Chapter 59 - A Roadside Free-for-All

For a very brief moment, we faced off against Ski Goggles.

Clutching his iron tent stake, ready to swing, he looked almost like a gladiator. A gladiator willingly taking on five opponents—even if Hamza barely counted. You might think that made him insane, but that was the bare minimum it took to be a mage.

The standoff lasted five seconds at most.

For those five seconds, Shin Na-in and I kept our guns trained on him, looking for a way to kill him instantly. We suspected the way to defeat Eye, Stage Three, [Cognitive Dissonance], was to render him unconscious before he could reject reality.

Naturally, Ski Goggles wasn't going to let us kill him that easily.

A fatal shot to the heart instead of the head wouldn't work. A death he couldn't even perceive probably wouldn't stop Eye, Stage Three. We had to give him a death so definitive that he couldn't deny it, however much he wanted to.

Shooting him straight through the head should stop his magic by destroying his very ability to perceive, but even that was a gamble. Hell, what if we killed him instantly with a headshot, only for the remnants of his consciousness to activate Eye, Stage Three because he hadn't perceived his death?

There were too many possibilities.

And in an actual fight against a mage, a complacent conclusion would inevitably lead to defeat.

Ski Goggles, a Seoul mage himself, seemed to understand that too. He gripped his iron tent stake, pointing its tip at us as he steadied his breathing.

Five seconds.

That was when the standoff ended.

Shin Na-in, who had been calmly aiming at Ski Goggles, suddenly swung his muzzle toward the sky. A short breath escaped through his gas-mask filter.

"Jellyfish!"

At the same instant, Ski Goggles stepped forward.

I'd leave the Skin-jellyfish to Na-in.

I rolled my already ragged tongue inside my mouth.

Target, kill, Ski Goggles, route, three minutes, me.

This time, I saw no red footprints.

The fog merely cleared and swirled back in over and over, showing an ordinary route. The problem was that the intervals between it clearing and returning were far too short.

Before I could blink, it cleared and swept back across my view several times. It almost felt like flashes of light.

I understood. Ski Goggles was using Eye, Stage One to counter my Eye, Stage One.

A clash between two Stage One eyes felt like playing janggi, go, or chess with unlimited takebacks.

Whenever I tried to aim down his route, fog swirled in and obscured it. Somewhere else would clear, but as soon as I shifted my attention there, the fog rolled back in.

I didn't even have to aim. Just looking made the fog clear and return again.

It gave me the uncanny feeling of a little brat endlessly clicking a light switch, making the fluorescent lights flicker.

Only then did I realize I was trapped inside an interminable second.

Time had stretched infinitely for Ski Goggles and me.

The moment our eye-branch magic collided, the very concept of time had warped again.

A battle of predicting each other's futures, endlessly making moves and taking them back.

Everything slowed so much it seemed to have stopped, leaving only thought and perception free. Amid the illusion of fog flickering, splintering, and shattering, red footprints filled my vision.

What broke that cycle was a string of meaningless sounds Ski Goggles recited.

Olnipial.

At that instant, time began to move.

An Amalgam had emerged through the fog and blocked the space between us. The eight-faced Amalgam waved its limbs limply, meeting my gaze with its compound eyes.

After witnessing time slowed almost to a standstill, my body couldn't react immediately. In my mind, I was already raising my gun, but my body was only now tightening its grip.

Backlash.

The magical duel's backlash had knocked my perception and physical reactions out of sync.

Then I had the impression that the Amalgam's compound eyes were grinning at me. I hoped it was only an impression.

Its irregularly overlapping pupils stared into mine, revealing a faint emotion.

This monster could think.

And right now, it was happy.

Before the fear of death came a dread like seeing a cockroach waving its antennae in the sink.

A revolting terror like a swarm of leeches swimming through the rice paddies toward me.

That... that smiling gaze was something no human could ever accept.

When an Amalgam charged with smiling eyes, certain of its meal, a human could only break down at the realization that their own end would be to join those overlapping faces.

All the more so if they had the chilling intuition that those expressions and death screams might belong not to the monster, but to its victims.

The most horrific end one could meet before reaching the limits of magic.

An eternity in which even screaming and begging for death was forbidden approached with jaws agape. Only then did I fully understand why Father Jeong Yong-hwan had called so desperately for the Lord.

