Chapter 80

“Why on earth are those things acting like that?” Son Chaeyoon murmured, disgusted.

Dismayed murmurs broke out among the companions descending behind him. While the creatures looked little different from ordinary zombies, the sight of them mindlessly grinding into dead ends stirred deep unease.

How did they end up like this?

Normally, dungeon monsters operated by scent and sound. Driven by insatiable hunger, they treated any intruder entering their territory as prey to devour.

Yet the creatures before them remained entirely oblivious to the humans invading their domain. As though entranced by an unseen force, their hollow eyes remained fixed on blank stone, having forgotten even their primal instinct to feed.

“It must be related to the anomaly,” Seo Hae-gun said calmly. “Or perhaps these were the dungeon’s original monsters all along.”

At Seo Hae-gun’s explanation, Son Chaeyoon raised her hand. “Should I go check them out?”

“No. I’ll do it,” Hae-gun said.

Pitch-black muck undulated and rose like a serpent. The moment Seo Hae-gun activated his skill, the pooled fluids gathered and condensed into a pressurized lance of water. The stream shot forward with the blistering velocity of a rifle bullet, piercing straight through the monsters jammed against the walls.

Splatter!

Yet circumstances took another bizarre turn. The bodies pierced by the fluid simultaneously collapsed into mush, melting down into the exact same filth they had been treading on throughout the dungeon. The liquefied remains turned into pitch-black slime, coating the corridor in sticky sludge.

A foul stench wafted from the fresh slime. The odor was so overwhelming that even Eui-rim felt bile rise in his throat.

Ahn Moonhyuk bolted forward and dove into an empty patient room.

Uuurgh!

Hearing him retching in the corner was so pitiful that Eui-rim wished they could simply send Moonhyuk back upstairs.

Son Chaeyoon called after him, “Moonhyuk-oppa, is there anything in that room?”

Ahn Moonhyuk braced himself against the doorframe, wheezing. “Can’t you see I’m puking my guts out?!”

“You can still observe your surroundings while puking!” Chaeyoon shouted back.

“There’s nothing!” Moonhyuk coughed, wiping his mouth. “This smell is driving me insane! Guild Master, can’t you lend me a mask, please?!”

“No,” Hae-gun answered flatly. “I don’t feel like buying a new one.”

Was I the only one who felt bad for him? Eui-rim watched them with a helpless look. Everyone else is surprisingly cold-blooded.

Having flatly shot down Moonhyuk’s plea, Seo Hae-gun drew up a fresh current of water and began sweeping the floor, intent on clearing a clean path through the sludge.

“It doesn’t wash away easily,” Hae-gun remarked. “We’re better off just stepping around it as best we can.”

Looking around at the sludge clinging stubbornly to the tiles, Eui-rim asked, “What should we do about the remaining monsters?”

Because Hae-gun had halted his attack once the first wave dissolved into slime, several zombies still lingered further down the hall. They weren’t attacking, but leaving them at their backs felt unsettling.

“Let’s ignore them and move on,” Hae-gun said. “If they aren’t acknowledging us anyway, there’s no need to engage.”

“However, if we don’t eliminate them, the Core Room might not open,” Yoo Tae-geun objected.

Seo Hae-gun’s eyes narrowed at Yoo Tae-geun’s counterargument. Giving Tae-geun a cool, irritated glare, Hae-gun turned directly to Eui-rim.

“What should we do, Eui-rim-ssi?” Hae-gun asked.

“Pardon?” Eui-rim asked, surprised.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Hae-gun said. “You’re the one holding full authority here.”

Yoo Tae-geun also looked toward Eui-rim, awaiting his decision. Deep down, Tae-geun seemed to expect Eui-rim to choose procedural thoroughness over haste.

Good grief. That’s a heavy amount of pressure.

Though he had no idea when he had been granted supreme authority, it was an undeniable fact that his opinion tipped the scales. When anomalies defied all standard protocol, possessing the ability to indicate the true path was an undeniable power.

After brief consideration, Eui-rim looked toward the hallway where the stream of light pointed. “I think we can just keep moving. What matters is the Sigil, not hunting monsters.”

The corners of Seo Hae-gun’s eyes curled into pleased crescents. Clearly delighted that Eui-rim had sided with him, his face radiated satisfaction.

He’s a grown man, yet he acts like a pleased child.

Eui-rim gave a wry shake of his head. Son Chaeyoon soon reappeared, dragging Ahn Moonhyuk by the collar. Taking care not to step in the clumps of black sludge, Eui-rim advanced toward the room indicated by the light—the middle ward on the left side of the hall.

