Chapter 116 – Liberation (Part Five)

“Gah…!”

Yankovich stared blankly at his own neck.

His eyes showed he still couldn’t believe he had been defeated.

In an instant, Jeong Jin-seong had thrown the sword in his hand, and just as Yankovich reacted to dodge, Jeong Jin-seong’s ability had already activated through his other arm.

His movements halted by the stasis ability, Yankovich was impaled in the neck by the sword and collapsed forward with a thud.

As blood poured out and soaked the floor, he couldn’t even open his mouth wide enough to scream until Jeong Jin-seong released his ability.

“Just like you said, my ability isn’t entirely useless.”

*Crrrrk!*

Retracting his ability, Jeong Jin-seong extended his arm upward, and the building, which had been on the verge of collapsing, stopped once more.

The massive, heavily tilted building was frozen in an unbelievable state just before hitting the ground, and people stared at the sight, mesmerized.

Jeong Jin-seong glanced over at Yankovich, who was bleeding profusely.

Until now, they had only carried out terrorist acts through surgically created or at least brainwashed Awakened. They were the type to hide their true identity, even making all their captured members die in agony.

But if what the fallen man said was true, it meant they no longer cared if information was extracted from them.

“So they’re not hiding anymore…”

Jeong Jin-seong muttered, watching the people flee.

Trapped in an area with paralyzed communications, he didn’t know the details of the current situation.

However, their large-scale attacks were already underway in various places.

***

“Ugh…”

Left in the harsh rain and wind, Il-hyeon slowly opened his eyes.

As he came to, he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and pulled himself together.

He quickly looked around to find that the fog that had engulfed the entire facility was completely gone.

However, the dark storm clouds and fierce tempest still raged, but there was something strange.

His hair and body were not wet at all.

Rain was clearly pouring from the sky, but the drops didn’t touch his body.

“Are you awake?”

“You scared me…!”

As Il-hyeon sat up, a woman was kneeling behind him, checking on him.

Il-hyeon hastily turned his head and, after blinking a few times, recognized her blurry face.

“Hyeon-seo?”

Kang Hyeon-seo, and next to her was Seong-won.

Seeing the raindrops stop around them as if blocked by something, it seemed they had a force field surrounding them.

“When did you get here… no, before that, I definitely called for you. Why couldn’t I connect?”

“I felt something strange too. I tried to come here, but I couldn’t cross over.”

Hyeon-seo had sensed Il-hyeon was in danger and asking for help, but she couldn’t use her spatial leap ability.

The mental link that had connected them being blocked by an external force was a first for Hyeon-seo since she was born.

In any case, judging by the situation outside, it didn’t seem like the prisoners had broken out of their cells yet.

Il-hyeon quickly filled them in on what had happened.

After hearing about the mysterious woman in the white mask and her objective, Hyeon-seo and Seong-won seemed to understand why the prison facilities were in such a mess.

“The prisoners inside the cells haven’t escaped yet. The guards, too, are mostly unconscious.”

Seong-won, kneeling on one knee like Hyeon-seo, reported.

While they were guarding this spot, the other summoned beings who had come with them from Korea were checking the prison’s interior.

He wasn’t the only one the woman in the white mask had knocked out with her ability; in fact, Il-hyeon was among the first to wake up.

“So it’s not too late yet.”

“Mmm…”

Just then, Seo Jeong-hwa, who had been lying beside Il-hyeon, regained consciousness and sat up.

Staring blankly for a moment, she saw Hyeon-seo and Seong-won with Il-hyeon and instinctively pointed at them.

“Huh? The ones from before…”

“We meet again. Nice to see you.”

Hyeon-seo waved a hand and greeted her warmly.

Seo Jeong-hwa turned to Il-hyeon and said, bewildered.

“We’re not dead?”

“Looks like it.”

Il-hyeon dusted himself off, stood up, and offered a hand to help Seo Jeong-hwa to her feet.

For some reason, the mysterious woman had withdrawn without taking their lives, which she could have done at any moment.

It was hard to understand why she had let Il-hyeon live, as he would surely continue to be a thorn in their side.

Furthermore, considering she had even told Il-hyeon the helicopter’s location and urged him to abandon this place and leave, it seemed the woman in the white mask didn’t just spare him but actively didn’t want him to die.

But that didn’t mean he could actually flee as she had suggested.

“Ugh… So, what are we going to do about the prisoners in the basement?”

Seo Jeong-hwa asked Il-hyeon, stumbling as her legs still felt weak.

“We have to stop them. We can’t let things go their way.”

