The Age of Chaos
Black scales. Its jutting snout was packed with razor-sharp teeth.
Though their bodies were small, the muscles packed beneath them gave the Balugl not only mobility but crushing power as well.
The Balugl were in a foul temper.
How dare those humans disturb their sleep and butcher their kin.
Worse, they had fled and hidden themselves inside a steel enclosure, mocking them all the while.
Unforgivable.
They would chew through the ones blocking their path, find the rest, and tear them apart too.
The Balugl leaders roared in fury.
Grrrrrgh!
The sound was like something gargling bile.
At a glance it might have sounded ridiculous, but that was only if one of them was howling alone.
When thousands of them made the same noise at once, there was nothing funny about it.
They charged the line of humans ahead.
"Fire!"
Beyond the enormous barricade and shields, the muzzles of the users standing in formation erupted one after another.
More than a thousand guns firing on full auto filled the air with thick gunpowder smoke.
Bang-bang-bang-bang!
The bunker echoed with the sound of flesh being beaten like a sack of rice.
Even so, they were Level 3 creatures.
With ordinary weapons, not even high-tech ones, you might punch through the skin, but not inflict meaningful damage.
In the end, what finished them was either a single shot from a heavy-caliber gun or the cold steel of an experienced attacker.
"Do not let them break through! The team leaders are on their way! The Meteor Party will turn this front inside out!"
The assistant team leaders kept shouting at the users blocking the giant entrance.
It was an attempt to rouse their morale.
Hold out and you win.
Their cries were little more than desperate efforts to hammer that one idea into their heads.
If the entrance was breached, they would be forced back.
And if they were forced back? They would have to seal the corridor.
The Balugl would find another entrance, and in no time the bunker’s interior would be crawling with them.
That meant they had to stop them here.
If they let them in carelessly, no one could tell where those monsters, with their absurd rate of reproduction, might lay their eggs.
"Bring the shields together! Spears and swords forward! Muzzles on the enemy, spare hands on your comrades’ shoulders! Tighten up those damn hips!"
The assistant team leaders did everything they could from their respective positions.
One of them, directing the defense with his back to the wall, sensed something wrong with the shadow cast there.
What the hell?
There was no moonlight; they were relying on emergency lamps.
A shadow shouldn’t have been falling on the wall when he himself was standing with a light behind him.
And if it did, it should have fallen in front of him, not behind.
As the assistant team leader stared at his own shadow, a chill crept up his spine.
Then what was that wavering shape on the wall?
Thwip!
He didn’t even know what hit him.
Something soft pierced his throat.
His vocal cords were gone, so no sound came out.
The assistant team leader rolled his eyes back as blood poured out of him beyond control.
The same thing was happening everywhere.
"Ghk!"
"Gurgle..."
One by one, they fell to stealthy ambushes.
Their bodies turned transparent the instant they collapsed.
Everything was carried out with perfect coordination.
But no one noticed.
Everyone’s attention was being dragged forward, to the Balugl surging in right now.
Swish.
The shadows—no, the shadows moved away.
They slipped deep into the bunker where no user’s eyes could follow.
They stopped at the passage leading to the cafeteria and revealed themselves.
In their hands was a cloth with a peculiar texture.
"Phew. I’d say the Invisible Robe has done its job."
At the words of the man pushing up his glasses, Beniki, everyone nodded.
It was gear that made the body transparent for a short time.
It was equipment capable of being noticed by the senses of a Level 3 body-strengthening user, but in the chaos of a mêlée it had worked beautifully.
They stripped off the robes, now useless, and moved on.
The infiltration team had their roles.
Controlling the bunker, eliminating any surviving personnel, and even sealing off the central hall that Victor had failed to block.
Rose, who had joined Beniki, moved to cut off the central hall.
She pouted, clearly dissatisfied with something.
"Haa, how did I end up traveling with such a total concept freak?"
"Rose. It was you who said you wanted to confirm whether Victor was alive. I came here to secure complete control of the facility."
"Still, I wanted to be with Boss. Not some stinky weirdo like you."
"Everyone in the swamp is stinking to me. You’re no different, Rose."
"Nope, that’s wrong."
"It isn’t. And you need to keep quiet. From here on out, we’re in enemy territory..."
Beniki stopped mid-sentence and drew his gun.
Three users, moving busily ahead of them, had appeared.
Whoosh!
Before Beniki could react, Rose moved.
The Omega Suit was already wrapped around her body, scattering red light.
She cut through the corridor and stood before the three of them.
Silver flashed at the end of her arm as she swept it sideways.
They had no time to respond before all three clutched their throats and fell.
Blood gushed from their slashed necks as they twitched on the floor.
After a few seconds, the movement stopped.
Complete death.
Rose twirled the dagger in her hand and grinned.
"See? No need to be quiet. I’ll slice up anything I see."
"...I see. Your killing skills don’t dull just because this is enemy territory."
"Let’s move already. Next stop’s the cafeteria."
Victor’s signal had cut out near the cafeteria.
Rose led Beniki forward through the passage.
Victor wouldn’t be dead. There are probably too many guards, so he must be hiding in the cafeteria waiting for an opening.
Rose expected Victor to be alive.
But the moment they reached the cafeteria—
"...What is this."
—that expectation shattered to pieces.
Victor lay before her, a bullet having punched straight through his temple.
"Who the hell—!"
For Rose, the deaths of her comrades were things she alone had to decide.
They were veteran killers.
Killers who were all too used to dealing with people like them.
Whenever one of those comrades died, there was always only one reason.
Someone had touched her nerves.
Every time that happened, she unleashed the beast of her anger, and tearing her comrades apart had always been Rose’s job.
