The Age of Chaos
Born through his father’s blessing, Jungji was strong.
Not once in his life had he been weak.
That had been his fate from the moment of his birth.
With that strength, he served his father.
Following the instincts etched into him, Jungji guarded the sleeping chamber.
Whenever some presumptuous creature drew near, he tore it apart without mercy and left it to die.
The rush that followed was the only thing that gave Jungji’s life any vitality.
That was how he had lived: guarding, always guarding.
And then, one day, he heard a voice.
A voice he had longed for with every fiber of his being, and yet one he had never been able to hear or see.
It was his father’s voice.
- Hear me, parts of myself.
Jungji shuddered.
And for the first time in centuries, the life he had spent standing watch in one place reached a turning point.
- One of my parts has gone missing. I wish to savor this sweet sleep a little longer, so the finest among you will find that one, the missing one, and bring it back to me.
With those words, the sweet voice echoing through his mind vanished.
And yet Jungji did not grieve.
His father’s voice had given him a new purpose.
This was the first time since then that Jungji, who had remained utterly still, took action.
"So everyone gathered here by Father’s command."
Jungji finally stood before the other parts of his father.
They were siblings born from the same root, yet each wore a different shape.
Still, they were of the same kind.
Because, like him, they would stop at nothing to fulfill the goal their father had given them.
Jungji liked that very much.
If the ones guarding the sleeping chamber from every corner were not so different from himself, then there was no need to doubt their strength or loyalty.
So Jungji did his utmost to prove his own superiority.
Perhaps everyone assembled there thought the same.
I will give everything because I like this.
And through that, I will prove that I am the most superior among Father’s parts.
The result was Jungji’s victory.
The left hand’s Jungji had given him the hardest time, but in the end, he was the one who triumphed.
"I’ll go and bring back the missing one. You lot guard the chamber again."
Jungji’s words were not all that different from his father’s earlier command, so everyone gathered there returned to their posts without protest.
Left alone once more, Jungji thought.
How should he successfully bring the missing one back?
The answer was simple.
Just as his father had scattered pieces of himself throughout the chamber to guard it, Jungji would do the same.
Father is a fine teacher, and a god.
Jungji immediately put the plan into motion.
If he foolishly tried to subdue the strongest one first, he would surely be wiped out before he could even carry out the order.
So he lowered his sights.
He took down the powerful ones—those not as strong as he was, but still useful—and forced them to submit.
He gathered them as subordinates and traced the missing one’s trail.
Following the trail was not difficult.
All he had to do was follow the scent of his own kind.
Jungji advanced, devouring the infectors that blocked his path.
He did not stop walking, intoxicated by the thrill of growing stronger through the act of feeding.
And at the end of that path, he met it.
"Interesting. One of the sleeper’s parts, trapped by a vow and unable to leave his bed, wandering around outside."
The being that spoke with a sly grin was small and frail.
It even looked like some woman from an age long past, so it was barely a mouthful.
That was what he thought, anyway.
"You’ve entered my territory, so you’ll have to pay the price."
The red hair rippling as it moved, the voice that sounded almost playful as it issued its threat.
For a brief instant, Jungji was blank.
He realized he had lost consciousness for a moment.
And then he discovered that half of the subordinates he had painstakingly gathered through life-and-death struggle were dead.
The searing pain that followed that realization was just a bonus.
"Kraaaah!"
"My, and here I was thinking your cry would be exactly like his. So loud. I’d love to hear more, but if I let this go on, you really will die. I’ll stop here. Go on home."
Go back, and tell them exactly what I say.
The woman lowered the rising curtain of her hair and said each word with crystal clarity.
"The one you’ve been looking for, the missing one, is dead."
Jungji felt that the oppressive force in her voice was not all that different from his father’s.
Her words, like his father’s, felt impossible to disobey—like truth itself.
So Jungji began retracing his steps.
Though his body was wounded, he hurried back, eager to deliver what he had heard to his father.
Almost there...
Jungji knew.
The moment he set foot back in the sleeping chamber, his father would learn everything.
He knew, too, that the father who awoke in fury would gather the parts together.
