Chapter 189 – Predator (Part One)

The sword that had been lodged in his heart slid out, and Il-hyeon, losing all strength, fell backward.

“Ah… No!”

Gwen, who was on the ground, grabbed Il-hyeon’s ankle as he started to fall.

But with her ribs broken, there was no way she could properly hold onto the limp Il-hyeon.

In her haste to catch him with her broken body, she lost her own balance, and Gwen fell from the rooftop along with Il-hyeon.

Just as her scream faded.

*Thud!*

The heavy sound of their fall echoed, and Baek Il-ho looked down.

On the cratered ground, streaks of blood had splattered everywhere.

“…Doing foolish things until the very end.”

Even while facing death and falling, Il-hyeon had used his ability to save the woman beside him.

But there seemed to be no possibility for him to survive.

Having been stabbed defenselessly in the heart like that, there was no way for him to live, no matter how high-ranking an Awakened he was.

Silently turning his back, Baek Il-ho stepped into the lingering traces of the torn space and vanished.

* * *

“Uh… Huh?”

Gwen, having landed on the ground, blankly examined her own body.

Having been swept along in her attempt to stop his fall, she had felt her speed suddenly decrease just before hitting the ground, and now she was perfectly fine, alive.

Turning her gaze through the rain, she was horrified.

“Il-hyeon!”

The sight of the dying Il-hyeon.

Gwen frantically rushed to his side.

As one of the world’s foremost doctors, she quickly assessed the condition of the unconscious and dying Il-hyeon, but she couldn’t even begin to think about how to treat him.

The fact that he was still alive at all was unbelievable.

Il-hyeon’s body, which could only be described as far beyond human, was desperately clinging to life, holding his ruptured heart together.

Thanks to that, he hadn’t died instantly, but it was only buying him a few moments.

Even if there were equipment, medical staff, or a high-ranking healing Awakened here, saving him would be impossible.

Her mind freezing in that instant, Gwen pressed both hands against the bleeding wound, her body trembling.

The gushing blood soaked her clothes and face, only to be washed away by the heavy rain again and again, but she couldn’t bring herself to let go.

Monsters pouring from the Gate and an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

In this bleak situation, his words were the only thing she could trust, and if he died now, her last pillar of support would vanish.

But time wasn’t their only enemy.

A member of a criminal organization who had been in the next building spotted them, opened the door, and slowly approached.

“W-Wait…!”

Gwen struggled to her feet, trying to speak to the approaching man, but far from being open to conversation, his eyes were bloodshot and crazed.

He held a blood-stained blade in his hand; by all accounts, he was clearly not sane.

“Uwaaaaaah!”

The man suddenly roared in anger and charged.

“Ugh…!”

As the man closed in on her, Gwen squeezed her eyes shut.

Faced with his menacing killing intent, she was certain he would knock her down and brutally butcher her.

But the charging man simply shoved her aside with his shoulder as if she wasn’t even there.

Gwen, who had fallen on her backside, winced at the stabbing pain in her chest.

But when she looked back, she understood the man’s objective.

His rage was directed not at her, but at Il-hyeon.

The man knew nothing about Il-hyeon, but in his subconscious, he perceived him as the enemy who had murdered Hwayeon, the one who had planted a powerful suggestion in his mind.

That was why he raised his dagger to strike Il-hyeon down, and in that brief instant, a thousand thoughts raced through Gwen’s mind.

What followed was pure instinct.

*Click! Bang!*

“Kuaaack!”

With the gunshot, the man pitched forward.

Gwen had successfully drawn the pistol from her pocket and hit him, but at the same time, a corner of her heart filled with worry.

She had always believed that the act of killing someone, for any reason, was something a human being should never do.

But in that situation, she couldn’t just let him be.

“Krrrrgh!”

The man was still twitching violently, struggling on the ground.

Looking closer, she saw the bullet that hit the back of his head hadn’t even pierced his skin and had ricocheted off.

“W-Was he an Awakened?”

Gwen muttered, realizing the man’s identity.

He wasn’t even wearing a basic coat, but he was an Awakened of a considerable level, which was why the bullet hadn’t shattered the back of his skull.

Fortunately, the bullets in Gwen’s pistol were special anti-Awakened rounds, which was why he was weakened and unable to use his strength.

“Uwaaaaaah…!”

And yet, even in that state, the man summoned all his strength and dragged himself toward Il-hyeon.

Even though Gwen fired her remaining three bullets to stop him, the man kept moving forward.

The bullets couldn’t pierce an Awakened’s skin anyway, and since the disruptive effect had already reached its maximum, it seemed to have no further impact.

If he weren’t moving due to the side effects of the suggestion, he would have been completely immobilized on the ground by now, but he could still move even with his consciousness half-gone.

“Please….”

With her magazine empty and the man still approaching, Gwen, on the verge of tears, picked up the dagger he had dropped.

