Unlike himself, Yuan still had people around him worth protecting — worth changing for. That realization sent a chill to his fingertips and tightened something in his throat. Perhaps it was because that kind of life was something he had quietly longed for all along, without ever admitting it.
Unlike Yihyeon, who had only ever tried to survive out of obligation, Yuan had a reason he had to live. That felt strange, and bittersweet — and, in a way, enviable.
Yihyeon hesitated. He wanted to ask what Yuan planned to do once they got out of here safely. But the very premise of getting out safely felt like a lie, and he wasn’t sure whether it was his place to ask something so personal.
He was thinking all of this when —
“If…….”
Yuan opened his mouth.
“It’s an absurd hope, perhaps — but if we make it out of here…….”
The hand clutching the pendant had gone white at the knuckles.
“……I want to undo what I’ve done.”
“…….”
“Properly…… I want to be a real family to them both.”
Before long, thick rain began to fall in heavy drops beneath the rising mist. The rain poured in an instant, obscuring their view and soaking the two of them and everything around them through.
An absurd hope.
Perhaps it was.
Even Yihyeon couldn’t guarantee they would clear this.
But precisely because of that……
Perhaps people with something to strive toward grow stronger.
Through the downpour, he sensed the presence of a creature. The rain, falling harder than usual, had already risen to ankle height. The moment the weather shifted, the creature appeared right on cue, as always. One with raking claws came carving through the rising water toward them.
Yuan moved toward it. Around him, a cold so fierce it seemed to freeze the very air rose up. The biting cold and the frozen surroundings were fierce, as though reflecting his will.
As though declaring he would absolutely conquer this hell and return.
Yihyeon clenched his fist and moved alongside him.
For the first time in his life, the feeling of wanting to pour his strength out for someone else’s sake crashed through him like a wave.
Yihyeon sincerely wished it.
That Yuan would return no matter what, and set right every wrong as he intended.
Measuring how much time had passed was meaningless.
But the one thing that was clear — years had gone by.
The Hunters who had come with Yihyeon passed away one by one as time went on. It wasn’t for lack of skill. Some had lost their minds to the endless cycle and taken their own lives. Some had grown so exhausted that their guard slipped.
And some had fought ferociously — but that very ferocity had pushed them too far. As time went on, Yihyeon’s orders lost their meaning. The coordination fell apart, and only the desperate fighting to survive remained, eating away at their minds.
Only Yihyeon and Yuan had barely managed to hold on to their sanity and survive.
But even that……
Ended today.
“……Yuan.”
The blood flowing from his body was growing cold. Yuan looked up at Yihyeon with vacant eyes. The potions had run out long ago. The Hunter who had possessed a healing skill had died not long before. Wounds too fatal for natural recovery slowly devoured what remained of Yuan’s life.
They had just killed Baal — ranked 1st.
All that was left now was to wait for the Gate to dissolve and return. Once they returned, Yuan would certainly be able to survive. He would receive treatment right away, recover — and perhaps even achieve what he had wanted.
But.
It should have been that way.
The Gate showed no sign of dissolving.
Damn it all.
It was a dual-boss Gate.
“Yuan, stay with me. It won’t be long now…….”
Yuan, who had been looking up at Yihyeon with vacant eyes, gave a faint smile.
“……No.”
“…….”
“This seems to be my limit. The rift hasn’t dissolved, which means…… there must be more creatures remaining.”
“I’ll take care of them. I’m more than enough on my own. So…….”
“…….”
“So, please. Live.”
For the first time, Yihyeon’s face crumpled as he pleaded with him. The light in Yuan’s eyes was fading, his gaze growing fixed. His limit was plainly visible. Even so, Yihyeon wanted to believe in a miracle.
“I want you to live. You have a reason to go back. You have things you want to change.”
“……Yihyeon.”
“I have none of that. Because I don’t — I was able to come this far, cheering you on. I just wanted to see you make it back safely. At least that much.”
Once the Gate dissolved, they would never see each other again. But that was fine. Even if he was someone from another world — as long as Yuan made it back safely, Yihyeon could believe deep down that he was out there living life on his own terms. And whenever he thought of that from time to time, Yihyeon felt he could be satisfied with his own life too.
Believing in that one thing alone, he had run all the way to this moment alongside him. Even in the moments when exhaustion made him want to sink to the ground, he had endured by looking at Yuan’s eyes — always fixed on the goal, never wavering.
