Chapter 85

Chapter 85
## Chapter 85: Unexpected Reinforcements

The only shred of hope in this nightmare was the Paradox Flame currently eating away at Seonghong, the commander of the restless dead.

Naturally, the fire had to erode his significant spell deflection first; it would be a grueling wait before the flames truly began to sear his flesh. That delay was the primary concern.

Whether my companions and I could survive until that moment was an open question that weighed heavily on my mind.

“Krha.”

The enemy was advancing with a chilling level of discipline. This wasn’t a chaotic brawl against fifty mindless ghouls.

Four spellcasters and several marksmen held the rear, shielded by a dense wall of infantry that relentlessly squeezed our position.

“Advance two paces!”

Seonghong was at the heart of it, expertly directing those fifty soldiers while his own spear danced through the air. It felt less like a monster hunt and more like facing a veteran battalion of elite knights.

If I could just drop ten of them. It didn’t matter which ones. Reducing their number to forty would create the structural weaknesses we needed to exploit.

—To hell with this! These freaks are pinning me down with arrows! I’m the one with the firearm, so why do their bows feel more dangerous?!

Jeong Oh-hoon’s voice crackled through the comms; he was clearly fighting for his life.

“This is becoming a problem.”

I parried a cluster of blades aiming for my vitals and let out a sharp breath. Each impact from the undead carried the staggering force of a falling cliff.

“Back up! You’re going to get overwhelmed if you stay there.”

My own composure was fraying. I wasn’t panicking, but my instructions were becoming clipped and harsh. The luxury of patience had evaporated.

“Done with the small talk, I see.”

There was no space for banter. I knocked Seonghong’s spear aside, transitioned into a counter-thrust, and delivered a spinning kick that sent the head of a flanking ghoul tumbling across the pavement.

“Retreat while you engage!”

Being encircled was a death sentence. Our position was already precarious, and their formation was clearly designed to swallow us whole.

Following my lead, Han Sang-ah began a measured withdrawal, balancing her defensive maneuvers with quick, stinging strikes.

In a desperate clash like this, every scrap of the environment had to be weaponized. From the distance, the neon-pink projectiles from Adakawa and Nanami’s support fire streaked through the air.

Seonghong’s mages were occupied intercepting those shots. If not for that constant pressure from the girls, those sorcerers would have incinerated us from the start.

“I’ve always loathed fighting disciplined casters.”

A mage with actual combat training is a strategist’s worst nightmare. Ducking into a side street, I spotted a heavy LPG tank sitting outside a derelict stall and reached out with my will.

The metal canister hissed through the air, pulled toward the enemy ranks as if caught by an invisible winch—a simple application of telekinesis. Usually, it was a parlor trick…

But desperate times called for desperate measures. The tank halted in the dead center of the enemy formation, its metal skin buckling until the pressurized gas began to shriek into the air.

“Ignite it!”

Responding instantly, Han Sang-ah swept her blade in a wide arc. The friction-generated sparks trailing from her steel caught the vapor. An orange blossom of fire roared outward.

It didn’t wipe them out, but the concussive force did more to disrupt their line than a direct mana-dump ever could. We needed to keep them off-balance.

“You certainly possess a stubborn will to live.”

With a wet snap, I finally crushed the cranium of an undead soldier who had been harrying my side. One down. It felt as though we had been trapped in this meat grinder for half an hour.

My pulse slowed; I was entering that cold, mechanical state of mind. I was holding up, but Han Sang-ah, Jeong Oh-hoon, and Adakawa Nanami were reaching their limits.

Han Sang-ah’s energy reserves were dipping toward twenty-five percent. Jeong Oh-hoon had burned through hundreds of rounds; given his capacity, he likely had a third of his strength left.

As for Nanami, she was at her halfway point. In another thirty minutes, her cover fire would vanish. Shortly after that, Han Sang-ah and Jeong Oh-hoon would be empty shells.

Then it would just be me against an army. Those weren’t odds I liked.

“I suppose I’ve never had the luxury of a fair fight anyway.”

I wasn’t about to lay down and die just because the situation was bleak. If the end was coming, it wouldn’t be because I gave up.

“Go, fall back to the rear. Get to Jeong Oh-hoon’s position, cycle your mana, and then return. Jeong Oh-hoon, you need to pause and recover as well. Same goes for you, Adakawa.”

The moment was coming where I would have to hold the line alone. It was better to do it now, while I still had the strength to buy them a recovery window.

“Are you certain you can hold them?”

“If you have the breath to ask questions, you have the breath to move. Go!”

At my sharp tone, Han Sang-ah didn’t argue further and pulled away.

“You intend to face us alone while already being driven back? Your bravery is noted, but it is ultimately moronic.”

“Keep your mouth shut, you walking heap of rot. Your breath is foul.”

I flicked my wrist, and the downed power lines draped across the street began to twitch like vipers, coiling around the legs of the advancing corpses. Harbin’s grid had been dead for ages, so there was no current—just the cold, restrictive grip of copper and rubber.

“Childish theatrics…”

But small distractions created fatal gaps. I kicked a manhole cover into the air and launched it like a disc, used the tangled wires to trip the front line…

I snatched a fire extinguisher from a shattered storefront and hurled it into their midst, the white powder blooming into a blinding cloud.

“You’re a lunatic!”

Our weapons collided with a jarring screech, the resulting pressure wave blowing out the last few shards of glass from the nearby windows. I fell back, guiding the cloud of falling glass like a shimmering current to rake across the enemy’s ranks.

The shards hissed through the air, biting into the gaps of their ancient armor.

“Preposterous. From what gutter did a creature like you emerge?”

