Chapter 44 - Supreme Mages, Assemble

I was lying facedown.

With my ear pressed to the floor, I felt the vibrations through my poncho hood with my entire body. I breathed as slowly as possible, afraid of making the distinctive breathing sounds of a gas mask.

The moment I started panting, I thought, my position would be exposed.

Despite my pounding heart, my lungs kept drawing in and releasing air very slowly.

Just as forcing a smile could make you smile for real, slowing my breathing to avoid detection made my brain work at full stretch.

Only then did I notice the ringing in my ears.

EEEEEEE.

A bullet must have whizzed past at close range. Or perhaps a gun had gone off right beside me.

Feeling the cold weight of my rifle, I recalled the individual combat training I’d received ages ago. Memories of crawling over damp, filthy ground came flooding back.

Breathing as evenly as I could, I began wriggling along with the thick fog draped over my back.

Anyone watching me squirm and crawl might have mistaken me for a green cockroach.

I’d once seen a claim online that a cockroach’s IQ momentarily shot up to 300 when its life was in danger. Perhaps the manly Baek Je-min was a similar breed.

Countless thoughts burst like bubbles inside my overclocked brain.

The reason I hadn’t immediately used tongue and eye magic was the change I’d noticed in how much fog cleared.

While using Eye, Stage One, focused with Tongue, Stage One, I’d approached the body of Sergeant Bang Gi-seong, whom the Seoul mage had murdered. Instead of clearing completely, the fog had merely thinned, preventing me from locating her right away.

Was its power halved against a fellow mage? Did its effectiveness decrease with the gap in our levels?

I also cautiously speculated about the magic the Seoul mage used.

Before she’d fired, I’d seen her throw a mass of concrete. At the very least, she clearly possessed enhanced physical abilities.

Did that make her a heart-branch user?

As countless assumptions and guesses churned through my head, I heard it.

THUD.

Heavy footsteps approached, striking the floor tiles that were still more or less intact. A sweet, breathy voice drifted through the fog.

“Sweetie, you really are like a cockroach. Already scurried off?”

Cold sweat ran down the back of my neck.

The weak, inadequate, conditioned emotions of an ordinary civilian screamed.

'I’m going to die here. I have to fight back. Beg her to spare me.'

But the cold, solid reason of the manly Baek Je-min had already finished tapping the calculator’s keys.

I wouldn’t die right away.

Because the Seoul mage would want my head.

According to Shin Na-in, the Seoul mage who’d settled in this department store operated like an Amalgam. Apparently, she somehow cracked open other people’s heads and plundered their memories and information.

There was no room for persuasion or negotiation. Having opened fire on us as we came up the escalator, she was one hundred percent intent on killing us. The only question was when. Even so, I could avoid the most hopeless possibility: being finished off with a bullet.

To find out how much I knew as a mage from outside Seoul, cracking my fucking head open would be more reliable than any interrogation.

Therefore, I wouldn’t attempt some half-assed counterattack.

That was only natural, since putting up too much resistance might make her simply shoot me dead. With the fog so thick and the pain in my left-hand staff subsiding, charging in with nothing but Eye, Stage Two to rely on would be reckless, too.

Meanwhile, the footsteps drew steadily closer. Whether she was savoring her leisure or trying to pressure me with fear, she was deliberately taking her time.

THUD.

The vibrations through the floor were too strong for human footsteps. That wasn’t the weight of just one person. Apparently, she’d picked up the concrete mass she’d thrown before firing and was carrying it as a shield again.

I quietly hugged my rifle to me.

Despite my hot, pounding heart, my cool head let me work something out.

Shin Na-in hadn’t detected the Seoul mage’s attack.

THUD.

That meant Shin Na-in, an ear-branch mage, probably couldn’t hear the voice inside the Seoul mage’s mind.

THUD. THUD.

The only inner voices Shin Na-in could hear were those of us Supreme Mages.

THUD. THUD. THUD...

At that moment, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Avoidance, death, five minutes, route.

... Not easy.

Avoiding death through magic must have been a considerable burden even in this dense fog, because the tip of my tongue stung. Whether there were too many possible causes of death or the scope was simply too broad, I could tell I was forcing the focus into place through tongue magic.

