# Chapter 78
“There’s another crevice over there.”
Lee Hwan pointed to a long section of wall that wasn’t in contact with minerals. A rather large chunk of ice was firmly blocking a pitch-black hole.
“I can’t break this.”
“Since we’re near strong cold air anyway, even if I use fire, it won’t cause much collapse.”
Taesung walked steadily toward the wall. The area in front of his hand began to glow red, then whoosh, bluish flames shot up. It seemed he was thinking of melting the ice again to escape through the gap.
The ice melted at an agonizingly slow pace. This was partly because it had been frozen solid for so long, but also because it was originally several meters thick.
In between, fragments of broken attribute minerals and unknown debris-like objects flowed down, and even the corpse of a fish, from who knows when, was released and fell to the floor with a thud.
‘This is… a blind carp, isn’t it?’
Eyes almost completely atrophied, a mouth and fins modified for scraping the bottom. Even at a glance, it was clearly a monster said to inhabit this gate’s lake.
Could this side be connected to the lake? Considering the direction they had walked so far, it was a reasonable guess. However, he’d never heard that the lake area was particularly cold.
In other words, even if it was connected, it meant it was blocked by a considerable depth of water, and also that it was only connected to an extremely small portion of the enormous lake.
Moreover, blind carp were monsters that stayed at the bottom of the lake, sucking up all kinds of debris, and occasionally attaching to things that fell into the water to drag them to the bottom. They had extremely strong survival abilities and somehow managed to adapt their bodies to survive in most environments.
‘So the connection is… the bottom of the lake?’
It was just a guess, but he felt an unfounded certainty. A foreboding thought suddenly crossed Lee Hwan’s mind. If his prediction was correct, most of the ice here would be lake water.
Quickly shifting his gaze, he saw that Taesung had already melted a significant amount of ice and had entered through the gap.
“Let’s pause for a moment.”
“I think we need to stop for a bit.”
The two spoke simultaneously, as if they had detected something strange at almost the same time.
But despite their good intuition, was it too late? As soon as they finished speaking, a sound like air bubbles escaping came from somewhere.
Gurgle…
“…Do you hear that sound?”
“Kang Taesung, get out of there…!”
Crack!
Soon, the sound of cracking approached so rapidly that it made his heart race. Before they could react, the ice inside the gap, which had barely been holding together, burst, and water began to pour in instantaneously.
Splash!
“Kang Tae…!”
It happened in the blink of an eye. Just like when they first fell to this place, there was no time to respond this time either. The black stream of water gushing from the hole was like a serpent twisting its body.
His vision filled with water, his body floated, and he lost control. This time, he urgently reached out, determined to hold on, but the strong current seemed to bend all his fingers.
‘No!’
With the last sight of Taesung being pushed out of the gap by the wave that hit like a battering ram, Lee Hwan’s vision flipped, and he was instantly submerged in deep water.
‘Even though the person was hospitalized and lying down, the team leader came and said that again?’
‘The one about surviving if you keep your wits about you even if you’re dragged into a tiger’s den?’
‘I was dragged away without keeping my wits about me, that’s what.’
‘I guess he was irritated because he had to report the gate accident. I’m going to keep doing gates with Kang Taesung… no, Hunter Kang. The team leader scares me.’
‘What are you talking about? He’s worse.’
A memory from the past briefly surfaced and then faded. Lee Hwan lost consciousness for a split second before regaining it. With his vision filled with murky water, he was, remarkably, still breathing, albeit with difficulty.
Thump!
Someone grabbed his arm, startling him greatly, but he quickly calmed down when he realized it was Taesung with his eyes wide open.
“Huk, huuk…”
Only then did he notice. The moment the water poured in, he had instinctively used his ability to create a small air layer around his head.
Taesung squeezed Lee Hwan’s arm again to gather his attention, then gestured with his chin to one side. It was the hole where he had been melting the ice just a moment ago. Could it be that was the only way out?
Lee Hwan nodded once to show he understood, then examined Taesung. While his own oxygen saturation might gradually decrease, at least he was still breathing air, but Taesung seemed to be holding his breath, with thick veins already standing out on his temples.
This escape was going to be difficult.
‘No, first… first let’s get out.’
Regardless of his growing concern, they couldn’t waste too much time here. Someone like Taesung could probably hold out for about 5 minutes, even moving vigorously underwater.
So, the target was 5 minutes. They needed to escape this tank-like space before then.
The difficult current kept pushing them backward. Lee Hwan used gravity to fall to the floor, then, with Taesung holding onto him, slowly walked into the hole.
The hole was, as expected, a dark and suffocating space. The walls grew tighter as they progressed, and eventually, they could only move forward by crawling on their stomachs.
His vision was getting dizzy from conserving his breath as much as possible, but no matter how much he crawled, he couldn’t see the end. Time gradually passed, and Lee Hwan too began to find it harder and harder to breathe.
241, 242, 243… Counting seconds, he glanced back to see Taesung’s face had turned red. His lips were progressively losing color, perhaps because he couldn’t breathe.
‘…I wonder if he’ll be okay.’
While he was somewhat blocking the water flow by being in front, Taesung would quickly tire with his breath held. Even if he was an Awakened person—no, even if he was an Awakened grandfather—as an Earth organism, he couldn’t move long without oxygen.
Sure enough, before even counting to 300 seconds, he saw Taesung’s eyes slightly unfocusing. Lee Hwan felt a pang of fear, as if all his blood had frozen solid in the already cold water.
