Chapter 124: Along with Gods and Buddhas

[Translator – Aren]

Beneath the blaring sirens and fire alarms, my sense of reality was slowly slipping away.

The soldiers’ voices, screaming as if they intended to tear their vocal chords apart, were being drowned out by the ringing in my ears, while the melody of celestial bodies wearing themselves away as they sang still echoed in my head.

But even that couldn’t compare to the shock of what Major Shin Hangi had just shouted.

The nuke was stolen? How?

The answer was on the monitor Major Shin Hangi was watching and the countless other LCD screens around it.

The displays were filled with images of varying resolutions sent by military reconnaissance satellites and various observation and detection systems, along with reports being analyzed in real time and hurriedly uploaded.

Each one was detailed enough to require classified clearance just to view.

Most of it was in English, so there wasn’t a single report I could read, but I could make out two people in one of the fairly high-resolution images.

There were two people on the screen.

One wore a tracksuit, sneakers, and padded jacket with the collar pulled up to cover the lower half of his face. The bastard dragging a bloodstained piece of rebar along in his left hand was holding the damaged warhead in one hand.

Sports Rebar.

I’d wondered what he’d been doing while all the other officers were getting killed. Apparently he’d been put in charge of moving the nuclear warhead.

There was another man standing motionless beside him.

A gas mask and baseball cap. A coat covered in bizarre writing drawn in blood. Dress shoes that looked like they would click when one took a step. Prayer beads wrapped around his right arm and a strange book held in his left hand.

"Gangnam Ahjussi.”

Go Ryeoha’s face turned slightly pale.

Well, she had been the leader of the Konkuk University survivors, so she’d probably either met him before or at least heard what he looked like.

But just as we tried to look more closely, Major Shin Hangi’s walkie-talkie blared with a shrill signal.

-Birireeep—.

He immediately pulled out the walkie-talkie and spoke.

"Communicaiton secure. Major Shin Hangi, Seongnam City Hall Command Point.”

[This is the Seongnam military hospital. Colonel Im Junggi speaking. Major Shin, another one’s coming. Get Aphorism…get every last one of them out of there!]

"Colonel Im, if we pull Aphorism out of here, our people…”

Major Shin Hangi abruptly stopped in the middle of his plea.

The other soldiers in the Command and Control Room did the same, as did the three of us Supreme Archmages, who had been swallowing hard as we studied Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ appearance. As if we’d all planned it beforehand, everyone shut their mouths and stared at Major Shin Hangi, or more precisely, at the walkie-talkie in his hand.

"Communication status poor. Repeat transmission.”

[Major Shin, I know it sounds insane. We just got word of it too. They’re sending another tactical nuke.]

"..."

[If you can run, run. But get the Aphorism guys out first. Orders should be coming your way soon.]

"What happens until we get them out?”

[Major Shin, don’t make me say it…]

Naive people with flowers growing in their heads would probably assume everyone was evacuating together.

But anyone who had been fighting at the blockade line immediately understood what that meant. This was the government that had said it would abandon 10 million people in Seoul to save the remaining 40 million and the military that succeeded it.

This was the military that had factored 2 tactical nuclear strikes into its calculation from the very beginning just to deal with a Stage 4 or higher wizard.

Of course they needed bait to keep him pinned down.

Major Shin Hangi couldn’t answer right away. He clenched the walkie-talkie tightly, pressed it hard against his forehead, and let out a low, throbbing groan.

The three of us Supreme Archmages didn’t dare say a word.

The soldiers’ gazes directed at us were far too heavy and frightening.

Resentment, resignation, despair.

Idealistic people always said that every life had equal value.

They went on about how every life is precious, and therefore every life must be saved.

But once the beautiful dream of modern society was stripped away, all that remained was the cold logic of survival.

An organization only struggles to save those who are more useful to it.

Wizards and non-wizards…

Only the stupid and ignorant would still believe non-wizards could defeat wizards. They would probably think non-wizards still held the advantage.

This was reality.

Even a military made up of non-wizards had decided to sacrifice several hundred Korean and US troops stationed at the Seongnam City Hall Command Point in order to save the three of us Supreme Archmages.

Lives no longer carried equal weight.

In an age where even hypocrisy had vanished, all that remained was the cruelty of nature that humanity had desperately tried to ignore.

I could feel that truth in this very moment through Major Shin Hangi, who was breathing hard and letting out low, boiling groans.

A short while later.

With slightly reddened eyes and a hoarse voice, Major Shin Hangi picked out a staff sergeant who had been standing there rigidly. He was the youngest-looking man there, with the frailest appearance.

"Staff Sergeant Yang."

