Great Chaos
Great Chaos
Gwanak-gu had spiraled into total catastrophe. It was no longer an environment fit for human survival.
A maelstrom of scattered blood hung in the air, underscored by a ceaseless cacophony of explosions and screams.
Chaos erupted from every direction.
"First, we get out of here!"
Angelica hoisted our party into the air with her psychokinesis.
Using the elevator to escape was far too dangerous, so it looked like she meant to fly us straight up to the surface.
"Hey, can you carry us all the way to the camper van like this?"
"That's too much! There are way too many people!"
Unfortunately, even that was beyond her.
Through it all, the system window at the edge of my vision vibrated frantically.
Ladylike Maiden : Jjintta! What the hell is going on right now!?
Ladylike Maiden : You're all okay, right?? Where are you??
Ladylike Maiden : Answer me, dammit!?!?
Right on cue, a message from Ha Hui-ryeong came through.
Even in plain text, the sheer panic in it gave me a clear picture of how freaked out she was.
I hastily tapped out a response and sent it off.
Yajeongkojeong : Spire. Angelica's got everyone lifted with telekinesis, descending now.
Ladylike Maiden : What? So I just head that way?
Yajeongkojeong : Yeah, get here as fast as you can.
Ladylike Maiden : Got it. What the fuck even happened back there? Why the hell are zombies falling out of the sky?!
Ladylike Maiden : There are mutant entities mixed in too! Do you know something?
Yajeongkojeong : Let's meet up first and I'll explain. Just hurry.
Ladylike Maiden : Shit! It's gonna take a while because of these bastard zombies! Keep that in mind??
Fortunately, it sounded like there hadn't been any trouble on the camper van's side.
Even with total chaos reigning everywhere, Kang Ha-rin's driving skills and Ha Hui-ryeong's breakthrough power would be more than enough to reach us.
"Straight ahead. Giant mutant entity."
Kim Ha-yoon delivered the observation calmly, pressing close to me as if shielding me.
A multitude of ice chunks orbited around us.
Some of them shot forward with a piercing shriek, clearing out the zombies crawling along the ground.
-CRACK-CR-CR-CRACK!!
But even that was only a temporary fix.
We touched down safely on the surface, but as time passed, the surging swarm of zombies rapidly closed in around us, and then kept coming.
"Mirkella! Can you break through?"
"A simple task!"
Dark Black Wings unfurled.
The moment those shadowy, slick-feathered wings spread wide, the zombie horde blocking our path was cleaved apart in a straight line.
"Take this, you bastards!"
I poured the Power of Axis into a canned coffee I'd stashed in my pocket and hurled it backward with everything I had.
Instantly, the wave-like surge of zombies was sucked in by an irresistible gravitational force centered on the can.
They kept clustering together, no matter how many piled on.
So many corpses stacked atop one another that they formed a single massive sphere.
Thanks to that, we wouldn't have to worry about an attack from the rear for the time being.
"Good! Now everyone, run!"
At my command, the party moved as one.
Everyone sprinted forward in a frenzy.
Park Soo-jin trudged on with her revived husband strapped to her back, buckling under his weight. Matching her pace, the old man followed close behind Mirkella, the unconscious Gladiator tucked under his arm.
Kim Ha-yoon, Angelica, and I brought up the very rear.
It was the most dangerous position, but there was no other choice.
"Argh, fuck! Lady! Can't you just ditch him!? You're moving way too goddamn slow!"
"A-are you crazy!? I brought him back to life! I just got him back—how could I do that!!"
"Then you'll die too, you know!?"
"I don't care! Then I'll just die too!"
Ugh, so damn stubborn.
True to his build, the old man dashed forward without any sign of exertion, but Park Soo-jin was another story entirely.
Burdened with a grown man on her back, her pace was hopelessly sluggish.
"Angelica! Can't you just levitate those two and go?"
"Heh...! A difficult request. To be honest, that's too much. I can barely hold the swarming zombies at bay. If I divert energy to something like that, my concentration will break."
"Tch! Just you wait, lady!"
When we get back, I'm going to absolutely rail her right in front of her husband!
I mean, I revived the guy with exactly that in mind from the start, but now I'm going to wreck her even harder!
-KWA-KA-KA-BOOOOOOM!!
That was when it happened.
Suddenly, the southwestern wall of the arena crumbled and collapsed with a thunderous roar.
Once the dust settled, what stood revealed was a colossal zombie beast fused together from countless zombies.
—WOOOOOOOHHH!!!
"Wha, wha-what, what the!?"
The moment I saw it, I kicked off the ground even harder.
Even for us, handling something that massive would be a serious challenge.
We could take it down if we pushed ourselves, but picking a fight with that thing in this kind of environment would be the worst possible move.
Crunch!
In one motion, I swung my crowbar at a zombie lunging from the side.
Along with the sensation of cleaving bone, the thing instantly turned to powder, scattering from the head down.
More and more of them were starting to breach Kim Ha-yoon's defensive net of icicles and closing in on me.
That was a bad sign.
Grinding my teeth, I dealt with their increasingly ferocious assault as the seconds ticked by.
—Grrrk!!!
"Hup!"
Crunch!
How far did we run in that state?
Before we knew it, we had reached the very edge of the arena.
"I shall open a path! Everyone, follow me!"
Just like last time, Mirkella endlessly condensed a black shadow in her palm.
