Tatata-tang!
Amid the gunfire, I gave a signal to Gong Gyeong-min with my eyes.
His fingers pointed to three locations.
I grabbed my firearm, dove into cover, and simultaneously dashed forward.
Through the haze, I saw a human silhouette.
It spotted .
Bang!
I reached the not-yet-fallen corpse and confird the kill.
Bang!
I moved to the second location.
I heard Chinese.
Sounded like a greeting.
Even better.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I fired toward the sound and closed the distance.
As the side of a building ca into view, so did a man poking his gun out from behind a corner.
I killed my presence and crept closer.
No variables.
I was already aiming at him first.
Whether he had sensory abilities or not didn’t matter much.
If he had them, he’d call for help. If not, he’d stick his head out.
Bang!
It was the latter.
Leaving the second fanatic with a hole in his head, I turned to the third point.
Seems I won’t need to intervene there.
Tatata-tang!
“AAARRRGH!”
A scream, a thud—and then a blurred silhouette erged from the fog.
Step, step—
A zombie.
No, it was my ntor, Jang Ki-young, so damaged he was unrecognizable.
“......”
I didn’t know what he’d gone through, but it was clear he’d been moving with the fanatics.
Tattooed on his body were fanatic symbols—“Union,” “Nine Yang Nine Yin,” “ssenger of Prophecy.” Crude bits of tal pierced through his skin as part of their bizarre culture.
Maybe after we separated in Incheon, he got tangled up with another fanatic group and stuck with them.
As long as he was accepted among them, he’d be safe from being killed by other humans.
Jang Ki-young stood at the entrance of a building and didn’t co closer.
Reading emotions from his face was aningless.
He was a zombie now. His face so destroyed you couldn’t look at it straight.
His eyes were the sa.
Like Gong Gyeong-min said, his pupils only held fleeting gleams now.
Empty. Like the eyes of a dead fish. No emotion left to read.
But his mind hadn’t completely died yet.
“Park Gyu.”
In a space where ti felt frozen, my ntor spoke.
He moved his lips, but I couldn’t make out the words.
Instead, he pointed toward the mist.
Only then did I understand.
Our enemy must be waiting beyond that fog.
“......”
Countless emotions crossed my mind, but I said nothing.
There was no need.
My ntor only wanted one thing.
A result.
Empty words, dramatic resolve—all aningless to him.
As if he’d read my thoughts, Jang Ki-young slowly lted into the fog and vanished.
As if he had never existed.
“......”
I picked up my hunter weapon.
The Harpoonizer.
My favorite monster-hunting weapon.
Though covered in mist, I had traversed this area multiple tis during the killzone operation.
Even with my eyes closed, I could clearly recall the terrain, objects, even the maze-like sewer lines.
I climbed the half-collapsed staircase and secured the high ground, overlooking the street below shrouded in mist.
I saw a vague structure beyond the fog.
If mory serves, beneath that so-called Tower of Peace, the general-type monster—the day's main target—would be waiting.
I’d deal with that one later.
First, the monster beneath .
I couldn’t see it.
The fog in this area was unusually dense.
Then I’ll drag it out.
Using teammates would be standard, but all communication outside Necropolis-based internet signals was currently down.
According to Gong Gyeong-min, soone was urgently building a voice ssenger via Necropolis frequencies, but that wouldn’t pop up instantly.
This was sothing I had to handle alone.
Returning to the others, calling for backup, and relaying commands would only burden them—they were already fighting for their lives in the east.
Anyone could tell just by listening closely.
Tatatatatang!
BOOM!
Bang! Bang!
Gunfire and explosions echoed from various city zones without pause.
So teams hadn’t even regrouped yet, while others were locked in brutal battles with swarming monsters.
And the monsters inside the city weren’t our only enemy.
Even before the operation began, a “monster army” numbering in the hundreds had been advancing toward the city—and by now, they might already be inside.
The longer this goes on, the stronger they get—and the weaker we beco.
We must not forget: the monsters possess infinite strength.
Now is the mont they’re at their weakest.
Improvisation is our only option.
Rustle—
I pressed my body flat against a pillar, extending only the firearm.
I aid at the intersection where I rembered a Centurion-type was standing guard.
I couldn’t see it through the dense mist, but based on the building I stood in, the floor, my location, and that towering structure beyond the fog—I estimated the monster’s position.
Not hard.
Basic triangulation.
I didn’t need perfect accuracy, just a close-enough direction.
After estimating the monster’s location, I pushed my weapon forward.
Even though my body was hidden and I was firing blind, I pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!
Gunfire.
And then—
BOOM!
A shockwave responded.
The mont it hit, my organs all trembled slightly—and I clearly felt sothing shift in the fog, as if it were tearing apart.
My bullet had hit dead-on.
Of course—
Ping!
A return shot ca.
The steel-reinforced pillar blocked it, but the opponent was a Centurion.
Still holding my weapon, I dashed out of position at full speed.
And sure enough—
BOOM!
Another shockwave.
The projectile it fired was the size of a utility pole. It pierced through the concrete pillar I’d just been hiding behind and embedded itself into the far wall.
KUGUGUNG!
The pillar collapsed. The entire building let out a deep groan. Dust and rubble rained down like volcanic ash.
I sprinted through the flying debris.
BOOM!
It fired another pillar.
KUGUGUGUNG!!!
Another one smashed into the ruined building like a dagger.
The groaning structure wailed louder. The floor beneath my feet began shaking violently.
Second floor.
The ground below was uneven and littered with protruding rebar—jumping down would be dangerous. But I had no choice.
