Ian put on his clothes with trembling hands. He was so out of it that he couldn’t even remember what he’d pulled out to wear. Until dinnertime, he’d definitely been in a buoyant mood. Now he wasn’t.
Inside the TV screen, most of Stigma headquarters had already been devoured by the gate’s giant maw. The reddishly rippling vortex swallowing the building looked like a massive beast roaring in the middle of the city. The building’s outer walls twisted bizarrely, and smoke spewed out from beyond the windows.
“Hyung.”
Choi Jaeheon was in there. He who had promised to remain as family to him was trapped in a hellish gate. Thinking of the last time they met kept suffocating him. It felt like his heart was being torn apart.
Ian tried to rush out of the house right away but stopped in front of the entrance. Stigma Guild was in the downtown area. It was dawn—how would he get there? Public transportation would already be stopped.
‘No.’
Taxis would still be running. But this neighborhood had been entirely bought up by Choi Jaeheon, so there were no people around. He’d have to walk quite a bit to catch a taxi. And even if there was a taxi, would it really try to go to such a dangerous scene? When his thoughts reached that far, his head went blank.
“Hyung, hyung!”
He was stamping his feet when his phone started ringing.
[Yoon Taegyeom]
As soon as Ian saw the name that appeared on the screen, he pressed the call button.
“Hyung!”
-Ian, where are you right now? Are you home?
“Yeah, yeah! I’m home. I just saw the news!”
-Then you know everything. First, listen to me calmly. I’ve sent someone to your house. You know Yoon Sora, right? My relative. She went to pick you up.
Ian ran out of the house feeling like he’d met a savior.
“Hyung will be safe, right?”
-He’ll be safe. By chance, Hong Seoyoon was there with him too. With two S-rank Awakeners, what could happen? So don’t worry too much.
Yoon Taegyeom calmly comforted Ian. And not long after that, Yoon Sora arrived and Ian threw his body into the back seat. The season when the night air gradually turned cold was approaching, but his entire body was drenched in cold sweat.
“It’ll be okay. It will be okay.”
Seeing Ian like this, Yoon Sora said this while pressing hard on the accelerator. Halfway through, the road was blocked by cars trying to escape from near the gate, so they got out and ran. Fortunately, since Yoon Sora was also an Awakener, she quickly went against the crowd while holding Ian.
Near Stigma headquarters was already pandemonium. Siren sounds and people’s screams mixed together and pierced their eardrums. Between the fleeing citizens, armed Management Bureau agents moved busily. Ian got down from Yoon Sora’s arms and looked at the gate spewing terrible demonic energy.
‘Why does it have to be hyung?’
It would have been fine if the gate had opened where Ian was instead. Ian squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. In the meantime, Yoon Taegyeom, who had rushed out, approached him.
“Ian.”
“Taegyeom hyung.”
“Right now, all the guilds in Seoul have been summoned. So if you wait just a little, the advance team will go in.”
“I can’t wait.”
At Ian’s words, Yoon Taegyeom hesitated.
“You can’t wait?”
“I’ll go in first even if I’m alone.”
“Ian.”
Yoon Taegyeom grabbed Ian’s shoulder with his hand.
“You’re a healer.”
“But I can use divine power, so I can deal with demons.”
“There’d be a limit. You didn’t call yourself a healer for no reason.”
The calmly persuasive words were resentful in this moment.
“So calm down.”
“But nobody knows what’s happening inside! The demonic energy is leaking out so sickeningly. No. I have to go in. I have to go and find hyung!”
When Ian tried to move his steps toward the gate, Yoon Taegyeom firmly blocked the way in front. His face was distorted with worry.
“No. Like I said before, the advance team will be ready soon, so move with them. I absolutely won’t let you go until then.”
“What if something happens to my hyung while waiting for those people?”
“Ian! Do you think I’m not worried about Jaeheon? But how can I just watch you head into danger! If Jaeheon finds out, he’ll try to kill me.”
Right now, no words were reaching Ian. The terrible stench of the demons he’d seen in Lancia was resonating all the way here. This wasn’t a simple monster attack. It was a hunt targeting a specific person.
