Chapter 47
I put all my effort into the jump, snapping the neck of the zombie who had bitten me in the shoulder. The zombie hadn’t budged when I had torn its flesh apart, but now that its neck had been broken, its jaws lost strength. I plucked its head off me and threw it toward the red creatures below me, and used their heads to cushion my landing again.
Slam!
I heard the cries of my underlings from behind me. They slammed into the red creatures, filling the air around Majang-dong with zombie cries.
Crunch!
There was a strange feeling in my calf, so I twisted my body to see what was going on. A red creature was lying on the ground and biting at my calves. I shattered its spine with my other leg and threw punches at all the other zombies that were surrounding me.
I didn’t know the strength of the zombie leader controlling Majang-dong, but I could tell that it was certainly stronger than the ones that were being used as bait. These red creatures were faster and more durable than the other zombies that I had crossed paths with in the past.
It was impossible to break their skulls with my grip alone, and their skulls didn’t crack if I landed less powerful punches. Physically, I couldn’t handle them all.
I could perhaps handle fifty of them by myself, or perhaps one hundred if I pushed myself. But I knew it would be dangerous for me to keep on fighting like this since I didn’t know how many enemies were coming.
I wondered if the leader of Majang-dong had gotten stronger over time, or if the orange areas on the map were this dangerous from the start.
I had been naive. Destroying their fighting spirit was not going to be as easy as I had thought. I wondered how well my underlings were doing.
I bent my legs under me once more, preparing to jump again. My thigh muscles bulged, and I felt my Achilles heel grow taut. In an instant, I leaped up onto the building in front of me. However, my ability to jump seemed to have been significantly hampered. I wondered if my calf injury was worse than I had thought.
I normally had no problem jumping up seven stories, but right now, I struggled to make the fourth floor. I hung from the building window to observe what was unfolding. I saw my underlings being slowly pushed back, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of the enemy’s overwhelming numbers, or because my underlings were weak. It seemed to be fifty-fifty.
I scurried into the building to check my calf injury. The flesh on my left calf was partially torn off and flapping in the wind. I wondered how deep the zombie had bitten me to cause such damage. I gritted my teeth and looked out the window.
As the number of my underlings dwindled, a gap began to form on their right flank. I could tell that if I let them continue the battle in this manner, the red creatures would soon surround my underlings and eventually wipe them out.
‘The building on the right! Go inside the building on your right!’
Following my desperate order, my underlings broke through the windows of the building and entered it.
‘Go up the stairs. Hold them there!’
As one, my underlings let out their throat-rending cries and went toward the emergency exit of the building.
Once my underlings disappeared from sight, a disturbing cry came from behind me, causing my hair to stand.
Grrr!!!
It was the sound of the red creatures entering the building I was in. They had seen me enter the building through the fourth-story window.
I made for the stairs, hoping to block off the zombies that were making their way up.
Clash! Shatter!
I heard windows shattering from behind.
‘Wait, they’re coming directly to the fourth floor? ’
It seemed impossible to me that they could come straight up to the fourth floor. I knew that the strength that zombie underlings possessed reflected the strength of their leader, but it was unbelievable that they were capable of jumping to the fourth floor.
I quickly gave up on holding the fourth floor and made my way up. I knew I had to get to the rooftop. Even though I had an injured leg, getting to the rooftop of a six-story building was easy enough.
I went to the guardrail that ran around the edge of the rooftop and leaned over to see what was happening on the first floor. Only then did I realize how the zombies had gotten themselves to the fourth floor. The narrow first-floor entrance had caused the zombies to slowly pile up in front of it. The pile had slowly grown in size and height, eventually reaching the fourth floor.
Observing this, I gave orders to my underlings.
‘Everyone, get to the rooftop. Get up to the rooftop and hold them off!’
It would be awkward to hold them off at an arbitrary floor of the building. My underlings had to make their stand on the rooftop. They had to fight tooth and nail to hold the entrance to the rooftop.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
Soon enough, I heard footsteps coming up to the rooftop. I bit my lips and turned around. The red creatures were making their way up to the rooftop with their mouths wide open. They didn’t seem to want to give me a second to rest. I strengthened my resolve and headed for the entrance to the rooftop.
