Chapter 51

Ahn Hee-wan offered no answer, which in itself confirmed Myeong-joo’s worst fears. A sudden panic seized his chest. She had likely wasted valuable time searching the camp because he had not stayed inside Yi-tan’s tent. Had that delay cost them dearly? What on earth had happened to Yi-tan?

“Please tell me what happened,” Myeong-joo pleaded, striving to keep pace.

“You need to get there first. He will require immediate harmonization; will you be all right?”

“I will be fine, but…”

It sounded as though Yi-tan was in dire need of harmonization. Myeong-joo’s complexion, already pale from chronic illness, drained of all remaining color. Desperate as he was for answers, the master sergeant clearly had no intention of elaborating further. Within moments, they reached an idling military jeep where a driver sat rigidly behind the steering wheel, his face pale with tension.

“Get in,” Hee-wan spoke with the clipped authority of a command.

Without a word of protest, Myeong-joo climbed inside. If he wanted to know Yi-tan’s true condition, reaching him directly would be far faster than prying words from her tightly sealed lips.

Ever since their very first meeting, she had harbored an inexplicable hostility toward him. Yet rather than dwelling on the friction between them, Myeong-joo’s mind was wholly consumed by anxiety for Yi-tan. Even with romantic love stripped away, fond affection remained undiminished. To Myeong-joo, Yi-tan was still someone whose safety he cared for with every fiber of his being.

As if understanding Myeong-joo’s desperate urgency, the jeep sped recklessly up the winding mountain path. Jagged boulders jutted from the unpaved road, jolting the vehicle with violent, bone-rattling force.

“Keep your mouth shut. You’ll bite your tongue,” Hee-wan shouted over the roar of the engine as Myeong-joo bounced several inches off the seat with every leap of the chassis.

Gripping the overhead handle with all his might as instructed made enduring the ride marginally easier, yet the trail remained brutal and precipitously steep. It felt as disorienting as navigating a tempestuous sea aboard a battered old squid boat. The vehicle tore along the razor-sharp ridgeline, constantly on the verge of flipping yet somehow staying upright on its four wheels. In many stretches, overgrown branches lashed the windshield with violent, cracking thuds.

Throughout the harrowing ascent, Myeong-joo had to swallow the question of their destination again and again, trusting that allowing Hee-wan to focus on driving was the fastest route to reaching Yi-tan. Yet when the jeep hurtled down a descent only to swerve down a side fork and tackle an even harsher incline, he could no longer hold his tongue.

Just as he opened his mouth to demand where they were heading, disaster struck.

“Damn it all—!”

Hee-wan cursed violently as the chassis shuddered under a massive jolt, as though they had slammed headlong into an ancient tree root. Gripping the steering wheel with one hand, she threw out her other arm across Myeong-joo’s chest to brace him against the impact; yet all precautions proved futile when a deafening screech of rending metal ripped through the air as the jeep’s canvas roof was torn clean away.

For an instant, both of them suffered the eerie illusion that every sound in the world had abruptly vanished.

“What in the…?” Myeong-joo muttered in a daze.

A blinding rush of sky and razor-sharp wind lashed against his ears. Slowly lifting his head toward the open air, he froze.

Perched atop the frame of the vehicle like a gargoyle after peeling back the metal roof like the lid of a tin can, a demonic fiend was crouched low, peering directly down into the exposed cabin.

It looked entirely different from the demonic fiends he had encountered in Seowon. Covered in smooth, glossy black scales like an enormous lizard, it possessed a thick, elongated tail. Tilting its head to one side with eerie curiosity, it seemed to study them. Myeong-joo realized with a chill that its slit pupils were locked directly onto his own.

“Sergeant Cha!”

Hee-wan’s frantic shout tore through the air as Myeong-joo’s body suddenly lifted skyward. Time seemed to stretch like pulled taffy. Looking down to see Hee-wan staring up at him in frozen horror, Myeong-joo muttered a dazed “Huh…?” before a violent impact shuddered through his entire frame.

A cold, rasping texture pressed against his cheek, accompanied by a sickening reptilian stench. Before a scream could form in his throat, his body soared through the air once more. The creature had scooped him into its grip and leapt from the moving vehicle. Its constricting hold around his waist squeezed him so brutally he felt as though his internal organs would rupture. In that bewildering split second, disbelief was the only emotion Myeong-joo could register.

Hee-wan vaulted from the driver’s seat to pursue the beast carrying him away. Over the creature’s scaled shoulder, Myeong-joo caught sight of her sprinting with terrifying, desperate fury. Violent jolts hammered through his torso as the demonic fiend bounded across the rugged terrain.

“Let me go!” Myeong-joo shouted in desperate fury.

He struggled violently to wrench himself free, but his efforts were entirely useless. Tightening its clawed arm around his ribs once more, the monster knocked the remaining wind from his lungs, rendering any further resistance impossible. Hee-wan gave chase at a speed unbelievable for a human, yet the scaled demonic fiend was faster still. Wind lashed Myeong-joo’s face with the force of a speeding motorcycle, whipping his hair and forcing his eyes shut.

