FLIA 168

The effect of the unpleasant fog showed itself soon. The monsters that had been following them collapsed to the ground the moment they touched the fog. They twitched for a short time and then went limp as if they were dead. Yoon Seungryong, who was watching that sight, sweated coldly and laughed.

“Ha…, this isn’t some instant-kill poison, right? You don’t think the team leader is trying to kill us when Yohan’s here?”

Just like he said, the presence of the monsters faded but didn’t disappear, so it wasn’t a poison that killed instantly. At least, Lee Hyunmook didn’t seem to want to kill them.

“We should get out of here fast.”

Ju Hoyoung said that impatiently and urged them to move. Luckily, Lee Chanha’s shield wasn’t fixed in one spot, so they could move while it stayed up. The problem was that their opponent wasn’t a normal monster. As they rushed to escape the area, Ju Hoyoung suddenly stopped them.

“Wait! Look behind you!”

Yohan turned reflexively and looked again at the heart, and he flinched. Even though they had moved quite far in a short time, the heart hadn’t gotten any farther away. The reason was that it had grown larger in proportion to the distance they moved. When they stopped, the heart stopped growing.

“I thought I’d seen everything in the Abyss, but this is just another headache.”

Seo Yakrin bit her lip while her hair waved. The heart had become so large that she couldn’t even see all of it when she tilted her head back. Even though they stopped with no idea what to do, the dark red blood that poured from the heart pooled and made the surrounding water level rise. While he was thinking, Lee Chanha asked again.

“What about freezing it?”

“I don’t think it’ll work well… but I’ll try.”

Ju Hoyoung froze the heart. It seemed to work for a moment. But in less than a few seconds, it shattered and the heart grew again, even bigger. The veins that became stronger, and the fog became thicker and more terrifying.

“It’s no use! It’s too weak and breaks right away!”

When freezing failed, Lee Chanha looked back and forth between the heart and Yohan, and he made a decision.

“We need to cover the heart with a shield. I’ll hold it here, so get as far away as you can. If you fly, you might get out before it grows again.”

“I can’t leave you behind, Chanha-hyung!”

Yohan shouted in shock at the decision. Lee Chanha glanced down at the water level that now reached past their knees and smiled.

“Don’t worry about me, Yohan. I won’t die anyway. The team leader’s negative enhancement is he doesn’t give up, right? He’s the one who saved us in the Abyss.”

“But…”

“The worst that’ll happen is that I’ll stay asleep here.”

There was no time to hesitate anymore. Persuaded by Lee Chanha, Yohan finally nodded. Lee Chanha took a deep breath and stared at the massive pulsing heart, which looked almost like the face of a sleeping person. Seo Yakrin wrapped the group tightly with her golden telekinesis.

“Alright, deputy leader. I’m ready.”

A pale blue shield spread from the top of the heart. It was vast and solid, the kind that only a high-level awakener could form. Lee Chanha built it at incredible speed and shouted.

“Now!”

Seo Yakrin turned into a giant bird in an instant and grabbed the group, and she rose into the air. The dense fog hindered her flight, and she staggered, but she didn’t lose consciousness. The heart tried to grow again to chase them, but Lee Chanha’s shield blocked it and stopped it from expanding further.

Yohan looked back and his eyes widened. The pale blue orb-like shield was being filled with a dark red light. In just a short time, the gushing blood had formed a pool large enough to be called a lake. It looked like a black lake. But soon, Lee Chanha, the blue shield, the dark red heart, and the pool all vanished into darkness.

Yohan quickly turned his head ahead again, and he gave Seo Yakrin directions.

“Yakrin-noona, move a little to the right! Yes, that way.”

After a moment, he thought he heard the sound of something breaking and bursting behind them, but Yohan didn’t look back again.

***

Seo Yakrin flew for quite a long time. From above, she could clearly see that the space around them was getting wider. Because of the sound of the wind, Ju Hoyoung had to shout.

“It’s not just expanding inside! Look there!”

“…!”

In the pitch-black darkness that civilians wouldn’t even distinguish, they barely managed to see the buildings that kept appearing one after another. Even from the outside, the space was expanding and swallowing its surroundings.

Fear of something impossible happening and worry for Lee Chanha made Yohan’s body tremble. He couldn’t even cry. Ju Hoyoung noticed him and encouraged him.

“Don’t worry too much, Yohan. You know how fast Yakrin-noona can fly. We’ll get there soon.”

“Yes, I won’t worry…”

Yohan tried to sound brave, but he stopped mid-sentence. Had something fallen from above just now? Like rain maybe… He thought it was his imagination, but then Seo Yakrin screamed and flapped her wings. Something was falling from above. But it wasn’t rain.