“But there must be tens of thousands of insane Awakened down there.”

“Even so, the people outside must have sensed something’s wrong by now. Reinforcements should be on their way.”

“Um… reinforcements will probably have a hard time getting here.”

“What? Why?”

“Well… because some serious things are happening outside right now.”

Hyeon-seo said hesitantly, delivering the bad news.

Just a few dozen minutes ago, major broadcasting stations worldwide were simultaneously hacked, and a mysterious video was aired.

Gullart, the boss of the IRC—identified as a major organization in the Federation—appeared in the video and declared all-out war. Hyeon-seo and Seong-won, who happened to be watching TV, witnessed it.

The villains, who appeared without revealing their true identities, had no demands or ideology to proclaim.

They simply advocated for the overthrow of national governments and mass slaughter like madmen, inciting fear among the citizens.

The bigger problem was that they weren’t just talking; they were taking action.

They went beyond mere terrorism, launching aggressive assaults on government facilities, and there were more than a few places where they had jammed communications, cutting off contact.

In other words, it was unlikely that anyone outside would grasp the situation and send reinforcements in time.

“So this place is just one of their targets…”

Il-hyeon’s expression grew grim.

He had thought that with Hyeon-seo and Seong-won here, they could easily hold off the prisoners and buy time, but if no reinforcements were coming, they would have to face all the swarming prisoners below by themselves.

“Can we defend this place on our own?”

“We’ll have to do what we can. Seo Jeong-hwa, you should take the helicopter and leave first, like you heard earlier.”

“What?”

“You know this isn’t a relaxed situation anymore. I don’t think that woman was lying, so get out of here as soon as the pilot wakes up.”

“…Are you really planning to fight them with just the three of you?”

“Yes.”

Il-hyeon’s reply was firm, showing no intention of changing his mind.

Seo Jeong-hwa seemed conflicted for a moment, then sighed deeply and put her hands on her hips.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not leaving until you do.”

Her mind made up, Seo Jeong-hwa picked up her discarded sword from the floor.

Il-hyeon, on the other hand, looked utterly confused by her choice.

“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden…”

*BOOM!*

Just then, an explosion echoed from below.

At the sound that signaled the beginning, Il-hyeon and Seo Jeong-hwa glanced at each other for a moment before rushing into action, neither waiting for the other.

***

*Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!*

On the level just above the lowest floor of the basement, where the worst criminals were imprisoned, a dull thudding sound echoed.

To be precise, it was in the far corner of the southern sector.

Right in front of a cell whose iron bars had been forcibly bent open, as if by someone’s grip, blood splattered, staining the nearby walls.

“Hah! Hah!”

A man with bloodshot eyes panted heavily as he slammed his fist down.

A guard, sprawled out ridiculously like a puppet with its strings cut, was pinned beneath his knee, taking blow after blow to the face.

But the guard’s face was already half-gone, mangled beyond recognition, and he had stopped breathing long ago.

“Hey, stop it.”

“…”

Interrupted, the scarred man who had been pummeling the guard turned around with a murderous glare, as if ready to kill someone at a moment’s notice.

His massive frame added to the intimidating pressure.

But the other person seemed completely unfazed and spoke calmly.

“He’s already dead.”

The yellow-haired man said with a shrug.

In contrast to the other, he had a slender build.

The scarred man glanced down at the corpse and stopped his pummeling.

Then he shot to his feet.

“I’m going to kill every single guard in this place.”

Thinking about what he had endured while locked up in this gloomy basement, he clearly couldn’t stay still.

But the yellow-haired man’s reaction was completely different from his enraged companion.

“Yeah, you guys can do my share. I just want to get some fresh air.”

He said, tilting his head up.

He tried to look up, but there was only a gray ceiling, not the sky.

The two, who had been managed separately in the far corner of the southern sector, already knew each other. The yellow-haired man tore off one of the thick iron doors that had blocked them and looked outside.

Unlike them, most of the prisoners hadn’t fully recovered their strength from the aftereffects of the wave, unable to break through their bars, and some were still unconscious.

After a sweeping glance around, the yellow-haired man stretched out his hand and focused his power.

A strange sensation tickled its way up his arm.

A dark energy began to gather in his palm, and the man smiled at using his own ability for the first time in a long, long time.

“I don’t know why the device suddenly stopped working, but I guess it doesn’t matter… It’s liberation day.”

*Shhhk!*

All the iron bars that had imprisoned them were sliced apart, and the roars of the freed prisoners echoed thunderously throughout the basement.