FLIA 170

Yohan suddenly remembered the past. When he went with the team to attack the core of the Abyss, hadn’t they gone down a similar cave? The déjà vu was so strong that it felt like he had gone back to that time. Yohan ran through an empty space underground where he couldn’t tell one direction from another. Then something happened.

“Argh…!”

With a tremendous shock, Yohan screamed and rolled across the ground. It felt like he had been hit by a truck. The lantern flew through the air and hit the floor with a breaking sound. The spear that had rolled somewhere was gone from sight.

In the pitch-darkness, he heard a grinding, guttural cry from a monster. Before Yohan could even pull himself together, it rushed at him again. He raised his arm instinctively to block, and pain shot through his forearm. When he came to his senses, a huge shapeless monster was crushing him and trying to bite him.

Yohan started to purify it out of reflex but stopped. He remembered Seo Yakrin’s words telling him to save as much purifying power as possible. He gritted his teeth and pushed the monster away with trembling arms, while his other hand searched inside his clothes. He found what he wanted, clenched his teeth harder, and swung what he held.

Chwak! Hot bodily fluid splashed on his face and body.

The monster on top of him howled in pain as the dagger stabbed into it. It was the emergency dagger Yohan had bought with his first earnings, following Lee Hyunmook’s advice. He had bought it just as a keepsake, never thinking he would actually use it in a place like this.

Then Yohan noticed something. Even though he hadn’t used his purifying power, his arm was glowing. Blood that held light was flowing from the wounded arm. It looked as if something fluorescent was mixed in it. The glow reflected on the monster’s ghastly face. It was a monster with one bulging eye sticking out of its face. Yohan made a quick decision.

‘I can handle this without using purifying power.’

He looked once at his injured arm, then thrust the dagger deeper and sliced through. The monster grunted and backed away. The weight pressing on him disappeared. Yohan groaned and pushed himself up, bracing on the blood-soaked ground. A drop of glowing blood fell from his arm and splashed.

Kyaang! The monster suddenly screamed in terror. Then it sank into the ground and vanished. Yohan stared at the sight for a moment before realizing something.

“…Ah.”

He wasn’t alone here.

He had forgotten for a moment because the place reminded him too much of the Abyss, but this was inside Lee Hyunmook. So in some sense, he couldn’t call himself alone. Deep in thought, Yohan looked at the wound on his arm. Thanks to a high-level awakener’s regeneration, it was already closing. He took a deep breath and then drove the dagger into his wounded arm again.

“…Hhk!”

Blood dripped onto the ground. It looked like bright light was falling in drops. It hurt. Since his awakening, he hadn’t bled once, so the pain was unfamiliar. But even like this, he wouldn’t die. Yohan tore the wound wider to spill more blood.

“I’m here, Hyung….”

Mumbling, he relied on the light from the blood to search for the fallen spear. He found it, held it tightly so he wouldn’t drop it again, and started limping forward. While he walked, the damage from the monster’s attack healed on its own. Yohan kept stabbing and cutting his arm to draw more blood as he moved down, farther and farther below. Then he saw a familiar face.

“… huh, ki, kill me, ah, ah, kill me, me…”

It was Hwang Yeongcheol, who had been reported missing. Yohan stopped and saw that his lower body was fused with one of the metal dogs released at the broadcasting station. Because his legs were stuck in the hind part, each time the dog moved, Hwang Yeongcheol’s body was kicked and dragged around. Nearby was Kim Jongseok, the one who had given the order to shoot Yohan.

“Ahhh! Uaaah! Gaaaah! Gyaaaah!”

Kim Jongseok, who was particularly mangled, was plastered against the wall like chewed gum. Bones, muscles, and nerves were all tangled as he screamed horribly and twisted in pain. Even knowing what they had done, their miserable state made Yohan pity them.

But he only looked at them, then turned away and started walking again. He went down again, farther and farther down.

The deeper he went, the more monsters appeared. They tangled with each other, then turned toward Yohan, panting and howling as if they had seen a meal. But each time Yohan shed blood, they couldn’t even get close and sank into the ground. Yohan could feel Lee Hyunmook’s presence. He knew Hyunmook was watching him.

The number of monsters kept growing. Tens, hundreds… then thousands. Yohan looked around at them and sighed.

How many monsters had Hyunmook swallowed in the Abyss until now?

