Chapter 68: The Miracle's Name

[Translator – Aren]

-Boom!

I planted a foot on the roof of a car and vaulted over it.

Still, it wasn’t enough. There were hundreds of abandoned vehicles strewn across the Olympic Bridge.

The real problem lay at the bridge's center. Monsters hung from the thick cables extending from the massive arch, swaying in the air.

Predator Spines began skittering down from the edge of my vision like insects.

"Spines!”

The instant Shin Nain shouted, I turned my head.

I had to take in every last one of the Predator Spines pouring down from the bridge’s suspension cables.

A world without fog.

A sky where monsters burst apart beneath artillery fire and flesh rained from above.

As tiny scraps of meat pattered against my poncho, I fixed my gaze on the Predator Spines charging toward us on their rib-like legs.

Pain was frightening.

But what I truly had to fear was my potentially being trapped for all eternity, so I didn’t hesitate.

Upright Alteration-type, Tongue-branch, Stage 2.

[Desire Amplification - Sleep].

-Squelch!

This time, the pain hit as if someone had smashed my tongue with a meat tenderizer.

Naturally, I couldn’t stay on my feet. Clutching the filter of my gas mask with my left hand, I collapsed and rolled across the pavement. As I rolled, I opened my mouth and gasped desperately for air.

Like a dog lying under the blazing summer sun, panting with its tongue hanging out to cool itself.

My tongue burned with a heat that would’ve easily topped 10,000Scoville units. It hurt so much I felt like I was going insane, yet the pain itself kept me from losing my mind. I felt blood-mixed saliva drip from the corner of my mouth, but I didn’t even have the strength to pull off my gas mask or spit it out.

My hands, feet, and limbs all trembled violently before giving out beneath me.

And yet my thoughts remained perfectly clear.

The only reason I could still think so calmly was Eyes-branch, Stage 3 [Cognitive Dissonance].

I felt the blind spot in my left eye grow dull. The pressure inside the eye kept rising.

Deep within my eye, my optic nerve burned like a heating wire as though it were about to boil the inside of my eyeball like an egg white.

Only then did I understand the true price of [Cognitive Dissonance].

This spell wasn’t instantaneous but continuous.

It worked by forcing the entire cost of denying the changes to my body into a single eye. The blindness was temporary, but it had a limit.

The moment my left eye went completely blind, my right eye would begin paying the price.

[Cognitive Dissonance] was a spell that paid its cost through sight, humanity’s most important sense of perception. If I wanted to deny death itself, I’d lose both eyes.

And once I’d lost sight, I naturally wouldn’t be able to use Eyes-branch magic anymore.

Even so, for wielding such powerful magic outside the fog, it was still astonishingly cheap.

-Thuuud!

I heard heavy chunks of bone striking the ground without force. Some of them landed with loud splashes, since they fell into the Han River.

I couldn’t lift my head to confirm it, but I didn’t need to. Someone grabbed me with rough hands and hauled me to my feet.

-Slap!

Lee Sejun slapped me hard across the back. The impact snapped my mind awake.

"Ugh!”

"Jemin-ssi, get it together! Run!”

Heart-branch wizard Lee Sejun was still monstrously strong even outside the fog.

That definitely left a bruise on my back. My gratitude toward him evaporated instantly, replaced by irritation and a string of curses.

You bastard, could’ve hit me a little more gently…

But there was a drooling monster right behind us. I didn’t exactly have the luxury of arguing.

The moment I got my bearings, I gripped my combat knife and sprinted back to the front.

-Boom! Boom!

Behind us, the flesh-colored starfish, crunching cars beneath its bulk, called out.

Using a monster’s vocal cords to form human words.

-Where are you going?

Rather than answering aloud, I replied only in my head.

‘Where am I going? I’m taking your meal to you, asshole.’

It was then that my vision darkened.

As we passed beneath the massive arch at the center of Olympic Bridge, a change became visible on the northern bank of the Han River.

Between the concrete buildings, their upper floors blasted away, between wracked cars and piles of rubble, distorted shapes gathered in groups and slowly turned to look at us.

Cold sweat trickled down my back.

The monsters who’d all been staring beyond Seoul had heard the gunfire.

Not the distant shots. Gunfire echoing from the very heart of Seoul.

