Either way, it was a path I had to take—deeper into the Gate.
So I stepped forward into it.
Thud.
Clunk.
I lightly shoved every monster body blocking my route behind me.
Thanks to that, even with my body in shambles, I could still move forward a little faster.
Slide.......
And those toppled monster bodies, just like that,
went straight into my shadow.
‘Jackpot!’
After I crossed into Gyeonggi Province,
I’d replenished ingredients in my own way,
but compared to what I could get from the Legion, those supplies were defective.
I was especially short on meat from monsters with real power......
‘And to think I can restock like this here!’
It wasn’t just the number of monsters piled up here.
Their variety and quality were beyond imagination.
There were probably monsters with bizarre traits I’d never even pictured.
‘They kept this many different monster corpses this fresh.’
It wasn’t like the corpses I’d gotten in Gangwon Province by paying other Awakeners.
The level of other Awakeners couldn’t help but be lower than the Legion’s,
so compared to the monster corpses the Legion sourced in-house, the quality was worse.
But this?
These were monster corpses those stray specters had hand-picked as their own bodies.
‘Even the minimum is around thick orange.......’
Monsters with yellow magic power were so common you could trip over them,
and there were plenty with green magic power as well.
Of course, the fight outside was still ongoing,
so all I did was pack the monsters along my path into my shadow.
I didn’t have the luxury of picking and choosing.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
Even so,
the number of monsters piling up inside my shadow was already approaching the hundreds.
And on top of that......
Because I was moving too fast—
CRASH!
“Ah, mistake...... that one’s completely shattered.”
Frozen monster corpses.
If you shoved them into the wrong place even a little,
they toppled and shattered on the spot all the time.
‘Well, what I’ve already collected is insane enough.’
I didn’t care if some broke.
To put it bluntly, monster corpses.
Whatever happened to that crap didn’t matter much to me.
Yeah.
I didn’t care.
But—
SKREEEEEEE!!!
“Man, you’re loud! People can break things by accident!”
To the ones up there,
it seemed to matter a whole lot.
“It’s a dead monster corpse anyway. What difference does it make if it breaks a little?”
SKREEEEEEE!!!
Every time I put a corpse into my shadow, they raged,
and if I shattered one by mistake, they went past rage into horror.
Well, whatever.
Thud, tap.
CRASH.
Slide.
SMASH......!
“Ah...... tsk. Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”
SKREEEEEEE!!!
Because I shoved one corpse wrong,
hundreds of corpses shattered at once like dominoes.
“Ah, shit—don’t scare me! I got startled and broke another one. That’s your fault.”
SKREEEEEEE......!
Startled by their shrieks,
I even shattered corpses I wouldn’t have bothered storing in my shadow in the first place.
Ignoring the screams of souls overhead,
I walked for a long while when—
-......Stop.
“Huh?”
Unlike the earlier shrieks
that I couldn’t understand at all,
-a heavy voice I could clearly understand
seeped into my soul.
*****
-Please, stop there.......
The other souls were saying things too,
but since it wasn’t human language, I couldn’t understand it.
But—
‘This is different.’
The beings speaking to me now,
their words weren’t reaching my ears.
A voice transmitted as if it were seeping into my soul.
Not using air as a medium......
using the soul as the medium.
‘An ability that can convey intent directly.’
Abilities like this weren’t common.
And from experience so far—
“You’re the masters of this Gate.”
Such beings
often carried tremendous power.
-Y-yes. So.
-Stop...... stop it.
I tried to guess the direction the voice was coming from,
but it didn’t seem to be coming from among the souls gathered above me.
‘Deeper inside.’
A voice coming from deep within the interior of this fortress.
-Stop taking and humiliating the old bodies of our brothers, Guardian Deity of the natives.
“......Guardian?”
-Or perhaps a Guardian God? I don’t know what you truly are. But stop.
That voice’s panic came through as-is.
“Stop, huh.......”
Facing that earnest plea,
I gave a light laugh.
CRASH!
“If I don’t want to, what are you going to do?”
-.......
I said it as I shoved another corpse behind me.
Bad luck—its frozen body failed to slide into my shadow and shattered miserably.
‘Not sure why, but even these bodies that are basically just corpses—are they still attached to them?’
From their perspective, these were bodies they couldn’t use anymore.
They couldn’t do anything with them.
But the way I handled them seemed to disgust them.
‘Religious reasons or whatever.’
Either way,
they picked the wrong target.
“You lied to us, and forced us into this brutal cold.”
-.......
“Back then humanity couldn’t resist, so we just had to take it. Yeah, this world’s turned into a shit world where the strong survive. I get it. But.......”
The bastards who’d handed me a whole lot of irritation.
Looking straight at them—
“Now the situation’s flipped, hasn’t it?”
Once you figure out what someone hates,
why wouldn’t you do it.
CRASH!
“When I do this, what can you do besides beg?”
I shattered another corpse without hesitation,
then spoke as I got ready to shatter more.
-It is certainly as you say.
What came next
was a different voice than the one that spoke first.
-Even if you refuse, we cannot force you to follow our will.
