Chapter 180 – Vanish (Part Eight)

The last remaining nuclear facility in the world.

The facility, kept under the strictest secrecy, had come under heavy attack, and all contact was lost.

If the nuclear weapons stored there were to be misused, it would unleash a catastrophe far beyond a crisis for one or two nations.

Only three of these ultimate weapons remained, intended for use only when humanity was prepared to accept immense losses. They were armaments of a power unimaginable twenty years ago.

Their purpose: to create a wasteland where not only people, plants, and animals, but even monsters and Gates could no longer appear.

This wasn’t simply a matter of a few hundred million deaths.

Governments fell into a panic and entered a state of emergency.

The attack on the facility was, of course, kept secret, but the information was swiftly relayed to the key team leaders of Aegis and the Response Team.

However, they too were in a difficult situation.

*Kuaaaah!*

A monster that looked like a grotesque fusion of a giant ape and a disgusting insect burst through a wall, roaring.

Facing the rampaging beast, Lee Soo-yeon and Jeong Jin-seong swung their swords in unison, cleaving the creature in two as it opened its maw.

The corpse collapsed, gushing blood with a foul stench.

But there was no time to worry about the dead monster.

*BOOM!*

A loud explosion erupted from the building next door, causing it to tilt precariously.

Lee Soo-yeon frowned and spoke.

“We need to head to the facility to stop them right now… but we can’t move an inch like this.”

“They probably calculated this far,” Jeong Jin-seong said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

Eclipse had launched their all-out assault just as the rate of Gate generation spiked, leaving most of Aegis’s Awakened pinned down on site.

Moreover, it wasn’t just Gates and monsters hindering their movements.

“Argh!”

*Crack!*

A man suddenly fell from the sky, tumbling at Jeong Jin-seong’s feet.

He was an Awakened, armed with a sword, but his coat was ruined, and the fall from such a height had snapped his neck, killing him instantly.

When the two team leaders looked up, they saw Ghost floating in the sky. He deactivated his ghost ability and descended smoothly.

“There are still plenty more where he came from. What’s with these guys, showing up in a mob all of a sudden and disrupting the scene?”

“They’re members of a criminal organization being controlled by Eclipse. The situation is the same for the other teams out there, so they must be dead set on tying our hands. You, come with me.”

After exchanging a look with Jeong Jin-seong, Lee Soo-yeon took Ghost and started running.

There was no time to stand around and chat in a situation like this.

Ghost, caught in her powerful grip and dragged along, shouted urgently.

“T-Team Leader! Where are we going all of a sudden?”

“We’re going down.”

Lee Soo-yeon gave a short reply and gestured downward with her chin.

Ghost instantly understood her meaning and looked appalled.

“You know it’s almost impossible to use it on someone so much stronger than me, right?”

“It’ll be fine for a moment.”

At Lee Soo-yeon’s words, Ghost let out a deep sigh.

“How far do we have to go?”

“Well, I don’t know the exact location. But looking at the flow of monsters appearing, I don’t think it’s a double Gate. There seems to be one more. I suspect it might have emerged from somewhere underground around here.”

“A triple Gate?”

“Yes. It didn’t show up in the preliminary analysis, but they might have used a scrambler again.”

Before arriving at the scene, the analysis team had provided data suggesting it was a double Gate, but she had her doubts.

The monster grades and numbers matched with little error, but the two Gates that had appeared on the surface had already vanished after spewing out all their monsters.

Yet, monsters were still trickling out from somewhere, one by one.

It seemed there was another Gate whose signal hadn’t been detected, and Lee Soo-yeon urged him on.

“Hurry up. I’ve left the cleanup up top to Team Leader Jeong and In-hwa. If we can find the last Gate, we can buy just enough time to regroup.”

Fifty minutes remained until the next Gate they were assigned to was scheduled to open.

Considering the need for rest and preparation, it was by no means a generous amount of time, but nothing was more important than preventing the facility from falling into Eclipse’s hands.

Ghost nodded and grabbed Lee Soo-yeon’s arm.

*Shhh!*

Their bodies slowly turned translucent as his ghost ability took effect.

Normally, Ghost’s ability wouldn’t work on an Awakened stronger than himself, but he pushed through, accepting the minor side effects.

*Whoosh!*

The two of them were gently pulled into the ground, searching through the subterranean space.

Ghost’s ability allowed them to move through the earth at incredible speed, and they quickly swept through the underground parking garage, the railway lines below, and the subway station.

But there were no Gates or monsters there either.

“I think we need to go deeper.”