The hells humans imagined were trifling things.

I realized how merciful the established religions' hells were, where one merely suffered engulfed in flames, compared with true hell.

Within my endlessly slowed perception, as time gradually began to fast-forward, the Amalgam's compound eyes brought me an understanding I should never have gained.

Eternity trapped in a monster's flesh, permitted only to swallow more victims. An interminable span in which a self and reason ruled by monstrous instincts might have to contemplate their predicament until the universe ended—perhaps even beyond.

The true apocalypse awaiting all humanity stood before my eyes.

That monster, grinning with its mouths joined into one long gash, was the true hell prepared for every human. All the monsters infesting Seoul were different varieties of the hell every human would enjoy.

We stood...

...not before an end, but before the beginning of eternity.

As that despairing understanding sank in, I couldn't help my grip on my gun going slack. Even an optimist couldn't immediately embrace such a horrific realization.

Only the ignorant could withstand it.

And Lee Se-jun was a fucking moron, so he could.

"Magic Punch!!!"

CRUNCH!

A blood-soaked fist drove into the Amalgam's head.

Considering how nearly shapeless the monster was, his fist should normally have slipped straight into it. But Se-jun's bloody fist carried Hand Branch, Stage One magic.

Watching the compound eyes that had grinned at me slowly fill with pain and shock, I moved my ragged tongue to compose myself. I scraped the already mangled flesh against my front teeth and bit down ever so slightly.

A small bite.

Stinging pain spread through my mouth and sent a jolt through my head.

Enough to make my right hand involuntarily clench around my gun. Time flowed again. My perception returned to my flesh. By the time the illusion of everything fast-forwarding at one-and-a-half speed ended, I had already shouldered my rifle and taken aim.

CLICK.

I could see beyond the Amalgam's body as Se-jun's bloody fist mashed its head like soft tofu.

Ski Goggles was swinging his iron spike hard at Se-jun. He had used the Amalgam as cover to block my view and waited for Se-jun to act.

Very clever.

But a lead bullet generally reached a body faster than an iron spike. I gladly pulled the trigger for him.

Gunshots rang out and casings flew.

As muzzle flash and gunsmoke seeped into the fog, Ski Goggles staggered, his stance collapsing. I'd aimed at his head, but he'd twisted in time to take the shots in his left side and left shoulder instead.

He wasn't going to take it lying down, though.

Olnipial.

The instant that incomprehensible word rang out again, a shadow began falling from the sky.

It had to be a Skin-jellyfish under his command. This bastard could summon the monsters he'd bound. And apparently control them, too.

I was just about to raise my muzzle in a hurry.

RAT-TAT-TAT...

Gunfire from behind me pierced and shredded the Skin-jellyfish before my muzzle reached it. Only one of the Supreme Mages could get things done at a mere thought.

Shin Na-in, the super detector.

He was already tapping my shoulder. I turned to find him aiming into the sky, keeping his rifle shouldered with one hand.

"Je-min, the pastor and I will handle the devil's minions!"

The pastor raised his K2, imitating Na-in's stance, while Hamza came hurrying over.

"Hey, Islam, you idiot! Throw me a magazine!"

"M-magazine coming!"

THUMP!

Hamza's magazine bounced off the pastor's shoulder.

Just when it looked about to fall, the pastor reached out and snatched it as though playing catch.

"Can't you throw properly?!"

"S-sorry!"

"I'll keep shooting, so Na-in, you reload first. Baek Je-min, help Se-jun kill that devil!"

That was the Supreme Mages for you.

Who cared if the beginning of eternity awaited? If something pissed us off, we crushed it dead first.

That was our Supreme Mages spirit, and swept up in it, I finally shook off my fear completely.

A real man answered with actions, not words.

Instead of answering the pastor aloud, I shouldered my gun and aimed toward Ski Goggles again. Se-jun was there, throwing and swinging bloody fists at the bound Amalgams.

"Je-min, help!!!"

WHOOSH.

Every swing of his bloody fist shattered an Amalgam head like a lump of sand.

Despite the horrified look in his eyes, Se-jun wasn't even breathing hard as he swung. The bastard was punching everything to death all by himself and still asking for help.