I revised it.

Avoidance, fatal injury, five minutes, route.

The fog began clearing distinctly.

I gripped my rifle. Drew my knees up and gently pressed my elbows against the floor. At last, I was ready to stand.

It was still a daunting prospect, so I decided to count to three in my head.

'One, two...'

“What are you doing, sweetie?”

I sprang up.

As quick as a cockroach running on two legs.

I simply ran as fast as I could and screamed inside my head.

'Shoot, you fucking idiots!'

It was the perfect signal.

Gunfire erupted the instant I threw myself forward.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT!!!

Bullets rained out of the fog.

The reports bounced off the department store’s walls and ceiling, while the thick mist scattered the muzzle flashes out of sight.

Within that curtain of fire of unknown origin, my eyes picked out the places where the fog cleared.

I alone sprinted through the hail of bullets.

TING. TI-TING...

The sounds of bullets ricocheting or burying themselves in walls mingled with the gunfire.

Two opposing feelings confronted each other.

'It’s all right now. Put some distance between us.'

A complacent thought.

I chose cold, ruthless reason.

'She’ll catch up in no time. I can’t shake her.'

Then I had no choice but to put on the ultimate desperate shitshow of Baek Je-min’s twenty-eight years of life. I decided to attempt a stunt possible only in this dense fog.

I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Avoidance, physical impact, fatal injury, injury, five minutes, me.

The tip of my tongue stung a little, but it was fine.

No, it wasn’t fine, since I couldn’t use Eye, Stage Two for free.

But right now, for five minutes, I was practically invincible.

That fact made me turn around.

And immediately sent me rolling.

WHOOSH!

Something heavy passed over the back of my head.

The displaced air struck my back—a weighty mass that would have scraped all my skin off had it so much as grazed me.

After rolling away in thoroughly undignified fashion, I crouched awkwardly and hid behind a display counter that was still standing.

Peeking out, I saw a mass of concrete lodged in a pillar amid the drifting fog.

The pale fog prevented a clear view, but the Seoul mage was irritated. She was glaring in my direction.

Yet she couldn’t come straight at me.

Beyond the fog, the Supreme Mages listening to my inner voice were pouring down a curtain of fire.

Raucous gunfire shook the entire department store, scattering bullets in every direction.

They weren’t properly aimed, but they were enough to be a nuisance.

With no choice, the Seoul mage ducked, then yanked the concrete mass out of the pillar in one motion and shielded herself with it.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

THUD. THUD-THUD.

The sound of bullets burying themselves in the heavy concrete was vicious.

Broken fragments trickled down like dust. Watching, I raised my muzzle without hesitation.

'This ends here.'

The very moment I placed my index finger on the trigger, the fog swirled.

Red footprints appeared among the scattering droplets.

They stamped rapidly across the floor, coming toward me.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I lowered my muzzle and took off in an awkward, crouching duck walk.

CRUNCH!

Something pale pierced the counter where I’d been.

Crawling with the fog draped over me like a cloak, I took a closer look at my former position.

The Seoul mage was smashing the mass of concrete down where I’d been, over and over, with rage and irritation.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The instant I saw her take something from inside her clothes, I hid behind the mannequins and counters and ran the other way.

As I trampled through the ruins of shattered Seoul, dull glass fragments crunched beneath the heels of my combat boots.

At the same time, an eerie sound filled the entire department store.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

Shortly after that distinctive walkie-talkie tone, the woman’s slightly roughened voice came through.

[“Soldier boys, have you heard of sorcery? It’s something I learned.”]

In the darkened department store, only one wandering woman was laughing.

I ran between the counters and mannequins as quietly and quickly as possible.

With my rifle tucked beneath my right arm, I crossed through the fog, avoiding the red footprints still pursuing me.

TAP. TAP.

Accompanied by the sound of tapping fingers, the Seoul mage’s voice grew sadistic.

[“All you need are the principles of similarity and substitution. Turning these things off doesn’t help at all. As long as I keep mine on, yours switch on, too.”]

A chill ran down my spine.

That was when a noisy chorus rang out through the darkened department store.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

Walkie-talkie tones sounded simultaneously from every direction, so disorienting I could hardly tell above from below.