Inside the room lay another staircase descending deeper underground. Dim lamps were mounted along the walls, but surprisingly, the concrete here was clean, devoid of any slime.

“Are there no monsters down here?” Seo Hae-gun muttered.

Relying on the beam of light to inspect the steps, Eui-rim answered, “It seems so. It’s completely clean.”

Just then, a strange sound echoed from the bottom of the staircase. Halting in his tracks at the noise, which resembled both a shrill screech and an echoing sob, Eui-rim felt the party stiffen behind him.

“What is it?” Hae-gun asked, stepping forward.

“Just now, a strange sound—” Eui-rim started.

Hehehehe…<

His words broke off at the raucous burst of laughter. Holding his breath as he peered down into the gloom, Eui-rim saw a familiar silhouette staring up at them from the landing below.

It was the animated corpse from the first floor.

The Fragment that had parasitized the severed torso was floating the body in midair, sneering up at them with dead eyes.

Eui-rim rushed down the stairs, but by the time he reached the landing, all traces of the creature had already vanished.

“S-someone! Please, save me! Help me! Please! Please help me!” a woman’s frantic screams echoed through the basement.

The path of light vanished in an instant. Turning his gaze toward the cries, Eui-rim saw a blood-drenched woman reaching out from inside a reinforced chamber resembling an air-raid shelter.

“Everyone, halt! Do not come down the stairs!” The instant dark crimson blood poured from the woman’s eyes and nose, Eui-rim shouted at the top of his lungs, barring the entrance with his arm.

“That voice… I recognize her!” Yoo Tae-geun pushed past Seo Hae-gun and descended. Had Eui-rim not blocked the doorway with his arm, Tae-geun would have charged straight into the chamber.

Eui-rim shook his head vehemently. “No! You cannot! You must not approach her!”

“Hunter Kang Eui-rim!” Tae-geun protested, eyes wide.

“The same goes for the rest of you,” Eui-rim warned the team behind him. “Absolutely do not come down here.”

“Not even me?” Hae-gun asked.

“Yes,” Eui-rim insisted. “Seo Hae-gun-ssi, please stay back as well.”

The woman was already more than half-transformed into a host. The proof lay in the pitch-black shadows creeping like dark veins all the way to her chin, spreading from her lower body.

Watching the darkness radiate outward from her, Eui-rim swallowed hard. Memories of zones that had fallen to the Fragment’s domain in the previous timeline flashed through his mind, locking his limbs rigid.

“Sunbae! Please save me! I don’t want to die!” The woman thrashed against the floor, her voice shifting into a manic screech. “Save me! Save me, you bastard! Are you saying it’s fine if I die?! Why are you just standing there staring at me! Come save me right now!”

As her frantic, maddened pleas dragged on, dark crimson blood streamed ceaselessly from her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. Beneath her contorting, mangled frame, blood gathered into a dark pool, reeking of a suffocating metallic stench.

“Hunter Kang Eui-rim, I beg of you. Please step aside. She’s a hunter from my team.”

Watching his junior writhe in agony, Yoo Tae-geun made another desperate plea. As if he wanted nothing more than to shove Eui-rim aside that very second, Tae-geun’s face contorted in synch with her wretched screams, overwhelmed by fretful anxiety.

“Could you treat her just as you did earlier? If only we make it out of here alive, I’ll pay multiple times your fee. So please…”

“That woman is beyond treatment,” Eui-rim answered, drawing a firm line. “Even I can do nothing for her.”

Despair clouded Yoo Tae-geun’s dark eyes. He hesitated, his breath hitching. “Are you saying treatment is impossible using the same method?”

“Yes. No matter how incredible a hunter may be, decapitation means instant death.”

“Decapitation…?”

“We have to sever every part the shadow has crawled over, without exception. Only when all vital signs cease will the shadow abandon the host and retreat. Since it has already crawled above her neck, there is no way to reattach her head after severing.”

With the word impossible, a suffocating silence descended. In that stifling stillness, the only sound reverberating through the chamber was the shrieking and cursing of the hunter being consumed by the shadow.

Scanning the floor, Eui-rim spotted a familiar sigil etched beneath the prostrate, sobbing hunter. Asking Seo Hae-gun to draw one more knife, Eui-rim glanced back at his companions.

“Ignore her as much as you can. No matter how agonizingly she calls out to you, do not answer.”