Gasping in terror, Myeong-joo watched Hee-wan through slitted eyelids, desperately praying she would close the distance. The chase tore across the mountainside, yet the demonic fiend’s terrifying ascent never slackened. Paying no heed to the soldier pursuing in its wake, it bounded effortlessly upward on bulging, muscular hind legs like a colossal toad.

Despite her superhuman effort, Hee-wan finally began falling behind.

“Damn it, Sergeant Cha! Broadcast your harmonization! That’s the only way the platoon leader can track—!”

Having stripped off her heavy military jacket to run, she finally skidded to a halt as her stamina reached its limit. Doubling over to catch her breath, she screamed her desperate instructions toward him. Though the gale tore away the end of her sentence, Myeong-joo nodded vigorously from within the monster’s clutches. He wanted to shout back that he understood, but sheer terror froze his tongue.

He sensed instinctively that this beast was entirely distinct from the demonic fiends he had known in Seowon; those creatures had never radiated this nauseating aura. He held his breath, keeping as motionless as possible so as not to provoke its temper.

The wind whipped past his ears with a fierce hiss. Hee-wan’s shrinking silhouette vanished entirely into the white expanse, leaving only Myeong-joo and the monstrous beast alone amidst the vast, desolate mountains.

“…”

As the beast sped along, Myeong-joo huddled his trembling hands against his chest, doing whatever he could to warm them. If an opportunity to escape presented itself, numb and frozen fingers would prove fatal.

The creature seemed to harbor no immediate intent to kill him. Having prepared himself for a premature demise from illness, Myeong-joo realized with sudden clarity that he had developed no immunity whatsoever to facing violent death right before his eyes. It was not merely a desire to cling to life, but a fierce conviction that he must not die yet—not before Myeong-in and Myeong-hui were settled, and not before…

Skrreee, skrrk, skreeek—

Just then, the demonic fiend emitted a piercing shriek. That harsh metallic scrape sounded like iron nails dragged across a blackboard, sending icy chills cascading down Myeong-joo’s spine. It might well be summoning others of its kind. While he lacked the strength to escape even this single beast, being surrounded by a pack would reduce his odds of survival to absolute zero. He had no idea what he ought to do.

Even while screeching, the demonic fiend maintained its blistering speed toward the mountain peaks. The bitter frost of Mount Gaema bit into Myeong-joo’s ears and nose until they felt completely dead to sensation.

In the midst of their flight, the beast abruptly pivoted. As its scaled arm clamped down hard enough to knock the breath from Myeong-joo’s lungs, a deafening crash slammed into the ground right where the creature had leapt from a fraction of a second before.

“…!”

It was another demonic fiend. Rebounding from the crater it had carved into the earth, the second monstrosity lunged through the air, pursuing the beast holding Myeong-joo. Talons flashing like polished blades aimed straight for his captor’s back. Myeong-joo flinched in horror.

Glancing back over its shoulder, the scaled beast split its elongated maw to expose rows of jagged fangs and answered with an ear-splitting howl: Khh-krrr, krrrk, khh-krrrk—!

“Aargh—!” Myeong-joo clamped his hands over his ears in agony.

The titanic roar felt as though it would rupture his eardrums. Trembling violently as he shielded his head, he felt the beast cast a sideways glance down at him. While he wanted nothing more than to avoid drawing its attention, the acoustic torture was unendurable. A warm, sticky trickle seeped past his earlobe, feeling unmistakably like blood.

Dizziness swept over him in overwhelming waves. Shaken by that ferocious roar, the pursuing demonic fiend slowed to a halt and abandoned the chase, prowling cautiously before melting back into the rocky terrain.

As his vision doubled and blurred, Myeong-joo simply shut his eyes.

The ride was far more violent than the bouncing jeep Hee-wan had driven, and clenching his jaw with all his remaining strength was the only defense he could muster.

The skin pressed against him was freezing cold. Unlike the furred demonic fiends of Seowon, this creature was completely encased in reptilian scales that sent repulsive chills through Myeong-joo every time its muscles shifted beneath him.

After what felt like an eternity, the beast’s speed finally tapered off, replaced by powerful, rhythmic leaps up a near-vertical cliff face. Gripping Myeong-joo firmly with one arm, it drove its free talons into the stone, scaling the precipice with effortless grace. Reaching the middle of the cliff, it paused—then casually hurled Myeong-joo through the air.

“Ugh…!”

Soaring upward into the empty sky, only a fatal plunge remained. I am truly dead, he thought numbly. To meet such a hollow, pointless end after climbing so high; the sheer absurdity of being flung off a precipice in the blink of an eye stunned him. Perhaps the monster had simply grown bored and discarded its plaything.

A myriad of racing thoughts flashed through his mind in that breathless instant.

***