《World Purgatory》


 Chapter 1. The Dream

    "What''s this?"


    The scene in front of me was too unfamiliar.


    "What is this place?"


    I was standing with my back facing a tall gate. The gate was metallic and huge. Even without seeing the entirety of it, I knew it was thick. I believed it was so thick that even if a truck crashed into it, there wouldn''t be a dent on it. However, the gate actually had many dents.


    The wall around it was tall and sturdy as well. It spanned long and gave me a feeling of desolation. It''s like the wall had withstood time and trials. There were many people on top of the wall looking down at us.


    Us?


    Yes, that''s right. Us.


    I turned and saw many people by my sides. Whether it''s on my left or my right, many were there. Based on the faces alone, I felt familiarity to some of them. For some reason, however, I couldn''t put any names on them. The many others were simply strangers to me.


    Each one of them were looking at me. I felt so many emotions mixed into those eyes. Fear, uncertainty, and hope were all there, but most dominant of them all was unyielding. Through their expressions and their gestures, they didn''t look like strangers to me. How could it be?


    "Are you ready?" one of them spoke out.


    Ready?


    "Is it time?" another one said it out loud to me.


    Is it time to do what?


    "We''re ready!" the one directly on my side replied on my behalf. She showed a glowing hands that could brighten a dark room. This brought my attention to my own hand. Apparently, I was holding a glowing sword.


    A glowing sword and glowing hands?


    What the heck? What year was this? Why not guns?


    Then I threw my sight around only to see that everybody else was either holding weapons on their hands or had some sort of illumination on their hands. They puffed up their chests and, on the top of their lungs, shouted.


    "Attack!"


    "ATTACK!"


    Before anything made any sense at all, the people around me suddenly leapt into action. They ran forward. They were running toward our enemies.


    Eh, wait a minute! Enemies?


    Only at this time I suddenly realized that directly in front of us was a swarm of seemingly unending mass of our enemies. When I said swarm it was literally thousands upon thousands.


    They were big and they looked unbelievably strong. Their bodies were massive and taller than us. They had rough looking skins and big bright eyes. They had jaws that looked so strong they probably could chew turtle shells. They were confident and full of vitality.


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    The enemies were not the only things I just saw. Other things now caught my attention as well. The landscape behind those enemies was like we were in ruinous city. Ruined buildings, broken skyscrapers, wreckage of roads, bricks and trees. Not only those on land, even the wind felt harsh and the cloud up in the sky looked dark and gloomy.


    My body suddenly moved. A feeling surged inside of me. I couldn''t stop it. It was overflowing and encompassing. It was hatred. I truly hated them.


    I ran toward my enemies. Enemies that I met for the very first time. There was humming. It''s like I felt some connection to the sword on my hand. I trusted the sword, it was a part of me. And then I swung the sword.


    "Die!"


    My sword met with my enemy.


    My companions'' weapons met with our enemies.


    We fought with all our strength. We were strong but those enemies were stronger. We were butchered. I saw many of my companions fell one by one.


    I felt fear. I felt sorrow. I felt wrath. "I WILL KILL YOU ALL!"


    My sword twirled like a storm. The enemies met my sword with their weapons. We crashed many times. It was brutal and loud. I was without pity. I didn''t even pity my own self, how could I take pity on my enemies?


    "KILL!"


    Fresh blood started pouring. The sight was a majestic and gory one at the same time. This feeling emerged again. It was torrential hatred toward our enemies. It was either they die or we die.


    Severed arms and legs were flying in the air. Even heads and visceras were pulled away from the bodies, painting a cruel scene. The cries of battle and despair were in the air. Both the heroic feeling and frustration were mixing. They were so thick that I could even inhale them.


    The air of despair filled my lungs. I was choking. I couldn''t breath. I grasped for air. At this time, I felt drowned in hopelessness.


    And then I woke up.


    I opened my eyes, looking at the familiar old ceiling. The ceiling fan was still there and so was the lamp. The old picture of my family was on the wall. I then turned to the windows and the curtains. They were all there. Now, these things I recognized. This was my room.


    I wiped the sweat off my face. What a weird dream. It was so vivid that I could still feel the fear and hopelessness. I shivered involuntarily.


    I took my phone and saw that it was only 2 AM. Darn it, how should I return to sleep after such a dream?

 Chapter 2. The Merge

    I thought it was just a dream. A nightmare of some kind. I did try to analyze it, but too bad, just like many dreams, it started to fade from my memory.


    You''d think it will stop there but it didn''t. The weird dream was only the start. It got weirder.


    One week from the start of that dream, I communicated with an unbelievable being. Well, communicated was probably not the correct term. Tell me, how would you describe a booming voice in my head suddenly saying, "Human Shi Huicheng, you have open the first door to my realm. I am your god!"


    Yes, you read correctly, it''s God.


    Alright, the fast forward was too fast. Let''s start from the beginning. The day after the weird dream happened.


    **************


    "Phin, Catch!"


    Startled by the call, I became alert. I was sitting in front of my office desk when a can of soda flew toward me. It was slow and I managed to catch it easily in time. Looking at the person who threw it, I nodded. "Thanks, Stu!"


    "What''s wrong, buddy? Didn''t get enough sleep?" Stu slapped my shoulder.


    "Yeah, terrible nightmare. Woke up and can''t get back to sleep."


    "Wow, must be some nightmare huh. Me, I slept very soundly last night," he laughed.


    "Good for you," I stretched my arm. I had never been so sleepy during office hours. It was the first time I felt troubled by a dream. That''s the truth.


    My name was Phineas and I had been working for this company for a year. I had never stayed for too long in a company. The term long was relative, I knew. The longest working period in any particular company was around three years. The rest were between around two years. That was why I had a decently long resume.


    Every time I was asked by interviewer why I wanted to leave my current company my answer was one between two. ''I don''t feel the company is going in the same direction as me'' or ''I need more challenges''.


    When my close friends knew about those answers they asked what my direction was. I would then answer, "Global domination." I gave the same reply when asked about the second answer. I was too lazy to think of different reply.


    For a period of time, this reply became a source of joke for the people who knew me. My personality did not exactly scream ''global domination''. At all. Not even small scale domination. I enjoyed window seat on the train but I gave-in right away whenever a girl asked whether she could take it.


    I prefered to think that I was an easy going person and did not care too much about the vision of the company I worked for. What was the point of sugar-coating it as anything else? I worked for the money. That was it.


    However, the real reason why I moved company the first time had totally nothing to do with the company direction or ambition.


    I moved from my first company because of a girl. I first found her to be pretty and very friendly to me. As a fresh graduate and new comer, I was serious on my job and idealistic. Other than those, I was quite open, to the point of being naive. I was getting closer to the girl. I enjoyed our time together and assumed, from her reaction, that she liked it too. Then I learned the hard way how mistaken I was. I was merely a toy. After learning that truth and feeling humiliated I decided to resign.


    From the string of subsequent companies, as time went by, I learned more and more about the cruel world of office politics. It was hard maintaining my neutrality and easy going personality. I was often forced to take side inside the politics of company. When I could not stand it or it''s probably better to say that when I did not want to be bothered by it anymore I switched company.


    Luckily, every time I switched company it was to a bigger and more prestigeous company. That was why my friends say that I was a lucky fellow. To this my only respond was a snort. Well, if you considered only this small part of my life then I guess I did do pretty well and pretty lucky.


    "Hey Phin, you''re really lucky. You hit the jackpot this time," said Stuart, my colleague.


    If I had to name anyone as my friend in this current company then it would be him. We joined the company at the same time and was at the same age so it was easy to get along. Plus, we were not in the same department so our work never conflicted each other.


    "What do you mean?" I asked.


    "Don''t play coy. You''re about to go on almost two weeks business trip with Susan, our celebrity. THE Magnificent Susan Xu!" said Stuart with envy.


    "So what?" I asked again.


    Susan Xu was one of the company best upcoming management of our generation. I heard that she showed tremendous trait as leader and thus was nurtured to be part of management. Unlike me, Susan had been with the company right after her graduation. Top of her class I heard. She was also quite friendly to people even when she was already a vice director despite of her young age. She seemed ambitious, like that girl from my first company. With only one exception, a major upgrade in terms of appearance.


    Well, who was I kidding, I should have not even compared Susan to her. Susan Xu outclassed her in every way.


    "Don''t tell me...," Stuart gave a suspicious look below my waist before he continued, "You''re not a man if you''re not even slightly interested in her!"


    "I have to be interested in her to be a man?"


    Stuart nodded while trying to pierce my head with his squinted eyes.


    "She has a boyfriend, doesn''t she?"


    "That''s not a reason not to be interested in her," said Stuart, sternly. "Or at least admire her."


    "Ok, I do admire her," I said, which was enough to make Stuart stood down.


    To be honest, I really did admire her a bit. She was blindingly shiny not to be noticed. Of course, just like most successful young people, there were rumors surrounding her. But from what I myself saw, she really did become who she was today because of her own effort. That she became girlfriend of the heir of this company was only recent development. Personally, for me, the big bonus point was that anyone who could stay in one single company for such a long time was to be admired.


    "And don''t do anything weird to her if you don''t want to be fired. Her boyfriend is really a jealous type," told Stuart.


    "Relax, won''t you? I told you I''m not interested in her," I said. And that was the truth. From previous experience I became wary of pretty woman. And Susan Xu was at the pinnacle of beauty.


    "Beside, I''m only an errand boy to her," I added.


    "Hm, pretending to be a humble?" Stuart snorted, "Doesn''t suit you at all."


    I laughed and drank my soda.


    I was not entirely correct about being an errand boy, though I personally felt it''s not that far from reality either. I was assigned to assist her by providing my knowledge of the business process of the type of company we are going to visit. We just bought the company from its local owner and it had a unique flavor that was going to add to our business line.


