Chapter 68 - The Name of the Miracle

BANG!

I planted a foot on a car and vaulted over it.

We still had a long way to go. There were hundreds of abandoned vehicles on Olympic Bridge alone.

The problem was the monsters dangling from the thick cables extending from the enormous arch at the center of the bridge.

At the edge of my vision, predatory spines scuttled down like bugs.

"Spines!"

The instant Shin Na-in's cry rang out, I turned my head—to take in every one of the predatory spines pouring down the hangers extending from the massive arch.

A world without fog.

A sky where monsters burst under shellfire and flesh rained down.

As shredded flesh pattered against my poncho, I glared at the predatory spines targeting us, using their ribs as legs.

Pain was frightening.

But what I truly had to fear was my potential being imprisoned for eternity, so I did not hesitate.

Upright Alteration-Type Tongue, Stage Two.

[Explosion of Desire - Desire for Sleep].

SQUELCH!

This time, pain surged through my tongue as though someone had smashed it with a meat tenderizer.

Naturally, I couldn't keep running properly. Clutching the filter of my gas mask with my left hand, I rolled across the ground, opening my mouth and panting for breath.

Like a puppy sticking its tongue out and panting to endure the heat under the blazing sun.

My tongue burned with a spiciness that would easily exceed ten thousand Scoville units. The pain threatened to drive me mad, yet that same pain kept me from going mad. I felt blood mixed with saliva dripping down the corners of my mouth, but I didn't even have the strength to lift my mask and spit.

My hands, feet, arms, and legs trembled violently and gave out on their own.

Yet my mind and thoughts remained clear.

The only reason I could think calmly right now was Eye, Stage Three: [Cognitive Dissonance].

I felt a heavy pressure in my already blind left eye as the pressure inside it rose.

Deep within my eye, the stalk of the optic nerve heated like a heating element, bubbling as though it would cook the inside of my eyeball like egg white.

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

This magic wasn't a one-time effect. It was ongoing.

It worked by concentrating the entire cost of denying changes to one's body in a single eye. The blindness was temporary, but there was a fixed limit.

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

Cognitive Dissonance paid its price by temporarily sacrificing sight, the most important sense for human cognition. To withstand death, I would lose both eyes.

And someone who lost their eyes obviously could no longer use eye-branch magic.

Even so, it was still a cheap price for using powerful magic somewhere without fog.

CLATTER!

I heard heaps of bone striking the ground limply. Judging by the splashes, some had apparently fallen into the Han River.

I couldn't check for myself while lying facedown, but the rough hands forcibly hauling me upright were confirmation enough.

SMACK!

Lee Se-jun slapped my back, jolting me alert.

"Urgh!"

"Je-min, snap out of it! Run!"

Lee Se-jun, the heart mage, was strong even outside the fog.

That definitely left a bruise on my back. My gratitude toward him evaporated in an instant, leaving nothing but irritation and curses.

That son of a bitch. Couldn't he hit a little more gently...?

But the reason we had to run was drooling behind us, so I couldn't even give him a proper retort.

As soon as I recovered my senses, I gripped my bayonet and scrambled to the front.

BANG! BANG!

The flesh-colored starfish chasing us, crushing cars behind us, shouted.

It forced human pronunciation through a monster's vocal cords.

"Where. Are. You. Going."

Rather than answering aloud, I replied inwardly.

'Where do you think? To get you some food, you little shit.'

That was when everything looked hopeless.

As we passed beneath the massive arch at the very center of Olympic Bridge, a noticeable change occurred on the opposite bank of the Han River, to the north.

Between the concrete buildings that had survived this chaos with only their tops shaved off, between the wrecked cars and spilled debris, twisted figures gathered in packs and turned their gazes toward us.

Cold sweat ran down me.

The monsters that had been looking only toward the outskirts of Seoul had heard gunfire.

Not shots fired far away, but gunfire echoing from the heart of Seoul.

Before we had even finished crossing the Han River, we were effectively surrounded.

