One hour until the incineration operation.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat—!
The rifles in the soldiers’ hands spat fire without pause. They had hastily erected a defensive line on the road, using a fallen utility pole as a makeshift barricade, and were pouring firepower into the approaching Foghowler horde.
But the Foghowlers were in no hurry. The humans were rats in a trap. A chorus of sneers rose from the monsters as they slowly tightened the noose.
“This way! No, that way! No-no, this way!” Status Window frantically waved his pudgy hands, barking out directions.
He was overwhelmed. The Foghowlers’ status windows popped up in every direction through the fog.
“What do we do desu?! It looks like every last one of them has crawled out of their den desu! There are too many desu!”
“Damn it…” Razor ground his teeth, glaring at Jae-hee. “Looks like this is the end of the line. Guess I should at least take you out before I go…”
“Oh, come on! Can you stop with the ‘kill Jae-hee first’ mentality for one second?”
Jae-hee focused on the arrow in his chest—his Stormroad. But in all the dense fog, it still couldn’t find a viable escape route.
Except…
He squinted. It wasn’t completely useless. Before the northern wall of fog, the arrow was spinning in circles right where the Realm Erosion-nullifying bomb had detonated moments before, unable to advance.
It was as if… it could break through if there were just a slightly bigger crack.
An idea hit him.
Jae-hee whipped his head around. “Sergeant Hwa!”
Even with an old woman on her back, Sergeant Hwa was firing at the monsters without a tremor.
“I’m listening,” she answered, swapping her magazine with slick precision.
“Your ability! You said it breaks through obstacles!”
“Yes. I mainly use it to get through thin barricades or locked doors.”
“Can you use it to break through this wall of fog?”
A flicker of bewilderment crossed Sergeant Hwa’s cat-like eyes. “It can’t be used that way. My ability only works on obstacles with a physical form.”
“Then just try using it that way. Isn’t this the first time you’ve faced an obstacle without a physical form?”
Jae-hee recalled Ghost’s teachings.
“Stormroad is your ability. Whether you leave it as a simple escape route or turn it into an offensive tool to find and exploit your enemy’s openings—that’s all up to you.”
“Focus your mind. Steer the direction of that trail. You are the master of your power. You can do it.”
It had been his own will, after all, that had transformed a power optimized for escape into a tool for a counterattack.
Maybe Sergeant Hwa’s power was the same.
“…Hah.” Sergeant Hwa took a deep breath, flipped her night-vision goggles up onto her helmet, and nodded. “Understood. We have to try everything we can.”
“Exactly!”
“Then, while I use my ability, I need you to hold the lin—”
Before Hwa could finish her sentence, two Foghowlers burst through a collapsed section of the defensive line.
The monsters were cunning; they knew exactly who the commander was.
“CPR in progress! CPR in progress!”
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…!”
“Argh?!”
Jae-hee shot forward and kicked the monsters under the chin, knocking them back, but they still managed to swing their claws in a final, desperate arc.
A beast’s claws ripped through Sergeant Hwa’s left leg.
“Gah—?!”
“Sergeant Hwa!”
The other squad members focused their fire and eliminated the two intruders, but Sergeant Hwa was already wounded. Blood streamed from her leg.
Gritting her teeth, she tied a tourniquet around her thigh and spat, “This is…nothing…”
“But—”
“More importantly, the line! Hunter, you have to hold it! Go!”
“Tch…!”
Foghowlers were pressing in from all sides.
Jae-hee dashed out again, kicking back the monsters that got too close. But he had already used up most of his stamina.
The defensive line shrank in an instant. Sergeant Hwa tried to force herself to her feet and return to the fight, but the pain was too severe.
“Hah, hah…ugh…” She gritted her teeth, collapsed on the ground.
“Mom.”
A whisper drifted over from the distance.
The Lord of the monsters was back.
The Phantom Tyrant.
“Mom!”
The old woman, who had fallen from Hwa’s back during the attack, suddenly regained consciousness.
“My baby…?”
“You know what I want, don’t you, Mom?” a young boy’s giggling voice whispered.
