The Choice (2)
At the end of the sewers, I opened the door from which faint light seeped out, and a vast space unfolded before me.
A chemical odor swirled in the air, along with the hum of machinery, sending my senses into a frenzy.
And there he stood.
A solidly built man in a sharp three-piece suit, his features almost handsome.
The representative of Zylas.
He revealed his perfectly aligned teeth in a smile, as if he had been waiting for us.
“Even as guests, one must offer proper hospitality, right?”
A voice completely devoid of tension.
My gaze drifted past him.
Behind him stood a dense array of equipment I couldn’t name—massive glass tubes brimming with fluorescent liquid, monitors constantly spewing data, and machinery that never seemed to stop turning.
This wasn’t a simple laboratory.
It was the birthplace of the plague that had toppled Clovan City.
The representative of Zylas walked slowly toward us, savoring our horrified expressions.
“Isn’t it incredible? This is the birthplace of the most perfect virus in history. And you, Zeo Blood, will be the witnesses to this glorious history.”
His words carried an almost reverent tone.
The man who had plunged the entire city into terror pointed at the laboratory as though boasting of a great achievement.
“Crazy bastard…”
The knight bit down hard, muttering low.
“Take them out.”
One of the knights in front of me gripped his sword tightly and spoke.
The enemy’s defensive line was pathetic—only about thirty armed personnel and a few pre-installed mechanisms in the laboratory.
Yet the representative’s expression remained utterly calm.
He was clearly hiding something.
If the sinister aura I had felt upon first stepping into this place wasn’t my imagination…
‘Someone’s here.’
At that moment, a deep, ominous presence wrapped around my entire body.
“Sir Prosecutor, is this dark matter?”
“No. It’s completely different.”
My eyes stayed fixed on the floor.
It felt as though something enormous slept beneath the ground.
“Now, it’s time to give you all a special gift.”
Following Zylas’s gesture, space began to ripple violently.
Gargantuan vortices twisted in every direction, and bizarrely distorted magic circles rose from the floor.
Through those whirlpools emerged Zylas’s subordinates.
They surrounded us like ghosts stepping out of darkness.
“Such childish tricks…”
The knight gripped his sword tightly and spoke with a sharp gaze toward the approaching enemies.
His sword was already wrapped in a blue glow.
Screech—
The moment he swung, a flash of red erupted.
The man who had been standing behind us a moment ago appeared instantly right in front of the knight’s face.
‘Space distortion magic.’
Whoosh—
Slashed.
The knight’s head was severed.
If he had been a step closer, it would have been his neck.
Gulp.
The knight’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
The enemies numbered thirty.
Not a single stray.
They were perfectly trained killers.
Whoosh—
One man unleashed powerful magic throughout his body, hurling spear, javelin, and dagger simultaneously.
I twisted my body to dodge.
Bang!
A flash of red, and he vanished again, reappearing on the opposite side.
Clang—
I fired a lightning bolt and deflected the incoming spear with my dagger.
Then I charged straight at the enemy.
Screech—
Before another red flash could form…
‘I see it!’
The shadow flickered faintly.
The premonition of space distortion magic.
Following the direction of the twisted shadow, I sliced with my dagger.
Blood sprayed from the enemy’s body.
“Ugh.”
The enemy clutched his chest, which was bleeding heavily, and writhed.
The blood flowing from him began to stain the space with small red spots.
Then the world filled with red dots.
All space was turning into red dots.
The enemy’s blood was being sucked into the space split by the space distortion magic.
“……!!!”
“That’s all space distortion magic!”
A shocked magician’s voice.
The entire space was filled with fist-sized magic balls of space distortion.
“If someone can use space distortion magic like this…”
A magician, unfurling a purple magic circle to search for a restraining device, stared into empty air with horror in his eyes.
His pupils were filled with red dots.
“Sir Prosecutor, these guys are definitely the Obsidian Circle.”
At that moment, a dense green magic circle rose into the air from the left, and a turquoise thread shot out between them.
The threads, like snakes hunting prey, began wrapping around the red dots one by one.
Soon, the entire space was covered by a green web.
“Hah!”
The knight, spear in hand, charged through the red dots and began shattering the space distortion magic balls.
In front of him, enemies were being cut down by swords that flashed with red light.
Screech—
Whoosh!
A magician and knights clashed with enemies who freely adjusted their positions while throwing various weapons.
A barrier spread wide like a shield from the magician’s hand, but he was struggling against attacks coming from unexpected directions.
“Ugh!”
Piaget, the assistant, twisted his body to defend while trying to drive an axe into the enemy’s chest.
But the enemy had already retreated two steps, leaving behind a red flash.
“Hah. Hah.”
Piaget’s breathing had grown quite rapid.
“Assistant, are you all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
He spoke boldly, but he was clearly being pushed back by the enemies.
Everyone else was the same.
Large and small wounds covered their bodies.
“Heh. Still, it’s a compliment that you’ve tracked us this far.”
Zylas rubbed his hands together and spoke.
“Show your true face, Zylas.”
Zylas, with no response, kept his twisted smile.
I stepped closer.
“Zylas, why are you pretending to be the Obsidian Circle?”
The Obsidian Circle had once been the Empire’s shield—a high-level mage organization that led the charge in monster extermination.
But at some point, they had turned their sights on the Empire and become a perfect traitor group.
A group that had become the enemy of the Gilorian Empire.
Yet these weren’t the real Obsidian Circle.