It was small, but it was an Ether Sword with a distinctively sharp edge.

Having been hit directly by special rounds multiple times, his physical abilities should be no better than a normal person’s.

Steading her trembling arm, she charged toward him with all her might.

“Kuaaaaaack!”

Blood spurted, and a desperate scream echoed.

Gwen climbed on top of the crawling man and plunged the dagger deep into him several times, the gushing blood making her want to retch.

She felt like she would throw up at any moment, but Gwen kept forcing the blade into the man’s body.

“Hah, hah….”

Once the man’s horrific struggles completely ceased, Gwen got off him and gasped for breath.

In the end, she had killed someone.

She, a doctor, had thought her only job was to save people, but her mind felt like it was in violent turmoil.

“I… Il-hyeon….”

Gwen scrambled back to the fallen Il-hyeon, but the time they had been given was already over.

Il-hyeon’s life had finally been extinguished.

Tears began to stream from Gwen’s blue eyes.

A tangled mess of emotions and thoughts made her head spin.

Something indescribable seized her senses, and at the same time, that something pulled her trigger.

*Fwaaaah!*

A white light erupted from the hand she had placed on Il-hyeon’s chest.

A light so intense it completely illuminated a section of the city that had been darkened by storm clouds.

Gwen was incredibly surprised by what was happening, feeling an awkward sensation, yet she instinctively began to grasp this unfamiliar feeling and steadily wielded her power.

The act of breathing warmth back into a cold body, of breathing life back into a stiffened corpse.

It was her SSS-rank ability, Resurrection.

An ability of a rank that, aside from Il-hyeon, had never before appeared.

Strength returned to Il-hyeon’s stiff body, and their eyes met.

“Where….”

“Il-hyeon…?”

Il-hyeon, having regained consciousness, glanced around.

Despite the disorientation of just having been brought back to life, he grasped the situation with surprising speed.

Thanks to his training with Peacemaker, looking into the future, he had become very accustomed to this kind of sensation and re-evaluating situations.

“I’m alive thanks to you. Thank you.”

“I’m so… glad.”

Gwen said, her eyes welling with tears.

A bitter smile touched Il-hyeon’s lips, feeling guilty as if he had done something terrible.

It had been a precarious situation in many ways.

He had been worried that the future he’d seen might get twisted when Hwayeon ignored his precognition, but thankfully, the timing of Baek Il-ho’s appearance and the event that unlocked Gwen’s trigger had aligned perfectly.

From dying at Baek Il-ho’s hands to his resurrection.

Everything that had happened up to this point was all according to his plan.

The reason he chose this chaotic city center, under attack by rampaging gang members, as his teleportation destination was because of the conditions for Gwen’s awakening.

He couldn’t deny it was an incredibly risky gamble, but right now, it was the only way.

There was no shaking off Baek Il-ho, who was determined to track Hwayeon’s movements, and he couldn’t subdue him with the crude mind-based ability he had only recently absorbed.

It might be judging by the result, but he had successfully triggered Gwen’s much-needed awakening and bought some time with his death, so it had been the best possible path.

*Whoosh!*

The sword flew down from the rooftop as if falling and landed perfectly in Il-hyeon’s hand.

“Master! You’re really alive!”

“And you weren’t kidnapped, thankfully.”

Gripping the joyfully humming Peacemaker, Il-hyeon shot to his feet and helped the collapsed Gwen up.

From now on, it was a race against time. They had to move quickly.

After healing her wounds, Il-hyeon focused his somewhat scattered mind and flicked his fingers.

The space before him distorted fiercely, and an orange-haired woman popped out.

A slender woman wearing a black coat with no insignia, a longsword at her side.

It was Ohara from the newly formed Gamma Team.

“Team Leader!”

Seeing Il-hyeon covered in blood, she rushed forward to cling to him.

But Il-hyeon stopped her by grabbing her head.

“I was so worried!”

“No time for games. What’s the situation in Seoul?”

“Yep! We pulled out midway and covered our tracks, just as you ordered. A shame we couldn’t finish things completely, but we won’t be followed. The woman in the white mask… Kim Yu-jin was taken care of by Kang Hyeon-seo.”

Ohara took a step back and said with a cheerful smile.

Il-hyeon then turned his gaze to Gwen.

“There are people who will soon be sacrificed to them. Those people….”

“You want me to save them, right? With my ability.”

Gwen asked, having wiped away her tears.

Il-hyeon nodded.

“Yes. I know it will be difficult since you’ve only just awakened, but I’m asking you. You won’t be in any danger if you go with her. She may not look it, but in this line of work, she’s the most reliable person there is.”

“…Yes. Leave it to me.”

Gwen nodded.

Only a few minutes had passed, but she was completely different from her past self.

Her expression was resolute, as if she had made a decision.