"Y-yes, sir.”

"Requisition a truck, take a driver, and act as vehicle commander. Take Aphorism to the military hospital, and don’t come back. I’ll give you the documents, so take them with you and save whatever time you can.”

Staff Sergeant Yang made an expression so very painfully human.

The corners of his mouth visibly twitched with joy and relief of knowing he would live. A faint trace of guilt showed in his darting eyes, but the instinctive relief of surviving for now seemed to far outweigh it.

The moment Staff Sergeant Yang received the reports Major Shin Hangi had printed, he kept nodding, gathered them into his arms, and gestured for us to follow him.

In this atmosphere even gloomier than a funeral hall, Go Ryeoha and Lee Sejun followed Staff Sergeant Yang in solemn silence.

I lagged behind a little because I just kept looking back at Major Shin Hangi as I walked. I didn’t know why. I’d barely even met him, but maybe because I’d known him since the early days of this crisis, I’d grown strangely attached to him.

However, with life and death at stake, I couldn’t linger for long.

There could be no crueler mockery than someone destined to live remaining among those destined to die.

When I finally turned away, the last thing I saw was Major Shin Hangi standing motionless with his eyes gently closed, the walkie-talkie pressed against his forehead. His body slowly swayed back and forth.

A chilling thought rose in my mind at the sight.

When a person realized they couldn’t survive, they swayed like a hollow reed.

And so the three of us Supreme Archmages followed Staff Sergeant Yang toward the parking lot.

The soldiers stationed there apparently still hadn't grasped the situation. Some stood numbly staring north, while others slowly lowered their weapons, dropped to their knees, and prayed.

The US troops stationed at the Seongnam City Hall Command Point looked just as devastated.

Captain Reyes, who had been inspecting equipment in the field, hurled away his helmet and started cursing, while several others sank to the ground and lit cigarette butts with trembling hands.

The vehicles were already surrounded by people trying to come up with any excuse they could to get aboard.

The only thing stopping them from rushing the vehicles was the soldiers wearing dog-tag armbands, who were guarding them with their rifles. Unlike when dealing with civilians, they didn’t immediately pull the trigger, though. At least that much showed their strong sense of camaraderie.

Officers, enlisted soldiers, civilians… It didn’t matter. They were all practically dropping to their knees in front of them, pleading and praying, or trying to intimidate them.

"I-I have family at the military hospital. I need to go there!”

"Hey, you, do you know what kind of relationship I have with Colonel Im? You gonna take responsibility if you stop me?!”

"You said you’d save us. You said you’d save uuus!”

Only Staff Sergeant Yang and the three of us could make our way through them.

Just as they were about to point their guns at us too, Major Shin Hangi’s orders came through the walkie-talkies tucked into the chest pockets of the military police guarding the vehicles.

-Beeeeep—

[Commander’s orders. Aphorism is to withdraw. All remaining personnel, hold your current positions. Over.]

The moment they heard that, the military police lowered their weapons.

-Clack.

Beyond the lenses of their gas masks, I could see the military policemen’s resolute eyes.

Their gazes held a resignation that said they had expected nothing else. Under the military police’s protection, Staff Sergeant Yang and the three of us Supreme Archmages were able to climb into the van. Just before we closed the door, one of the military police men spoke in a faint voice.

"Giwan was my friend. Thank you.”

-Clunk.

When I shut the door and looked toward the front seats, there was no driver. As though even the time it would take to wait for one was too precious, Staff Sergeant Yang moved into the driver’s seat himself and handed the documents back to us.

All while rubbing at the corners of his mouth and cheekbones, which kept twitching upward.

"Getting you, Aphorism, out takes priority, so I’m flooring it. You guys read those!”

Before anyone could stop him, Staff Sergeant Yang grabbed the wheel, stepped on the gas, and kept checking the side mirrors the whole time.

As the vehicle slid away, the cries of those left behind at the City Hall grew even louder. At that moment, another chilling series of beep sounds came from our authorized phones.

-Beep—Beep—Beep—

I looked at Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha, but both of them were panicking.

"My country, that was supposed to accept me the day I’d be all soft and fluffy…”

Lee Sejun was shaken enough to voice his filthy inner thoughts out loud.

"Gangnam Ahjussi got that strong? Did the 66 Society really support him that much?”

Go Ryeoha was curled up and trembling as if she were freezing.

There was no one I could rely on except myself.

With no other choice, I took out my phone and looked at the screen. Along with the current time, a terrifying emergency alert stared back at me.

May 22nd, 2028, 1:32 PM.