    It was not the first time I went on a business trip however it was the first time to go abroad. So my grandmother made a fuss of it and tried to stuff too many things into my bag. I have to take some of them out so I did not end up with more than one luggage. When she inspected my luggage, she again went full-power filling it.


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    On the other hand, my grandfather was calmer, "Take good care of yourself, kid." That''s all he said. I think I inherited my easy-going personality from him.


    "While you''re there, probably you can find a girlfriend too. You''re so picky maybe you''d like foreigner more," grandmother chided.


    "Listen to your grandmother."


    "You''re not young anymore. When your father was the same age as you, he already had you," grandmother continued.


    32 was considered old? I sourly smiled.


    My grandparents took me in when my parents were killed in an accident. I didn''t really remember my parents now. I was very young when it happened. I knew their faces from the pictures but that just about it. Sometimes I would ask my grandparents about my parents like how was their personalities or what''s their favorite food. Unfortunately, these questions made my grandmother''s eyes teary so I stopped asking.


    My father was an only son and my mother grew up in orphanage. That was why I did not have other close relatives. But I did not really need big family. My grandparents showered me with their love. Although we were not rich but we got by just fine.


    I made agreement with Susan that we could meet at the airport. It was more efficient that way because we lived at different part of town. And I found out that she was very easy to talk to.


    At the airport, I met with her and we both checked in. I did not notice it earlier, but when I was checking in I just realized that I got first class seat.


    "Was the company giving me bonus?" No Way!


    Then I looked at Susan.


    "What''s wrong?" she asked me. She acted like nothing special happen.


    Then it dawned on me. It was because of her! My seat was upgraded because of her. Feeling good, I shook my head and said, "Nothing."


    "Let''s go then," she said, not giving me a second glance and just left toward the boarding waiting area.


    When Susan and I arrived at Incheon Airport some people were already waiting with our names on a big hard-paper template. It was our welcoming committee.


    Being efficient and not wanting to waste time, Susan asked for us to be delivered to the office instead of the hotel even though it was already 4:10 PM. It''s not a big deal for me. If I was alone or in-charge, due to the time, I would just go to the hotel and went to the office tomorrow morning, refreshed and energized. But that''s probably why she was top upcoming leader while I was only an errand boy.


    The people were friendly. There was a staff among the people that fetched us who spoke in Chinese. Apparently he was chosen to pick us up because of his foreign language speaking ability. At the office, we were welcomed by the group of top management of the company. Their manner were modest and docile to say the least. After all, unlike the usual hostile take over, this was the company that we bought in more or less peaceful way.


    The time we spent at Seoul was really efficient. We would work until late at night, only stopping to eat and sleep. We don''t really socialized. Susan was always hard at work.


    Honestly, I thought she was a bit abnormal. She was not even a bit interested by the many chances to meet Korean pretty boy idols. This company was, after all, one of the major management company of many well known artists.


    Did she have the same bad experience as me? I thought to myself. Any woman at the office always go gaga over those idols. Some people go overboard, some showed a bit restraint but still interested, others pretending to not be interested but collecting the pretty boys pictures on their phones. This Susan was different.


    There was this commercial about the upcoming Mixed Martial Arts Contest. The biggest ever held in Asia, so they said. Many top tier champions of their respected area joined this contest. Traikun Praves, the universally acclaimed ultimate expert of Muay Thai, and Davi Brito, the Jiujitsu expert who was titled The Undefeated because he was never defeated in his entire arena life, were amongs the one who join this competition. I personally felt that it was not possible to be undefeated at all times but what did I know.


    This event was also in line with the K-wave Universal, an event meant to reinvigorate and refresh the Korean wave globally. Biggest names from entertainment industry such as actress Min Songhee, singer-actress Jeong Yewon, singer Seo Daho and actor Choi Doowon were included in this event.


    Choi Doowon had always been dubbed the most popular celebrity in recent years. He was nominated by his fans as the hottest actor ever. Seo Daho was also no less famous. His name was not as phenomenal as Choi Doowon but well-known enough. His songs often dominated the top ten charts in South Korea and other country such as Japan. They were so famous that even someone like me knew their faces.


    Susan, however, just took a simple glance when I pointed at the commercial about this event on the street screen and went back to her laptop. It could not get the slightest interest from her.


    ''This woman is a bit too cold'', I thought to myself. But, looking at her from side while we''re sitting in the car, I got to admit that Stuart was right. This woman was gorgeous. In terms of face, she was exquisite and sensual. It did not look like she did anything special to her hair but it accentuated her goddess-like face. It was even less a need to say anything in terms of her figure. She was curvaceous and explodingly hot. Everything was perfectly placed. Any woman would kill to have a figure like hers. No wonder she was courted by the heir of our company.


    If I had to say anything imperfect about her, it was that she is workaholic. And she dragged me down in it as well. Let alone fulfilling my grandmother''s wish on finding a girlfriend, I could not even go to simple shopping.


    It was not that Susan was strict or harsh with words. It was, in fact, very pleasant to hear her spoke. She had a friendly yet authorative aura. She did not use words to force me to work late with her. But if she, the leader, kept working till late hours how could I just leave the office by myself?


    Even though she was friendly we rarely talked about personal things. On the only company dinner we had during our stay there I got the chance to ask her about her lineage a bit.


    "I heard that you are half Korean. Don''t you have any relative to visit here? I think we can make time for it," was what I said to her in my attempt to get free time for myself.


    "My father is full Chinese. My mother is half Chinese, a quarter Korean and one eighth Caucasian, not sure which country. That''s what I was told, I don''t know if that''s the truth anyway," she replied while drinking her tea.


    "Told?" I was suddenly interested, my mouth could not stop before I blurted that out.


    "I never met my parents. Nor any family for that matter. I grew up in an orphanage," her answer was precise.


    "Oh I see. Sorry, I didn''t know that," I said. She was really an open person, I never thought she would share such personal information. I knew I won''t.


    Wait a minute, if she grew up in an orphanage how did she knew about her lineage?

 Chapter 3. The Merge (2)

    "That''s alright," and, as if she could read my mind, she continued, "I wasn''t abandoned on a church or something like that. My parents died when I was a baby. Since I have no other relatives, the government sent me to the orphanage. The orphanage has some records about my parents."


    "Uhuh," such personal information was easily shared? Also, such rich lineage but no other relatives?


    "How about you? Any relative here?" That was the first time she asked something personal about me.


    "Nah, my parents are both single child. So no uncles, aunties or cousins for me," I answered, trying to be as open as I could to reciprocate her openness.


    "Where are they now? Your parents I mean," asked Susan.


    "They''re both dead. Accident."


    "Uh, I''m sorry," she apologized. She was good at conveying her feeling, I could really feel that she was sorry.


    "I don''t really remember them. I was still very small at the time," I honestly told her. I had no idea why I surrendered her that information.


    "So, we''re both orphan then, no family around," Susan said while looking at her glass. I was about to tell her about my living grandparents but another colleague joined us and conversation went another direction.


    On our way back to hotel we got to talk a bit again. By this time both of us had drank quite a few and I felt quite a bit carefree.


    "How old are you, Ms. Xu?" I suddenly asked.


    The scenery of night time Seoul was quite nice. Modern building were seen everywhere and lamps, billboards and street commercials were brightly lighting the city. It was a scene not unlike any other capital city of developed country. It was captivating and breathtaking.


    Susan looked at me, she seemed slightly amused. However, she never acted like a timid woman so I guessed the question should be fine for her. And she indeed replied, "I''m 32. Why do you ask?"


    "We''re the same age. Don''t you thing calling Mister this or Miss that is too stiff?" Before I could stop it, my mouth already went on. I must''ve been really drunk to talk like this to the future wife of the company''s heir.


    "Then let''s call each other by name from now on," She smiled. Was I drunk or the night atmosphere just got to me? She looked more beautiful than usual. How was that even possible?


    "Great. I''ll call you Susan then," I happily said.


    "Phineas. Or is it Phinny?" Susan leaned on a bit toward me, which startled me.


    The outline of her outfit showed a great deal even without a revealing suits. She had a healthy fit body and tremendously long legs. Complete all that with her beautiful face, she was a total package of perfection. I was only a normal guy, how could I not be affected by this sudden leaning of such a woman? Did she do that subconsciously or consciously?


    I went rigid for a second, "Definitely not Phinny." I shook my head violently, trying to pull my mind before it went ashtray, and heard her laugh.


    This woman was devilish, I thought.


    "Can I be honest?" She asked.


    "Shoot," I nodded.


    "Phineas doesn''t really fit your face," She told me.


    My face went rigid, again. What did that even mean? Was there something wrong with my face? I instinctively started touching my face.


    My reaction must had been an amusement to her because she laughed. "There''s nothing wrong with your face. It''s just that you''re totally Asian. This English name doesn''t suit you much. What''s your real name?"


    "Ah, I see. Well, it''s Shi Huicheng. Hui as of bright, Cheng as of city," I told her.


    "Nice to meet you Shi Huicheng. I''m Xu Yuanmei. Yuan as of garden. Mei as of beautiful," She copied my introduction style and extended her hand.


    "Nice to meet you Xu Yuanmei. Hmm, Yuanmei... very nice," I praised. I met her hand. We jokingly shook hands and it felt really nice. Her palm was soft and warm while, on contrary, mine was a bit cold.


    "Huicheng sounds nice to. Not a common name but nice nevertheless," She reciprocated.


    "I was told me that my parents liked to call me Chang Cheng. Don''t know how they got that," I laughed.


    "Chang Cheng? Nickname from your parents huh? Chang Cheng," And then she kept saying that nickname, repeatedly, as if absent minded. After that, her playful manner suddenly gone. At such close distance, I could see that she was actually frowning slightly.


