Chapter 97: Pentagram

[Translator – Aren]

People hate cockroaches.

Because they’re filthy and disgusting. They hate house centipedes that eat cockroaches too, for the exact same reason. They’re filthy and disgusting. Naturally, parasites are even more revolting.

Disgusting bugs crawling around inside my body?

No way I’d ever let them live. I’d want to burn every single one I saw.

That was also why, ever since learning parasites existed, I had made sure to take deworming medicine every single year.

There was even a time when I had nightmares about it.

Because I couldn’t stop imagining disgusting swarms of them swimming around inside my stomach.

The Human-skin Tapeworm was that nightmare made manifest in another form.

-Shaaaaa—.

Beneath the water still pouring down, I pushed through the fog and looked down at a single segment of the Human-skin Tapeworm lying on the floor.

It was roughly 4 to 6 meters long. About the length of two grown men laid end to end. 2 to 3 meters wide. Definitely wider than a meter, which made it easy to see exactly what was contained within its soft flesh.

The two sides of the Human-skin Tapeworm were completely different.

The outside, the side shown to its victims, had a smooth, glossy sheen to it. Calling it a shell might not be quite right. It was closer to skin. Extremely slick, shiny, and smooth skin.

Eyes clustered across it like barnacles, scanning its surroundings.

The inner side was the real horror show.

-Splosh, splosh.

The bullet-riddled segment thrashed in a shallow puddle, spilling bodily fluids everywhere. Thanks to all that struggling, I could clearly see not only its insides but also how the monster functioned.

Human organs hung all across the inner flesh. Even then, only the hearts retained their original shapes. Digestive organs like the large and small intestines had been spread out broad and flat like sheets, their villi merely swaying limply. A single segment of the Human-skin Tapeworm wasn't made from just one person.

It looked as though humans had been spread impossibly thin, then stacked layer upon layer like sheets of pastry dough before baking.

Hearts embedded here and there thumped as they pumped disgusting fluid instead of red blood. Bones that had melted down and been reconstructed held the internal organs in place, while blood vessels that had once belonged to humans spread like spiderwebs through the layers, each network covering a different stratum.

But the most horrifying part of the segment was what hung from it.

Hamza and Go Ryeoha, who had followed me over and finally saw the dying Human-skin Tapeworm segment writhing in the puddle, both made gagging noises.

"Urgh. Bleeeegh…”

"Uugh. I didn't know it was going to be this disgusting."

Tails tipped with stingers from Predator Spines, whose skulls had melted away, along with Amalgam heads protruding like pimples, were tangled into the Human-skin Tapeworm’s segment. The monsters struggled as though trapped in its flesh, and at first I thought they looked like that because the Tapeworm had been eating them.

But then a realization suddenly struck me.

I had seen and experienced so many different varieties of grotesque monster behavioral patterns by now that I understood it instinctively.

The Amalgams and Predator Spines trapped in the Human-skin Tapeworm’s flesh were being scattered as prey on its behalf. A kind of forced symbiosis. The Human-skin Tapeworm helped Amalgams and Predator Spines reproduce, and in exchange, it fed on them.

Maybe...

It did that to neutralize resistance from its human prey. To create chaos so it could devour its true prey. In other words, humans.

That was enough ecological analysis.

Standing beneath the pouring sprinklers, rain drumming against my poncho, I raised my rifle.

-Clack.

The eyelids studding the Human-skin Tapeworm’s segment all opened at once.

The eyes of the broad, flatworm-like creature, a monster made from a mixture of human skin and flesh, all glared at me in unison.

I gave the disgusting monster nothing but bullets in return.

-Ratata!

As shell casings flew, blood mixed with sickly yellow pus began spreading through the puddle like ink.

I still had plenty of ammunition left.

And Eyes-branch, Stage 1 at 100%, hadn’t ended yet either.

"Hamza, grip the extinguisher firmly and close in. Go Ryeoha, stay on me.”

I had seen how the Human-skin Tapeworm moved.

The monster had no separate legs. It could brace itself against walls with the inner flash of its segments or, since it was a subspecies of the Human-skin Jellyfish, presumably ignore the laws of physics and flutter through the air.