+SECOND NUCLEAR STRIKE IN NORTHERN SEONGNAM, GYEONGGI PROVINCE.+

+TURN AWAY. DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT IT.+

Ah.

That was the only thought rushing through my mind at first.

It wasn’t even really a thought. Just a final gasp.

Then, because reality had become so utterly absurd and distant, a stupid thought crossed my mind.

I hoped there would come a day when I could brag about having experienced this.

If I ever get to brag at a drinking party that I’d been somewhere two nukes were dropped on, everyone would probably lose their minds.

Though I’d never actually been invited to a drinking party in my life…

If I told people I’d survived a hell where two nukes fell, monsters ran rampant, and insane wizards came charging at me, someone would probably buy me a free meal just to hear the story firsthand.

Just imagining all the attention I’d get made a smile slip out.

That was when my phone screen changed.

Fanatic Zealot Warrior.

It was the pastor’s contact information.

I was impressed that the authorized phone’s cell tower somehow hadn’t been blown up yet and answered.

The pastor immediately asked in a booming voice filled with genuine concern.

[Jemin? You’re getting out of there, right?!]

"Huh, yeah…”

[Baek Jemin! Get your head on straight. Things are going crazy over here too, but…anyway, you need to pull yourself together! That’s how you survive!]

"Pastor. You should pull yourself together first.”

[You little punk, two nukes are dropping, and everything’s gone to hell! How the hell am I supposed to pull myself together?!!!]

Pastor Park Yohan made such a huge fuss that it actually cleared my head instead.

My sense of reality, which had been drifting farther and farther away, began to return.

As soon as I clearly grasped the fact that I was living in a world where two nukes were being dropped to kill a single person, a chilling realization and intuition came rushing in. There was something every bastard in the Gangnam group had said again and again.

That someday, when they finally overcame those precious shells and bullets everyone was so proud of, they would shove the remaining 40 million Koreans, and eventually all of humanity, into the heads of Mimics.

Ski Goggles had said it. So had the Yellow-Bandage Straggler.

Back then, I’d assumed it was just figurative speech meant to express their desire for revenge.

My first thought had been, ‘Aren’t these fuckers still finished the moment someone fires a nuke at them?’ And honestly, until now, that had been the most obvious conclusion one could come to.

But now they had stopped a nuke.

-Clunk.

The van bounced once we drove over a small artillery crater.

At the same time, clues I had previously brushed aside or ignored suddenly lit up like white-hot light bulbs.

-As if dodging artillery shells…

-Ears-branch magic symbolizes humanity’s fate and detection.

-Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes appearing near the nuclear warhead.

And the clue that tied all of those together came from the pastor.

[Baek Jemin, listen carefully. If Lee Sejin and Go Ryeoha-ssi are beside you, have them listen too. Every decently capable wizard already noticed what Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes did. They all heard it. Everyone’s scrambling to get out of Seongnam. We’re keeping Islam detained because he tried to run too. At least Pyeongtaek’s been talking it over with the occult advisory council, and they’ve come up with one possibility!]

"If I’d been there, Hamza would’ve been class-changed into a holy relic right then.”

That Hamza bastard dumped the Shitblings on me, and now that Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes had shown up, he was trying to run again?

If anything, that reassured me.

I was running too after all.

While I felt satisfied with the proof that Hamza’s judgment was still working properly, the pastor snapped in exasperation.

[That’s what you’re worried about right now?! The Music of the Spheres! It’s the Music of the Spheres!]

"What’s that?”

[You little… Did you seriously forget after learning about it?!]

-Clunk.

Staff Sergeant Yang turned the wheel hard enough to send all of us lurching sideways.

Lee Sejun slammed into the door, I banged my shoulder against the door panel, and only Go Ryeoha stayed put, apparently bracing herself against the window with Telekinesis. I’m definitely learning Hands-branch, Stage 3 someday. Damnit.

While I made that vow, the pastor quickly and efficiently summarized his point.

[Among the ancient heretics, there was this guy named Pythagoras who believed the planets made music too. Put simply, it was regarded as one way to observe the Creator’s order. This Alteration-type magic system may not follow traditional occultism exactly, but there’s still room to interpret it that way…]

"That wasn’t simple at all."

[Baek Jemin, this is already the condensed version. Listen! They connected oracles and astrology to the Music of the Spheres. Humans have believed in fate since ancient times, and they believed that fate was ordained by God. That’s why it’s the ears. It’s passive. The movements of the celestial bodies represent the order of the universe, and there was this idea that those movements were music. That’s what it’s connected to. The Music of the Spheres. And humans can't decide their own fate. They have to listen to the fate God has ordained for them!]

I more or less understood.

