The Mad Dog's Roar
"I can still hold out."
Intuition was dangerous to raise carelessly. Because when his Intuition got too sharp, his thoughts began to be dominated by it. He'd wanted to avoid leveling it up unless it was a truly decisive moment.
For now, he would make the most of Intuition Lv.2 and get across this collapsed 50th floor.
After two or three deep breaths, he rose to his feet.
"Let's go."
[You intend to charge straight into the middle of a floor that's collapsing beyond all control?]
Dive in without thinking, and he'd become food for this wretched 50th floor.
"It's fine. At the very least, the next one won't fire from this direction."
[Basis for that conclusion?]
"My gut."
His head throbbed. He pressed forward, sifting through the flood of information and picking out only what mattered.
[Master, are you quite all right?]
"Do I look all right?"
Even YggON, who would normally have been shrieking Intuition, nerf!, was worried enough to ask.
[This is a path you have chosen yourself. Endure with all your might.]
Was that... concern?
"Yeah, yeah. You damn cursed machine."
He was fine.
For now.
One more step forward.
...The moment he tried to take it, he jerked himself backward.
The space where he'd been about to plant his foot had vanished entirely.
Peering down at the pitch-black hole it had left behind, leading who knew where, he let out a sigh of relief.
"The traps are one thing after another, each nastier than the last. I'm getting a strong impression that someone really, really wants us dead here. Or is that just me?"
[It is just you. The collapsed 50th floor is simply a shitshow.]
"God, this place is garbage."
Any other gamers caught up in this mess surely wouldn't come out of it unscathed.
Ryu Hwi moved forward with painstaking care.
As expected, things were looking grim for the other gamers — to put it generously.
"Bisque! Are you okay?!"
"Ugh..."
Noir caught Bisque as she staggered, supporting her by the arm.
Right after the 50th floor had collapsed, Noir had been separated from the other gamers and left to wander — until, by some miracle, she'd reunited with Bisque.
And when they'd found each other again, Bisque had been boiling over like a kettle about to blow.
Noir had heard the whole story of what had happened to Bisque since she came up to the 50th floor.
How she'd chased after Ryu7017 and come face to face with the truth of World of Phantasm. How, unable to stomach it afterward, she'd explored the 50th floor alone. How, sinking into bitter despair at the floor's pathetic half-finished state, she'd been raging like a madwoman right when the Collapse of the 50th Floor swallowed her up.
That the 50th floor was unfinished — Noir had half-suspected as much herself. The area she'd been trying to clear had been in just as wretched a state.
The two of them decided, first things first, to head for that glowing tree.
One step. Then another.
It was a horrifying place where even moving forward demanded constant vigilance, but drawing on everything they'd learned so far, they somehow pressed on.
Along the way, they linked up with a surviving gamer party and fought alongside them — until a mistake triggered a trap, and only a handful of them barely made it out alive.
The real problem came after that.
Gamers who had made it this far were never going to give up quietly.
Bisque refused to let it end like this, and so they set out once more toward the glowing tree.
That was when they ran into Pokryeol Daedo.
No matter how much the two of them normally snarled at each other like a cat and a dog, the situation was what it was. Bisque had no intention of picking a fight with him here, of all places.
But something was wrong with him.
The blood-red glow of his eyes. His black armor smoldering with flames. And the countless swords sprouting from the armor, moving inorganic and organic all at once.
He was nearly a monster now — a Death Knight.
The area around him was strewn with gamers who'd been torn to pieces, and Biyeong, who had been in Pokryeol Daedo's own party, stood frozen in a standoff against him.
Biyeong shouted the instant he saw Noir and Bisque.
"Pokryeol Daedo's gone mad from a bug! Run!!"
Those were the last words Biyeong ever spoke.
Pokryeol Daedo's attack cut him clean in two, and he died on the spot.
A GA-ES bug.
The bug-using Pokryeol Daedo had plunged into a state of extreme agitation, and after the 50th floor collapsed, he'd finally snapped — transforming into a monster that lashed out at everything around him.
