Hae-il quickly pulled his ability back up and glanced back at Moon Woo-shin.
“By the way — how do you know about monster immune systems?”
He’d faced countless monsters over the years, but had never once thought deeply about the internal structure of their bodies. There had been no need to.
Moon Woo-shin hadn’t even been affiliated with the Special Abilities Agency since graduating, for that matter.
Moon Woo-shin looked at him like the question was absurd.
“Forgotten what Ban does for business?”
The word business immediately brought back memories from his days as a low-ranking member. The time when he’d had to sell things made from monsters, passing them off as nutritional supplements.
It seemed Ban had been conducting quite a bit of research on monsters internally. He’d assumed they were just slapping things together sloppily and running scams.
But to get even a rough level of research and findings done, they would have needed quite a large number of specimens.
How does a single criminal organization get their hands on that many monster specimens, when monsters only exist inside Gates.
There was a lot to verify once they got out of here.
Filing the thoughts away neatly one by one, Hae-il put a single layer of barrier in front of himself like before and resumed his attack.
Water that surged out roughly scored a crack across the wall in one go. It was thanks to pushing the intensity up high from the very beginning, to break through as quickly as possible. The point at which the purple blood appeared came much faster than the first attempt too.
The problem came after that.
“Stubbornly tough.”
Just as he’d feared — the outer skin of this massive monster was no easy thing to get through. On top of that, its recovery rate was fast, so after he’d nearly reached the outer layer, progress came to a near standstill.
Just a little more and I can break through. That was a certainty. His ability was stronger. If he kept pushing like this — if he could just put one small crack in the outer layer — he could tear it apart immediately.
The issue was speed.
Not knowing when that wave of liquid might surge back made Hae-il feel desperate.
“Do you see anything?”
“Not yet. Focus.”
“I am.”
Switching from offense to defense — and not just any defense, but a completely airtight one — took considerable effort. The earlier he could detect the wave, the more time he could buy to respond.
The best outcome would be tearing through this right now, before it came to that.
Drawing on the steady voice beside him like fuel, Hae-il wrung every last bit of force he could and pushed his Wavelength forward.
A surge of thick purple blood came rushing up and ran down to pool at his feet. There was so much of it that the soles of his shoes were soaked through.
The urge to sweep it away with water immediately was strong, but he had to pour even that kind of spare energy into the attack.
Just then — the sound of a gun being loaded came from beside him.
“Hae-il, get rid of this too.”
Moon Woo-shin, already in a firing stance, was pointing at the protective barrier Hae-il had set up in front of them.
“What? You could get hurt!”
Taking that down meant he could be hit by water ricocheting off the wall. It wouldn’t be ordinary water — it would feel sharp. And that aside, the monster’s blood could splatter onto him too.
“I’ll dodge it myself. Just focus on the attack.”
Moon Woo-shin dismissed the concern in one breath and tapped Hae-il’s shoulder with the long barrel of the gun.
Hae-il’s own ability couldn’t hurt him, so that was fine. The monster’s blood — it was uncertain what kind of damage that might cause, but it was a risk worth taking.
This was a moment to draw on every scrap of power available.
His deliberation was brief. Hae-il turned and called out behind him.
“Stay as close behind me as you can!”
“I know, hurry up.”
The moment he absorbed the water he’d been using for defense back into the stream attacking the wall — a gunshot rang out right beside him.
Thanks to the added force, the crack in the wall tore open a little further — and right into the far end of that split, Moon Woo-shin’s bullet landed precisely. The power of the bullet, proportional to the guide’s strength, exceeded expectations. With a heavy thud, the embedded bullet detonated and shredded the inner layer into a wreck.
The next bullet aimed deeper — into the inner layer Hae-il had been working through, close to where it met the outer skin. Several consecutive shots flew out and buried themselves alongside the pouring water. At the same moment, a massive explosion-like sound rang out.
He kept firing in a pattern — tearing back open what the inner layer had already started to regenerate, and at precisely the right moments, lending support to Hae-il’s attacks again.
Almost there. Just a tiny bit more and I can split it.
It was a certainty felt from the very ends of his ability all the way to his fingertips.
Hae-il was at the point of pouring every single sense forward — when:
“The wave is coming.”
Moon Woo-shin’s voice, coming from right behind him, drove straight into his ear.
“I can do it.”
There wasn’t even time to deliberate. Hae-il answered without looking sideways, his voice firm.
“Probably about three minutes until it reaches us.”
“That’s enough.”
Teeth clenched, Hae-il extended his arm and closed the distance.
Using his arm as a launch point, blades of water shot out directly and sharpened their intensity with ferocity.
Moon Woo-shin’s gunshots rang out again in rapid succession.
The more violent the attack became, the more purple blood came surging up to obstruct the view.
“Two minutes.”
He felt a draining exhaustion as if he were pulling every last drop of water from his own body — but he paid it no mind.
Harder, sharper, faster. That was all that mattered.
The moment he concentrated every ounce of his strength and focus into one single point — a tiny crack appeared in the outer layer.
Finally.
“One minute.”
Hae-il didn’t let that small opening go. Water that spiraled and forced its way inside rotated sharply, rapidly widening the hairline crack into a hole, then a palm-sized gash, and at last into a long, torn-open gateway.
Once the tissue began to collapse, there was no stopping it.
Massive streams of water split off in every direction, pushing out against the edges of the breach and accelerating the widening of the wound.
Unlike forcing open that first tiny crack, the enormous penetrating wound expanded in volume in an instant.
From the moment Moon Woo-shin declared one minute, Hae-il had been counting seconds in his head — and the moment he reached thirty, he spun around and reached out his hand.
But Moon Woo-shin was faster — already snatching him by the waist.
“Run!”
Their bodies locked together as one. Hae-il covered the arm wrapped tightly around his waist with his own hand and gripped it hard. It was no different from holding each other.
Through the fully torn-open split in the wall, they threw themselves through together.
Outside the wall was nothing but darkness — nothing visible at all. Setting aside the anxiety of not knowing what lay a single step ahead, Hae-il felt the sensation of falling back-first and still kept his ability concentrated on tearing through the monster’s skin. He had to rip it apart enough to kill it for certain.
Through the spray of purple blood, he could see the transparent liquid wave surging from within the wall. It was close. Right in front of them. The wave that had charged forward without stopping flowed along the tear in the wall and dissolved the outer tissue.
It was a strange structure — liquid that had come from inside the monster’s body, with the inner layer apparently immune to it while the outer layer was not. Perhaps it was because the outer layer wasn’t simply a monster’s hide, but was ultimately no different from the wall of a Gate itself.
It would’ve been nice if it just kept helping kill the monster.
Part of the surging liquid poured in this direction.
Which was to say — toward Moon Woo-shin’s back, as he held Hae-il wrapped in his arms.
Hae-il, who spotted it first from within his hold, flipped them without hesitation.
Their positions switched in midair.
Hae-il pulled his ability toward his own back — toward where the wave was about to fall. Water spread open in a round shape like a small umbrella, two layers stacking up rapidly.
But it wasn’t enough to overcome the speed of the fall.
The barrier assembled in haste fell just slightly short of fully blocking the wave.