    "What''s wrong?" I asked Susan. Her face somehow seemed unclear. I could not tell what she was thinking right now.


    Susan seemed a bit hesitant.


    "Are you alright?" I asked.


    "No. It''s fine. It''s... didn''t you say you are orphan?" She returned to her previous demeanor and looked at me with a questioning look.


    "My parents were dead when I was 6, yes. After that my grandparents raised me," I replied.


    "You don''t remember your parents? At all?" she slowly said.


    "No. I don''t remember anything before moving in with my grandparents. My grandfather said that I forgot because I was shocked due to the accident and at suddenly losing both my parents at the same time," I told her. I did not know why I tell her those. I never even told this to my buddies.


    She inquired, "What is your parents'' names, if I may know?"


    It was not a secret, so I told her my father and mother''s name.


    "I see," after saying this she seemed to be in deep thought and did not want to be disturbed.


    With her suddenly going into such mood I did not know how to react. My mind was a bit clearer now so I could make better decision. I did not feel interrupting the girlfriend of the heir of the company I worked for was a good idea. So I left her alone with her thought this time. Even though she was a friendly person we never really had personal friendship before nor had we socialize with each other before this project.


    Personality aside, I got to admit, now that I saw first hand, that Susan was really a fine employee. This was the first time I am partnered with her and I could easily see that the bad rumors surrounding her were not true.


    She was efficient and at the same time she was also really smart. Her leadership was on point and assuring. When she needed to be flexible, she would be flexible. When she should be decisive, she would be decisive.


    I met many people, so called leaders, in management positions in various companies. None of them match up to her. The rumor that said she was using her beauty was unfounded, most probably spread by jealousy of her success and intelligence.


    Of course, that was only my opinion anyway. I never really cared how she got the job.


    That said, I really don''t mind the extra nice things happening to us. We got the first class seat on the plane and stayed at five star hotel. Susan got a suite while I got a lower class room, but still nicer than the usual room I got. Susan did not say anything and I can pretty much guess the reason behind these.


    Two days before our supposed schedule to go back to our headquarter office Susan approached me after a meeting.


    "I have to go back earlier. Can you take care of the rest of our meetings here?" she said, catching me off guard.


    I thought she was talking about going back to hotel today so I readily said, "Alright, there''s nothing much left to do today anyway."


    "No, I mean, I''m going back to Shanghai. So I need you to take care our scheduled meetings tomorrow and the day after," she explained.


    Well, this was news to me. I was not really equiped to handle the talk after acquisition so I was stunned. Susan Xu seemed to understand my short silence. She continued, with a little bit bossy tune, "I need you to go through the rest of their current processes that we didn''t get over yet. Can you do that?"


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    "I see. Alright then. Is there emergency?" what else was there for me to reply if the boss already made the decision. No matter how she blanketed it nicely, it was still an order.


    "Yes, the management meeting is suddenly moved to tomorrow morning. It was originally scheduled next week," she told me.


    "So you''re going right away?" the time was 3 PM.


    "Yes, I have my flight reschedule to tonight. I''m stopping by the hotel to get my things."


    "Alright, have a safe trip then," I told her.


    "You have my number so called me if you find any problem here," she said.


    "Ok," I replied as we reached the elevator. A staff has been waiting with an open elevator. She got in and waved goodbye to me. I waved too and the elevator door closed.


    I returned and continued with another meeting. Now I started to feel the burden of the meeting. When Susan was here, she was the chair and the driver. Without her, I was the one and only representative of headquarter office. While most of them can speak English but it was not fluent. To make matter worse, apart from some sentences pertaining to simple greetings and ordering food, my Korean was not nearly good enough for such professional meetings. I started to feel headache escalating when I remembered that there were still two days worth of meetings waiting for me.


    I did not work overtime today. I went back directly to the hotel after the meeting concluded. I originally planned to go to sleep early because my head was killing me and my body felt tired. Just as I was about to enter my room a message appeared on my cellphone.


    It was from Susan.


    "Sorry to leave you like that. Let''s have dinner when you get back. My treat."


    I stared blankly at the message. I knew she was friendly but never to such extend. Dinner? Who was I in the company? Compared to her I was nobody. She felt bad and wanted to treat me to dinner? Well, who in the right mind would refuse?


    I then typed, "No problem. Have a safe flight." And pressed send.


    Right after this, I felt so much lighter and the headache gone. I suddenly felt like going for a stroll.


    I thought about buying souvenirs for my grandparents and a few close friends. After all, this was the first time I visited Seoul. I took a shower and then went to the hotel lobby. With the direction the receptionist gave me I left the hotel.


    The hotel where I was staying was at the center of Seoul. It was quite easy to go around. I probably didn''t have to grab a taxi but used one anyway. I was never much into sightseeing. I would rather go straight to wherever my destination was.


    As I suspected, it wasn''t a long drive. I exited the taxi and paid the fare. I did not take the receipt. This was on private time and for personal purposes so I did not plan to reimburse the expenses.


    I scanned the area and liked what I see. The place was bustling with people. Everywhere I looked there were all kind of people. They were either busy with their private businesses or just strolling, like me. The lights were shining bright, not a single place on the street was left dark, except probably those dark alleys which existed in every corner of every cities in the world no matter how sophisticated they were.


    Stores were lined up everywhere my eyes landed. I could see many people going in and out of those stores. All kind of faces were here. Really lively. It was no less lively than my own city even though the population of Seoul was less than Shanghai.


    I hadn''t had my dinner because I planned to try out the many food stalls here. I jumped from one stall to another. Buying a small amount of light food or snack and strolled around while eating. It was a delightful experience because some of the food tasted awesome on my tongue.


    I thought it would be a bit difficult to communicate using my poor Korean but the many food vendor here were amazing. Some were really perceptive. We could communicate with simple body languages and a few fingers. How wonderful would that be if I could conduct the meetings at the office like this?


    Shortly after, I found an interesting store. They sold a lot of sports equipment on the first floor. But that was not what interest me. What interested me was what I saw displayed at the glass window of the second floor.


    I went in. A nice clerk came up and greeted me. I motioned to her that I wanted to go to the second floor. She pointed the way to the stairs and led me up. Once I arrived, my eyes immediately caught many interesting items. Weapons to be exact.


    This second floor sold weapons that were used for martial sport. My grandfather was really into this kind of thing. I browsed the items and after about a quarter hour decided on a sword. The store clerk said, in acceptable English, the name of this type of the sword was Geom.


    After trying to haggle a bit, and failing miserably, I finally had it gift-wrapped. The clerk was creative as well. After the box was tied, she was able to made the rope formed a loose bow string. With this, I was able to carry the box by strapping the string over my shoulder. It was really convenient.


    I was happy to find this for my grandfather. It costed quite a bit but, hey, how often would I come to Seoul?


    My next target would be a dress for my grandmother and some souvenirs for my friends. I was thinking about buying something for Susan as well. She was kind enough to invite me to dinner. But I finally decided againstit. We barely knew each other and she was too attractive. It would be disastrous for me if anyone misunderstood my intention.


    Thinking about Susan, by this time her plane should have already landed at Pudong International.


    I was strolling when, out of the blue, weird low pitch sound was heard. The sound was accompanied by unknown rumbling. I stood still and tried to discern what the sound was.


    The low pitched rumbling sound was not subtle at all. It was everywhere. At the start, only a few people was paying attention, like me. But now most people started to stop what they were doing and listened carefully. After a while, not only people on foot were stopping, those in their vehicles also stopped. The weird sound was hard not be noticed.


    However no matter how hard I tried I could not made any sense of it at all. What kind of sound was that? What was the cause of it? Before the confusion caused by the rumbling sound subsided, the earth started to shake.


    I was not the only one who felt it. Many people looked around or at each other. Several people have reacted quite fast. Trying to find cover, as if preparing for earthquake. And then we were surprised a third time. The weird low sound was gradually became higher and higher.


    Many people were holding their ears trying to block the unpleasant sound but it was to no avail. It was not hurting us but it was just, well, really unpleasant. It was like hearing a misconducted symphony.


    That was not the end, however. The sky, originally dark as it was night time, suddenly turned black. I meant really black. I could not see any cloud nor could I see any star. Even the moon was missing now. What was going on?


    Suddenly, I felt dizziness in my head and saw people are starting to fall down to the ground. Then everything went black.


    I did not know what exactly happened but when I woke up I was lying on the street. Exactly where I was standing before.


    I checked the time on my phone. It was almost 10 PM already. So I was unconcious for more than two hours. What exactly happened? The people around me, who were unconcious before, were also starting to wake up. The confused looks were showing everywhere. Some were asking each other but it did not look like anyone had the answer.


    What the heck happened to us?

 Chapter 4. Human or Not?

    I decided to go back to my hotel. I tried to stop a taxi, as was many other people, but none stopped. Since the taxi wasn''t stopping, many people gave up trying and started walking. I did too. Fortunately, my hotel was not far anyway, only a few blocks, and the road was pretty simple.


    On the road, I saw many people trying to make a call. I had tried to make a call to my grandparents as well but failed. Somehow, the connection was lost. People were confused and so was I. Thus, I hurried my walk.


    When I arrived at the hotel the first thing I did was to call my grandparents using the hotel phone. It took a few rings before someone picked up. It was my grandfather. Hearing his voice I felt somewhat relieved.


    "Cheng-er, what happened? Was it earthquake?" my grandpa asked.


    "Grandpa, did you feel it too? So it''s quite big. Are you and grandma alright?"


    "We''re fine. We''re on the couch watching TV when it happened. I think we fell asleep together. We woke up just a moment ago," grandpa told me. So they were unconscious too. Only difference was that they woke up later than me, probably because they were very old? I had no idea, it was only a wild guess.


