The Difference Between Danger and Threat (2)
I left my lovers' voices behind, cast Space Leaping at its maximum range, laid a small Wall of Space beneath my feet, and set down in the sky over the city.
The Ability User Alliance Building had come down in total ruin, and the aberrants that appeared with its collapse had the streets screaming. People were fleeing for their lives. It wasn't only the giant turtle and the flying aberrants — a good number of them were rampaging across the ground as well, smashing buildings, toppling utility poles, while the people ran.
Ha Cheolsu might be watching from anywhere. Going down to help would be dangerous for them, and for me.
I forced myself to look away from a citizen being mauled by a gorilla-like aberrant with pale green fur and searched for Ha Cheolsu instead. When the Alliance Building had toppled, a blast of yellowish dust had erupted, and the whole area was impossible to see. Only the giant turtle showed inside the cloud, pale and ghostly.
I'd have to get closer and search with Spatial Perception. There was no other way.
I swallowed and was about to Space Leap again when Franc came arrowing in from behind.
"Franc! I told you to evacuate!"
I barked it at her for ignoring me outright. She flinched, then answered as if in protest.
"Nnh. I-I will return at once. I only came because Yeongeun asked me to convey a few pieces of information!"
"Information?"
"That giant turtle is apparently a Highest-Rank Variant called the Grand Turtle. The moment it appeared, someone sighted a human shadow at the very top of its shell — believed to be Ha Cheolsu. The miscellaneous aberrants rampaging about are High Grade at minimum, and there are more than fifty of them. That is the report."
Ugh. I should have let her talk before I tore into her. She finished what she had to say and left in a sulk, and I turned my eyes from her retreating back toward the dust cloud again.
If he was standing on the Grand Turtle's shell, it had to be Ha Cheolsu. But how had a wretch like him gotten his hands on a Highest-Rank Variant? More than fifty other aberrants besides — I couldn't believe it.
Had the document on mental-manipulation ability users that the branch chief gave me been wrong? It said they couldn't dominate aberrants of a higher grade than themselves.
Kwooooh—!!
From inside that thick gray dust pit — air I had no desire to breathe — the Grand Turtle howled.
So that turtle was a Highest-Rank Variant. It was certainly something you'd have to measure in hundreds of meters, but was a body that size really Highest Tier? Then the Supergiant Turtle I'd met before was... what, exactly?
I pictured that bulk, a body you'd have to measure in kilometers, then shook my head and bit my lip.
Charging in blind was dangerous. At the very least I needed to know the range of its Phase Power detection... No. The higher the rank, the more that range expanded exponentially. Ten kilometers at minimum. Which meant I was already inside the thing's detection range.
And yet it wasn't paying me any particular mind. Because of the other ability users and the aberrants?
At that moment a reptilian host of more than thirty, High Grade at the least, was widening its path of destruction outward from the Ability User Alliance Building in Gangdong District. I meant to stop and think about how to move.
Damn it! When have I ever thought before I went off?!
I glared at the aberrants smashing buildings near the Alliance Building, adjusted my distance until the Gangdong building would just barely enter my Spatial Perception, and Space Leaped.
The world lit for an instant, and the scenery around me became forest.
I came down in the amusement park inside Olympic Park. Before I could even straighten, the back of my neck prickled — something screamed in at me and exploded on the spot.
"...!!"
The instant I registered the rush, I reflexively kicked on Mana Mode - Acceleration, threw up a Spatial Barrier, and focused my Mana Sieve all at once. The shock still tore through my whole body as if it meant to rip me apart, and I couldn't even scream.
I hastily fired Healing Wave, stage one. In that same instant Spatial Perception caught something else rushing in from the Grand Turtle's direction, and I Space Leaped into the sky.
Vwooom—! KWA-BOOOOOOM!!!
"Kgh?!"
I stared blankly as the blast of energy erupting beneath my feet shoved me away, then turned toward the Grand Turtle.
Had that thing attacked me? If I hadn't reinforced my body with Mana Mode in that instant, layered a Spatial Barrier, and focused the Mana Sieve — a triple defense — I might have died.
A low kururu sounded like it was mocking me for getting lucky.
