179. Tidal Wave 5

Baek Sang-ho, who had been glaring down at the sloping embankment, turned around and leaned his back against the wall of the dugout. For a while, people remained silent, oppressed by the fear the name “Kali” evoked.

“It’s to prevent us from taking the Green Feather, isn’t it?”

Choi Bo-mi, wiping away bloodstains clinging to her goggles, broke the silence.

“They’re here to help the crow. Because we’re getting closer to their goal. Perhaps while they distract us, the crow intends to disappear from this land with the substance.”

“The substance is that important? Important enough to send two executives?”

“They must have ulterior motives we don’t know about.”

“Could it be a terror plot? The expo is in winter, you know. They might be planning to use that time to show off their strength.”

As people speculated about Orca’s plans, a testy voice burst out next to the unconscious esper.

“Instead of worrying about terror, let’s figure out how to escape this hole right now. If we stay here, everyone will become snake protein.”

The voices of concern for others stopped simultaneously. Faint moonlight piercing through the leaves fell upon the huddled people.

Meanwhile, Cheon Geon-young inserted a new magazine and checked that his knife, prepared for close combat, was in place. The communication device provided by Changcheon was also broken. It would be good if he could at least transmit his location, but even that wasn’t possible.

What happened to Yoon Tae-ha? She went into the forest alone.

A fierce sense of unease spread through his bloodstream, throughout his body. Cheon Geon-young could feel his pulse beating much faster than usual. It was similar to when he was caught in hallucinations on the carrier.

“...Headquarters, this is Alpha 1. Repeating, we are isolated during search. Situation is Scarlet.”

Baek Sang-ho was attempting a final connection with the camp. Hearing this, Cheon Geon-young swallowed the medicine Yoon Tae-ha had given him. If he couldn’t meet her again, everything would lose its meaning. Having taken the unfamiliar medicine into his body, he and Shim Gyu-jong watched the rear of a large tree, a suitable hiding place for monsters.

Perhaps his last attempt failed, as Baek Sang-ho, with a bitter face, put down the useless machine.

“Wait. Keep quiet.”

It was then that a faint hissing sound came from somewhere. People’s eyes sharpened. Except for the guide who remained by the unconscious esper, all conscious agents moved to their respective positions.

A moment later, the clouds covering the moon were pushed away by the wind and disappeared. As the darkness vaguely brightened, the silhouettes of approaching creatures were revealed. Hundreds of evil, hideous monsters were crawling towards them. There were also a considerable number of chimeras, looking as if various animals had been haphazardly joined together.

The smallest monster was the size of a bicycle, and many were the size of small cars. In the silence, an esper who could manipulate trees muttered,

“It’s time to make snake wine, friends. I’ll personally make the barrels, just catch them for me.”

“Shut up. If we don’t get out of here safely, you’ll die by my hand.”

“You like alcohol, sweetie.”

His guide, annoyed by the unbefitting display of affection in the crisis, snapped back. Soon, with Baek Sang-ho’s hand signal, gunfire began. Snakes and spiders crawling in the front row were shot and tumbled backward. The monsters continued to advance, stepping on the corpses of their dead comrades. Ice spikes abruptly shot out from the ground, slowing their pace.

Cheon Geon-young began to decimate the spider horde with his excellent marksmanship. It was Baek Sang-ho’s decision to hand him the only remaining sniper rifle. He quickly proved Baek Sang-ho’s judgment was correct.

Every time he carefully pulled the trigger, a monster would fall backward, as if hitting an invisible wall.

It was also his ability to hit monsters in positions that would impede the enemy’s progress. Each time one fell, at least two, and sometimes up to five, would trip over the corpse with it.

“He’s like he has precognition or something?”

A guide, who was reloading a magazine beside him, admired his judgment.

The battle grew fiercely intense as espers strong in close combat fearlessly dashed down the slope.

Tree roots surged, ensnaring snakes like a net. An ice-elemental esper plunged ice spikes into the net. An esper capable of instantly amplifying their weight charged at full speed and began close combat with a chimera that had four tails.

Baek Sang-ho, wearing special gloves, was already choking a two-headed snake. Golden electricity sparked erratically every time he landed a punch.

Guides sat behind cover on higher ground, eliminating monsters that targeted the espers from behind, one by one. Perhaps because they had been severely battered in the first ambush, the second battle was easier than expected.

“This is manageable, isn’t it?”

An esper, standing on the carcass of a chimera that looked like a mix of a wolf and a deer, shouted aggressively. But then Choi Bo-mi yelled towards the dugout where the guide and injured esper were.

“Get out of there!”

Hearing the shout, Cheon Geon-young turned around.

Behind them, a snake with bright yellow eyes was flicking its tongue. Its wide-open mouth was large enough to swallow even a small helicopter. Its coiled body looked like a hill. It was unbelievable that it had approached without a sound. People were speechless.

The snake tilted its head as if counting the people in the dugout, then finally opened its mouth, revealing its fangs. The unconscious esper and his guide were extremely close to the snake.