    "Grandpa, see if there is any announcement from the government on the tv and radio. Follow every instruction they gave. I''ll try to get the next flight home," I told him.


    "Cheng, don''t worry about us. No need to rush home. You have to do your job properly," He advised before we finished our conversation.


    My grandpa was a former soldier. Although he had an easygoing character he still kept his discipline and responsible attitude. Me? Not so much.


    My grandparents were the most important people in the world for me. My grandfather had already retired and living comfortably when I was born. When my parents died, he started to work again. He understood that it would not be easy to feed a growing child with pension alone.


    Fortunately, it wasn''t hard for a former soldier with a clean record to find work, especially when one was not too picky. He was a soldier before retirement, an honest soldier. The kind of work available for him was also at low level. So he slaved out his old bones again, working as a night security. I could tell that he was happy to do it, because he did it to raise me.


    And my grandmother? Did you have any idea how hard it was for an arthritic old woman to take care of an active growing child while handling the house chores?


    I could accept losing a job but I could not afford to lose my grandparents. Not if I could do anything about it.


    After the talk with my grandpa, I talked to my grandma as well. Despite what my grandparents said I called the front desk to reschedule my flight.


    At this time, the phone service started working again.


    I was soon disappointed. The government had halted the service of every public transportation going in and out of the country. They even put a watch on travelling within the country. There was also an announcement on the TV, broadcasted by all of the local or regional stations, that the government has enacted the crisis hour and a curfew was implemented. Supposedly it was for our safety.


    Until the cause of quake and blackout was determined, we''re heavily advised to stay home or wherever we presently were.


    Wasn''t that just swell? I cursed. I should have taken the flight home with Susan but who could have known such incident would happen? I saw on tv, it was happening worldwide. If I was home, at least I could be there with my grandparents.


    Then I suddenly thought about Susan. I wondered how was she anyway?


    ''Are you safe? Anything happen to you?'' I sent the text to her.


    In a minute her reply came. ''I''m fine. Still trying to find a lift home. The taxi are all gone. Everything went crazy here. How about you?''


    I told her about what went on here. She replied soon, ''It''s the same here. I may have to stay at the airport hotel since the curfew is about to start.''


    So, not only here, our government also put up a curfew.


    Our conversation ended because she needed to immediately secure a room to stay. With so many people stranded it was not guaranteed that she would find a room. It was either the hotel or she walked home from the airport. I wanted to remind her to try calling her mighty and rich boyfriend because people with power usually had a lot more alternatives compared to us. But then I thought she would have thought about that too. She was, after all, way smarter and efficient than me.


    With nothing better to do, I watched the TV. I browsed through many channels, but it seemed interruptions were everywhere. It wasn''t only the repeated announcement of curfew and safety precautions, but something else too. There were disturbances on the TV channels, I figured they''re like statics. They kept coming and going, although not to the point where I couldn''t watch the intended broadcast. I thought maybe the earthquake might have something to do with this. I didn''t dwell in it.


    It didn''t take long for me to get bored with the TV broadcast. I turned it off and went to sleep.


    It wasn''t easy for me to sleep with so many things happening. Added to all this was my worry of my grandparents'' safety. When I did get to sleep, one hour had probably passed idly.


    I was suddenly awake. My mind was still blank and my eyes trying to adjust to the soft light of morning sun passing through the window. I had left the curtain open.


    Out of a habit, I walked toward the window and under the warm sun''s light I started stretching my body. This was a habit that my grandfather taught me to do. While doing my stretching I looked outside.


    I stared at the distance. There was red horizon far away. It looked like fire was raging in several places. Some place could be easily seen engulfed in fire and smoke while others were a bit vague due to the distance. I felt sorry that such things happened, and in so many places at once. Today would be one hell of a day for the city''s firefighters.


    Then I looked down at the street below. My eyes widen, blinked a few times.


    "What the hell?" I thought to myself, "Am I dreaming again?"


    I ran to the toilet and washed my face. While wiping the water from my face with a towel I hurriedly went back to the window. And they were still there! The scenes that startled me were still there.


    It''s definitely not a dream this time.


    I was only at 6th floor so although I couldn''t see any license plate number I could see the occurrence at the street level quite well.


    In several places there were people running. I could not hear their voices from here, but judging from the frantic movements and panic looks, they must be screaming.


    Well, I probably would too if I was being chased by weird looking monsters like what I saw running on the street now!


    From this distance, they looked a lot like human. I meant humanoids. They were bipeds, meaning they walked with two legs. They had two arms, like us. Their skin was somewhat darker than most of us, brownish dark. The clothes they wore weren''t unlike ours.


    If they looked so much like human why did I say they were monsters? It''s simple. It''s because their faces were definitely not human. From this distance I couldn''t see much detail, but it''s enough to see that they had a resemblance of how fantasy games or comics portrayed the orcs.


    Yes. Orcs!


    I saw those faces before. I believed it was in my dream.


    When I saw one of them managed to catch up to a person, what it did was obviously not something a human can do. At least not a normal human!


    The creature, the monster or whatever it was supposed to be called, swung its arm and its hand struck the person''s back. In an instant the poor person''s back was split open and covered with red blood. The man was not dead and still crawling, trying to get up. But the creature stepped on him and then with another swing of its hand, slashed toward the poor man''s neck. The man''s head rolled down the road away from his body.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    I grew up as a man with strong stomach, but this scene wasn''t easy for me. I was terrified by it. What in the world happened?


    The creature then dragged the headless body and disappeared from my line of sight between buildings.


    That wasn''t the only occurrence, there were others as well. One of the running woman got caught and slashed directly on her neck. Although she was not decapitated, looking at all the blood splattered, I doubt the woman had any chance of survival. Her lifeless body was carried away by the creature that attacked her, along with her almost detached head.


    Everywhere, there were instances like this. I could not clearly see the others since the distance was too great.


    "What''s going on?" I sat down by the bed and pondered. Too many questions, too little explanation. There was no sense in what was happening.


    Then I realized that sitting here pondering on it alone would not bring me any result. I needed to know more.


    I got up and took out my luggage. I didn''t bother to shower. I changed my clothes right away. Who in the right mind would think of having a shower right now anyway? I took out my bumbag, the one my grandma wisely put in for me. I put all my important stuff such as passport, identification card, keys, etc, inside, then I wore the bumbag on my waist. I drank some water, grabbed my things and then left the room.


    Outside of the room, just as I exited, a man was walking down the aisle. When he saw me, he called out.


    "Hi, excuse me," he spoke in English.


    "Hi," was my reply.


    "Do you know what happened? The TV has no channel working and no one picking up my call to service. This hotel is supposed to be a five star hotel," the man asked. He obviously hadn''t known what happened out there.


    "I don''t think anyone will answer your call. I don''t know exactly what happen either. As a start, I''d suggest you look outside of your window. There''re things to see out there," I told him.


    "Outside? But what...?" he looked confused. Well, that made two of us. I had no answer, so I cut his sentence short.


    "Do it and I''d suggest you do it first, before you do anything else," I pat his arm and made a goodbye gesture. "Gotta go now."


    "Uh, sure. Thanks for the tip?" he wasn''t sure of how to respond to my suggestion, or the lack of it. The way he looked at me, he probably thought I was crazy or rude or both.


    "Sure," then I walked toward the lift. I pressed the button and waited for the elevator to come. ''Good,'' I thought to myself, ''The lift still works.''


    On the ground floor I saw many people standing behind the hotel big entrance door made of thick glass. They were looking outside and talking to each other. Their faces were that of horror. I guessed they saw what I saw too. And at a much closer range.


    "Hey, what happened out there?" I pat one of the hotel employee, judging from his uniform.


    He was startled but then calmed himself before answering me, "We don''t know, sir. I think there are murderers on the loose."


    "Murderers? What do you mean?" I was curious.


    "Yes, they''re probably escapee from prison," the staff said. "The police will handle them."


    I looked at him quietly, nodding just a little. Escapee from prison? Was this guy an idiot? Any prison escapee would try hard to hide themselves for fear of recapturing. They were definitely not going on a broad-daylight-killing-rampant!


    This staff was closer to the scene than me, how could he not see that those weren''t human? One or two people might have unique appearances, aka monster-like, but all of them at the same time? No way! They had to be not human. Or some mutated human who were subjected to evil experiment somewhere. My mind wondered wildly here.


    Whatever they were, during time like this, it was better for me to stay put first and saw how the situation changed.


    "Are you leaving, sir?" the staff asked after he saw my luggage.


    "Yes, right after those things outside is taken care of," I told him. He politely muttered an okay. Then we both returned our attention to what was happening outside.


    Some people from outside managed to run to hotel entrance and the hotel security let them in before locking again. But others were not so lucky. Long before the unlucky ones could reach anywhere, they were captured and killed by the monsters.


    "Those mad men!" some people cursed in fear. I decided to keep calling those ''mad men'' monsters unless proven otherwise.


    More and more hotel tenants were coming down from their respective rooms and converged in the lobby. The staff asked them to wait inside the closed hotel area.


    At first some people were quite stubborn. They were asking questions and demanding complete explanation. To this, the hotel staff could only politely admit that they didn''t know anything and let the customer see what was happening outside by themselves. This usually made them shut up, with some went trembling in fear.


    They gathered up at the closed area like the rest. Among the people in security team there were two that was holding firearm. This brought a little bit sense of security. Although, to be honest, after seeing what the monsters could do I was not sure if pistols would be enough to stop them. Nevertheless it was better than nothing.


    After an hour pass by and hearing no siren anywhere I was already quite sure. The looks of everyone in the hotel lobby were also showing despair. There was nothing showing on tv display either. The security team had been trying to contact police, but to no avail. It was like in one night the nation had gone silent.


    All of those things elevated the uneasiness.


    "What is it?" I asked when the hotel staff near me suddenly perked up.