We hadn’t even crossed the Han River yet, and we’d already been surrounded.

Stopping wasn’t an option.

Behind us, Odok drooled as it chased us. Ahead of us, Amalgams and every other kind of monster approach with the very same hungry look.

We passed beneath the arch.

We charged straight toward the monsters gathering beyond the wrecked cars, their eyes fixed on us as they slowly closed in.

Amid breaths growing ragged with resignation and despair, the pastor cried out between gasps.

"Don’t forget! As long as you believe, you’ll be saved!”

His voice reached my ears, cutting through the thunder of artillery and the monsters’ screams.

The Amalgams recognized it for what it was. The final prayer of the living. So they began to run.

There were at least 10 medium-sized Amalgams, each of them having devoured dozens of people.

I, Baek Jemin, made my decision immediately.

"Lee Sejun! Throw me one of the spare grenades!”

"After I pull the pin?!”

"For fuck’s sake, I’m the one using it!”

-Whoosh!

The instant I finished speaking, something the size of a rock shot over my head. Not in an arc, but in a perfectly straight line.

If I tried to catch that, it’d punch straight through my hand.

Did this asshole seriously try to kill me with the grenade?

Complaints flooded my mind, but there were more pressing issues at hand right now.

Before the grenade could slam into the ground, the moment I confirmed it had passed overhead, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Upright Alteration-type, Tongue-branch, Stage 1 [Degrade].

It was time to use 100% magic again.

As long as terror far worse than pain kept driving me forward, I was prepared to offer this body as a sacrifice.

If I had to, I’d just shoot myself up with another dose of morphine and offer my left eye completely.

Odin had already set the precedent, so what was stopping me?!

Upright Alteration-type, Eyes-branch, Stage 2, 100%.

Right now, my suffering stretched longer than any moment I had ever known.

[Perception Distortion.]

Roughly 20 paces separated me from the pack of Amalgams.

The moment the spell took hold, time slowed to a crawl.

Even so, the grenade Lee Sejun had thrown continued on its path, slamming neatly into the rear window of an abandoned car.

I couldn’t hear the impact, but I clearly watched spiderweb cracks spread across the reinforced glass. I knew grenades were meant to be thrown, but I’d never imagined someone could throw one hard enough to punch through a person’s body.

Lee Sejun was the kind of lunatic who'd toss something like that at me and expect me to catch it.

-Step, step.

10 paces brought me to the car with the embedded grenade. I reached out, pulled it out, and pulled it free from the shattered window.

Then, I walked another 10 steps.

Standing in front of the Amalgam, I took a good look at it. In a Korea already plagued by an aging population, this monster had apparently feasted on nothing but young people. The way it waved around multiple pairs of smooth, wrinkle-free arms left quite an impression.

Without the slightest hurry, I gently placed the grenade into the hand of the Amalgam that had dared reach for one of the Supreme Archmages.

Perhaps it was only acting on reflex, but the Amalgam’s fingers obediently curled shut around it.

I pulled the pin.

Then, I slapped the monster’s hand, forcing it to clutch the grenade against its own belly. The compound eyes rolling between the tangled faces still hadn't even looked at me.

After that, I crouched low, my body curled inward.

Pulling my poncho, which had [Sturdy] written across it in blood-red letters, over my face, I shouted.

-Blink.

"Lee Sejun! Kick it!”

Everything happened in an instant.

My left eye boiled from within, thick tears streamed down my cheek, and my body collapsed under the pain before my mind could. 

At the same time, an immense wall of wind swept over my back.

This time, it wasn’t a grenade flying over my head. It felt as though something black, the size of a giant eraser, had shot over my head. A silence as though the very air had been erased ran down my spine. The stillness lasted less than a second. Then a monstrous gale roared through.

All the sounds that had stretched under the use of my power crashed together at once.

But the ringing in my ears claimed me first.

-Beeeeeeeeep.

As my poncho whipped against the sides of my head, someone grabbed me and hauled me to my feet. When my legs refused to cooperate, they simply slung my arm over their shoulder and dragged me along.

Only then did I realize what had happened.

My poncho was covered in shattered chunks of flesh, blood, and twisted scraps of metal.