Either way, that monster would turn invisible, hide, lie in ambush, and come after us.

The decision came quickly.

We had to hunt it here on the 5th floor while the water was still pouring down.

"We’re chasing it."

-Splash!

My footsteps carried me past the Tapeworm segment that had stopped moving. Hamza and Go Ryeoha silently followed behind me.

But we couldn’t run.

Go Ryeoha and I had Heart-branch magic, so we would’ve been fine, but Hamza couldn’t keep up.

He was carrying a backpack and a fire extinguisher on top of having to move under extreme tension, so his fatigue built rapidly.

"Haah, huff.”

Naturally, our pursuit slowed.

I stopped trying to chase it at a run and went back to square one. Keeping my stance from falling apart as I moved, I aimed the muzzle at the ceiling. Whenever I spotted a sprinkler, I pulled the trigger.

Every gunshot brought down an even heavier torrent of water.

At this point, visually surveying the 5th floor was practically impossible. The already dense fog mixed with the sprinkler water, creating humidity worse than standing beneath a massive waterfall.

Even the gas mask seemed saturated with moisture, clinging tightly to my skin.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to see even an inch ahead.

But my Eyes-branch, Stage 1, [Cognitive Expansion] at 100% peeled away the gray fog and showed me the monster’s traces.

I raised my rifle toward the fleeing monster’s tail as it rippled its segments like curtains blowing in the wind, bracing itself against the ceiling as it escaped.

The metallic patter of droplets striking the rifle sounded strangely loud.

-Huuuuufff…

One breath through the gas mask.

That was all the time I needed to pull the trigger once.

-Ratata!

The same thing happened again.

Without the slightest hesitation, the monster severed the segment that had been hit and slipped into a doorless hospital room. The detached segment remained active, thrashing in the puddle.

-Splat, splat.

Before the monster’s disgusting bodily fluids could touch me, I stepped forward first.

At that instant, the Human-skin Tapeworm segment twisting in the puddle sprang upward.

But I reacted faster.

-Crunch!

I bit down on my tongue.

My attempt to bite my tongue off with my teeth came back as the taste of blood and searing pain. Tears welled up in my eyes.

Only I am precious in this world, so only my pain is absolute.

Therefore, only my pain is long and enduring…

Eyes-branch, Stage 2 [Cognitive Distortion].

The monster segment that had leapt into the air stopped dead.

That was enough.

-Blink.

-Fssssssh!

"Uwaaaaargh!”

I heard the fire extinguisher spraying.

Seasoned generously with Hamza’s scream.

Then came a series of small pop, pop sounds.

I could picture Go Ryeoha firing bloodstained bottle caps nonstop.

Forcing my unsteady legs to straighten, I opened my eyes.

My vision was blurry from the tears overflowing.

Only after seeing the mangled Human-skin Tapeworm segment hanging limp and dead could I finally let out the groan I had been holding between my teeth.

"Fugh..."

I bit too hard.

It hurts like hell, damn it!

But we had failed to hunt the monster itself. This disgusting Human-skin Tapeworm had both the reflexes and vitality to chop off whatever segment got shot and flee.

I strode over to inspect the second segment and immediately noticed something different from the first.

There were no Amalgam heads or Predator Spine tail stingers.

Was the first segment meant for spreading monsters, while the second segment onward was its actual body?

That was when Go Ryeoha pointed directly at the center of the second segment.

At a strange outline so pronounced that even the dense fog couldn’t hide it.

"Hubae-nim, Muslim-ssi. Look.”

Go Ryeoha was crouched down and examining the monster up close with the kind of nerve it would take to smack a cockroach barehanded.

"Do I really have to?”

Hamza grumbled, but apparently curiosity got the better of him.

He approached before I did and looked at where Go Ryeoha was pointing. Then he pulled up his gas mask and actually vomited.

"Bleeeeegh..."

Hamza shuffled backward, trying to get as far away from the monster’s remains as possible.

Because using [Cognitive Distortion] had weakened the effect of Eyes-branch, Stage 1 [Cognitive Expansion] too much, I had no choice but to roll my tongue inside my mouth again.

Target, monster, kill, 5 minutes, path.