“…Of course. I know perfectly well.”
“Come here and die for me, quick!”
“Okay. Mommy’s coming…”
The old woman pushed herself up and staggered forward, one step at a time, toward the edge of the beleaguered defensive line.
Seeing her from behind, Sergeant Hwa roared, “I told you not to go, dammit!”
The usual courtesy in her voice was gone, stripped down to a raw, ragged yell.
“Why can’t you understand me?! That’s a monster! You’ll die!”
“…”
“We’re fighting this hard to save you! Why won’t you see that?! Just why?!”
The old woman stopped dead in her tracks.
Slowly, she began to speak. “He was a good boy.”
“What?”
“My son. He was too good for me, such a good child.”
She gazed up at the grotesque monster giggling in her son’s voice beyond the fog.
“I was an irresponsible mother. I just brought that good boy into the world, and the things I failed to do for him far outnumbered the things I did.”
“…”
“But he never complained, not once. Even with secondhand clothes, a secondhand bag, never a decent piece of meat on the table. He always smiled. Always thanked me.”
Her voice began to tremble.
“But then, when he started middle school… he asked for something for his birthday for the first time. The newest iPhone.”
“…”
“His old second-hand phone had broken… when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday… he said he wanted a new iPhone.”
Tears of blood streamed from the old woman’s eyes as she slowly turned to face Sergeant Hwa.
“And I… I was too cheap to spend that thousand bucks. Said cruel things to him.”
“…”
“I told him I couldn’t buy it. Yelled at him, saying a boy who knew our family’s situation shouldn’t make such demands… So he got angry, too, and ran out of the house crying.”
“…”
“And then… and then…”
Thirty years ago, on the night her son first ran away from home, the world’s first Gate had opened. His broken phone never received his mother’s calls.
The boy’s body was found in the ruins weeks later.
“A lousy thousand dollars… what was I saving it for…?”
The woman sobbed, her body wracked with spasms. “I never let him have a single new thing in his whole life… and because of that broken second-hand phone, he couldn’t even send me one last text before he died.”
“…”
“That damn iPhone… I should’ve bought him a dozen. He never asked for anything his whole life, and the one time he did, why was I so cold? How much must he have resented me…?”
The woman shrieked, “And now that same son is asking for this useless life of mine. Why can’t I give it to him?”
“…”
“Why can’t I die?!”
“Because I wanted my mother to live!” Sergeant Hwa screamed back.
The old woman stared, stunned, as Sergeant Hwa planted her trembling arms on the ground and forced herself upright.
“Because no matter how scary this world was, no matter how terrifying… I wanted her to tell me to live strong, not hand me a piece of charcoal to choke on.”
“…”
“If my dead mother really came back, if I ever got the chance to speak to her again, I’d tell her to fight tooth and nail to keep living. I’d tell her that even if it’s hell, we’d live through it together.”
Having pushed her torso up, Sergeant Hwa jabbed a finger toward the monster in the fog. “Do you really think that thing is your son?”
“…”
“Does that monster demanding your life really seem like your good-hearted boy?!”
The old woman wept. “Then why should I live? If I don’t even have my son asking me to die with him… then why…?”
Sergeant Hwa bit her lower lip. Her voice was exhausted, but it didn’t waver.
“I will… I’ll be the one. I’ll text you.”
The old woman’s face was a mask of shock.
“I’ll call you. Visit you. Talk with you. Not always… but I’ll be there for you sometimes.”
Gritting her teeth, Sergeant Hwa tried to stand on her ruined leg.
“Just… stay alive.”
“…”
“Don’t die like my mother did. Live with me…!”
She clenched her jaw, trying to stand, but the wound was too severe. A wave of blinding pain washed over her, her vision turning white. She couldn’t get up.
Just then, a hand reached out to her.
The old woman had quietly drawn near, offering a hand that trembled violently but did not pull back.
With her own blood-soaked hand, Sergeant Hwa grasped the wrinkled one, still damp from wiping away tears.
The two women stood supporting each other.