In the midst of everyone holding their breath in tension, Cheon Geon-young saw red dots flickering and appearing around the snake’s head. The snake’s smooth neck moved as if gagging, spitting something out. It hissed, opening its maw. Discovering a red orb within its cave-like throat, he unhesitatingly leaped between the snake and the injured agent. The sounds of battle and the espers’ screams assaulted his ears.

“No!”

As soon as his feet touched the bottom of the dugout, an intense heat poured over him. It was a pain like death. A sensation of his skin melting away without form followed. It felt as if his wristwatch was swelling to burst, but he endured.

A few seconds later, he lifted his head and saw a round watch face appear above him. It was a shield generated when a fire-elemental esper possessed an inhibitory ability.

Red lines trembled, perfectly blocking the snake’s flames. Like water gushing from a fountain, flames rippled and poured from outside the watch face. It was an unreal sight. Before they could even process the shock of Cheon Geon-young’s insane act, the guides witnessed something even more astonishing and stiffened.

“Wow...”

“What... what is this, right now?”

The guide who had been prepared to be burned to death with her esper couldn’t complete her sentence. The sounds of battle continued to pound in their ears. Someone muttered in a cracked voice,

“Esper?”

The snake recoiled as if surprised that its attack had been ineffective. Cheon Geon-young, sensing a second attack, hastily gave orders.

“Go to higher ground!”

Shim Gyu-jong, regaining his senses, went down into the dugout and tended to the unconscious agent. Two other guides reached down from above and pulled out the injured. The injured esper’s guide kept glancing at Cheon Geon-young as she scrambled up. Cheon Geon-young picked up a rifle. He kept the snake’s attention on him with gunfire and descended the slope.

“Get the injured to higher ground! Move to the protruding rock!”

Baek Sang-ho yelled from afar. Due to his broken communication device, his voice was terribly hoarse. One guide carried an injured person and ran. Spiders were still crawling up from the opposite side. An ice-elemental esper quickly ran over, froze the enemies, and cast an ice barrier around the rock.

Soon after, the snake that had followed Cheon Geon-young down the hill began indiscriminately spewing flames. The fire spread throughout the forest via densely connected small, rough thickets.

He confirmed the location of the ice barrier where the injured were staying, then lured the snake in the opposite direction. The snake pressed its body close to the ground and charged at him.

No sound reached him now. Only the clear realization that one of them, the snake or himself, would die in a few minutes. There were no new magazines on his gun belt. Two knives and the watch Yoon Tae-ha gave him were all his weapons.

The snake, having wrapped itself around and crushed trees obstructing its path, was now only a few steps away from him.

Cheon Geon-young summoned the watch face and hurled it at the snake. But the snake, with a nimbleness that belied its size, dodged it, chewed it up, and finally digested it.

An esper nearby, who had almost died trying to tie down the snake with a branch, shouted,

“That thing is immune to fire too! It can’t be killed by ordinary fire! It’s one of Kali’s top snakes!”

The snake spewed fire again. Cheon Geon-young, having dodged the attack behind the dead spider’s body, suddenly recalled the moment he first created flames. A knife and a stone. He turned his head, looking for Baek Sang-ho.

“Give me the substance!”

Baek Sang-ho, who was tearing off a chimera’s arm in the distance, threw him a small box without any questions. Cheon Geon-young picked up the box from the ground and took out a dark green stone. It was a sample Baek Sang-ho always carried, just in case.

He took out his knife and cut his left palm. He evenly smeared his blood on the stone, then rolled behind a fallen tree to avoid the snake, which was spewing fire again.

“Head on the left!”

Baek Sang-ho warned. Cheon Geon-young trusted him and turned to the right. He saw its neck, covered in thick scales. He unhesitatingly leaped onto it.

The snake, carrying a person on its neck, opened its eyes wide and its mouth. The monster shook its head violently as if annoyed, but Cheon Geon-young never fell off. He fumbled between the scales, finding a tender spot where a knife might penetrate.

And immediately, he plunged the knife into a gap in the smooth scales and sliced through the flesh as if filleting it. It was a powerful force. The reaction was immediate. The snake writhed. It then began to spew dark red flames from its mouth.

A black whirlwind, mixed with embers and wood fragments, formed and grew, threatening to completely destroy the forest. Cheon Geon-young, who had avoided falling by plunging his knife into a scale, forced the stone into the cut gap. And waiting for the moment the monster’s body maintained horizontal, he plunged his second knife there.

Soon, immense heat flowed from Cheon Geon-young’s body, traveled through the knives, and entered the snake. The monster let out a high-pitched, desperate cry. His hands split open, showing blood. It was a sign that his body couldn’t handle the supernatural ability. Ignoring it, he felt the snake’s flesh, which had been as solid as ice, slowly turn flaccid.

“Get off! If it suddenly crashes, you’ll get hurt too!”

When the struggling snake’s head lowered its altitude, he heard Baek Sang-ho’s words and jumped down. The monster tried to open its maw and spit out the fire within its body but failed repeatedly. It thrashed its tail wildly, devastating the surroundings.

Finally, the snake collapsed and died on the blackened ground it had burned, right in front of Cheon Geon-young.

Soon, as the dead snake’s mouth opened, it was clear that even its fangs inside its mouth had melted away.