The Age of Adaptation
It wasn’t only the path ahead that went dark.
The ability of the level 6 Infector Muaz, Chaos, turned every sense upside down.
A sharp ringing filled his ears.
A high-pitched whine packed his skull, then vanished all at once.
The sudden silence that followed warped his sense of direction.
Heat and cold rushed over his skin.
It felt like his entire body was being alternately seared by a one-degree burn and frozen in frostbite.
And the stench—God, that stench.
It only grew stronger, as though mocking his numbed sense of smell.
His nose wrinkled on its own.
His mouth tasted bitter. Not figuratively, but truly bitter.
Sourness and astringency slammed into his tongue so hard it brought tears to his eyes.
It was lucky he’d kept Breathing active.
His enhanced physical capabilities resisted the confusion.
And the Omega Suit blocked part of the brainwaves the creature was sending out.
The effects of Chaos faded a little.
Still, it was hard as hell.
His vision would go black without warning, then return, and that alone was enough to drive him mad.
But maybe it had been worth preparing in advance through Jangsanbeom.
They’re all struggling to hold out against the confusion.
Only Yoo Sung-jun was able to take in his surroundings.
Most of the users had collapsed where they stood, retching.
It must feel like being thrown headfirst into a chemical weapons chamber while the world spun around them.
Their visors were smeared with tears, mucus, and vomit.
Those without Omega Suits were rolling on the floor.
Keeping his breathing steady, Yoo Sung-jun glanced over his shoulder.
Damn it.
The curse came naturally.
Just as he’d feared, Infector troops that had taken a detour through another entrance were flooding in.
And what about the front?
Kwooooooar!
An eight-meter brute stomped toward them with thunderous steps.
Horn-like exoskeleton rose from its forehead.
Its arms were lined with the same sharp, jagged bones.
It was a level 5 Infector near the threshold, reminiscent of a fantasy ogre.
The leader-type, Goran.
The Infector pack it commanded was just as numerous as the ones in back.
They were surrounded.
The ceiling by Muaz’s tentacles.
The front and rear by a tidal wave of Infector flesh.
He checked on the elites.
Fortunately, they’d adapted to some degree after following Yoo Sung-jun’s lead.
Right. Lose one sense at a time. Focus on sight, and only blink when the vision blacks out.
Sight was what he had to keep hold of.
He didn’t need the others.
The nano-tech firearm, NU-101, rose high.
He couldn’t snap the users out of it with sound.
Then he’d simply drive off Muaz’s tentacles.
Luckily, the range of those tentacles ends at the far edge of the ceiling.
He’d worried the creature might attack if he targeted the tentacles themselves.
Smiling faintly at the happiness brought on by more oxygen than his body could properly use, he pulled the trigger.
The nano-particles, smaller than bullets, became the ammunition.
The indispensable new energy source—the Omega Suit’s power core—drove them forward with a force more violent than any gunpowder.
Bang!
With a report like a shell detonating, one of the eyeballs at the tip of a tentacle burst apart.
There was no scream, only a violent shudder as it withdrew.
But the other tentacles were still intact.
Even if he raked them with sustained fire, he couldn’t handle them alone.
If he destroyed them all, the front and rear lines would be swept away first.
So, after blowing apart dozens anyway and just as he reached for his greatsword—
Tat-tat-tat-tang!
Gunfire rang out from behind.
He wondered who it was.
The elites had only just begun recovering from the confusion.
When he turned to check, he saw a familiar face.
“Seong-hwan...”
From his wide-open eyes, bloody tears streamed down.
The backlash from forcibly resisting the confusion made blood pour from his nose.
His mouth was clamped shut so tightly that dark blood ran from the corners of his lips.
And through that pain, he kept pulling the trigger.
Puff-puff-puff!
Then Jeyca, who had joined him from behind, started firing at the ceiling as well.
When a user tried to break formation, she smashed the butt of her rifle into his jaw without hesitation and knocked him out cold.
What a badass.
Then it’s better to focus on the front.
The two comrades who had weathered countless crises together changed the shape of the battlefield as it began to tilt out of their favor.
So Yoo Sung-jun drew his greatsword.
Five-colored light streamed out from the jet-black blade.
The activation of the nano-tech weapon began with synchronization to the Omega Suit.
“Loki. Stand by your ability. Available power: 20%.”
The sword, humming with a deep vibration, answered him.
With a grin at that, he sprinted forward.
***
He’d come into the operation thinking he could just ride along with the group and take it easy.
But what the hell was that thing?
Yeah, he understood that it was Muaz’s tentacles.
But he’d never imagined an ability like this.
The power of a level 6, when faced for the first time, was enough to drown a person in despair.