Then the turtle bastard stretched its neck toward me and gaped its beak-like maw. Phase Power began to concentrate inside, and a shell of energy the size of a house launched straight at me.
So the first two attacks had been shockwaves fired like bullets, using that neck and snout as a gun barrel.
Damn it. It hadn't failed to notice me. It had been waiting for the moment to strike!
Did Ha Cheolsu order it to focus-fire on me?!
The energy came faster than a bullet, but accelerated thought let me dodge it without much trouble — and right on its heels, another energy round flew in.
I kicked off a Wall of Space and slipped that one too. The rounds began to shrink, and their rate of fire climbed in proportion.
Thwoom— thoom— tung—!
I dodged the colorless, transparent rounds pouring at me one after another, and it hit me: if I kept allowing attacks like this, Ha Cheolsu would notice.
But I'd already slipped a dozen or more. Too late, probably. I shut my eyes, wrapped myself in the Spatial Barrier, and pushed Spatial Perception to a razor edge.
This way, at least, I won't get hit by mental manipulation!
I confirmed the Grand Turtle's attack shearing past beneath my feet, and before the next could come I Space Leaped — throwing myself into the dust pit where the Grand Turtle waited.
The only real danger is the aberrants. Ha Cheolsu shouldn't have anything but mental manipulation, so as long as I watch the aberrants, I'm fine!
The moment I appeared atop the ruins of the Alliance Building — a mountain of wreckage now — I swept the Grand Turtle's shell with Spatial Perception.
Halfway through, the Grand Turtle roared Kwoooaaargh—! and tried to crush me under a massive foreleg. I shifted beneath its belly and resumed the search.
Kung—! Kwoong! Kupang! Kwagang!
The Grand Turtle started pounding its legs like a woman who'd just had a cockroach shoot under her feet.
A few unlucky aberrants got caught in the stomping and flattened. I sneered.
Team kill. That bastard Ha Cheolsu couldn't even keep his aberrants in line.
A moment later I found a single human standing at the highest point of the Grand Turtle's shell — a shell as huge as the mountain behind it.
Was that Ha Cheolsu? A human riding a Highest-Rank Variant — did I even need to look? The instant I locked onto the figure I judged to be him, I ground my teeth and dropped a five-layered Wall of Space over his skull. And yet...
"Huh?"
The Wall of Space closed over his head, and in the same breath his skull shot out of it — like a bar of soap squirting from a clenched fist.
Vwoong! Vwoong!
Meanwhile, my presence under its belly seemed to irritate the Grand Turtle badly. Its eyes went savage, and its carapace began to vibrate in a way I did not like.
That unidentified vibration said that if I stayed, I was fucked. Right before I fled, I focused once more and slammed a Wall of Space over Ha Cheolsu's entire body.
"Again!"
He slid out of the Wall of Space the same way, flopping like a puppet with its strings cut, and dropped with a soft thud into a crack in the shell — a fissure like a rice paddy baked to cracking.
What the hell? Why wasn't the Wall of Space working? And that limp, strengthless movement...
"Whoa—?!"
The Grand Turtle, vibrating with ominous intent, finally began to spew beams of light. I Space Leaped away in a hurry. Right after, needle-sharp, blade-keen shafts of light jutted from all over its shell — and then, with a KWAANG—!, a massive explosion went off.
The collapsed ruins of the Alliance Building, the aberrants, everything went flying like dead leaves in a winter wind.
A radius of well over a hundred meters around the Grand Turtle had been caught in the blast. I clicked my tongue, and then it hit me — that bastard Ha Cheolsu had been up on the shell.
The shell itself had been inside the blast radius. Had he blown himself up? Had he failed to properly dominate the aberrant and gotten swept up in the Grand Turtle's own attack?
I waited a moment. The explosion settled. Cautiously I approached the Grand Turtle and searched for Ha Cheolsu with Spatial Perception.
The bastard wedged in the crack of the shell was perfectly fine. Not a single thread of his grime-stained clothes was so much as singed.
More than that — what was that Phase Power?! Fourteen million?! Twice mine?!