Apparently, some survivors had kept their walkie-talkies switched off.

The pursuing red footprints vanished, as if the Seoul mage had turned her attention to them. Cruel as it was, I had no way of helping soldiers whose locations I didn’t even know.

While I was using eye magic to protect my own life, I couldn’t use clairvoyance to track down the soldiers.

After all, the Seoul mage would have realized I used eye magic.

She’d clearly figured out that we didn’t know where the soldiers were.

At the very least, she’d realized we belonged to a separate group. Had our failure to attempt contact by walkie-talkie tipped her off? Or the fact that the mages weren’t moving with the soldiers?

Either way, she seemed to have learned how to hunt by dangling half-baked humanitarianism as bait. True to a survivor who’d lasted in a Seoul full of nothing but monsters, this mage had thoroughly mastered the use of bait.

The moment I began searching for the soldiers with eye magic, she would find me and kill me.

But fate had a cruel sense of humor.

One of the walkie-talkie tones lingering like echoes abruptly stopped—and of all places, it was near me.

Red footprints filled my surroundings in an instant.

There was only one place I wouldn’t be discovered: behind a pillar near the railing.

Ten seconds.

In that time, I hid behind the pillar faster than a cockroach and heard a sobbing moan. The Seoul mage’s distinctively heavy footsteps were no longer leisurely.

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD...

I placed my index finger on the trigger.

I heard the concrete mass whoosh through the air and smash through the counters and mannequins providing flimsy cover. Not yet. I had to wait until her guard was down.

“Aaaagh... Aagh!”

“Come here, soldier boy. I’ll give you a kiss!”

“Aagh, aaaaaagh!!!”

'Now.'

I readjusted my grip in one motion and leaned out.

Only then did I understand why Shin Na-in loathed the Seoul mage so much.

“Mmm~ Smooooch~.”

“Aghrrr... Kghrrr...”

There was nothing cute about this kiss.

With her tongue stretched out, fouled by ominous blood, the Seoul mage was smearing herself against the face of a soldier whose gas mask she’d removed. Eyes overlapped eyes, facial contours blurred, and the skull melted as everything was stolen from him, all in one direction.

The soldier’s flailing hands tried to pull her clinging face away, but the hands of a man who’d already lost his head merely clawed at empty air.

Magic that stole every memory and experience of a life lived, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom, the fresh brain cells and central nervous system, leaving only dregs.

—An inverted form of tongue magic, which symbolized acceptance and change.

It took just one second to understand all of that.

As I pulled the trigger, those overlapping, compound eyes turned toward me.

Smiling, the Seoul mage slammed her mass of concrete onto the floor to use as a shield.

RAT-A-TAT!

The bullets buried themselves in the concrete or ricocheted away.

I’d put one round into her left thigh before the shield blocked me, but that was all.

Without hesitation or lingering regret, I turned and ran.

At that moment, the height at which the fog cleared changed.

'Duck.'

It was an instinctive judgment.

I staggered so badly I nearly tripped, pitching forward just as something was hurled behind me.

Apparently, there was a wall directly ahead, because I heard the impact clearly.

THUD.

With his head mashed and mingled together and his limbs bent, the soldier slid down the wall, leaving a streak of blood.

I straightened my posture and passed beside him.

I hadn’t seen his name, but I’d seen his insignia. A private first class.

That was when a familiar voice reached me.

“Baek Je-min! Get down!”

I threw myself down at the pastor’s shout.

Looking back was a natural habit. Not because I couldn’t contain my curiosity, but because I’d judged that running without looking back wouldn’t let me shake the pursuit.

Thanks to that, I saw both the Seoul mage charging with her concrete shield and the grenade thumping into it.

The explosion came the instant I turned my head away.

With my ears ringing again, I steadied my wobbling legs and ran.

Beyond the fog, I saw the familiar faces of the Supreme Mages.

Lee Se-jun was lightly tossing and catching a grenade like a catcher tossing a ball, while Shin Na-in quietly sang a hymn. The pastor had his K2 tucked under his arm and aimed in my direction, his free hand gripping Hamza by the scruff of the neck.

The pastor shouted.

“That bastard! She’s going around!”

Only after rejoining them, practically falling on my face, did I realize how out of breath I was.