He was no longer a gamer. He had to be called a monster now.
Noir, Bisque, and the other surviving gamers had joined forces to face him, but the power of the monsterized Pokryeol Daedo was simply too overwhelming.
"Damn it, that lunatic Pokryeol Daedo..."
Bisque forced herself upright with Noir's help.
"Losing your mind and rampaging because of some stupid bug... You're the Mad Dog, not me!"
The surviving gamers surrounded Pokryeol Daedo and squared off against him — but they couldn't handle even a single opponent, and were being pushed back one-sidedly.
"All of it. Everything. Smash. I'll kill you all. Grrrraaaah... This retarded world — smash, S-SMASH it all. Grrrraaaah!"
Bisque could roughly guess why Pokryeol Daedo had become this.
He'd been driven into a frenzy by the bug, and then he'd realized the truth of World of Phantasm.
The realization that the game labyrinth he'd poured years of his life into was nothing more than a half-assed, unfinished product had snapped the last fraying thread of his sanity.
The result: the bug had invaded every corner of his body, and he'd transformed into a monster with not a shred of reason left.
Bisque, worn down to her limits since arriving on the 50th floor, let her guard slip for a single fatal moment mid-battle.
She couldn't keep up with Pokryeol Daedo as he raged at speeds beyond his own limits.
The swords erupting from every inch of his body came crashing down on her as if to shred her to ribbons.
"Bisque, look out!!"
"Huh?"
In that instant, Noir shoved her out of the way.
Just as Bisque's hand reached out toward her, she watched Noir be torn to pieces right before her eyes.
A scream of pure anguish rang in Bisque's ears.
"Noir...?"
Struck down by Pokryeol Daedo's bug attack, Noir writhed and twisted into a grotesque shape as she died in front of Bisque.
This was a game labyrinth. It wasn't real death.
But the pain was real.
"You... you bastard..."
Watching Noir die — her body torn apart, forced to suffer the agony of the bug invading her on top of it all — had stepped on the one thing Bisque could never forgive.
"POKRYEOL DAEDO!!"
"What on earth is going on here now?"
He'd spotted gamers fighting each other and wondered what the deal was — and it turned out the next aces of the Linzea Guild were locked in a battle that looked like they were trying to kill each other.
Stopped dead by an unfolding he'd never seen coming, Ryu Hwi clicked his tongue in frustration.
"Damn it, I should've gotten here from the start!"
[Wow. My master is genuinely upset. Classic.]
"They say watching a fight is the greatest entertainment in the world. And this is Linzea's two next-generation aces trying to slaughter each other — where else are you going to see a spectacle this satisfying?"
[Humanity is truly vulgar.]
"Shut it."
Humming a tune, Ryu Hwi observed the clash between Pokryeol Daedo and Bisque.
On raw ability alone, the bug-amped Pokryeol Daedo held an overwhelming advantage.
But Bisque clung on with desperate, almost pitiful tenacity.
The weapon corrupted by the bug had warped into a mangled mess, yet Bisque never let go of it.
Before long, the corruption spread past the weapon and began creeping up into her hand — but she paid it no mind and kept driving Pokryeol Daedo back.
Her fury was so intense he could feel it from here.
Ryu Hwi watched the fight for a while, then scratched his head.
[What do you intend to do?]
"Watching's fun and all, but while I'm at it..."
[You mean to save Bisque?]
"Why would I? I'll just take out both of them right here."
He had no intention of showing mercy — not to Linzea, and not to a gamer using GA-ES bugs.
[I shudder at a master who so calmly goes for a double kill in the middle of all this.]
Ryu Hwi slung Peace Breaker over his shoulder and strode toward the battlefield.
Several of the gamers holding the line against Pokryeol Daedo noticed him and recoiled in shock.
They'd never imagined he would show up here.
A moment later, Bisque and Pokryeol Daedo noticed him too.
"Ryu7017?! How did you—!"
Ryu Hwi shot Bisque a sidelong glance.