Actually, I didn’t understand at all, but for the sake of my pride as a Great Archmage, I decided to pretend I did.

At least I understood that Ears-branch magic had been designed to hear fate, so that was enough.

Thanks to the pastor making such a huge fuss, I had become extremely calm, and I pointed out the most important contradiction.

"But Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes is doing all kinds of insane shit.”

[That’s why it’s blasphemous. Wizards are gods, and non-wizards are humans! Can you make sense of it now?!]

I blinked.

The reason I was slow to process the information was that far too much was happening right now.

Outside the van windows, soldiers crawling into defensive positions were mixed together with civilians running frantically through the streets.

Soldiers wearing jingling dog-tag armbands advanced with rifles in hand, while elderly people and women in stained clothes who had rushed out of their homes stumbled over the broken roads as they fled. Some of them didn’t even have shoes on.

Tanks rolled their tracks over collapsed chunks of concrete, and at an artillery position in the distance, I could see soldiers gesturing vigorously as heavy cannon fire made the windows tremble.

Staff Sergeant Yang was still completely absorbed in gripping the wheel and slamming his foot on the accelerator.

Lee Sejun rubbed the head he’d bumped while scrunching up his entire face to listen to occult talk he had no interest in. Go Ryeoha looked busy sorting out her thoughts, opening and closing her lips like a carp. It was around then that the pastor’s voice came through clearly and vividly.

[Baek Jemin, all the other Ears-branch wizards are panicking right now. Shin Nain tried using Mind Reading, went crazy, and got caught in a compulsion. Command has made a decision too. They’re moving the corpse of that monster you named the Human-skin Tapeworm to the military hospital. You can learn Eyes-branch, Stage 4 this time, right? No, you have to!]

"What?"

My senses, which had been fading in and out, suddenly focused completely.

"Shin Nain was already crazy to begin with. More importantly, they can transport the Human-skin Tapeworm’s corpse?”

[He got even crazier! And I’m telling you, they have to!!! Baek Jemin, I’m not saying this for no reason. I think Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes pulled something. That bastard’s an attention whore too, so another transmission will come. When it does, use that 100% Ears-branch magic of yours and see if you can eavesdrop on him or something. We need to figure out anything we can…]

Then the call cut off amid swelling static.

There was nothing wrong with my authorized phone.

I knew that for sure because everyone else’s phones started spewing static at the exact same time.

The crackling noise grew so intense that it drowned out the rumble of the van and even the screams outside before eventually producing a familiar voice.

[Once.]

Without hesitation, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Ears-branch, Stage 1. 100%

[You may now beg us to spare you only once.]

I was going to uncover every weakness this freeloading bastard has while he fought by dumping his backlash onto other people.

With that resolve, I opened my ears wide.

Suddenly, everything in front of me went black.

Well, I guess he’d prepared some kind of countermeasure against Ears-branch magic.

But that wouldn’t be enough to stop the efforts of a Great Archmage of 5 branches like me.

A pathetic attempt.

A sneer escaped me at such third-rate behavior, befitting someone who couldn’t fully accept and endure his own pain.

Then something surged up and began spreading from the center of my chest.

Cold and sharp as frost.

Hot and fierce as flame.

Along with pain like my heart was being squeezed, I heard a voice I never expected.

'Seohye’s Dad¹. Do you really have to?’

My cursed imagination spread its wings on its own.

All I’d heard was a voice inside my head, yet I felt as if someone had placed a warm, gentle hand on my shoulder.

'Can’t we just run away together? We can take Mother and Father with us. Oppa, I feel like this is going to get dangerous for you.'

A terrible regret came raging through one corner of my mind.

That was what I should have done.

We should have run away, even if it was only us.

But contrary to those thoughts, the man in the warm, luxurious room beginning to flicker before my eyes said something else.

-You know, don’t you? Everything we enjoy is thanks to other people’s help and recognition.

'Oppa.'

-Some of it may have come from my background and my own effort, but getting to this position also required other people to recognize me. I have a duty to live up to the trust and expectations they placed in me. And because I’m grateful for everything I’ve been given, I need to stand tall.

My fractured mind screamed.

The will of someone who wasn’t me cursed itself and howled.

No.

-No one deserves to be killed unjustly.

They can die.

-I…want to be able to face our child and our family with my head held high. Not because I had connections or came from a powerful family, but because I made the right choice.

It was the wrong choice!

A voice that wasn’t mine raged through my head.

My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see what was actually in front of me, and all five of my senses were swallowed by hallucinations. My mind stabbed into itself like shards of broken glass, and sharp pain pricked through my head as tears suddenly poured from my eyes.

After I burst into tears, I found myself surrounded by pale fog.