It was a miracle my heart hadn’t burst. My legs were shaking. The problem was that the hands holding my rifle were trembling, too. It wasn’t fear.

It was the result of demanding abrupt evasive maneuvers from a delicate fellow like me.

“Je-min, this is why people need exercise. Magic takes stamina, too!”

“Hah, hah...”

Lee Se-jun gripped the grenade like a baseball pitcher and flashed a confident smile, but I didn’t have the energy to answer.

I raised a hand, caught my breath for a moment, then briefly explained what I’d worked out.

“Not eyes or ears. Tongue and heart. I don’t know about hands.”

Shin Na-in stopped singing and glanced my way.

“Je-min, you figured it out?”

“Her detection’s weak. When she ambushed us on the escalator, she was probably just watching it because it was the likeliest route.”

Swallowing hard, I needlessly ran a hand over my gas mask.

The Seoul mage was a skilled hunter.

I’d realized it too late. When we’d spoken by radio in front of Sergeant Bang Gi-seong’s body, she’d gotten the impression we were more humanistic than she’d expected. So she’d staged her WWE match with the soldiers to make us impatient.

In the darkened interior of a department store, where pinpointing locations by sound or sight was difficult, the stationary escalator was an easily identified landmark.

I’d also deduced her tactics.

Using the indoor environment, the fog, and the physical abilities granted by heart-branch magic, she tore loose absurd obstacles such as masses of concrete and used them as shields. She blocked ordinary bullets with those, then charged in to close the gap and force a melee.

One thing was certain, though: she wasn’t an eye or ear user.

If she used ears, she’d have gotten me long ago while I was crawling. If she used eyes, she’d have moved more cautiously. Which raised another question about her fighting style.

Had she fought eye- or ear-branch mages before, and deliberately adopted this relentless, psychologically manipulative approach?

Either way, she was someone we had to fight and kill.

But there wasn’t enough time to explain all of that aloud.

“Ambushes and relentless pressure. Everyone, prepare for close combat.”

At least having that shitting bastard Shin Na-in here was a silver lining.

He understood everything without my having to say it.

The slight furrow between his brows, visible through his gas-mask lenses, and his urgent yet disciplined, by-the-book movements proved it. Lee Se-jun clipped the grenade back onto his belt and shrugged at Hamza.

“Hamza, you know the drill, right? Safety off, shove it in your mouth, bang. Straight to heaven. Okay?”

“O-okay.”

“What do you mean, okay? Don’t you know people who commit suicide can’t go to heaven?”

Trembling, Hamza was dragged along in the pastor’s grip.

Now that we were together again, I believed things would be easier.

But my eyes, their magic still active, showed me the scattering fog. Clear below, packed thick from the waist up.

“Get down!!!”

We shoved one another as we dropped.

I hit the floor with a splat and lifted my head to see something whipping through the air. It was the mass of concrete shattered by the grenade. It sailed onward, struck something, and produced a deafening crash.

Only then did I realize we’d scattered.

In this dense fog, even a little distance was as good as being separated. At least the pastor and Hamza were near me this time. Having thrown himself expertly between the mannequins, the pastor was rubbing his lower back and groaning.

“Ow, ow. That’s killing me.”

“Pastor, Hamza...”

Before I could continue, footsteps reached me.

Fast.

Freed of the heavy concrete she’d thrown, the Seoul mage’s footsteps were light and fierce.

She knew how to flow like water across broken, crushed rubble. She ran in time with the sounds of tumbling stone chips and cracking debris.

The sounds overlapped.

My own movement as I hugged my rifle and rolled over joined them.

Squirming on the floor, I met the eyes of the Seoul mage running through the fog.

Having devoured a man’s entire head, the Seoul mage wore a radiant expression, her eyes gleaming without a trace of fatigue. But the most important thing was that she was fast. Filthy, fucking fast.

Faster than I could shoulder my rifle or tuck it under my arm.

Before I could blink, she bounded along, leaving footprints on the wall, flowing down it as she ran toward me.

I couldn’t delay.

Abandoning any hope of aimed fire or even point shooting, I pulled the trigger.

Again and again.

I knew the rifle was shaking and its muzzle wandering wildly, but I just kept pulling.

