The Criminal's Cheerful Rebellion (3)
Their counterattack was fierce.
It was taking longer than expected to force the two into retirement.
Barely twenty minutes had passed since the fight began, yet the thought of how much time that had bought Baek Sejin left them restless and on edge.
There was still no sign of the battle ending. Hwang Ju-hyeon and Lee Ye-rin still seemed to have mana left.
Hwang Ju-hyeon, wreathed head to toe in golden mana, was trouble enough — but that sky-blue-haired Lee Ye-rin was especially grating. Her specialty wind magic sent invisible attacks flying, forcing them to stay sharp every single moment, and she kept casting Haste on Hwang Ju-hyeon and raising wind barriers so he could keep holding out. All of it was eating up time.
"Hah… looks like wind mages are about to join the list of things I hate," Go Sang-hyeok muttered between ragged breaths.
"Why don't you come a little closer?"
Go Sang-hyeok's brow furrowed at Hwang Ju-hyeon's taunt.
"Running away like cowards…"
"Then you guys fight two-on-two too!"
Still, they had landed quite a few solid hits on Hwang Ju-hyeon, so his barrier couldn't have much left.
"I'm going back in — cover me."
"Got it!"
Hearing Lee Jiwoo's reply, they charged at Hwang Ju-hyeon again. As the three of them rushed in, Hwang Ju-hyeon raised his mana once more and dropped into a low stance.
"Bring it on!"
In the end, they managed to catch two of them. A police officer who had been watching the situation took the pair away, both of them bound by artifacts.
"Let's take a break," Lee Jiwoo said, sinking to the ground. Everyone agreed. Go Sang-hyeok collapsed onto the floor in a heap, and Kim Gabyul perched on a nearby railing. I leaned back against the wall.
"Was cops and robbers always this kind of fight?" Go Sang-hyeok muttered.
I was thinking the same thing. Wasn't the whole point that the cops chase and the robbers run? Not that what they were playing now was exactly cops and robbers.
"They said you retire once your barrier breaks, so maybe the idea was that if the entire cop team gets retired, you win."
"Yeah, that could be it."
And then it appeared without warning.
Something burst up from the ground — a pink, snake-like monster whose belly had swollen to grotesque proportions, as if it had swallowed an elephant whole.
"Aaaah!"
"What the hell is that?!"
Lee Jiwoo and Go Sang-hyeok scrambled back to their feet in alarm.
"…I can feel Moon Seyeon's Black Mana. Why didn't I sense it sooner?" Kim Gabyul murmured under her breath.
The pink snake opened its jaws and vomited up everything it had been carrying in its gut. What came out were monsters of hideous design — roughly ten of them, each grotesque in its own way — and they closed in around the group.
"Ugh, these are way too gross."
"This is exactly why I can't stand dark mages."
Lee Jiwoo and Go Sang-hyeok both looked thoroughly revolted.
Were those magical beasts? But none of them had ever seen monsters that looked like that. I asked Kim Gabyul, but she only shook her head, equally unsure.
"They seem like magical beasts… but something's off. Moon Seyeon must have done something."
Kim Gabyul raised pure white, radiant mana. I drew my sword again and poured mana into the blade. The condensed energy along the edge produced a faint Aura.
Whether it was from fighting so many magical beasts or from training under my older sister, my mana control had improved enough that I could form a weak Aura. The drain was so severe I had never used it in actual combat — but this was no time to be picky. I forced it out, accepting the cost. A faint red tinge shimmered along the Aura-coated edge of my blade.
Meanwhile, the monsters surrounding them began to close in, slow and deliberate.
"Black Mana is gathering here more and more. We need to get out of this place — now." Kim Gabyul urged them on, her expression tight with urgency.
But escaping was easier said than done with flying monsters filling the air overhead.
"Take them down fast and get out of here."
"Somebody kill these things already! Hnnngh—!"
A bug-like magical beast lunged at her, and Lee Jiwoo let out a whimper of pure terror.
They were holding their own as best they could, but the situation was far from easy. More than ten monsters all swarming at once turned the fight into pure chaos. Each one was a difficult opponent on its own — and with over ten of them, it was nearly impossible to keep track of everything.
My Aura was more than enough to cut through them, but the monsters seemed to know it. They moved in ways no living creature should have been able to move, twisting around my blade so thoroughly that landing a clean hit was nearly impossible. It was as if they had no skeleton at all — their entire bodies flexed and writhed like tentacles. And each one moved at a different speed, burning through concentration at a brutal rate.
