Chapter 107 – The Assault (Part Seven)

Pant, pant!

Using his Transformation ability, Il-hyeon broke through the ceiling and floor, riding the falcon upwards. Without a moment’s delay, he rushed toward Cha Yeon-hee’s indicated position.

Song Joon-ho was in the middle of hacking the facility’s computers to extract data, but he couldn’t move, busy protecting the data from the swarming organization members.

Il-hyeon was the only one nearby who could act immediately.

Arriving at the marked location, Il-hyeon frowned and hesitated.

‘The same traces as last time…’

Chaotic debris and severe scorch marks.

The room where the researchers had been was completely gone, swept away by an explosion, and even the bodies of the organization members outside were damaged beyond recognition.

Just then, he sensed movement beneath the rubble of the collapsed wall and ceiling.

Looking closer, he saw a woman’s arm buried and trapped, wearing a watch that only Aegis members possessed.

Realizing it was Cha Yeon-hee, caught in the surprise attack, Il-hyeon hurried over and began clearing the debris to pull her out.

But the arm trapped in the rubble was not what he had hoped to find.

“Son of a bitch…!”

Only a severed arm, badly burned, emerged from the wreckage. Horrified, Il-hyeon couldn’t help but curse.

Cha Yeon-hee’s body was nowhere to be found; only her arm had been trapped here.

‘No, that can’t be right.’

Shaking his head, Il-hyeon rushed back to the pile of rubble and started clearing it again.

They hadn’t known each other for long, but he couldn’t accept that a colleague had died so senselessly.

But Cha Yeon-hee was nowhere to be found, and with every frantic movement of his arms, hope dwindled.

Could her body have been vaporized in the explosion?

Just as that despairing thought crossed his mind, he heard a faint groan from directly below.

Il-hyeon immediately cleared away the debris, and Cha Yeon-hee’s face appeared from within.

She had a severe burn below her chin and was bleeding from her head.

Unable to move, Cha Yeon-hee stared vaguely at Il-hyeon with half-closed eyes, as if mustering all her strength.

Then her lips, from which blood was seeping, twitched.

“Il-hyeon…?”

Without a thought to reply, Il-hyeon carefully pulled her out of the rubble.

Her Defensive Coat was in tatters, its protective functions completely destroyed by the overwhelming explosion. Her body, like her face, was covered in severe burns and injuries.

Moreover, Cha Yeon-hee coughed several times; an unknown piece of shrapnel was embedded in her, piercing her lung.

“Ugh… thank you.”

Cha Yeon-hee said, gasping for breath.

Il-hyeon first tried to stop the bleeding from the severed arm, the most severe injury, and then attempted to heal it with his ability.

Using his Transformation ability on a human body was only a temporary fix, but her condition was so critical that she might actually die if left untreated.

However, after placing his hand on Cha Yeon-hee’s wound and channeling his power several times, the injury didn’t heal.

His ability wasn’t working at all.

Faced with her severe injuries and his useless ability, a panicked Il-hyeon fumbled.

“W-wait a minute. How do I…”

“Don’t worry. It’s not a fatal wound.”

Cha Yeon-hee spoke as calmly as possible to keep Il-hyeon from panicking.

For an ordinary person, these injuries would have been instantly fatal five times over, but for her, it wasn’t a situation where she had to worry about dying immediately.

She too was a high-ranking B-Rank Awakened, possessing a tenacious life force comparable to a monster’s.

Her words helped Il-hyeon compose himself, and he examined her wounds more closely.

The explosion that had devastated the area.

These were special burns and injuries caused by a high-grade ability, not ordinary fire. A repulsive force made them difficult to heal.

Il-hyeon’s Transformation ability, which could only temporarily alter a living being’s body, was useless here.

With hazy eyes, Cha Yeon-hee stared blankly at her own arm, which had been blown off by the impact.

“Anyway, for it to end like this… retiring this way feels a bit empty. Cough!”

“Don’t talk. Just stay still.”

She let out a hollow laugh, then coughed up blood.

She had lost an arm, and it was uncertain if her body would ever fully recover.

In any case, it was certain she could no longer continue her life as a Raven.

Il-hyeon quickly reported the situation through his communicator and requested help from above.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, Jeong Jin-seong hurriedly called for a medical team and told Il-hyeon to stand by.

“The researchers are all dead.”

Cha Yeon-hee said.

“They were all people involved in the past Awakened procedure incident.”

“Those people should be in an international prison. How…?”

“They should be. There was no news of a prison break, so the fact they were here means… we’ll have to check on that once things here are settled.”

Faced with the crisis of the Gates, nations began to cooperate much more closely than before.

A prime example was the global media control, and another notable aspect was their handling of criminals.

Two international prisons located in the middle of the North Atlantic.

The only sentence was life imprisonment, and anyone who committed highly dangerous Awakened-related crimes, regardless of nationality, was locked up here.