Only then did the fog obscured by Hamza’s back and the dense haze clear away more distinctly.

Driven by the determination not to lose to some Four-Tiger Sword scammer, I stepped forward, and the true shape of the outline came into clearer view. Clusters of tiny hands reminiscent of a newborn baby’s flailed weakly in one last struggle, desperately reaching for anything they could.

At the center of these hands was a gaping mouth.

A mouth made from layers of humans stacked like pastry dough, with capillaries covering those layers writhing like tentacles. Go Ryeoha rested her folded arms across her knees and murmured with interest.

"Hubae-nim, it looks like it inserts these blood vessels into people, coats them with something like digestive fluid, then assimilates them by stealing the heart and various other organs. And if every segment has a digestive-and-reproductive organ like this, then maybe when it wants to increase its numbers, it cuts off segments and lets them grow into separate individuals?”

Instead of answering, I raised my rifle again.

-Clack.

-Ratatatatatatata—!!!

I spread the shots evenly across it.

I punched neat little holes all over the disgusting monster so it could never move again.

Only when I heard the clicking did I realize I had emptied the rest of the magazine into it.

I discarded the empty magazine without hesitation and inserted a fresh one.

Only after watching the gunsmoke dissolve into the fog did I reach inside my clothes.

To pull out my phone and hand it to Hamza.

"Hamza. Check the phone signal.”

"Ugh…What? Jemin-ssi, why the phone all of a sudden?”

"I want to see whether the communications interference gets weaker every time we kill one of the monster’s segments. Check it.”

"Y-yes..."

I passed the phone to Hamza.

The moment I handed it over, I aimed at the room the monster had crawled into and stayed completely still.

"How is it?”

"I-I don’t think it’s working yet.”

“Pick up the extinguisher again. Every time we kill a segment, check again. Ryeoha-ssi, cover Hamza. Let’s go.”

Once our formation was set, we moved.

I took the lead because I could identify the danger. Hamza handled suppression with the fire extinguisher, while Go Ryeoha kept enemies at a distance and dealt damage. I didn’t even have time to feel my usual disgust at how perfectly our teamwork clicked into place without a single word.

Where the fog had cleared. The spaces my eyes could see sharply and clearly.

Looking at the red footprints appearing across them made me realize just how cunning the Human-skin Tapeworm was.

-Shaaaaa...

My poncho took the brunt of the pouring water.

Some areas were already soaked through, but wherever the waterproofing still held, the droplets rolled off in heavy beads.

-Pat, patter.

Every drop striking the hood of my poncho sounded unusually loud. I didn’t even have a moment to wipe away the water streaming down the lenses of my gas mask.

I kept my rifle aimed toward the places where the red footprints appeared and disappeared, advancing slowly one step at a time.

The closer I got to the entrance of the doorless hospital room, the more the surrounding noise seemed to fade whenever another wavering footprint appeared over the puddles.

I desperately repeated Instructor Song Smith’s lessons to myself.

Don’t stick your body out. Show only the muzzle and one eye. Minimize the target you present.

Then, just as I reached the edge of the doorway, I remembered one more thing.

The Human-skin Tapeworm was invisible.

When this monster lay in ambush, it didn’t actually have to be clinging to anything.

The instant I pushed the muzzle through the doorway, my right eye took in the chaotic room.

The vedas had been dragged around as though someone had tried to build a maze, while blankets lay scattered and stained across the floor.

That was enough.

I swung the muzzle around in one motion.

Empty air.

I pulled the trigger at the seemingly empty space beside the doorway.

A muzzle flash erupted.

Shell casings poured down together with the falling water.

Gunfire rang out rapidly.

The casings splashed into the shallow puddles and sank.

There were no monster screams or wails.

Instead, only the bursting sounds of thin layers of flesh being blown apart filled the area, along with the wet ruptures of murky blood mixed with pus spraying everywhere. The moment the monster’s concealment broke, I could no longer see into the hospital room at all.

The space right in front of the doorway was packed with segments of the Human-skin Tapeworm.

The disgusting monster had surrounded the doorway in a hemisphere.

"Do it!"

Only my own voice reached my ears.

My hearing had gone muffled from the gunfire, so I couldn’t hear anyone else.