Only gunshots rang out through the tears that wouldn’t stop.

At some point, I was crawling on all fours behind the wheel of a vehicle that had crashed into a utility pole, screaming desperately.

"Stop!"

That wasn’t my voice.

I had never screamed with such grief in my life.

When I saw the wrinkled arm hanging limp and mangled beneath the wide-open door, tears poured down my face again. Mother.

The moment that word surfaced, the version of me writhing in the fog spoke on its own, as if the words were being squeezed out of me.

"I’ll go back into the fog, so stop…Please stop shooting!”

At first, it seemed like they had heard me.

The gunfire pouring in from beyond the fog died down.

That was when I heard a faint voice.

I could make it out because I was desperately straining my ears through the tears.

-Squad leader, I think they’re human…

Beyond the fog, I saw a woman who had crawled behind an already half-destroyed vehicle and was gasping for breath with a child clutched in her arms.

Her eyes were filled with terror as she squeezed the child tight, afraid they might burst into tears. That look stayed vividly engraved in my memory.

-No.

The moment that firm answer came back, the woman started crying.

-If we let even one monster pretending to be human get away, people will die en mass. No. Better to shoot a human instead.

The death sentence came in a single word.

-Shoot.

"I’ll go back into the fog…Please…”

Reality was even crueler.

The moment the soldiers realized she was hiding behind the vehicle and pulled their triggers, the 5.56mm rounds punched straight through it. The woman, curled around the child, died instantly.

As a fountain of blood sprayed into the mist and everyone collapsed dead, only the sound of breathing through gas masks echoed.

-Huuff—.

A hot shell casing rolled across the ground.

That was when the woman’s arms went slack and the child she had been holding began coughing and squirming. Alive. There wasn’t even time to feel relief or joy at that fact.

-Clack.

The sound of metal locking into place.

I writhed like an insect through the blood running down my mother’s wrinkled arm, terrified that the muzzle might turn toward me next, yet still opened my mouth to save the child who was coughing and struggling to breathe.

"I’ll go back into the fog.”

-Huuff, huuff—.

The breathing through gas masks grew even harsher.

Because I was pressed against the ground and writhing there, I could see through the gap beneath the vehicle.

Combat boots approaching with heavy steps.

The child coughing and struggling to break free from their mother’s tight embrace.

The boots stopped, without fail, in front of the squirming child.

Half-drowning in blood and struggling, all I could do was shout.

Even knowing they wouldn’t listen, I forced the words out through my sobs.

"Stop shooting…”

The trigger was pulled.

The gunfire didn’t end with a single shot.

As the child was torn apart, a scream burst forth, cutting apart my vocal chords.

Only then did I realize that every last hope was gone, and I clung to the wrinkled arm and sobbed.

In front of the bodies of my wife and child being shredded beneath the flashes of gunfire, I held my mother’s crushed corpse and wept.

Then I dragged her body away and threw it aside.

I had to survive.

While the soldiers who had noticed my mother’s corpse turned their guns toward it, I threw myself into the fog. I was safe inside the thick, dense fog. My survival instinct was too strong for me to fully feel the guilt of using my mother’s corpse as bait and surviving because of it.

I should’ve flinched every time gunfire rang out behind me, and I screamed in pain whenever a bullet tore through my body, but by then those screams were already inside the fog.

As all those hallucinations began to fade, I heard a faint familiar voice.

'Why did you survive?'

It was the resentment of someone who had faced the cruelty of the blockade line.

'My entire family died because I chose to help other people.’

An age where the human will to survive had come back as a hideous sin.

'Why are you still alive and breathing?'

I understood.

Being forced to relive the most horrific memory you regretted more desperately than anything else.

Being trapped in that memory with all five senses intact, screaming helplessly through it.

This…This…

This was the backlash of Ears-branch, Stage 4, Causal Arrangement.

"Bleeeeeegh….”

When I finally came to my senses, I was leaning my head against the front seat, dry-heaving.

Good thing I hadn’t eaten anything.

All I brought up was stomach acid, so this time it wasn’t just tears, snot, and drool.

I didn’t have a wife or children, so I couldn't relate to that part, but the emotion I’d felt the moment I saw that limp, wrinkled arm swaying was still inside me.

Mom.

If my mom had been murdered like that…

"Jemin-ssi, Jemin-ssi! Why are you suddenly crying?!”

"Mom…Mom!”

"Ugh! Don’t wipe your snot on someone else’s clothes!”

So was I supposed to wipe in on my own clothes then?

After I’d cried out all my tears, I finally managed to calm down. And I became certain of one thing. This backlash was impossible for one person to endure alone. Now I understood why he kept passing it onto disciples.