    "I thought I heard something," he looked at the direction of the restaurant adjacent to the lobby. The restaurant was a half closed area connected to the lobby. It also was connected directly to the kitchen and, from the kitchen, the food storage area. The food storage area should also be connected to the outside unloading area. But according to the information from the security all access points to outside area had been locked and guarded by their team member.


    "Are you sure?" I asked again.


    "I''m sorry, sir. I probably heard wrong," he was apologetic. I could see that he was trying to maintain his composure.


    "Oh no!" someone said loudly. Everyone attention were directed to what caused the exclamation.


    Outside, three people, a woman and two children, were running toward the hotel reception gate. However they were not alone. They were followed by two monsters.


    The woman and her children almost reached the large door. She kept yelling something in Korean. I guessed she was yelling something like, "Open the door. Please. Open the door!"


    One of the guard holding the door handle looked at his supervisor and said something. He seemed to be asking permission from him. His supervisor was hesitating.


    "What are you doing? Quickly open the door!" one of the hotel guest yelled in English.


    The supervisor made his decision. He said something to his guards and then pulled out his pistol. The other subordinate, who was also holding another pistol, pulled it out too. The two of them stand in front of the door. Just as the woman and her children got near to the door, other guards opened them.


    The woman and her children went in, falling at the floor from exhaustion. The monsters were reaching the door as well but the two security guards fired their pistols.


    Bang! Bang! Bang!


    The sound of shooting was so loud it was deafening. Many people closed their ears but still they jumped every time gunshot were heard. At such close range it was easy for the two security guards to hit their targets.


    Strangely enough, those monsters didn''t even try to avoid the shots. They weren''t even stopping.


    What the heck?

 Chapter 5. First Encounter

    The two monsters reached the gate, holes in their bodies. They fell down with dark colored blood-like liquid all over them. The guards hurriedly closed the entrance gate. With the gate closed, everyone was breathing again.


    Several people came to help pick up the woman and her children. She was saying thank you repeatedly. She and her children were brought to one of the couches.


    "Look! Look! They... they''re not human," a tenant who went near the thick glass door pointed at the two monsters corpses.


    Many people got close and took a good look. Murmurs were heard everywhere. I probably could not understand what they were saying, but judging from their reactions I assumed they now saw what I had already surmised from much earlier. Even though I was quite certain that they were not human but I was glad when I could confirmed it up closed like this.


    What was I thinking? How could I be glad at a time like this?


    The monster''s skin was nothing like us. If I had to make a comparison then I''d say that they looked like a soft layer of scales. The scales were almost transparent. The layer of scales was only apparent from this distance. I counted that they have only four fingers on each hand and feet. Both hands and feet were also larger than ours. Much larger. They weren''t wearing shoes. Judging by their size it would be tough getting any shoes that could fit. Their nails were nothing like ours. The shape was like cheetah''s claw with length about 1 to 2 inches. Those nails would be more appropriately called claws. I guessed this was their main weapon. Judging from the thickness of the claws, it would be a frightening weapon.


    In addition to all that, another significant apparent difference was their faces. Definitely no way to mistake them as human.


    The monster''s face was like a mutated human. Its jaw was wide and looked very strong. I wasn''t kidding when I thought they could probably chew turtle shell with such a jaw. Its nose was slanted upward, like a deformed pig. Its eyes were big and eyebrows thick. Its hair was lush but untidy. The other one had the same big and muscular body and type of the face except for being bald but bearded heavily.


    ''What is that?'' I uttered inside my head.


    On top of each of their fallen bodies there was a translucent but darkish tiny marble-like things. If people were not paying attention it was easy to miss them. People might mistake them as part of the body. Like a tumor or something of that resemblance. However, I was paying attention thoroughly from the start. That translucent darkish marbles weren''t there before. They only appeared after the monsters were dead. Such a weird, dying after-effect. It was probably natural for them, so I dismissed it.


    When the people were busy looking at the corpses, I glanced a look at the security who had firearms. The two of them were talking to each other in a low voice. I saw one of them holding his pistol and checking the cartridge. So, they were having problem with ammunition, I thought to myself.


    It was normal and to be expected. Ammunitions were regulated and limited to prevent abuse. Normal security guards didn''t carry extra ammunition for doing their daily job. There was no need for it. Firearms were rarely used.


    At this time, I suddenly heard the surrounding people gasped. I followed their gaze and was also stunned. There were several monsters appearing from the roads and buildings nearby!


    My first guess would be the sound of gunshots attracted them. One by one they moved toward the hotel. If there were only two or three of them, I wouldn''t this worry but it seemed more than five had already appeared. I was afraid to continue counting after that.


    "So many of them...," the voices trembled.


    The people inside hotel lobby were backing away from the door as the monsters were closing in. Their eyes intensely looked inside. They didn''t even take a look at their comrade corpses, focusing all their attention on us.


    "What should we do?" one of the tenant asked in trembling voice.


    Bang!


    One of the monster started banging at the entrance gate. And then the few others were banging too. The sound was deafening. It was deafening to the ears and numbing our hearts. Their strength was surely above us human. Some of them started clawing at the glass door. The sound of their claws against our only protection was heart-wrenching. It was literally taking our breath away.


    Bang! Screeech! Bang! Bang! Screeeeeech!


    When every each of the monsters increased their power, the sound made several people passed out from fear.


    The glass, no matter how thick, would not seems to be able to hold out if it kept getting battered like this. On the monsters side, I could have swore I see delight on their faces. It was so weird to see glee mixed with savageness on their expression.


    Unconsciously I reached for the box containing the sword I bought for my grandfather.


    The security guards were yelling something to us and the staff hurriedly translated to us non-Korean, "We have to get to the 5th floor. The doors starting from 5th floor are only a few and made from metal. It is safe there until help comes."


    ''Help?'' I said faintly. They were still hoping for help after this long? The police, the army or anyone in charge should''ve been sweeping the city from hours ago if that was the case. I highly doubt they were in control of the situation now.


    "Hurry up. Hurry up!" with the hotel staff guiding them, the others were gathering and started moving toward the elevator. The staff said something and they now moved toward the emergency stairs instead. Some people were helping the others who passed out. The glass door seemed to be ready to break any moment now. The guards were hurrying everyone.


    "Going up?" I thought to myself. I had to return to my grandparents. How was holding up on a hotel soon to be swarmed by monsters going to help me achieve my goal? I made my decision. I opened the gift wrapped box I was carrying and took out the sword.


    At that time, suddenly the door from the kitchen far away was kicked open. It was a swing door and it was broken immediately. Our eyes all saw what would be our nightmare, if we were not in one already.


    A monster was standing at the door. It was looking at us. I could just imagine what it was thinking, ''livestocks, where are you going?''


    People started yelling and screaming, running toward the emergency stairs faster than before. However there were too many of us. The monsters at the entrance glass gate were ecstatic and they were banging and clawing more vigorously.


    And then the monster at the kitchen door started to charge toward us.


    One of the security guard immediately fired his pistol. The deafening sound was once again reverberated. It missed the target and at the same time made the shooter the focus of attention of the monster.


    That agitated monster jumped over tables and couches, going straight line toward the security guard. It was not fast, I thought it was a bit slow as a matter of fact, however it was definitely very focus. It crashed through some wooden tables and still went on the path.


    Looking at the destroyed tables, the guard supervisor, holding his pistol, was also shooting at the monster. He was more successful compared to his subordinate. His bullets hit the monster. That monster was slowed down to almost a stop. It was in obvious pain. However the supervisor seemed to have emptied his ammo, so he immediately reloaded.


    Then, another monster appeared at the broken kitchen door. It was obvious that at this time the loading area must have been broken through.


    By this time, a lot of people already got through the door to the emergency exit. I followed the crowd. Before turning toward the door, I slipped by and went through different path. I followed it up until in front of me was a small store. It sold apparels, bags and shoes. Usually it was frequented by hotel guests, tourists who needed certain things for special places that they weren''t originally planning to go. I remembered this place because Susan mentioned it once during our conversation.


    There were no one here. I looked around and found what I''m looking for. I took down a small size backpack from a display then laid it down side by side with my luggage. I moved several of my clothes and necessaties from my luggage to the backpack. I left everything else along with the luggage. There was no way I could run freely and safely with such a big luggage. I left all of my office stuff in it except for a usb where I always put backup of my work every night.


    I left the money for the bag on top of my luggage. Although the price of my laptop that I left behind alone could cover the price of the backpack I took, I did not feel too good just taking without paying anything at all.


    At that time I didn''t hear any yell or scream anymore. It seemed the people had already gone up. I had to get out of this hotel before it was overran by the monsters.


    I left the store and moved toward another back entrance. A hotel this big should have its own power generators for back up and that could lead to another exit.


    I found the entrance to the room and hurriedly entered it. It had short stairs going down. I looked around. Good things the light was still working so I did not end up in the dark. It was easy to see the other door. That should be the exit. I was happy and hurriedly walk toward it. However, when I got to the door, I was disappointed because it was locked.


    Well, it made sense. If it wasn''t locked it would be silly. Now I had to look for the key. It should be somewhere in the only office available in this area. So I made my way there.


    There was only one desk, several chairs, a table and a couple of lockers in the room. On the wall near the desk several sets of keys was hanged.


    "Gotcha!"


    One of them should be the key to unlock the exit door. I took all of them down and started to walk toward the door when suddenly a loud bang was heard.


    Someone was banging on the exit door. I stood frozen. That hard banging definitely was not a human. "What a great timing!" I cursed.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    I couldn''t go back inside the hotel since it should now be crawling with monsters who broke through the entrance door. The sound of banging was very loud and it was coming at fast irregular rhythm. I guessed there were more than one monster at the door.