I sensed Ha Cheolsu's Phase Power a beat too late and shook, struck speechless. What the hell had happened in the last two months for him to gather fourteen million Phase Power... Huh?
I suddenly felt something off about him and looked closer.
"What is this? Something's covering his body."
And as I'd felt earlier, his condition was wrong. Like a puppet moved by someone else's hands. There was none of the vitality you feel in a living person's movements.
Before the questions could fill my head, I instinctively formed a round cylinder around Ha Cheolsu and unfolded a Wall of Space to fill the empty space.
He crumpled this way and that inside it, but the moment I filled the Wall of Space completely, he slipped out as if he'd been waiting. Like a drop of oil in water, he and the wall refused to mix. I tried it several more times. Same result.
"..."
The Grand Turtle, maybe suffering the aftereffects of that explosion, had stopped moving, thick saliva dripping from its snout. Dangerous — but I wanted a closer look at Ha Cheolsu. I Space Leaped behind him.
What is this...? It looks like some kind of liquid...
The instant I appeared near him, I could see it. Something black and translucent covered his body completely. And Ha Cheolsu didn't even seem to know I was standing behind him. He hung limp, like a laborer wrung out by overwork.
Fine. If the Wall of Space wouldn't work, I'd just stab him to death. He'd already done something indistinguishable from terrorism. No reason to let him live— ghk?!
I gripped the Celestial Cloud Sword and took one step closer. The translucent liquid spat — pak! — struck my Spatial Barrier, crackled with an ominous chijik, and vanished.
A single droplet, and the barrier's duration was sheared away by three-quarters in an instant. I recoiled two steps and recast the Spatial Barrier, but even through all of that, Ha Cheolsu didn't so much as twitch a finger.
It sat wrong with me. I wanted to swing the Celestial Cloud Sword and take his head, but I didn't know what the liquid covering him was, and the way he stood there vacant, like a man whose soul had left him, kept my hand from moving.
I clenched my fist and was about to fire the Mana Riser — the higher form of the Mana Laser — and split him apart, when his head jerked back with a clack and our eyes met.
"...?!"
I reflexively Space Leaped high into the sky. That... what the hell was that face just now?
Seen with the naked eye, Ha Cheolsu — covered in that translucent black liquid — did not look sane. Not even close.
Both eyes were bloodshot past the point of bloodshot, bulging as if they meant to pop free. Veins had webbed his entire face into something hideous, his left pupil and his right moving on their own like a chameleon's, froth spilling in strings from the corner of his mouth...
Like a brain under overload...
Vwoong!
"Aagh! Fuck!"
While I was distracted, the Grand Turtle — recovered, apparently — fired a shockwave at me.
I felt the mass of energy graze past and scrape my Spatial Barrier. The moment I threw myself clear, another energy projectile tore through the spot where I'd been standing.
I bounded in every direction, dodging the Grand Turtle's energy rounds as it opened up with another barrage, and thought.
One thing was certain: that bastard Ha Cheolsu was in no state to lay mental manipulation on anyone. The risk of getting hit by it was gone. But then what the hell was the liquid covering him?
Between dodges I sent Mana Bullets and arcane rounds at Ha Cheolsu whenever I could. Same as the Wall of Space — they reflected, or they nullified.
And the more I attacked him, the more the turtle went berserk. As if its own young had been struck, it hammered shockwaves at me with genuine madness.
Still, it was a mercy that it only had eyes for me. If it had rampaged and sprayed shockwaves in every direction, Gangdong District would have been annihilated.
So the shockwaves wouldn't fall on the city, I hopped like a grasshopper over the Grand Turtle's head, switched on my Certifier, yanked the camera zoom, and snapped a shot of Ha Cheolsu. Then I sent it to Hwayeon and Yeongeun and asked them to identify the black, translucent liquid wrapped around his body.
Kwooooooh—!!
"Hey! That bastard—?!"
Maybe because I was dodging too well, the Grand Turtle couldn't swallow its rage and looked ready to take it out on the surroundings instead of me.
Could I attack the turtle here? If a real fight broke out, this whole area...