Then again, punching Amalgams would give me the creeps too, so I decided to help.

Without hesitation, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

The stinging pain brought tears to my eyes, but that searing tongue was proof I was confronting reality.

I grinned, realizing I had grown another step today. If it meant growth, I could gladly accept even pain. Writhing in agony, tears streaming down my face, I burst into laughter and laid my finger on the trigger.

Before the beginning of eternity, only pain was immortal.

My pain was the sole light and guide leading me toward becoming an omnipotent archmage.

Thus, pain was salvation.

In this hell, only pain was true.

My salvation, my hope, my future lay in pain!

BANG, BANG, BANG...

Whenever I shot one of an Amalgam's limbs and upset its balance, Se-jun lunged like a viper.

His bloody fist cut through wind and fog, and an Amalgam's head burst with a pop like bone-dry sand.

Whenever he seemed about to be surrounded, I shot the legs of an approaching Amalgam to throw it off, letting him seize the opening to escape and strike again.

For a while, gunfire and spirited battle cries rang out as countless monsters fell. We must have killed at least a dozen each of the Amalgams, predatory spines, and Skin-jellyfish.

Then Ski Goggles emerged from the swirling, dense fog beyond their corpses.

He surveyed the dead monsters, clicked his tongue, and called out once more.

Olnipial.

But the numbers were clearly smaller this time. Only Skin-jellyfish and predatory spines remained. Figuring he'd even run out of Amalgams to use as decoys, I aimed my gun.

At that moment, Ski Goggles raised his left arm.

What?

Was he seriously surrendering now?

I lowered my muzzle slightly in surprise, but of course it was nothing of the sort. As he raised his arm, a predatory spine leaped off the ground.

Its rib-legs latched onto his left arm, wrapping around it as though locking into place.

Tight enough for us to hear his long padded coat being compressed.

CREAAAK.

With the predatory spine fitted over his left arm, Ski Goggles gave it a shake.

Everyone watched blankly, wondering whether he was insane, but I realized what he'd done.

The predatory spine's tail stinger swayed along his left arm.

That... that bastard...

He'd attached the predatory spine to his arm to use it as a segmented whip-sword!

"You disgusting soldier bastards."

CLATTER!

The colliding bones sounded like a chain. Ski Goggles spun the iron tent stake once in his right hand and began walking toward us.

SQUELCH.

The sight of him approaching, trampling an Amalgam's corpse, sent a thrill through me. I'd assumed an eye mage would just take potshots from a distance, but no.

This man bound monsters and worked out how to use them efficiently.

And he sought close combat.

To make certain his opponents died.

The other Supreme Mages finally realized why he'd attached the predatory spine to his left arm, and recoiled in horror.

"Oh, Allah..."

"Who the hell uses monsters like that?!"

CLANG, CLANG!

Ski Goggles seemed to tap the asphalt with his spike, then somehow found a sticky portion of a shattered Amalgam head and skewered it.

Having cut away the still-gooey head with his spike, he swirled it around as though making cotton candy.

You'd think he was insane.

But by a mage's standards, that was the most efficient killing weapon possible.

An ordinary human would be as good as dead the moment that spike, thickly coated in Amalgam fluids, pierced them, or the predatory spine's tail stinger struck.

Na-in, probably the least battered of us, couldn't fire at him even if he wanted to.

Right now, he was our human antiaircraft gun.

Bound Skin-jellyfish kept appearing overhead, and only Na-in was holding them off. Even the pastor was distracted, stealing glances at Ski Goggles. Na-in alone kept pulling the trigger without pause.

With falling shell casings as background music, Ski Goggles turned toward us, displaying his spike and the predatory spine strapped on like a bracer.

I stroked the trigger with my index finger, but couldn't shoot.

I wanted to fire, too.

It seemed like I could simply use Eye, Stage One and shoot him, but as an eye mage, Ski Goggles was thoroughly seasoned in anti-mage combat.

If our Stage One eyes clashed again, my backlash would be worse.

If he seized that moment to use Eye, Stage Two, we'd be wiped out, no question.

Mage battles combined physical prowess with tactical maneuvering: zero-sum, all-in duels where a moment's complacency meant annihilation.

There was only one answer.

Swarm him together.

"Lee Se-jun, take close combat."

"Ah, shit..."

