Chapter 105 – The Assault (Part Five)

“Ugh…!”

*Crack! Thud!*

The two men whose necks had been snapped collapsed to the floor and were dragged into a dark, inconspicuous corner.

“Hoo…”

Il-hyeon sighed, scanning his surroundings.

Suppressing his presence as much as possible, he was making his way through the corridor of the sixth basement floor, the lowest level of the facility.

To avoid drawing any attention, he even used his transformation ability to break through walls in sections that were difficult to pass.

‘It’s right ahead… Why is it so spacious?’

Checking the holographic map and the layout, he confirmed there was a massive space beyond the wall.

Its height and width were incomparably vast, occupying the largest area in the entire underground facility.

Before entering, Il-hyeon sent the mice he had summoned through the ventilation system.

It was to find a suitable entry point.

The mice found an appropriate spot and sent him a signal.

Since they weren’t summons created using a core, he couldn’t share their vision, but this much was possible.

‘Good.’

Following the signal from the mice, Il-hyeon moved to the location and tapped the wall.

Then, he placed his open palm against it, and a hole large enough to pass through formed as if the wall were melting away.

But as Il-hyeon ducked his head and stepped through to the other side, he saw what lay ahead and cursed without thinking.

“What the hell…!”

The room was filled with human corpses, and the overwhelming stench of decay hung in the air.

The bodies were severely mutilated—who knew what had been done to them—and besides the bloodstains, the walls and floor showed signs of repeated incineration to dispose of the corpses.

Refined Ether had been forcibly injected into the bodies of non-Awakened, ordinary people, causing severe rejection and leading to agonizing deaths.

Amidst the carnage, he sensed a twitching movement from the center of the pile of bodies and approached to investigate.

A boy, barely alive and on the verge of death, lay abandoned among the corpses, his body curled into a tight ball.

Too weak to even groan in pain, the boy was covered in blood. The skin all over his body had turned purple and necrotic, and his skeleton was twisted and mutated.

“…”

Feeling a rage beyond words, Il-hyeon froze on the spot.

For a moment, it felt as if something in his mind had snapped.

He had been warned by Cha Yeon-hee about such a gruesome scene, but this was beyond what he could bear to witness. If he could, he wanted to hunt down and kill every last person responsible for this.

His heart pounded, and as the thread of his reason threatened to break, something deep inside him egged it on.

The same feeling that used to overwhelm him in his early days as an Awakened, the one that sent him into a trance during every battle, began to envelop his body once more.

But Il-hyeon quickly shook off the unpleasant sensation and regained his composure.

“Hoo…”

Shaking his head, Il-hyeon took a slow, deep breath.

There was nothing to be gained from losing his mind like this.

Especially not in the middle of an operation.

Following Lee Soo-yeon’s advice, he had been practicing how to control his Predation ability’s influence on his mind, and until now, he hadn’t fallen into that state again.

Noticing his breathing had become noticeably ragged, Il-hyeon let out a heavy sigh.

‘I thought I’d overcome it…’

Seeing the dying young boy had brought back memories of his younger sibling.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Il-hyeon knelt and ended the boy’s suffering.

“Damn it…”

A few drops of blood splattered onto Il-hyeon’s face.

His ability couldn’t offer even a temporary reprieve or extend the boy’s life.

His condition was too severe.

His lips pressed into a firm line, Il-hyeon shot to his feet.

He wasn’t in a state of lost reason now.

But that didn’t change what he had to do. Not in the slightest.

*CRASH!*

The thick iron door shattered and flew outward, the loud noise echoing through the facility.

Il-hyeon emerged, his head slightly bowed, and in a brief moment, took in his surroundings at a glance.

The interior was divided into multiple levels, set up like a large-scale prison, with people confined in individual cells behind iron bars.

People were tied up, unable to move, trapped in the cells. Beyond a window on one side was a room with unknown machinery and an unconscious person on an operating table.

It was obscured by a worn-out curtain, but Il-hyeon could see clearly through a small gap.

This was indeed the place where the procedures Song Joon-ho had mentioned were being performed.

“Who the hell are you!”

Five or six gang members passing by spotted the suddenly appeared Il-hyeon and charged at him.

*Swish!*

As the sword swung, red blood splattered in all directions.

Bisected corpses rolled across the floor, and Il-hyeon peered into the rooms blocked by iron bars.

“Kngghh…”

Staring blankly in one direction as if possessed, the people didn’t even register that someone had arrived.

He couldn’t be certain as he didn’t know the exact procedure, but it seemed the people still confined inside hadn’t fully undergone the treatment.

That was a small relief.