One ordinary user, who’d only ever belonged somewhere in the middle of the pack, was certain everyone here was going to be wiped out.
There were moments when he could barely see anything but what was directly in front of him.
And all his other senses made even the flashes of vision impossible to trust.
We’re screwed. We’re all going to die here.
Soon the Infectors would come pouring down the slope and begin their slaughter.
They’d trample over them mercilessly, as if crushing seedlings that had only just begun to sprout.
“...Huh?”
It had been a coincidence.
Just as he’d lowered his head and was about to accept death in the middle of that chaos, he saw the man.
“What the—?”
The head he’d been about to drop lifted instead. So did his gaze.
A rifle muzzle kept spitting fire. Tentacles burst apart in response, then vanished into the holes.
The confusion began to ebb.
The man he’d thought was about the same level as himself shouted as blood sprayed from him.
He was called Yoo Sung-hwan, wasn’t he?
“Hh... gh...!”
His voice was cut into pieces by the lingering confusion.
Every time a tentacle disappeared, the world grew clearer.
“Guard the rear!”
A clear command, shouted twice.
The despair that had been crushed flat began to stir back to life.
And he wasn’t the only one feeling it.
Users who’d fought through the fading confusion got back on their feet.
Everyone except the ones who’d lost consciousness raised their firearms.
They held the rear.
“—away! Wipe them out!”
Deafening gunfire filled the corridor.
The Infector horde charging in came up against the heavy shields of the guards.
Whenever one tried to force its way through, the attackers’ cold steel split its body open in a single stroke.
Beyond them, bullets packed the corridor full.
As the bodies piled higher, the gunfire gradually thinned.
“...”
Watching Yoo Sung-hwan turn despair into a springboard for counterattack, everyone fell silently still.
Level 1 in physical enhancement. No Omega Suit. And yet he’d driven off most of the tentacles causing the confusion, all on sheer will alone.
He wiped the blood that had spilled from his own face and smeared across it.
Even then, his gaze remained fixed on the path ahead.
“What the...”
What they saw next was a different battlefield entirely.
No one even dared leap in or rush over to support.
The team leaders charged.
They swung shields, then smashed down with weapons that made full use of their natural strengths.
The creature that seemed to be the leader buckled under the violent pressure and toppled backward.
But only for a moment. It was already trying to recover its footing.
That was when it happened.
“Captain.”
Meteor. He stepped in front of the thing.
Its hide was so tough that even the barrage of bullets hadn’t pierced it.
He raised his greatsword, intent on cleaving it in two.
The Omega Suit pulsed, revealing the nano-particle sinews beneath it in stark relief.
The sight of that twisted back, like a demonic beast made flesh, was almost awe-inspiring.
“Ha!”
A single battle cry.
And then the greatsword came crashing down.
In an instant, it lengthened. At the same time, it absorbed.
The Omega Suit began to vanish from the tip inward.
As though he were tearing off his own flesh and attaching it elsewhere, the greatsword swelled in size.
At the same time, a high-frequency scream hit his ears.
Kiiiiing!
The sword trembled as it let out a violent howl.
The man knew what that was.
He’d seen it often in Meteor’s strategy videos.
Super vibration...
The jet-black greatsword, now carrying vibrations beyond a critical threshold, plummeted from above.
An 8-meter blade, infused with enough brute force to be called monstrous.
It didn’t even seem like the strike of the same man.
That merciless sword blow descended on the leader-type Infector, Goran.
Kwooooooar!
Sshrrrk!
A roar disguised as a death scream.
The moment it split the head, neck, chest, belly, and groin apart, it was cut off clean.
Too late, the creature’s ability activated, and a mass of bones burst up from its body.
The sight was like fireworks marking the end of a desperate battle.
***
Loki. What’s the power loss rate?
His mouth was full of the taste of iron.
He spat out a mouthful of saliva, and blood tinged it red.
Had he been chewing too hard from the confusion?
His mouth felt shredded.
32%.
So that meant 68% remained.
Even using it as efficiently as possible, this was the result.
Most likely, everyone wearing the Omega Suit was in a similar state.
From here on out, we have to use the remaining resources efficiently.
To be honest, they’d been close to total annihilation.
Muaz’s ability was stronger than expected, and the encirclement it had set up was effective.
- Total casualties: 487.
Along with the confusion, the Infector horde had been strengthened by Rage.
That was the result of nothing more than a pincer attack combining those two abilities.
Yoo Sung-jun estimated the number of remaining personnel.
632, then.
In pure numbers, that was a lot.
Of course, compared to the Infectors lurking in this bunker, it was a drop in the bucket.
It was time to start the plan.
Yoo Sung-jun looked around.