'Does Magical Punch sound better than Magic Punch?'

Whatever bullshit was going through his head, he was the most reliable front line we had.

Se-jun lifted his gas mask, bit hard into his right hand until it bled, and clenched his fist. Bloody-fisted Lee Se-jun and I, an eye mage, would team up against Ski Goggles.

The others would handle the familiars he kept calling without pause.

Guessing how we'd split our roles, Ski Goggles shook his left arm again. Once more, the sound of bones that had formed a human spine colliding and scraping struck my ears.

CLATTER-RATTLE!

"You soldier bastards. Do you know how many people died because of you? You shot everyone dead for being infected, and now you come crawling back? Who do you think you are? How dare you!"

His ruined, hoarse voice began to betray his rage.

"Become monsters yourselves. Be ruined, just like us!!!"

Here he came.

Se-jun charged first, launching a dropkick. Ski Goggles easily twisted out of its path.

Then he flicked his left arm toward Se-jun as he passed, trying to lash him with the tail stinger like a whip-sword. This was where I came in. Time to teach him the obvious fact that people died when shot.

BANG-BANG!

I deliberately shot his thigh instead of his head.

A maximally painful, extremely dangerous spot, but not one that led straight to the instant death he was anticipating.

Ski Goggles staggered.

At that moment, someone grabbed my shoulder and shoved me hard to the ground.

CRASH!

It took less than a second to understand what had happened.

SPLAT.

A Skin-jellyfish. It had dropped precisely onto the spot where I'd stood.

Hamza had saved me.

Hamza was white as a sheet, panting hard behind his gas mask. Before I could thank him, the pastor aimed at the Skin-jellyfish on the ground and pulled the trigger.

RAT-TAT-TAT.

"Baek Je-min, that bastard's no amateur at handling his minions! Get your head in the game!"

"Yes, sir."

That was all I could manage.

Ski Goggles.

The very instant lead lodged in his thigh, he'd sent a familiar after me behind him. Jeong Na-ri, the Dubai Chewy Witch we'd met at the Jangji Station department store, had relied on physical ability to overwhelm us. Ski Goggles was clearly different.

But Na-ri's tactics held the answer.

Knowing we had an eye mage and an ear mage, she'd chosen to attack relentlessly. Wasn't that the answer? Only an onslaught beyond his perception and stamina could force a mistake.

I raised my gun and looked toward Ski Goggles again.

Then I saw just how seasoned a Seoul mage he was.

WHOOSH.

The spike cut through empty air, followed by a bloody fist.

Se-jun and Ski Goggles kept moving through their razor-close melee. Even then, Ski Goggles remained aware of my line of sight.

The instant I raised my gun and aimed, Se-jun's movements suddenly slowed.

"Agaaaain..."

Ski Goggles swung his left arm, and the predatory spine's tail stinger extended joint by joint like a whip-sword, aiming for Se-jun's throat. A very clever choice to force upon me.

Shoot Ski Goggles, or use Eye, Stage Two to save Se-jun?

I hoped someone would understand why I couldn't immediately shoot or cast.

Se-jun was a twenty-four-year-old former staff sergeant who'd failed to secure a career appointment, a hairy, prematurely old-looking man who nevertheless wanted to transform into a cute girl. A bottom-of-the-barrel bastard. Honestly, not someone I wanted as a friend.

So I chose neither.

Instead, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth and used another method.

Upright Alteration-Type Tongue, Stage Two: explosion of desire.

The urge to sleep.

At that instant, Ski Goggles visibly staggered, his stance crumbling.

As his stance collapsed and his vision wavered, Se-jun was freed too. Horrified by the stinger aimed at his throat, he leaped backward with a silent scream.

"Aaagh!"

His scream came a beat late as Ski Goggles swayed.

Without hesitation, I looked for a chance to line up his head.

Target, kill, Ski Goggles' head, five minutes, route.

It was definitely working.

Gone was the battle through time in which we endlessly made and undid moves. The fog was clearing and returning noticeably slower. The urge to sleep was slowing his perception.

You're finished, motherfucker.

I placed my finger on the trigger and pulled.

BANG.

The bullet pierced Ski Goggles' head.

He didn't die immediately. Miraculously, enough consciousness seemed to remain to activate Eye, Stage Three.