“I don’t think there’s anything further down, though?”

Logically, in a small, ordinary city like this, there was nothing that would warrant a facility deeper than what they had already checked.

But Lee Soo-yeon shook her head.

“We have to check everywhere. We have no choice. You know this time the ace monster is a nesting type, right? If we miss it, it’ll be a much bigger disaster.”

“Yes, yes… I understand.”

Ghost sighed once more and began to descend deeper.

But even after going down a considerable distance, no space appeared. There was nothing but dirt and rock.

Just as doubt began to creep in about whether there was anything there at all…

Right then, a light appeared before them, revealing an open space.

*Fwash!*

The translucent ghosting ability simultaneously deactivated, and the two of them landed firmly on a clean floor.

*Shhh.*

However, unlike the perfectly fine Lee Soo-yeon, Ghost, having overexerted his power, went completely limp, stuck in his ghost form.

It was a side effect of using his ability on Lee Soo-yeon, who was on a completely different level.

Because of it, he couldn’t solidify for the time being and was left hanging limply off of her.

“Ugh, I hate this feeling so much…”

“Good work.”

Lee Soo-yeon spoke and quickly moved to survey her surroundings.

She realized they were in an astonishingly large underground facility.

It was so vast she couldn’t see the end of it just by moving a short distance.

Just the fact that they had managed to construct something this deep underground would have been a challenge. She began to wonder how it had been built.

*Groooan.*

A faint cry sounded from the distance. Lee Soo-yeon, who would never miss such a sound, ran directly toward its source.

She came upon a corridor streaked with blood and spotted a single ape-like monster with insect eyes.

It was the same kind of monster she had seen on the surface.

“Just as I thought…!”

Lee Soo-yeon immediately drew her sword.

But even after making eye contact, the creature whipped its head around and slipped right into the wall.

“What… the hell.”

It was clearly a solid wall.

But the monster had passed through it without so much as a collision.

As if a magician had stepped through a portal, Lee Soo-yeon followed and touched the wall where it had disappeared.

Her arm also slid right in. Startled, she pulled it back.

“Team Leader, this is…”

“I know.”

Lee Soo-yeon nodded.

A space where distance was distorted.

The wall before them was serving as a passage connecting the city above with this underground facility.

Seeing that the spatial distortion was maintained without a caster present, it seemed to be a slightly different method than Min Ji-hoon’s.

Of course, while it was nowhere near the level of Min Ji-hoon, who had surpassed human limits, she could tell it was an ability cast by a significantly powerful user.

“Why would they make something like this? Another one of Eclipse’s facilities?”

It was clearly intended to hide the facility.

Other than Eclipse or criminal organizations that had to operate in the shadows, it was hard to imagine who would need such a place.

“Looks like the people here didn’t expect a Gate to appear either,” Ghost said, floating in the air.

The bodies of people were scattered about amid pools of blood.

Judging by the fact that those who appeared to be facility personnel had been killed by a surprise monster attack, it seemed a Gate had appeared without any time for them to react.

“Is it over there?”

She felt a sinister energy coming from right beside her.

She immediately smashed through the wall and entered, finding a pulsating red Gate. It seemed to be just before the end of its activation, as it spat out its final monsters and vanished.

*Chwaaak!*

Before the monsters that turned to face her could even let out a cry, Lee Soo-yeon fired a sword slash, annihilating them all.

The shredded corpses of the monsters fell to the ground.

But amidst the carnage, Lee Soo-yeon spotted something and approached the spot where the Gate had stood.

“What is this…?”

Picking up the objects on the ground, Lee Soo-yeon stared down at them blankly and muttered.

There was an Eclipse scrambler, which had been exposed before, and next to it, another similar-looking special device.

It was clear the other device was something different from the scrambler, but it was an unknown object she had never seen before.

“T-Team Leader! Look over there!”

The listless Ghost’s eyes shot open as he shouted.

Following his pointing finger, Lee Soo-yeon’s expression mirrored his own shock.

The scene visible through the broken glass window.

The traces in the corridor seemed trivial in comparison. Intense bloodstains, piles of human corpses, and a space filled with a sickening stench consumed her vision.

But the most disgusting part was that this wasn’t the work of the Gate and monsters she had just seen.

Traces of broken vials, an isolation chamber with a clear view of the inside, all sorts of experimental tools.

It was a human experimentation site, larger and more horrific than any she had ever seen. And in the middle of that gruesome scene, a large mark was drawn.

An emblem she could never mistake.

The emblem of the IRC.

“You sons of bitches…”