FLIA 67

Only then did Ju Hoyoung, startled, tear his gaze away from Seo Yakrin and look at Yohan. A crease formed between his brows as he scanned their surroundings sharply.

“But everything seemed fine during today’s scouting.”

Ju Hoyoung’s scouting range was incredibly vast due to his exceptional speed. It was so wide, in fact, that even considering the Flood’s top speed, he could scout areas that would otherwise take days for the Flood to reach. Yet instead of declaring confidently that nothing was coming, he hesitated and stood up.

“Come on, get on.”

“Huh?”

Yohan blinked in confusion, not understanding what he meant, and looked up at him. Ju Hoyoung gave a small nod.

“If you’re anxious, then we should check. We’re not needed for that fight anyway. And you should never ignore instincts like this.”

“Uh, then it’d be tough, so how about I stay here and you–”

Before he could even finish the sentence, Ju Hoyoung had already pulled Yohan to his feet. A few swift movements later, and Yohan suddenly found himself on Ju Hoyoung’s back. Before he could even react, Ju Hoyoung bolted forward.

“…!”

Yohan couldn’t even cry out, he just clung to him for dear life. He’d ridden on Lee Hyunmook’s back before, but this speed wasn’t even comparable. The wind was so intense he couldn’t keep his eyes open properly. Peeking through narrowed eyes, he saw things like reeds whipping past on all sides. In less than a few minutes, Ju Hoyoung had checked a radius of several dozen kilometers and returned to the same spot, only now, Seo Yakrin’s ‘volume’… had shrunk even further.

“Good thing, no sign of the Flood!”

While Yohan stared blankly at the grotesque sight, Ju Hoyoung cheerfully patted his floating hair and laid him back down. Then he quickly raised another ice wall. Seoyakrin, now cornered, was lashing out and scattering telekinetic energy in every direction.

Aaaaah! Die, die, die aaaaall of you!

Each time the tattered wings flapped, torrents of blood rained down. Now that it couldn’t fly anymore, Lee Hyunmook and Yoon Seungryong could fight with more ease. Surprisingly, the battle was going quite smoothly.

But Yohan couldn’t sit still. Anxious and restless, he kept glancing around. An overwhelming unease filled his chest. Ju Hoyoung, glancing at him, suddenly pulled back on his bowstring.

“But… I don’t feel good either…”

He mumbled and began scanning the surroundings like Yohan. After a moment, he started biting his lips. His lips quickly split and bled as frantic words spilled out.

“Why? Why? Why? There was nothing. Nothing. Nothing, I checked it. I checked earlier.”

“Hoyoung-ah?”

Yohan called him, concerned, trying to purify him. When using their abilities, the three of them sometimes lost their minds to madness, and Yohan wondered if this was one of those moments.

Then it happened.

A bird dropped from the sky.

Everyone’s gaze–Seo Yakrin’s, Yoon Seungryong’s, Lee Hyunmook’s–snapped instinctively to the fallen bird. It convulsed and began to swell. Its body twisted, and foul liquid spilled from its beak.

It was the Flood.

“Son of a bitch!”

Yoon Seungryong swore, and Lee Hyunmook immediately looked up at the sky. In the distance, more swollen birds were flying toward them rapidly. The ones that had been circling Seo Yakrin, attacking Lee Hyunmook and Yoon Seungryong, now turned tail and fled. Even though they were the same species, they instinctively sensed something ominous. Yohan’s face went pale.

“The Flood… from the sky…”

Before he could finish, the birds–no, former birds now floodspawn began to fall from the sky. Plop. Plop. Thud. Sludgy, dark rain and grotesque black blobs crashed down, blanketing the ground. The three fighters froze in place. Seo Yakrin, being the largest, was the first to be drenched by the incoming downpour.

Gaaaahhh… GRAAAGHHH…!

Only moments ago, Seo Yakrin had been speaking in human language, but now her voice warped into something monstrous, like a strangled heron’s cry. She thrashed her head up and down, as if trying to vomit, then collapsed forward. The black rain continued to pelt her wide wings. Her transformation worsened. Her entire body contorted, producing sickening cracking sounds.

