Chapter 14

Fortunately, the mechanism clicked off only after the beast’s silhouette had completely vanished into the upper peaks. The pressurized aura wrapping him dissolved, and the cold mountain wind rushed back against his skin.

Letting out a breath, Eui-rim brushed himself off and rose, his stiff muscles throbbing painfully. Though he had done nothing more than sit breathlessly, his body ached as if he had been beaten black and blue.

Swallowing a groan, Eui-rim immediately began winding the knurled crown of the Watch of Seclusion. Though the internal core held ample power, there was no telling when the next predator might lunge from the shadows; he needed the spring primed to maximum tension.

Do I really have to repeat this routine until I reach the destination…?

He had braced himself for hardship, but confronting the grim reality was daunting all the same. In all honesty, promises be damned—part of him desperately wanted to sprint back to his car and drive straight home.

Still, I have to reach him. If not today, I will never have another chance to cross paths with Seo Hae-gun.

Eui-rim turned toward the rugged mountain path. A single glance was enough to make the climb ahead look agonizing.

As expected, the trek was sheer penance. Perhaps because his last memory of hiking dated back to elementary school, each upward step left him gasping for breath and light-headed with exhaustion, even if he hadn’t encountered as many monsters as he had feared.

Was my stamina always this pathetic? Even when dispatched on frontline healer support, he didn’t remember field duty ever feeling this brutal.

His body dragged heavily, as though gravity itself pulled with double strength in this isolated sector. Lead-heavy legs aside, his lungs felt compressed, turning every inhalation into an agonizing struggle.

I should have brought water. He had focused so obsessively on evasion items to flee monsters that he hadn’t anticipated his own abysmal stamina dragging him down like this. Leaving his pack behind for the sake of agility was proving to be a bitter mistake.

As he paused periodically to catch his breath, the surrounding wilderness grew denser and more oppressive. Where pale morning light had filtered through the canopy earlier, colossal, ancient pines now intertwined overhead like a vaulted tomb, blotting out the sky. Surveying the gloom, Eui-rim retrieved the dungeon tracker from his pocket to check how far he remained from the entrance of Abyssal Origin Cave.

Rustle

Right then, the undergrowth stirred.

The instant the compass needle snapped toward an ominous coordinate, a sinister presence surged through the earth, closing the distance at terrifying speed.

Before conscious thought could take hold, Eui-rim reacted on pure instinct, thumbing the watch crown to trigger the barrier. Scrambling beneath the overhang of a massive boulder, he watched jagged fissures violently rupture the very patch of ground he had stood upon a split second before.

Groooaaar!

Erupting from the shattered earth was a colossal annelid monstrosity. Its segmented body was so impossibly massive that the soaring pines reached only halfway up its towering length.

Boom!

The gargantuan beast smashed its blind head into the soil. Amid the volcanic geyser of pulverized rock and uprooted trees, its cavernous maw gaped wide.

Did the stealth hold? Judging by how it’s thrashing blindly, it hasn’t pinpointed my scent yet.

Damn you, Seo Hae-gun. You claimed it wouldn’t be dangerous if I timed the purge cycle right. That was an absolute lie!

The ground shook so violently that sitting upright was impossible, forcing him flat on his stomach in a prone crawl. Cradling his head in both hands, Eui-rim prayed desperately that the monster’s rank was roughly on par with the watch. No matter how potent the item was, deceiving a beast of a higher rank than the artifact was virtually impossible.

How long had he remained curled in the dust? Only when an eerie, absolute silence settled over the hollow did he realize the seismic vibrations had stopped.

Releasing the stale breath trapped in his chest, a sudden, icy sweat chilled his skin. On his wrist, the watch face glowed a warning crimson, ticking down the final seconds before the protective veil unraveled.

He raised his head, but the boulder obstructed his view, making it impossible to ascertain where the beast had gone.

Since I can’t feel any presence, did it give up and leave like that bird?

Slowly pushing himself up, his joints popped with a sharp crack. Perhaps from staying curled too tightly, his right foot was numb and throbbing.

Peeking past the rim of the boulder, Eui-rim confirmed the clearing was empty. Where the monster had hammered the terrain, a massive crater remained, as if a meteorite had struck the hillside.

Wiping the cold sweat drenching his face, Eui-rim let out a relieved breath. Thank goodness it’s quick to give up. Had it lingered just a little longer, the cloaking effect would have unraveled, and he wouldn’t have even left a single bone behind.

Drip

“…Huh?” Eui-rim muttered, blinking down.

A dark, viscous circle bloomed across the loam between his boots. Droplets were splashing onto the dirt in steady, deliberate intervals, sinking into the soil.

Is it raining?

Reflexively tilting his head back, an expanse of total darkness devoured his vision. As though smothered beneath a suffocating thunderhead, an unnatural black canopy hung directly above him.