This was the first rest stop they’d reached after breaking through directly ahead.
The cargo warehouse.
Relatively clean compared to the other grim sections.
Rust-covered containers were piled everywhere around them.
It was fair to call it a mountain of containers.
Inside those things, there were probably supplies that had rotted away or fallen apart without ever seeing daylight.
“Team leaders, gather up.”
At Yoo Sung-jun’s command, the elites gathered.
Cruiser and Choi Hyun-seok, both included among them, looked like hell.
After treatment by the doctors and Yoo Sung-hwan’s stitching, their entire bodies were wrapped in bandages.
“How’s everyone holding up?”
“We’re fine. Fortunately, the tendons weren’t damaged...”
“Ha ha. I’m okay too. I was ready to give up at least one limb protecting Brother Seong-jun, but thank God that didn’t happen.”
At their answers, he shrugged and looked over the rest.
Everyone’s expressions were grim.
Just as I feared, they’ve lost their fighting spirit.
He’d expected this.
Their ordinary days had been filled with work, part-time jobs, and studies.
Another Earth had suddenly reappeared in reality, something they’d only ever enjoyed as a hobby or for survival.
To live, they had to do missions.
They had to distrust other people, and killing Infectors had become routine.
Life had turned into one of constant bloodshed, of standing atop guts and flesh.
The stress that had been piling up without their realizing it must be exploding now, or just on the verge of doing so.
And since they’d only barely won at the edge of despair, it must be even worse.
“Everyone, focus.”
Eyes slowly turned toward him.
They had secured a temporary safe zone.
He needed to state the plan within it and push on to the next operation.
If he himself faltered here, their objective would collapse.
“The divide-and-conquer tactic worked brilliantly. We killed the leader-type and several thousand Infectors. You’ve all memorized the map, right?”
The team leaders nodded.
The faded bunker map that had been stuck to the cargo warehouse wall.
He unfolded the recovered copy before them.
“We’re around the middle here. Muaz is in the central hall.”
The bunker had been built deep underground in a cylindrical structure.
On each underground level, there were massive facilities and a web of large and small connected passages.
Yoo Sung-jun pointed out the narrow route that led directly to the central hall.
At that, one of the team leaders raised a question.
“How can you be sure Muaz is in the central hall? It could be in the civilian shelter, or the cafeteria. Or the hydroponics facility.”
“No. That bastard is definitely here.”
Yoo Sung-jun held up his smart watch.
A cube-shaped hologram appeared.
And on it, a red marker glowed.
“You think I was spraying nano-particles at those tentacles for no reason?”
“Ah...!”
The questioning team leader let out a low gasp.
That was the advantage of nano-tech equipment.
If the target was within a certain range, it could detect the location of nano-particles.
“After comparing it to the map, the bastard has made a nest in the central hall.”
Kraaaah!
A monster’s scream from the upper floor cut him off.
Frowning, Yoo Sung-jun clicked his tongue.
So they were scrambling through the corridors under Muaz’s orders.
“You heard that, right? We don’t have time. If this is a place that favors them, then we just need to secure a space that favors us.”
“You intend to lure Muaz there?”
“If we don’t, our chances are slim.”
Choi Hyun-seok wore a somber expression.
It seemed he could sense the raid entering its final phase.
“Meteor-nim, then should we set a trap here to bring it down?”
“No. That’s not what you’ll be handling, Choi Hyun-seok. That’s the job of the team leaders and the other troops.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re coming with me.”
If everything went according to plan, there’d be no need to forcibly separate his brother.
Yoo Sung-jun glanced toward the back.
He saw his younger brother, busy treating the users, and Jeyca following him while taking equipment from a pack.
Yeah. For now, everything’s still going smoothly.
Though he had no idea how long that smoothness would last.
“...Pardon?”
Yoo Sung-jun patted the dumbstruck Choi Hyun-seok on the shoulder.
“So get ready. We’re going to lure Muaz. Just you and me are going. After careful consideration, I think your natural talents will be useful there. Having too many people won’t help anyway.”
“Then what about me?”
Cruiser pointed at himself and asked.
Yoo Sung-jun shook his head.
“You can stay here and guard my brother.”
“Ha ha. Sure, guarding’s my specialty. Just bring him back safe.”
This guy really was simple sometimes.
Smiling faintly, Yoo Sung-jun stood.
“Then let’s begin. You all set the trap. I’ll handle the lure. I’ll send the specifics through the message function on the radio.”
Taking Choi Hyun-seok with him, he headed for the narrow passage he’d already scoped out.
And there, Yoo Sung-jun could feel it.
This might be the moment when he had to interpret the words of Igrato, Choi Hyun-seok, in reverse.