Dark droplets splattered over Lee Hyunmook and Yoon Seungryong’s heads too. Dead birds rained down around them. It was the most horrifying storm imaginable.

As Yohan screamed and tried to run toward them, Ju Hoyoung grabbed him roughly and turned his back to the falling rain, bolting away. Yohan could only watch as Lee Hyunmook stood tall among the reeds, his image burned into his eyes like an afterimage. By the time he came to his senses, he was hitting Ju Hoyoung with his fists, begging.

“Stop! Hoyoung-ah, please! We have to go back–now!”

“No!”

Ju Hoyoung stopped and set Yohan down, shouting. His eyes were wild, his mind already halfway gone.

“You, you don’t know how terrifying the Flood is! It’s horrifying! Once you fall into it, you can never return to who you were! And I-I can’t face those guys! I can’t take on even one of them!”

He tore at his hair. His expression was twisted with despair and defeat. A nervous laugh escaped him, then his eyes went dead. It was the look of someone who had grasped at hope only to lose it again.

“You change forever! You’re not even human anymore… No, you stop being human. Monsters–ugh. We never should’ve come here in the first place. But how do you avoid the Flood when it flies? The Flood… flies now… We have to get away. As far as possible…”

He began muttering incoherently, too fast to follow. His whole body trembled so violently it looked like his very skin was short-circuiting. Overwhelmed, Yohan gasped for breath, then reached out and slapped him hard.

Smack! A sharp sound rang out.

“You’re human!”

Ju Hoyoung, stunned, stared blankly. Yohan grabbed his face and shook him.

“You’re human! Why do you keep saying you’re not?!”

“Huhuhu… Yohan-ah…”

Ju Hoyoung mumbled with a broken grin, forgetting to even call him hyung. But his smile was filled with utter misery.

“If you actually saw them… even you couldn’t call them people anymore…”

Yohan’s eyes unconsciously shifted toward the battlefield they could no longer see. Chaos stirred where the Flood was falling. Birds rose, then dropped; some contorted and climbed higher into the sky. The sea of reeds trembled as if bracing for a storm. Ominous things were beginning to stir.

“Human or not, it doesn’t matter right now. We have to go… farther away. We have to run from the Flood, no matter what.”

Ju Hoyoung, barely regaining himself thanks to Yohan’s purification, clutched the hands still cupping his cheeks. Yohan called out with a trembling voice.

“Hoyoung-ah.”

“That’s why the Team Leader paired me with you. So if anything happened, I could grab you and run…”

It was a fact they both knew. Before fighting Seo Yakrin, Lee Hyunmook had given Yohan only one order: defend as best you can, and if things go south, run. Yohan’s role was only meant to begin after the fight ended.

“And if we run now? What then?”

Yohan asked, listening to the cursed rain falling. His voice cracked with desperation. Shhhhh… The reed field rustled in eerie stillness. Far ahead, just visible, something twisted and ominous flickered above the swaying reeds. After running so desperately to avoid the Flood… now they couldn’t. That terrified Yohan more than anything.

Ju Hoyoung hesitated.

“If they’re still alive… we’ll find them and purify them.”

“In this place? How? Even if we found them, what would we do? And what if one of them dies?!”

Ju Hoyoung faltered. Lee Hyunmook, Yoon Seungryong, Seo Yakrin, they were all dangerously high-powered attackers. Yohan was right. It wouldn’t be surprising if one of them lost their life. Not to mention, the reed field was one of the hardest places to track someone down.

“We have to go back! If we don’t–we’ll be in danger too.”

“What are you saying? Right now, we have to stay away from–”

Yohan cut him off, shouting, his face pale and now glistening with cold sweat.

“The Flood, it feels like it let us go on purpose… like it’s not attacking us on purpose!”

They’d run this far, yet the dread never left him. Something cold, terrifying, was circling overhead. The warning bells of his instincts wouldn’t stop ringing. Wiping his tears away with his sleeve, Yohan looked at Ju Hoyoung and said,

“So we can’t go any farther. And… I have an idea. Something I’ve been thinking about.”