Vanguard and Rearguard (3)

Vanguard and Rearguard (3) — Cheonwangsan, Guro-gu, Seoul

The world had gone utterly mad. It was a truth everyone still breathing had grasped long ago — and yet Seo Joowon felt it truly sink in, this very moment. That deranged bastard hanging in the air above, and himself down below, casually loosening his limbs; their eyes darted back and forth in a busy exchange, filled with nothing but the intention to kill each other. From him and from the man alike, mana seeped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out in slow, sinister wisps.

So this is the killing intent I've only ever heard about, huh? He tossed the light joke around inside his head, deliberately playing it up as he painted a smile across his mouth. The ease packed into that smile was guaranteed to breed restlessness in whoever saw it. Every single action had its reason, and every reason led straight to victory and murder — and Seo Joowon found nothing the least bit strange about that. If anything, this was the evolution that suited the age they now lived in.

But just as only those who shed their chrysalis ever become butterflies, not everyone had evolved. Every human and every awakened one he had met so far was still stuck inside a great chrysalis of their own.

Loneliness.

Especially the awakened ones he'd met in Guro-gu — every last one of them. To come sprinting for Seoul with everything else cast aside was proof, in itself, that something more precious than anything lay sleeping there. The immense loss felt by those who have lost something is the emotion quickest of all to curdle into loneliness, and every awakened one he'd encountered had been suffering under a loneliness of piercing clarity.

Seo Joowon understood that perfectly natural fact. But understanding it didn't make it right. Loneliness was what sickened people and stunted their evolution — and for that, Seo Joowon felt nothing but pity. So he had simply healed them. So they would never feel ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lonely again.

The method couldn't have been simpler. To the people who kept their guard up against him, he wielded the weapon of his face: he smiled, showed consideration, handed out compliments. Good looks had always worked that way. His weapon was incapable of holding a single negative trait, and man or woman alike, everyone grew generous toward him and opened their hearts. In other words: they went soft, and sick. And that was why they died. That was how Seo Joowon had cured the loneliness of the four awakened ones he'd met in Guro-gu.

He'd assumed the lunatic he'd met today would be no different. The sixth awakened one to arrive in Guro-gu. He'd figured it would all end with a simple healing of that flight-capable awakened one who'd come fluttering in like a butterfly. But as things unfolded, he'd been forced to admit he was wrong.

That bastard — that lunatic in the strange white religious garb — carried no loneliness. Wasn't sick in the slightest. If anything, he was exactly like Seo Joowon: filled to the brim with nothing but the desire to kill him.

Deep down, Seo Joowon had always known that if he went on healing sick humans, a moment like this would come someday. He'd assumed he would be overjoyed when it did. But imagination and reality were different animals.

He wanted to kill him. He wanted, pure and simple, to tear that bastard apart — the one looking down on him from the sky. And so Seo Joowon smiled. He stretched with a showy bounce for all to see, and taunted the man aloud.

"Look at the little punk. Chickening out."

Han Guwon gave no answer. He simply repaid ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the provocation with a smile and lowered his raised hand. The spikes that had been quivering, trained on him, turned and bombed the ground instead.

Seo Joowon slipped out of the bombardment zone with a light hop.

Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam—!

The spikes chased him like a tail, trailing his escape route. A simple bombardment would never catch him; an awakened one who'd sunk a fortune into his physical stats was always one step quicker than falling spikes. Han Guwon must have realized it too, because he called off the spike bombardment.

Large boulders floated up around the man, who was blooming with dense white light. Seo Joowon smiled at the white mana that looked ready to overflow and spill right out of him.

Keep burning it. Burn up even more.

Mana was the only thing that made an awakened one worthy of the name. An awakened one who could no longer burn his fuel — mana — on skills would simply be devoured by the one who still had mana to spare. And Han Guwon's pattern of attack changed: from a bombardment of lines to a bombardment of planes. The boulders squatting in every direction came crashing down across all of it at once.

Seo Joowon stopped hopping and stared the boulders down. Then, much like Han Guwon, he extended his right hand.

Kiiiiiing—!

Mana he had rationed with maximum efficiency crawled along his peripheral nerves and bloomed at his fingertips. His right hand, writhing with black mana, brushed a boulder — and stole away, entire, the power that had remade that boulder into a weapon. He had cut off Han Guwon's mana.

KA-WHUMP—!

A boulder stripped of Han Guwon's mana was nothing more than a boulder. Thrown rocks couldn't scratch an awakened body, not even a little. If anything, Seo Joowon planted his foot on the boulder that had smacked into him and sent it rolling, using it as a springboard to leap. Invading the airspace that had been Han Guwon's domain, he swung his hand fast enough to leave afterimages behind.