How many terrible, painful things had happened to make it like this? Yohan remembered the time when Lee Hyunmook devoured countless monsters during the raid on the core of the Abyss. He hadn’t thought much of it then, but now he realized this wasn’t simply a power to use shadows. Should he have wondered earlier where all those devoured monsters had gone?

‘Maybe this was bound to happen.’

This place was too empty for a human to endure, yet it held far too many things at once.

At some point, the monsters stopped attacking Yohan. But their numbers didn’t decrease, they only kept increasing, crowding and crawling everywhere. Even while shaking with fear, Yohan continued walking, his arms dropping glowing blood.

“Ah…!”

A sudden sound escaped Yohan’s mouth. He had sensed something in the dark where he could see nothing but monsters. He raised the spear he had been using like a compass. Then he poured the light he had saved into it. The eternal stone shone brightly and illuminated every direction. In the hellish place swarming with monsters, far away, the being Yohan had been searching for was there.

Something eternal that didn’t wear down or break even in the Abyss.

Something Yohan had once touched before.

Yohan stopped for a moment, then started running, cutting through the mass of monsters. The movement seemed to provoke them, and they rushed at him. Shadows rippled under the monsters. Yohan couldn’t summon lightning, couldn’t crush them with telekinesis, couldn’t poison them, couldn’t freeze them, and couldn’t create a shield. But there was one thing he could do.

Bright light spread everywhere. The monster trying to bite Yohan’s ankle shrank as it melted, then the next instant turned into a frog. It hopped away into the chaos. The claws reaching for his arm melted away, and a pigeon flew out instead. Cows, pigs, cats, dogs, deer, mice, or sheep that bleated. Wherever he ran, startled animals appeared one after another.

“Hhuhk, huhhh…!”

Yohan gasped for breath. His purifying power was already heavily drained by the purification field. He could feel it vanishing with every second. Running with growing desperation, Yohan finally reached Lee Hyunmook’s eternal stone. He reached out and touched it.

But that was all.

“Hyunmook-hyung….”

Yohan’s hand stroked the eternal stone. But unlike before, he felt no memories. The eternal stone attached to his spear had stopped resonating now that it had reached its destination. Not knowing what to do, Yohan leaned against the massive stone.

He suddenly remembered the Black Mountain of the Abyss, the eternal stones that remained only as beautiful, unbreakable minerals, the ones he had barely communicated with through Seo Yakrin.

Had Lee Hyunmook become like that too?

The thought filled him with uncontrollable fear. Maybe, after being worn away for so long that almost no flesh remained, he had wandered aimlessly after leaving the Abyss, having lost his purpose, and when he saw Yohan being threatened, he had shattered completely. Then the tears he had been holding ran down his face.

“It’s okay if you kill them….”

He spoke in a trembling voice. Even while purifying the monsters rushing at him one by one, Yohan cried and spoke through broken breaths.

“I think it’s okay for you to take revenge however you want. You deserve that. It was such a horrible hell. It must have been so painful and hard. But not like this. Not this way….”

Yohan cried while purifying the massive black-and-white eternal stone again and again even though he knew it wouldn’t work. He was scared, terrified and sad. He was anxious and desperate. And more than anything, he felt pity. His lover, this person, was pitiful and wretched. His heart hurt so much it felt like it was tearing apart.

How good it would have been if they had fallen into the Abyss together from the start?

That thought circled his mind, but it was a past that could never be undone. Warm blood flowed from his nose. His body weakened from exhaustion. The eternal stone at the tip of Yohan’s spear flickered and then its light went out completely.

At that moment, the churning mass of monsters sank into the ground as if their candle flame had been blown out. Complete darkness surrounded him. It was an empty silence.

“Hic, hhh…”

Something wiped away his tears as he cried before the massive eternal stone. The master of this place had gathered the softest and gentlest parts of itself into a lump that absorbed the tears that fell to the ground. Then it slowly wrapped around Yohan’s body.

It had soaked Lee Chanha in blood and made him sleep, trapped Seo Yakrin in sticky dough to exhaust her, placed Ju Hoyoung in the arms of a mud giant, and laid Yoon Seungryong inside smooth and soft entrails. Safely, forever safely. That will now touched Yohan too, stroking him gently. It pulled him in slowly, the way one sinks into a swamp.