With all sorts of heinous Awakened gathered in one place, escape attempts were frequent, but none had ever succeeded.

So, the claim that a group of researchers—not even Awakened—who were supposed to be imprisoned there had been found outside was hard to believe.

“I’m sorry. I’m just going to close my eyes for a bit.”

Having said her piece, Cha Yeon-hee closed her eyes, seemingly struggling to stay conscious.

He checked just in case, but her heart hadn’t stopped, nor had she stopped breathing.

“Goddammit…”

Il-hyeon clutched his forehead.

He kept pouring his power into her wounds, but it barely made a difference. Blood just continued to gush out, soaking his hands.

Even for an Aegis Awakened, continuous blood loss like this was dangerous.

He had to find a way, somehow.

“Wait…”

An idea came to Il-hyeon, and he rummaged inside his coat.

And he pulled out an A-Rank core, from which a brilliant light was emanating.

He hadn’t been able to absorb all those cores at once, so he had kept one just in case.

He wasn’t sure, but he thought that if he used it to temporarily boost his power instead of fully absorbing it, it might help heal her wounds to some extent.

But after taking out the core, Il-hyeon hesitated for some reason instead of immediately absorbing it.

Gazing down at the core in his hand with a meaningful look, Il-hyeon brought his hands together and placed them, along with the core, on Cha Yeon-hee’s chest.

It was a sudden, strange action, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Then he closed his eyes and focused his mind.

Whoosh!

Amazingly, a dazzling white light burst forth from his hands and the core, enveloping both Il-hyeon and Cha Yeon-hee.

The growing light soon covered the entire surrounding space.

After a few seconds, the immense light vanished in an instant.

Cough, cough!

Breaking the brief, quiet silence, Cha Yeon-hee coughed and shot upright.

As she stared blankly into space, Il-hyeon spoke to her.

“Thank goodness. I think it worked.”

“What? Worked? Uh…?”

Cha Yeon-hee, who had been looking quizzically at Il-hyeon’s relieved smile, glanced down at her own body. Her eyes widened in astonishment.

“How is this…!”

Her left arm, which had clearly been severed, was perfectly fine.

She had feeling in it and could move it without any discomfort.

Moreover, although her body was drenched in blood, all her wounds were healed, and her skin was back to its fair complexion without a trace of burns.

“To be honest… I don’t really know either.”

Il-hyeon, who had plopped down on the floor and let out a sigh of relief, shrugged.

When Cha Yeon-hee turned her head, her original severed left arm was still lying on the floor.

Unlike her now-perfect arm, it still bore the scars and burns.

In disbelief, Cha Yeon-hee let out a hollow laugh and looked back and forth between her two left arms.

“Haha… I don’t know what to say.”

* * *

The barrier around the facility Raven had attacked was soon dispelled.

At that, numerous agents who had been waiting outside the facility swarmed in and, with Jeong Jin-seong’s help, neutralized them.

The organization members inside tried their best to respond to the sudden attack, but they were no match for the agents, let alone an Aegis Awakened.

On top of that, all escape routes were already blocked, and chaos had erupted in the underground levels.

They could only run around in confusion, getting picked off helplessly.

Before long, most of the organization members were killed, and the entire facility fell into their hands.

The operation thus ended successfully, and the cleanup and wrap-up procedures were underway.

However, Cha Yeon-hee, who had been injured during the operation, was immediately transported to a hospital for a detailed examination. Although Il-hyeon’s ability had left her body perfectly healed without a single scar, they needed to check for any potential side effects.

“How are the people who were captured?”

“They were all held for different lengths of time… We’ll have to wait and see. We can only hope they all make a full recovery without any side effects.”

Jeong Jin-seong replied to Il-hyeon’s question.

The two of them were leaning on a railing with their arms crossed, watching the cleanup progress inside the facility.

Most of the captives had been moved to a safe location; only the patients who were unable to move were now being transported after receiving first aid.

“By the way, you did a really great job.”

Jeong Jin-seong said, lightly placing a hand on Il-hyeon’s shoulder.

He was talking about how he had saved Cha Yeon-hee a few hours ago.

“I don’t know how one ability can have so many applications. Anyone watching would think you have a dozen different powers.”

“That would be a problem.”

Il-hyeon said with a small laugh.

After healing Cha Yeon-hee, who had been on the verge of death, the relief had washed over him all at once, making his legs go weak. But he was fine now.

But Il-hyeon soon brought up a serious topic.

“About this explosion…”

“Yes, it’s the same method used on me.”

Jeong Jin-seong also nodded with a grave expression.

Back when Il-hyeon first conducted a joint operation with Aegis’s Team B, they had captured a suspicious man whose head had then exploded, causing a massive blast.

From the method of explosion, accompanied by intense heat, to the tactic of implanting it in someone else’s head to attack—it was all identical.

Jeong Jin-seong quietly looked down at his right arm.

He felt as if the arm injured back then was still throbbing, and his brow twitched with displeasure.