But this was the end.

I was just recovering from the recoil, resolving to keep landing headshots until he died.

At that instant, he shook his spike with a swing, flinging off the Amalgam fluids coating it. Then, with an enormous scream, he reversed his grip.

"You outsiders!!! Die!!!"

CRUNCH!

Today, I witnessed a great mage.

The moment I saw the iron spike protruding through Ski Goggles' left arm, between the predatory spine's bones, my knees went weak. He was insane. In a good way, of course.

To overcome the magical urge to sleep, he'd driven his own spike through his left arm.

If he'd stopped at that, I'd have called him an idiot, not a mage.

But Ski Goggles had thought it all through.

When he pulled the spike free, he assigned the predatory spine clinging to his arm to move the now-limp limb.

CRUNCH!

The predatory spine straightened, rigid as a splint, moving his left arm for him.

Unable to conceal himself anymore, Ski Goggles still had the ability to pressure us with just two kinds of magic: his eyes and his familiars. He pointed the spike, stained with his own blood, at Se-jun and spoke in his ravaged voice.

"I'll grow stronger. Strong enough to overcome your precious bullets and shells. And when that day comes, I'll cram the faces of all forty million of you left into mimic beasts' heads."

With that, he charged Se-jun.

Rage had him in its grip. The problem was that even enraged, he fought damn well.

Se-jun and Ski Goggles traded attacks without pause.

Bloody fists, a tail-stinger whip-sword, and a bloodstained iron spike slashed ceaselessly through the air, seeking each other's flesh. All the while, Ski Goggles guarded against my shots, deliberately slipping behind Se-jun again and again.

This wouldn't do.

"Magical Punch!"

I couldn't let that fucking nonsense steal the coolest part.

CLICK.

I immediately gripped my gun and threw myself into the melee between them.

"Baek Je-min, what are you doing!!!"

The pastor's desperate shout reached me, but a real man proved himself with results.

I could shoot all day and still not beat Ski Goggles. What we needed now was one powerful blow from Se-jun. A stinging fist that would force him to perceive pain.

My role here was support.

"Je-min?!"

"I'll help. Just keep doing what you're doing."

Defense, fatal injury, Lee Se-jun, five minutes, route.

My entry into close combat quickly yielded results. The instant Ski Goggles brought his spike down at Se-jun, my rifle stock swung upward from below, anticipating that future.

CLANG!

Ski Goggles glanced at me. His spike hand seemed numb.

Struck by my stock, his right hand opened involuntarily, loosening his grip. He barely avoided dropping the spike, but swinging it again immediately looked difficult.

Then his movements abruptly accelerated, and he seized it firmly again in a flash.

A tight clench.

"Jeeee-miiiiin..."

Se-jun's drawn-out voice confirmed it.

The moment Ski Goggles realized I was using Eye, Stage One, he'd used Eye, Stage Two to slow us to a crawl. Moving as though he alone were running at triple speed, he adjusted his stance and raised his left arm.

At a speed human eyes could barely follow.

The tail stinger of the predatory spine moving his arm flexed as though about to slice through our throats.

But his fate had been sealed the moment he'd injured his left arm for the pain needed to overcome sleepiness, and refused to heal it. Pain ate away at concentration and attention.

Why else would people take headache medicine?

Ski Goggles had forgotten that obvious fact for too long.

BANG!

Time flowed normally again.

Mine, Se-jun's, and Ski Goggles' time now matched, one to one.

What had happened was obvious.

Beyond his shoulder, acrid gunsmoke streamed from the pastor's K2.

Noticing my gaze, the pastor raised his left hand and gave me a firm thumbs-up.

That was the signal.

Se-jun instinctively sensed our advantage. Trusting the other Supreme Mages, I was already half-certain of victory, so I acted immediately.

Se-jun clenched his bloody fist. I tightened my grip on my gun, ready to swing the stock.

"Lee Se-jun. You take the left arm. I'll take the right."

"Roger."

As disgusting and unpleasant as it was, Se-jun and I made a pretty well-coordinated duo.

The moment we divided our roles, our combined assault on Ski Goggles began working properly.

When he thrust with his spike, my rifle stock knocked it aside.

