"Damn it…"
I don't even have time to curse. This is insane!
Right now I'm in the main hall on the 14th floor—and the onslaught shows no sign of stopping…
"They're on the 14th floor! Fall in, fall in!"
"That's mine!!"
"I told you I'm not interested in men!!!"
[Whirlwind—Sword Wheel]
Ironworks Guild members advanced in force down the stairs.
"Haha! Drop dead—!!!"
…? From the railing!
[External Wind—Bull Gale]
U..ah?!! Whaaaaaa!!!
Suddenly, from the railing…
"Seriously, step aside!"
"Now!"
"Damn it! From the side?"
[Forward Kill-Bandit Stance]
"You parried that?!"
"That monster is insane!"
"I know you're fucking bastards! Drop dead!"
They kept flanking me, emerging from the restroom corridor and closing in.
"Watch out! The opponent is an Arts user!"
"Don't engage one by one; charge in formation!!"
Fuck, there's no end to this!
Before I knew it, I was surrounded: Guild members in front of me and behind me.
Their unit cohesion is top-tier, and even moving as a group, they're fast.
"Drop dead!!"
Behind!
I drove my blade into the jaw of the thug charging from behind, then instead of pulling it out, I swung it upward, cleaving him in half, then immediately delivered a vertical slash downward to take down another.
"Fire! Fire!"
[Breeze—Cloud Crossing]
I can dodge four arrows… I have to deal with the rest.
I didn't need to slice every razor-sharp arrow aimed at my head, arm, and thigh. With Cloud Crossing, I subtly shifted their trajectories: the one aimed at my head barely brushed my hair, I severed the arm shot at me, and as a blade targeted my thigh, I twisted and snapped its shaft in my hand.
"There's an opening! Aim!!"
"Ugh!! You fucking bastard!!!"
A dull thud against my back lifted me off my feet—I must've been struck by an iron pipe. The agony threw off my breathing and…
Guhk!!
A straight punch slammed into my face, sending me reeling backward. A barrage of heavy blows rattled my skull. Warm fluid gushed from my nose—blood suffocated my breathing.
First, I need to retreat. I can't hold these numbers here.
I knew using Breeze—Tailwind now would burden my body, but my overheated muscles were in so much pain I wouldn't even notice it.
[Breeze—Tailwind]
Using the knockback that sent me against the railing, I gripped my staff, spun a full circle, and glided down toward the lobby on the first floor.
Gather… gather the strength… the rage to break through this fucked-up situation…
"Yang Tae! He's falling over there!!"
"Hand me the axe."
Yang Tae grabbed the axe as if it were a sniper bullet and hurled it without hesitation.
"Waaaaah!!! Ugh..! [Rhino Horn Clash Stance]!"
"Get back, everyone!"
"If you'd stayed put, you'd have been sliced..!"
"Are you fucking kidding? Your slash reaches all the way here?!!"
"Stay alert and chase—there's no time to let our guard down!"
"Ten million Yongmun coins are right before us! Everyone, pursue!!"
Who is that? Who drove an axe into my shoulder? It hurts! Damn, it fucking hurts!! As for my attack—what happened to my attack? Damn, it faltered! It was unstable in midair from the start…!
My wind won't last much longer either. I'm at my limit!
Ugh... hngh...
This is… the 8th floor? Did I drop six floors in between? This is insane.
Gah... ugh...
A one-handed axe lodged deep in my shoulder. I'm really starting to hate axes now.
The wind won't come… at this rate…
Without the wind acting as a cooler, the strain on my body will come crashing down soon. In fact, it's already starting.
I need to take cover first…
"It's close by! Surely…"
"There—over there!"
"This is fucking insane!!!!"
[Whirlwind—Death Wheel]
In desperation, I yanked the axe from my shoulder, summoning my last strength to hurl it. It should spin at least twice.
Blood spurted. The bleeding around my shoulder was extensive. My body grew cold…
"Hey, help me."
......
"Please, just let me live."
......
No answer? That's one hell of an asshole…
Haa.. haa.. What on earth..
Ding!
"So you've been here."
"Ha... haha... An elevator? What a way to make an entrance..."
Woosh.
Uugh.. krrghhhaa!!!
"If you talk again, I'll impale your right hand too."
Blood trickled from my left hand now as well. A knife had pierced it.
"If you come quietly with me, I won't beat you further."
"What the hell... does that 'big brother' think he can... do to me...?"
It's more obvious than a flame. He'll toy with me until he's bored, then kill me. Very cruelly. In ways I can't even imagine.
Whatever. Now that my acceleration's maxed... let's kill and die without holding back.
My body burned with heat and grew cold from the blood draining out. And I knew by instinct—this was my end.
[Hidden Tiger in the Forest Stance]
With its extreme acceleration, Hidden Tiger in the Forest Stance exhibited a charging velocity along a different trajectory. Like a tiger ascending its mountain, the legs extended straight to deliver the acceleration into someone's waist, and...
Skarg!!
It felt like my waist was split in two. But I couldn't stop. I immediately parried the next sword!
[Grass-Clearing Snake-Search Stance]
"I'll stop it—"
"There's no stopping this slash by blocking. Goodbye."
The yellow-tinged slash seeped through my blade as though turning into a serpent among the underbrush, then flowed onto the temple of the enemy beyond my sword, shearing off roughly half of his head.
After that, I don't recall much. Before I knew it, I was surrounded again—struck from behind, slashed, stabbed, impaled, and stabbed again. By the time the amount of blood on the floor could have painted a picture, at last, I was spent.
"Just die already!!"
Aagh!!
My leg! Something slashed my leg! Deeply! Losing my center, I collapsed. Then an indiscriminate barrage of violence—wielded by someone I couldn't even identify—rained down.
"Die, die!!!"
"Please just die!!!!!"
"Keep stabbing! Make sure I'm not coming out of this alive!"
A bludgeon crashed into my head. A dagger-like blade was thrust into who-knows-where, gutting my organs. Bones shattered, flesh was crushed and severed. In that onslaught of violence, my body no longer registered pain. Unable to resist, I lay on the floor like a worm, struggling only to spit out the water filling my lungs.
"...You're still alive after all that."
"Damn... he's stubborn as hell."
"The body's too heavy, so just take his neck."
And finally, as someone dragged a blade across my throat.
I died. Yet I awoke.
A few days later, in the interrogation room of Yongmun, several members of the Guard State were wracking their brains over a single man.
That day. Despite every effort to extract the truth of that unprecedented incident in Yongmun from the former Ironworks Guild thug who survived, he wouldn't speak. Well, he opened his mouth—but only to repeat words no one could understand.
"I'm going to die... I'm going to die, that creature saw me, I'm going to die... it'll rip me apart and suck me down. I'm going to die, no doubt about it, I'm going to die..."
"Haah... exactly who are you saying will kill you?"
"Revenant!! The ghost who returned from death will kill us all!! Hehehe!! He'll kill us all!! Us!! Ripping us apart alive!!!!"
I thought 'revenant' might refer to the Oni clan, but no Oni were even found in the building—alive or dead—and the only person we might call a revenant, Baekhyun, was someone none of us had ever encountered.
"Revenant, huh... could there have been another person at the scene?"
"I doubt it. In that sealed building, with Guard State troops laid out everywhere at the scene, do you really think he could have escaped?"
"That's... not likely."
So who, exactly, is this 'revenant'?
"Sigh. Seems I'll have to write a debrief report..."
"Hehe, revenant... the revenant will kill us all... black hair, white hair... black eyes, white eyes... hehe..! A monster, a fiend from hell!! Ha! Ha!!! Hahaha!!!"