“…”

No.

No, that wasn’t right. What loomed overhead was neither cloud nor shadow.

It was a gaping, bottomless abyss—a colossal maw lined with concentric rings of jagged, needle-like teeth, shuddering around rows of muscular suction cups.

A rancid gust of putrefaction blasted from the cavity, striking him full in the face. As he choked back a violent heave of nausea, another heavy drop splashed down from the void.

Drip

Viscous saliva, deceptively clear as mountain dew, was dribbling from the creature’s lower rim.

Eui-rim frantically glanced down at his wrist—the timer was still counting down. The stealth field had not expired; the pressure in the air was still holding.

“Ha…” A hollow, bitter gasp slipped past his lips.

A hollow scoff escaped him as his body froze solid.

From the very beginning… this damn worm could see right through it.

Groooaaar!

The instant the monstrous roar shattered the air, Eui-rim kicked off the ground and bolted. With the entire mountain trembling around him, his legs pumped in a frantic, desperate sprint.

He had no idea which direction he was sprinting. He forgot how to breathe, his mind wiped clean of all rational thought; only raw, animal survival drove him onward.

A terrified glance over his shoulder revealed the annelid undulating leisurely behind him. Whether the beast was toying with its prey or merely pacing itself, that unchanging, inescapable distance stoked cold terror in his veins.

Damn it, Seo Hae-gun. Where the hell are you?! You told me you cleansed this path every third Friday. You said if I followed this route, we’d cross paths naturally!

Yet unlike the hysterical screaming in his head, not a single sound slipped from his clamped mouth. The primal instinct that noise would only hasten his death kept his lips sealed tight.

He briefly considered reaching for the dagger at his belt, but immediately abandoned the impulse. With his non-combatant status, fighting back was suicide—he couldn’t even determine whether this beast was an A-rank monster or merely endowed with specialized thermal detection.

The lethal threat was his rapidly draining stamina. As his calves turned to lead and his lungs burned, the putrid reek slammed into his senses once more—the creature was right on his heels.

“Damn it!” Eui-rim gasped.

Suddenly, his feet left the ground like debris pulled into a cyclone. A monstrous vacuum erupted behind him, dragging his body backward with irresistible gravitational force.

Eui-rim threw his arms around the trunk of a nearby cedar. He had seized what appeared to be the thickest tree in reach, yet the deep roots groaned and lifted from the earth almost instantly, threatening to snap.

What do I do? Devoured without a struggle? All I have is a standard-issue dagger—could this cheap blade even scratch that hide?

Bzzzt

A burst of harsh static snapped through the air like a ruptured wire. The deafening chime triggered a piercing throb behind his temples; a split second later, his vision blurred as a luminous panel materialized before his eyes.

Just as it had on the morning his healing skills failed, the status interface forced itself into view of its own accord.

The errors disappeared?

No, more than that… what are those skill ranks…?!

“Ugh!” Eui-rim cried out.

His body plummeted in a split second. Though he scrambled to plant his hands against the ground and push himself up, all strength had deserted him; his trembling limbs could barely hold his balance.

Forcing his body to move, Eui-rim attempted to cast a skill. He had not checked its instructions or specific details, but he relied on pure instinct to circulate his mana.

Yet in his panicked haste, the technique failed to ignite. The thread of mana he dragged up was pitifully brittle, and the arcane circuitry he mapped in his mind scattered like smoke.

Groooaaar!

Sensing that its quarry was cornered, the monstrosity unhinged its jaws to an unnatural circumference. In the split second before impact, the inward vortex grew ferocious enough to tear the breath from his chest.

Just as Eui-rim squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for his bones to splinter—

Rip-crunch!

A sickening, wet rupture tore through the air, and a damp, lukewarm spray splattered across his cheek and the back of his hand.

Peering open an eye, he found thick, brownish ichor splattered like mud across the ferns. Wiping the foul mucus from his skin, Eui-rim whipped his head toward the brush the instant he sensed a quiet, lethal presence.

“I was wondering what sort of idiot couldn’t even handle a single bug,” a cool voice drawled.

The reek of decaying filth washed away in a heartbeat, replaced by the clean scent of damp pine and morning ozone. Through the thinning mist, a figure stepped casually from between the towering trunks.

“Turns out it’s not even one of ours,” the man added, arching an eyebrow.

The very man who had summoned him toward Abyssal Origin Cave.

It was Seo Hae-gun from three years ago.

Three years in the past—before the Tower, before the apocalypse, before the world broke.

Eui-rim’s shoulders dropped at the sound of a voice richer and far clearer than he remembered. Though dripping with haughty sarcasm, the timbre was so startlingly melodic that the barb barely registered.