Ahead of me, the road looked as though an eraser had scraped across it. The Amalgams had been crushed into pulp. Someone was shouting beside me. I could see their mouth moving, but the ringing drowned everything out.

Then, one spell came to mind. Ears-branch, Stage 1

Right. Mindreading.

I steadied my thoughts and focused. Shin Nain’s voice echoed directly inside my head.

'Jemin-ssi, can you hear me?’

Yeah.

'Sejun-ssi kicked one of the wrecked cars and sent it flying.’

I told him to flying-kick the monster, and he kicked the entire car instead.

'Well, the results were good, weren’t they?'

My wariness toward Lee Sejun rose another notch.

A Heart-branch wizard who could shatter reinforced car windows by throwing an unpinned grenade and then casually kick an entire car across the road?

As far as I was concerned, Lee Sejun was the real monster wearing a human face.

Even while all that was running through my head, my legs somehow kept moving.

I couldn’t run yet, but leaning against the person supporting me, I managed to stagger forward at a decent pace.

As the ringing in my ears gradually faded, I let go of their shoulder and started running on my own again.

The one supporting me had been Hamza.

"Thanks."

"Hah, huff, hah."

Seeing that he was too busy gasping for breath to answer, I decided I’d share an extra spoonful of Richam with him later.

Meanwhile, we Supreme Archmages ran past the mangled remains of the Amalgams.

The sounds behind us changed as well. The cries that had been shouting ‘Hungry’ became something else entirely.

-Cruuunch! Crunch!

It was then that Lee Sejun, still leading the way in my place, looked back.

"Let’s catch our breath for a minute.”

"Hah, hah, huffhuff…”

That ragged breathing belonged to the pastor. 

He pulled off his gas mask and dropped heavily to the floor.

Sweat glistened in every wrinkle on Pastor Park Yohan’s face.

When he wiped his brow with his left hand, droplets splattered onto the pavement.

-Drip

The rest of us weren’t much different.

"Haah!"

Shin Nain let out a long breath and immediately reached for his canteen.

"Hah…Hah.”

Hamza forced himself to remain standing, propping himself up with his legs. He must’ve realized that if he sat down now, he’d never get back up.

"Huff, huff. Huff, huff…”

I, Baek Jemin, was no exception.

The moment we stopped to rest, my body threatened to collapse. I caught myself on one knee and pulled off my gas mask.

The inside was coated with condensation, mixed together with saliva, tears, and snot, leaving cloudy white streaks across the visor. Only when I pressed my left hand against my face to wipe it clean did I realize the state I was in.

Sticky. The metallic smell of blood hit me immediately.

When I peeled my hand away, thick mucus clung wetly to my palm, revealing my left hand soaked crimson with blood.

Only then did I finally see what the gas mask’s dark visor had hidden. I slipped a finger inside and whipped it clean. Blood mixed with every imaginable bodily fluid, dripping onto the ground in heavy drops.

Lee Sejun, the one who looked the healthiest, spoke in a horrified voice.

"J-Jemin-ssi…”

"Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

"No, it’s just really damn disgusting.”

"You little shit."

I grabbed the canteen hanging from my belt and dumped the entire thing over my face.

-Glug, glug, glug...

The only thing that offered me any comfort was the icy water pulsing across my face. I pressed my left hand against it.

Splash.

With my eyes closed, I scrubbed at my face as best I could. Then I wiped it down again with the palm of my hand.

-Driip!

I poured the rest of the water from my canteen, rinsing out the inside of my gas mask one last time. Ignoring the sting climbing up my left hand, I slipped in my index finger and cleaned every corner.

Tears, snot, saliva, blood.

After wiping everything away, I put the rinsed gas mask back on.

The instant my face settled behind the visor, scarred all over with cuts and scratches, I felt it. The pain I’d ignored with adrenaline came flooding back. So much so that a groan escaped through my tightly clenched lips.

That was when the spell phone started vibrating.

-Bzzzt.

It didn’t stop after once.

-Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

It kept buzzing like mad.

Back when the world was still normal, even all those spam calls from insurance companies and opinion polls, made possible because someone had sold my personal information, hadn’t been this persistent.

And that wasn’t the end of it. Behind us, the starfish made from melted human bodies continued clacking its teeth together, chewing through bones.

