White Blood: Final Chapter (1)
Jeong Do-jin flew through the hospital like a ghost.
In a world where everything had frozen still, he passed straight through walls, searching for the pharmacy.
"UDS (Unit Dose System) cart... Here it is. Ward 83!"
The moment he reached the pharmacy, Do-jin found the cart holding the medications prepared for his younger brother.
He frantically gathered one therapeutic drug after another, the conversation with Cardiac replaying in his mind.
"The time you can remain outside is only about as long as a hundred heartbeats. Of course, that will feel like quite a long stretch in here."
"A hundred years in here, basically..."
Cardiac had smiled as he looked at Do-jin.
He must have assumed that once Do-jin left and came back, Ella, Akenaton, and Dipangdal would all be gone.
Even though he himself had told them to wait.
"It seems you've grown attached to the children before you realized it. Don't worry. When you return, only a few days will have passed."
"A few days? One second outside is almost a year here."
"Time does not operate that way. Trust me and go."
"Huh? Why should I trust you?"
Recalling the exchange, Do-jin's hands moved in a blur.
Hydroxy..., Cyclophos..., Prednisol...
Every drug had its own dosage and precautions, but with time running out he was in no position to check them carefully.
He snatched up the liquid reagents and syringes and streaked back toward his brother's room.
...Only a few seconds left!
Urgency made his hands tremble, yet he still drove the drugs home in rapid succession.
Meanwhile, high above Cardiac, Ella and her companions—who had parted from Do-jin—were in serious trouble.
They had meant to wait at the entrance to the cerebral artery Do-jin had mentioned, but the White Blood Army already controlled the place. Fleeing from pursuit, they had somehow climbed all the way to the very threshold of the brain.
Along the way they had joined resistance cells fighting the White Blood Army's tyranny, which was fortunate, yet even that luck was running thin; they were now surrounded on every side.
Beyond the hill, enemies stood packed so densely it was impossible to guess their numbers.
"Ah... is this the end?"
"Damn it."
Sensing that further resistance was hopeless, the resistance cells hung their heads.
Just then a flash of brown twin-tails whipped through their ranks, and wherever she passed, something detonated.
"Haaah!"
Ella gathered her fists and drove them forward; the air itself exploded, annihilating the White Blood soldiers around her.
"Hurry and follow me!"
"Ella! This way!"
Akenaton called from the opposite side. Ella leapt toward him at once, and the resistance fighters who had already given up on life sprinted after her.
The moment they crossed into Akenaton's barrier, the pursuing White Blood soldiers lost their target and halted.
The partnership between Ella and Akenaton had been the only reason they had survived this long.
"Hiiing. If only I were a little stronger!"
Akenaton shook his head at her words.
"You are already strong enough."
For reasons none of them understood, Ella's power grew in direct proportion to how high they climbed toward the upper world.
Even now she was absurdly powerful.
The enemy simply crushed them with sheer numbers.
Giiing—.
From far away came the sound of a true catastrophe.
"Ella! We have to run. That thing is back."
Level 6 White Blood Army. Macrophage.
A worm-like monstrosity whose body stretched dozens of meters across the battlefield. No attack could harm it, and even when Akenaton cast his arts it unerringly located Ella and her companions.
It was not an opponent they could fight.
It was a natural disaster.
Just as they were driven into a corner, a meteor plummeted from the far sky at ferocious speed.
Yet ordinary meteors leave bright trails across a dark night; this one was the exact opposite.
A black meteor that sliced through the bright sky, trailing a pitch-black tail.
It slammed into the center of the battlefield.
Kwaaaang—.
Everything in the vicinity was pulverized, leaving a vast crater.
Anything nearby was instantly annihilated, and the shockwave rolled all the way to Ella and her group.
"Kyaaak!"
"Ugh!"
"Dipangdal—grab onto me!"
As the weakest of them, Dipangdal was about to be flung away; Akenaton stretched out a hand and caught him.
The surviving resistance cells flattened themselves against the ground so they would not be blown off.
When the tremendous impact finally subsided and the dust began to settle, a figure stood upright in the heart of the crater, continuously pouring out black aura in thick streams.
It was Jeong Do-jin.
"Ah—Mister!"
"Guest! Why are you so late?! We nearly died looking for love!"
"Ah, oh God..."
Do-jin rested a pitch-black sword across his shoulder, looked at Ella and the cells, and grinned.
"You been well? By the way—are the White Blood Army guys throwing a party here? Why so many of them?"
The aura radiating from him was, paradoxically, black light.
It was literally shining black.
Tick tick—.
Jake sat in the conference room watching the real-time ranking tallies, nervously tapping his fingers against the desk.
It was the dead of night, yet the staff who had been urgently summoned were still pulling an all-nighter in the office.
"It's been updated."
The global ranking, refreshed every thirty minutes, appeared.
1. Alliance [-]
2. White Blood [+1]
3. C.A. New Lawfirm [-1]
It had climbed right up to their throats.
