in like dark clouds.
Dozens of arms stretched toward us standing outside the door.
Of course, neither the energy of disease nor the zombies’ rotting arms could cross beyond the spatial pocket.
The chimeras all crowded toward the door at once, trying to squeeze out, but what was blocking them was not the door, but space itself, so it was useless.
Then, realizing that they were trapped somewhere, the chimeras turned and began smashing the walls.
The purifying energy that Gil had sent on the concentric mana waves only seemed to make the chimeras even more violent.
“Kiek!”
“Kieeek!”
“Kieeek!”
Through the ragged breaths of the zombies shrieking in monstrous voices, even denser gray energy gushed out.
The zombie chimeras hurled their entire bodies against the classroom walls without restraint.
I thought that since they were chimeras based only on zombies rather than orcs, they would be weak, but that was not the case.
The actions of zombies, unafraid of death, were extremely violent, and the classroom walls were not particularly sturdy.
Before long, the wall began to collapse.
Of course, even if the wall collapsed, the chimeras could not come out of the spatial pocket.
But the commotion was more than enough to make the residents anxious.
The residents who had been sheltering in nearby classrooms rushed outside with terrified faces.
“Ahh! It’s a chimera!”
“How did chimeras get inside the school?”
“Mages! Please save us!”
“What should we do? Should we run?”
If the terrified people rushed out of the school, that would be an even bigger problem.
We had to reassure the residents.
“We have the situation under control here, so please don’t worry and stay inside the classrooms!”
When I shouted, the people hesitated and backed away with doubtful expressions.
Yu Jaeseon or An Guktae would have been better suited for this role, but since they were not here right now, I had no choice but to do it myself.
“Everyone, go inside! There’s a barrier, so don’t worry. You must absolutely not leave the school.”
Around then, the classroom wall completely collapsed, but the chimeras still could not come outside.
Only after seeing that did the people feel somewhat relieved, and they all took shelter back inside the classrooms.
“That’s enough. It’s clear purification won’t work. Take them down.”
Gil spoke quietly beside me. It seemed he had finally given up.
At some point, Gil had withdrawn his concentric mana waves.
“Yeah. Let’s do that. We need to deal with them quickly. This isn’t the only problem right now. There may be more people who have been consumed by the energy of disease. We need to hurry and save them. Before they turn into chimeras, purification might still work.”
“Yes. Right.”
Now we had to hurry.
We might need to examine not only the people who had fled from this classroom earlier, but all of the evacuated residents as well.
“Then that means we’ve got the go sign, right? Attacking!”
As Thor said that, he instantly sent a rain of blue lightning bolts flying toward the chimeras.