The underground passage leading from the outer guard post to the laboratory building was the only way to infiltrate without going through the barrier. The disadvantage was that they had to break through numerous blocking walls and human obstacles.

Having exited the tunnel-like underground passage, Yoon Tae-ha immediately had to face eight Orca members. When she fired first, bullets rained down like a torrential downpour. The opponents had shields that looked like they were made of shields.

Pushing her concentration to its limit, she changed the trajectory of the bullets flying straight at her. Bullet marks were then densely embedded in the wall behind where she had been standing.

In the next moment, having entered the middle of the enemy ranks, she simultaneously snapped their necks. There was no need to try to pierce their bulletproof vests. And she took only one of the shields that was in good condition and advanced again.

The same thing as the beginning was repeated several times.

The enemies poured bullets without holding back, and Yoon Tae-ha dealt with them using psychokinesis. Not a single drop of blood remained where she had passed.

After she had been moving for a while, breaking surveillance cameras, a heavy footstep sound was heard from far away.

It was when she had just arrived at a space where three forks met.

Which way? While Yoon Tae-ha was detecting the enemy’s direction, ogre-like chimeras ran from the corridors on the right and left.

Unlike their massive bodies, their speed was considerable. Simultaneously with their appearance, the blocking wall in the central passage in front of her went down. This meant that even the laboratory knew that things were not going well.

— Eagle Team, currently waiting at the designated location. Is Unicorn there yet?

“Unicorn responding. Met Orthos, one of the six superior chimeras. Current location is the three-way intersection in area 78 of the 3rd underground floor.”

— Waiting.

The one that was coming had arrived. The emotion conveyed in the voice over the communicator was clear.

The chimeras, which looked to be at least 3 meters tall, were holding thick clubs. They roared loudly and charged to crush the small woman’s body. The chimera’s club slammed down where she had been standing.

Having quickly dodged, Yoon Tae-ha first tried to snap the chimera’s neck with psychokinesis. Thud. But it only made a gruesome sound and didn’t cleanly kill it.

One of them clutched its neck as if in pain and knelt down. The other tried to run to its kneeling comrade. She pulled the chimera’s ankle with psychokinesis and then slammed it roughly against the wall.

Bang!

The chimera vomited blood at the impact that dented the wall. It seemed to have suffered fractures all over its body, but it still didn’t die.

‘They said the defensive chimeras were tough.’

While the chimeras writhed, Yoon Tae-ha pulled out the weapon she had stuck behind her back. It was Moglei, a longsword with a jet-black blade she had borrowed from Chertan.

Lowering the sword and turning it once, she approached the chimera with the injured neck.

She kicked the chimera’s body to face her and stabbed the sword into its chest without hesitation. Then, the chimera tore its mouth wide open and laughed. She wasn’t flustered by the monster’s mockery.

‘Not this one.’

Orthos was a chimera that could be divided into two bodies. But it had only one heart. Knox’s data stated that only one of the two identical bodies contained the real heart.

‘It was accurate information. Is the Crow Prince surprisingly an honest man?’

While slightly surprised, the body of the chimera that had been stabbed in the chest twitched and crawled towards the chimera that had hit the wall. Soon, the two bodies merged. Two heads rose above the now unified Orthos’s massive shoulders.

Orthos held a club in each hand. And it swung the clubs with unpredictable rhythm, trying to crush her.

The clubs lunged at her abdomen, thigh, and head. Yoon Tae-ha nimbly dodged with short-range teleportation, taunting the enemy. Unable to control its temper, Orthos swung its clubs powerfully, putting its entire body weight into the swing.

‘Now!’

Controlling the end of the flying club with psychokinesis, she changed its trajectory and used it to strike Orthos’s head. The sound of a watermelon cracking rang out. With the combined force of her own strength and the esper’s psychokinesis, one of the heads instantly went unconscious.

The dull body staggered as if shock had also been transmitted to the remaining head. She couldn’t miss the opportunity. Yoon Tae-ha swung Moglei and slashed Orthos’s chest deeply. Then, with quick consecutive movements, she stabbed the sword into its heart.

Feeling a hard substance touch the tip of the sword, she used psychokinesis to push it in deeply. A cracking sound similar to when she had dealt with the chimeras in the forest rang out.

Soon, the towering Orthos twitched its body briefly and violently as if struck by lightning, then buckled at the knees.

The remaining head died with its eyes wide open. As Yoon Tae-ha pulled out her sword, the massive chimera hardened like stone. Was it because it was a higher-ranking chimera? Unlike the brothers she had met in the forest, it didn’t turn into small stones and crumble.

“Orthos has been eliminated. I will break through the blocking wall and go to the 2nd underground floor.”

Yoon Tae-ha didn’t even glance at the chimera that had become a statue and swung her sword at the closed blocking wall. The hard wall easily collapsed.

