Chapter 18 – Actual Combat (Part Three)

He did his best to clear his mind and focus on the monster before him.

It hadn’t happened recently, but he recalled the sensation of falling into a trance-like state while facing monsters in the past.

Soon, the influence of his Predation ability on his mind reawakened.

Il-hyeon dashed into the hallway.

The first one he encountered was the same creature that had landed a blow on his stomach.

He twisted his body to evade its outstretched arm, then slashed it off. He spun around, closed the distance, and bisected its waist.

Kicking away the creature as it fell limply toward him, he scanned the monsters rushing in from all directions.

He only needed to worry about what was in front of him.

“Kiiiek!”

The wolf pounced on the monsters on the other side, guarding Il-hyeon’s back.

Despite its battered body, it showed no hesitation.

Il-hyeon blocked the gaping maw of an approaching monster with his sword, then, with the blade still inside its mouth, he exerted force and split its head open.

Next, he altered the floor to trip a charging monster.

The creature fell perfectly before him, allowing for an easy finish.

He then immediately spun his sword half a turn and impaled a monster leaping at him from the side.

He threw the thrashing creature, still impaled by the sword, at another monster, then stomped his foot, causing sturdy spikes to shoot up from the floor.

The two monsters collided and were neatly skewered on the spikes, writhing in mid-air.

Il-hyeon continued to face and kill every monster that rushed him.

Blood from the monsters soaked the floor, and the battle was reaching its peak.

The golem shattered into pieces, its fragments flying in all directions.

“What?”

A startled Il-hyeon stared blankly in that direction.

It was a summon created with his ability; he would have noticed if it had shown any signs of collapsing.

But it had been destroyed in a single, sudden attack.

Considering he had paid special attention to its durability when creating it, this was unbelievable.

But if a B-rank monster had appeared, that was a different story.

A blue monster emerged from the pulsating gate before him.

It was the same one that had clashed with Ghost earlier.

As if it had disgorged its full quota, the gate vanished after summoning the creature.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…!”

Il-hyeon faltered and stepped back.

A B-rank monster was too much for him to handle at his current level.

But a tentacle shot toward him faster than he could react.

*Crash!* The immense impact sent Il-hyeon rolling across the floor.

His Defensive Coat saved his life, but it was on the verge of shattering, sparks flying from it.

The tentacle immediately moved again, and Il-hyeon was struggling just to breathe, let alone dodge.

In that moment of crisis, Ghost suddenly burst through the floor, blocked the attack, and sliced off the tentacle in one motion.

Then, he grabbed Il-hyeon’s shoulder and turned intangible.

The two of them phased through the floor and dropped to the level below.

“Whew, that was close, wasn’t it?”

“Wait, if we run, the monsters will…”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

*KABOOM!*

A massive explosion erupted from the floor above, blasting a hole in the wall and revealing the outside scenery.

A quarter of the entire floor had been blown away.

All the monsters, including the ace monster, were instantly turned into corpses.

“You okay?”

Lee Soo-yeon peeked her head through the hole in the blasted ceiling.

Having already reached the 17th floor, she jumped down to the level where Il-hyeon and Ghost were.

“Hoo.”

The tension of the battle instantly drained from Il-hyeon, and he plopped down onto the floor.

Lee Soo-yeon patted Il-hyeon on the back.

“You did well. I didn’t expect you to hold off a whole gate by yourself. Ghost, go on ahead and report in. Call the cleanup crew right away.”

“Yep. Got it.”

At Lee Soo-yeon’s nod, Ghost gave a playful salute before turning intangible and sliding down through the building.

“I almost died on my very first mission.”

“This kind of thing doesn’t happen often. I brought you along as a light test to see how you fight, but things took a turn. By the way… you didn’t hear me calling you, did you?”

“Calling me?”

Only then did Il-hyeon realize he was wearing a communicator.

He hadn’t just missed the communications during the fight; he had forgotten the device even existed.