The price of Ears-branch magic was mental anguish.

If Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes experienced this hallucination every time he used magic, then whenever he paid the price, he had to be wailing. He’d be sobbing his eyes out, writhing on the floor and flailing his arms and legs toward the family he had already lost.

And he would never forget.

He could never forget his desire for revenge. Forgiveness, my ass.

Negotiation was impossible.

This bastard didn’t even care where the president was to begin with.

If every time he used magic he was forced to feel that desire to slaughter everyone all over again, he wouldn't even want to distinguish the innocent from the guilty!

Before Lee Sejun could start whining about the snot, I spoke first.

What I’d learned was that important. 

"Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes is fucking insane. Everything that bastard says is bullshit. He just wants to kill everyone. It’s revenge.”

"Jemin-ssi, did you figure something out?”

"The backlash. That bastard…gets trapped in the memory of his family dying. No matter how much he passes the backlash onto others, if he actively uses magic, he’ll still be incapacitated for a while.”

If he didn’t, he had already stopped being human.

When I explained the backlash of Ears-branch, Stage 4, both Go Ryeoha and Lee Sejun grimaced in displeasure. Go Ryeoha in particular kept darting her eyes around, openly showing her anxiety.

She was curled up with her thumb caught between her lips, almost like she was sucking on it.

"With great power comes a great price… If you use the power to change fate, maybe you have to helplessly relive the moment when you cursed fate more than anything.”

"Oh. That does sound quite occult and plausible.”

It was a suitably plausible take from someone descended from shamans.

Either way, Ears-branch, Stage 4, Causal Arrangement had a backlash every bit as monstrous as its power. You had to relive, with all your senses, the moment in your entire life when you cursed fate the most. The memory when you were at your most helpless and miserable?

Yeah, never gonna use that.

Even this Great Archmage Baek Jemin had suffered his fair share of hardship in life, so Ears-branch, Stage 4 was one thing I absolutely never wanted to use.

At the same time, I understood why the Ears-branch wizard Shin Nain had gone berserk like a madman.

Even I, who has all 5 branches, a pentagram engraved on my heart, and one branch at Stage 3, had felt like I was going inside. This wasn’t the kind of mental anguish some ordinary scrub like Shin Nain could endure. The moment I voiced my thoughts, Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha immediately shot back.

"Isn’t it because you’ve never had a girlfriend?”

"You don’t have any children either, Hubae-nim.”

Fuck.

Everyone was so wound up that they didn’t care how vicious their words were.

Then the vehicle suddenly stopped.

-Screeeeeeech!

With a terrible screeching sound, Staff Sergeant Yang started wrenching the steering wheel back and forth like a madman.

Our bodies lurched and slammed around, but since all of us were Heart-branch wizards, we could withstand it to some extent. It still hurt like hell, though.

I was just catching my breath and about to curse out Staff Sergeant Yang about his driving when…

"I-It won’t start. Everyone, get out for now. I-I’m going first!”

Staff Sergeant Yang was the first to unbuckle his seat belt, throw open the door, and jump out.

Clicking my tongue at his incredible sense of responsibility, I opened the door and got out. The sight outside was a complete mess.

Military vehicles and requisitioned civilian vehicles had crashed into one another in the middle of the road and piled up in several layers.

This had to be at least a 5-car pileup.

Meanwhile, after getting out and moving to the driver’s seat, Lee Sejun fiddled with the steering wheel a few times, looking puzzled.

"I thought Staff Sergeant Yang was just a bad driver, but it really won’t start.”

"Huh? Sejun-ssi, what’s it doing?”

"The key turns, and it makes some noise, but…”

Go Ryoeha, the engineering student, and Lee Sejun, the former NCO, headed over to the driver’s seat together, so I thought nothing of it.

That was until both of them looked up at me.

"What?”

"Hubae-nim, don’t you have any guesses?”

"I get really bad motion sickness, so I never got a license.”

I did technically have a license gathering dust in some closet, but for the sake of the Republic of Korea’s road safety, I never got behind the wheel.

"Jemin-ssi, I think you’d feel differently if you actually sat in the driver’s seat. Aren’t you just making excuses?”

"Have you ever had motion sickness? Tsk. Looks like we can’t use the car anyway, so let’s just run and eat some energy bars. Seems like we’re pretty close to the military hospital anyway.”

There were plenty of people groaning around the crash site, but there was no way for us to save them right now.

It’d be much better to contact someone so professional medical staff or rescue teams could be sent over, I was just about to raise my phone with exactly that thought in mind.

Was this really a situation where I should be hearing people groaning right now?