    The banging was so loud I was afraid it would attract other monsters inside the hotel. But what could I do to prevent it? Almost nothing! The only thing I could do was to hide myself now. Without wasting any more time I crouched down behind the desk. I unsheathed my sword. It was the only thing that could be called a weapon here. It might not be in the quality of real sword used for combat but it would have to be sufficient for now. At least this sword was made to be used in a sport activity, not for decoration only, so it had some strength.


    The banging got louder and now mixed with the sound of metal creaking. Bombarded with this many strong hits, the door would not hold out for long. I did not think the monsters would have such strength. This kind of door, even 10 normal humans, wouldn''t be able to break it down without using some kind of tools.


    BANG!


    And then, the door was broken down.


    Since I was crouching down under the desk, I had no way of telling exactly how many monsters went through the door. I did hear the sound of their movements though. They were not subtle at all. Well, why would they need to be? One on one, they could butchered us human.


    The only thing that would tip the balance was if we use weapon. Long range one would be better, and as noiseless as possible. A bow came to mind. I looked at my sword, this was all I have right now. It had to suffice. I was glad that my grandfather liked swords. Imagine what would happen if he liked cooking instead?


    The sound of them moving from the exit door to the door leading to the inside of the hotel had started to subside. It seemed they had all gone through. I waited for a full minute before doing anything. Then slowly I tried to take a peek.


    It was empty.


    I gathered my courage and stood up from under the desk. As I was about to exit the small office, my eyes caught a movement. As fast as I could I slammed my body down the floor.


    Did it see me? I was sure that another one of them just appeared at the exit door. Not sure whether it saw me or not. I did not have the chance to go under the desk, which was at the far end of this small office, so right now I was crouching under the partition wall.


    There was sound of movements. The monster did not go to the door leading to hotel inside but it went nearer to the small office. It probably caught sight of me or my movement. That monster was moving faster as it reached in front of the small office. It should be very near to me now and it did not slow down.


    I was holding my breath. I felt like my heart was beating too loud. You see, I wasn''t someone particularly strong. I was fit, yes, since I liked and did sport, however, I was never the fighting kid. But I knew that I had to deal with this. There was no way it wouldn''t see me when it turned around. I couldn''t expect it to walk backward, could I?


    I saw its big ugly foot when it crossed the threshold of the partition wall. The big ugly foot with claws passed me by. It still did not see me.


    ''Now!''


    I braced myself and lifted myself up. The monster saw me jump from the corner of its eyes but it was too late for it. My body arched with my waist as my center and then my sword swung down. It came with every strength I got and sliced its neck.


    Unfortunately, the sword was not sharp enough to cut through it but the wound was long enough for blood to pour out like flood.


    "Zeeee...," the monster seemed shocked. Not only were the monster ugly, it even sounded awful. It tried to cover its wound, however I didn''t give it any chance. I swung my sword once more and this time it made a big wound in its chest.


    It growled and looked at me with savageness. I regretted not having sharper sword. At the same time I also suspected that the reason of my failure to cut through it twice was because the monster body was tougher than us human.


    Since the monster also had a humanoid physique, I then stabbed it at the place where the heart was for normal humans. This time I succeeded.


    The monster was staggering and then it fell down. A look of dissatisfaction was all on its face. Its savageness dimmed, its life gone.


    Then, at that time, an arm swung at me. I barely had enough time to throw myself on the floor and slided under the table.


    It was another one of the monster! How could I miss it?


    I blamed myself for this recklessness. My sword was still embedded on the first monster, and I had no weapon with me. The previous fight took a lot of courage on my part. My adrenaline was pumping wildly. I tried to steady myself to face this second monster.


    The monster leaped on the table. It growled at me, looking very mocking. It thoroughly looked down on me, like I was some kind of insect to it. It did not even care that I just killed one of its kind. There was no hatred in its eyes, I was simply not worthy. It only had a jeering face with saliva drooling down its jaw.


    The monster swung its arm downward. It was aiming to crush my head. I put my feet on the underside of the table and then used every strength I had to lift it up. The monster lost its balance and was thrown off the table. It scowled and landed upside down near the door.


    I picked up a chair and threw it at the monster. It was trying to stand up but still managed to block the chair with one arm. Even though it did block the chair but the monster seemed to get hurt by it.


    This told me something I suspected. The monsters might be strong but they were still flesh and bones. They felt pain!


    The monster being in pain gave me a little bit time. I stepped on the corpse of the first monster and pulled my sword. The second monster now already stood up and charged at me without delay. Although it did not move fast but because our distance was small it was covered in an instant. I swung my sword to its neck. The monster was not afraid at all and swung its hand.


    Clank! My sword met with the monster claws in the air.


    My hands went numb and trembling because of the impact. The sword was broken into two parts. The break was almost near the hilt.


    I was shocked to see this. The monster''s claws were comparable to metal? However the monster was not without damage, as well. It was holding its arm down so I could not see clearly how much damage did it suffer. The monster was growling in a low voice. It seemed the damage was not light.


    ''A chance! All or nothing!'' I said to myself.


    Before the monster was ready I charged ahead while holding what was left of my sword. The short part of the broken sword lodged in the monster''s neck. It screamed in pain and using a backhand hit me on the chest. I managed to block it, but still was thrown back and fell on the floor next to the corpse of the first monster.


    The pain was terrible. My arms felt like broken in pieces and my chest felt like getting hit by a boulder. I had trouble breathing from my nose and had to breath through my mouth. I tried to get up but the pain slowed me down a lot.


    The monster was pouring blood massively. It seemed that I hit an artery as brownish blood was flooding the monster body and clothes. The monster was swaying, probably lost balance because of losing so much blood at such a short time.


    It now looked at me with hatred. Now I was its enemy. This insect had hurt it.


    I gritted my teeth and snarled tauntingly, "Got you!"


    "Zeeeeee!"


    "Yeah! Screw you too!" a useless banter but I still did it anyway. It made me feel better.


    I managed to get up by holding on a chair. But the monster in front of me, despite bleeding profusely, scowled in madness and lunged at me. It went crazy and wanted to kill me with its dying strength. It wanted me to accompany it into the abyss of death. Disregarding the pain in my chest I pulled the chair and slammed it against the monster.


    The chair was smashed, broken by a swing of the monster''s arm, but it didn''t stop the beast. I fell down because I didn''t have any energy left. The monster also crashed into me, pinning me down. It wanted to claw me but the floor prevent this move and the beast was losing strength. It was still struggling to move though, so I swung my hand and stabbed the back of its neck with what was left of the chair on my hand.


    I could hear the monster low growl directly next to my ear before it changed into heavy sigh. Another muffled growl and then silent. It died.


    I had to get away from here as soon as possible before any more monster appeared. So I summoned my strength and tried to push it away. At that time the dark translucent marble-like thing emerged from the chest of the dead monster. Because of our close proximity, the marble-like thing directly touch my chest. I managed to push the beast away but, at that time, the marble-like thing detached from it.


    "What?" I was stunned when I saw the thing detached and fell on my chest.


    I grabbed it with my trembling hand and brought it close to my eyes. The look of this tiny translucent marble was fascinating. It felt like I was holding a rubbery ball. Certain aura was transmitted by it but I could not understand it. Neither could I continue to observe it because my hand was shaking so badly.


    I lost my strength and on the way to losing my consciousness. My body was limping down the floor. The translucent darkish marble slipped through my fingers. It fell down right into my opened mouth. I could not stop it. Well, I did not have enough energy to care. The marble melted right after touching my tongue.


    My body jerked slightly, and then I started floating in the air. I had no control of my body at all. In that instance a booming voice was suddenly heard in my head.


    "Human Shi Huicheng, you have open the first door to my realm. I am your god!"

 Chapter 6. A Novice in a Savage World

    The voice reverberated in my head. It was so clear yet at the same time felt so distant. I couldn''t make out whether the sound was that of male or female.


    And the voice claimed to be my god? For real?


    "Your world has fallen too deep into depravity, sin and arrogance. You think highly of yourself and worship false gods. Others have felt sick of you. Arrogant beings, doom has been casted onto your world. Your world has been merged with a savage world created solely for your destruction. You deserve it."


    What? I didn''t know what to think of it. I was about to open my mouth but, apparently, the god hadn''t finished.


    "But not everyone of you are sick and immoral. A few of you are still pure and kind. For the sake of these children of mine, I bestow this world a chance to survive. I have intervened as much as I can and made changes, now Doom is not absolute anymore. You can fight back and reclaim your world."


    "Human Shi Huicheng, you have opened the first door to my realm. I will grant you power. Choose well and travel the journey to prove your worthiness."


    At that instant my body felt warmth. The pain in my body was gone. I could feel something appeared on my left hand wrist. There was now three thin lines circling the wrist, like faint tattoes. I touched the lines and the voice reverberated again.


    "Human Shi Huicheng, those are my gift to those who open the first door to my realm. First line signify your strength. Second line your vitality, last line your agility. I will now grant you the knowledge to understand them," with that said I suddenly felt like something went through my head and a stream of light entered my mind.


    "Go and use this gift wisely," and, just like that, I felt emptiness surrounded me. I dropped down to the floor. The voice of the being claiming to be my god had now gone. But whoever that was, he or she left me with extraordinary stuff.


    I was no longer ordinary human.


    There were thin lines on my wrist. The thin lines had almost transparant color. It was very difficult to see clearly, even from such close range. I deduced it was because of my improved physique that I could see them a bit clearer. There was hint of transluscent white bar on each of the lines. When that transluscent white bar fully circled my wrist then I would increase to higher level in that spesific status line.


    I could now improve myself to become better human in three aspects. The strength line meant how strong my physical power was. The higher my strength was the more things I could achieve. I could hit harder, jump higher and lift heavier objects. It was basically an improvement to abilities using physical muscle power. The vitality line simply meant my overall stamina. It meant how long I could exert my strength or ran at full speed before I got tired. The agility line showed the improvement of my control and balance. In other words it meant how nimble and flexible I became.


