By Zephyria 
The creature’s mouth, smeared messily with blood and flesh, hung wide open. Kim Si-baek stepped back, holding his sword at an angle with one hand to defend and protecting Tae-un, who had approached him, with the other. However, the creature’s objective lay elsewhere.
Its massive mouth, wider than its own body, swallowed the corpses of the man and woman it had been tearing apart in a single gulp. Or rather, it stored them within itself.
Soon, the ground shook as if an earthquake had occurred. To be precise, the swarms of magical beasts that Kim Si-baek had defeated until now began to squirm and move. The infinite corpses—those whose necks had been severed, hearts pierced, and bodies split open—were rapidly sucked toward the creature.
[Death and Beauty is horrified, wondering if those things are coming back to life.]
Not only Biyendwe, but even Kim Si-baek was momentarily startled, but they weren’t coming back to life. No, it would have been better if they had.
As the creature rose, Kim Si-baek’s gaze slowly and continuously shifted upward. The sucked-in corpses clung to the creature’s arms, face, legs, chest, fingers, toes, hair, back, and neck. It was like layering mud onto a small ball rolled in one’s palm until it became a mass as large as a human head.
“Grrr-rrr!”
Having grown to a size similar to a seven-story apartment building, the creature fully stood up and let out a roar, opening a mouth woven from countless human limbs. Its teeth were the faces of people—large, small, old, and young.
The giant, composed of a human swarm, was so grotesque and horrific that even Kim Si-baek, who had been through everything, was left speechless. Human imagination is said to be infinite, but just what was going on inside this host’s head?
However, a contrasting, nonchalant evaluation came from right beside him.
“It got bigger.”
When Kim Si-baek looked down, Tae-un, who had been staring blankly up at the giant, suddenly turned pale and gagged.
“You must have struggled dealing with the flying magical beasts. If it’s too much, don’t push yourself and go rest over there.”
Tae-un breathed shallowly, pressing a slender finger—one that fit perfectly within Kim Si-baek’s hand—against his chest.
“I’ll do my best so I don’t get in your way, Hyung.”
He was a young brother who made one genuinely worry that if left alone outside, he’d be kidnapped by someone lured by his cuteness. At the sound of the boy straining to gather his courage, Kim Si-baek’s eyes grew moist with pity.
[Death and Beauty warns you not to be swayed by your brother’s cunning tricks.]
…Regardless, that thing had to be dealt with. Quickly.
The giant let out a bizarre, scratching sound and slammed its fist downward. Kim Si-baek easily dodged the attack while wrapping one arm around Tae-un’s waist, but Biyendwe began to hiccup. He had locked eyes with the glistening pupils of the corpses that made up the giant’s five fingers and the back of its hand.
“…Aaaaah…”
“Kill… kill…”
“Save… save me…”
“…Because of you…”
“Die die die…”
“…My fault… not…”
The faces—at least two or three on each finger—mumbled in hoarse voices. It wasn’t that they retained intelligence. It felt as if the voices from their lives, remembered by the host, were being played back endlessly like a broken cassette tape.
[Death and Beauty speculates that the origin of that thing is hatred.]
Kim Si-baek agreed. The glistening eyeballs, the infinitely repeating fragments of voices—everything was clumped together by resentment.
Boom! Crash! Unable to kill the humans in one go, the giant struck the ground with both fists. Impacts capable of crushing a person or two without effort hit the ground in succession.
Ultimately leaping over the cracking rifts in the floor, Kim Si-baek leaped lightly into the air and sliced through the creature’s fist with his sabre.
“Krrr-rrr!”
With a tearing scream, three fingers—or from another perspective, the corpses of a dozen people patched together into chunks of flesh—were severed from the palm. Tae-un, who had slipped beneath the creature’s legs unnoticed, also sliced its heel, causing countless entangled pieces of corpses to fall off.
However, it wasn’t a decisive blow.
“It’s huge, but it has no intelligence and no proper abilities or means of attack. If we keep slicing it like this, we’ll be able to kill it eventually. Though there is a problem.”
