Code D-End
The announcer's voice jolted me awake. Even through the blaring sirens, her words cut through crystal clear.
“Code D-End has been issued. This is an actual emergency. As of this moment, for your own safety, please proceed to the nearest emergency evacuation zone and remain there. Do not, under any circumstances, leave the emergency evacuation zone. I repeat. Code D-End has been issued...”
I slowly pushed myself up from the floor.
“Code D-End has been issued. This is an actual emergency...”
Emergency codes were used at the Supernatural Research Institute whenever urgent announcements or disasters occurred. They came in three levels: Non-Safe, Disaster, and D-End. Non-Safe was issued when there was a risk of staff casualties, Disaster when the institute itself faced collapse, and D-End when the situation threatened the entire nation—or even the world.
Code D-End.
That meant the current crisis was serious enough to endanger the country itself.
“What the hell was that just now...”
The mysterious darkness that had swallowed everything like a black hole had consumed me too. What on earth was happening?
When I looked around, my eyes widened in shock. Every single isolation chamber door stood wide open. The Hwanjong that should have been locked inside them had all vanished like ghosts. Staring at the empty white rooms left my mind completely blank.
Bodies of researchers littered the floor. There were no visible wounds, no bloodstains, but without exception, none of them were breathing. I staggered through the corpses with their rotten, glassy eyes.
“Code D-End has been issued. This is an actual emergency...”
My rational mind returned far too quickly. I stopped walking aimlessly.
Kang Naram. Is she still alive?
“No. She has to be alive.”
The corpses scattered at my feet seemed to support the worst-case scenario, but I refused to let go of hope. Naram had always been incredibly lucky. She'd won second place in the lottery before, scored all kinds of prizes, and even cracked open an egg with two yolks more times than anyone else. Surely this disaster hadn't claimed her. Maybe she'd made it through unscathed.
Even in the middle of this anomaly, my Veritas was still functioning perfectly. With a flicker of hope, I sent her a message.
There was no response.
“......”
My thoughts hadn't changed. If Naram had really been caught up in this and lost her life, I felt like I would collapse right here on the spot. So I quickened my pace.
Outside of experiments, she usually worked in Sector 0. Her station was relatively close to the emergency evacuation zone. If she was alive, the odds were good she'd headed there.
As I passed through Sector S, I took in the countless corpses of staff members. They looked eerily peaceful, as if they'd simply lost their souls—quiet, gentle, silent. I didn't see any familiar faces. My steps grew lighter, then heavier again.
There were so many bodies around me, yet I felt no grief. It was just another pile of death, as common as the countless corpses I'd left behind in the past. It probably wasn't the reaction a normal person would have. Even I could tell something was missing inside me.
Feeling the cold chill in my chest where warmth should have been, I pressed onward without pause.
To get from Sector S to Sector 0, I had no choice but to pass through Sector H. That was where they kept the hostile, hazardous-grade Hwanjong like H-I-01. Since every isolation chamber in Sector S had been opened, there was a strong chance the same had happened in Sector H. The less I knew about where the missing Hwanjong had gone, the more carefully I needed to move.
And sure enough...
“Hello.”
The statue that had snapped my neck just yesterday was blocking the corridor. It wasn't exactly a welcome sight.
The countermeasure for H-I-01 was simple: just hold your breath while inside its range. After cleaning its chamber countless times, this was neither dangerous nor nerve-wracking for me.
I held my breath and stepped forward. Even as I drew closer, the only thing in my head was thoughts of Kang Naram. The moment I tried to pass the Hwanjong that looked like a meticulously crafted Greek statue...
My neck snapped with a sickening crack.
The last thing I saw was the blood-soaked statue before my consciousness cut out.
“Haaah!”
I bolted upright in a room full of researchers' corpses. The pillar in my vision read S-AREA. Cold sweat poured down my back, and my heart began hammering wildly.
“Am I... dead?”
I'd always believed no death could truly terrify me, no matter how painful it was. But right now, I was feeling genuine fear. It had been such a sudden, unpredictable death.
The sensation of H-I-01's grip and the agony of my neck breaking still lingered vividly. Why had my neck snapped? I was certain I hadn't been breathing.
