Chapter 35
“Kraaaah—!”
A massive monster over two meters tall filled the entire field of vision. Beyond its gleaming fangs, chunks of half-eaten human flesh clung messily, and from wounds all over its body oozed viscous, toxic slime that would melt flesh on contact. Any ordinary person would have had their legs give out just facing it. But the bodyguard confronting it showed no change in expression as he raised his arm and swung at the beast.
Whirr—! The thruster at his elbow spat flames, and a fist forged from special alloy pulverized the monster’s face. The punch buried deep into the creature’s body. Then, from the bodyguard’s arm embedded inside, a massive cannon barrel protruded.
Boom—!
The shell fired from it tore the monster apart. The gruesome scene was littered with monster and human corpses tangled together. Right in the heart of the city, a monster rampaged and shells detonated, yet outside the building, the streets remained eerily peaceful. This was because informants dispatched from Pungyang Jo Clan headquarters were swiftly suppressing all information.
“47th floor secured. Moving on. Status on the intruder who attacked the young master?”
-Engaging the young master. Combat analysis confirms: Aura User… identified as Hwae executive ‘Lee Maetal.’
“Hwae?”
At the intelligence report, the bodyguard captain’s brow furrowed. A Hwae executive. Which meant this whole mess was those traitors’ doing. They’d unleashed a monster in the middle of Hanseong, planning to let it rampage out into the open and expose the Pungyang Jo Clan’s secrets.
‘But they miscalculated.’
The mighty Pungyang Jo Clan wouldn’t have built a research lab smack in the capital without countermeasures. Flawlessly designed emergency bulkheads and special prosthetic bodies for monster suppression. Even without their Aura User young master, they could handle this much.
“Hm?”
As they smoothly cleared the building’s monsters, one bodyguard’s eyes caught a chunk of monster corpse. It was the kind of sight that made bile rise in your throat. And even with just a hunk of flesh, a single arm, a lone finger left, it was wriggling and twitching.
No way… still alive?
Reports had mentioned tenacious vitality, but this?
“Captain. Over there, the monster corpse…”
The suspicious bodyguard was about to report to his superior when—
Static. Crackle.
Comms came in from the team that had advanced to the lower floors.
-This is Team 3! The large monster confined on the 39th floor has gone berserk! We can’t handle it with our current gear…!
“Acknowledged. Maintain suppressive fire and hold position. Reinforcements incoming.”
Ending the call with the advance team, the captain turned back.
“No time to slack off. Something important?”
“N-no, sir.”
Under the captain’s gaze, the bodyguard swallowed his words.
‘The priority is suppressing the monsters fast. Even if a shattered corpse twitches, it’s nothing.’
With that, the bodyguards headed down to crush the 39th floor’s large monster.
Twitch.
The flesh chunk they’d been watching began to slowly move. The bits stuck to the wall. The human flesh sliced off by monster claws.
Like maggots sensing opportunity, they slithered toward a single point.
And in the next moment—
Squish, squelch…!
From the gathered flesh, thin threads like mushroom mycelium began to form. Thousands, tens of thousands of strands. They tangled, connected, adhered, forming a single mass.
From fist-sized to human-sized. From human-sized to a grotesque slab over five meters tall. Snowballing together, the corpses swelled with eerie sounds.
Gurgle—
Dozens of mouths sprouted from the completed crimson meat blob. Human mouths, beast maws, fish jaws, insect mandibles. Even mouths from unidentifiable invertebrates.
“Hiiik—”
It was a horrific amalgamation of every impure thing in the world.
Boom—!
An anti-tank rocket streaked in at high speed, only to explode mid-air. The corridor shook from the fierce blast wave laced with aura. It hadn’t pierced the massive storm.
‘That’s all the heavy weapons we brought. Left with a few grenades and two SMGs…’
Swallowing dryly, Lee Maetal eyed the Pungyang Jo Clan heir standing opposite: Jo Seong-hwan. Cold eyes looked down on him. But behind that arrogance flickered unmistakable impatience.
“You sure can scurry around like a rat.”
“Then catch me properly. Or maybe head downstairs and carve up those bodyguards?”
“You bastard…!”
Jo Seong-hwan’s face twisted at Lee Maetal’s taunt. Even half-baked, Maetal was an Aura User. Channel aura into a blade, and he could slice through prosthetic bodies like tofu. But that was just the gap between Aura User and normie.
Against a high-caliber Aura User like Jo Seong-hwan, a half-assed one like Maetal was mere cannon fodder.
But…
‘Must be frustrating. Getting tripped up by a half-baked nobody like me.’
Maetal had held him for over five minutes. Unlike Seong-hwan, honed only in controlled spars, Maetal had real battle experience from countless skirmishes.
But with ammo depleted, he couldn’t press the attack. Much as he hated to admit it, his limit was closing in.
Whoosh—!
An aura-spawned gale lifted Maetal into the air, and Seong-hwan’s flanged mace hurtled at him. Shockwave enough to shred a normie’s body on graze.
But Maetal, aura-reinforced, thrust out the armor on his arm against the incoming strike.
Boom—!
An abrupt explosion dazzled Seong-hwan’s vision. Emerging from the smoke: Maetal, one arm venting smoke. The protective suit around it torn, exposing charred black skin.