I could only assume Hamza had heard me because a cloud of white powder blasted out from behind my back.

It was suppressed with the extinguisher.

Now was our chance.

I’d stop it with [Cognitive Distortion] and finish it.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth…

"Jemin-ssi!”

My ears, still muffled from the gunfire, caught someone screaming.

At that moment, I realized something horrifying.

They weren’t falling anymore.

The droplets that should have been striking my poncho had stopped.

The only thing I could feel was the faint weight of something like thin fabric settling over the hood of my poncho.

A chill ran through me.

And with that, all the pain vanished.

I stared into the rolling eyes of the Human-skin Tapeworm beyond the doorway and felt coldness crawl up my spine. A chill like my heart had stopped flowed through every capillary in my body.

I couldn’t even feel fear.

It simply didn’t feel real.

I’m going to die?

...Here?

-Kiiiieeeeegh—!!!

A piercing metallic screech tore through the air.

At the same time, someone grabbed me and hurled me backward.

-Splash!

Even after landing hard on my ass, my vision was too blurred to see ahead. No. All of my senses were just scrambled.

My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see. I was breathing, but I couldn’t smell anything. My ears were working, but I couldn’t even hear the ringing anymore.

The throbbing headache and dizziness hit first.

At first, I thought it was just pain.

I assumed it was nothing more than the aftereffects of using magic repeatedly.

But as my senses gradually returned and as my mind slowly settled, what I was actually feeling became clear.

This wasn’t a headache.

Only when I realized my teeth were chattering uncontrollably and the hand pressed to my forehead was trembling did I understand.

Fear.

Fear finally pushed me past my limit.

The moment I realized that, I felt something surge up inside me and yanked off my gas mask.

"Uugh, ugh. Ghk..."

I was going to vomit.

I had only drunk some water and eaten a few crackers before coming here so I wouldn’t have much to throw up, and yet…

Even that came back up with stomach acid.

"Bleeeeegh….Bleeergh……!”

The more I vomited, the clearer my head became.

Every time I spat out the fear I had been swallowing along with the sour bile, my senses returned.

The excessive concentration, the repeated pain, all the fear that had been building up until now. All of it burst out at once.

I sobbed.

Vomit, spit, tears, and snot ran through the creases of my lips as I choked and gasped.

But ironically, what made me swallow my crying was fear itself.

An ending worse than death.

The beginning of an existence trapped inside a monster’s body, forever remembering that I had once wielded magic, yearning for possibilities that had been stripped away from me for eternity, while being violated by the monster’s carnal urges.

—Eternity.

At that moment, my crying stopped.

Then I scraped together every last remnant of fear and emotion and spat it out.

"Hhk, ptooo!”

I lightly rinsed my face beneath the pouring water, then picked up the gas mask I had thrown aside.

Looking around, I saw Hamza and Go Ryeoha standing back-to-back, keeping watch in every direction. Hamza was even waving the fire extinguisher hose around and shouting at the top of his lungs.

"Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar!!!”

-Haaaah…

I took a deep breath. Time to put the gas mask back on.

-Huuff—.

The moment I gave the filter a quick check, I picked up the rifle lying on the floor.

"Where’d it go?”

"It disappeared. I’ll take the lead from here.”

"Why?”

"Hubae-nim, the writing on your poncho is red right now. All of it.”

I understood.

I checked the condition of my rifle first. Some water had gotten into it. I was going insane worrying about a potential misfire, but I didn’t let it show as I turned my head. The effects of my magic had worn off while I was panicking.

The fog had already rolled back in, hazily obscuring even the fluorescent lights.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth again.

Target, monster, kill, 5 minutes, path.

Watching the fog rapidly clear, I switched the selector back to safe and slung the rifle over my shoulder.

Instead, I drew my combat knife.

-Slice!

I smeared [Blood of the Right Hand] all over my poncho.

It stung like hell, so coating the sleeves and the blade was about as much as I could manage.

Now I understood why the Seoul wizards had classified the Invisible Veil, the Human-skin Tapeworm, as effectively impossible to resist.

"There was one more segment left on the ceiling.”

When we shot through the second segment and severed it, the Human-skin Tapeworm had cut off one more segment.