Kim Gabyul managed to drop a few of them, which bought a little breathing room. But as her mana steadily drained, the situation worsened again.
"At this rate we'll never finish. I'll take out as many as I can."
Kim Gabyul gathered her mana as she spoke. The more she drew in, the brighter the white light around her grew — until every last shred of it condensed into her sword. The blade, packed with that radiance, shone with such intensity it looked like a holy sword out of legend, glowing of its own accord.
She laid the luminous sword sideways and dropped into a low stance.
"Everyone, get down."
Her voice came through the comm device, barely above a whisper. They all flattened themselves against the ground — and she swung.
Multiple blades of pure white sword-light erupted from her weapon and cleaved every monster clean in half. The creatures collapsed to the floor in two pieces each.
"Hah… hah…"
Having burned through most of her mana, Kim Gabyul stood on trembling legs, using her sword like a cane just to stay upright.
"Now! We have to get out of here!"
A massive concentration of Black Mana had gathered in this place — they could feel it in their bones. It felt as if the entire area was being swallowed by it. Something was happening.
Go Sang-hyeok and I dragged our exhausted bodies into a run, trying to put as much distance behind us as possible. Lee Jiwoo hoisted the immobilized Kim Gabyul onto her back and tried to take to the air.
Tried.
"Aaaah!"
"What is it?!"
"Something grabbed my ankle!"
I sprinted over to Lee Jiwoo and checked her condition. A black, shadow-like tendril had risen from the ground and latched onto her ankle. At the same moment, a translucent black wall sealed off the entire area. The ceiling was blocked too — escaping by air was no longer an option.
"This is definitely…"
That black cube Baek Sejin used. He had shown he could wield it freely, but no one had imagined he could do something like this.
"What is this…?"
"Baek Sejin's magic, most likely."
"What?"
Go Sang-hyeok touched the barrier, staring in disbelief.
"Can we even get out of this?"
"That's not the problem. Look down."
Still carried on Lee Jiwoo's back, Kim Gabyul narrowed her eyes at the ground. The earth was growing darker by the second. Spreading outward from Lee Jiwoo like a shadow unfurling, the darkness was swallowing the entire area.
They threw everything they had at the barrier, trying to smash through — but two prior battles had already drained them of most of their strength. If Kim Gabyul had been at full power, they might have had a chance. Then again, if she hadn't wiped out all those monsters, things could have been even worse. Being trapped inside with monsters still fighting would have been a nightmare.
Their barriers were already more than half gone, and everyone was exhausted. The will to push through this crisis was fading fast. On top of that, their feet were starting to sink into the ground. The cube enclosing the area was shrinking, steadily reducing the space they had left to move.
"Watch out! The ground's turning into a swamp!"
Shadowy human silhouettes began appearing one by one around them. The surroundings had gone completely black — it felt as if they had stepped into a world of pure shadow. The road, the ground, the trees lining the street, even the sky — all of it was black. The only things in this world that still had color were them.
The ground had turned swamp-like, dragging them down into the earth, and the trees planted along the road were sprouting arms and legs.
"What the hell is this?!" Go Sang-hyeok shouted at the sky.
Looking up, they saw black clouds slowly descending toward the ground. The clouds settled over the floor like a thick fog, blanketing the entire interior of the cube.
"Hyeon! In front of you!"
Lee Jiwoo's urgent cry snapped me into motion. I raised my sword just in time to block an incoming strike. Only after deflecting it did I see what had attacked — a humanoid monster made entirely of shadow. The moment its attack was stopped, it scattered into darkness and vanished.
"You've got to be kidding me…"
I let out a breathless, incredulous curse. How did that make any sense? It had physical force — and it could dissolve its own body whenever it wanted?
"Look over there!"
Where Lee Jiwoo pointed, a tree that had grown arms and legs was thrashing about. Then it tore its own roots free from the earth and started coming toward them. Dozens of trees gathered the same way.
"I think we just got hit with some insane magic…," Lee Jiwoo muttered, and the words stuck in my ears.
She wasn't wrong. What kind of magic was this supposed to be? Even granting that magic existed outside the bounds of common sense, this should not have been possible.
Baek Sejin's face rose unbidden in my mind. Somehow, it felt like he was watching them right now — smiling that sly little smile of his.