Chapter 90 – The War Begins (Part Four)

“Kuaaagh!”

A man with both legs broken was crawling on the floor.

The A-rank ace monster had finally fallen, its strength depleted, and the remaining terrorists were easily subdued.

With the situation mostly under control, the team members and Il-hyeon’s summons were methodically dealing with the remaining base monsters.

“My god. Your teammates are absolute monsters.”

Seo Jeong-hwa said in awe as she bandaged Il-hyeon’s shoulder.

Even though she’d been part of an illegal organization, she was still an Awakened. Witnessing a battle on a completely different level up close, she couldn’t help but be impressed.

“Agh!”

“Oh, sorry.”

Seo Jeong-hwa had accidentally touched the wound while looking elsewhere.

As expected of a monstrously powerful Awakened, the bleeding had already stopped and the wound was beginning to close, but it was still a deep gash that had cut to the bone and required care.

Just then, Lee Soo-yeon came from behind, dragging a man who had tried his best to flee.

It was the one who had tormented Il-hyeon with the weakening ability.

“Urk!”

Lee Soo-yeon threw the man onto the floor where a pile of terrorists lay defeated.

He wasn’t bound, but he’d clearly taken a severe beating from her, as he could do nothing but groan, unable to move.

“I heard you held this place down by yourself. Good work. The Awakened from Altena you ran into here are all out of danger.”

Lee Soo-yeon said, dusting off her hands as she approached Il-hyeon.

“I’m sorry. I did my best not to call you during your operation.”

During the fight with the terrorists, Il-hyeon had found himself cornered and sensed danger, prompting Hyeon-seo to try and use her ability to come to him.

But at that moment, it was Il-hyeon who had stopped her.

He hadn’t wanted to call her away when she was likely in the middle of handling a Gate on another front.

Even now, the Alpha Team probably had plenty of other Gates that were their responsibility.

And he certainly hadn’t expected all five of them to show up.

“No, the dispatched teams abroad stepped up, so you don’t have to worry about the other side. With this mess happening all over the world, they couldn’t just stand by… They’re also moving around, handling Gates.”

The dispatched teams, who were always on standby near high-priority Gates overseas to prevent any casualties, were now all in motion, responding to the Gates and terrorist acts erupting across the globe.

For high-rank Gates with tight time limits, some damage was inevitable during travel time, but in a situation like this, there was nothing they could do about it.

“What about the situation elsewhere? I’m sure it doesn’t end here.”

“It’s fine. I don’t know how they did it, but the governments of each country are handling it better than expected.”

Contrary to the expectation that they would be completely helpless, the governments had responded well to the terror attacks.

Somehow, they had managed to track down and capture a significant number of the scattered Awakened terrorists and were thwarting their subsequent plans.

Given the sheer scale of the attacks, damage was still occurring and they couldn’t stop everything, but their response was surprisingly effective under the circumstances.

“The problem is that an enormous amount of damage has already been done.”

Lee Soo-yeon let out a deep sigh and bit her lip.

An unprecedented number of victims had appeared all over the world.

The panicked citizens were trembling in fear, reaching a level of hysteria comparable to when the Gates first appeared.

Even Il-hyeon found the string of surreal events so unbelievable that it was hard for him to fully grasp the reality of it all.

“By the way, who is this?”

Lee Soo-yeon asked, looking at the unfamiliar woman with crimson hair, Seo Jeong-hwa.

At that, Seo Jeong-hwa, who had been nervously glancing at the famous Lee Soo-yeon, flinched.

Caught in the middle, Il-hyeon was about to open his mouth to explain when the man on the floor shouted through a groan.

“Ugh… You! Yes, I recognize your face. How! How could you betray us? Why!”

With blood still pouring from one eye, he looked ghastly, like a madman who had lost his sanity.

Il-hyeon and Lee Soo-yeon were baffled by the man’s sudden outburst, but for someone else, it was seen in a completely different light.

Seo Jeong-hwa, standing next to Il-hyeon, was uncharacteristically and genuinely terrified. Il-hyeon could feel the trembling through the hand she had placed on his shoulder.

“You traitorous bitch…!”

But the man’s stream of curses and insults was cut short.

Seo Jeong-hwa strode toward him, raised her foot high, and stomped down hard on his head.

Splat! Brain matter and blood sprayed in all directions, and the man, his head gone, stopped moving.

Then, Seo Jeong-hwa gagged and collapsed to the floor.

Reacting to the sudden turn of events, Il-hyeon quickly knelt to check on her.

Her ragged breathing was shaky and unstable.

“Are you okay? Calm down.”

“That guy… he didn’t have the procedure.”

Seo Jeong-hwa looked up at Il-hyeon with difficulty, shivering as if she had a chill.

“Procedure…?”

