The site where the terrifyingly massive Level 11 Gate had manifested.
Until moments ago, Team 1 had been holding their own. Hajin, as usual, scattered blue flames to incinerate the sweeping tentacles and incoming husks.
His subordinates, though exhausted, followed his lead well.
As always, there was no problem. At least, there wasn’t supposed to be.
—Guide Team 1! Guide Team 1!
That call over the earpiece shattered the flow of battle.
The fighting Espers flinched.
What could possibly warrant such a desperate summons for the Guides—?
—Evacuate immediately! Repeating! Guide Team 1, arm yourselves and evacuate at once! A sudden surge of new Gate energy has been detected in your vicinity! Repeating—
—Gate Open!
Those unbelievable words.
Hajin whipped his head around.
Far in the distance, where the Guides—where Suhyeon—should be, a black energy was surging.
A rift was tearing open.
It was a clear Gate.
Even if one Esper had stayed behind, the idea of a single person protecting all the Guides at the mouth of a Gate was madness.
Which meant Suhyeon was in danger.
This was different from when Suhyeon stood before a potentially rampaging Asher Delveron, or when he was nearly exposed to the media.
It was incomparable to any previous situation.
Chae Suhyeon—his small lover, his everything—could die.
In an instant, all thought ceased.
Everything began to move in slow motion.
Every sound—the howling monsters pouring from the unclosed Gate, the shouting voices of the Team 1 Espers—became a dull hum that couldn’t penetrate his ears.
Under any other circumstance, even when drowning in the pain of his childhood, even when nearly losing his own life at a Gate, Shin Hajin was a man who never lost his composure.
But now, dodging a tentacle aimed at his throat, Shin Hajin grabbed Lee Jeonghyeon by the collar.
“……Move……”
It was unclear what he was muttering.
“Move, right now.”
The Gate in front of him no longer mattered.
Blue flames overflowed from his body, surging outward.
It was similar to when he went berserk.
Lee Jeonghyeon seemed to be screaming something, but Hajin didn’t hear it.
His salvation, the only god who had ever forced entry into his world, was in peril.
Rumble—!
Moving in a flash, Hajin sprinted.
The Gate was already torn wide.
The shimmering dark-purple light was chillingly familiar.
In the distance, he saw the Guides and guards rolling on the ground, having been attacked.
He saw an Esper fighting a monster with gritted teeth, trying to minimize the damage to the others. Only Suhyeon was missing.
‘Suhyeon, where is Suhyeon?’
Hajin looked around frantically, his mind unraveling.
‘Where, where is he?’
His, his only Guide, his only lovely thing.
The man with the light brown eyes was nowhere to be seen.
No—there he was.
Right in front of the Gate.
In the center of a terrifying wind laden with the foul energy unique to monsters, Suhyeon was there, previously hidden by a cluster of tentacles.
He needed to run, he had to run to live, but Suhyeon was only twitching on the ground, unable to move.
A horrific assumption flashed through Hajin’s mind.
Simultaneously, uncontrolled blue flames incinerated everything in their path.
The monsters charging toward the other Guides, the ones the Esper was struggling against—everything burned blue.
Yet, his power, which scorched everything else, failed to reach the monsters swarming directly in front of Suhyeon.
“……No.”
Hajin whispered to himself.
“No. No, no, no…….”
Dozens of tentacles lunged toward Suhyeon.
Hajin began to run.
His mind was blank.
He had never felt like this.
Not when dozens of needles pierced him, not when dozens of eyes watched him as a child, not when that ghost-like man discarded him on the street as a “failure,” not when he went berserk, not when he was in deathly pain, nor on the day he narrowly escaped with his life.
He had never been this afraid.
He had never been this desperate.
The thought of losing the small lover who brought color to his ashen world, the disappearance of the human who taught him the meaning of warmth, pushed Shin Hajin into a state of sheer horror.
He ran toward Suhyeon, firing his out-of-control abilities in every direction.
Despite the rank of S-class and the title of the strongest Esper in history, his flames felt uselessly distant from Suhyeon.
He tore through monsters as he ran, but he was too late.
‘No.’
Extreme terror paralyzed Hajin’s reasoning.
Toward Suhyeon’s body surrounded by monsters, toward the man he couldn’t reach in time, Hajin reached out his arm.
“CHAE Suhyeon!!!!!!!!!”
At that moment, a violent wave of guiding enveloped Hajin.
Suhyeon’s radiant guiding.
The blue flames that had been flickering wildly settled instantly.
Covered in a sudden peace and the scent of flowers, Hajin blinked blankly for a split second.
Blankly.
But in less than a second, Hajin snapped back to his senses.
‘You’ve gone mad, Shin Hajin.’
To space out in front of a monster, in front of Suhyeon who could die any second.
Monsters and everything else vanished from his sight; Hajin dove through the swarm, lunging toward Suhyeon and pulling him into an embrace.
