Age of Chaos
In a world where only the ruins of civilization remained, there was no light to brighten the surroundings.
Heavy clouds smothered the sky, so even moonlight never broke through.
Only darkness lay over the wasteland in a soundless shroud.
The foolish remnants of humanity, having declared war on the Infector, had done nothing but cut themselves to pieces.
They had brought down and burned their own cities with firearms and explosives.
The blackened ruins looked like some dead forest scorched to the roots.
And in that desolate city center, a group finally emerged.
"Boss. Victor looks like he’s moving as expected."
"Is he marked on the tracker?"
Rose came closer and handed over a tablet.
On the map showing the bunker’s structure, a red dot was blinking.
The red dot was drifting smoothly toward the facility room.
"He’s doing well."
"Ugh, but where the hell is this place? It reeks so bad. So the mission title really was Place Where Filthy Water Stagnates, huh?"
Rose frowned and waved a hand in front of her nose.
A man with glasses walked up beside her.
"Curious why it smells so foul?"
"Oh, the explanation guy’s here."
"...I’m not the explanation guy. It’s Beniki. Rose, would you enjoy it if we called you a crazy bitch?"
"The people who said that are dead already."
Rose grinned, toying with a dagger.
"They’ve been dead so long they’re probably just animal shit by now."
"And yet I, of course, couldn’t kill Meteor."
"That bastard...? Ha, seriously. Want me to kill you first?"
Beniki pushed his sliding glasses back up his nose.
"I’ll have to decline."
"Why the hell do you still wear glasses when your body’s been enhanced and your eyesight’s better? Trying to look smart or something?"
"They’re non-prescription. And I feel calmer when I’m wearing them. Anyway, the place we’re in right now is a wetland."
"Was that something you had to say in the middle of a goddamn operation?"
"Rose. This is important to the mission, so listen carefully."
It was Boss who cut off her complaints.
Arms folded, he jerked his chin at Beniki.
Understanding the cue, Beniki went on.
"As you can see, the difficulty here is D+. The reason is the reeking culture medium spread throughout the area."
"I thought it was just filthy water. It’s a culture medium? What the hell are they cultivating?"
"Balugul. Blood Rain couldn’t clear this place out."
At that, Rose shut her mouth.
Balugul was a level 3 Infector. Just hearing the number made it sound easy to exterminate, but that only measured the combat power of a single specimen.
Their breeding power was overwhelming. Their cunning was beyond imagination as well.
A single female laid hundreds of eggs in a week.
And from the eggs immersed in the culture medium, it took only four days for a new Balugul to hatch.
"There are two reasons they didn’t clear it out. One, they were probably saving it for a bunker route."
The mission title: Place Where Filthy Water Stagnates.
It was a mission that allowed return travel once you exterminated one hundred Infector per person in the region.
With Dark Cover not yet underway, they needed a route that could carry them back and forth between this place and reality.
It made sense to leave a mission like this in reserve.
"The other reason is that, right now, they don’t have the power to clear this place completely."
If they made too much noise, the whole nest would wake up and rush them.
Until their target was dead, they’d lose all reason and charge, which meant this place, like a hornet’s nest, could not be recklessly stirred up.
The creatures sleeping in this space, big enough to occupy nearly an entire district of the city, would surely number in the thousands at the very least.
It was possible they simply didn’t want the resource drain and manpower losses that would come from fighting them all.
"Rose. Do you understand now why we split into two teams? We came here to use the Balugul."
Rose stared at Beniki, dumbfounded.
Before the operation resumed, Boss had split the group into two teams.
Instead of choosing a mission near the bunker, he had brought them all the way out here.
She’d wondered why.
So that’s the cute little trick you had in mind?
Rose looked at Boss with eyes full of admiration, half awe and half respect.
He reached out and ruffled her hair.
"There’s only one reason I didn’t tell you."
"And what’s that, Boss...?"
"You’re too loud. You might have gone blabbing about it everywhere."
At his follow-up, the others with them snickered.
She felt like she might lose control of her temper.
And whenever that happened, Boss’s hand would calmly smooth her hair until the anger eased enough to bear.
"Now that you understand, all that’s left is to carry out the bunker raid."
Boss lifted his hand from Rose’s head and turned his gaze away.
Toward the mission site where the rest of the team waited.
They had gladly volunteered to act as bait.
Very soon, the flare would rise, and when it did, they would trigger the core of the operation that used the Infector themselves.
Andrew, Bandimov, Quyen, Merilda... stay alive. I’ll see you in the occupied bunker.
One by one, he called the others to mind as he tightened his grip on his weapon.
A dark red greatsword answered his touch with a cold glint.
***
Sector 6.
This was a high school near Gimpo Airport, and it was no different from any other ruin.
Through the goggles, lumps of writhing flesh were detected there.
But they showed only as shapes caught in the sensor, blurred and indistinct.
Choi Hyun-seok, lying prone beside Yoo Sung-jun, muttered as he realized why.
"They just put up a heat shield. Looks like they’re seriously preparing for an ambush."
"That won’t matter once we open up with suppressive fire. They’ll get shredded."
"Will they, though?"
Choi Hyun-seok pointed at them.
A blue film spread over the hazy ripples.
Yoo Sung-jun recognized it at a glance.
"That’s EMFB."
"What rank does it look like to you? Seems intermediate to me."
Electromagnetic Field Barrier.
He’d only been calling it by the acronym, but Yoo Sung-jun knew all too well how annoying that thing was.
It was gear PK users practically ate with every meal.
"Yeah, probably intermediate. Even if we pour bullets into them, the rounds won’t reach their bodies."