“Reactive armor…? Explosives in the gear to absorb the impact?”
Something for prosthetics or tanks, worn on bare flesh? Insane?
As Seong-hwan reeled, Maetal drew his waist-holstered SMG and unloaded.
Rat-tat-tat—!
He emptied a 120-round mag, but not a single bullet reached Seong-hwan. A barrier of wind aura shielded him like iron.
“If you had prosthetic armor plating, I’d be ground meat by now.”
Special plates would shrug off bullets and snap his neck.
“But you noble bastards can’t.”
Maetal sneered at Seong-hwan. No prosthetics, not even neural aids for daily life—just pure, unadulterated flesh. Rejecting cybernetics under “body, hair, skin from parents,” obsessed with “physical purity.”
“Measure to maximize Aura User power. Sure, your fancy aura’s top-tier enough to curse about…”
“……!”
“But hose me with constant firepower, and even against a half-baked like me, it takes you forever!”
Boom—!
Ammo spent, Maetal tossed the SMG and lobbed a grenade. Blast and smoke obscured Seong-hwan.
But next instant—
“Vulgar clown, prancing out of your league.”
Seong-hwan’s mace, now close-range, smashed Maetal’s arm. Bones cracked; only then did his custom combat sensors blare danger. Failed to detect in time.
Boom—!
Maetal’s body flew, slamming into the wall.
“Guh…!”
Dull impact up his back, shattered arm screaming. He nearly blacked out but shook it off. As Seong-hwan said, passing out here meant dissection in a Jo Clan lab.
“No prosthetics, so you’re disadvantaged? Spam firepower? Thought parlor tricks like that could take me?”
Seong-hwan swept away the smoke with his mace, advancing slowly. Aura poured off him in waves, winds battering without mercy. A demigod descended to earth.
“Block you? A monster like you? As if.”
Yeah. Green as he was, Seong-hwan was a top Joseon clan heir. Maetal, who couldn’t beat a single Imperial Guard, couldn’t scratch him no matter the prep.
“All I can do is tie you down 5-10 minutes… that short window.”
“You knew that and still picked this reckless fight? Why?”
“Why do you think?”
Clock in the corner of his vision. Checking op time, Maetal grinned triumphantly.
“Tying you here. That’s our goal.”
“…What?”
Seong-hwan’s face warped.
-Young master!
A voice crackled from his earpiece comms—from a bodyguard monster-hunting inside.
“What happened?!”
Sensing trouble, Seong-hwan barked into it.
-Sudden crisis on the central floors…!
“Crisis? What the hell does that mean out of nowhere?!”
-Don’t know! Suddenly the monster corpses are gathering in one spot…! Cause unkn—!
The frantic voice cut short. Static. Heavy noise drowned it out.
Mechanical failure? Now?
Scowling, Seong-hwan checked his earpiece. It flickered like a dying bug and died. Power cycle: nothing. Not a glitch—total shutdown.
“What the—perfect comms gear just…!”
Gritting his teeth in frustration, something clicked. He scanned around.
“Wait.”
The lab was hell from the monster outbreak. Researchers slaughtered, no survivors, bodies everywhere. Monsters had spewed mucus and filth. Bodyguards had pulped monster shells.
Blood, flesh, waste, slime. Filth too vile to witness blanketed the place.
But…
“Why’s it so clean?”
All gone. Monster chunks, human corpses. Spotless, like they’d never existed.
“…No way.”
Vanished without trace. Eerie silence. Dead electronics.
Rifling memories, Seong-hwan soon pinpointed it. Database for top officials and select Imperial Guard: Great War monster combat Rule #1.
[Incinerate all humans killed by monsters, and all monster corpses. Not a scrap of flesh, not a drop of blood.]
If not, untreated monster byproducts and tissues merge into one massive lump.
That lump then…
“No.”
Thud—!
Realization hit too late. As Seong-hwan’s face drained to ashen gray, a massive shock rocked the building’s core.
Whole body tingling. Alien yet familiar power.
Aura.
“Kiiiiiaaaaaah—!”
Screams echoed through the structure. Aura surged wildly across the building, a creepy dissonance scrambling senses.
Feeling it, Seong-hwan instinctively knew.
A rift. Right in the heart of his own lab—he’d opened a rift.
“Congratulations, Jo Seong-hwan.”
Maetal across from him spoke. Seong-hwan whipped his gaze up, grinding his teeth.
“Pungyang Jo heir Jo Seong-hwan researched monsters in secret, evading court oversight. Used them to rip open a rift in central Hanseong.”
Backed against a wall hole, Maetal waved mockingly. Escape prepped, he pulled the pin on a smoke grenade.
“Now you’re an undeniable traitor.”
With that, thick smoke swallowed his form.
“Stop! You traitor scum, what nonsense…!”
Opened a rift? Me? What?
Seong-hwan lunged toward Maetal’s escape hole.
Flash—!
Spotlights from above bathed him. Clan military chopper?
Scowling skyward—
“Ha…!”
Seeing the chopper, he gaped in a scream-like sigh.
“You’ve truly botched it, Jo Seong-hwan.”
Emblazoned on the fuselage: not Pungyang Jo, but Andong Kim Clan branch crest.
Gazing down from it: Andong Kim Clan’s sole heir, Kim Hyun-woo.