He couldn’t lose such a pillar of strength like this. He didn’t want to.
His vision blurred, and heat stung his eyes. Tears he had thought long dried were giving voice to their resentment at this cruel reality.
Yuan looked quietly up at Yihyeon like that. No — it wasn’t even certain he was truly looking at Yihyeon anymore. Only the breath barely holding on proved he was still alive.
“Yihyeon, I…….”
Yuan’s words continued through breaths that sounded on the verge of breaking off. Even when Yihyeon urged him to focus on breathing, Yuan spoke as though he could no longer hear.
“What I did…… is bigger than I thought. In truth…… it may be something that can’t be undone…….”
“It can. You can undo it.”
“Even knowing that…… making it this far…… was because of you…….”
“Yuan.”
Only when Yihyeon put force into his name did Yuan respond. The eyes that had been staring into empty space finally found Yihyeon. For just a fleeting moment, it seemed as though a faint light passed through his gaze.
The lips that had been slowly steadying their breath moved with great effort.
“I am…… grateful to you.”
The corners of his bloodstained lips curved for just a moment into an arc. Even now, even in this moment, he was so blindingly beautiful that Yihyeon could not look away.
In his eyes, he watched Yuan’s final moments as he slowly, irreversibly stilled.
Eyelids that lost their light and stopped. Muscles that went slack and limp. The lungs that had barely been drawing breath no longer moved.
He stilled as though falling asleep, face turned toward Yihyeon.
Like a statue frozen solid in a bitter, merciless cold.
A piercing chill and pain rushed over him, as though his own body might freeze. It had been agonizing each time one of the Hunters who had come with him breathed their last — but never to this degree.
It was because he had shared too much with Yuan.
If it would come to this, perhaps he should never have shared anything at all.
Perhaps he should have felt nothing for him. Should never have counted on him.
The grief of losing Yuan slowly consumed Yihyeon’s consciousness.
He resented this Gate — the Gate that had brought him face to face with Yuan, and then killed him.
A destructive impulse he had never felt before boiled up from somewhere within.
At the same moment, the earth shifted. Every surface around him buckled, sinking or surging upward. Hot and cold forces erupted from all directions, and a ferocious pressure he had never felt before bore down on his body.
[A hidden boss appears.]
A suffocating pressure closed in, making it hard to even breathe. Something of enormous mass came hurtling toward Yihyeon from above. The form that appeared faintly through the upheaval was the upper body of a giant whose size could not be measured, and the single spear it swung.
The system flickered and rose into Yihyeon’s field of vision.
[EX-tier Lemegeton…….]
A blinding light so intense it bleached even the system white.
As Yihyeon faced the incoming spearhead, a destructive impulse rose in his eyes.
A ferocious force blazed up from Yihyeon’s clenched fist. He poured every last drop of power he possessed into that fist.
[Warning! Overexertion — skill Diamond Body (EX) is corroding the body.]
The blazing interior of his fist began to crack. Skin split and blood ran. Even the historic skill that had turned Yihyeon into a living suit of armor could not protect its owner against overexertion.
Crack!
Whether the sound that reached his muffled ears was bones shattering or the very air screaming, he couldn’t tell. Ignoring his bursting blood vessels, Yihyeon swung his fist at the disaster falling toward him.
The world flipped on its axis, centered on that single point where spearhead and fist met.
A flash. In the space where his vision went utterly white, the only sensation that remained was an earsplitting roar tearing at his eardrums.
The ground evaporated without a trace, and a vicious shockwave swept through and crushed Yihyeon’s entire body.
Beyond a vision flickering between white and black, Yihyeon watched as everything around him ceased to exist.
[System…… unstable…… most functions…… unavailable…….]
The shattered system, broken like shards of glass, scattered chaotically across Yihyeon’s field of vision. As though it had broken down along with his body, the system kept throwing up warnings.
Everything around him was spinning. Whether the system going dark had released all his skills, his body — gone cold — screamed as though it had been hacked apart. The pain was so severe it felt as though his sanity might fracture, and Yihyeon couldn’t even begin to take stock of the situation.
“I’d advise you to drop any idea of using your injuries as an excuse to evade responsibility.”
At the sharp rebuke that pierced his ears, Yihyeon barely managed to lift his head and look up at the man.
A man he didn’t know. But across that unfamiliar face, familiar traces surfaced and flickered past.