I weighed it, and not for long. Left alone, the Grand Turtle would eventually go mad and overturn the surrounding district. Even if I had to hurt it, I needed its attention on me. That would mean less damage around us.
Huuuuh...
Dodging the Grand Turtle's shockwaves and energy projectiles, I began forcing TP into the Celestial Cloud Sword in my right hand. Something like a woman's grief-choked wail started to seep from the blade.
A ghost's cry, in a moment like this — the hair on my nape stood up. I ignored it and, following my gut, swung the TP stored in the sword the same way I fired a Mana Bullet.
Kaaaaang!
Not the thrum of a zither string — a sharp scrape, like a blade dragged across a bell — and a crescent of sword-energy shot toward the Grand Turtle at the speed of a beam of light.
Holy shit. The sword could do that?
Kweeeeck—!!
I hadn't controlled the direction properly. The semicircular Mana Bullet went not for the Grand Turtle's head, but for Ha Cheolsu — and the turtle stopped attacking, twisted its skull, and blocked the round with its head.
Tschit!
Gwooooh...!
The sword-energy Mana Bullet ended at scoring a cut into the Grand Turtle's scalp.
What? Why block it? Did the Mana Bullet actually work on the liquid wrapping that bastard? Was that why the turtle was shielding him with its head?
Ordinary Mana Bullets and arcane rounds hadn't done much, thanks to the energy field flowing over the Grand Turtle's thick carapace and shell. But a sword-energy Mana Bullet fired through the Celestial Cloud Sword had landed. Was channeling it through a sword simply more powerful?
Anyway — the Grand Turtle had stopped firing shockwaves to block those rounds with a head the size of a small building. This was the moment. I started swinging the Celestial Cloud Sword like a madman, hurling sword-energy Mana Bullets.
Jjiing! Jjiiiing! Jiiiiing!
Using Walls of Space as footholds, I half-flew and fired without pause, and my accuracy and hit rate climbed. Whether my guess was right or not, the Grand Turtle broke off its attack and poured everything into protecting Ha Cheolsu.
Chijik, tszzut, chiiik!
The sound of shorting electricity crackled on and on, and countless cuts began to open across the Grand Turtle's head. And Ha Cheolsu, even now, didn't move. He just sat there, slumped.
The moment I recalled that unhinged face, a line from the document on mental-manipulation ability users flashed through my mind.
What if he'd forced mental manipulation onto aberrants that exceeded his mental power, and this was the result?
Fourteen million Phase Power or not, they said he'd dominated one Highest Tier aberrant and more than fifty aberrants of High Grade or above. Even a B-Class ability user could manipulate only a handful of Superior-tier aberrants. That's what the document said.
As the Grand Turtle's movements dulled and its attacks broke off, battered ability users began emerging one by one from the ruins of the Alliance Building — a place I'd thought held no survivors — and started evacuating with whoever else had lived.
Most of those who had survived were Physical Reinforcement users of C-Class or higher. Come to think of it, before the building fell, black specks had poured out of it in a flurry. Wind-attribute users, or people with flight items?
The rest... were probably all dead.
Jiiiing! Jjiing! Jjijijik!
I kept firing sword-energy Mana Bullets at Ha Cheolsu so the turtle couldn't attack the evacuating ability users, turning over what to do, when from far off the branch chief came flying in fast — dust-caked suit and all — with a woman who looked like a wind-attribute user.
The branch chief had made it too. Thank god.
He closed in with a face twisted like a vengeful ghost and shouted at me.
"Chairman of Grand Blue! Hiarid — we need Hiarid!"
"Hiarid? Why her?!"
I dropped the Spatial Barrier and shouted back while I kept firing Mana Bullets. The branch chief ground his teeth, glaring at the giant turtle as if he meant to chew it to death, and yelled over the rising chaos.
"What's wrapped around Ha Cheolsu is a Dark Matter Slime! It takes no impact from any attribute except light!"
"What?"
"The Dark Matter Slime is a Highest-Rank Variant too! Without Hiarid, we can't damage it! If you want to kill Ha Cheolsu, you have to peel the Dark Matter Slime off him first!"
"What!"
Two Highest-Rank Variants? In that instant a flood of thoughts shot through my head.