I didn’t waste energy on a reply. I navigated the chaos, diving into the front line of their swordsmen just as the mages in the back prepared a volley, forcing them to abort their spells to avoid hitting their own men. Then I vanished back into the shadows.

A city is a labyrinth—a mix of suffocating alleys, broad boulevards, and towering monoliths.

Weaving through a rain of arrows, I scaled a brick wall with the agility of an insect and reached a high rooftop. I cut down the first few who tried to follow, then leapt back down, ripping an air conditioning unit from its mount and dropping it onto the pursuers below.

I was turning the entire district into a weapon.

“That’s five.”

They were proving incredibly difficult to put down. My body was a map of shallow cuts and arrow grazes. Blood was starting to soak into my clothes.

“I admit, I did not expect to lose five men here. You have my respect.”

Respect for dead subordinates? What a joke. I was reaching the breaking point; I needed to call for help. I wanted to survive this, eat a decent meal, and keep breathing.

I wasn’t interested in being a name on a tombstone. Just as I reached for my radio to request an extraction, a streak of light hissed through the air.

“A projectile?!”

Seonghong reacted with desperate speed, knocking aside an arrow that moved like a lightning bolt. The shaft shattered on impact, the kinetic force staggering his massive frame.

A piercing shot. I turned toward the source and felt my jaw drop as I recognized the figures emerging from the gloom.

“What in the world are you people doing here?”

Tough military fatigues topped with hoods. The Descendants of Dangun. Why were they in Harbin? And more importantly, why was that shot aimed at the undead instead of me?

The leader stood there with three of his loyalists in tow.

“You look like you’re struggling.”

I had run through a dozen scenarios in my head, but these fanatics were the last people I expected to see.

“Uh… thanks, I guess?”

The words felt awkward coming out of my mouth.

“I didn’t do it for you, you piece of trash.”

Seo Yeon-ju, dressed in her signature modified hanbok with that massive gayageum strapped to her back, gave me a look of pure loathing. I knew there was no love lost between us.

I had broken one of their own and then finished the job. There was no reason for them to help.

“I’m following orders, but don’t think for a second I approve of this.”

The woman with the ritual sword—the shaman who had previously targeted Lee Se-eun—muttered under her breath, her knuckles white on her hilt.

“I Ha-yoon.”

The leader in the hooded uniform spoke with a leveled, calm authority.

“This is a necessity. Our actions transcend personal vendettas. Harbin holds a weight beyond your understanding.”

He didn’t take his eyes off the enemy as he nocked another arrow.

“The legacies of Buyeo, Goguryeo, and Balhae… the sacrifices of General Ahn Jung-geun and the martyrs of the Joseon Volunteer Army… even the stains of Unit 731. This land is soaked in our history.”

For a split second, the tip of his bow drifted toward my chest. If he released the string, I was dead. I might survive the initial hit, but I’d be a cripple at the mercy of my enemies.

“Putting a hole in your head would be the simplest thing I’ve done all day. However, the reclamation of the Jaun Valley in Harbin and Changchun is a priority that happens to overlap with your survival.”

He was choosing the mission over his hatred. For now.

“These territories belonged to the Great Huan-guk. The essence of the Baedal people still lingers here. Finally, they are returning to their rightful guardians.”

The man in the traditional bamboo hat whispered to himself as he unsheathed a blade hidden within his walking staff. I remembered him—the fanatic who ranted about ancient scripts during our last encounter.

“And the doctor’s work must continue.”

The hooded commander concluded, turning his lethal focus back to the undead legion.

“Consider yourself fortunate. I haven’t forgotten the death of Ji-hyun. One day, I will be the one to end you. But that day isn’t today.”

With those words, the leader barked an order.

“Eliminate the corpses first. You, cooperate with us.”

“Yeah, whatever you say. I’m all ears.”

These people lived in a completely different reality—one where they were fine letting the world burn as long as they could hoard a “pure” Korean prosperity.

Our paths were destined to collide again; they always did.

But survival came first. They hadn’t touched anyone I loved. I wasn’t going to let pride turn potential allies into enemies while I was surrounded by ghouls.

Still, this alliance was surreal. I had clearly underestimated how far their nationalistic fervor would drive them.

“So, are you sticking around to help with the rest of the Jaun Valley cleanup?”

The leader’s reply was ice-cold.

“No. Our business elsewhere won’t wait.”

As I lunged at Seonghong with my spear, the hooded archer released another of those devastating, armor-piercing shots. A sonic boom rippled through the street as the arrow passed. He seemed even more formidable than the last time we met.

He was firing those heavy-duty projectiles with the speed of a semi-automatic weapon.

His skill surpassed even Lee Se-eun’s. The fact that she had survived a solo encounter with him was nothing short of a miracle.

Or perhaps he had let her walk? Given his willingness to work with me now, he likely saw some value in her living.

“But…”

The skirmish was drawing to a close. While his subordinates were competent, this hooded marksman was in a league of his own. Could he actually stand against one of the Great Eight?

I wasn’t sure. But then again, their strange crusade didn’t seem to involve direct confrontation with the Great Eight yet.

“…My master.”

Finally, under the relentless pressure of our combined assault, Seonghong—who had been a whirlwind of spear strikes just moments ago—collapsed into a heap of motionless bone and rusted iron.

“We are finished here.”

The hooded leader didn’t offer a parting glance. Seo Yeon-ju and I Ha-yoon lingered for a moment, their eyes burning with a promise of violence.

“Later. We will finish our business. The next time our paths cross, I’ll kill you. Actually, I’ll make you wish I had.”

“Sure, sure. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

I gave them a mock wave, but my eyes remained cold as I watched them depart. The others were one thing, but that leader was a shark.

Someone with that level of individual power, backed by a disciplined force, was a variable I couldn’t ignore.