At this rate, even if they escaped quickly, Taesung wouldn’t last. Realizing this, a strong shock enveloped his body, as if he’d been struck in the head.
He’d rather be trapped down there again than survive dragging Taesung’s corpse.
This wouldn’t do. Lee Hwan quickly turned around and pulled Taesung’s arm. As Taesung was pulled up without resistance, Lee Hwan brought his mouth close to Taesung’s slack face.
The air layer surrounding Lee Hwan’s head shrank and then extended forward slightly to cover Taesung’s nose and mouth. Only then could he feel Taesung’s breath bursting forth against his skin.
Good. This way, at least his lungs wouldn’t fill with water. Lee Hwan endured his increasingly labored breathing and tightly embraced Taesung at a distance where their noses could almost touch, then stepped against the wall.
If he passed out here, he’d wake up on the path to the afterlife. So please, hang in there.
Thunk, as he knocked his forehead against Taesung’s head, his eyes, which had been rolling back, returned to their place. As if he’d realized they were sharing the same air the moment he regained consciousness, a flash of surprise crossed his face briefly.
Like it or not, there was no choice. If they didn’t want to become water ghosts, they had to find a way to live, even if it meant being uncomfortably pressed together like this. Lee Hwan moved forward against the current, embracing him, desperately hoping that his own breath and Taesung’s stamina would hold out.
Surprisingly, after sticking together with Taesung, they actually moved faster. It felt like a powerful motor had been attached; each time Taesung pushed off the wall, they moved several meters at once.
As seconds that felt like eternity passed again and his stamina reached its limit, finally, a faint light shone ahead.
Just a little further and they could live. They could return to the normal path and escape the gate. With that thought, Lee Hwan used all his strength, but at some point, he felt his arms gradually becoming limp.
‘What’s happening?’
It wasn’t just his arms. His entire body felt heavy and wobbly, as if his muscles had turned to paper. Damn it. It seemed his stamina had hit rock bottom from enduring the current alone since earlier.
While he had been able to breathe a bit more, in truth that air alone wasn’t enough even for one person. It was fortunate that Taesung had barely managed by sharing it, but now it seemed he himself was about to collapse. No matter how hard he tried, his legs wouldn’t obey.
‘Must go up… just a little more…’
Lee Hwan had survived through sheer willpower and even regressed. Even in this situation, he somehow continued to move forward. Thus, he finally escaped the narrow passage and faced the wide, deep lake bottom.
As the tension eased slightly, his remaining strength drained away. Lee Hwan, feeling he couldn’t go on, struggled to turn his increasingly heavy eyes to Taesung to try to convey something.
‘I can’t anymore…’
But his arms dropped from the body he was holding, and his vision instantly became blurry. His thoughts slowed to a stop, and the ability he had been barely sustaining abruptly ceased.
Gulp. The air trapped around his head rose to the water’s surface in bubbles and disappeared.
‘Can’t go…’
Bubbles gurgled up from his mouth, and with no more air to breathe in, his head drooped. Taesung’s face briefly crossed the edge of his vision.
At least being caught by this guy, he wouldn’t be processed as missing, whatever happened. With that final thought, as Lee Hwan’s consciousness was fading—
A shadow darkened before his eyes, and suddenly a large hand covered his face. While straightening his tilted head, soft flesh touched his lips, and hot breath flowed into his forcibly opened mouth.
‘!’
His shrunken lungs expanded, momentarily bringing him back to consciousness. The hand supporting his nape was gradually growing hotter. After breath came and went three or four times in the endlessly deep water, his body slowly rose and finally reached the surface.
Splash!
“Keuuk, cough… cough!”
The school of fish that had been clinging to them frantically flailed in the suddenly heated water before disappearing to the bottom of the lake. Lee Hwan coughed frantically, crawled out of the lake, then fell to the ground with a thud. From that moment on, tremendous pain enveloped his body.
“Cough, kuk… haa, hak…!”
His vision spun. As oxygen belatedly filled his lungs, his breath became overwhelmingly heavy, as if he were dying. His skin tingled and stung, and something, whether water or tears, ran down his face and dropped to the ground.
With the sound of cutting through water, Taesung, who had belatedly emerged from the lake, approached Lee Hwan with labored breathing and turned his body over. Only after seeing the rise and fall of the lying man’s chest did he move away and slowly regulated his breathing.
Gik, gik-!
Taesung was already throwing off the third blind carp that had attached to his body. The fish, which had been gaping and making strange noises, roasted to a golden brown in Taesung’s hand before falling to the ground.
Lee Hwan, sprawled as if only his lungs and mouth remained in his body, barely wiped away what might have been water or tears. His completely drained hands were trembling.
They survived. Both of them survived. Measuring that fact with his endlessly aching body and foggy head, a deep sense of relief finally swept over him. Lee Hwan, still breathing heavily, examined Taesung through half-closed eyes.
Black hair, wet and covering his forehead. Beneath it, his slightly reddened eyes somehow looked pitiful. Looking at them, his already labored breath kept rising, and his heart continued to beat loudly. His face, where Taesung’s hand had touched, burned as if scorched by fire.
His left chest twitched and pulsated, so Lee Hwan lay on his side, curled his body into a ball, and tried to calm his heartbeat for a while. Strange, peculiar sensations kept twisting his insides, making him feel nauseous.
Could the aftereffects of first coughing up blood be coming back to haunt him now? His fingertips had been aching for a while.