But Lee Soo-yeon and Ghost had been communicating the whole time. Il-hyeon was the only one who hadn’t heard or replied.

“I had no idea you were trying to contact me.”

“What are the exact names of your abilities?”

“Summoning, Predation, and Alteration.”

Il-hyeon answered without hesitation.

He only needed to hide his abilities’ ranks, not their types. Besides, he’d already shown them all, so it didn’t matter.

“Hmm…”

Hearing the three abilities Il-hyeon mentioned, she fell into thought.

Lee Soo-yeon had quickly cleared the gate downstairs and come up to the 17th floor.

That’s when she saw Il-hyeon—who she thought was in trouble because he’d gone silent—fiercely battling dozens of D-rank monsters.

He hadn’t noticed her approach and was so engrossed in the fight that he was completely deaf to the comms.

Lee Soo-yeon had seen cases like this more than a few times and could guess what was happening with Il-hyeon.

“Summoning and Alteration seem straightforward enough… so it must be the influence of your Predation ability. An ability that can affect your own mind can be dangerous. Especially if it affects your morals.”

It wasn’t uncommon for perfectly upstanding people to become criminals or go astray after Awakening and gaining an ability with negative side effects.

In fact, this had been the case for several world-famous criminals.

Il-hyeon wasn’t completely unaware of such stories.

But he had never imagined it could apply to him.

Only after hearing it from someone else did he begin to question some of his past actions.

He had been willing to do whatever it took to get Ether, regardless of the means.

“So I was one of those cases?”

“Yes. But you don’t seem to need to worry. It doesn’t look like it’s had any adverse mental effects. However, continuing to fight like that could be even more dangerous…”

“I guess I should restrain myself as much as possible.”

“No, practice controlling it. Learn to draw out that immersion while keeping a wide field of view and not getting carried away.”

Lee Soo-yeon picked up the sword Il-hyeon had dropped.

She took his hand, helped him to his feet, and handed him the sword.

“If you can harness it properly, it might just become your greatest weapon.”

* * *

The situation was resolved without any major damage, and the Aegis cleanup crew arrived to manage the scene.

Having safely completed their mission despite the unexpected circumstances, Alpha Team was returning to headquarters.

“They were wrong last week, too. I’m going to have a word with the analysis team.”

Lee Soo-yeon muttered, sitting across from Il-hyeon inside the transport aircraft.

For Awakened running operations, Gate analysis was essential.

Everything from deciding the personnel and forces to dispatch, to planning the response strategy, was based on that information.

But what if that information was completely wrong?

A major disaster could happen at any moment. That’s why the Awakened, who put their lives on the line, couldn’t help but be sensitive about it.

Especially in dangerous situations like a B-rank Gate.

“The other teams have been complaining, too. They seem to be making a lot of mistakes lately.”

“This never used to happen… What’s the problem?”

Most corporations rely on the government’s detection systems.

Aegis, however, had established its own detection network and prided itself on being the best in the world.

But recently, false reports had become noticeably more frequent.

The problem persisted even after a major overhaul of their analysis equipment a week ago.

Thanks to that, the entire analysis team was on high alert.

“Still, seeing how the government’s disaster observation department is even worse, I think the problem might be with the Gates themselves lately.”

“True, considering how Team 1 over there screwed up… Too bad, I would’ve loved to see the look on that guy’s face.”

Lee Soo-yeon and Ghost chuckled wryly.

Response Team 1, said to be the most skilled among the government’s Awakened.

It was a real comedy when that very team scrambled to a location after the observation department made a huge fuss, only to find an E-rank Gate.

The Awakened from the Korean government and those belonging to Aegis had a strange rivalry.

While they cooperated when necessary, they were by no means on good terms.

The government’s Awakened saw Aegis members as people with no sense of duty, while Aegis saw them as complete idiots who’d sold out to the government for money.

Curious, Il-hyeon asked a question.