Zylas maintained his relaxed smile.
“You already know everything? As expected, the rumors were true. It’s a shame to kill you here.”
“The Obsidian Circle would never deploy dark matter like this.”
The dark matter of the Obsidian Circle began to rot the body the instant it touched.
A high-level magic no one could casually copy.
“You’ve been exposed. Since I couldn’t make it look more realistic, I thought I’d have the Empire’s discarded stray dogs eat you… but it’s a pity it didn’t work out.”
Zylas muttered, one hand on his hip.
“If it had truly been the Obsidian Circle, they wouldn’t have attacked innocent Empire citizens like cowards.”
“Cowards?”
A cold aura exploded from Zylas’s eyes.
“Why are you killing Empire citizens?”
I asked Zylas with a cold voice, staring at him.
His face was twisting in fury.
His voice grew lower.
“The Empire pointed the gun first, didn’t they?”
The group declared enemies of the Gilorian Empire were only monsters and heretics.
Monsters killed humans for no reason, but heretics were different.
Heretics had never fought the Empire.
How could a being suddenly thrown into the Gilorian Empire oppose the Empire?
They could only survive day by day.
Yet the Empire had branded heretics as extermination targets.
Without knowing the reason.
Simply because they were rejected by the Empire.
And they became targets for extermination like monsters.
Living every day in terror, hiding their true identity.
The heretics.
Zylas let out a heavy, unpleasant laugh, slowly raising his hand as if preparing the answer.
For an instant, the air around twisted, and his fingertips turned dark gray.
The more it intensified, the heavier the pressure on everyone’s bodies.
The nearby magicians and knights began to collapse under the sudden massive force pressing down on them.
“You bastards!”
The knight in agony roared and swung his sword, but…
Slight—
He was blocked by Zylas’s gray vortex and could only slash the air.
The knights stood frozen as if their bodies were pinned in the air.
The magicians had also reached their limit.
Their unique magic circles were slowly losing color and turning gray.
I quickly clenched and unclenched my fist.
Blue lightning swirled and gathered in my hand.
The moment the blue light rose…
The lightning that hadn’t even formed was helplessly pulled into the gray vortex.
“Prosecutor…”
The sight of it made fear flash across Piaget’s eyes.
A satisfied smile spread across Zylas’s lips.
“That was a mistake last time. I shouldn’t have left witnesses… thanks to that bastard.”
Zylas knew the moment we entered this place that we would lose.
He seemed to have accepted his crime willingly.
The magic stone video recording device on Piaget’s chest had been recording every moment.
The corpse that had surfaced in the fountain was also their doing.
They had poured pollution into the fountain.
They had also killed the Environment Minister they had bribed.
And now, they were trying to slaughter the Empire’s citizens of Clovan City.
“You won’t escape from here.”
Instantly, a massive gray vortex engulfed the space, unleashing even stronger gravity waves.
“Ugh. I can’t… breathe.”
A killing magic that compressed the air and crushed the body.
One by one, the knights and magicians began to fall under that power.
Boom—
Piaget’s magic stone video recording device shattered, and the mechanisms aimed at us exploded one after another.
Zylas’s subordinates were the same.
They tried to escape through space displacement, bursting red flashes everywhere, but something blocked them and slammed them to the floor.
“Everyone, evaporate.”
Zylas roared and raised his hand as if preparing his final magic.
At that moment.
Whoosh.
A green magic circle glowed and rose into the air.
The magician who had been searching for the sewer restraint device behind a comrade’s defense magic circle collapsed, finally turning off the sewer reverse device and falling flat on the spot.
The sound of flowing water fell silent.
He muttered faintly with a pale face.
“Sir Prosecutor… completed… it.”
The green light spreading from his magic circle was being absorbed into darkness by Zylas’s gray magic.
Looking around, all the comrades had already fallen unconscious.
“You bastards!!!”
Zylas shouted in anger.
His suit began to tear under the gray aura.
“Thank you for your hard work, magicians. Now I will finish it.”
I kept my gaze fixed on Zylas and clenched and unclenched my fist.
The lightning that had vanished through the gray magic earlier had been controlling its power.
It was a planned action I had expected him to underestimate.
“Lightning, huh…”
Before Zylas could mock freely, a single blue dot from my fingertips rose in front of him, extending like a thin thread into a lightning bolt.
A blue line carrying current stretched at high speed along the wall, ceiling, and floor.
The moment it discovered the enemy, it shot upward.
The instant the current touched their bodies, it pierced through like an iron wire and sliced their flesh.
“Ugh.”
The enemies pierced by lightning clung to the spot, enduring the current through their entire bodies.
Zylas, who had surrounded his body with gray magic, slowly retreated while staring at me with widened eyes.
And behind him, the red flashes were fading.
Thud—
Zylas’s subordinates collapsed, blackened.
“H-How…”
Zylas’s panicked voice trembled.
A faint gray aura flickered behind his back.
I looked at him and twisted my wrist.
“That’s it, Zylas.”
Blue current began wrapping from the fingertips up the arms and then the entire body.
The moment I spread my fingertips…
A strange name spilled from Zylas’s mouth.
He looked straight into my face and spoke heavily.
“Thomas Fanning.”
“…?”
“My name is Thomas Fanning. A former soldier of the US 62nd Battalion who was discharged, a peaceful rancher operating in the American South, waiting for the visit of his two granddaughters.”
Zylas revealed his true identity.