There, Jungji would once again bask in the glorious, blissful moment of union.
If only that happened, this pain would melt away like snow.
But what was this situation?
With a thunderous roar, the canyon began to collapse behind him.
At the same time, multicolored points rained down from above the ravine.
They drew closer by the second. Something was being hurled and fired toward him.
Bang!
Cr-r-ack!
Rumble!
A cloud of dust billowed into the air.
The moment he inhaled it, his reason grew hazy and his beastly instincts surged.
Ordinarily, he could have scattered this kind of petty interference in an instant.
But his wounded body, exhausted from the relentless march, refused to obey.
Forced by necessity, Jungji could only yield himself briefly to his savagery.
Grrr...
How much time had passed in that beastlike state?
As his senses returned, Jungji lifted his gaze and stared straight ahead.
The canyon passage was still choked solid with rocks.
And before it stood two people.
Rage surged.
How dare those insignificant things interfere with the fulfillment of Father’s command!
Kwaaaah!
If a Tyrannosaurus with impossibly long arms could ever look like this, this was probably the sight of it.
As the sun, half sunk against the horizon, threaded its light through gaps in the rubble, the purple scales scattered across Jungji’s body glinted eerily in the slivers of brightness.
And then, the instant those scales split open and began to shed in fine fragments—
Whoosh!
The two figures vanished, leaving behind only pale afterimages.
At the same time, the bone fragments hidden within his body shot through the gaps in his split scales at monstrous speed.
Crack-bang-bang!
Jungji’s ability, Ultra-Fast Release, swept through the canyon and turned it upside down.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Just remember two things."
"What are they?"
It was what he had said to Jack Kalt after the sparring match, once all final preparations were complete.
The man had likely seen the video of the Kalakwa raid, but not the Jungji raid.
I edited out the boring parts, so it’s no wonder he hasn’t seen it.
That was why he was saying this.
If Jack didn’t have a proper sense of danger, he’d die without even knowing what hit him.
"Don’t stand in a straight line with the opened scales when they split."
"That sounds like a warning related to the creature’s ultra-fast discharge. And the second?"
"The second that bastard Jungji opens his mouth, don’t think—just shove your weapon in there."
"Is that how you block ultrasound?"
"Yeah. So for this one, focus on using Analysis to catch only the signs that his ability is about to manifest. This raid’s going to be a battle of split seconds."
A battle of split seconds... yes, that was right.
It had been Meteor who said Jungji was strong, way back near the tail end of Level 6.
Since it was coming from him, Jack had taken every word to heart.
Now he felt like he understood why he had said it that way.
Kwa-kwa-sha-sha-sha!
Everything was fast.
If he hadn’t diverted twenty percent of the suit’s power to his senses, his body would have been skewered from the very beginning.
So he’s firing bone fragments.
Jack Kalt was too busy dodging to close the distance.
As he dodged, he analyzed, measuring when he could slip in.
Meanwhile, compared to how much trouble I’m having...
Bang-bang-bang! Bone fragments moving faster than the speed of sound ravaged the surroundings.
It was unbelievable that they came from a living body made of bone and flesh, but it was the truth.
Jack relied on Analysis and his own physical ability to evade them, but Meteor was different.
Ting!
He deflected it?
Ti-ting!
No, wait. He’s not deflecting it!
Near the left side of Jungji’s body, around the third rib, at the position of the ring finger’s back of the hand bone.
Just as Jack predicted the ultra-fast discharge through Analysis and shouted a warning, Meteor stepped forward.
He moved as though he already knew when the shot would come.
Jack could only stare in stunned disbelief.
Because Meteor was returning the enemy’s attack right back at it.
Maybe...
Even while continuing his briefing, hope gleamed in Jack Kalt’s eyes.
Maybe this really could end quickly.
As this was a battle of split seconds, it might become the shortest raid yet.
Jack clenched his fist without realizing it.
He ducked low to avoid a bone shard that skimmed in toward his chest, then glanced ahead.
And he cried out like a scream.
"S-sound wave!"
He had been a little, just a little, too slow reacting while dodging the bone shard.