Il-hyeon muttered at her words.

Before long, a thought flashed through his mind.

The Awakened who were mercilessly discarded as one-time pawns for information security once their usefulness ended.

On top of that, most of them possessed the same ability to enhance parts of their bodies, not to mention the brainwashing that prevented them from even thinking of betrayal.

Things that hadn’t made sense before were now all explained.

As he helped the gasping Seo Jeong-hwa to her feet and away from the corpse, Il-hyeon’s eyes met Lee Soo-yeon’s.

“Looks like… we have a lot to talk about.”

Lee Soo-yeon said, looking at him with her arms crossed. Il-hyeon nodded in agreement.

* * *

The terrorists captured across the globe all took their own lives shortly after.

Naturally, no meaningful information could be obtained, and all they could do was speculate about the enemy’s identity.

Even then, the criminal organizations on the list of suspects didn’t seem to have the scale or funds to orchestrate such an event, and more importantly, they had no motive to make an enemy of the entire world.

As the frustrating situation continued, Gates kept appearing as they always did.

Sizzle!

Kyoto, Japan.

Black smoke mixed with toxic substances billowed from the site where a Gate had appeared.

It was the smoke from the burning corpses of seven A-rank monsters, and it emitted a stench as foul as its color.

The surroundings—buildings, ground, and all—were charred completely black, their original forms unrecognizable.

Normally, dealing with multiple A-rank monsters with no prior data would have required several Aegis teams to join forces, but there was only one person at the cleared site.

Standing alone atop the ashes was one of the legendary Awakened and the head of Aegis, Ryu Jin-tae.

It had been a while since he’d been in the field, but it didn’t feel strange.

He plunged his sword deep into the shattered ground, then pulled off his blood-stained glove with his teeth.

“This side’s all wrapped up. Send down the transport.”

-Yes, sir. Good work.

A man’s voice came through the communicator.

Ryu Jin-tae threw the glove to the ground and surveyed his surroundings.

An utter, profound silence flowed through the city where truly nothing remained.

And breaking that silence, the communicator rang again.

-Sir… the situation elsewhere is more serious than we thought.

“Didn’t you say it was being handled relatively well?”

-Yes, the governments are handling the cleanup well, but… we can’t get in touch with any of the retired Awakened.

The endless spawning of Gates that showed no sign of decreasing, the massive terrorist attacks.

In this unprecedented state of emergency, governments and corporations had tried to recall retired Awakened, gathering as many as they could.

But something truly unbelievable was happening around the world.

“Well, those old folks… it’s not the first time they’ve been unreachable, telling us not to bother them for no reason, right?”

-But it’s strange that none of them are picking up in a situation like this… Both the government and we have been looking for them, and it turns out most have been either murdered or have vanished. And this happened before the attacks, in the span of about three days.

“…What?”

Hearing the unbelievable story, Ryu Jin-tae momentarily doubted his own ears.

As the report continued, his expression grew increasingly grim.

The retired Awakened who had stepped up to stop the crises at Gate sites in the past—specifically, the powerful ones above a certain level—had either been killed or had disappeared.

Moreover, the bodies of the murdered had been so cleverly hidden that those around them just thought they were away for a while. They were only now being discovered, one by one, after large-scale searches by the government and Aegis.

-Woo Seok-yeong, Seo Je-hyeong, and Choi Ha-ra were all found murdered. The situation is the same overseas.

Even when humanity faced its worst disasters, the existence of the resting retired Awakened was a reliable card, a last resort built up over the years.

But if it was true that they had lost them all now…

It was no different from being thrown back to the time of the Great Cataclysm when the Gates first opened.

If the skilled retirees were the targets, then Ryu Jin-tae’s old comrades were certainly no exception.

-Choi Geon-woo has also been out of contact for over four days.

“Choi Geon-woo? I can’t believe it…”

He was an A-rank Awakened and a possessor of two high-rank abilities. A fighter skilled enough to be counted on one hand.

No matter how long he had been retired or how caught off guard he might have been, he was not someone who would go down easily.

Furthermore, he had been instrumental in completely rooting out remnant terrorist groups in the past, so he was well-versed in interpersonal combat and anti-Awakened weaponry. It was incomprehensible that he could have been taken down without leaving a trace of a fierce battle.

“What about Ji-hoon?”

-Ah, he’s fine, of course… but as you know…

“Contact Director Oh and see how much progress he’s made. I need to see some results soon.”

Ryu Jin-tae said, cutting sharply into the words from the other side of the communicator.

-Understood.

With that, he ended the call, and an Aegis transport descended, kicking up a gust of wind around it.

The dark ashes that covered the area scattered in all directions.

Ryu Jin-tae pulled his sword from the ground and looked up.

“I hope they hurry it up before my patience runs out…”