While we were completely focused on observing the segment that had fallen to the floor, the third segment had hidden itself right in front of the doorway and gone invisible. I had predicted that it might surround the entrance in a hemisphere, but failing to anticipate that it would casually serve yet another segment on its own had been a fatal miscalculation.

Now that the Ancient Hebrew enchantments imbued with warding power had completely burned out, there were obvious limits to me staying at the lead.

I only had one life.

If someone had to die, it couldn’t be me.

"Go Ryeoha takes the lead. Restrain or hit the Human-skin Tapeworm. Hamza suppresses it, I’ll handle detection and lock down its movement the moment we find it.”

The one dying had to be the monster.

Go Ryeoha turned toward me and tilted her head.

"Human-skin Tapeworm?”

"It’s a subspecies of the Human-skin Jellyfish, so Human-skin Tapeworm.”

"Aah."

And because it’s fucking disgusting.

Hamza, realizing I had gotten my head back together, nodded vigorously.

"Jemin-ssi, let’s just leave now. Please?”

"No. Check communications again.”

Pastor Park Yohan had theorized that when monsters devoured wizards, subspecies would emerge.

But this was on a completely different level from things like the Blood Web, which was believed to have been born from an Amalgam eating a wizard.

Even the Seoul wizards had classified this thing as effectively impossible to resist.

If it ate any more people here, even the Supreme Archmages might not be able to handle it.

And I really didn’t like that kind of infuriating, drawn-out arc.

"...Still nothing."

Hamza, who had already checked, shoved the phone away at lightning speed and raised the fire extinguisher. Apparently killing individual segments didn’t end the communications interference.

Then could every segment interfere with communications on its own?

I felt my concentration rising again.

The danger level was extremely high.

Only moments had passed, but within my perception they felt like hours as I adjusted my grip on the combat knife.

"It’s not the kind of thing that gives up its prey easily.”

It was still on the 5th floor.

Judging by how cunningly it had laid traps while fleeing, I was 100% sure. It might have already taken control of one of the stairwell entrances and be waiting there, but I had a feeling it would change its ambush position depending on where we headed.

"We’re going again. If it breeds any more here, we’re screwed.”

And so us three Supreme Archmages reformed and resumed the hunt.

This time, we were even more cautious than before.

Ceiling, walls, floor. Even the possibility that it might be floating in empty air. We were so paranoid that we even gathered up the spent shell casings. We threw them one at a time on purpose, making noise and watching for a reaction so we could pinpoint where the Human-skin Tapeworm was hiding.

But the thing was being cautious too.

It had severed three more so far, so even without knowing how many segments its entire body had, we could at least assume we had killed a significant portion of it.

Both the us Supreme Archmages and the Human-skin Tapeworm understood it painfully well.

We were each other’s prey. And we were both hunters capable of hunting the other.

I decided inwardly that not using Eyes-branch, Stage 2 [Cognitive Distortion] at 100% had been the right call.

Focusing on detection had ultimately been the right choice.

This thing had shattered the Ancient Hebrew enchantments the instant it touched me.

Even if I could move freely through time, I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t get sucked dry the moment I touched its skin while it was concealed.

A half-assed mindset wouldn’t cut it.

Monsters were an alien ecosystem that grew and multiplied by desecrating and trampling humanity, while humans without magic were nothing more than prey waiting to be hunted.

Only wizards.

Only wizards had the chance to survive and resist.

And even being a wizard didn’t guarantee survival.

We searched every corner of the 5th floor and even scattered [Blood of the Right Hand] around the stairwell entrance just in case, but got no reaction. Go Ryeoha used [Spirit Sight] everywhere the Human-skin Tapeworm might possibly be hiding, but this time it refused to react carelessly.

Hamza’s Dogma-type magic, [Angel’s Intuition], couldn’t function properly because it judged the entire 5th floor to be dangerous.

That remained the case until we arrived back in front of the conference room.

The conference-room door stood open, with only the curtains covering the windows fluttering eerily. No one was visible. Realizing what that meant, Hamza let out a despairing groan.

"Ah..."