"...What's the detailed score?"
"White Blood is still at 4,562 points. We're at 6,210, so there's still a solid gap."
Only then did Jake lean back against his chair, the tension easing.
It was nine in the evening in Korea, but three in the morning California time and seven in the morning in Washington.
"Well, it's Asian time right now. Once the Americans wake up we should be able to widen the lead further."
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Mike and Alex had gathered in their studio apartment late at night to watch White Blood, and goosebumps raced down their arms.
"Man! Superhero landing!"
"Did you see that just now? I came, bro."
"Wow, Korea makes movies this well?"
"Hey, you've been saying that for a month already. Same line since episode one."
Still not free of the thrill from Do-jin's appearance, Alex rubbed his arm as he spoke.
"Honestly, isn't this way more fun than Alliance?"
"I already decided last week there was no comparison."
The drugs the real-world Do-jin had injected were fully controlled by Cardiac and funneled into Do-jin's body.
Pajijik—.
As a result, the densely packed White Blood Army vanished along every path Do-jin took.
"Hmm. I can feel the power inside me draining every time I wipe those guys out."
Seen from above, the pure-white White Blood Army against pitch-black Do-jin looked exactly like lines drawn with an ink-soaked brush across white paper.
Because Do-jin's path formed elegant curves rather than crude straight lines, an Eastern aesthetic was added; even though it was clearly a battle scene, it created the uncanny sensation of watching a piece of modern art.
In truth it was a clever trick.
The sequence could easily have been read as mass slaughter, so CG Director Jeong Yo-han had worked his magic to secure a PG rating—the all-ages classification—from the Motion Picture Association of America.
And that very artistry had strangely captivated overseas viewers.
Keueoeo—.
"What's this now?"
Do-jin eyed the giant earth dragon charging from the side and drew his sword; Akenaton's voice carried from far away.
"That is a Level 6 Macrophage! Be careful!"
The androids that had relentlessly hunted Do-jin in Episode 1 had been Level 5.
Level 6 meant the combined strength of ten of those androids.
This is a macrophage?
A large cell that detects and digests foreign matter invading the body.
The creature wriggled toward him, opening its grotesquely round mouth wide as it charged.
Do-jin vaulted onto its back and raced forward with his sword driven deep into its body.
It thrashed in agony.
Like a bullfighter he rode the bucking monster, relentlessly driving the blade deeper, until the creature gradually slowed and finally went limp, ceasing all movement.
The resistance fighters who had been watching with bated breath burst out from every direction.
"...We're saved!"
"The Black God has delivered us!"
Watching cells crawl out of hiding places he had never noticed, Do-jin demanded an explanation from Akenaton.
"...What are these riffraff?"
"Well... somehow I ended up gathering a few more believers."
From farther off, Ella and Dipangdal were already running toward Do-jin, whom they had not seen for several days.
Just then the ground shuddered violently.
Sensing ominous energy, Do-jin snatched up Akenaton beside him and hurled him toward Ella.
"Ella! Catch!"
"Yes?"
Akenaton came flying; Ella caught him in a fluster.
Kyaaak—.
At the same instant a gigantic mouth erupted from the earth.
"What the hell is this...!"
It swallowed Do-jin whole and vanished deep underground again.
In pitch-black darkness Do-jin tumbled end over end until he drove his sword into something solid.
He felt the unknown creature that had swallowed him writhe.
Yeah. Does it hurt? Then die.
Do-jin drew the energy coursing through his body in thick streams and poured it through the sword.
The vibrations grew stronger and stronger until the creature finally gaped its mouth wide and spat him out again.
The moment he was expelled, Do-jin, about to gasp for air, abruptly held his breath.
Hup! Why is there a sea in a place like this...?
Spat out into the middle of deep water, Do-jin looked around wildly.
It was neither the stomach nor the bladder, so how could there be an ocean this close to the brain...
But there was no time to think.
He felt the creature that had swallowed and expelled him approaching once more.
The macrophages seem to be clumped together.
The writhing mass was so tangled he could not make out any clear shape at a glance.
Despite the bizarre form, its swimming speed was terrifyingly fast.
A tentacle-like face stretched toward him, ready to swallow him again; he raised his sword to block.
The recoil sent him bouncing deeper and deeper into the abyss.
From a certain point he felt the sword itself cutting through the water and dragging him still farther down.
Why is it doing this?
There had been only two previous times when the gem set in the sword had moved of its own will.
When it had been attached to Ella's brooch and tried to merge with the sword in outer space.
When he had fought the pterosaurs in the River region and it had tried to swallow the purple gem.
Then that means the last gem is nearby?
Something clicked in Do-jin's mind.
I see.
A sea so vast it seemed to have no end no matter how far he went.
The place he had reached by falling straight down right in front of the brain.
The location the sage of the River region had spoken of was neither the stomach nor the bladder.
There was one more place inside the body that could truly be called a sea.
That place was the Lachrymal Gland.