Compared to living with that sound, I’d gladly put up with noisy upstairs neighbors for the rest of my life.

The pastor, however, seemed to feel differently.

Pulling his gas mask back on, he spoke, his voice muffled through the filter.

"Jemin, if it’s hard to check your spell phone, I can do it for you.”

"Nah."

I picked up. That made it mine. And if it was mine, I’d check it myself.

I pulled the spell phone from my inner pocket and looked at the screen. It was quite the sight to behold.

[Kang Areum: Are you the ones crossing the Han River right now?]

[Kang Areum: Have you lost your minds?]

[Kang Areum: It’s dangerous]

Messages from Kang Areum-noonim filled the screen.

But that wasn’t all.

Over the constantly vibrating display, anonymous messages began pouring in. They were from the people we suspected were the 66 Society.

[5 military survivors confirmed on Olympic Bridge.]

[Fog density recovering. Outside activity considered impossible.]

[Military survivors presumed responsible for the deaths of Jeong Nari and Han Minjun.]

[Military communications intercepted.]

After countless messages scrolled by without pause, a file suddenly transferred itself.

[Transfer complete.]

The intercepted transmission was faint but unmistakable. Even through the poor audio quality.

[...survivors in the city...]

[April 21st, 07:42…]

[Identity...]

[...Olympic Bridge...]

Even through the crackling static, I could hear the disbelief in their voices.

Before I knew it, every one of the Supreme Archmages had turned toward the spell phone to listen to the transmission. The pastor, Shin Nain, Lee Sejun, Hamza. 

And me.

The moment all five pairs of eyes met over the phone’s screen, the transmission continued.

[...Aphorism.]

[Support... cover the crossing...]

"Aphorism?"

I frowned deeply.

There were ordinary people on Olympic Bridge beside us Supreme Archmages calling themselves "Aphorism"?

But the instant the recording finished playing, I knew something had changed.

Something about the sky itself felt different.

Before I could even process it, we were already back on our feet.

Hamza hurriedly slapped his own legs, then whispered,

"Odok. It’s almost done eating.”

Without exception, every one of us put their gas masks back on first.

Our blood- and dust-stained ponchos fluttered as we gripped our weapons, whether they were rifles or combat knives.

Then the pastor turned to Lee Sejun.

"Sejun. Those magazines you marked off with tape, the ones coated with [Blood of the Right Hand].”

"Yes. I saved them, just like you told me.”

"It’s time."

Without hesitation, Lee Sejun pulled the magazines from his backpack.

The ones we’d painstakingly loaded by hand, coating each round with [Blood of the Right Hand] despite the burning pain crawling up from the brass casings, then wrapped each magazine with tape so we could identify it later. The fact that we’d held onto them until now was surprising enough. The fact that the pastor had decided now was the time to use them was even more surprising.

Five 30-round magazines.

Shin Nain took three, the pastor took two, and Hamza would keep using the remaining standard ammunition. However much he still had left.

The magazines passed swiftly from hand to hand.

They disappeared into pockets, then clicked neatly into waiting rifles, replacing the empty magazines.

-Click!

"Baek Jemin, take point and deal with anything unexpected. Lee Sejun, stay at the rear and keep throwing cars at Odok to slow it down. Shin Nain, you’re with me. We’ll deal with anything coming from the front. Islam, if things get dangerous, shout for us to stop.”

After giving his orders, the pastor looked straight at me and grinned.

"Let’s go, Aphorism."

-Grind!

My teeth ground together on their own.

But crossing this godforsaken Han Rover came first, so I followed.

We ran once more.

Only this time, we were terrifyingly steadier and faster than before.

Part of it was the resolve to carve straight through whatever monsters stood in our way.

But the military transmission we’d overheard through the spell phone, that strange transmission that both revealed the 66 Society’s reach and gave us a glimpse into the military’s movements, filled us with an entirely different kind of strength.

A force that moved the backs and legs of us Supreme Archmages, who until now had been driven only by despair, madness, rage, and hatred.

Hope?

No, it was something far more exhilarating.

"Stop!"

The moment Hamza shouted, we all dropped low and curled into ourselves.

We also pulled the ponchos marked with [Sturdy] over our faces.

Then the explosion hit us. The shockwaves that rattled our organs.