The owner of the fluorescent orange armband covered in dangling dog tags, the symbol of someone from the blockade line, Sergeant Jeon Sinil, a specialist soldier, had vanished without leaving so much as a bloodstain.

Hamza pointed the fire extinguisher hose into the empty room and backed away.

"...Dangerous."

Go Ryeoha clenched her fist.

I raised my right hand too, ready to swing my combat knife at a moment’s notice and prepared to scatter blood again if necessary.

A world where everyone was both hunter and prey.

And we were the ones to move first through that world.

Go Ryeoha launched a bloodstained bottle cap.

-Baaaang—!

With the sound of breaking glass, the fog was blown aside. One segment was revealed and severed.

I wouldn’t let it get the better of me this time.

I clenched my teeth and kept the ceiling, walls, and floor all within my field of vision.

Ready to stop the main body the instant it moved, I set my teeth against my tongue.

That was when the Human-skin Tapeworm revealed itself.

I immediately bit down on my tongue.

Only my pain is absolute…

-Crunch!

But the moment I bit my tongue, I realized just how vicious the Human-skin Tapeworm truly was.

The monster, already caught within my sight, had rolled and twisted its body up inside the conference room like a wad of toilet paper, fully exposing its inner flesh. Human organs and blood vessels were stacked layer upon layer, grotesquely devoting themselves to the monster however it pleased.

And there was a magic symbol engraved into it.

A distorted square trapped inside a triangle.

The magic symbol representing the Eyes-branch.

But the way it was using that magic was nothing like anything I had expected.

"Uuughh!”

Hamza was the first to gag.

"Wai…Ugh!”

Even Go Ryeoha, who had barely been holding on, dropped to her knees.

Because I had locked down the monster’s movement, because I had effectively pinned the Human-skin Tapeworm in place while it exposed the inner flesh bearing the Eyes-branch symbol, both of them were caught in it. Neither Go Ryeoha nor Hamza had accumulated enough experience to acquire a new branch of magic, so both were seized by intense vertigo.

I was moved by the sight of the monster frozen in place by my magic, its inner flesh exposed with the Eyes-branch symbol engraved upon it. There was no other word for it but moved.

Even the weight of my trembling eyelids trying to close couldn’t overcome what I was feeling now, this surging exhilaration.

A thrill ran through me.

Because now I finally understood why the Seoul wizards had classified it as effectively impossible to resist.

Was this how a hunter carrying a shotgun felt while tracking a bear?

The maddening terror that one mistake meant the other side would kill you.

The overwhelming rush born from that fear.

A biological gap that seemed utterly impossible to overcome.

And waiting for me at the end of it all was exhilaration.

Behold. This vicious monster.

The cunning intelligence that no human should ever have been able to face. And I, Great Archmage Baek Jemin, had touched a fragment of the omnipotent power capable of facing such a creature.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Because only I am precious, only my pain is absolute…

-Crunch!

Blood burst out the moment I bit my tongue. At this point, what difference would it make if I drove another tooth into the taste buds that were already split open?

The fog that had been drifting lazily began to slow.

Hamza, who had been clutching his head and groaning, and Go Ryeoha, who had been kneeling and retching, gradually came to a stop as well.

I stepped forward.

Toward the Human-skin Tapeworm waiting inside the conference room after laying its bait.

-Splash.

I advanced, pushing aside droplets of water hanging suspended in midair with my body.

The puddles beneath the frozen fog spread ripples like thin ice cracking whenever I stepped on them, only to stop again.

I kept approaching with my combat knife raised, aimed at the Human-skin Tapeworm’s disgusting inner flesh.

And when I finally entered the conference room, there was one thing that moved out of place within the frozen time.

A faint weight settled onto the hood of my poncho.

But instinctively, I understood.

[Cognitive Distortion] at 100%, focused on the Human-skin Tapeworm, would weaken the instant it slipped outside my field of vision. For a monster that had stolen Eyes-branch magic, that made perfect sense. The intelligent creature had realized the Ancient Hebrew enchantment was present and tried the exact same trap again.

I felt the veil wrapping around me. I felt it bite down over my head, and its capillary tentacles hissed and crawled across the surface of my poncho.

Disgusting. Terrifying. So revolting it was almost unbearable.