    I almost could not believe what was happening to me. Well, the appearance of monsters like the ones I killed was not believable too. They were here nevertheless.


    Who was I to argue with a god anyway? Whatever this was, it meant I now have a better chance of survival and to reach my goal.


    Too bad I couldn''t ask any question. Whoever this being claiming to be god was, he or she sure loved to do a monologue. I was reminded of a certain superior I once had in a company I once worked for. What a great inspiration he was to our team. The monologue created fantastic team work, making sure we were always at the bottom of departmental performance in the company.


    I looked at the first monster corpse. The dark translucent marble still laid on top of its body. I took it and lifted it to my eye level, scrutinizing it.


    "So, this tiny thing is what I need to improve huh?" I said to myself. I opened my mouth and then swallowed that transluscent darkish tiny marble.


    As the marble entered my body, I was physically surrounded by a very vague glow. Like a very dimmed glow. A glow that only I could directly see because I did not see it on my reflection on a mirror nearby.


    I felt the energy. That feeling was like it was searching for a place to stay. With my mind I directed it to my strength status line. The energy then disperse and I could feel myself invigorated. The almost transparant white bar on my strength line was now a bit longer compared to the other two lines.


    "That''s how it works huh."


    The more the better then, I thought. I remembered those two corpses in front of the hotel entrance gate. They got these marbles as well. I was thinking about how to get to them. It would be a challenge considering now that I have no weapon.


    "Let''s see if there''s a chance from the outside," I decided. I picked up my backpack and headed out through the exit.


    The road behind the hotel was empty from any activity. It was originally not a big street and today it lost the chance to get busy since this Doom thing happened over night. Still, I had to be careful so I walked quite stealthily.


    As I walked on this empty street I felt quite wonderful. That god was not lying about the gift. I felt like a new man. I wondered what would happen if these thin lines had all the bars full. I looked forward to it.


    I paid attention to the surrounding area and crept toward the big road in front of the hotel. There was blood in every corner of the street but no actual body. Where did the bodies go?


    Then, I saw a movement inside a house across the road. Immediately, I took a cover. The house front door was broken. The second floor of the house had big glass windowed area. I was still on the road at the back of the hotel. Since it was not a large road, I could see silhouettes from the glass window.


    From the movements and silhouettes I could tell that there was a monster in the house and some indications that there were more than a person inside. Since there were more people than the monster, I was considering helping them. However, my not having weapon really made it hard for me to decide to help. I wasted a couple seconds before coming to my senses.


    I ran across the street and got inside the house immediately. I heard movements upstairs. I went to the kitchen and carefully open several drawers before I took out the sturdiest and biggest knife I could find. With this knife in hand I crept upstairs.


    Usually in movies, there was at least one step that caused creaking sound. This time, fortunately for me, there was no such such thing.


    When I arrived at the top of the stairs, what I saw almost make me puke. Bloody hell?


    I was stunned from fear. For a second, it''s like I lost control of my body and couldn''t move. I needed to calm myself lest I would be drown in my emotions.


    There on the floor was two human bodies. There was blood everywhere and some body parts of the two human were dismembered. They were dead. On the side of one of the body was a monster kneeling. It was clawing and gnawing on the body. It was busy feasting on its dead victim and wasn''t aware that I was on the stairs.


    ''This monster is eating!'' I shouted in my mind. It fed on us? So we were food for them? That''s why there were no dead bodies!


    Suddenly, this made me feel very angry.


    I didn''t know these people. I had no relation to them whatsoever. I wasn''t even a citizen of this country. However, we were all human. What I saw make me trembled. The god said we were being punished. The god was not kidding. We became livestocks!


    I was about to lunge at the beast with the knife when suddenly the monster were growling and shaking a bit.


    What the hell? I intensely stared. This was like what happened to me when I ate the marble from the dead monster. They could improve too? The god didn''t say anything about this. Then I remembered that the god wasn''t particularly open.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    If the monster could improve then how in the world would we human be able to survive? What kind of chance do we got when even without this gift the monsters were already more powerful than us?


    Was this the feeling when you thought you just got a decent raise of salary only to find out that others had received a lot more than you?


    ''Wait a minute... this monster is getting stronger! What am I doing standing still?'' I suddenly thought. This human-eating monster was getting its power up. I didn''t know how many times this monster had powered up but it wasn''t going to have more chance in the future. I wouldn''t allow it!


    Before the monster finished its power up I ran and charged at it. I plunged the knife directly at the back of the its neck.


    "Zreeee!" the monster screamed a bit before its sound became gargles. It twisted its body and swung its arm, hitting me on my right arm.


    "Ugh!" I was thrown to the back of the room. Damn it! This one was even stronger than the two I faced before. I thought I got a stronger but the pain was not getting lessen. My arm felt almost broken.


    The monster was trying to pull the knife out of its neck. I saw it and without minding the pain I got up just in time. The monster did get a hold of the knife but my kick landed on its head at the same time.


    The monster was thrown and slid on the floor which had become slippery because of blood from the two corpses. I didn''t want to give it any chance, no I couldn''t afford to give it a chance, so I rush forward, however the beast was not going down without a fight. It got up and staggeringly managed to block my fist. When the beast wanted to take a swing at me, I dodged.


    The dodging move hurt me more but I had to do it. The claws of the beast weren''t thing I could handle. I rolled back and created more distance between us. This one particular monster obviously had powered up, its perseverance was much better than those two before. Even with its neck fully pierced with a knife it still had the strength to fight on.


    At this time, I regretted not being an experienced fighter. I grew up preferring to use brain over brawl. My body ached and had trouble moving freely.


    The beast looked more and more wretched. The attack it made to me obviously costed the beast a lot of its stamina. It looked at me with savageness not unlike the first two monsters I killed. It sent chills up on my spine. That monster tried to move toward my direction.


    I searched around for weapon I could use but there was nothing of no real value near me.


    "Hrrr..," the monster slowly advanced. I had little confidence fighting empty handed against such a monster. While I was considering whether to throw the TV remote control or the bag of snack nearby it fell right in front of me.


    It died and I sighed relieve.


    I looked at the dead monster and shivered. I was too rushed. If I did not stabbed it first, I doubt I had the chance to kill it. I would have been dead instead. That god! What kind of chance was he or she gives to us?


    The marble appeared on top of the dead beast. I took it and put it in my mouth right away.


    My body started to tremble as I felt the energy flowing in me. There was a difference this time. This energy was definitely bigger than the two before. That wasn''t the only thing. I felt I could do it differently. I directed the energy to my strength line and vitality line. Just as I intended, both lines were raised.


    ''If the energy contained within is more then I can direct it to more than one status line. Interesting''.


    I could also find out how many people the monster had killed just by basing it on the the number of energy I could spread out. Wait a minute, it should not be the number of people this monster had killed but the number of people this monster had eaten.


    The thought that I could know how many people this monster had eaten appalled me. I''d rather not dwell on it.


    I could feel the improvement right away. I felt ecstatic. However, this time I told myself not to let it go to my head. This improvement was not enough to make me invincible. Not by a long shot. I had to be more careful next time.


    My clothes were now covered in blood. I should changed them. I took out my other clothes from my backpack. Looking at them I realized something. I didn''t have comfortable clothes, and also running shoes for that matter. This was supposed to be business trip. The clothes I was wearing now was the only set that close to being comfortable for casual wear.


    I took a look at one of the dead human. From the remains, he was obviously a man. I could not easily tell his size since his body has been ravaged. I turned away, afraid I would throw up if I see more.


    I saw the picture hanging on the wall. At a glance, it seemed the man was about my size, more or less. Picture could lie so I couldn''t be sure. They were husband and wife, and only the two of from the look of the picture. Meaning that they didn''t have a child. They should be pretty well off to be able to stay in a house this size in the center of the city. But all that money meant nothing now. Even a good solid door could not stop the monster from barging in and slew them.


    I said to the direction of the two corpses, "I''m sorry I was late to help you."


    I went into their room. From the closet I chose a set of clothes. I thought he was my size but apparently he was slightly smaller. The shirt I choose was the biggest one available. I remembered not having the chance to take a shower this morning so I took this chance to clean myself a bit, including shaving. I took another set of clothes and put it inside my backpack. I went to the kitchen and ate a slice of bread, also grabbed a bottle of water and took another knife with me.


    It didn''t take long for me to get out of the house. I was only there for no more than twenty minutes.


    I was about to head to my original target, which was the two monster corpses, when I saw several movements. There were more monster going to the hotel. Their eyes glaring to every corner of the street, looking for more food.


    So much for the freebies, I thought. It was akin to suicide if I still went there so I decided to forgo the two marbles.


    "Need to find weapon and food," I said to myself. I started moving through the street.


    I thought about taking a vehicle but finally decided against it. I still remembered how easy the sound of pistols attracted more monsters to the hotel. For now I had to rely on walking only.


    Then I saw a police station about several hundred meters from where I was.


    ''There should be weapons in there,'' I told myself. I wasn''t thinking about firearms since the noise was a big no no. I was thinking more or less about real combat knife. Currently what I had now was only a kitchen knife. Preferably, if available, some kind of sword would be good though I did not think I would find such one in a police station.


    I walked through the street, minding the surrounding carefully and keeping in mind that one false move could cost me my life. On the buildings, there were some movements. I became alert. Surveying those buildings, I finally saw people peeping out of the windows. They were afraid and cautious, just like me.


    Because of the need to be vigilant, it took me some time before finally reaching the police station. I looked around and saw no one on the street. No human, no monsters. Then I pushed the door to police station open.


    I stood very still at this very moment. Two people, police officers judging from their uniforms, were holding guns pointed at me. They were visibly trembling.