Casings flew, and bullets buried themselves in the wall or ricocheted off it.

But even with blood gushing from her left thigh, the Seoul mage merely listed to one side and kept coming, laughing like a lunatic.

The pastor’s and Hamza’s screams reached me belatedly, but the result was hopeless.

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK...

Acrid gunsmoke mingled with the fog as the empty chamber fell silent.

I was out of bullets.

That was when the Seoul mage burst out laughing and lunged.

In front of her, the pastor scooted backward on his backside and shouted.

“Faith!”

At that moment, the pastor’s hand, braced against the floor as he crawled, struck a mannequin.

Seeing it topple, Hamza screamed and bolted like an arrow.

“Aaaagh! Angel!”

As Hamza fled, he collided with things left and right, sending the abandoned mannequins tumbling into one another.

One of them struck the pastor, who happened to have raised his knee, and bounced away.

By sheer coincidence, that bouncing mannequin tipped onto a display case. Empty of all its merchandise, the case caught the mannequin’s upper body.

As luck would have it, it lay directly in the Seoul mage’s path.

Of course, the Seoul mage paid it no mind and tried to step onto the mannequin to spring into the air.

That was when the mannequin slumped against the display case gave way under the weight and pressure, crumbling as though rotten.

Just as she was about to make a splendid leap off it, the mannequin collapsed beneath her as if the ground had caved in.

“Huh?”

Even the Seoul mage looked utterly dumbfounded.

I probably looked just as stupid.

Only one person was different.

Pastor Park Yo-han burst out laughing inside his gas mask and tucked his K2 beneath his arm.

“Those who believe shall be saved!”

BANG-BANG!

The pastor wasn’t a good shot.

But he did manage to hit the Seoul mage’s shoulder.

That snapped me out of my vacant staring. A chance. I immediately adjusted my stance and removed the empty magazine.

Then, as I reloaded, I shouted.

“Supreme Mages, assemble!”

CLACK.

Eye, Stage Two was powerful, but I couldn’t stop anything outside my field of vision. If the Seoul mage timed her charge for a single blink, I’d die on the spot. I had to save it for the decisive moment.

So I used Eye, Stage One.

As the parts clicked into place, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

My trust in the eye magic that had kept me alive through a hail of bullets and the Seoul mage’s pursuit had now reached one hundred percent.

Above all, me, someone who knew how to use tongue magic in its proper form, facing its inverted form made for one hell of a picture.

Avoidance, hostile attacks, department store mage, five minutes, me.

“I’ll tank.”

Those who pursued their goals by sacrificing others were third-rate.

Other people’s suffering was trivial compared to my own.

How could anyone challenge the pinnacle with such a paltry burnt offering?

In an age when even people rejected anything less than the best, trying to satisfy others—let alone magic—with something you yourself considered worthless was foolish.

Only my own suffering had value.

Therefore, I offered only my own suffering.

—That was who I was: Baek Je-min, archmage!

RAT-A-TAT-TAT!

I charged, pulling the trigger indiscriminately.

I didn’t aim.

My only purpose was to spray roughly in her direction and make her flinch.

Shot in the left shoulder, the Seoul mage immediately jumped backward to open the distance.

But I stepped forward before she could flee.

Even so, I couldn’t bridge the gap in our physical abilities.

Knowing that, perhaps, she looked at me with smiling eyes.

“I’ll be right back, sweetie~.”

The instant she started to run, a single heavy baseball flew through the fog.

The grenade, its pin pulled, narrowly passed the Seoul mage.

Anticipating the explosion, I immediately dropped to my knees.

Fortunately, I had the Seoul mage in front of me as a meat shield.

The blast rang out.

Even through the ringing in my ears, I heard the sound of splintering, flying metal piercing flesh.

But she didn’t die.

Moaning and screaming, she tried to escape.

At that moment, Shin Na-in stepped out of the distant fog, already in a standing firing stance with his rifle shouldered and aimed.

“Almighty Lord God, guide my muzzle to the devil!”

Gunshots and bullets rained down together.

Most missed, but a few struck the Seoul mage’s thigh and leg.

Whatever her regenerative abilities, she wouldn’t be able to dodge right away. She could still escape, though, so this time I rushed in until I was right beside her.