But I hadn’t walked into this without thinking.

At that very moment, inside the mind of someone who had already endured the terror of death once, the clues were swirling and exploding in my mind.

The pentagram engraved over my heart after I acquired all five branches.

Cheonghwi’s words that the Alteration-type magic system itself was a secret art meant for transcendence and ascension.

And the theme of upright Alteration-type magic that Pastor Park Yohan had spoken of.

—Even among every horrifying truth and monster.

The capillary tentacles began creeping past the hood of my poncho and caressing the surface of my gas mask.

It was an intelligent monster.

To keep its tentacles from entering my field of vision, it deliberately crawled along the rubber close to my cheek. It was trying to drag my gaze downward.

I tightened my grip on the combat knife and glared at the Human-skin Tapeworm.

—If I protect the five elements that symbolize humanity.

Within the frozen time, as the segment descending softly from the ceiling wrapped around me, I hated the monster, loathed it, and burned with rage.

Not because I possessed some grand altruism or love for humanity. I was human, so I feared the predator trying to desecrate and devour me.

And because I feared it, I would make absolutely certain it died.

Then, at last, a toothless mouth covered in bundles of capillary tentacles slipped over the crown of my head and began gumming at it.

-Munch, munch...

Under the horrific wave of sensation from being kneaded alive by gums, I held my stance.

And finally.

Finally, the capillaries touched the wrist of my hand gripping my combat knife. Thin vessels that had once been human capillaries stretched across my skin as though caressing it.

-Tap, tap.

Goosebumps rose at the sensation of them touching my skin.

I didn’t close my eyes.

I didn’t panic just because I could see tentacles unaffected by my Eyes-branch magic.

And then.

The instant the monster’s blood vessels burrowed into my skin.

—Can I remain human?

-Thump.

My heart beat.

A symbol appeared over the back of my hand.

The Hand-branch magic symbol. A magic circle.

At the same time, my blood vessels were engulfed in searing heat.

A burning pain worse than when I had shot my own left hand surged through me.

I was burning.

My heart, and every drop of blood that had passed through it, was heating up.

Then the monster’s capillaries were forced back out.

The thoroughly cooked vessels thrashed as though in agony.

At that moment, I moved without hesitation.

I don’t know whether I shouted or screamed.

But one thing I knew for certain was that I hacked at the disgusting monster in front of me with everything I had, doing my absolute best to kill it.

I swung the blade coated in [Blood of the Right Hand] again and again, chopping and splitting apart the layered human skin. I stomped on the monster’s vessels as they spewed pus-mixed blood, then drove the tip of the blade down into an eyeball rolling toward me.

All while desperately forcing my eyelids to stay open.

Inside the gas mask, I simply held my mouth open and expelled breath as I swung the knife like a madman.

What I felt in that moment was pure, unadulterated killing intent.

Killing intent so intense that even my resolve to become a Great Archmage faded into the background.

When everything finally stopped, I saw an arm bruised inside one of the Human-skin Tapeworm’s segments.

A lone soldier’s arm wearing an orange armband protruded from the limp segment. An arm he might have stretched out in his final moment, begging someone to save him. Only after seeing the soldier's stiffened arm did I close my eyes.

-Blink.

"Bleeeeeeeegh…”

I collapsed immediately.

Lying face-down, I started vomiting up everything I had eaten. Naturally, there was nothing left, so only sour bile came out.

The smell of vomit trapped inside my gas mask made me retch again, and the more I threw up, the worse the smell became, and the worse it became, the more I threw up…

Only after someone pulled the gas mask off me did I finally manage to come back to my senses.

"Jemin-ssi, Jemin-ssi!”

"Uuughh, Hghhh..."

My heart was pounding hot inside my chest.

I couldn’t even force out a scream or cry.

And finally.

"Hehehehe..."

"Hubae-nim, it’s okay. It’s dead. You can cry now.”

"Bwahahahahaha!!!”

"Jemin-ssi?”

At last, I laughed.

In front of Go Ryeoha and Hamza, who stared at each other with their eyes wide, I laughed like a madman.

I understood.

All 5 branches.

The effect of the pentagram drawn over my heart.

It was [Mutation Immunity].