Their faces began to appear, and I gritted my teeth and started punching. Their hands reached out to grab my neck. Another pitched battle was about to begin.
* * *
I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. I had no clue how long the fight had been going on for.
It wasn’t really enough to call it a fight. It was, ultimately, a battle for survival.
We screamed battle cries and exchanged ferocious blows. My left arm no longer moved. All the flesh on my left arm had been torn away, and I couldn’t raise it anymore.
My right arm wasn’t in the best condition either. No matter how much strength I put in, I wasn’t able to crack their skulls. My right shoulder had been dislocated, so I couldn’t use all my strength.
My left leg was dragging behind me like a cardigan on the floor. I was barely managing to balance with my right leg, the only part of my body which was still normal.
However, the red creatures kept on attacking, regardless of my injuries. I knew it would be over once they got through the doorway leading out onto the rooftop. I knew it would be the end for me the moment they surrounded me.
I let my trembling right hand fall to my side.
‘So this is all I’m left with, huh?’
I needed to find something to finish them off. I knew I would lose everything if I kept up this increasingly-useless resistance. I was at the end of my rope, and the only way out was to give up on my humanity to make it out alive. I had to reach for my last resort, a weapon that I’d never used before, a weapon that I didn’t want to use.
“Grrr!!!”
I charged toward the ones screaming at me with my mouth wide open.
Crunch.
I bit the neck of the zombie in front of me. Its neck was sliced through cleanly, as if it had been cut through by a razor-sharp sashimi knife.
I spat out the nasty remnants of the zombie, fighting away my nausea and charging headlong into the mass of red creatures. I was like a great white shark making its way through a red ocean, looking for food. My neck was twisted at a strange angle as I kept biting through their necks one by one.
Whenever they tried to lay their hands on me, I used my trembling right hand to push their bodies, moving deeper and deeper into the swirling mass. I was fighting them like a zombie, and could no longer be considered human.
Crack!
As I bit off the neck of the red creature in front of me, another creature materialized behind it and bit off my ear. I elbowed its chin with my right arm. I felt a stinging sensation in my earlobe. The creature’s jaw had been knocked out of alignment, but it still charged toward me again with its mouth wide open.
I could see half of my ear still in its mouth. With a frown, I twisted my neck and sank my teeth into its forehead. My sharp upper teeth pierced through its skull, ripping its face off of its skull.
I was slowly losing my sanity. The zombie instincts that were contained within me were being unleashed as my body was slowly disintegrating.
Snap!
In an instant, I felt as though I had completely lost my sanity. I heard something snap in my mind, and the world seemed to sway from side to side. A split second later, a feeling of nausea started to well up from within the depths of my stomach.
‘Hmm?’
I collapsed to the floor. My body had lost all its strength. I couldn’t do anything, even though the red creatures were still charging at me.
GRR!!!
At that moment, a blood-curdling cry echoed through every alleyway of Majang-dong, sending chills up and down my spine. The awful shriek pierced its way through the total darkness and echoed through the lonely night.
Almost immediately, the red creatures that had been choking the stairwell stopped attacking. They turned tail and hurried back down to the first floor. The red creatures on the rooftop of the building opposite were doing the same thing.
With what little strength I could muster, I dragged my trembling body over to the rooftop guardrail. I saw the red creatures running away at full speed.
They were retreating. Or at least they seemed to be retreating.
‘But, why would they retreat? Or are they on their way to provide extra protection for their leader?’
I couldn’t figure out the reason behind their actions but I assumed that it had to do with Kim Hyeong-Jun showing up.
‘Everyone, this way.’
Once I had given this order to my underlings, all the ones on the rooftop of the building opposite mine headed toward the stairs. I fell to the floor, breathing heavily. I kept on vomiting black fluid. I had no clue why I was feeling nauseous. I wondered if it had to do with me biting off zombie flesh. Or perhaps the last bit of humanity within me was resisting what I had done.