Luckily, I rembered that the road side had been cleared regularly by the local punks—no debris there.
As the building trembled as if the world were ending, I sprinted toward a hole in the wall.
KUGUGUNG!
Collapse.
I could feel it with my entire body as I leapt from the edge.
BOOM!
Another pillar flew at and struck the building—but I was already airborne.
Mid-leap, I focused below.
The safest place. The road.
I looked for it.
There.
The road.
Cracked asphalt and scattered debris—at least they wouldn’t impale .
I hit the ground rolling, the montum carrying through.
THUD!
“......!”
A jagged rock jabbed hard into the back of my left chest. Sharp pain.
But it was a light wound.
Probably just a hairline fracture on a rib.
As the landscape righted itself from ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) its spin, I bolted again, heading straight for the monster’s location—sothing I’d never once forgotten.
BOOM!
A shockwave, 30 ters ahead.
Before it reached , I dove sideways.
SHEEEEW---
Another pillar projectile flew past my last position with a deathly whistle.
Not bad.
But—
Click—
It’s in my range now.
Still just a faint silhouette through the thick fog, looking down on .
But I was in its range—and my weapon was ready.
CHHHH—
The Harpoonizer flared and launched.
BOOM!
Just as the monster emitted another shockwave, the harpoon struck its body, exploded, and shredded it from the inside.
Prone, I waited for the light-particle burst.
KUGUGUGUNG—
As the fanatic’s building collapsed, golden light particles fluttered through the mist like butterflies, landing on my head.
When the building was fully down and the noise subsided, I radioed to my team.
“Centurion-type eliminated.”
Not loud. Not soft. Just neutral.
“Park Gyu!”
Ha Tae-hoon ran up, followed by Gong Gyeong-min.
Ha Tae-hoon looked unmoved. Gong Gyeong-min gave a thumbs-up.
“Still got it. Who’s gonna believe Old School took down a battle-class mid-size type alone?”
I turned my head slowly.
Not ti to celebrate.
In fact, in so ways, this fight had just begun.
Ha Tae-hoon approached with a syringe.
Painkillers.
As I felt the solution seep into my bloodstream, I recalled the past.
A necessary flashback.
Because I was rembering the battle with that thing.
*
I don’t know how many tis I relived that fight.
Probably most vividly inside the Rift.
With both legs broken, in a world frozen in ti, I replayed our defeat again and again.
The situation now is almost identical.
Only the scale—of humans, monsters, and the battlefield—was smaller.
Smaller didn’t an less dangerous.
The enemy we were facing might have been the leader of the monsters.
Before confronting it, our team had a brief tactical discussion.
The answer was obvious.
The basics.
Kim Daram would support from the rear, Gam Ho-seop would spot from the middle and watch for changes, while Jeon Sang-soon and I—both on assault—would engage directly.
No one thought it would go smoothly.
We knew nothing about it.
All we knew about the general-type was one thing:
It was a large-class.
Ignorance is death, but we had no other choice.
Both the Chinese and Korean governnts wanted data on it badly.
Being rcenaries wasn’t an excuse to skip the fight.
And, I’ll admit, I wanted to hunt it.
Back then, it didn’t use tricks like fog, but a thunderstorm had caused a natural fog that sowhat obscured our vision.
Still, it wasn’t thick, so Kim Daram could support from 400 ters with her sniper.
The monster sat at the bottom of the Rift, like the surface of a lake.
“It’s huge. Definitely a large-class.”
Our optics couldn’t capture it—just static. It couldn’t be photographed.
What we saw with our own eyes was a giant beetle-shaped creature.
Truly massive.
At 150 ters out, its height was about 25 ters—visible even among other mid-size types. But its abdon—bloated and round—was absurdly oversized.
Just the belly was like two basketball courts stacked.
Estimated weight: at least 300 tons.
The largest monster discovered to date.
Its head and chest, however, protruded from that belly like horns—only about 4 to 5 ters tall, small-class size.
Judging from how it moved, the weak point was the small head and chest sticking out of that massive belly.
Naturally, we decided to focus all attacks on its head and chest, not the belly.
“Team leader... can we win?”
Gam Ho-seop asked.
I didn’t answer.
“...Who knows.”
Right before the final battle, sleep hit .
A strange illness that had plagued since mid-China.
“We can only do our best.”
Click—
I didn’t want to lie.
I didn’t want to fake hope even I couldn’t see.
“Let’s go.”
I signaled Kim Daram and rushed forward with my weapon.
Bang!
Her sniper rifle’s thunderous crack signaled the start of the battle.
BOOM!
The monster let out a shockwave.
“......!!”
A terrifying shockwave, unlike anything we’d faced.
I’d felt strange reverberations from Kang Han-min and Na Hye-in’s waves—but this one, imbued with incomprehensible force, confused so badly it still makes my hands tremble sotis.
“What the hell... is this...?”
Jeon Sang-soon froze.
One cohort below , he was the hunter I trusted most after Kim Daram—a top graduate with elite credentials.
Stronger than , more agile than Kim Daram, flawless in tactics and loyalty. The upper ranks saw him as destined to outshine us all.
That steel-hearted comrade lost his will to fight from one shockwave.
“This is insane... How do we beat sothing like this?!”
A hunter who’d completed over 100 missions had a ntal breakdown.
Usually, completing 50 missions marks a hunter with an unbreakable will.
That will shattered from one shockwave.
“This isn’t doable... I can’t do this...!!”
That’s the kind of monster we were up against.
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