With her body crushed and torn apart by bullets and grenade fragments, I could make out the Seoul mage’s strange symbiosis.

It brought back the discussions with the pastor back when monk Cheong-hwi had still been with us.

They’d said alteration-type magic was a system of secret arts for perfecting humanity.

Then was the alteration-type magic before me... was inverted alteration-type magic something that grew stronger by rejecting humanity?

Amid the mingling of mangled flesh and intact human parts, I saw ribs writhing like insects inside her. The Seoul mage looked at me with eyes full of rage and hatred, then curled their corners upward in a sly smile.

She stuck her tongue out through her tattered lower jaw.

Blood welled up between her internal organs and muscles, yet strangely, her pronunciation remained perfectly clear.

“Boys, your magic isn’t much, but you’re strong~.”

That was the signal.

Her ribs seemed to writhe, then the skin of her back burst open and a white spine began undulating.

I took a quick look at how she was staying upright without a spine. What a sight. She was using magically enhanced muscles in place of a skeleton to maintain her body.

Red footprints surrounded me in an instant.

Amid the swirling, clearing fog, I began bending down, stepping back, and stepping forward, my rifle tucked under my arm.

SWISH!

The spinal tail skimmed the sleeve of my poncho like a hornet’s stinger. That single graze sliced it open.

At the same time, I leveled my muzzle and put my hand on the trigger.

The Seoul mage crossed her arms to protect her heart and head.

But she would have realized it immediately.

A feint.

I didn’t pull the trigger.

Instead, there I was—Baek Je-min, archmage—gripping my rifle and smashing its stock down at her leg.

THWACK!

My role was strictly to cripple her mobility.

That was what I’d decided.

Retreating, I aimed my muzzle again. This time, she didn’t panic and whipped her spinal tail at me.

But my eyes showed me where to dodge.

I ducked, kept my grip, and placed my hand on the trigger.

WHOOSH!

I answered the chilling sound of air being sliced with gunfire.

RAT-A-TAT!

It was insane.

Baek Je-min, a human being, relied on his eyes and their ability to see the future, holding an AR-15 under his arm while fighting a higher-level, physically oriented mage living in symbiosis with a monster.

I kept doing it even as my poncho was torn apart and death closed in.

Feints and movements overlapped as her will to escape clashed with my determination to hold her.

Every time casings flew and flames burst from the muzzle, blood and flesh scattered.

Thanks to that, the Supreme Mages could get into position.

While I faced a being that whipped its spine like a tail, split the air with its fists, and shattered the floor with a single kick, they finished redeploying.

The first to join in was Pastor Park Yo-han, who adjusted his stance and took aim.

"Best of Best, take this!"

A curtain of fire formed.

I stepped back briefly and caught my breath.

Avoidance, physical impact, fatal injury, five minutes, me.

Now I would dodge friendly bullets as I closed the distance and tied the enemy down. Insane, but possible—which made it magic. Dopamine was surging like mad.

Meanwhile, the Seoul mage tried to escape the curtain of fire, but someone else was already positioned by a display shelf on her flank.

Shin Na-in had finished a crisp, unhesitating magazine change and was aiming with his rifle shouldered.

He didn’t say a word.

With improved accuracy, he began firing at the Seoul mage, carefully, one shot at a time.

She couldn’t escape.

Each hit made her falter, denying her a chance to flee.

Then she turned toward me with a strange smile.

She extended her tongue from her ragged jaw, bloody saliva dripping from it, and I knew immediately what she was thinking.

She wanted my magic.

My eyes.

That was when I heard Lee Se-jun’s voice.

“Je-min, lend me your back!”

Before I could answer, the weight of a grown man landed on my shoulder.

That motherfucker Lee Se-jun had used my shoulder as a foothold.

Springing off it, he vaulted over the Seoul mage’s head in an instant.

With his muzzle trained on her.

But the tail of the predatory spine living in symbiosis with her was a step faster.

The spinal tail that had been targeting me turned on Lee Se-jun.

He instantly adjusted his grip and held his rifle out as a shield, but he couldn’t stop the impact from knocking him away.

Still, it was an opening.

The instant the predatory spine’s tail was distracted by Lee Se-jun, I pulled the trigger and charged again without delay.

