Chapter 239: 26. Blazing Flames

I brushed away the hand that had been covering my mouth and started walking slowly. Im Haekyung, who had called me like they had something to say, didn’t add anything in particular.

Pushing through the people who’d gone quiet as if in a temporary lull, I calmly checked the corpse.

‘A corpse... well, nothing to be done.’

Even in the instant their abdomen had been pierced, it looked like they’d resisted—there were traces of the stalk melting and fusing together in front of and behind the puncture.

I closed the corpse’s eyes, then quickly checked the large creature’s body. The moment I touched it to move it aside—something obviously not normally heavy—a hot pain flared in my palm.

Ignoring it, I forced a gap open, grabbed the hand trapped underneath, and hauled it out.

‘Alive.’

I quickly checked # Nоvеlight # Song Hwayoung’s condition. Even through her clothes, her legs showed multiple puncture marks, the bleeding was severe, and maybe from shock her consciousness looked dazed—but her breathing hadn’t stopped.

That didn’t mean she was fine. In this state, she looked like she could die at any moment if a little time passed.

Watching fragments of corpses crackling as they burned, I hesitated for a very brief moment. If Song Hwayoung had to die here anyway...

As if reading my thoughts, a large warning window appeared in front of me.

Warning.

Do not damage plausibility.

Right. This was exactly the kind of act that would damage plausibility.

What even was plausibility? No—where was the point where that plausibility got fixed?

Was it killing Song Hwayoung for Kwon Taehan’s entrance? Or was it creating an S-rank Dungeon and shaping the situation like this so that Song Hwayoung would die and Kwon Taehan could enter—that point? Or was it the very nature of throwing yourself in to stop someone else from dying even while knowing your own magical power wasn’t functioning properly?

When I pressed hard on the long gash across my neck, a ringing pain exploded through my head.

Warning.

Do not damage plausibility.

Right, this... really was an act that broke “plausibility.”

“Move!”

A sharp voice came from behind. When I turned my head, it was another Hunter whose face I knew.

‘So Yeji.’

The earliest Hunter, an ice-element Hunter who handled frost.

So Yeji rushed over, checked Song Hwayoung’s condition, then dug through her clothes and poured a potion in a long line over the wound. With a sizzling, flesh-searing sound, So Yeji spoke.

“Guild Master Song, can you hear me?”

There was still no response, no consciousness. Even if she didn’t die here, whether Song Hwayoung would survive until the Dungeon clear was another issue.

“You’re SH Guild, right?”

“Yes.”

“What are you? A healer?”

“No.”

When I answered shortly, So Yeji just nodded and kept checking Song Hwayoung’s reactions.

“Do you have more potions?”

“No.”

“Shit....”

In the middle of that, the space lurched viciously again, then stopped fast.

“God, this is—”

“.......”

But I didn’t feel particularly worried. I glanced briefly at So Yeji struggling to treat Song Hwayoung, then shifted my gaze.

It looked like someone had used a Skill from long range across quite a distance. I stepped on the still-burning embers and looked at the figure approaching from far away.

Some of it was reality, and some of it had been closer to a dream... but to call the bastard walking over there a stranger now would’ve been ridiculous.

And it was clear that this was reality.

The floor still sticky, dragging at my feet, the blood from touching the wound earlier, the heat-seared pain burning through my body—it was all vivid.

If nothing else, I had an exceptional talent for distinguishing reality from dreams....

‘Ah... well now.’

Even though the situation was clearly serious, a laugh slipped out without me realizing. Well, not the first time that wasn’t the first time—but still, wasn’t it better to meet with a smiling face?

I calmly watched Kwon Taehan as he drew closer.

Before reaching here, it looked like Kwon Taehan had already gone through some other “fear,” because he wasn’t exactly neat. His clothes were torn in multiple places, and the exposed skin was riddled with wounds.

And yet...

He still looked like the protagonist of a “novel.” Simply by Kwon Taehan standing here.

Name:

Kwon Taehan

Age:

25

Rank:

S

Title:

Regressor of Eternity

Main Skills:

Infinite Regression (EX), Blazing Flames (S), Flame Storm (S), Physical Enhancement (S)

Growth Limit:

S

“How interesting.”

A short mutter slipped out before I knew it.

As the distance between us closed, Kwon Taehan’s stride—quickly approaching this way—slowed.

“.......”

“.......”

With only a few meters between us, Kwon Taehan stopped as if facing me off, staring. I met his gaze and slowly wiped what was smeared on my cheek with the back of my hand.