Shreeeak—!

A black, writhing ray of light shot for the gap in a shield. Han Guwon scrambled to realign its position, and in the same breath, line met plane.

Thunk—!

The moment the dagger sank home, the massive shield of packed earth crumbled away — sliiide — into nothing. Watching the clods of soil scatter and drift apart as they fell, Seo Joowon counted the daggers left in his inventory.

Five!

His leap had crested its peak; now he and his dagger were falling together. And around him, huge shapes came floating up. Han Guwon, building shields again and glaring at him, swung both arms like a conductor, and to his fluid gestures the boulders — each one laden with tremendous momentum — swept in to intercept.

Four!

Seo Joowon kicked off a dagger conjured fresh from his inventory and shook loose of the interception. Holding the high ground above Han Guwon now, he hurled a dagger.

Three!

Shreeeak—!

The dagger, hunting out Han Guwon's gap yet again, was stopped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠by a shield — but a shield far larger than any dagger also lost its shape and rained down across the ground. As Han Guwon glared upward, waving his hands, Seo Joowon summoned another dagger and vacated the spot.

KWA-BOOM—!

The boulders, robbed of their target, bombed one another in a rolling thunderclap. Attack after attack raining down on him, and a defense Han Guwon was being forced into just to stop the daggers. Compared to himself — who spent his mana only in thin slivers, on daggers and evasion — how much must that man be burning through?

Attrition. A war of attrition was the finest hunting method there was for bringing a man down.

Yank—! Yank—!

In the brief opening left by a failed interception, he retrieved two of the daggers embedded in the ground. Seeing his own mana still writhing on the buried blades, he smiled faintly. Han Guwon couldn't even strip him of his means of attack and movement.

Four!

The two daggers coated in his mana were still knifing down from the sky toward the earth. Having recovered enough daggers to keep himself mobile, Seo Joowon repeated the earlier exchange.

BAM—! BAM—!

Boulders bombing the ground, and himself slipping past them with ease. Riding spikes and boulders as footholds to claim the sky, hunting blind spots with thrown daggers. Wearing away the man's planes with his lines, forcing him to spend mana. Han Guwon hunted him doggedly whenever a leap lost its momentum — but Seo Joowon kept up his sly evasions on the wings of the daggers that were his means of throwing. Dagger under dagger, he violated the airspace that belonged to Han Guwon.

KWA-BOOM—! KWA-BOOM—!

Steadily, surely, extorting the man's mana little by little by little.

"...Hahh... hahh..."

A faint, ragged breathing reached his ears as he pulled the daggers from the ground. The movement of the man's constructs had slowed considerably from the start of the fight, and only one of his shields remained intact. And even the man's expression — however hard he tried to hide it — was clouding over. Checking off the elements of victory at last laid bare, Seo Joowon took stock of his own mana.

About forty percent? And daggers are back up to six.

Measured against the man's state, it was a condition he could justly call full strength.

Kiiiiiing—!

Seo Joowon's whole body stained black as he glared upward. A bead of sweat clinging to Han Guwon's jaw — the man glaring down at him — detached itself and fell slowly toward the earth.

Plop—!

It was time, now, to stamp the period onto his victory. He kicked off one of the boulders strewn across the ravaged ground and leapt. Boulders rushed to intercept him — but not as fast as before.

Five!

He kicked off a conjured dagger and gained acceleration. Like a round fired by a practiced marksman, Seo Joowon's body flew at Han Guwon. The man, more desperate now, flailed his hands — comical and slow compared to the elegant gestures of earlier.

Grrrrrumble—!

As if to prove his mana was bottoming out, the clumps of earth kept losing their shape as they formed, fouling his flight path.

Four!

A casually thrown dagger split the clod and drove on. He could not be given time. Conjuring a leaping dagger in a flash, Seo Joowon took back his power of flight.

"...Three."

Cutting through the curtain of falling earth, he began the countdown out loud. Han Guwon's eyes — he had certainly heard him — wavered.

"...Two."

The dagger thrown by Seo Joowon, his smile grown deeper still, shattered Han Guwon's last shield. Every shield that had stood firm around Han Guwon was gone. All that remained in the sky was Seo Joowon and Han Guwon. Unlike himself, burning black, the white radiance sheathing Han Guwon's body was dimming by degrees.

Even watching the man's aura sputter and gutter — ffft, ffft — Seo Joowon did not relax. This time there would be no slipping away, not like with that first failed ambush.

"...One."

He mounted the final leaping dagger scattered into the air. Krrrrk— His thigh muscles, coiled to their utter limit for the rebound, screamed.

"...Sh-shiiiiit!"

