The Age of Chaos
"What the hell... is this supposed to mean?"
Choi Hyun-seok tore his trembling hand away from the radio.
He still couldn’t believe what Yoo Sung-jun had just said.
Even now, those words kept echoing through his head.
Kill everyone involved in the riot.
If someone had overheard it, they might have laughed it off.
But Yoo Sung-jun had added one more thing.
That turned his words into an absolute command.
-I’m speaking to you as the bunker’s chief officer.
As he had already told him before, the position was nothing more than a ghost title.
Still, for Yoo Sung-jun, whose new life was practically the bunker itself, it had seemed natural to give him a role that put him at the forefront of anything involving the bunker.
In a way, it had been Choi Hyun-seok’s small, selfish wish dressed up as delegation.
He had added that line hoping Yoo Sung-jun would be satisfied with it.
In the event of any threat or unexpected situation involving the bunker, the orders of the bunker’s chief officer take precedence above all else, and the clan leader’s orders shall only be effective in the absence of the bunker’s chief officer.
As written in the manual distributed to the clan members, Yoo Sung-jun’s orders in this incident were absolute.
Choi Hyun-seok watched the team leaders shouting after hearing Yoo Sung-jun’s command.
"From this moment on, show no mercy to the bastards stirring up trouble at Gimpo Airport! Letting them go, or even sparing their lives, won’t end with mere expulsion from the clan!"
After all, the parents of the users in the clan lived in VIP housing.
In other words, there wasn’t a single person in the temporary residences to whom they’d need to show mercy.
But the team leaders only sharpened their threats.
And that stoked the clan members’ emotions even further, until they were all glaring at the Gimpo Airport building with cold, murderous intent.
The people they cared about most were being threatened by rioters.
They were there to suppress this mess and push through to save them.
And yet a civilian, a rioter, was blocking the way?
"Yes, sir!"
Everyone answered in one voice.
Today, they might end up killing people.
But it didn’t matter.
Would the legal system judge them? No.
Would public opinion, forged from the united voices of citizens, haul them before a tribunal? No.
They were utterly weak.
And the weak could not survive the world that was coming.
The weak could only submit, adapt, and bend to fit what came next.
They had been too merciful. Too lenient.
"They think this situation gives them rights! So they were probably swayed by some other clan feeding them nonsense. Move! Show those arrogant bastards exactly where those rights came from!"
Choi Hyun-seok nodded at the shout from one of the clan’s team leaders.
He knew it was all true.
He had only wanted to save everyone.
In the midst of this calamity, he wanted to rebuild the nation, and beyond that, lead Korea into a future where it could stand tall again.
But that had only been an ideal.
Not everyone would follow his control.
I should’ve cut out the people I needed to cut out. That was my mistake.
Choi Hyun-seok bit down hard on his lip.
Committee member Lim Tae-oh had been right.
When he said long ago that they should only take the key personnel with them, that had probably been a prediction of this very situation.
So that’s what it is. People who’ve lived in politics really do have a different eye for this sort of thing.
For once, he had thought his own judgment was right.
He didn’t feel heartbroken because he had been wrong.
He was only furious at the people who, instead of enduring a harsh time, had chosen to pursue their private desires.
Choi Hyun-seok contacted Jack Kalt.
"It’s Choi Hyun-seok. I need to ask you for a favor today."
Blood Rain began its merciless suppression of the riot.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
This situation wasn’t something that could be settled with words.
Not when there was an instigator behind the scenes pulling the rioters’ strings.
The best answer was to crush them with even greater violence.
So Yoo Sung-jun spoke without mercy, and by now screams were echoing both inside and outside the building.
"The last room on the end, right..."
Ignoring the screams, Yoo Sung-jun headed straight to the left side of the third floor.
That was where Jeyca’s room was supposed to be.
Gimpo Airport, once open and spacious, was now choked tight by walls raised everywhere.
Hallways wound through the place like a spider’s web.
Doors fitted with electronic locks were set into every wall.
And behind more than half of them, he could sense signs of life.
Tap. Tap.
Yoo Sung-jun deliberately made his footsteps loud.
He was making his presence obvious, as if telling them all to hear him.
This was where most of the residents lived.
Which meant the rioters’ main forces would likely be concentrated here as well.