"Bisque. Never thought you'd still be hanging around the 50th floor. I figured you'd have logged out by now, heartbroken and all."
"Shut up! I'm not in the mood to argue with you right now. Stay out of my way!"
Bisque glared at Pokryeol Daedo, growling like an enraged dog.
"I'm going to smash this bastard with my own two hands!"
"Good luck. You can't beat him. And for the record, I'll be finishing him before you get the chance."
"You...!!"
At that moment, Pokryeol Daedo charged at Ryu Hwi without warning, swinging the blades erupting from his entire body.
Ryu Hwi swept Peace Breaker around and casually batted the attack away.
Thanks to the debug tool, not a trace of the bug's corruption even touched him.
"Lost your mind completely — you're basically a monster now."
Ryu Hwi sneered.
"You think doping yourself with that garbage bug is enough to beat me?"
His mouth was smiling, but his eyes weren't smiling at all. That frigid gaze bored straight through Pokryeol Daedo.
The swords jutting from his armor moved freely, weaving toward Ryu Hwi from every angle.
The onslaught was vicious — and he deflected every last strike with effortless grace.
"Ryu7017! Stay out of this!"
Bisque lunged at Pokryeol Daedo.
But before she could even close the distance, Ryu Hwi flung a knife.
Bisque yelped in alarm at the sudden thrown attack and blocked it with her axe.
Ryu Hwi half-heartedly parried the storm of Pokryeol Daedo's blows, his eyes fixed on her.
"Hold on. I'll deal with you once I've finished taking out this one."
"Shut up! I told you to stay out of my way!!"
And this time, Bisque came charging at Ryu Hwi.
He let out a long, long sigh.
"I go out of my way to do you a favor, and — fine, fine. I'll take you both on at once."
[Might I suggest looking up the dictionary definition of the word 'favor'?]
"Screw you!"
The gamers watching, too intimidated to dream of intervening, held their breath.
Ryu Hwi was dominating Linzea's two next-generation aces at once.
Pokryeol Daedo was using a bug on top of everything, and still hadn't managed so much as brush Ryu Hwi's clothing.
The swords of his armor hammered at Ryu Hwi without pause, and every single one was knocked aside.
Bisque fared no better.
Even swinging her axe at full power, Ryu Hwi turned her aside lightly with nothing but a single small knife drawn from who knew where.
"Grrrraaaaah!"
Madness flooded deeper into Pokryeol Daedo's eyes.
His mind was being invaded.
He knew it was happening, and still he could not control his own body.
Even as his thoughts screamed no, stop!, the bug-corrupted flesh hungered for its next prey.
And there, right before its eyes, appeared the most perfect prey imaginable.
Ryu7017!
An opponent of absurd, overwhelming strength. If he could have chosen, Pokryeol Daedo would have preferred to fight him clean — without relying on something like a bug.
But contrary to what remained of his thoughts, his body craved greater and greater power.
Retreating a single step, Pokryeol Daedo drew a dagger from his coat.
A dagger wreathed in black energy.
The bug purchased from Asea of GA-ES — the very reason for his rampage.
"More! More power — power, POWER! Give me power!"
What would happen if a second bug were forced into a body already invaded by the first?
Even now, every nerve in his body was screaming from the bug's side effects.
By all reason, he was certain to destroy himself. But the bug-devoured Pokryeol Daedo did not care.
"I am the strongest. Strongest, strongest — the STRONGEST!"
Pokryeol Daedo moved to trigger the bug a second time.
Ryu Hwi read exactly what he was about to do. Since the man was obviously going to self-destruct anyway, Ryu Hwi didn't bother reacting at all.
He was even considering giving that pathetic display a nice long laugh —
"...?!"
Something was coming!
As if pulled by that instinct, Ryu Hwi looked up at the sky.
Black stars glittered, filling the heavens from edge to edge.
Ominously twinkling black stars — drawing steadily closer to the ground.
No. Not stars.
Those were—!
Annihilation Cannon — Stardust Arrow.