associativity
“Sah, live… !”
“Siabal!”
Something stuck in the back of the head of several figures who barely managed to get out of the iron door screaming.
perok-
puff-
Just like that, their heads exploded and they fell to the bottom of the storm water, and the son-in-law became silent before he knew it.
After a while, the sound began to break through the silence again from the floor of the old abandoned factory where the asphalt was poured carelessly.
jerk- jerk-
Ji-Ik-
Because of its ruggedness and rough construction, the blood shed from the deaths of hundreds of mutants was pooled there without seeping into it.
Because of that, the sound of Ha Yeon-woo’s footsteps exiting the building and the unpleasant noise of dragging something echoed around.
dump-
“Why didn’t you leave?”
Right after Ha Yeon-woo got out of the building, he threw the two variants he had just breathed in to get information and asked the man standing there nervously.
The man who had been staring blankly at the terrible appearances of mutants who lost parts of their bodies and became abnormally bent and passed out suddenly came to their senses and answered.
“Yes, yes! Ah, I’m worried about the people inside… .”
To say that, he knew that he was focusing on Ha Yeon-woo’s every move rather than the comfort of those who were confined throughout the entirety of his work.
Occasionally, he openly sent bright eyes.
“Then did you get it?”
He said it lightly and walked past the man to the two monsters. Because it was obvious.
He moved his mouth as if he was about to say something, but he quickly moved into the abandoned factory, probably because he thought it was not empty words or that his image would be recognized favorably if he did so.
After that, I started busily saving people.
Contrary to the man’s first concern, the people inside were not hurt by the mutation. The original condition was just too bad.
It was not a sense of mission to live. I just did it because I was able to do it.
Saving or not saving is similar to Ha Yeon-woo himself. Unless it was an enemy with hostility, saving him was the right choice.
On the continent or in this place or in the world, he was judged to be good on all occasions because he was a devil, a personality breaker, and a cold-blooded person, but he prided himself on being close to good if he had to say his inclination.
It’s just that the reference point was different from others because I’ve been through a lot of past things for so long.
“by the way… .”
I turned my gaze and stared at the mutant who had lost his mind.
I had already guessed that he was originally a human based on what I had heard and seen after coming here, but I was able to properly confirm it by slaughtering hundreds.
‘It’s obviously human.’
Weak human beings who have a heart, brain, and organs, and are fatal even if one wrong blood vessel is cut.
That was their nature.
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Like most of the Awoken, these guys were too busy collapsing without being able to swing their proud tentacles once even if they allowed a light attack on their main body parts.
And more importantly, the tentacles sprouting from their arms and legs are not strictly body organs.
‘I can’t find any traces.’
That said, it was said that it was artificially created due to mana, or unprecedented energy or power similar to mana.
Just as an awakened person or a warrior wearing mana on his arm and exhaling sword energy from his sword does not mean that they are real body parts.
‘There is no Manail. No, it shouldn’t be like that.’
It was rather difficult if mana was the medium of the bizarre trick that stretched out the body of a monster from a human.
I killed hundreds of people and dug up every part of the body of these mutants, but I couldn’t even feel it.
At that moment, the gap with the adjuster, who must have created this, widens far more than Ha Yeon-woo assumed.
So you don’t know at all. I had to believe that it was made of something I hadn’t grasped yet.
There was just one perfect distance to make that speculation a reality.
“Causal… .”
The power of cause and effect that the person from the Human World possessed.
The power to reverse the world, make the impossible possible, and turn imagination into reality.
Another unidentified ability, like Ha Yeon-woo’s spirit, that he obtained by killing God.
‘Obviously it’s slow, but it’s getting closer.’
I decided not to rush.
In the past two years, not much has been gained by acting impatiently.
Moreover, the world where civilization has disappeared like now is an environment Ha Yeon-woo is very familiar with.
I don’t know why the adjuster was trying to kill the humans who gave strength to humans after releasing the monsters, but at least it was true that this environment was very familiar to Ha Yeon-woo.
Rather, for him, a highly developed civilized society was an adverse condition that prevented him from exerting his power, and it was like unsuitable clothes.
So, even with the overwhelming power, he may not have been able to make the right choice.
Pretending to melt into the system, because I had to compromise with reality.
Rather, the world now closer to the logic of power is a natural environment for him. So there was no reason to be in any more haste.
‘The purpose has already been achieved.’
I realized it a long time ago while slaughtering the guys here. That the things that didn’t work in his area were the mutants that flowed down from here.
From what I experienced, even these guys who are said to be the bottom of the mutants basically possessed the power of the 4th tier or so.
In the case of the two guys who risked their lives to bring them out, their level reached the 6th tier.
Besides, the essence seems to have been created to hunt the Awoken.
‘Perhaps the Awakened would have a lower chance of winning if they faced off against the same.’
Considering that the odds are on the mutant side when facing Awoken of the same level, it means that the average force has already overwhelmed the Awoken of the present era.
Excluding numerical inferiority or other variables, if you look only at the power of pure anti-personnel warfare.
So, it was only natural that the stupid drug dealers in District 7, the starting point of everything, died like flying insects.
‘The wounds on those corpses were definitely the same kind of tentacles.’
Both purposes pointed to the same place.
The menaces of what happened in the upper District 7 were of these variants, and the only way to get even a little closer to the Adjuster was to dig into these variants for now.
In a state where I couldn’t catch the right clue, I got something that was different from a clue in a way.
I glanced at the watch I was wearing on my wrist, as it was one of the few relics of the era that worked smoothly.