If their goal is to use the residents as hostages and absorb Blood Rain’s clan members, then it’s obvious the riot’s organizer will be here too.
Just as he was following that train of thought, a door suddenly flew open.
At the same time, blade weapons screaming through the air came flying from every direction.
Nano-tech weapons. They vibrated as they scattered their cutting power, and they were viciously sharp.
So what?
All he had to do was not get hit.
Yoo Sung-jun shifted twenty percent of his power into speed and moved. Multicolored light drew chaotic lines through the air. The path those lines traced brushed past the ambushers with perfect precision.
He walked past them without a care, and behind him the corridor was splattered red with blood.
"Graaah!"
Not a single one survived.
Their scattered dying screams marked the end of them.
Every one of them clutched at its throat, collapsed in place, and twitched itself to death.
Instant death. He didn’t even need to check; everyone could hear it.
Their final breath scattered so meaninglessly into the air.
"I know you’re all pressed up against the doors right now, checking the situation, so come out. If you try the same kind of ambush, you’ll end up just like those fools back there."
Yoo Sung-jun continued walking through the now-quiet hallway as he spoke.
"If you don’t come out, I’ll go in first."
He moved to the side first. Yoo Sung-jun thrust out his arm.
Crack! The door burst apart as easily as a cracker shattering.
The sound of someone gulping down a breath was cut off by a brutal grip.
The moment their eyes met, Yoo Sung-jun was about to finish it when a chill brushed the back of his neck.
Rather than turning and reacting, he hurled his body to the floor in a flash.
Whoooosh.
A red laser shot up from the floor, grazing the rioter who had been choking moments before and the spot where Yoo Sung-jun had just been standing.
Everything in that place was split cleanly in two.
Yoo Sung-jun realized the laser had come from below. But he couldn’t sense the person handling the weapon at all.
What is this?
Could it be a power related to that believer he had fought against before, the one who had faced off with Choi Hyun-seok?
Anti-sense and invisibility. But even those abilities would let their presence leak at least once in the middle of use.
There was no way Yoo Sung-jun’s honed senses would miss that.
So the attack just now hadn’t been wielded directly by a user.
That bastard is like a goddamn ghost. The moment anyone sees him, he disappears.
Suddenly, why did Cruiser’s words about the riot’s leader come back to him?
He connected the laser from moments ago with the leader who vanished the instant he was seen.
Then a single word surfaced in his mind.
"Right. Disappearing out of nowhere doesn’t make sense."
Faker. The moment Yoo Sung-jun muttered it, a sharp spear shot up from the wall beside him.
Exactly as he’d thought. It wasn’t a spear bursting through the wall; the wall itself had transformed into one.
Yoo Sung-jun knocked it aside. That wasn’t the end of the changes.
This was only the beginning.
"You’ve prepared quite a lot of traps."
The floor split open. Beneath it, a forest of spears waited for Yoo Sung-jun.
What about the steel mass the size of a boulder dropping from the ceiling?
And the gun barrels packed so tightly all around him?
Threats filled every direction, front and back, left and right, even above and below.
Yoo Sung-jun muttered inwardly, Iron armor.
Whoosh!
Just before they slammed into him, nano-particles swallowed Yoo Sung-jun whole.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The explosions and shockwaves began hammering wildly against the wall of nano-particles, which held firm like a fortress.
The barrage of pounding, stabbing, and crushing went on for several seconds before finally ending.
At this point, he probably thought it was over.
That was exactly when people were most vulnerable.
Yoo Sung-jun was more confident than anyone that he could exploit that opening.
Now.
BOOOOM!
Something detonated around the midpoint between the second and third floors.
Still swinging the greatsword, Yoo Sung-jun’s sharp eyes swept across the surroundings.
Eight of them were waiting in the trap.
Each of the sprawled bodies was gripping a rifle fitted with dozens of connected barrels.
It looked like a weapon modified specifically for the perfect ambush.
He knew exactly who it had been prepared for.
They had been aiming for him. Which meant they knew Meteor would come here.
I still don’t know who’s behind this, though.
Thud. The Untouch Shooter in Yoo Sung-jun’s hand burst the heads of all eight men before they could even steady themselves on the third-floor landing.
All I need to do is capture the instigator and find out.
Yoo Sung-jun stared forward.
