Don't Give Up Yet
The JCS underground command bunker had turned into hell itself.
Red alert lights spun relentlessly, and dozens of video feeds scrolled across every wall screen in real time.
It was only natural.
For forty years since the monster invasion began, this had never happened before.
The same area, monsters appearing in succession within a single day.
“This is statistically impossible!”
Someone shouted from the heart of the operations control room.
But the numbers flashing on the screens did not lie.
Just yesterday, an Erosion Class monster had erupted in the Pyeongchang-dong district where SHAS was located.
And the incident was recorded with an unprecedented zero casualties.
The hunter was the enigmatic figure known as the man of the Bone Mask.
Because of him, the military had declared Pyeongchang-dong a safe zone and redeployed its air defense network and personnel to safer parts of the city.
That judgment had now become a catastrophe in return.
“Current SHAS correction center is detecting Disaster Class response signals!”
“The estimated size of the creature, thirty… no, forty meters!”
“Recently updated, estimated at a maximum of fifty-two meters!”
A colossal silhouette rose above the three-dimensional scan on the monitor.
Pale, smooth, and shaped like a human giant.
The analyst on duty reported, voice trembling.
“Pattern match rate ninety-seven percent… estimated to be the same individual that turned Melbourne, Australia into a wasteland eight years ago, ‘White Giant’.”
The air in the control room instantly turned cold.
Everyone knew.
Each step the monster took erased an entire city.
“White Giant…? The one we only saw in books… has it appeared on our land?”
Brigadier General Han Seo-jin, standing before the main screen in the center of the bunker, her voice cracking.
She was the overall operations director controlling the JCS underground command bunker.
Her tightly tied hair, eyes heavy with fatigue, and the cold flicker of the monitor lights across her face alternated with each passing second.
“Melbourne…”
Even the single word left the underground control room silent.
Eight years earlier, after the monster disaster, Australia had fallen into what was called the Lost Fifty Years — national collapse.
The Aegis Union had suppressed the White Giant after three months of all-out warfare, but the price was the disappearance of Melbourne and four nearby cities from the map.
As a result, Australia, once a leading nation of the Union, had become a refugee state that could not endure even one day without foreign supplies.
And now that same monster had appeared in Seoul.
Right in the heart of the city, at the center of the SHAS campus itself.
“Current SHAS building collapse confirmed! The entire campus is in a state of collapse risk!”
“Casualties? Is there a possibility that students are still trapped inside?”
“Under investigation, but on video, it appears some staff and students have not yet evacuated!”
Red dots spread rapidly across the map on the command table.
Vibrational waves expanding from the center of Seoul.
It was not ordinary shock. It was the Seismic Footprint of the monster’s footsteps.
“The creature, changing direction! Moving toward the downtown area!”
Dozens of screens trembled simultaneously.
A vast shadow obscured the cameras.
At that moment, Brigadier General Han Seo-jin spoke firmly.
“Air Force?”
“Seventh Tactical Fighter Wing, sortie complete! Currently approaching!”
“Good. Open Combat Airspace 3-Alpha. Civilian airways fully controlled. Air evacuation order issued across Seoul!”
“Roger that!”
Soon, a video feed appeared on one side of the massive monitor.
Dozens of KF-21 fighters sliced through the sky in formation.
Gray wings descended, slicing through the sunset glow.
The radar altitude lines dropped in unison, and lock-on tones sounded.
“Ground target acquired. Altitude 1,800. Lock-on.”
Beyond their line of sight, beyond the mountains, the White Giant rose.
The way it slowly lifted its head, reflecting light, looked less like a monster and more like a living god’s statue.
“Target, entering effective range. Requesting firing authorization.”
“Authorized. Target is Disaster Class Code Alpha, ‘White Giant’. Intercept before urban entry. Full salvo, repeat— full salvo!”
“Roger that. Fox three, fox three!”
At the same moment Brigadier General Han Seo-jin’s command was issued, the front of the KF-21 formation flashed.
Dozens of guided missiles tore through the sky with trails of fire.
Overlapping flame arcs cut the city skyline like a single blade, and the following explosions reversed the air like crashing waves.
Boom!
A moment later.
The monitor was instantly blanketed in white light.
A storm of dust, heat, debris, and smoke swirled as the monster’s entire upper body vanished from view.
“Full salvo confirmed!”
“Thermal imaging showing drastic drop! Movement stopped!”
The air in the control room boiled.
For the first time, a sigh mixed with relief escaped someone’s lips.
“We got it… we got it!”
But Brigadier General Han Seo-jin said nothing.
She kept her eyes fixed on the screen and uttered only one word.
“…Wait. No report yet that it is over.”
The firepower of the aircraft remained at the pinnacle of humanity.
Fighters, precision-guided missiles, and precision bombs possessed the destructive power to neutralize even Calamity Class monsters, and there had been many cases where a single air force strike had reversed the tide in past battles.
But this White Giant was different.