“I have to.”
Somehow I have to get in. But how? Yoon Taegyeom was blocking right in front. Right now, Ian didn’t even have the strength to overcome him. Just as he was falling into despair,
Kwaang!
Something fell from above, tearing through the atmosphere. The ground shook explosively, and the asphalt cracked like a spiderweb. The agents controlling the area screamed and backed away. Yoon Taegyeom also instinctively hid Ian behind him and created water droplets in the air.
But the form slowly revealed from the dust cloud was a man Yoon Taegyeom knew well.
“…Vermouth?”
When Ian called his name, Vermouth raised his head. Instead of the clothes he’d seen during the day, he wore silver armor and held a sword. His sword wasn’t an ordinary sword. It was a sword forged by Regnasia consuming her own power, hoping to protect Lancia. The divine power emanating from that sword was erasing the surrounding demonic energy.
“Yes, Ian-nim.”
Vermouth’s gaze immediately turned to Ian.
“Why are you here?”
This time, the person who asked the question was Yoon Taegyeom.
“I could feel the filthy demonic power, so how could I stay comfortable? Above all, when Ian-nim is moving, how could I stay still?”
No, how did he know Ian was moving? While Yoon Taegyeom was puzzled, Ian escaped from him and ran to Vermouth. Vermouth gladly lifted his running Saint into his arms and leaped once more.
Toward the red gate.
He tried to block him by creating a wall of water, but when Vermouth swung his sword, it quickly collapsed. Like that, the two easily entered inside the gate.
“Huh?”
Left alone, Yoon Taegyeom rubbed his forehead with his hand. He gritted his teeth and glared at the gate, but he couldn’t go in alone. He was the person in charge of this scene right now. If he abandoned all of that and went in, all that would remain would be chaos. Responsibility held him back.
Deep despair washed over him at the fact that all his precious people were inside there, yet he couldn’t go find them. But he couldn’t just sit down either. Yoon Taegyeom gritted his teeth and turned his body.
“When will the advance team preparation be finished!”
Now that it had come to this, they had to prepare the advance team as quickly as possible and go inside.
“Let’s hurry!”
Please, may everyone be alive until then. Yoon Taegyeom desperately hoped.
***
The scenery inside the gate was more bizarre than Lancia’s battlefield. The corridors of Stigma headquarters and some desolate land were messily fused together. Was that why? It felt much larger than the original Stigma building.
Instead of fluorescent lights on the ceiling, lumps of flesh with glaring red eyes were densely stuck together making unpleasant sounds, and from the walls, black liquid flowed down like blood, wetting the floor.
“Ugh.”
Ian frowned at the demonic energy piercing his nose and held back dry heaves. Vermouth held Ian in one arm and walked down that path. Each time divine power brushed by, the surroundings melted with bizarre screams.
Ian clung to Vermouth like that and infused him with power.
‘A fantastic battery.’
One side uses power, the other charges. Continuing to fight also consumed mental strength, but Vermouth always endured it. That’s why when the two were together, they were no different from invincible.
“There are many things like bugs.”
“Indeed.”
After passing through a long corridor, they came to a room for the first time. But what was inside wasn’t Choi Jaeheon or Hong Seoyoon.
“It’s a demon.”
The first demon died by Vermouth’s sword before it could do anything. The second demon was stronger than the first, but it was the same.
“Is it a structure where the demons get stronger as we pass through the rooms?”
“It seems so. But isn’t this just wasteful?”
“It might be a trap.”
It didn’t seem like the demons would honestly line up stronger ones in order. And that prediction was exactly right. In the third room, the size of the room suddenly grew larger, and the quality of the appearing demon was different.
“Hehehehe, finally.”
Moreover, this one even spoke. Of course, they couldn’t listen to those words until the end. Because Vermouth cut down the demon in the middle.
“Wait!”
Another demon raised its hand, but he didn’t care. To him, demons were just filthy bugs not even worth conversing with. And Ian agreed on that part too. Demons would spew bewitching words as soon as they opened their mouths. So it was better to prevent them from speaking in the first place.