Faker. The bastard with the annoying nature was right in front of him.
"Sung-jun oppa!"
With Jeyca held hostage in his grasp.
The bastard pressed the muzzle of a gun against Jeyca’s nape.
He had his hood pulled low, so Yoo Sung-jun couldn’t see his face.
Beneath the hood, he was wearing an Omega Suit.
"You’re the one behind all this?"
"It would be pointless to lie at this point. Yes, I’m the instigator. Lord Meteor."
"You talk like you know me."
"I already knew you’d come here."
"Future sight, or you used a question to the Higher Being to find out."
"You understand very well. Then I suppose you know who’s winning this situation, too?"
Yoo Sung-jun watched his words and actions closely.
Faker. The very nature of one who made a false show of the environment, of himself.
Cruiser must have seen an illusion.
Which meant he could vanish instantly.
So that appearance of his might be false too.
But it didn’t feel false.
Someone with a Faker power in the game, one who relied on Analysis, couldn’t exert physical force like that directly.
If he did, the body behind the illusion would be exposed.
In other words, this bastard was the real thing. The arm wrapped around Jeyca proved the body itself was real.
So there were only two things Yoo Sung-jun needed to consider.
That the bastard might be acting out the role of the instigator.
And that he had a reason for holding Yoo Sung-jun here.
The thought that came first wasn’t why, but rather how ridiculous it was.
He’s full of confidence.
What usually happened to the people who came at him with that kind of arrogance?
They all died.
At the beginning, they always had some plausible plan.
So they charged in convinced that the winner would be them... and then they died.
This bastard was no different.
Only this time, the one opening the gap would be Jeyca, not Yoo Sung-jun.
"Hey, Jeyca. Sorry things turned out like this."
"If you answer him, you die. Miss Jeyca. Would you like to die before the parents we’ve already captured?"
Yoo Sung-jun ignored the bastard pressing the gun against Jeyca’s throat.
"Let’s eat together after this is over. This time, we’ll do it properly, with your parents too."
"Lord Meteor. Keep running your mouth like that, and your comrade will end up with a huge hole blown through her neck."
"Will she, now?"
"What?"
"She’s not as weak as you think."
Jeyca understood Yoo Sung-jun’s meaning a beat faster than the instigator did.
He meant eating together with her parents. That meant Sung-jun oppa had secured both of their safety already.
I have to get out of here so Sung-jun oppa can hit this bastard!
As Jeyca suddenly resisted, the instigator pulled the trigger.
At that sight, Yoo Sung-jun’s lips curled upward.
Too late.
The bastard seemed to think he could at least inflict a serious wound and subdue her, but he had overlooked one thing. He had been too obsessed with understanding Yoo Sung-jun himself, and hadn’t properly measured his comrades’ strength.
Jeyca already saw it.
As Choi Hyun-seok already knew, Yoo Sung-jun had known it long ago too.
He had simply stayed silent because he knew it would help her more to realize it on her own than to be told.
Right now, Jeyca understood. She threw away the idea that her sharp eye was merely a matter of innate instinct.
She had simply known she had a tremendous talent for looking and judging.
The bullet spins counterclockwise.
Jeyca’s Appraisal Eye caught the muzzle turning a dark red, and she understood at once.
She couldn’t let that bullet pierce her throat on a diagonal.
She made the decision and twisted her neck hard.
She chose the exact angle to minimize the damage, and thanks to that, the round tore through only the muscle in her neck instead of a major blood vessel.
"You little bitch...!"
The man flew into a rage at Jeyca’s fierce resistance.
He pulled the trigger again, intending to put her down for good this time.
But—
"Look."
When had he come close enough?
Right in front of his eyes, Yoo Sung-jun’s greatsword filled his vision.
Slash!
"I told you she wasn’t weak."
Yoo Sung-jun spoke in a low voice as he looked at the bastard rolling across the floor.
Only now, with the head severed, could the face beneath be seen.
The tattoo etched into his cheek was visible too.
"That..."
A tattoo that evoked the image of a soldier’s helmet.
He couldn’t take him alive in a situation like this, but it was enough to know one thing.
The outside force that had incited the riot.
"Soldat..."
Yoo Sung-jun’s brow furrowed as he named the world’s third-ranked clan in Russia.