5:30. It hadn’t been three hours since he left Sara Autonomous District.
With my thoughts roughly organized, I pressed my finger on the collarbone of one of the fainting ones.
Not a guard with a lower rank, but the strongest-looking guy who looked down on everyone like a king in an abandoned building.
“Quaaagh!”
It was one of the parts that felt quite excruciating pain while not dying, except for the limbs that were cut off and then earthquaked with mana because they turned into monsters at any time.
An ordinary person would have died of shock long ago, but a state in which an awakened person could survive sufficiently. There was no reason for those who became monsters to die, and it woke up with a loud scream.
Even the tongjeom, which is no different from that of a human being, tried to turn his body over with his eyes wide open.
“拜託救救我! (Please, save me!).”
“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The pan-continental language, which they communicated as if it were an unspoken rule among themselves, had returned to that of their innate familiarity in the face of threats and fear of life.
I’ve never been able to understand Chinese, and I don’t plan on ever.
back-
Do-Duduk-
“Off, off, off… .”
“Speak in the Pancontinental language. I can’t hear you.”
For a few seconds I could hear the clavicle, already half-broken, squeezing my flesh.
“Ha, I will! do it! Please stop… !”
An anxious cry, as if realizing that coming to your senses is the only way to deal with the pain, was heard in the Pan continental language.
“I want two things. The way you guys got that strange power and the location of what you could call your base.”
“Well, if you tell me that… .”
“I will kill you.”
Sometimes, the affirmation of killing sounds much sweeter than the threat of sparing, and Ha Yeon-woo was well aware of that.
As if his prediction had been correct, the creature laughed at the offer of killing to escape his current pain.
“A few months ago in Tianjin! That’s a start!”
“In what way?”
“There was no way. I was among a group of refugees, and passed out after a man appeared and caught my attention. And when I woke up, I got strength. That’s all!”
“… man?”
“You, a tall, slim, handsome man like you. I don’t know if it’s Asian or Western. He-he muttered something… .”
“I lost my mind, and when I woke up, I was in a state where I had this kind of power?”
The man nodded, saying that his neck would be broken even as he was clearly in pain to the point of death.
“How did you become strong in such a short period of time? It must be only half a year.”
“system. that told me From how to use power to how to raise it. Like you Awoken.”
It went beyond being similar to the Awakener and was the same way as if it were a direct copy.
Of course, the expectation that it was the adjuster’s work turned into certainty.
I could see why they were calling themselves blessed.
Even if you were just yourself, you would think of him as a god if an unknown man appeared and gave you strength while you were living as a helpless refugee in this dog-like world.
“The method would be to kill the Awoken.”
“okay. Of course, we had no choice but to hunt in order to gain strength and grow. If the Awoken had become stronger by killing people like them, not monsters, they would have done the same!”
Do you even want to claim legitimacy? He protested, but in the first place, the right or wrong of their actions had nothing to do with Ha Yeon-woo’s actions. I just killed him because he was an unchanging enemy.
“That’s none of my business. Have you guys seen it? The ruler of Shenyang here. The owner of this arena. Where is he now?”
The man hesitated for a moment, then opened his mouth as if he had given up.
He must have been afraid of retaliation, but originally violence in front of his eyes was the most frightening law, and he wouldn’t have judged that he could survive.
“… Beijing.”
“Capital. It’s a long way from here.”
Being the ruler of Shenyang City and being in Beijing was a contradiction.
“All right, of course. They also know that my body is precious… It’s the manager’s job to set up these arenas and attract people. I was one of the dogs.”
Somehow, it was strange that a half-strong guy clung to the arena and reigned like a king.
“There are dozens or hundreds of middle managers like me all over China. They manage arenas everywhere with their subordinates.”
“What is the purpose?”
“There may be many things… The most important thing is to send the real Awoken to Beijing. Just risk your life.”
It was the same as the words of the mutant who had a conversation in the arena for the first time.
‘The arena is a kind of casino, and the business model of the top strains was said to be the same.’
“In exchange for rapidly becoming stronger, you build a castle, create forces, and become stronger from the seat?”
“… okay. That is the purpose of the superiors.”
This was the reason why it was more scary when the hunting target was a human than when it was a monster.
Because they have common sense and intelligence, there are infinite ways to use them than monsters that are more like monsters without reason.
Controlling them with fear and playing with them was part of that.
Monsters were monsters that could never be tamed, and humans could be tamed with just a few words.
‘The loss of civilization in the world must have played a part too.’
So in a civilized society, Shaolin, who captured monsters and experimented on them, was in some ways a great madman.
After overcoming both bad conditions, he had persevered and acted like a dog.
while thinking for a moment. A shady aura warned me through my sixth sense.
“damn. Anyway, even if you go crazy and say you’ll save me, it won’t take long.”
The guy just used his power. After repeating the slaughter hundreds of times, it was a state of understanding that when their bodies turned into those of a monster, a very slight discomfort was felt.
I knew it and let it go because I had the confidence to subdue it, but maybe it was because I had no limbs and even some of my internal organs were damaged. It was just a one-time procrastination.
He knew very well what his situation would be like if he survived in this way, so he continued talking as if he had given up on his attachment to life.
“I don’t know what the situation is like in other countries, but China, where the Cube is gone, isn’t perfect. Are you from Korea?”
A black-haired Asian who appeared in Chinese territory near North Korea without understanding Chinese.
Anyone with hair could infer that they were Korean.
When I silently nodded, he started talking about the situation here without even asking.
It’s as if he wanted me to kill him comfortably and painlessly.