“Not much time left, right?”
“Since we’re inside a portal, the time in reality is inaccurate, but there are probably only a few minutes left.”
There were no people nearby to get hurt, nor buildings to be destroyed, and the severed debris wasn’t reattaching itself, so they could eventually kill it if they took their time. The problem was that time. The mutation of the Id Portal was fast approaching.
As if proving it wasn’t human despite having a human form, the giant did not lose its balance even though its heel had been cut. Regardless of whether its hands or feet were severed, it tried to crush and trample Kim Si-baek and Tae-un to death.
Because its body was so massive, a single punch or kick shook the very axis of the earth, and the range of impact was wide. While dodging the attacks, Kim Si-baek and Tae-un quickly exchanged ideas.
“It’ll be hard to sweep it away all at once like at the department store, right?”
“Yeah, I’m low on divine power. Where is that thing’s core?”
“It’s different for every individual… I’ll try to find it. Can you hold its attention for a moment?”
“Trust your Hyung.”
Kim Si-baek affectionately ruffled the hair of Tae-un, who frequently came up with clever solutions, and dashed toward the creature.
“Kirrr-rk!”
The magical beast, rooted in a hatred that desired to kill and destroy everything, fixed its gaze on him instantly. Boom! Crash! Thump! The ground shook and the floor split. What could be seen through the cracks in the floor was glowing lava.
Tae-un did not miss the moment the giant’s upper body leaned close to the ground while focusing its attack on Kim Si-baek; he moved the darkness dwelling within the shadows. Thorns of darkness, thin and sharp as iron skewers, struck various parts of the giant’s body.
Since he hadn’t put much strength into it, the creature likely felt nothing more than a prick from a needle. Indeed, the giant ignored Tae-un’s attacks entirely and focused only on Kim Si-baek.
However, there was one spot that reacted abnormally.
“It’s the neck!”
As soon as its neck was pierced, the giant immediately covered that area.
“Got it!”
Kim Si-baek lured the giant to a position he had scouted earlier. Then, he picked up and threw with all his might the debris of a house—which had begun to fuse with the world, making it impossible to tell if it was cement, a wooden pillar, or an animal carcass.
The debris struck the oncoming creature’s calf precisely, and the giant, momentarily stumbling, caught its foot in a crack in the floor and fell forward.
The lava surging beneath the floor did no damage to the creature. However, it was enough to create a brief opening.
“Hyung! I’ll launch you!”
“Sorry!”
Maintaining his running speed, Kim Si-baek kicked off from Tae-un’s outstretched hands and launched himself. The arm strength pushing him up from below was certainly not that of a fourteen-year-old boy. Not that it mattered.
He landed near the buttocks of the giant, which was crouched and unable to stand up immediately because its foot was stuck. The surface beneath his feet was uneven. Faces, arms, bodies, and legs of people were patched together without gaps, creating a bumpy terrain.
“Kill them all…”
“Over there… again…”
Limbs suddenly popped out from between the faces repeating voices from their past lives, trying to grab Kim Si-baek as he ran across the back.
[Death and Beauty cannot stand the grotesqueness and bristles its feathers stiffly.]
“Wouldn’t it be better to keep your eyes closed?”
[Death and Beauty stubbornly insists that your god shall behold every action of my apostle.]
Kim Si-baek wondered who that god was—the one who had been so terrified upon first returning to Earth that he didn’t even know what Kim Si-baek was doing. Kim Si-baek gave a small smirk and put strength into his legs.
“Kuaaa-aaaa…”
The giant, finally pulling its foot out of the ground, flailed its arms to shake him off. Its hunched back gradually straightened, and the slope became nearly vertical.
“Whoa.”
No matter how skilled Kim Si-baek was, he couldn’t perform the acrobatics of walking up a cliff. In an instant, he lost his balance and his body tilted downward.
“Hyung!”
Along with Tae-un’s single shout echoing from the ground.