Amidst the dust and debris, the growling of beasts greeted her. The chimera hounds she had seen in the forest were waiting. There were so many that there didn’t seem to be any space to teleport. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that a black carpet had been laid.

They showed hostility, baring their white teeth. Yoon Tae-ha tilted her head once and gripped her sword straight.

Immediately, the chimeras leaped at her like piranhas, eager for her flesh. Yoon Tae-ha pulled the two clubs Orthos had used with psychokinesis. The hard clubs struck the swarm of chimeras like battering rams, charging forward.

Amidst the consecutive sounds of bones crushing, about a third of them were killed by the clubs. She handled the clubs like toys, dealing with the swarming chimeras.

Less than five minutes later, the corridor was cleared. The individuals who had turned tail and fled in the middle would be dealt with separately by Mago’s assault team.

‘Let’s pick up the pace.’

The number of chimeras she encountered in the middle gradually decreased, perhaps because they were reorganizing their forces. There were no major obstacles until the 2nd underground floor.

Having found the unmanned system room on the 2nd underground floor, she broke through the security door and finished the task Mago had mentioned. She plugged a nail-sized device into the machine and was about to move on to the next task when she received a call from the operations team on the aircraft.

— Unicorn, this is the operations team. You’re moving 30 minutes faster than the estimated time. Can you maintain your current speed and enter the 1st ground floor directly?

“What about the 1st underground floor?”

— According to our detectors, the chimeras from buildings 4 and 5 are gathering on the 1st underground floor. Eagle Team will handle them.

— The top-ranking chimera is still presumed to be on the 1st ground floor. No energy is being detected.

“I absolutely have to go where Echidna is. Orthos was tougher than expected too.”

Echidna was the name written at the top of the chimera pyramid. It was female and said to be a chimera modeled after Orca’s red snake. It was the strongest of the six powerful chimeras remaining here.

Recalling the undulating red hair, strength entered Yoon Tae-ha’s hand. Her blue eyes burned with old hatred.

As the operations team had said, the 2nd underground floor was eerily quiet.

— We found a route to ascend to the ground floor, avoiding the battle on the 1st underground floor. We’ll go through the empty Building 4. The next target is the chimera hatchery concentrated in Buildings 2 and 3.

Following the instructions, she successfully ascended to the ground floor using the ventilation shafts and the emergency elevator.

— Currently arrived at the entrance of Building 4. There should be a space where chimeras were confined nearby. Be careful, as there might be remaining individuals.

Yoon Tae-ha looked around the empty space. Building 4 was an area with cages for confining uncompleted chimeras. Empty cages with their doors wide open lined both sides of her.

In the middle of the hallway, there was a long desk that seemed to have been used by the security team. There were even belongings left behind, as if they had left in a hurry. Yoon Tae-ha picked up and stored a few access cards lying on the floor there.

— The extermination of the chimeras on the 1st underground floor is proceeding successfully.

— Unicorn continues to move towards the hatchery.

It seemed that there were no casualties in Mago’s assault team either. She moved silently. Now, she was quite used to Moglei.

Chertan’s sword didn’t have the ability to compress and transform the surrounding ether into a sharp substance. But it was incomparably sturdy compared to ordinary swords. She even felt as if the sword subtly guided the user’s movements. As if it were alive.

‘It’s a sword that Seo Do-jin would covet.’

Suddenly, the people in Korea flashed through her mind.

Lee Hae-kyung would be busy chasing after Orca’s executives. Seo Do-jin would also have his head in his hands sorting out the internal personnel of the office. Would Han Gyeoul be filming a new drama well? She should send a coffee truck.

As the battle paused for a moment, everyday worries crept in. At the end of her thoughts, she recalled Cheon Geon-young.

‘He’ll be waiting at the hotel. He said his colleagues aren’t here. It’s funny that I’m demanding trust without trusting him first.’

She knew that he endured a lot because of her selfish self. She wanted to change too. When she thought about it, the time she had spent with him wasn’t that long. But even being apart for a few hours made her miss him.

The moments when they lay on the sofa and rolled around, cooked together, and sat side by side tying their shoelaces before going on a mission flickered before her eyes. It was the first time that ordinary moments she had unknowingly let pass felt so precious.

Let’s finish quickly and go back.

A conclusion was reached in her heart. She was planning to return to him without a single injury and ask him to guide her. There was still time before Baek Sang-ho and Guillermo arrived. She would be able to spend about a day alone with him.

Mechanically turning her direction, Yoon Tae-ha encouraged herself. At that moment, the operations team instructed her to hide her presence.

— Unicorn, stand by for a moment.

She pressed herself close to the wall without making a sound.

— Biological signal detected in Building 3. Presumed to be Scylla.

Scylla, like Orthos, was a chimera without self-awareness. It was also one of the six powerful superior chimeras existing in the Green Hive. The sound of something being crunched loudly reached her ears.