“Is it true what they say, that you really don’t get along with their Response Team?”

“Well… it’s not that bad.”

“What do you mean, not that bad? They’re all a bunch of morons.”

“We’ll have to work with them plenty of times in the future. No need to talk like that already.”

“They’re the kind of people who’d join the government even after being backstabbed like that 10 years ago. What else am I supposed to call them?”

“It’s a difference in values, I suppose.”

Despite her words, it was clear that not only Ghost but also Lee Soo-yeon held no favorable feelings toward them.

Il-hyeon watched this exchange with interest.

He hadn’t yet formed any prejudices or decided that either side was particularly wrong.

However, Il-hyeon knew about the incident from 10 years ago.

It was a well-known fact that 20 years ago, when Gates first appeared and plunged the world into crisis, the Awakened emerged to fend off the monsters.

At that time, the Awakened were treated as heroes, celebrated by all of society.

But the story changed when the first five years—the first cycle—ended and the next began.

It was probably the most peaceful cycle of the past 20 years.

With the number of monsters plummeting and nations mostly recovered from the damage, a sense of ease settled in.

At the same time, Awakened criminals, who had previously been overlooked, came into the spotlight, and people grew fearful of their power, which was difficult to control.

Unlike before, public opinion toward the Awakened was no longer entirely favorable.

Then, in the ninth year after the Gates appeared, the South Korean government was the first to propose various regulations targeting the Awakened.

All sorts of measures were introduced, from an Awakened registration system and ability disclosure requirements to information inquiries that allowed for location tracking at any time and even public disclosure of personal details.

The Awakened strongly protested, but as a tiny minority, their opinions were easily ignored, and the measures were pushed through swiftly.

Until then, the Awakened had no leverage whatsoever in the political sphere.

Against some of the more vehement protesters, several anti-Awakened weapons were even deployed.

Behind the scenes, after the cycle had changed, they had been developing weapons that utilized Ether.

Special EMP rounds that temporarily neutralized Coats and abilities, along with various other anti-personnel suppression weapons.

When it became known that instead of developing technology to fight monsters, they had been creating weapons to neutralize the very Awakened who had risked their lives, the conflict intensified dramatically.

But the conflict ended anticlimactically.

In the tenth year, the moment the previously unknown five-year cycles were revealed.

The third cycle began, monster numbers surged again, and high-ranking officials, including the president, were all wiped out.

The next administration, and the one after that, apologized repeatedly. Such discussions were never brought up or even mentioned again.

‘It was an absurd affair.’

It had happened when Il-hyeon was only a middle schooler, but even he had thought it was a foolish business back then.

Even now that the issue was resolved, the Awakened’s distrust of the government remained.

However, some took the stance that it no longer mattered, as the government had repeatedly shown remorse and had changed completely.

There were even those who looked more favorably upon the government’s Awakened, who worked intensive shifts, than on corporate Awakened who were only interested in bounties and cores.

Though, government Awakened did receive a hefty base salary paid for by taxes.

“And yet they have the nerve to talk about order and duty while looking down on us. It makes me want to punch them. You should be careful too. So you don’t reflexively throw a punch.”

“Umm…”

Il-hyeon mumbled noncommittally.

He would find out for himself when he met them anyway.

Lee Soo-yeon, however, still seemed upset about the analysis error.

As a team leader, it was understandable for her to be angry, since Il-hyeon would have been in real danger if she’d been just a little later.

“Well, whatever the case with them. How are we supposed to do anything if we can’t even trust the analysis? The analysis team needs to get things back to normal quickly. It’s not the first time Gate analysis patterns have shifted a bit.”

Glancing at her watch, Lee Soo-yeon pressed a button on the transport, and the door opened.

The return trip was also quick, and soon they were in the skies over the outskirts of Seoul.

And below them, the most prominent building came into view.

A sight he was seeing for the second time: Aegis headquarters.