He'd dominated the Dark Matter Slime with mental manipulation and wrapped it around himself? Then if I peeled it off and killed Ha Cheolsu, what happened to the slime?
Wouldn't it go berserk the moment he died? I could handle the turtle, but that thing didn't even take damage from my Wall of Space.
While those thoughts raced, twenty-nine Superior- and High-Grade aberrants — a mix of crocodiles, turtles, lizards, chameleons, and the like, the ones that had been tearing up the ground around the Alliance Building — smashed through the streets and charged the evacuating ability users.
Kaaak! Kiaaaa! Kyarrrrr!
"You bastards! You don't leave without my say-so!"
They sprinted at full power, smashing houses, charging in a straight line. The branch chief bit down and started firing extremely compressed rounds of fire at them.
House-sized fireballs detonated the instant they touched the aberrants, booming one after another. I watched, drew a deep breath, packed TP into the Celestial Cloud Sword, and hurled a sword-energy Mana Bullet at the Grand Turtle with everything I had.
Then I immediately dropped Walls of Space onto the skulls of the aberrants the branch chief was holding back.
Shwaak!
Guwooooh!!
A great gash opened on the Grand Turtle's head. It howled, blood spraying from the wound. At the same time twenty-nine skulls vanished and the aberrants died on the spot — and in that instant that bastard Ha Cheolsu flinched, clutched his head in both hands, and writhed in pain.
So it really was a shortage of mental power! Dominating two Highest-Rank Variants had exceeded the limit his mind could bear, and that was why he'd ended up looking like that!
The Grand Turtle, blood pouring from the wound on its head, tried to fire a shockwave at me. I sent another sword-energy Mana Bullet at Ha Cheolsu, and the turtle howled in fury, turning its ruined, rag-like head to block the rounds pouring down on him.
The branch chief caught his breath, shook the embers from his palm, and shouted from behind me.
"The Dark Matter Slime absorbs the impact and attribute of every attack it takes and reflects them — but I saw all of it just now. Your Wall of Space can contain it! Trap the Dark Matter Slime inside your Wall of Space, then find a way to deal with it! Right now Ha Cheolsu is mentally manipulating two Highest-Rank Variants, and he is not in his right mind! Process any more aberrants and he'll come to his senses! This is the only chance!"
The turtle — the Grand Turtle — had kept blocking my Mana Bullets with its head, and it seemed to decide it couldn't endure any longer. Blood streaming from a skull as thick as a mid-rise building, it began to slowly retreat.
"Uh—?"
Shwaaaaaek!!
With a noise like the sky tearing, ten fighter jets came in from the south. And from Yeouido, along Olympic Boulevard, government and civilian ability users were rushing in as well.
Those ability users — getting any closer would only pile up the casualties.
"If Hiarid attacks with light, the slime comes off Ha Cheolsu, right?!"
"Hit it with a powerful light-attribute attack and it bursts apart, then reforms! When it bursts, you throw up a Wall of Space in that gap and kill Ha Cheolsu!"
"Got it!"
The fighters that had arrived fired missiles at the retreating turtle as it bellowed.
Shrieeeek—!
Missiles left pure white trails and struck the Grand Turtle's shell. Explosions burst with a sound that tore at the ears, belching black smoke — and of course the Grand Turtle was fine. So was Ha Cheolsu.
Kwooooh!!
The Grand Turtle howled at the fighters circling it. I quickly switched on my Certifier and connected to the phone Hiarid was carrying.
"Yes."
"Hiarid! You can see me firing Mana Bullets up here, can't you?! Get to where I am, fast!"
The fighters kept weaving and launching missiles, and I kept swinging the Celestial Cloud Sword, pouring sword-energy Mana Bullets at Ha Cheolsu without pause. Struggling to protect him, the Grand Turtle began to edge back toward Hanam.
"Yes."
Kwoong. Kugugugung. Kung!
Houses exploded under the Grand Turtle's enormous feet. Or so I thought, until it bent its legs and lowered its stance. And then—
Kukwang!!
It kicked off the earth like a flea and leapt!
"Holy shit!"
"Damn it... the Alliance district..."