I stood frozen in place for a long time until my racing heart finally calmed. It had been a while since death had frightened me like this. The instinct for survival that I hadn't felt since my very first death was now carved into my heart once again.
“Hoo...”
Once my breathing returned to normal, I slumped down heavily. Then I stood up again. Repeated the motion. I guess I really was still human. Who would've thought returning to a place with H-I-01 would scare me this much?
After quite some time had passed, curiosity finally overcame fear. When I approached the corridor again, my own corpse lay on the floor, and the bloodstained H-I-01 stood calmly in the exact same spot.
When the Supernatural Research Institute was first established, Director Jeong Yongjin had discovered that every Hwanjong followed its own set of “rules.” They only acted within those rules and never broke them. It was a truth that hadn't changed for years.
H-I-01's rule was to snap the necks of any breathing creature. And just now, it had broken that rule.
“......”
Right now, I had two choices. Charge straight through the now-unknown H-I-01, or wait for the elite Level 2 agents to arrive. Since Code D-End had been issued, they would surely reach the institute soon.
My Veritas vibrated.
One of my choices had just disappeared.
I took a slow, deep breath. The only person who could comfort Naram right now wasn't Director Jeong Yongjin, wasn't the Level 18 agents, and wasn't the Level 2 operatives. It was me.
Naram needed me. So I had to go.
I grabbed the secret weapon leaning next to the cleaning supply closet. It was a tool with a curved end and a split tip designed to pull nails using leverage. Commonly known as a crowbar.
Holding my breath, I approached and swung the crowbar at H-I-01's head with all my strength. The moment it was attacked, the statue broke its own rule and responded instantly. My neck snapped with a loud crunch.
The pillar in my vision read S-AREA. I stood up again.
I approached H-I-01 once more, brought the crowbar down, and had my neck broken. I repeated the process mechanically, over and over without end.
Unlike before, my heart was deathly still. Death could never stop me. For someone who revived endlessly, death was nothing more than pain and an obstacle.
Human fear comes from the unknown. That's why death is terrifying—because it's the one true end that everyone shares, an incomprehensible domain. But the veil had already been lifted for me. The darkness that once surrounded death was now merely a new beginning.
I had come to understand death. Therefore, I knew its true value.
All my countless deaths were surely worth less than the gentle smile of that kind woman who had reached out to me when everyone else looked down on and avoided me.
The corpses piled up in the corridor all wore my face. As the bodies stacked higher, cracks began to form across H-I-01's hard exterior. The statue, which had once resembled a tranquil lake, started to vibrate. The larger the cracks grew, the more violently it shook.
Its gaze, which had been trembling like a frightened child, was no longer fixed on me. It had shifted toward the mountain of my corpses.
Death was fair to everyone except me. Even Hwanjong with their incomprehensible powers could not escape it.
After countless revivals, the plaster finally crumbled.
H-I-01, its fragile core now exposed, stared at me with two empty sockets. If a human shadow had been given three-dimensional form, it might have looked something like this.
“Aah... aaah...”
The shadow greeted me with a voice like nails scraping across a chalkboard.
“Hello.”
H-I-01 could no longer snap my neck.
Thwack!
It felt like hitting soft jelly. I looked down at the dead Hwanjong.
You monstrous bastard.
Setting aside how unpleasant it felt, the researchers' assessment had been accurate. Anyone who saw this corridor packed with my corpses would never think of me as human.
Drip. Drip. Warm liquid trickled from the corner of my mouth.
Will you absorb the Hwanjong [H-X-01] Neck-Snapping Statue?
If I'm making a confession here, there's one secret I've kept hidden from everyone. Including Naram and the Level 18 agents, all the researchers believed I only had the ability to resurrect. But the truth was different.
I was an unknown lifeform capable of absorbing Hwanjong and claiming their powers as my own. That was my true nature. A secret known only to me and Director Jeong Yongjin—one that even the institute's advanced technology had never uncovered.
With most of the researchers dead, there was no longer any point in hiding it.
I opened my mouth wide and devoured the corpse of H-X-01.
The trait 'Neck-Snapping' has been activated.
A sense of fullness washed over me. I'd look at the next hologram later. Naram came first right now.
I broke into a run.