Listening to the prey's scream — refreshing as ever — Seo Joowon took dead aim at Han Guwon. Toward the man, struggling with everything he had to build even one more shield, a huge black ray of light came flying like a meteor.

Shreeeeeeeeeak—!

"...Zero."

Daggers in both hands, Seo Joowon made himself the final thrown dagger. The writhing colossus of a blade punched through the crude shield and closed to point-blank range of his prey in a single breath.

I won!

As if raising a toast to victory, Seo Joowon drove his daggers at Han Guwon's left breast. What kind of face was that bastard making right now? Crying? Or frozen, too slow even to react? Shuddering with a laugh far too sweet, he kept his eyes locked on the man.

Kiiiiiiiing—!

Han Guwon was smiling at him. With that all-too-familiar hum of manifestation, Han Guwon's body flooded once more with brilliant light.

It was the territory of instinct — Seo Joowon kicking off the very daggers he held and driving himself down into the ground. Shreeeak—! The familiar hiss of parted air brushed past him as he plummeted. The daggers, coated in his own mana beyond any doubt, turned on him instead.

KWA-BOOM—!

Driven into the earth like a meteor, the impact knocked his spine slightly out of true.

"...Khhh-haaaegh!"

It was a recoil not even an awakened body could easily endure; dry retches racked him and his head lolled.

Wh-what the... What! What the hell was that?! What just happened?!

Before he could begin to sort out his thoughts, white light flashed in the sky. Thunk—! Something buried itself in Seo Joowon's left ankle. At the sight of his own blood — a sight he truly hadn't seen in far too long — Seo Joowon's pupils convulsed. And as searing pain came sprinting through his whole body, the scream tore out of him.

"GYAAAAAAGH—!"

Thud—! Thud—! Thud—!

The daggers he himself had used were coming back to him. His right ankle. Both wrists. His navel. His testicles.

"...Gh-GHAAAAK—!"

Pain beyond a certain threshold wouldn't even grant him a scream. Only a soundless wailing kept spilling from his lips. And to Seo Joowon, thrashing against the agony that scrambled his skull, a voice came down.

"Thanks, Seo Joowon."

"Grrrrrgh—!"

"For spending every last drop of that mana on me!"

Watching Han Guwon spew bright white light, just as radiant as at the very beginning, he understood. He, in fact, had been the one caught in the war of attrition.

"...H-how!"

"Seo Joowon. I told you, didn't I? That you'd be dying soon too."

"H-how! FUUUUUCK! How do you still have mana?! HOWWWW!"

Han Guwon owed no answer to that miserable, festering injustice.

Seo Joowon. While that man had spent his days trampling awakened ones underfoot and committing murder like it was child's play, he had saved people, received their prayers, and built them homes. Of course a black flame kindled by a skill called Nullification could never burn down a forest made of countless trees. It was the reason humanity had herded together, formed tribes, founded nations — an absolute axiom handed down from time immemorial. The individual cannot defeat the collective. Seo Joowon had been singular. Han Guwon was plural.

"GHHHHHHK—!"

"A skill that good — why did you, of all people, have to be the one holding it?"

Truly — even now that this moment had come, it was a skill too good to kill. Seo Joowon glared up into the air, his face scrunched into knots. Han Guwon's figure — right hand raised toward the heavens since moments ago — kept needling at him. Why? Why wasn't anything happening? And yet why, even so, was the hand coming down, little by little?

"Can you hear it?"

Along with Han Guwon's question, a small dot pressed itself against the blue sky. Watching the dot swell bigger and bigger, Seo Joowon's eyes shivered fine as glass.

Rrrrrrrrumble—

Trailing Han Guwon's hand, thunder rolled and shook the heavens. Boulders massed upon massed boulders were plunging — a single meteor — into the crown of Cheonwangsan.

"Ughhhh, GYAAAAAAA—!"

Writhing in agony, Seo Joowon ripped the dagger out of his wrist as though tearing it free. A geyser of blood — spurting as if his artery had been torn — hit him square in the face as he scraped up every last shred of usable mana he had.

"G-GYAAAH—!"

A dagger sheathed in black mana — its flow stuttering, ffft, ffft — flew for the sky. It collided with the boulder boring slowly down toward the ground.

Snap—!

Han Guwon's dominion over the meteor vanished. Stripped of its white glow, the boulder took gravity itself for a springboard and slammed down into the earth.

RRRRRRUMBLE—!

To Seo Joowon — who had given up on everything — Han Guwon's voice arrived.

"Look at the little punk. Chickening out."

"...Fuck."

That short curse became Seo Joowon's dying words.

KAA-WHUUUMP—!

The boulder splitting into the mountaintop shook the mountain itself. To Han Guwon — staring as the dust slowly swallowed his entire field of view — a message chimed.

Ding—!