"And bullets from a heavy sniper rifle would slow down so much they could dodge them easily. So we have to go in close after all?"
Typical of people who treated one-on-one combat like part of their daily bread.
As expected of killers skilled in murder, they weren’t trying to draw them into gunfire but into close combat.
Of course, once that barrier was up, the enemies couldn’t shoot either.
The field formed around their bodies wrapped both inside and out, pulling in anything metallic.
"Where’s Jack? If he analyzes it, he should be able to identify the weak point."
"Jack Kalt is lying in ambush on the opposite side."
The opposite side meant the area packed with skeletal buildings stripped down to their frames.
They had widened the net, building a broad encirclement for a simultaneous strike.
Once the signal was given, they would rush in, and the snipers would unleash their fire at the same time.
Is this it?
It was time to decide.
The enemy was moving.
With swift, silent steps, they had already crossed half the schoolyard.
In a few seconds, they would slip through this place and break out of the encirclement.
He couldn’t just stand by and watch.
Jack Kalt had come to the same conclusion.
-Meteor. I’ve analyzed the location of the EMFB. From here on, I’ll tell you which one to call out and which body part to watch.
Jack Kalt’s words came in a machine-gun burst.
At the end of them, Yoo Sung-jun let out the breath he didn’t need.
Through Breathing, he guided the massive influx of oxygen through every meridian in his body.
"Khh..."
As his talent activated, his pupils dilated.
A low laugh slipped out with the intoxication that oxygen brought.
And with a creak, the Omega Suit he wore shifted its components, along with the ground beneath him, driving him backward.
The gray new model drew a long arc through the air, scattering colors in its wake.
Thud!
With a heavy impact, Yoo Sung-jun landed in front of the killers and shouted like a roar.
"Shoot only the ones I hit!"
It wasn’t the NWA greatsword.
It was a silver greatsword that looked more crude than before, almost as if it had stepped backward through time.
The moment he finished speaking, the blade tore through the air.
"Ghk!"
They hadn’t just stood there slack-jawed either.
Knowing the strike was aimed at the shoulder, they swung their hatchets up to meet it.
Yoo Sung-jun didn’t focus on that.
The killer’s unnaturally developed right leg.
Leg Shooter.
The kick strength of that leg, deliberately strengthened through his talent, would probably reach several dozen tons in an instant.
Just as Jack Kalt had said.
He’d made excellent use of the analysis.
Thanks to that, there would be no need to suffer through their resistance.
It was the beginning of one-sided annihilation.
"Die!"
Crack!
Their bold shout became meaningless as the hatchet exploded.
It wasn’t merely broken. It had literally burst apart, smashing the killer’s hand to pieces.
A look of disbelief entered Yoo Sung-jun’s eyes.
And the instant he sensed the anger behind that expression, he shifted his weight back, planting the right leg as his axis and drawing the left leg behind him.
His body leaned naturally to the side.
Swish!
The killer’s foot sliced past him.
Its speed was monstrous, like a bullet ricocheting off a target plate.
But if it didn’t land, it meant nothing.
"All out of bullets?"
He sneered at the man and tightened his grip on the greatsword.
Then he switched targets and attacked another killer.
As he did, he didn’t forget to toss out a casual remark.
"You should be blocking something else, not me."
It wasn’t hard to understand what he meant.
The killer touched at his shoulder with what remained of one intact hand.
The core that formed the electromagnetic barrier had been shattered to pieces.
"What the fu—!"
Papapapak!
Precise shots flew in from every direction, and the killer’s body turned into a honeycomb.
The same thing happened to the others who became Yoo Sung-jun’s next targets.
So this is the power of Another Earth’s number one?
A killer who had drifted just outside the battle zone could not hide his shock.
Even if they blocked, they couldn’t block the greatsword.
Even when they used their talents, he dodged as if he’d already known where they’d strike.
It was driving him mad.
All they could do was wait to be crushed beneath overwhelming power.
Their level 3 physical capabilities were not enough.
Even pouring in the abilities added to the level 2 Omega Suit wasn’t enough either.
And had he even used the Omega Suit’s abilities? No, he hadn’t.
Was he wielding some form of martial art beyond the murder techniques honed over decades? That wasn’t it either.
It’s simple.
Plain and simple.
What that meant was obvious.
Every single one of Meteor’s abilities surpassed their own.
A level 4 physical enhancement worth a million points. And on top of that, that weapon.
Clang!
Every swing tore open the air, sending shockwaves rolling out.
With each one, the killers trying to attack from behind or the flanks were sent sprawling.
T-that...
He recognized the weapon.
High-tech. Then the tech beyond that, nanotech. A tech weapon that went beyond even nanotech.
Dimension Tech.
They had no gear capable of stopping that monster of a weapon, one that began at a minimum of 1.5 million points.
It was, quite literally, a weapon from a different dimension.
The only counter to something that meddled with space itself would be equipment made from the same kind of tech.
"Ah..."
He was at a loss for words.
Stunned, he reached into his chest pocket.
All his comrades had fallen.
It looked like he wouldn’t be able to honor his promise to the Boss.
He told us to meet at the bunker... Well, we’re screwed.
Still, he could at least send word.
His talent, Aura Search, had already given him the rough details of the people stationed around him.
Before Yoo Sung-jun’s greatsword could tear him apart, the killer pulled out two spheres and smashed them in one motion.
Fwoosh!
Two colors of light flooded the ruins.
The red light said there were dozens of elites here.
The blue light informed them that Meteor—that Jack Kalt—was here.
.
.
.
"Begin."
The Boss rose the moment he saw that signal.
It was time to wake every Balugul sleeping here and lead them to the bunker.