A chill ran through me.

I was missing something.

I immediately gave Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha an order.

"Run. We need to get up on a rooftop and take a look.”

Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha noticed the serious look on my face and followed without a word.

The three of us Heart-branch wizards, with Heart-branch, Stage 2 [Physical Enhancement] really were different.

I stepped onto a window frame and leapt upward, doing a hero landing on the apartment rooftop. A wizard had a duty to make sure even little moments like these looked cool after all.

The surrounding apartment complex blocked most of my view, but I could still see something strange through the gaps between the buildings.

-Swooooosh…

The sounds of things cutting through the air.

The signs of incoming artillery and airstrikes streaked endlessly across the sky above Seongnam.

But none of them landed.

There were no impacts that should have followed, no heavy clouds of smoke, not even the faint pops of gunfire from the soldiers who should have been resisting. There was nothing but a noisy, spine-chilling chorus of screams and cries.

"Hubae-nim.”

Go Ryeoha arrived first.

Lee Sejun came after her.

The moment he arrived, Lee Sejun realized the same thing I had and let out a groan that seemed more like a sigh of despair.

"Jemin-ssi, this…”

I needed to know.

Just figuring out the backlash wasn’t enough.

With a trembling hand, I brushed my poncho once.

Dust mixed with dried blood flaked off in a heap, and it felt as though the grime that had built up inside my mind was being swept away along with it.

Only then did I roll my tongue inside my mouth.

Eyes-branch, Stage 1 [Cognitive Expansion] 100%.

Observation, present, surroundings, 5 minutes, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

As the fragmented words overlapped, I felt as if filters clicked into place one after the other. With the phantom sound of a camera aperture turning, my eyes began looking somewhere impossibly far away.

To understand the silence filled only with screams that had descended upon the space between the desolate city streets and fog-covered Seoul, a place where gunfire and spent casings should have been pouring out.

I endured the pain, accepted the backlash, and drew out a fragment of omnipotence.

And I saw it.

My vision was no longer looking down over the apartment complex.

All I could see was the area around a man in dress shoes, a baseball cap, and a coat, clicking his way along the cracked asphalt road. Behind that baseball cap, coat guy… Behind Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, the surviving Seoul wizards and 55 Unit wizards were marching in formation.

In the hands of Sports Rebar, walking right beside Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, a heavy warhead rested against his chest as though he were cradling a baby. I recognized it. That was the stolen nuclear warhead.

The second nuke…

Hadn’t exploded. And I couldn’t even see its warhead.

Had they stolen that one too and were taking it back to Seoul? Fuck…

Regardless of my thoughts, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes and his group kept marching.

It seemed like a lie, but it wasn’t.

They really were marching.

Of course, it wasn’t like no one was resisting them.

Naturally, the Korean soldiers hiding in defensive positions and buildings took aim and pulled their triggers too.

They were pulling them nonstop actually.

But all they got back were ominous mechanical clicks and ticks.

The soldiers in the position lying directly in Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ path kept pulling their triggers like mad.

"M-Misfire!”

"Pull the bolt again!”

-Click, click…

No matter how many rounds they ejected, how many magazines they changed, or how many times the firing pins struck the primers, it was useless. Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes and the Korean soldiers kept drawing closer. Before long, only a few steps separated them.

And it wasn’t just rifles they were firing.

Even now, heavy warheads were constantly falling all around Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

They simply weren’t exploding.

-Thud!

A shell that didn’t explode wasn’t any different from an arrow.

The 55 Unit wizards trembled as shells struck asphalt and concrete, then either rolled away or buried themselves in place. The Seoul wizards, their faces hidden behind masks and goggles, watched without flinching.

That was when Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes stopped walking and dropped to one knee.

-Jingle.

He pressed the prayer beads wrapped around his right arm against his forehead, opened the book in his left hand, and recited a familiar mantra.

"Om mani padme hum. Om mani padme hum…”

At the same time, the heavens began to resonate.

Rather than saying it had begun, it would be more accurate to say I had only now noticed it.

After all, the celestial bodies had been following their orbits since long before humanity existed.

It was quite ironic.

Those whose fates were being shaken couldn’t even hear it.

Only wizards could hear the music the celestial bodies played as they traveled their paths, carving away at themselves.

"Causal Arrangement."

Cruel.

Because they couldn’t even hear it, they couldn’t even know when to give up.

♪

The soldiers even pulled the pins on grenades and threw them.

Some frantically worked their charging handles and bolts, repeatedly ejecting rounds whenever they jammed in the chamber.

But the gunpowder that had protected humanity’s fate remained silent.

The artillery shells falling around the defensive positions were the same.