The branch chief's eyes twisted as he looked at the crater the Grand Turtle's kick had gouged. The turtle, having jumped four kilometers, came down on a low mountain west of Hanam.
Better this way. It had taken itself out of the city on its own. I'd take that thank-you.
I threw myself toward the dirt cloud rising hundreds of meters and switched on the Certifier to call Yeongeun. Fighter support would only get in the way. I had to call them off.
Ha Cheolsu seemed too lost in the pain in his head to think straight right now, but once he grew used to that headache, there was no telling how he'd react.
I didn't know if he could, but if that bastard mentally manipulated the fighter pilots and had them drop missiles on the city...
Yeongeun appeared in the hologram window, sprinting somewhere at speed.
"Seoha? Are you all right?!"
"I'm fine! More importantly, it's dangerous — send every fighter back! Don't let the ability users charge the Grand Turtle either. Put them on the aberrants that have spread into the city!"
"Kh... All right. Is there anything else I can do?"
"Yeah. I'll wrap this up quick and come back!"
Ah. Damn. In my panic I'd spoken to Yeongeun with no formality at all — the way you only speak to someone intimate — and the branch chief and the wind user were staring at me, thrown.
If I looked flustered now, it'd only make them more suspicious. So I'd own it.
"What are you looking at?! Hurry up and pull out a plan for catching that thing! So long as it's this close to the city, I can't cut loose at full power!"
Then the Grand Turtle, which had been crushing the mountaintop, pulled its four legs, its head, and its tail into its shell — and immediately the bumpy gray-white carapace began to blaze a searing yellow. The branch chief started to say something, then went pale and screamed.
"It's Turtle Big Bang!! We have to stop it!!"
"Big Bang?! A higher version of the explosion it set off earlier?!"
"Dozens of times more dangerous!! If that goes off properly, half of Seoul and all of Hanam will be wiped out!!"
"Kh!"
Half of Seoul — that includes the Grand Blue Building! I bit down hard, shaped a Wall of Space into a hemisphere, and dropped it over the turtle as it began to burn white.
Not enough! More — more!!
Three layers. Four.
I layered it without pause until the translucent amber Wall of Space became a fully opaque amber sphere, and my Phase Power dropped to the bottom. Right after, a terrifying flash of light burst through the amber wall. The Wall of Space — and the earth itself — began to shudder up and down, a deep grinding tremor.
A sensation more intense than anything I'd ever felt from the Wall of Space poured in.
"That... that isn't an attack fueled by Phase Power..."
Through the wall holding back the explosion, the Phase Power I'd spent raising it barely recovered at all. I sucked a breath through my teeth and shouted at the branch chief, who was staring at the Wall of Space as it spewed something like the light of the end of the world.
"Hyunwoo! Pour some power into the Wall of Space!"
"What?! Why?!"
"I bottomed out my Phase Power putting the wall up!!"
"...The Wall of Space can absorb Phase Power too?!"
"Just hurry!"
Muttering that I was some kind of monster, the branch chief fired an Elemental Cluster Bomb — nearly four million Phase Power compressed into it — at the Wall of Space.
"The Big Bang isn't even over. If the wall breaks from this, you and I — and a tenth of Korea's population — will evaporate!"
"It's holding a Big Bang. You think that'll break it?!"
"..."
Perhaps I'd struck him with an accidental brutality of fact. A hairline crack seemed to score the branch chief's sculpted face.
And just as I'd boasted, his Cluster Bomb was absorbed whole by the Wall of Space and converted into my Phase Power. The branch chief's shoulders sagged, his face wounded a little deeper.
The wall had done the absorbing, and yet my Phase Power recovered even at a distance. I was idly wondering what the mechanism was when Hiarid arrived, four wings beating.
=Lord of Heaven. I have arrived as you commanded.=
"Good."
Shwaaaaek...
Soon the ten fighters left contrails and dropped back south. I watched them a moment, then turned my eyes to the dome of Wall of Space, its flash gradually dying.
First, get that bastard off the turtle... Then I'll try it this way.
I quickly laid the plan out for Hiarid, hovering beside me on four beating wings.