But we couldn't stop.

Cruncher behind us, and Amalgams and all sorts of other monsters ahead, were approaching with their eyes on us and drool streaming from their mouths.

We passed the arch.

We ran toward the monsters beyond the wrecked cars, watching us as they slowly approached in packs.

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

"Don't forget! As long as you believe, you will be saved!"

His cry pierced the thunderous shellfire and the monsters' screams to reach my ears.

His shout stirred the monsters, too. Recognizing the final prayer of the living, the Amalgams began to run.

There were easily ten roughly medium-sized Amalgams alone, each having devoured dozens of people.

I, Baek Je-min, made a quick decision.

"Lee Se-jun! Throw me one of your spare grenades!"

"With the pin pulled?!"

"Fuck, I'm going to use it!"

WHOOSH!

The moment I said it, something like a rock shot over my head. It didn't even follow an arc—it flew straight.

If I caught that, it would punch through my hand.

Was that bastard Lee Se-jun seriously determined to smash me with a grenade?

Complaints welled up, but something more urgent demanded my attention, so I swallowed them.

Before the grenade could slam into some random spot, the instant I confirmed it had passed over my head, I rolled my tongue inside my mouth.

Upright Alteration-Type Tongue, Stage One: [Demotion].

Time to use magic at 100% again.

As long as a fear more terrible than pain drove me onward, I was ready to offer this flesh as a burnt sacrifice.

If necessary, I could stick myself with another shot of morphine and sacrifice my left eye.

Odin had already set a precedent. Why couldn't I do it?

Upright Alteration-Type Eye, Stage Two, 100%.

Thus my pain was longer and more absolute than at any other time—.

[Cognitive Distortion.]

About twenty paces separated me from the pack of Amalgams.

At that instant, time slowed without end.

Even amid all that, the grenade Lee Se-jun had thrown struck the rear window of an abandoned car at its normal speed.

I heard nothing, but I saw every fine crack spreading through the tempered glass like a spiderweb.

A grenade was a thrown weapon, sure, but I hadn't known it could be thrown like this to punch holes clean through bodies. Lee Se-jun was a lunatic who expected me to catch something like that.

I walked, step by step.

Ten paces brought me to the car where the grenade had lodged. I reached out and retrieved it before it could bury itself in the glass.

Then I walked another ten paces.

Standing before an Amalgam, I studied its appearance. In Korea, which was already becoming an aging society, this monster had thoroughly devoured only young people. The way it waved several pairs of smooth, unwrinkled arms was quite impressive.

I gently placed the grenade into the hand of the Amalgam that had dared lunge at us Supreme Mages.

As though acting on a spinal reflex, the Amalgam's hand began closing around the grenade without knowing a thing.

I pulled the pin.

Finally, I struck its grenade-holding hand, knocking it toward its belly. The compound eyes rolling between its tangled faces still hadn't managed to look at me.

Then I ducked and curled up.

Lifting the poncho bearing the blood-written word [Sturdy] to cover my face, I shouted.

A blink.

"Lee Se-jun! Kick it away!"

Everything happened in an instant.

My left eye boiled, and sticky tears ran down my cheek. My flesh succumbed to pain before my mind did, and I fell forward, panting.

At the same time, a heavy rush of air passed behind my back as I lay there.

Apparently, something like a black eraser rather than a rock had passed over my head this time. A silence as though the air itself had been erased swept down my spine. The stillness lasted less than a second before a tremendous gale tore through the space it had left.

The stretched-out sounds played all at once.

But the ringing seized my eardrums first.

EEEEEEEE—

While my poncho flapped against my ears, someone's hands pulled me upright. When my legs shook, they supported me outright and began dragging me along.

Only then did I realize what had happened.

Crushed flesh and blood lay tangled with fragments of metal across my poncho.

Before me, I saw roads scraped away as though rubbed with an eraser, and pulverized Amalgams shrieking.

Someone beside me was talking, but the ringing kept me from hearing a word.

