The sharp tip of the sword pierced through the abdomen of the Cha Sahyeon that had been dragged out and burst out through his back.
But it did not feel like piercing the body of a living person.
Instead, an eerie sensation spread through my hand, like stabbing through something filled with some unknown liquid.
Cough—black shadow burst out from the place I had pierced.
The wavering shadow, like smoke, stuck to my body the moment it touched me, clinging like a sticky liquid.
The large body of Cha Sahyeon, skewered on the sword, tipped toward me. But the face revealed through the swaying strands of hair showed no change at all.
Seeing that, I could feel it clearly—this “Cha Sahyeon” in front of me was nothing more than a well-made shell.
Grinding my teeth, I drove the sword in even deeper. The black shadow that had started pouring out completely covered my arm.
In an instant, pain so intense it nearly stopped my breathing swallowed the hand gripping the sword and my arm.
The agony was so overwhelming that my vision kept washing red, then blurring again. Hah—ugh—groans slipped out on their own between my ragged breaths.
I thought of Kwon Taehyuk’s condition earlier, when he had been badly injured.
The way he had driven his blade into this shell’s shoulder, only to be buried in shadow and left with his whole body burning.
This time, that shadow was burning my arm.
Biting down on my lip against the horrific searing pain, I shouted,
“Cha Sahyeon......!”
What came out of my parted lips, filled with desperation, was my brother’s name.
My head and body were screaming at me to let go of the sword and run right now, but I forcibly tightened my grip and held on out of sheer stubbornness.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
My head was filled with nothing but screaming.
I endured it with my lip bitten hard enough to bleed, but my vision swam and strength drained from my legs.
A chill ran through my body, drenched in cold sweat.
Not even a full minute had passed, yet it was so agonizing it felt like dozens of hours had gone by.
“...Kid.”
I could not stay standing any longer.
It was the instant my knees started to buckle.
Boom!
With a great crash, the ground trembled. But even clearer than that was the change in the shadow devouring my body.
Like water surging out after a dam bursts, the shadow that had been pouring endlessly from the pierced area stopped dead.
And then Cha Sahyeon’s body, which had only been leaning forward motionlessly, began to tremble violently.
“Ah.......”
Those emotionless lips parted.
As if his throat were being strangled, a suppressed voice spilled out.
“Hy, ung.......”
The moment that one barely forced-out word escaped him, the surrounding scenery changed.
The corpses that had filled the ground—the ones who had died protecting me—vanished.
In their place appeared my real companions, alive, collapsed on the ground. They let out pained groans and opened their eyes one by one.
The shadows filling everything around us were being sucked into Cha Sahyeon’s body.
After confirming that much, I could not hold out any longer and dropped to my knees. The sword remained stuck in his upper body as I let go of it.
My arm and hand fell out of the shadow with a dull drop, and the flesh was burned all over, smeared with bright red blood. The lower part of my durumagi sleeve, stuck to the scorched flesh, was soaked red with blood.
My consciousness was fading fast.
I barely managed to turn my gaze, but the awakened S-ranks were each clutching their foreheads, unable to steady themselves, their bodies convulsing.
Cha Sahyeon in front of me was still the same.
For some reason, the shadow coming off him had lessened, but that was all.
I had woken everyone from the nightmare.
But beyond that, I had failed.
My Divine Power skill was still active, but a skill that could not heal me was no help at all right now.
The body I had been forcing to stay upright on my knees tilted unsteadily.
Just as I was about to collapse helplessly to the ground, my eyes met Cha Sahyeon’s.
He was standing there, tall, upper body bent forward, looking down at me.
Green eyes looking down at me with my sword still driven into his abdomen.
Through the long black hair stirring in the wind, it seemed like his eyes shook.
With my hearing muffled, I thought I heard Cha Sahyeon’s voice, but before I could make out what he was saying, my consciousness cut off.
Eun Woojeong looked down at the ground.
He did not know exactly what effect finding those two children had produced, but the movement of the shadow now leading him to the third had grown even more grotesque.
It did make it easier to confirm, but it also felt deeply unsettling.
‘Is this really working the way it’s supposed to?’
Even while summoning chains and moving quickly from tree to tree, Eun Woojeong could not shake off his anxiety in the end and clicked his tongue.
Normally, he would have made excuses like, “That weird blond guy told me to, so I had no choice,” or shamelessly rationalized it with, “How was anyone supposed to know it’d turn out like that?”