He felt a thumping heartbeat.
‘He’s alive. He’s still alive.’
Only after hearing that did a deep sense of relief penetrate his body.
“KREEEEEEEEEEAK!!!!!!”
However, the next thing he heard was the cry of the monster still surrounding them.
Just as Hajin’s blue fire was about to turn and consume the creature, a trembling hand grabbed him.
It was Suhyeon.
“Suhyeon……?”
Hajin turned to look at Suhyeon, who had struggled to open his eyes, and flinched.
Where he expected to see light brown eyes, he saw white pupils beneath the eyelids.
The light brown irises had turned pure white, looking at something other than Hajin.
Simultaneously, an enormous wave of guiding energy erupted from Suhyeon again.
It was like the day Suhyeon had gone berserk.
No, it might have been even more violent than that day.
A sense of stability that was almost frightening poured down like a waterfall.
The sweet scent he usually carried was magnified tenfold, filling the air.
The guiding wave, which made it hard for Hajin even to breathe, spread outward.
And where it headed was—.
“Kreeeee…….”
The monster.
He had to attack.
He had to tear apart the thing that threatened Suhyeon, but the guiding energy seeping into his body felt as though it were controlling him, preventing him from doing so.
It felt as if Suhyeon willed it.
Hajin stared blankly at the monster.
His reason was screaming at him to move, but it was strange.
He felt as if he were witnessing something that shouldn’t be seen.
A translucent tentacle of the monster approached Suhyeon’s outstretched hand very cautiously.
……Yes.
Cautiously.
The nameless monster from the Gate, devoid of reason or will, was acting as a creature would toward its creator—with extreme care and gentleness.
Immediately after, guiding soaked into the air once more like a deluge, and a white, brilliant light—unlike anything ever seen before—erupted. The white light enveloped the massive monster touching Suhyeon.
A moment later, when Hajin blinked his eyes open, the monster was gone.
With that, the Gate that had brought all the disaster closed with a low rumble.
“Kyuu!”
Then, something about the size of a doll popped out.
It was neither an animal nor a recognizable creature, looking like a familiar or a summon from a cartoon.
Before Hajin could even process what was happening, it scurried toward the lying Suhyeon, chirping “Kyuu, kyuu,” and buried itself in his arms.
Hajin snapped out of it.
“Kyu, kyuu!”
Reflexively tossing the creature aside, Hajin checked Suhyeon urgently.
“Chae Suhyeon, Suhyeon. Suhyeon, are you okay?”
“Ha, Hajin…….”
Suhyeon struggled to call his name, his eyes having returned to their usual light brown.
Aside from his pale face and small scratches across his body, there appeared to be no major external trauma.
Just as Hajin was about to find relief, Suhyeon’s small face suddenly contorted.
“Ugh, ack…….”
The groan that escaped his red lips was enough to seize Hajin with fear once more.
It was a somewhat familiar sign, but Hajin failed to recognize it in his panic.
“Chae Suhyeon, where? Where does it hurt? Why, what’s wrong? Where is the pain?”
Holding Suhyeon close, Hajin rambled.
He checked Suhyeon’s body frantically.
There was no external injury, truly, so why?
While Hajin scanned Suhyeon in a state of near-panic, Suhyeon’s pale hand clutched his chest, trembling in agony.
“Ugh, cough! Cough, cough!”
Blood poured out in surges.
Blood. The chest.
The problem with the Core that Suhyeon originally had.
The Gate. Hajin’s face turned ghostly pale.
Clutching Suhyeon tightly, Hajin stood up.
In the meantime, the original Gate seemed to have been closed by his subordinates.
The Espers and Guides were all staring at Hajin and the bleeding Suhyeon, their faces white with shock.
Their gazes didn’t matter.
“Lee, Jeonghyeon.”
“Ah, yes, yes!”
Hajin stumbled, moving toward the Association’s medical wing with Lee Jeonghyeon.
“Kyu!”
Whether the mysterious creature that had been tossed away jumped back onto Suhyeon just before they moved didn’t matter to him.
“Gasp, pant!”
He heard the medical staff’s horrified cries, but nothing reached Hajin’s ears.
He brushed the cheek of the pale, unconscious Suhyeon.
The fingers wearing the ring trembled violently. Suhyeon’s breathing was too thin.
‘He’ll be okay. He’ll open his eyes again.’
It was an existing problem.
But this was different.
He had been in front of a Gate, he seemed to have gone berserk—his mind was a total mess.
“Suhyeon!”
Until Ryu Yihan came screaming into the room, Hajin could only look down helplessly at the Suhyeon being transported.
‘If something happens to Suhyeon.’
At that horrific thought, moisture gathered in one of Hajin’s eyes.
Before he could even notice, the moisture became a tear and rolled down his cheek.
“Kyuu!”
Only the creature buried in Suhyeon’s embrace chirped brightly.