Beep—
Midway through this thought, I suddenly sensed a feeling of weightlessness, and my ears were filled with a piercing whine. I touched my forehead with my trembling right hand and frowned. My body was shaking as though I was having a seizure. Everything in front of me seemed to be swaying back and forth.
“Grr…”
I tried my best to haul my upper body upright, but I just couldn’t do it. Everything in front of me started to become blurry. It was the same feeling that preceded the time when I had fallen into a deep sleep after eating an enemy's brain. I could not resist the fatigue that washed over me, and the urge to sleep that it brought with it.
I closed my eyes as my mind became hazy. I felt my worn-out body falling into an endless abyss.
‘I have to… get back to Kim Hyeong-Jun to help…’
His face flashed through my mind, but I could not fight off the almighty presence that seemed to take hold of me.
I fainted.
* * *
I couldn’t see anything. I opened my eyes and found myself in a rather unfamiliar place, a place of endless darkness. I felt like an asteroid wandering the vast emptiness of space. I looked around, my mind still fuzzy.
Splash, splash.
At that moment, the sound of footsteps caught my attention. The footsteps were enough to bring back trauma that I had hidden deep within my memories. I looked toward the source of the sound, and a strange feeling engulfed my body and caused me to shiver uncontrollably. My jaw fell to the ground.
It was the black creature.
It was looking at me.
My eyes widened in surprise. I shot to my feet and instinctively took a few steps backward, but I couldn’t escape it. I was like a hamster running on a hamster wheel.
‘Don't get near! Don’t come!’
My screams were absorbed by the pitch-black darkness, like a sponge absorbing water. No matter how loud I screamed at it, my screams never reached it.
It was coming toward me.
After a moment, it opened its mouth and dashed toward me. I covered my face with my hands.
Poof—
I had no clue what was going on. With a sudden, piercing sound, it turned into smoke, a shapeless being, and disappeared. Although ‘disappeared’ was probably not the right way to describe what had happened. It was more accurate to say that I had somehow absorbed the creature.
A split second later, pain engulfed me, threatening to tear away my sanity. It felt like I had jumped into a fire pit. My entire body felt like it was burning.
‘Grr!’
My blood felt like it was circulating through my body a lot faster than usual. I felt as if my veins were burning up from friction. Despite the burning heat, my body was trembling as if the ice-cold winds of midwinter were piercing through my bare skin.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
I heard my heart beat. My heart, which had stopped beating, was beating loud and clear. When I placed my hand on my heart, though, I realized that my heart wasn’t beating at all. Only then did I realize that the sound was coming from my brain.
My brain was throbbing as if it was going to burst any second. I felt my eyes, nose, and mouth being torn apart, and my eardrums felt like they were burning. I rolled on the floor to fight off the pain.
“Grr, Kwaaaa, Kaa!”
I gritted my teeth, tensing every part of my body. As I clenched my fists to resist the pain, my muscles tensed up with a strength that I’d never felt before.
Psh…
Steam was coming out from my body, like a steam engine releasing steam from its pipe. A mysterious smoke was rising out from within me.
Thump, thump, thump, thump…
The ringing in my head slowly went away. I inhaled and exhaled deeply as I lay on the ground, spread out like a starfish. I broke into a cold sweat. I took deep breaths to get a hold of myself.
A ray of light streamed down onto me from the heavens. I squinted to look at the light. It expanded, eventually enveloping everything around me. I kept on squinting toward the source of the light as I covered my eyes with my right arm.
- Stay alive. For my brother, and my family.
At that moment, a mysterious voice echoed through my mind. It felt like the wind was whispering to me. I opened my eyes wide open and looked around but I couldn’t see anything because of the light.
Then, I felt a rather strange force pulling on my body. It was as if I was made of iron filings and I was being pulled by a magnet. I couldn’t tell if I was being dragged up or down. I couldn’t tell if it was gravity pulling me down or if I was levitating into the air.
Disoriented, I was pulled into the light.
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