By Zephyria “Don’t destroy the buildings as much as possible!”
The unit commander’s veins bulged in his neck from shouting into the loudspeaker. It wasn’t that he cared about the buildings themselves. Dozens of people were hidden within each one. This was the biggest problem with the Great Rift. The Rift’s progression was too fast, meaning many people hadn’t been able to evacuate.
While Seo Yakrin’s net tangled and restricted the monsters’ movements, the Special Unit members quickly burst nearby fire hydrants. Water erupted, gushing out and soaking the ground. It then instantly froze, pinning the monsters’ feet to the earth. This was Joo Ho-young’s ability.
Toxic miasma gathered into a sphere in Yoon Seung-ryong’s hand, only to disappear the next moment. It reappeared inside a monster’s mouth. The miasma spread through its soft insides, not its outer shell, causing its head to slowly change color. Even as the thrashing insect-like legs stomped down repeatedly, Lee Chan-ha’s barrier held firm.
“Is that really mid-level…?”
A mid-level Special Unit member, who was pouring all his strength into securing the harpoon gun, muttered in astonishment. While abilities do grow stronger with use, it requires immense time and effort. It wasn’t for nothing that the number of people who surpassed their original rank was so small.
But looking at Team Sun’s current power, it seemed there would be no one among the mid-levels who could match them. No, he even thought they might be almost as strong as high-levels. He couldn’t even imagine how much they had endured in the Abyss.
Meanwhile, the monster Jeong Si-young was fighting was almost dead. Her incredible insight, so profound it was called foresight, revealed every one of her opponent’s weaknesses. Like an experienced butcher, wherever Jeong Si-young cut and thrust, flesh and blood burst forth, delivering fatal blows. The monster let out a great roar and attempted a final desperate struggle. But Jeong Si-young, having already foreseen it, severed its last limb before it could even try. At the same moment, a Special Unit member shouted.
“Approaching monsters confirmed from the north, at least 300 entities!”
“Many approaching from the northwest as well!”
“The harpoon is about to break!”
Reports came in from all directions. This was another terrifying aspect of the Great Rift. The moment a Great Rift opened, corrupted monsters swarmed from all sides like insects drawn to a light. If they encountered fleeing citizens, it resulted in tremendous casualties.
Finally, as Jeong Si-young split open the abdomen of a massive monster, killing it, dozens of people the monster had swallowed poured out. Severely corrupted and having lost their reason, they didn’t even realize they were being rescued and showed aggression towards the Special Unit members.
“Hold on! Just a little longer! Subdue the Corrupted without killing them if possible!”
Urgent shouts echoed from everywhere. Now, they had to fight off the charging Corrupted while securing the harpoon gun. Subduing the Corrupted without killing them was a difficult task. Injuries began to mount everywhere.
Yohan watched all of this from the highest vantage point. Sweat trickled down his tense face, and his palms, gripping his weapon tightly, were damp.
He wanted to unleash his Purification Field right now. But he endured, holding back. There was something he was waiting for. Yohan tore his gaze away from the battlefield where monsters and people were entangled in combat and looked far beyond. It was the moment he heard a distant cry.
Lightning erupted beyond the Han River.
With every strike, black lightning that seemed to dye the world black poured down like rain. The divine punishment falling from the sky drove the monsters towards this direction. This was why only Joo Ho-young was beside Yohan now. Lee Hyun-muk was in the process of forcibly herding the slowly approaching monsters. It was to minimize the damage that would occur due to the Great Rift.
After the Great Rift opened, all but one of the bridges built across the Han River had been severed. The monsters, even having lost their minds, fled in fear and converged on the sole remaining bridge. Fleeing from the terrifying predators chasing them from behind, and drawn by the Great Rift, thousands of them crossed the bridge. Normally, they would have advanced at a slower pace, attacking people hidden in buildings, but this time, they didn’t even have the leisure to do so, as they were fleeing from Lee Hyun-mook.
“Ugh, ugh…”
Even though they had heard about the operation beforehand, one Special Unit member’s face turned deathly pale as he felt the approach of hundreds, thousands of monsters vibrating the very ground. His sensitive senses, gifted with exploration abilities, drove him into terror.