And at last, at the end of that layered, condensed darkness, there was light.
-FWOOSH!
A bright light erupted.
The moment that pure, pristine white light flashed, the massive outer wall crumbled like tofu, and yet another wave of zombies greeted us.
"Hiek! There are even more outside! Be careful—some might slip through!"
Once again, Black Wings took flight.
Skimming low, Mirkella plowed ahead like a runaway tank, her wings spread wide.
And we advanced along the path she carved open.
There was no other way forward.
My heart was pounding like mad, and even as my throat burned and I gasped for air, I couldn't let my legs stop moving.
When we finally got outside, what greeted us was a variety of mutant entities of every shape and size.
The ones that made up the largest portion were those that had used birds as hosts.
"Ha-yoon!"
"G-got it!"
At Angelica's call, Kim Ha-yoon squeezed her eyes shut for two seconds, then opened them.
Fsssst. In that instant, a frosty aura permeated the air, and soon a massive block of ice shaped like a hammer materialized in midair.
"Hnng!!"
Angelica swung it with her psychokinesis.
Battered by the wildly flailing giant hammer, the mutant crows swooping down from the sky were swept away like autumn leaves.
In effect, the aerial battle was Angelica's to handle alone.
Which meant one of our heavy hitters was tied up.
And that meant every single creature charging at us on the ground had to be dealt with by Kim Ha-yoon and me.
"Shit...! Hah... Hah...! This is so fuckin' brutal...!?"
"Hah... Hah..."
Kim Ha-yoon didn't seem to have the energy left to even reply.
Her base stamina was low to begin with, and her ice-manipulation ability was a type that burned through an enormous amount of concentration.
It was only a matter of time before she reached her limit.
'I'm reaching mine...'
I could no longer feel the grip of my hand on the crowbar.
Just as Ha Hui-ryeong had told me ages ago, this weapon required a fair amount of finesse to swing properly.
If I just swung it wildly out of desperation, the numbing shock of the recoil put an immense strain on my wrist.
And now I was paying the price.
My right wrist was completely fucked.
Zzzzt!
"Ack! Son of a bitch!"
I crushed the head of yet another zombie—I'd lost count of how many by this point—and kept my legs moving.
I was just about out of the stamina to even run.
KWANG! KWA-KWANG! KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM!!
The sound of something being violently demolished echoed from the distance.
The explosive noise was so immense that it rang clearly in my ears, and I could tell that something was steadily approaching us.
-CRACKLE-FZZT!
Blue lightning.
A very familiar color.
The blue thunder that flashed brilliantly from a building across the way was unmistakably the mark of our Ha Yeosa.
"Ha Hui-ryeong!! Over here, here!!"
The moment I locked eyes on that color, I shouted at the top of my lungs, overjoyed.
And then, it happened.
-KABOOOOOOM!!!
With a devastating blast, the building shattered, revealing the familiar pink camper van.
After smashing spectacularly through the building, the camper van executed a sharp drift, matched our speed, and pulled up right alongside us.
Lightning flashed once more.
-Rumble, CRACK-BOOM!
As Thunder from the dark clouds struck down right in the middle of the zombies, a familiar female figure emerged from the fray.
Ha Hui-ryeong.
Her face twisted with fury, she swung her bat without a shred of hesitation.
Every time she did, blue sparks arced through the air, and countless zombies began flopping around like fish out of water.
"Hey! Everyone get in, now! Some crazy bastards are chasing us!"
The moment she shouted, the camper van door slid open with a clatter.
Jeong Ji-min was the one who opened it.
I hoisted Kim Ha-yoon up first and threw her toward Jeong Ji-min.
"Oof! Oppa! Th-this is so sudden...!"
"You should've caught her properly, dammit!"
Next was Angelica and me.
She had been wrestling with the mutant crows in the air. Grabbing my hand, she managed to board the camper van safely.
"Urgh...! I-I thought I was going to die!"
"Same here. That was really fucking brutal."
The moment I got in, I collapsed onto the floor in an ugly heap.
I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes right then and there, but there was no time to relax like that.
There were still people left behind.
"M-me too! Me too...!"
Park Soo-jin.
She was still running with her husband on her back.
Her stamina was unexpectedly monstrous.
Even if all she did was run, hauling someone else should have drained a significant amount of energy, yet she was still holding on.
I had no choice but to acknowledge her sheer tenacity.
"Angelica."
"Hah... Fine."
Letting out a small sigh, Angelica gestured.
Immediately, Park Soo-jin was lifted into the air and sucked toward the entrance as if drawn by a vacuum.
"Keck!"
Park Soo-jin tumbled pathetically across the floor.
Even as she rolled, she miraculously held onto her husband, sparing us the gruesome sight of his neck snapping the very moment he was revived.
...That woman is so goddamn aggravating it's unreal.
Anyway, with that done, the only ones left were the old man and the Gladiator.
He was running directly behind Mirkella, who was forging ahead, so we needed to pick up the van's speed a bit.
"Old man—!!!!"
That was the instant I shouted for him.
Suddenly, black ink poured down from the sky like a waterfall.
The camper van was forced to swerve sharply, and the rest of us wound up rolling around on the floor just like Park Soo-jin had.
"Agh...! Now what...?"
I slowly dragged myself to my feet and staggered toward the driver's seat.
And there....