Chapter 22 – The Hidden Truth (Part Three)

*Shunk!*

The Smoker’s head was pierced by a longsword.

*Thud!* The monster’s massive bulk crashed forward with a loud noise.

Jeong Jin-seong, who had been on top of the Smoker’s body, landed lightly on the ground.

The entrance to a subway station, located in the city center.

Two Awakened stood atop a mountain of monster corpses.

Seeing the endless flood of creatures, they were certain this place was the fungal creatures’ proliferation site.

“Achoo! Ugh… these things are making my nose so itchy.”

Lee Soo-yeon grumbled, wrinkling her nose.

A horrifically toxic mist spread not only from the Smoker’s attacks but also from their corpses after death.

“Really? I can’t tell.”

“That’s gonna get you killed, seriously.”

As Jeong Jin-seong pointed teasingly at the new-model Defensive Coat he had won after a fierce battle of more than three rounds of rock-paper-scissors, Lee Soo-yeon jabbed him in the chest with her elbow.

Lee Soo-yeon’s coat hadn’t been replaced with the new equipment yet, so it couldn’t completely block the toxic fumes.

Of course, the Smoker’s poison was hardly enough to do any real damage to her monstrously resilient body.

The two leisurely cut down the monsters trying to climb out as they descended.

*Kiiieeeek!*

The fungal creatures kept charging, only to be brutally torn apart.

Descending the broken stairs and shattered floor, their eyes fell upon a subway interior stained entirely green.

The ceiling, floor, and walls had been torn down, reshaping the underground space to their liking.

In place of collapsed pillars stood spore columns, reeking of a foul stench.

The area was filled with proliferating spore masses and the horribly decayed bodies of people.

“Whew… we found the proliferation site.”

-Confirmed.

What was most threatening were the monsters filling the vast space.

Their numbers were too immense to count at a glance, and it wasn’t just fungal creatures; there were also dozens of Ace Monsters, the Smokers.

This was no easy fight, even for A-Rank Awakened.

If these creatures, whose numbers had already swelled to this extent, all made it to the surface, this area would be swept by an absolute catastrophe.

At the appearance of the intruders, the creatures all turned to face them in unison.

The ground shook, and a deafening roar echoed, loud enough to burst eardrums.

It was a shriek filled with animosity toward them.

Faced with that tremendous roar, Lee Soo-yeon and Jeong Jin-seong, the two team leaders, raised their swords in unison.

“Alright, it’s been a while since I felt like I was doing some real work. You bastards.”

A black aura began to rise from Lee Soo-yeon’s body.

* * *

“Urgh!”

Il-hyeon strained, lifting the entire section of building debris.

The collapsed ceiling of the building was pushed aside, teetering on the verge of shattering.

Inside, the people who had been trapped—no, what should now be called corpses—lay scattered everywhere.

“Hah…”

Il-hyeon let out a deep sigh.

He had entered cautiously after hearing there were other survivors, but there were none.

They were all dead, beyond any hope of help.

It should have been the first time in his life he had witnessed such a gruesome scene, but in the short time since this operation began, he had already seen it dozens of times.

Biting his lip, Il-hyeon trudged out of the building.

-Situation resolved. The proliferation site has been destroyed, and no Ace Monsters are left. We’re leaving the rest to the Russians and departing. Unless it’s urgent, wait at your current position.

Lee Soo-yeon’s voice came through the comms.

He walked over to a piece of rubble that had flown onto the road and sat down on it.

“Damn it…”

Il-hyeon leaned forward, covering his face with his hands.

He felt an unpleasant stickiness on his skin.

His hands, clothes, and even his face were caked with a mixture of red blood and green fluid, matted with dirt and dust.

Compounding that physical filth, Il-hyeon felt a profound sense of mental exhaustion.

He had personally saved dozens of people from the brink of death.

He had also helped prevent further casualties by thinning the monster ranks.

But people had died in numbers dozens of times greater.

The streets of the utterly destroyed city were lined with corpses.

He had seen people he was trying to save die right before his eyes, and witnessed the wounded transform into monsters.

For Il-hyeon, who had been Awakened for less than a month, it was a difficult reality to accept.