Ear magic, Stage One, came to mind unbidden.

Right. Mind reading.

I collected myself and concentrated, and Shin Na-in's voice reached me.

'Je-min, can you hear me?'

'I can.'

'Se-jun kicked a wrecked car at them.'

'I told him to kick the monster away, and he kicked a car into it and sent them flying together?'

'It worked out well, so isn't that all right?'

I raised my guard against Lee Se-jun even higher.

A heart mage who could not only shatter a car's tempered glass by throwing a grenade without pulling its pin, but also kick an entire car flying?

As far as I was concerned, Lee Se-jun was the real fucking monster wearing human skin.

Even through all this, my feet somehow kept moving.

I couldn't run, but leaning on the person supporting me, I was managing an awkward shuffle at speed.

And as the ringing began to fade, I pulled away from that support and ran on my own again.

The person who had supported me was Hamza.

"Thanks."

"Hah, haaah. Hah."

Seeing Hamza too breathless to answer, I decided to make a special exception and share a spoonful of Richam with him.

Meanwhile, we Supreme Mages passed the thrashing remains of the Amalgams.

Thanks to that, the cries of hunger behind us changed into something else.

CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

That was when Lee Se-jun, who had taken the lead in my place, looked back.

"Let's catch our breath before we go on."

"Hah, hah. H-h-h-hah..."

Those gasps were coming from the pastor.

He lifted his gas mask and dropped heavily to the ground.

Glistening beads of sweat filled every wrinkle on Pastor Park Yo-han's face.

When he wiped his face with his left hand, the sweat pattered onto the ground. The others weren't much different.

"Phew!"

Shin Na-in exhaled and immediately took out his canteen.

"Hah... hah."

Hamza braced his hands on his legs and forced himself to stay upright. Apparently, he sensed that if he sat down here, he'd never get up again.

"Hoo, hoo. Hoo, hoo..."

I, Baek Je-min, was no exception.

The moment we had a chance to rest, I supported my collapsing body on my knees and lifted my gas mask.

Inside the mask, condensation, saliva, tears, and snot had mixed together, leaving white streaks. Only when I placed my left hand on my face to wipe it clean did I get a sense of its condition.

Wet and sticky. A strong metallic smell.

I felt thick mucus clinging to my palm. When I pulled it away, my blood-soaked left hand was laid bare.

Only then did I see what the mask's black material had concealed. I stuck my fingers inside and wiped it once, and blood mixed with every kind of bodily fluid dripped onto the ground.

Lee Se-jun, the one in the best shape, spoke in a horrified voice.

"J-Je-min..."

"Don't worry. I'm fine."

"No, that's fucking disgusting."

"You fucker."

I lifted the canteen hanging from my belt and poured it straight over my face.

GLUG, GLUG, GLUG...

Only the icy sensation surging noisily across my entire face offered me any comfort. I pressed my left hand against it.

SPLAT.

With my eyes closed, I rubbed roughly to clean myself, then swept my hand down my face to wipe the water away.

PATTER!

Finally, I tipped out all the water left in the canteen to rinse the inside of my gas mask. Feeling the sting traveling up my left hand, I stuck my index finger inside and scrubbed every corner.

Tears, snot, saliva, blood.

After wiping it all away, I put the rinsed mask back on.

The instant my face was enclosed behind its knife-scored lenses, reality struck. The pains I had ignored through adrenaline came surging back—so fiercely that it was only natural for groans to leak between my tightly closed lips.

That was when the sorcery phone began buzzing.

BZZZZ—

It didn't stop at once.

BZZZZ— BZZZZ— BZZZZ—

It buzzed like mad.

It was even more persistent than the spam calls from insurance salespeople and pollsters back when the world was normal, after my personal information had been sold off.

And that wasn't all. Behind us, I could clearly hear the starfish made from melted humans clacking its teeth together as it chewed bones.

Rather than live listening to this, I would have humbly accepted the noise from neighboring apartments.

The pastor apparently thought differently, though.