RAT-A-TAT!

Flank. Chest.

Bullets struck her exposed internal organs, spraying blood. Naturally so, now that her evasive movements and the predatory spine were no longer obstructing my aim.

All her efforts to protect her vital points by offering less vulnerable arms or skin and reducing her exposed area became meaningless in that one instant.

Unable to withstand the sudden pain and damage, her gaze wavered.

Her body staggered before she could act on her intention to escape.

I risked my life in case she could somehow dodge by reading the direction of my muzzle.

Drawing my bayonet with my left hand and keeping my right on the trigger, I charged hard with the rifle tucked under my arm.

Target, kill, department store mage, three minutes, me.

I swung the bayonet while spraying bullets.

I saw the paths that would sever her tendons. My body couldn’t keep up enough to inflict the damage properly, but it was sufficient.

Each time blood flowed from a slash, her movements slowed.

I was certain.

The Seoul mage had never faced a mage who charged in swinging a knife while shooting.

Yet even as bullets blasted her flesh and organs apart, she swung her tail to kill me.

When I slashed her hand, one of my gas-mask straps was sliced clean through.

When I poured rounds into her guts, the pressure from her slap alone forced me backward.

Even with the pastor and Shin Na-in pinning her down, she protected herself by shaking her head and twisting her body.

Eventually, I ran out of rounds.

CLICK-CLICK-CLICK...

Beyond the acrid gunsmoke, the Seoul mage listened to those clicks as happily as if they were a birthday song.

“It’s my birthday today. Thanks for the present~.”

TAP-TAP!

Ignoring her injuries, she lunged for my knowledge and wisdom, my experiences and senses, my magic.

The offensive reversed.

I couldn’t even think of blocking with my rifle stock.

All I could do was dodge.

My poncho became rags in an instant, and the attacks aimed at my body grew more precise. Horrifyingly, none reached above my neck.

The Seoul mage’s tongue flicked out.

The manly Baek Je-min held on with just one thought: after twenty-eight years, there was no way my first kiss could be this.

At that moment, I heard Hamza’s voice.

“Se-jun!”

Hamza, that fucking bastard. I’d thought he’d run for good, but he hadn’t.

Coming up breathlessly behind the Seoul mage, Hamza drew the fucking huge revolver at his waist and threw it. He didn’t have much strength, so rather than throwing it, he bowled it? Sent it skidding would be more accurate.

But that fucking huge revolver soon found its way into a man’s hand.

CLICK.

At the chilling sound of the hammer being cocked, I saw bewilderment cross the Seoul mage’s face.

“First shot, sure hit!”

A heavy gunshot followed Lee Se-jun’s loud cry.

BANG!

By the time I heard it, the fight had narrowly failed to end.

The symbiotic predatory spine’s tail had deflected the bullet, and was flying away, severed as the price.

At that moment, I swung my bayonet.

At the junction of jaw and cheek, feeling it lightly scrape against teeth, I cut with all my strength.

CHOP!

Blood and flesh flew.

The long tongue came away in a bloody chunk.

My left hand was drenched in the Seoul mage’s blood.

But I didn’t stop.

The place connecting the throat to the head. The gap where bone and muscle had parted.

I swung the bayonet hard at it, as if chopping downward.

Resentment surfaced in the Seoul mage’s eyes.

I didn’t want to know what it was directed at.

There was only one thing I needed to know.

We, the Supreme Mages, would be the ones to survive!

SLICE!

Clutching her slashed neck, the Seoul mage stumbled backward and landed on her backside.

Even then, she didn’t die.

I couldn’t tell whether that was because she’d reached a high level in the heart branch or because it was a feature of inverted alteration-type magic.

One thing was certain, though: she would never escape death.

Lee Se-jun’s fucking huge revolver aimed between the eyes of the Seoul mage as she toppled backward.

CLICK.

“Sure hit, sure kill.”

BANG!

Her head burst apart.

Only then did Shin Na-in slowly approach, kicking aside a fallen casing.

“She’s dead.”

“Hah, hah...”

Belatedly, I realized I was panting.

It had been so exhausting, so overwhelming...

And so exhilarating that I couldn’t help pulling my gas mask up and off.