Just then, someone placed a hand on his shoulder.

Startled, having not sensed any presence, Il-hyeon spun around.

“What are you doing sitting here all alone looking so pathetic?”

Lee Soo-yeon was standing behind him, having appeared out of nowhere.

She looked like she had been through the wringer herself; her face was smeared with bloodstains, and her entire body was filthy.

“I had no idea things like this were happening overseas. Not at all.”

“That’s only natural. Even the people of this country probably don’t know the full story. Needless to say, it’s even less known back in Korea.”

Lee Soo-yeon answered calmly, seeing the exhaustion on Il-hyeon’s face.

The world was currently under the most powerful, globally coordinated media blackout in human history.

Even within the country where the disaster occurred, it was hard to know the true situation unless you lived right next to it.

“You mean things like this have been happening all this time?”

“This level of damage isn’t common. But it’s just a matter of scale. Incidents like this happen everywhere, all the time. And right now, we can’t stop them all.”

Lee Soo-yeon glanced at the bodies strewn about and sighed.

Even if they wanted to stop every Gate without any casualties, time and manpower were the problems.

Besides South Korea, the only nation with enough domestic Awakened strength to fully defend its own territory was the United States.

Russia, the victim of this recent incident, had a relatively strong Awakened force, but its territory was so vast that self-defense without aid was out of the question.

China had a large number of Awakened befitting its population, but it had an absolute shortage of high-ranking ones.

The fact that a country with such a massive population didn’t have a single A-Rank Awakened spoke volumes about how serious the issue was.

Other nations, too, lacked the power to deal with all the high-rank Gates that appeared without warning.

Aside from North America, which the United States largely handled, it was Aegis and government Response Teams that were helping to deal with high-rank Gates all over the world.

“That’s also why I brought you in.”

“Why you brought me in?”

“If the situation were more relaxed, why would I have needed to take a risk recruiting a Scavenger I’d never met before? Back when I still didn’t know the details of your ability or your identity.”

Lee Soo-yeon continued, crossing her arms.

“It was uncertain, but you seemed to have the potential to break through limits, even if only slightly. You know about my ability, right?”

“Of course, I do.”

Il-hyeon answered as if the question was absurd.

The user of the C-Rank ability, Ma, rare for an A-Rank Awakened.

While ability rank wasn’t the sole determinant of an Awakened’s talent, it was a key indicator of their potential.

Moreover, even if not considered low, a C-Rank ability was often a weakness for A-Rank level Awakened.

Her ability, Ma, only temporarily enhanced her body and had a limited range of applications, so it wasn’t highly regarded.

But Lee Soo-yeon had surpassed that limit.

In just a few short years after awakening, she had not only raised her Awakened rank to A-Rank but had also learned to draw out her ability’s power to a whole new level.

The black aura that appeared whenever she drew upon her ability became her trademark.

“When my ability first manifested and I was tested, I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to get a C-Rank. My goals were much higher than that.”

Lee Soo-yeon smiled.

“But I overcame it. There are plenty of cases like mine, where people surpass their ability by several ranks. With your ability… maybe even SS-Rank is possible?”

she said, her voice tinged with a slight excitement.

For the past twenty years, only one SS-Rank Awakened had ever appeared in the entire world.

Min Ji-hoon.

Though he was no longer active, he was nothing short of a legend.

“When Min Ji-hoon first appeared… the world was turned upside down. Thanks to his ability to warp space, the global damage from Gates was reduced by at least half. An SS-Rank Awakened has the power to change the world single-handedly.”

Il-hyeon swallowed hard.

He had subconsciously thought that he, too, would one day surpass SS-Rank.

After all, he had three SSS-Rank abilities.

But thinking about Min Ji-hoon, he realized just how high that level truly was.

Il-hyeon knew the stories about him very well.

“The cycle is coming soon. We have no solid data on what will happen, but people will die by at least double the rate.”

Lee Soo-yeon stated the horrifying fact calmly.

In the meantime, a transport aircraft carrying the other team members arrived above them.

“So get stronger, and fast. Now pull yourself together and get up. Our job… it’s not over yet, is it?”