Putting his gas mask back on, he spoke in a voice muffled by the filter.

"Je-min, if it's too hard to check the sorcery phone, shall I do it?"

"No."

I had picked it up, so it was mine. Since it was mine, I would check it.

I took the sorcery phone from my inner pocket and looked at the screen. What a sight.

[Kang A-reum: Are you the ones crossing the Han River right now?]

[Kang A-reum: Are you out of your minds?]

[Kang A-reum: It's dangerous]

Messages from our older friend Kang A-reum were filling the screen.

But that wasn't the end of it.

Anonymous messages kept appearing on the relentlessly buzzing phone's screen. The people we suspected were the Society of 66 were chattering away.

[Five surviving soldiers confirmed on Olympic Bridge.]

[Fog depth recovering. Prospects for outdoor activity hopeless.]

[Surviving soldiers suspected of killing Jeong Na-ri and Han Min-jun.]

[Internal military communications confirmed.]

After countless messages appeared without pause, a file was sent without my asking.

[Transfer complete.]

The transmission was very faint, but clear enough to make out despite the poor audio quality.

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

["April 21, 0742 hours..."]

["Identity..."]

["... Olympic Bridge..."]

Even through the crackling static, I could hear their astonishment.

Before we knew it, we Supreme Mages had turned our heads to listen to the communications leaking from the sorcery phone.

The pastor, Shin Na-in, Lee Se-jun, Hamza.

And me.

It was the moment all five of our gazes converged on the phone's screen.

["... Aphorism."]

["Support... cover their crossing..."]

"Aphorism?"

I scowled hard.

Were there ordinary schmucks called Aphorism on Olympic Bridge besides us Supreme Mages?

But the instant the transmitted file finished playing, I could tell something had changed.

Something about the atmosphere enveloping the sky was different.

Before we could grasp it, we had to get up.

Hamza hurriedly patted his legs and whispered.

"Cruncher. It's almost finished eating."

Everyone put their gas masks on first.

Our blood- and dust-stained ponchos flapped as we gripped guns or bayonets.

Then the pastor turned to Lee Se-jun.

"Se-jun. You still have those separately taped magazines, right? The ones coated in Blood of the Right Hand."

"Yes. I saved them as you instructed."

"Let's use them now."

Without hesitation, Lee Se-jun pulled the magazines from his backpack.

They were the magazines he and I had painstakingly loaded after coating each round in blood, enduring the stinging sensation traveling along the casings, then marked with a wrap of tape. I was amazed we hadn't used them yet, and even more amazed at the pastor's decision to use them now.

Five thirty-round magazines.

Shin Na-in took three, and the pastor took two. Hamza would fire the remaining ordinary rounds—however many were left.

The magazines passed briskly from hand to hand.

They slipped into pockets, and the cheerful sounds of magazines locking into guns in place of empty ones rang out.

CLICK!

"Baek Je-min, lead the way and handle anything unexpected. Lee Se-jun, take the rear and slow Cruncher down by throwing cars at it. Shin Na-in, shoot the monsters coming from ahead with me. Islam Boy, shout for us to stop if there's danger."

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

"Let's go, Aphorism."

GRIND!

My teeth ground together on their own.

But getting across this goddamned Han River came first, so I obeyed.

We ran again.

But we could run far more steadily, and at a far more fearsome speed than before.

Part of it was probably that we had grown lighter as we used up ammunition.

Part of it might have been our determination to break through the monsters pouring toward us.

But there was also the military transmission we had overheard through the sorcery phone.

That double-edged transmission, which exposed the Society of 66's intelligence capabilities while revealing what was happening inside the military, was filling us with an entirely different strength.

A powerful force that set the backs and legs of us Supreme Mages moving on their own, when until now we had been driven only by despair, madness, rage, and hatred.

Hope?

It was a much more explosive force than that.

"Stop!"

The moment we heard Hamza's shout, we ducked and curled up.

We covered our faces with the ponchos marked [Sturdy].