Dust and chunks of flesh rained down on top of us like shrapnel. When the storm finally began to subside, Hamza shouted again.

"Move!"

The instant we threw back our ponchos and burst into a sprint, the horde charging toward us had already been thinned out.

Both the Amalgams and the Predator Spines, faced with that overwhelming blast, had simply been erased.

The remaining medium-sized Amalgams that stubbornly survived and kept charging us were left to the pastor and Shin Nain.

The moment bullets coated in [Blood of the Right Hand] left their muzzles, we witnessed their true power.

-Boom!

When humanity’s greatest physical weapon was combined with magic, even monsters beneath the sunlight couldn’t withstand it.

I never would have imagined seeing Amalgams that had devoured dozens of people, ripped apart by a single bullet. It was then that something flashed beyond the monster-filled sky, like a brilliant morning star.

This time, that shining star wasn’t aimed ahead of us, but behind us.

-Aaaaaagh!

The blast wave shoved us forward.

Odok’s horrified scream reached the backs of our necks together with the thunder of artillery.

The pastor bellowed,

"Run, run!”

Artillery shells poured down from every direction. Towering sprays of water exploded upward all around us. The monsters were torn to pieces.

Even the swarm of Human-Skin Jellyfish that had come after us simply melted into liquid whenever those flashes of light appeared.

By the time we finally caught sight of the end of Olympic Bridge, the fog was beginning to roll back in.

Beneath the bridge, I caught a glimpse of the Han River shoreline slowly disappearing beneath a thin veil of fog.

Once upon a time that sight would’ve filled me with dread, but now I had never been happier to see it.

The fog that came to pull us away from the warm sunlight and imprison us once more inside the gray, damp, concrete jungle felt like a savior.

Every time an explosion erupted ahead of us, erasing monsters as effortlessly as an eraser wiping away pencil marks, a thrill shot through me.

The rain of monster flesh landing on our ponchos felt like gentle raindrops.

Like the long-awaited rain after an endless drought.

The most exhilarating miracle ever to occur in a place reeking of gunpowder, blood, urine, mold, and burnt flesh.

That miracle had come in the form of sheer firepower.

And we didn’t let that miracle go to waste.

"Four o’clock!”

"Baek Jemin, Lee Sejun! Stand by!”

Spent shell casings poured from Shin Nain’s and the pastor’s rifles with every pull of the trigger.

Every casing that clattered across the shattered pavement was answered by the screams of monsters.

The spell phone still continued vibrating.

Amid it all, I tightened my grip on my combat knife and looked back at Seoul through the scratched lens of my gas mask, using my still-functional right eye. The city looked like a ruined concrete graveyard. Muzzle flashes still burst into the air. Spent casings still bounced across the ground. Monsters still screamed with human voices.

Maybe that was exactly why it felt so familiar.

The fog continued to roll in.

Before it completely swallowed everything, the military poured relentless autocannon fire onto Olympic Bridge, covering our retreat one last time.

From Odok’s perspective, its meal had been interrupted out of nowhere. I didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for it, though.

Inside my poncho, flapping violently beneath the shockwaves rolling in from behind, I groaned in pain.

Now I welcomed that pain with joy.

By then, the fighting seemed to be over. Shin Nain lowered the rifle whose barrel still smiled with the acrid scent of gunpowder and quietly offered a prayer.

"Amen."

With my left hand, its ever-creased surface crusted over with dried blood, I pulled out my spell phone.

-Bzzzt.

Messages were still pouring in. I didn’t have time to read a single one.

I checked the time, then slipped the phone back into my pocket.

The pastor removed his magazine, checked the remaining ammunition, and asked casually.

"What time is it?”

"8:03."

"Time sure crawls like a son of a bitch.”

"Language. Let’s use nice, wholesome words.”

"Haa~. Lord, this is what You’ve reduced me to.”

Instead of looking back, we, the Supreme Archmages, stepped into the city, now even more desolate with the monsters temporarily driven away.

All the while, we savored the cold, damp mist rapidly rolling inland from the Han River.

April 21st, 2028, 8:03 AM.

Day 7 of our exploration.

The military had confirmed our survival.

And we, the Supreme Archmages, had successfully crossed the Han River under the cover of the military’s air support.