Missiles came crashing straight down.

A few unlucky Seoul wizards were sent flying as though they'd been struck by hurled boulders, and one of them, a Heart-branch wizard, writhed for some time before dying. There was simply no explosion.

Shells split the asphalt and buried themselves in it, while warheads separated from their rockets bounced around nearby, scratched or crushed out of shape.

♬

Only then did the soldiers in the defensive positions stop resisting and slowly lower their weapons.

Helplessness.

Absolute helplessness.

The soldiers who had fought monsters so bravely until now lowered their guns and bowed their heads.

But not everyone yielded.

Someone tightened their grip on a rifle and stepped forward.

With a scream, the soldier charged at Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes, raising the rifle, swinging it at him.

-Aaaaaaagh—!

It was a cry of defiance against the helplessness closing in on them.

At that moment, fate became even crueler.

"Miss."

The soldier slipped.

He sprawled clumsily onto the ground before he could even swing the stock. His foot had landed wrong and slipped out from under him. Refusing to give up, the soldier rose on trembling legs and swung the rifle stock again and again.

"Aagh, aaagh!”

But every time, something happened. He slipped, the sweat on his hands made him lose his grip, or a loosened gas mask strap blocked his vision.

He couldn’t land a single blow.

Taken one by one, they were unfortunate mistakes. Taken together as statistics, they revealed a horrifying truth. Even the idea of falling and getting back up again to come back victorious no longer applied. 10 times, 100 times, 1000 times, 10000 times… No matter how many times he tried to strike him, it was all useless.

The soldier struggled desperately for a long, long time.

Even with bayonet fighting long thought to be useless, even with his rifle reduced to nothing but an iron club, he kept charging.

At last he hurled the rifle like a spear, but by then all his strength was gone, and it didn’t even reach its target.

The rifle merely landed with a clatter at Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes’ feet.

Only then did the soldier finally collapse, gasping for breath as terror gripped him.

-Huff, haah.

His breath spilled through a gap in his loosened gas mask.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes rose to his feet before him and spoke.

"Execute him."

At those words, one of the Seoul wizards strode forward.

He removed his mask and flicked out his tongue.

Inverted-type Tongue-branch magic.

The soldier knew nothing about magic but sensed his end and began rolling away in an attempt to escape.

"Uwagh, Huaaaaah…Huaaaaagh!”

This was where those screams had been coming from.

With the artillery and gunfire silent and every vehicle stopped at once, all that remained were screams and groans of agony.

Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes dropped to his knees again and began sobbing. Dry, foamy saliva spilled through the edges of his gas mask as he raised the prayer beads wrapped around his right arm.

"Kuhuugh, Kgh, urrrgh…”

It was the sight of someone seeking revenge unable to even cry out before the person being devoured, instead letting out pained groans.

"Uhuhugh…Uhuuugh…Uuugh…Ugrrrgh! Kgh, Kaagh…!”

But something else caught my eye.

The items Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes was wearing.

They couldn’t be anything ordinary.

The 66 Society was backing him wholeheartedly. He had gone so far as to reveal himself personally, and there was no way he could wield this much power using the lives of mere non-wizards alone.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

The pain of my tongue being sliced apart and bursting was still there, and my eyes felt dry and gritty as they scraped against my eyelids, but stronger than either was my curiosity, my anger, and my sense of purpose.

Observation, Cursed Objects, Holy Relics, present, Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes.

Then I saw the power of the gear worn by Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes as he twisted and writhed.

The book in his left hand.

-Cuneifrom Grimoire.

The coat covered in strange characters.

-Oracle-bone script. Enchanted with Exorcism and Concealment.

And the prayer beads around his right arm.

-Three True-BodySarira.

That was as far as I could go.

My vision slipped away.

With my sight suddenly returning to normal, I couldn’t help but stagger from the dizziness. Lee Sejun and Go Ryeoha tried to support me, but I gritted my teeth and held out my palm.

"Stop."

"Jemin-ssi…! Are you okay?”

"Hubae-nim, you can’t just throw magic around like that! There isn't even any fog right now!”

-Phew.

I took a breath, settled my nausea, and decided to leave Gangnam Thousand-Miles Eyes and his steadily marching group behind.

"I found out what I needed to know. Let’s join up with the people of the military hospital."

I needed Pastor Park Yohan.

Or at least someone who knows a lot about the occult.

It seems to be important, but I didn’t have a single clue what it was, which drove me fucking crazy.

I had no idea what that True-Body Sarira thing was!

_________________________________________________________________________

¹ A way spouses call each other after they have kids. [name of kid’s] mom, [name of kid’s] dad. like this.