But this time Cha Seohu’s life was on the line, so he could not just brush it off that easily.
Grumbling the whole time, Eun Woojeong still moved diligently.
He was uneasy, but if anyone asked whether there was a better option, the answer was no.
At this point, with changes actually showing, all he could do was keep trying this method.
Maybe because he was moving quickly with his skill, he found the target much faster this time.
A giant tree deep in the middle of the forest.
On one of its roots, there was a man sleeping with his back resting against the trunk.
Landing lightly out of midair, Eun Woojeong slowly looked the man over.
‘As I thought.’
It was familiar.
He had seen that face not long ago.
More precisely, it was the youthful face of a man who had only just become an adult, from before the ring Eun Woojeong had taken out at the center of Spiderweb had shattered.
The moment he saw that face, Eun Woojeong naturally realized it.
‘This is the last one.’
He stared silently at the man for a moment, then slowly moved forward.
Stepping onto the thick roots jutting out of the dirt, he climbed up.
Despite the footsteps and presence, the man showed no reaction at all.
That pale, wax-doll-white face was drenched in cold sweat, and the corners of his eyes were twisted.
As if he were trapped in a terrible nightmare.
“I really hope this is the end, little brother. I’m not all that patient.”
Instead of going to meet Cha Seohu, he had been running around searching for Seohu’s brother, whom he had no interest in whatsoever, so even Eun Woojeong’s thin patience was reaching its limit.
Without caring at all about Cha Sahyeon’s suffering face, Eun Woojeong reached out without hesitation.
He grabbed him by the collar and hauled his seated body upright, then slung the man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
And then he started walking toward the light.
Without slowing or wavering, he strode out of the forest.
Once he came out of the woods, where dense leaves had blocked out the sky, he reached a place where sunlight fell as if drawing a boundary line.
While Eun Woojeong had been finding those three fragments and returning them to the main body, the sun overhead had tilted to one side and was already setting.
After looking up at the sky turning red, Eun Woojeong carelessly tossed the man’s body past the boundary.
Thud!
The large body hit the dirt.
As the light of the setting sun touched the limp man’s body, it soon began to fade, turning into tiny grains and scattering away.
Watching the sight of the man’s body disappearing completely with his arms crossed, Eun Woojeong turned his head.
The shadow wall that had risen high enough to seem to touch the sky trembled violently.
Then it slowly began to disappear.
Like morning arriving after night had passed, the black shadow that had dyed both earth and sky at last began returning to its owner’s body.
Only then did Eun Woojeong recover his smile and summon his chains.
Faster, stronger, and more full of life than ever before, he shot through the air.
He was on his way to meet Cha Seohu.
“Hahk......!”
A breath burst out of Cha Sahyeon as if he had just been dragged out of the water.
The instant he sucked in air, he lurched and vomited blood.
Cough—blood spilling from his mouth soaked the ground.
Breathing harshly, Cha Sahyeon moved his trembling hand.
He grabbed the hilt of the sword buried in his abdomen and put strength into it without hesitation.
Excruciating pain spread through him, but his hand did not stop.
He pulled out the sword that had pierced all the way through him and was jutting out past his back, yanking it free completely.
The sword, drenched in blood, dropped downward.
Blood burst from the hole in his abdomen and poured over Cha Seohu’s sword lying on the ground.
But what seized Cha Sahyeon’s mind was not his own body or the pain.
“...Hy, hyung.”
Forcing his stiff tongue to move, he called to the person in front of him.
Cha Seohu lay collapsed, not moving at all.
Cha Sahyeon’s eyes shook violently.
“Hyung, hyung... hyung.......”
Stammering, calling for him again and again, Cha Sahyeon planted both hands on the ground and crawled toward him.
“Hhk, hyung, it’s me, I’m here. Hyung.......”
As he came closer, he saw the pool of blood spreading beneath Cha Seohu’s body.
And the arm, horribly ruined after being burned by his shadow.
Tears spilled from Cha Sahyeon’s wide-open eyes.
Ugh, hhk—his body heaved as he sobbed like a beast.
“Somebody, please......”
Lifting his head while letting out those choked sobs, Cha Sahyeon desperately looked around.
But the others, who had only just barely been released after being consumed by the nightmare, still could not steady themselves.
A few of them were still trapped inside the nightmares they had created for themselves.
“Help him, I’m asking you to help him.......”
Only Cha Sahyeon’s desperate muttering echoed through the silence.

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