That was law now.
It had to be that way, and it could never be broken. It was a law Rose herself had made.
And someone had broken it.
One of the people in this bunker, no less.
Crack.
"Which son of a bitch..."
"Rose. I sincerely hope you find and kill the bastard who murdered Victor."
Her teeth ground together of their own accord, and her grip on the dagger tightened.
Beniki cheered Rose on and headed for the equipment room to seize the shielding device.
Rose’s role was to eliminate any remaining personnel.
For a moment, she stood there with her eyes wide, silently staring at Victor’s corpse.
Then she reached out and closed his staring eyes.
"...Still, you were the easiest of the bunch to boss around."
She rose, her voice strangely thick.
The brief mourning was over.
Now it was time to find the one who had broken her law and kill them as painfully as possible.
If I kill everyone I see as painfully as possible, I’ll eventually hit the right one, won’t I?
As soon as she turned with that thought in mind, Rose’s eyes widened.
Since when was he there?
Someone was standing there, and she hadn’t even noticed.
How long had he been there? While she was mourning Victor? Or had he been there before Beniki left?
Whatever the case, the one wearing the Omega Suit was approaching.
Rose regripped her dagger.
Boss had said it clearly: he would take on Jack Kalt.
Which meant this wasn’t Jack Kalt.
And it definitely wasn’t Meteor.
He, too, was probably being fooled by Boss’s nature and making a fool of himself somewhere else.
Then who was the bastard in front of her?
Rose stopped thinking. It didn’t matter who it was.
She would rage. She would give herself over to the natural-born killing instinct that surged up from the depths of her body.
And she would kill the man in front of her.
"Kihit."
She drove the Omega Suit’s ability higher.
Insensibility. It cut off pain itself.
That meant pain would no longer be able to slow her movements.
Even if her body was wrecked by the violence of her own actions, she didn’t care anymore.
Fwish!
Rose’s figure vanished in an instant.
Bang!
At the same time, a heavy impact thundered through the cafeteria.
Rose went sprawling across the floor in an ugly heap, then sprang back to her feet.
Her eyes gleamed beyond the smashed and shattered visor.
This fist. She knew it.
That was why she couldn’t believe it.
"...Meteor?"
"How’d you know?"
He—Meteor—stretched out a hand to the side.
From the place where Rose had fallen, an invisible passage opened.
An ivory greatsword flew out of it and snapped neatly into his grasp.
"You didn’t even have a weapon."
Yoo Sung-jun swung the greatsword.
Something was wrong.
Jack Kalt had not realized it when the flying species appeared, nor when he had stopped him.
Meteor had left the battlefield.
How?
The “dummy” he had set up on the bunker ceiling was flawless—perfect, even.
So perfect that no one would even recognize it as a function of the suit.
And yet, after he heard Jack Kalt’s radio transmission, Meteor had apparently realized this was all just a stall.
Why? Everything had been perfect. Even if some variable emerged, the goal should still have been achievable.
How had communication been restored, and how had the truth been relayed to Meteor?
"...Do you think the situation has become badly tangled?"
"Jack Kalt..."
In Sector 4, the area near the bunker designated by Blood Rain, Jack Kalt shrugged in the middle of a park stripped bare of everything.
"Your nature. If it had been Meteor in his prime, he would’ve understood at once. I was a little late catching on."
"Analysis. So that was your nature."
"And yours is Marionette. A fine nature. It lets you move the puppet connected to your nature with sheer will."
Jack Kalt released the hand he had been holding up.
With a rustle, the chain that served as both his weapon and armor spilled down and touched the ground.
"The reason you were able to deceive Meteor—was it camouflage? Layering yourself over the dummy with the Omega Suit... your acting must be decent, too, since you fooled Meteor."
"Nothing changes. The most dangerous variable is here with you."
"A variable, huh. You must’ve asked the Higher Being that. Haha! You made a mistake."
Jack Kalt laughed aloud and flicked his fingers.
In response, chains made of nano-particles surged upward.
"You were so confident you probably didn’t ask, ‘Is the operation too dangerous, to the point where everyone might die?’"
The stalker had considered that question too.
But there was a reason he hadn’t asked it.
The “answer” the Higher Being gave was only ever an answer grounded in the present.
That was why he hadn’t asked such a variable-laden question.
If he did, he’d only end up stripping away the very means he could use in the operation.
And if he went into a plan with fewer options, then when facing a group that had prepared in advance by using their question rights, he’d show hesitation.
That was why he hadn’t asked.
Whether he knew that or not, Jack Kalt pointed up at the sky.
"I think you’re going to be devoured and wiped out by that flying species your teammate first tamed, Meteor."
There was Ryong-i.
The red dragon gliding through the air, breathing fire relentlessly into the densest packs of Balugl.
But Ryong-i wasn’t the only one in the sky.
A man rode on Ryong-i’s neck.
With his eyes to a scope, he kept firing shot after shot in rapid succession.
As Jack Kalt watched, a frantic voice crackled through his in-ear communicator.
“Jack! I managed to break the communication suppression with Tool Master, can you hear me? If you can, answer me! And save me, would you? Some freak with glasses, and he even has body reinforcement, is attacking me!”
"Yoon Choi. Hold out a little longer. Meteor is on his way."
After his deal with Meteor, Jack Kalt thought it had been the right decision to bring her here.
Thanks to that, they had been able to stop the means prepared by the killer group quite brilliantly.
So now it was time to focus on the man in front of him.
"Feels like a ranking match. If you beat me, you’ll take my rank, won’t you? Isn’t that right, Stalker?"
The 7th-ranked user smiled at the one ranked 8th in the world.