It was not simply a large, powerful target. Its very existence was on the level of a Disaster Class threat capable of dismantling urban structures and infrastructure.
That had already been demonstrated in the dedicated Australian operation.
“After Jeju Island, Seoul as well—”
Brigadier General Han Seo-jin rapidly calculated the crisis unfolding before her eyes.
Even if the first salvo had shaken the monster’s upper body, there was no guarantee that the fragments and shockwaves would end there, leaving the city intact.
The stopped creature could move again at any moment.
Carelessness would mean mass casualties.
“Air Force command, all units on alert. Immediate permission to expend remaining ordnance! Formation leader, full salvo deployment engaged. Target is the monster’s upper body and joints. Induce structural damage through repeated fire.”
“Roger. Full salvo, executing.”
Soon, a cold report poured from the control room speakers.
“Fox-three from here, deploying residual ordnance.”
Accompanied by a short exchange, another flash dispersed into the sky above.
The air, already churning from the first strike, vibrated again.
The remaining missiles descended with perfect coordinates.
The boom of high explosives struck the ground, tearing through the air layer and rumbling low.
Dust and afterheat erupted at once, and the silhouette of the giant was once more buried in flames.
The ground shook.
A shockwave the size of a sports field detonated in triple layers, and observation equipment momentarily lost all readings.
Heat, storm, and shock waves overlapped as the entire city seemed to hold its breath for a moment.
It was truly the totality of Republic of Korea Air Force technology.
The highest-output guided armament, coordinated strike corrected to the unit of 0.02 seconds navigation error.
Every data point from Seoul’s air defense network, air control system, satellite coordinates, and thermal tracking was perfectly inherited in a single blow.
It was not a simple bombing.
It was a precise operation crafted with the fate of a ‘war state’ on the line.
But at the same time, it was also the last card they had to protect Seoul until the army’s armored units arrived at the city outskirts.
“I won’t let myself think I’ve eliminated it so easily… Please, stop even a little. Let the shock remain… Please hold on.”
Brigadier General Han Seo-jin clenched her headset, praying silently.
Commanders’ fingertips trembled at command stations throughout the control room, and the monitor noise cut through the silence.
However.
Boom… boom!
The floor of the underground began to vibrate from the ground up.
The anti-vibration panels shook, and the ceiling lights flickered dangerously.
“W-what is this…!”
The surveillance team’s voice fractured.
“After the bombing ended—the White Giant is moving toward the city again!”
“Damage rate zero point eight two percent in fighter feeds! Repeat, damage rate zero point eight two percent!”
“Zero point eight two percent? That can’t be… it should be turned to ashes!”
As the screen in the monitor slowly refocused, the White Giant appeared, pushing aside bombing debris.
Its skin gleamed smoothly, piercing through ash and smoke.
No burn marks or radiation anomalies on thermal imaging.
It was simply a colossal life form taking one step at a time.
“White Giant maintaining step interval… speed 12.6 kilometers per hour, direction toward the center of the downtown area.”
“Order for fighter reattack?”
“Impossible! Seventh formation full salvo expended! No remaining weapons, only short-range CIWS cannons on the rooftops of the downtown area remain!”
The control room fell silent.
Only the chatter of the air force control channel flowed through.
Breaths, heartbeats, and someone’s trembling report voice leaked through the noise.
No one said the word “it’s over,” but everyone knew.
As long as that monster continued walking, Seoul’s map would redraw itself within minutes.
“Current arrival estimate of main army units and US 3rd Armored Division in Jongno-gu is five minutes… If that monster does not stop within five minutes—”
Someone’s sentence trailed off.
The underground bunker felt as if the air itself was boiling hot.
At that moment.
“…Control room! Control room, detecting anomaly in Ma-3 formation feed! Video confirmation requested!”
“What? Ma-3 has already returned to the return route—”
Brigadier General Han Seo-jin lifted her head.
The control officer manipulated the console with a trembling hand.
“Data link receiving real-time video… This is… what is this?!”
The feed on the monitor was from 4,800 meters in altitude.
The Black Box camera inside the fighter cockpit warped, and beyond the HUD a dark silhouette was caught.
“What the…?”
“On the aircraft… something is there!”
The pilot swallowed a scream.
On the fuselage of the KF-21 hurtling at full speed along the high-speed route, near the air intake, someone stood literally still.
A figure with arms crossed, unaffected by the hurricane winds even while the fighter raced at full speed.
Afterheat reflected from the aircraft surface outlined the silhouette like a contour.
The moment the cockpit deathcam zoomed in, the figure’s face was completely obscured.
The Bone Mask, shaped like a white skull.
“Is that… a person?”
“No gravity reaction. Temperature signal fixed at thirty-five degrees… human.”
The entire control room froze.
More eerie than the fact that a human was standing on the fighter was that the human did not move even a millimeter in the storming high-altitude winds.
Brigadier General Han Seo-jin’s lips hardened.
She stared at the monitor and muttered.
“…The man of the Bone Mask!”