Then came the explosion, accompanied by a vibration that made our innards tremble.

Beneath dust and flesh thrown up like shrapnel and raining down on us, Hamza shouted again when the storm showed signs of subsiding.

"Again!"

When we lifted our ponchos and ran, the hordes surging toward us had been thinned out.

Amalgams and predatory spines alike had been erased completely by the heavy surge of blast pressure.

The medium-sized Amalgams that stubbornly survived and charged us had the pastor and Shin Na-in to contend with.

The instant the bullets coated with [Blood of the Right Hand] shot from their muzzles, we witnessed their true power.

BANG!

With magical power added to humanity's strongest physical force forged from gunpowder, even monsters in sunlight couldn't withstand it.

I hadn't even hoped to see Amalgams that had eaten dozens of people topple as a single bullet tore great chunks from their bodies. Then something like a morning star flashed beyond the monster-covered sky.

That morning star glittering in the sunlight was aimed behind us this time, not ahead.

"AAAAAARGH!"

The wind of the blast pushed us forward.

Cruncher's chilling scream reached the backs of our necks along with the shellfire.

The pastor cried out.

"Run, run!"

Shellfire raining down everywhere and sprays of water swirling from every direction tore the monsters apart.

Even the swarms of Skin-jellyfish that belatedly lunged at us became liquid with a few flashes of light, pouring down without a trace.

By the time we finally caught sight of the end of Olympic Bridge, the fog was slowly rising.

I glimpsed the Han River's banks beneath the bridge sinking into a thin mist.

The fog I would once have found ominous now made me deliriously glad.

That fog, coming to separate us from the warm sunshine and imprison us in a dull, damp, gray concrete jungle, felt like a savior.

Every time explosions surged ahead of us and rubbed out monsters like an eraser, it was exhilarating.

We welcomed the showers of monster flesh falling over our ponchos like sweet raindrops.

We thought of them as welcome rain after a long drought.

The most explosive miracle, wrought in a place steeped in the acrid stench of gunpowder, blood, piss, mold, and burning.

The miracle came in the name of firepower.

And we did not let it slip away.

"Four heads!"

"Baek Je-min, Lee Se-jun! Stand by!"

Casings spilled out whenever Shin Na-in and the pastor pulled their triggers.

Monsters screamed each time the casings rolled across the broken road.

And the sorcery phone kept buzzing.

Amid it all, I gripped my bayonet and looked through the scratched lens of my gas mask with my working right eye at Seoul, shattered like a concrete tomb. Muzzle flashes still burst there, casings tumbled to the ground, and monsters screamed in human voices.

That made it all the more familiar and dear.

The fog was rising.

Before the fog rose, the military was relentlessly raking Olympic Bridge behind us with autocannon fire, providing one last round of fire support.

From Cruncher's perspective, it had been attacked out of nowhere while eating, but I didn't feel sorry for it.

Inside my poncho, flapping from the blast pressure rolling in behind us, I groaned in pain.

Now I groaned in pain and rejoiced.

Around then, apparently finished clearing the monsters out, Shin Na-in lowered his muzzle, acrid gun smoke rising from it, and prayed.

"Amen."

I took out the sorcery phone with my left hand, whose every crease was caked with cracking scabs of blood.

BZZZZ—

Messages were still appearing, but I had no time to look at that crap.

I checked the time and put the sorcery phone away again.

Removing his magazine to check the remaining ammunition, the pastor asked casually,

"What time is it?"

"Eight oh three."

"Time hasn't fucking moved."

"Now, now. Let's use nice, proper language."

"Haaah... Lord, this is what I live with."

Rather than looking back, we Supreme Mages stepped into a city made even more desolate by the monsters' temporary departure.

We savored the cold dampness of the fog rapidly rising from the banks of the Han River.

April 21, 2028, 8:03 a.m.

Expedition Day Seven.

The military had confirmed our survival.

And we, the Supreme Mages, had successfully crossed the Han River with the air support they sent us.