If he’d just witnessed some kind of “fear,” what would Kwon Taehan be thinking now as he looked at me?

After that brief standoff, I bent down at once and spoke to So Yeji.

“Take the Guild Master and move to the perimeter.”

“Haeseong’s Guild Master alone probably can’t— no, wait....”

“Looks like reinforcements arrived.”

When I lifted my head slightly as I said that, So Yeji’s gaze followed. As she stared at Kwon Taehan, Kwon Taehan stepped fully over to this side.

“...Guild Master Song?”

Kwon Taehan shifted his gaze from me to Song Hwayoung lying on the floor. As he bent one knee to check her, I spoke half on impulse.

“She’s still alive.”

“.......”

Kwon Taehan’s gaze returned to me. I tugged one corner of my mouth up and added,

“Surprisingly.”

At that, the hand resting on his knee clenched into a tight fist. Staring at my face, Kwon Taehan dropped his gaze to my hand.

After looking at the hand slick with blood, he suddenly grabbed my wrist.

“I’m fine.”

I twisted my wrist free in front of him and threw my gaze past him toward Im Haekyung.

“You came as support, right? You should get moving.”

At my words, Kwon Taehan—who again just stared at me silently—turned his body and walked toward Im Haekyung.

‘Confused, maybe?’

Even for me, running into Kwon Taehan here was something I’d never expected; from his perspective, it’d be plenty absurd.

So Yeji, supporting Song Hwayoung, asked with a suspicious look.

“Do you know him?”

“No. First time meeting.”

I answered shortly and watched Kwon Taehan’s back in silence.

Just because Kwon Taehan had arrived didn’t mean everything ended instantly. The situation was still fucked, and the pressure was still there.

‘Still, there is a sure method of breaking this.’

Because there was someone who’d already cleared this Dungeon.

Kwon Taehan spoke briefly with Im Haekyung, then approached the Dungeon Boss. Then—with a cracking jjeong—fractures began to spread across the floor where the Dungeon Boss was.

I handed Song Hwayoung fully over to So Yeji and moved back near Im Haekyung.

“Is it okay to leave him like that?”

At my question, Im Haekyung finally lifted their head and spoke, the corner of their mouth rising faintly.

“I don’t know. But just the fact the space isn’t changing... might make things a little easier.”

“.......”

“If it goes well, I... might be okay just supporting.”

Crack—the split ground began to heave like waves again. The floor around Kwon Taehan rippled, then enclosed both him and the Dungeon Boss at once, covering them like it was swallowing them.

I could feel the Dungeon Boss’s magical power concentrating on one person. Probably on the one who’d repeated this process countless times.

‘Is this really the fifth?’

A thing that lives by eating fear.

On a land where all existence has vanished, unable even to be defined as any kind of “existence” itself, it stimulates only the most primal fear among human emotions and barely continues something like life off that fleeting terror.

It overturns and rummages through survival fear that everyone has—memory or unconscious—and in the end drags it out, making people feel chained terror.

In that sense, it was almost funny. If you’re human, even if you repeat this process over and over, do you feel fear at the same moment every time? The bastard who’s repeated his own death countless times—does he now feel fear at others’ deaths?

Because our minds had been briefly linked, even though I couldn’t see Kwon Taehan, I could roughly sense how the Dungeon was operating. Im Haekyung beside me probably felt it even more.

Somehow it felt distant, like a completely detached sense, and yet if you considered the whole space rushing to induce fear, it also felt like I was the one feeling it.

‘Is this fear?’

Fear before death—I’d felt that plenty of times too, of course... but whether that had been truly pure fear was questionable.

Even with Im Haekyung controlling it, the space moved at will, creating countless crises of death.

The remaining Hunters attacked creatures while leaving corpses behind, then crawled back up through collapsing space over and over. I gathered the magical power I had left, froze the creature in front of me, and threw my gaze into the air.

Even while passing through a crisis where I could die at any moment, the impact felt weaker than before.

‘Is my mind somewhere else?’

At that moment, with a sound like high-viscosity liquid suddenly cascading down, came the noise of something huge shattering and falling.

Jjeok— Koom—!

And then, finally... I saw blazing flames far away.

There, piercing through all fear, the first moment of the one repeating a tedious journey was burning.

(Deceased) A Thing That Lives by Eating Fear (S)

Not yet defined.

It can survive only by endlessly devouring.