By Zephyria 
As soon as the door opened, what they saw were the massive bodies of three bees. Jeong Han-sol immediately deployed a space barrier. With one hand, he cast a barrier to protect the squad members, and with the other, he trapped the bees. He had cast two barriers at once.
“My god. I actually did it.”
Behind Jeong Han-sol, who was muttering as if he couldn’t believe his own success, Jin Gi-chang reached out and launched flames. Startled, the bees jumped back, but they were instantly turned into roasted bees by the sheer power of the fierce flames.
Once two of them were taken down, the bees on the 6th floor vibrated their wings with ferocious intensity. Tzzzt, tzzzt—with the chilling sound of vibrating wings, the 6th-floor bees took flight. Following them, bees from the 7th, 8th, and higher floors poured down like a flood.
“Jin Gi-chang, block them!”
With Jin Gi-chang at the front and Jeong Han-sol deploying a barrier in the middle, Lee A-gon stood behind them, using his ability on the two men to push their physical limits to the peak.
“Just blow off their heads!”
“What?”
Lee A-gon shouted to Jeong Han-sol.
“You don’t need to explode the whole thing. Just use your ability on the head or the torso!”
Jeong Han-sol wore a look of realization. It was exactly as he said. There was no need to explode the bees’ entire bodies. They only needed to render them incapable of combat.
Following Lee A-gon’s advice, Jeong Han-sol cast a space barrier over the head of a bee charging toward him and then pressed down with two fingers. The body of the bee, its head exploded, fell to the floor. Its six legs twitched for a moment before slowly stiffening.
Gaining confidence, Jeong Han-sol snapped his fingers. Simultaneously, hexagonal transparent space barriers enveloped the heads of the bees. Every time Jeong Han-sol folded his fingers, the barriers collapsed with them, and the bees’ heads exploded.
Hae-jun, sandwiched between Lee A-gon and Jeong Han-sol, couldn’t see the situation clearly. He could only hear the sound of flames erupting, the buzzing noise of the bees, and Lee A-gon’s voice directing the operation.
The amount of guiding energy the three Espers were consuming was substantial. He was guiding the three Espers in real-time. With the ceaseless supply of guiding energy, the three Espers unleashed their psychic abilities as if they had an infinite power source. They didn’t tire. They couldn’t tire. Before that could happen, Lee A-gon had already pushed their bodies to the absolute limit.
Buzz, buzz, buzz—the sound of the bees’ wings grew louder. They had now reached the 9th floor. As the enemies ascended toward the main hive, the bees went on high alert. To protect their home, the bees swarmed down in droves.
There were only four humans compared to hundreds of bees. However, the narrow hallways of the old apartment complex offset their numerical disadvantage. No matter how many enemies there were, they could only confront five or six at a time.
Surrounding the space with barriers to prevent close-quarters combat and firing flames to annihilate the enemies ahead, they climbed the stairs step by step.
Upon reaching the 10th floor, the bees changed their strategy. They formed clusters of dozens and began to pile on top of Jeong Han-sol’s defensive barrier, pressing down with sheer weight.
Crack, crack—cracks appeared on Jeong Han-sol’s barrier. The bee at the very bottom, unable to withstand the pressure, exploded with its face pressed against the barrier. Once the yellow entrails slid down the barrier, the bee in the second row pressed its face against it. Soon, that bee exploded as well.
“I can’t… I can’t hold it!”
Jeong Han-sol groaned, thrusting both hands forward. There were too many enemies. He couldn’t shake them all off at once. The barrier would collapse soon.
Lee A-gon let go of Jeong Han-sol and Jin Gi-chang.
“Hey, if you let go now—!”
Jin Gi-chang yelled. The flames he was firing became noticeably smaller.
Having withdrawn his ability, Lee A-gon reached his hand toward the barrier. Suddenly, the dozens of bees clinging to the barrier fell to the ground all at once.
“Wha—what?”
“How on earth did he…?”
“I paralyzed them. They won’t last long. Jin Gi-chang.”
“Huh?”
Lee A-gon quickly issued orders to the two bewildered men.
“When the bees fall, set them on fire and wipe them out. Jeong Han-sol, protect Hae-jun hyung. Now, let’s move.”
The formation changed. Lee A-gon took the lead, Jeong Han-sol stayed in the middle, and Jin Gi-chang stood at the rear. Hae-jun was surrounded and protected by Jeong Han-sol and Jin Gi-chang.
From the 10th floor to the 11th, they processed the enemies quickly, like a factory. When a bee appeared, Lee A-gon paralyzed it. As Jeong Han-sol and Hae-jun kicked the bees aside to move forward, Jin Gi-chang set them on fire from the back, rendering them combat-incapable.
All the way from the 11th to the 12th floor, Jin Gi-chang grumbled. He complained that if Lee A-gon had such a cheat-like ability, he should have used it from the start. Lee A-gon acted as if he hadn’t heard a word.
The 12th floor. The number of bees trying to crush them increased. Now, Lee A-gon had to paralyze twenty bees at a time.
As the numbers grew, a gap opened. One of the bees on the ground recovered from the paralysis faster than expected. That bee immediately lunged at Jin Gi-chang, who was firing flames at its kin.
“Aagh!”
Stung by a bee’s stinger, Jin Gi-chang hunched over, clutching his shoulder, and in doing so, Hae-jun’s presence was exposed.
Without a moment to think, Hae-jun caught the stinger thrusting toward him with his hand. The bee, hovering in the air, buzzed violently, flapping its wings. Each time it did, the stinger held by Hae-jun shook wildly.
“Kh… ugh.”
Hae-jun strained until his face turned bright red, but he couldn’t stop the stinger from gradually closing in. Just as he felt he could no longer hold on and whipped his head away, the stinger pierced into where his ear was. Buzz, buzz, buzz—the sound of wings grew closer. The strength was immense.
“Hyung!”
Realizing the situation late, Lee A-gon spread both hands toward Hae-jun. Simultaneously, the bee attacking Hae-jun was sent flying like a ball and exploded in mid-air.
“Are you okay? Yes? Hyung?”