***
While their commander was incapacitated, the Foghowlers’ next target became Status Window, who was flailing his arms about and directing the soldiers’ fire.
“Aaaahhhh!”
Caught by a pack of Foghowlers, Status Window screamed as he was dragged away into the fog.
“Save me desu—!”
“Window…!”
Jae-hee rushed to save him, but the Foghowlers formed a wall with their bodies, and there was nothing he could do. His physical strength had clear limits, and his stamina was hitting rock bottom.
Status Window was gone.
All Jae-hee could do was gasp for breath as the soldiers, having exhausted their ammunition, saw their firepower drop exponentially.
“Damn it, I’m out of bone powder too…” grumbled Razor, the only one on the front line still dishing out his usual level of damage. “Used up all my emergency rings!”
He flicked his hand, and the bone rings on his fingers transformed into sharp awls, tearing into the Foghowlers.
“Earrings, necklace…shit, they’re taking it all.”
After unleashing the bone earrings and necklace, his reserves were truly gone.
“Take it all, you sons of bitches! Bleed me dry!”
Transforming his fingernails into blades, Razor slit the throat of a Foghowler that got too close.
But in doing so, he failed to notice the shadow looming over him.
“Huh?”
The monster Lord—the Phantom Tyrant—had lowered its long neck and was staring down at him, its massive mouth gaping wide.
“Babe.”
Miss Hellth’s voice poured from its open maw.
“Let’s die together.”
A cold sweat broke out on Razor’s brow. “You motherf—”
The Phantom Tyrant’s long fangs crunched down violently.
Razor’s blood splattered in all directions.
“Aaaargh! Aaaargh!”
Razor writhed in agony, his shoulder and chest caught in the Tyrant’s maw.
“My cute little babe. You were so lonely, weren’t you?”
The Phantom Tyrant slowly lifted him. Razor dangled helplessly in the air like a doll caught in a crane machine.
“C’mere. Just give up and let go. Let’s enjoy being dead together.”
Coughing up blood, Razor let out a weak, gurgling laugh. “Fuckin’ monster… If you’re gonna imitate someone, at least do it right.”
“…?”
“That dumbass, Miss Hellth.”
A faint, wistful light flickered in Razor’s narrow eyes.
“She was the kind of woman who only spewed dreamy nonsense that would never come true… Talking about marriage after getting out of prison, buying a new house, how many kids we should have…”
Anger began to smolder in his voice. “She had no sense of money, lived purely on impulse, like a moron who acted without thinking of consequences…!”
Tears welled in his eyes as he recalled his dead lover. “But she never once said weak-willed shit like ‘let’s give up’ or ‘I want to die’…!”
Razor squeezed his eyes shut, then snapped them open, roaring with fiery rage.
“Don’t you dare insult the woman I loved, you piss rotten monster filth—!”
His outstretched hands gripped the monster Lord’s sabertooth. A sharp crack split through the ivory.
Razor, a C-Rank Awakened, could turn bone into weapons—and the Phantom Tyrant’s massive fang was bone, no question.
“Aaaahhhhhh—?!”
The Phantom Tyrant let out a long scream in Miss Hellth’s voice.
“Told you to get your cavities filled on time, babe…!” Razor snarled, grinning.
One of the Phantom Tyrant’s saberteeth was ripped clean out with a sickening squelch and a spray of gore, simultaneously transforming into a long blade.
The monster threw its mouth open, writhing in agony. Razor plummeted.
Mid-fall through fading vision, he spotted Jae-hee catching his breath on the ground.
Razor hesitated for a moment. The rat who finished off his girlfriend, or the monster filth that mocked her memory.
Which one did he want dead more?
“Oi, Jae-hee Han!” Razor didn’t hesitate for long. “Take this, you son of a bitch—!”
He squeezed out every last ounce of his remaining strength and tossed the bone blade.
The pure white blade whistled as it spun through the air, landing in Jae-hee's hand with a solid thwack.
He couldn’t tell if Razor had meant to strike him or had passed the weapon on, too weak to fight.
But one thing was certain.
The blade fit in his hand as if tailor-made.