If the rejection reaction had already begun or the brainwashing procedure was complete, there would be no way to save them.

Even Team Leader Yoon In-hye, arguably the world’s best with mental abilities, had said she could only restore Seo Jeong-hwa because her brainwashing was unstable and flawed. Those who were completely brainwashed would be beyond help.

Just then, alerted by the commotion, gang members rushed in from all directions and surrounded Il-hyeon.

Perhaps because of the corpses, they hesitated to approach, but they were poised to attack as soon as they assessed the situation.

Il-hyeon stared at them with icy eyes and reached his hand toward the floor.

*C-c-crack!*

Large cracks began to spread across the floor and walls with frightening speed.

As the bewildered gang members began to back away, the cracked floor and walls writhed as if alive, starting to take shape.

The creatures that appeared, as if created on the spot, were giant, iron-clad insects.

With vicious pincers and hard carapaces, even a single one looked incredibly threatening.

But swarms of insects continued to emerge ceaselessly in front of them, behind them, and even from the ceiling directly above.

“Clean them all up. Don’t let a single one escape.”

With Il-hyeon’s cold command, horrific screams began to echo through the lowest basement level.

***

Kneeling on the ground, Jeong Jin-seong had beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

Maintaining his ability was consuming a significant amount of his stamina.

And beside him stood a blonde Valkyrie, holding a magnificent spear, looking as if she had just stepped out of a video game.

Jeong Jin-seong was full of questions about the perfectly humanoid summon, and if he had his way, he would have asked her all sorts of things while they waited.

However, he was concentrating on maintaining his powerful ability and wasn’t in a position to chat comfortably.

*Thump, thump.*

Footsteps could be heard approaching from outside.

The sound was coming from the exterior, not from the corridor inside the building where his team members had entered.

Jeong Jin-seong immediately sensed their presence and turned to speak, but he didn’t have to; the Valkyrie had noticed as well.

“They’re not answering their comms. What are they doing?”

“Don’t tell me they’re still not done.”

The men grumbled to each other as they trudged down the ramp.

By now, the cargo should have been moved and the trucks sent back out. When the trucks that had entered didn’t come back up, they had come down to check for themselves.

Entering the garage and finding no one around, the men looked around, peering between the pillars.

As they approached the three neatly parked trucks, they saw that the cargo on the trailers hadn’t even been unloaded and frowned.

“What the? They haven’t even unloaded it?”

“Where’d they go, leaving all the cargo behind?”

They muttered in irritation.

Just as they were about to split up to search for the missing people, one of them spotted someone next to a truck.

A man with an unfamiliar face, wearing a Defensive Coat, was kneeling on one knee in a strange posture.

“Wait, who are you…”

*Thwack!*

A spear suddenly shot out from the blind spot behind the vehicle, instantly piercing the neck of the man who had spotted Jeong Jin-seong.

At the gruesome sound, another gang member turned around and shouted in horror.

“Behind! Behind! Kuaargh!”

The hand of a gang member reaching for the pistol at his hip was instantly severed and sent flying.

Before he could even finish his scream, his head was separated from his body. The same fate met the other gang members who turned around too late.

*Thwump!*

A powerfully thrown spear pierced a man’s stomach and embedded itself in a pillar.

The gang member, sent flying with the spear, struggled for a moment before going limp and slumping his head.

Then, the Valkyrie clenched her empty hand, and light gathered in her palm, forming another spear.

But by then, all that remained around her was the blood and corpses of the gang members.

‘She’s incredible…’

Jeong Jin-seong was inwardly impressed watching her dispatch the gang members.

It was hard to make a precise assessment due to the low level of their opponents, but her movements were as skilled as a high-ranking Awakened. It was hard to believe she was a summon created by an ability.

*WEEEE-OOO!*

Just then, an alarm suddenly began to blare throughout the facility.

Hearing the loud noise, the gang members stationed all around realized something was wrong and began to move frantically.

“It’s probably not because these guys just died.”

Releasing the ability he had been maintaining, Jeong Jin-seong dusted himself off and stood up.

It seemed the bodies of the gang members that the team had hidden on their way in had been discovered.

In any case, he hadn’t expected to finish the job without being detected, no matter how much he isolated the security room by stopping its space.

By now, everyone should have been close to their respective targets.

It was all up to the team members now.

“Ngh…”

Perhaps from using so much power and moving suddenly, Jeong Jin-seong’s legs tangled slightly, and he staggered.

The Valkyrie standing beside him quickly grabbed his arm to steady him.

“Hah, thanks.”

“Should we head down now?”

“No, let’s go up. We need to clear the surface… and go out to greet them.”