Unlike the one right before, this one spoke in a somewhat humble tone.
I wondered if it was changing its attitude because I came on strong, but no.
There was more.
-I understand why you oppose us.
-But little child, even enemies can trade, can they not?
Voices and speech patterns all over the place.
Only then did I realize it.
‘......There isn’t just one or two.’
Monsters with enough power
to speak directly into another’s soul.
And it wasn’t just one or two of them.
‘Just from the voices alone, at least five.’
I didn’t know what state their true bodies were in,
but if they could move,
they’d be an exhausting opponent.
-Can you promise you will stop?
-If you do, we will give you what you seek.
If there was one small piece of good news,
it was that they couldn’t stop what I was doing right now,
and it looked like all they could do was try to persuade me with words.
“A trade.”
Step.......
“You even know what I’m looking for?”
-How dare you speak as if you look down on us.
Without letting my guard down,
I kept walking deeper inside.
-What you desire......
-I cannot understand why one such as you shelters those lowly insects.
-But we know you cherish the natives. Guardian of the ‘natives.’
They said that, and then—
KUUUUNG.......
“......?”
In one corner of the vast palace,
a faint cluster of light rose.
-What you want is there.
“......Hmph.”
Cold snow began to fall from above.
‘It’s not far.’
On my route.
A place that lay along the path into the Gate’s depths.
‘Could be a trap, but.......’
It’s on the way anyway.
Stopping there wouldn’t delay my path to the Gate’s core,
so I decided to play along,
and headed toward it.
-We will offer what you desire most.
-Little child. If not for our guidance, there was a very high chance you would not have found it.
As I advanced, clearing monster corpses out of the way,
I reached a spot where snow piled from the ceiling lay soft and thick.
And......
the moment I arrived—
-Do not go any farther inside, and stop shaming the old bodies of our brothers.
“.......”
-This is an offering we lay out for him.
I—
couldn’t help being so shocked I barely even heard them.
Because what was there—
-They are insects who have not yet become our brothers. They are of no use to us.
-But to you, they will be precious. Please accept our offering, and withdraw.......
Unconscious.
Trapped inside eggs made of massive ice.
“Humans.......”
It was people.
*****
Unconscious.
Naked, sealed inside that freezing ice,
waiting for the day they’d hand their bodies over to stray specters.
‘No, it’s not only humans.’
There were also bodies of monsters whose identity I couldn’t determine.
Unlike the other monsters I’d seen on the way here,
these were unmistakably still alive.
In other words—
“You gathered every body you plan to use as new bodies here.”
-That is correct.
This place
was where they collected their reserve bodies.
Unlike earlier, when I’d been shattering other monster bodies without a thought,
I moved carefully now, avoiding the ice masses that got in my way as I advanced.
And then—
[Awakener - Seong Jinhye]
[Intermediate Priest Lv.28]
‘A face I’ve never seen...... but that’s a pretty high-level Awakener.’
I looked at the human body at the very front.
A young woman with a face that looked mischievous.
‘Someone from the Association? Or a strong survivor who lived separately from them?’
Among everyone I’d seen in Gyeonggi Province, she was the highest level after the Chair.
I didn’t recognize her,
but if the Association people saw her, they’d probably know her instantly.
And besides her—
between the frozen monsters,
many humans were asleep inside ice.
“......I have a question.”
-Anything at all.
Keeping my agitation buried as much as possible,
I spoke to them while I looked around.
“What state are they in right now?”
-You may think of them as sleeping.
“Sleeping? Why?”
-Most natives were tortured directly by the gatekeeper outside, and their souls were made to fall. It was a convenient method and very effective, but there were rare strong souls that endured it.
“.......”
-We succeeded in putting those souls to sleep somehow, but it is not easy to pierce the minds of those with strong souls. So we were working to break down the soul’s barrier and open a crack to infiltrate. That place is where the great ritual is being unfolded.
The stray specter pretending to be Jang Ji Han spoke.
Most of the Assault Team had their bodies taken,
but there was still “two-tenths” that hadn’t been dominated.
‘Among the Assault Team’s Awakeners—those with strong souls.’
Whether the others were weak-souled to begin with,
or were suffering some kind of disease of the soul,
they ended up surrendering their bodies to the enemy.
‘But these ones endured.’
The humans here
kept # Nоvеlight # defeating the stray specters’ invasion, over and over, and holding out.
-There is not much time left until the great ritual is completed...... but we do not mind. We will give them to you, as many as you wish.
-So...... take them, and leave.
And.
Among them, what I was looking for was elsewhere.
That fight in the city.
All through that fight, I’d focused as hard as I could, searching.
But the faces I needed never appeared.
Still—
a face I was certain I could never miss, even if I only saw it for a moment.
That kind of face.
“Ah.......”
And then, moments later—
‘Where the hell did you go? I’ve been looking forever......!’
I finally found them.
[Awakener - Shin Seokjun]
[Lv.22 Intermediate Support Caster]
[Awakener - Seo Younghee]
[Lv. 24 Intermediate Guardian]
“There you were.”
I found the familiar faces.