He hurriedly brought his gun forward, but when he saw Jungji’s swollen upper body drawing in breath to unleash something, his fighting spirit scattered.
Death.
The moment he faced it, death became certain.
That tiny delay in his reaction had created this situation.
He had to run. But where?
Somewhere the sound couldn’t reach—that was where he had to move, faster than 331 meters per second.
Jack Kalt reached the conclusion in an instant.
Impossible.
This raid was a failure.
He had wanted to finish it quickly and then uncover the research facility hidden within this canyon.
All of it was wrong now. There was no hope. Even Meteor was lowering his greatsword before the approaching despair.
No, wait.
That dark current?
It hadn’t been a simple downward slash.
He had already cut.
A slash too fast for perception.
It had been unleashed toward Jungji’s maw.
"Ku-hup!"
A harsh breath struck his ears.
That sound. Jack Kalt had heard that breath before.
It must have been during the sparring match before the operation began.
A sword strike that couldn’t even be blocked.
Back then, he had been able to see it, judge it, and prepare for it.
But that—what he could now see before him—was a slash that seemed impossible even to witness properly.
And the meaning of that was simple.
Meteor had not been fighting at full power during the spar.
If he added the suit’s available power, his ability, and his weapon technique...
If he had thrown everything he had into that strike, then it made sense.
So cutting down Jungji, too—
Swish-!
It made sense.
Jack Kalt lost the ability to speak and stared at Meteor, then at the Cell Degenerator falling from his side.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Yoon Choi monitored the brightness through equipment she had modified with Tool Master.
Korna was an infector that accumulated and utilized solar heat and light.
As a Level 6 infector, its power had to be extraordinary.
That was why she had to stay focused.
She was a helper, and the lives of her comrades hung on a single word from her and Pilot Jeyca.
As she watched the equipment, she felt Korna’s light begin to condense.
She wasn’t the only one who sensed danger.
"Brightness just spiked across the entire shell!"
- Everyone, fall back from the center of the shell!
Yoon Choi recognized the sign, and Jeyca grasped the greatest danger hidden within it.
At their shouts, the guard and the attacker moved.
Yoon Choi grabbed her equipment and ran as well.
The center Jeyca had called out was exactly where the beam would pierce through.
But she was a little too late.
The light had already flashed, and the guard belatedly thrust his shield forward.
Cr-r-ack!
"Aaaagh!"
Half of the tower shield and one arm vanished.
Then, even as the attacker tried to deflect the assault with a sweeping sword, the result was the same.
In the blink of an eye, the immense laser that had closed to point-blank range tried to swallow Yoon Choi whole.
She didn’t panic. Instead, she quickly held out the thing she’d been carrying in her hand.
See? Listening to Meteor wasn’t a bad idea after all!
What she thrust forward was a small hand mirror.
But this piece of equipment, worth no less than 120,000 points, was nothing to laugh at.
For light energy alone, its reflectivity was flawless.
Flash!
The fierce burst of light rebounded.
A counterattack mixed with defense.
It drove accurately into Korna’s shell.
By some stroke of luck, the burst of light seemed to have entered one of its breathing holes, and the creature roared harshly.
Ka-dadadak!
Korna slammed its upper and lower jaws together, venting furious rage.
- Shut up and eat this!
And into that opening in Korna’s defenses, Yoo Sung-hwan’s perfect snipe bloomed.
Cr-r-rack!
Whoosh!
Ryong-i’s breath was a bonus. The wave of red flame heated the hard carapace and widened the breathing hole.
The particle rounds from Hades that entered through it began to drive Korna steadily toward death.
Got it!
Delighted by the sight, Yoon Choi glanced at the radar mounted on her forearm.
Her face, bright with triumph, stiffened in an instant.
What is this?
There should clearly only have been nine dots in this area, including Korna and Ryong-i.
There are more than a dozen?
There was no way another party had finished its raid and come to support them.
They’d been ordered to hold their positions, just in case the blocked entrance collapsed.
Then this was...
A third force is in the mission zone.
Yoon Choi swallowed hard and raised a hand to her in-ear communicator.