Could this operation really succeed? Was a Purifier’s ability truly capable of handling such a reckless plan? There was no turning back now. If things went wrong, everyone here would be annihilated. Sweating profusely, the Special Unit members repeatedly glanced at Yang Yohan, who stood at the operation point.
Meanwhile, Jeong Si-young, after slaughtering one monster, began damaging the wings of others. Her intention was to prevent them from flying even if the harpoons broke.
— Ooooh! Ooooh ooooh!
A monster with a pig’s head roared as it tried to fly, only to fall back to the ground because its wings were half-torn. Its curly tail flapped its dense, fur-like wings as it twisted its body. Its mouth opened, its lower jaw extending infinitely downward. From within, hundreds of corrupted pigs crawled out. These were creatures that had once been raised on a livestock farm, only to be devoured alive.
As chickens, cows, and swarms of insects poured out from the mouths of other monsters, Jeong Si-young, covered in corrupted bodily fluid and with eyes gleaming, shouted.
“Everyone, to the barriers!”
The Special Unit members abandoned their fight and threw themselves into the nearest barriers. Thanks to the perfectly timed command, they managed to escape, with the very last Special Unit member just making it. It was precisely because of Jeong Si-young’s timely commands, which read the battlefield and minimized damage, that the Special Unit members followed her so devotedly.
With all the Special Unit members letting go, the giant monsters were soon free. Four of them still crawled on the ground, but one of them managed to fly again. It soared upwards, reaching the eye level of Yang Yohan, who was waiting on the rooftop. Yohan was tense but not afraid, staring directly at the massive head. It was a monster with a fly’s head.
— Purifier…
The monster called out to Yohan through a human mouth that protruded like a long tube. Disgust flickered in its large insect eyes, bulging like opaque lenses. The will of the Abyss, the trace of the Flood. This murderous intent, wanting to eliminate the predator that would eventually starve it to death, resembled a survival instinct. At that moment, Jeong Si-young shouted.
“Now!”
Finally, all the monsters Lee Hyun-muk had herded had crossed the Han River. Joo Ho-young’s buff settled upon his body. Yohan, who had waited for so long, unleashed the light he had condensed. A brilliant halo appeared behind his head, and a white glow emanated from his eyes.
From the Eternal Stone attached to his spear tip, a powerful beam of light shot towards the sky. It then curved into a gentle, round arc, covering everything in its path. A white, dazzling veil of light spread out, beginning to envelop the city. Dozens of drones, which had been observing the battle, captured this astonishing sight without exception.
The fly monster’s head, hit directly at the closest range, began to melt. It flailed frantically before falling powerlessly downwards. But there was no thud. It had already vanished, its volume lightened, before it could hit the ground. The last remaining head turned towards Lee Hyun-mook’s direction.
Strangely, it looked like it was smiling…
‘Smiling? Smiling in this situation…?’
But that couldn’t be right. Yohan dismissed it as a delusion. Soon, its head too melted away cleanly.
The swarm of hundreds, thousands of monsters Lee Hyun-mook had driven in also entered the range of the Purification Field. The flying and crawling creatures regained their original forms. Like rain washing away dirt, their lumpy, mottled appearances flowed off.
The same happened to the foul bodily fluid Jeong Si-young had been covered in, which had begun to re-corrupt her body. It vanished without a trace, as if she had taken a shower. The Corrupted spat out by the monsters, as well as the buildings and streets that had been dirtied, became sparkling clean, as if they had been scrubbed.
“Haa…”
A Special Unit member, gazing up at the Purification Field in a daze, exclaimed in admiration. Hunting monsters had always been an arduous and grueling task, far beyond what the term ‘3D’ could describe. It was not only dangerous, but the greatest drawback was the constant fear that they themselves might one day become Severely Corrupted, no different from monsters. While they had continued this work out of respect for their superiors, every Special Unit member harbored doubts about how long this could last.
The short lifespan of Awakened individuals, the ever-expanding Rift zones. The dwindling population. The desperation that one day the life on this land, this planet itself, would perish. The sense of futility that everyone was merely dying slowly and painfully. But the existence of a Purifier overturned all these despairing circumstances…