Aaah! Aaaaahhh! Aa-aahhhh! Aah!

At first, he thought it was the cry of crows. But the voices brushed past their ears fast and dropped downward. Things that had turned to mush were falling from above. They were monsters that had stayed inside Lee Hyunmook’s body too long and had melted until they lost their form completely. Yohan was speechless at a sight that wouldn’t appear even in a nightmare.

Sticky tar-like clumps, not wet liquid, fell onto Seo Yakrin’s huge wings. She staggered and quickly descended. If she kept flying, they would all crash together.

Boom…! She landed with some difficulty and returned halfway to her human form. Even then, she kept her huge wings spread to shield Yohan and the team members from the revolting rain of mush. In a place where there was nowhere to hide, Seo Yakrin endured alone as the lumps kept falling on her. Yohan shouted urgently.

“Noona! I’ll purify it right now…!”

“No! Don’t waste it here, save it!”

Seo Yakrin answered while panting. Normally he would have purified it, but he had already used most of his purification power when he spread the field, so he couldn’t do anything. Yohan’s grip on his vibrating spear tightened.

Soon, golden telekinesis rose. It wasn’t as perfect as Lee Chanha’s shield, but it formed a tightly woven golden net that covered the space above. That alone was enough to block the living sludge that fell toward them.

Uuuh, guuuh…

That horrific rain didn’t stop at only disturbing Seo Yakrin’s flight. The things that crawled on the ground wriggled and stuck to each other. It seemed dangerous to let them clump together, but even when they were torn apart, they gathered again, and things were still falling endlessly from the sky, so it was meaningless to fight that way. The larger lumps gathered and formed bodies, and the smaller ones attached themselves as limbs.

With bubbling groans, what stood up had the shape of a horned creature. It looked more like an elk than a deer. The large monster tried to attack, but before it could reach them, the poisonous fog that Yoon Seungryong had laid on the ground engulfed it first. The monster staggered. But instead of collapsing, it ran toward them, spewing poison.

“Hey! It turned into a poison deer! What are we supposed to do now?!”

Seo Yakrin shouted while she held the monster still with all her strength through telekinesis.

“Is this my fault?! …It’s my fault! Aah! Hoyoung!”

Then Ju Hoyoung froze it, and the monster’s legs shattered. But only for a moment, because the sludge that covered the ground clung back and rebuilt its legs. No matter how strong the poison was, no matter how many times they cut and hit it, the monster kept charging. Its speed was also too fast.

Crack! Yohan threw himself aside and narrowly escaped the reach of the horns scraping the ground, and sweat ran down his face. Dodging the monster’s charge wasn’t too hard. The real problem was avoiding the things falling from above. Seo Yakrin, for example, still struggled because she couldn’t get the lumps off her wings from before.

“Goddamn bastards!”

Seo Yakrin’s body gave off a golden wave as she shouted in rage after being hit by the monster and thrown far away due to her slowed movement. A huge telekinetic net pushed away the things falling from the sky. There was a short gap, but knowing it wouldn’t last, Seo Yakrin shouted.

“I’ll finish this bastard and come right after, keep moving forward!”

“Yakrin-noona…!”

Before Ju Hoyoung could say anything, Seo Yakrin had already turned back into a giant bird and flapped her wings violently. Then, as if by coincidence, the ground nearby rose and covered the group, hiding them completely. The last thing Yohan saw was Seo Yakrin grabbing the deer monster and soaring into the air. Yoon Seungryong urgently pulled Yohan and Ju Hoyoung down into the earth and held them there quietly.

‘…!’

Yohan, who had been holding his breath, flinched when the soil around them shifted. He wondered if it was another strange phenomenon, but it seemed to be Yoon Seungryong’s ability.

‘Ah, right…’

He remembered that his ability created acidic caves. Yohan recalled what Lee Hyunmook had explained and calmed down. The sludge creatures searched for them, then gave up and followed after the main body that Seo Yakrin had carried far away. Only after a long time did Yoon Seungryong remove the soil above them.

‘Damn, everything about this looks bad.’

Yoon Seungryong thought that as he saw the rain of monsters falling in the darkness far away. But he didn’t say it out loud and looked at his two younger teammates instead. With almost half of their group gone in an instant, Ju Hoyoung was restless and anxious, and Yohan looked like he would cry if someone touched him. But unexpectedly, Yohan only had red-rimmed eyes, and after swallowing his saliva, he spoke with determination.

“Let’s go! If we go a little farther, I think we can reach Hyunmook-hyung.”