When the predatory spine's tail stinger extended, ready to lash out, Se-jun's bloody fist struck it. And when Ski Goggles tried to slow us with Eye, Stage Two and escape, another Supreme Mage stepped in.

Shin Na-in.

Reading Ski Goggles' mind with Ear, Stage Three, he immediately moved to switch roles with the pastor.

"Pastor!"

"Okay, switching with Na-in!"

They switched, aiming in different directions.

Na-in pulled the trigger at Ski Goggles; the pastor fired at the familiars. Behind them, Hamza trembled but pointed out shapes approaching through the fog, directing the pastor.

"There! That one's dangerous!"

"Keep pointing them out, and give me a magazine!"

"Here!"

Amid the commotion, Na-in's devout prayer sounded particularly clear today.

"Almighty Lord God, praying that Your authority may dwell upon this earth, I pull this trigger to drive out the devil's minions..."

BANG!

Ski Goggles' magic broke.

The instant Se-jun and I returned from our endless slowing to normal speed, we attacked again.

"Raaaaagh!!!"

At some point, Se-jun had begun throwing a barrage of punches that were purely physical, not magical at all, pressuring Ski Goggles with their force.

I focused entirely on protecting him from injury, knocking aside the tail-spine whip-sword and iron spike whenever they darted toward an opening.

The melee between Se-jun, Ski Goggles, and me grew increasingly furious.

Our rain ponchos and his long padded coat flapped ceaselessly amid violent movement and gusts.

The spike scraping against my rifle stock made a chilling sound. Every occasional rip of fabric sent fear surging through me that my belly or side had been cut.

There we were, inside fog riddled with gunfire, in a pandemonium of steel and bone clashing and savagely scraping.

Naturally, it was we Supreme Mages who finally gained the upper hand.

CRUNCH!

Se-jun's bloody fist smashed the tail-stinger whip-sword.

As the tail-spine screamed its death cry and loosened from his left arm, Ski Goggles glanced at me. Our gazes met through my gas-mask lenses and his ski goggles.

As Se-jun raised his knee, I couldn't tell what expression was in the man's eyes.

But I did my best to convey a heartwarming message through mine.

Rest easy.

I'll burst your eyeballs for you!

BOOM!

Se-jun's kick slammed into Ski Goggles' gut.

The impact was more than enough to pulverize bone. He couldn't even roll across the asphalt; he simply crashed down. That single strike, that single impact, seemed to have broken his limbs. He could barely twitch.

Still, he wasn't dead.

As long as he had Eye, Stage Three, he would revive if given a chance.

Cognitive Dissonance was that powerful.

But it wasn't unbeatable.

Keep hammering reality into him, and he could be killed. I raised my gun and fired at the twitching Ski Goggles. With every pull of the trigger, I took another step.

BANG. BANG. BANG...

By the time I reached him safely, all five of us Supreme Mages had gathered companionably around him. In a circle.

Right before his eyes, I aimed between his brows and chuckled.

"Any last words?"

"I..."

BANG!

Riddled with holes all over his body, Ski Goggles convulsed and began going limp. Pain beyond even Eye, Stage Three, [Cognitive Dissonance], kept washing over him until his cognitive dissonance failed.

That was the counter to Eye, Stage Three I'd devised.

The pastor clicked his tongue.

"Why ask for his last words if you were going to shoot him anyway?"

"Because while thinking about them, he'd have to face the fact that he was about to die."

"Whew. Baek Je-min, your mind is terrifying."

I finished him off with another shot, this time to the heart instead of the head.

Only then could I ask Se-jun, who had just caught his breath, a question.

"Se-jun. Why did you say 'roger,' anyway?"

"Would you prefer 'Okaaay, big brother' in Japanese?"

Right.

This surging disgust and displeasure was precisely our strength.

We raged.

We loathed, hated, and resented the terror and absurdity that had suddenly descended upon us. Even knowing that, on a cosmic scale, we could change nothing, we could still willingly charge in.

We would move forward without succumbing to nihilism.

At least I was now ready to face whatever truth awaited us.

Standing over the mage's corpse on a road strewn with bodies and shell casings, amid clouds of fog mixed with gunsmoke, we exchanged looks.

At last, it was time to share the joy of victory.

"Well, time for some fun looting."

Though this time, I was taking every last fucking bit!