 Chapter 7. Were Human

    "Don''t shoot," I said while holding my hands up, "I''m human."


    The two policemen looked at me, confused. They didn''t seem to understand what I said, however they lowered their guns nevertheless. They said something in Korean. Now it''s me who was unable to understand what they said.


    I saw several people peeking from behind a wall to the other room. They were probably survivors that were able to hide inside this police station when things started to get chaotic this morning.


    One of the policeman said something to me to which I couldn''t even make a word out while pointing at door.


    "Close the door," someone finally said it in English, something I could understand. He was a young boy, probably not even 10 years old. He was standing in front of a lady whom I guess should be his mother judging from their similarity.


    "Right," I replied. I entered the station completely and let the swing door close itself.


    The police said something and the boy translated again, "Sit down there."


    I followed their instruction. Now I got to see the others that were hiding in the other room before. Aside from the boy, there were two elderlies, three women and two other children. The mothers were probably bringing their children to school when all these happened. The elderlies were probably going on their morning exercise. The two policemen must''ve been on night duty the night before and didn''t get the chance to go home.


    "Mister, where are you from?" the boy asked in place of the police.


    "Wait a minute," I took out my passport and showed it to them. The older policeman took it and flipped through it. He should be the supervisor. After reading a while he gave it back to me.


    When the older policeman handed my passport back he gave me a difficult-to-decipher expression.


    "Do you know how to get to airport?" I didn''t want to ask complicated question. Since my current goal was to get home, airport was an important part of my plan.


    The older policeman said something. The boy relayed to me, "Nothing works now. No transportation."


    "I need to go home. My family is waiting for me."


    "All of us want to go home as well," the policeman said through the boy.


    I looked at them. All of them. They had worry, fear and confusion all mixed on their faces. I knew those feelings. Those were my feelings as well. I totally forgot about it. Being a foreigner in this city and country somehow clouded my thought and made me think I was the only one feeling that way. Whatever happening now was happening to everyone, no matter who or where they were.


    The policemen must had family that they couldn''t get in touch of. The elderlies and the three pairs of mother children must also had other family member and were separated from them too. Everybody had someone or something they wanted to find out about.


    "What do you think I should do now?" I asked.


    They were talking amongst themselves. There seemed to be disagreement but the older police made the final words that the boy translated for me, "Wait for a while. Our military will come save us."


    I was silenced. They still believed that?


    This city, a capital of a nation, had been overrun by monsters for half a day but there was no military presence of any kind in sight. I didn''t want to dampen the morale of people in this police station so I did not tell them my honest opinion.


    In the middle of our silence we heard some scream. It was from outside. Although South Korea was a country notable for their many famous TV series, they couldn''t have been shooting a drama right now. So I presumed it was someone yelling for help.


    We hurried to the door. From there we could see four people running away from two monsters. These people was running as hard as they could and was able to keep the distance. However, one of them tripped and fell down.


    It was a young girl. An older girl, probably her sister judging from the way they called each other, took her hand and tried to lift her up. The younger one seemed to have twisted her ankle. She looked so frightened and was trembling. It took her a few seconds to stand up and started moving again. The other two were running without stopping and their direction was exactly this police station.


    Seeing that, the two policemen pull out their guns. They stood by the opened front door. When I saw them trying to aim at the monster I understood what they were about to do.


    "Don''t shoot! The sound will make more of them come!" I hurriedly said. The boy immediately told the policemen.


    The two policemen looked at each other. They were at lost of what to do. The two people running in front would be able to reach the police station with enough time to spare but the two girls in the back would not. The monster would reached them long before that.


    The two girls at the back were trying to run faster but it wasn''t easy with one of them being injured. The people in police station were watching with horror. Those girls would not make it. The two policemen gritted their teeth and both grabbed their batons.


    When I saw the two policemen ran toward the two young girls, I immediatelly took my kitchen knife out and followed behind them.


    The policemen yelled something. If I had to guess, it must be some kind of threat to the monsters. Unfortunately for them it didn''t have any effect, not even the slightest. If I, a human, didn''t understand it how would strange monsters understood it? Even if, by some weird chance, the monsters understood it, they wouldn''t be fazed.


    "Zrreeeeeee!" the monsters roared. That''s about all the conversation the policemen and the monsters would ever have.


    The monsters'' expressions were that of savageness and total ridicule. That was enough to let me understand how they would treat the policemen''s threat. Obviously, the monsters were still running toward the two girls and they were catching up even with their lower speed. It didn''t look good for the two girls.


    The people in the police station were yelling to give support for the four people. I felt much aggravation because of these people. Didn''t I just tell them that noise attracted the monsters?


    The first two girls reached the police station soon. Right about that time the policemen also reached the two attacking monsters.


    I was right behind the two policemen and it was clear to me that these two were scared. However, despite their own fear, they dutifully did their job.


    "YAH!"


    The two parties met and the policemen swung their batons with all their might. One of the monster blocked it and the other completely ignored it. The onlookers were gasping, the baton didn''t do what it was supposed to do.


    The older policeman whose baton was blocked try to hit again. The monster instead swung its arm. The baton met with the arm and it flew away. The older policeman was pale, his hand was trembling from what I thought was numbness.


    The other policeman was not in any better position. The monster ignored his hit and punch him in the chest instead. He was thrown down and coughing blood in that instant. He was lucky that the monster''s punch power had been reduced by his baton attack.


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    The two monsters were growling at the two policemen, showing their sharp teeth, feeling superior. The shiny jagged teeth were glistening with saliva. The two policemen froze. It was their first time facing the monster directly and up this close.


    Their batons were not effective at all and now they were cornered. At this crucial time their brain, unfortunately, went blank too. They even forgot that they had firearms. All they saw were the two monsters ready to feast on them and the claws that were ready to rip them apart.


    "Hah!" My kick landed on head of one of the monster. The monster lost its balance and bumped on the other one.


    I jumped again and this time it wasn''t to kick. Right away, I stabbed the monster nearest to me. My kitchen knife landed on its chest with much difficulty. This was a quality kitchen knife. I thought I saw a commercial once that this kind of knife could chop chicken bones easily. Apparently the skin of this monster was tougher than chicken bones.


    When I pulled the knife out, dark brown blood was pouring. The monster roared in pain and was swaying. Life was diminishing from this monster. This monster wasn''t as strong as the one I ambushed in a house before.


    "Get back!" I yelled at the two policemen. I didn''t know whether they understand or not. I just pointed at the station. After that, I was focusing on the other monster. It now had made me as its main target.


    The monster swung its arm at me. I was ready and had time to meet the monster''s arm with my knife. Its arm was cut open. But the monster threw a backhand at me in response. This simple but powerful backhand from the monster managed to slap the knife out of my hand.


    Darn, it still hurt so much! I cursed. My hand was trembling slightly.


    "What are you doing? Get out of here!" I again yelled at the two policemen. They were just watching with silliness on their faces. The people in police station too. The two policemen finally regained their senses and got up. The older one grabbed the younger one who had blood trickling on his lips. But before they went back to the police station, he threw his knife to me.


    Now this was a real combat knife! I accepted it with much delight.


    The monster was angry and it was swinging the other hand wildly. Instead of dodging away, I stepped forward and blocked it with my arm. The monster was perplexed that I was bloking it with my own bare arm.


    It hurt so much but I must have this chance! I thrusted the police knife toward its belly. I had no hesitation at all and focused all my concentration to hit it. It landed perfecly. The knife embedded itself deep into the monster''s gut. I twisted the knife handle.


    "Zreee!" the monster gave a loud grunt. It was trembling badly with blood pouring from its stomach. It wanted to hit me again but life was seeping out of it. It was shaking badly and then fell.


    All the people at the police station were seeing all this with wide eye. I didn''t pay much attention to them before but then I saw how they reacted to the two corpses of the monsters. They were obviously still startled. I motioned to them to go inside the station while I dragged the two corpses to a nearby alley.


    On the alley, I took the two marbles coming out of those two and ate them right away. This time I watched as my strength and agility lines were improving. This really put a smile on my face.


    I waited a bit and checked the surrounding to make sure no monster appeared because of the commotion. After I was sure I ran to the police station. We were lucky all those incessant screams did not create more trouble. When I entered the station the people were waiting for me. They looked at me with awed expression.


    "What is it?" I asked the kid.


    The boy said with fascination written on his eyes, "Mister, you are very strong."


    "Me?" I looked at him. And then looked at the faces of the others. Now I understood a bit.


    The older policeman said through the boy, "We didn''t know you are an expert martial artist. Thank you for saving us."


    "Ah, well, don''t mention it," I said. It was better that they thought that I was an expert martial artist than being some abnormal human. I did not think explaining about some god speaking inside my head would help.


    They were actually not treating me bad earlier but now they showed a lot more respect.


    "You said you want to go back to your country, right? I have to show you something," the older policeman said. Of course through the boy.


    He brought me to one of the desk. There was a laptop on the desk. He typed something and then turned the laptop screen to face me.


    "What is this?" in front of me was some kind of map. I felt familiarity but could not be sure.


    "This is a captured picture of Asia we received in our police network this morning before the internet went down," explained the older policeman.


    "This.. is.. Asia?" I could not believe my eyes. This was my world now?


    I could see that there really was some similarity. But it had grown. To be exact this map looked like our old world had some additional lands. Many additional lands. The lands replaced what was previously sea, lake or anything with water before. It wasn''t like every single sea and ocean were replaced by lands but I roughly calculated that our world now had equal amount of land and sea. That was why, despite having some similarity, I couldn''t right away put them together.


    "How do you get this picture?" I asked him.


    "This was sent by the American. This picture was taken by their satelite," said the older policeman.


    "The American?" I thought of something. If the American got to know about this change earlier, could they have managed to prepare? I hoped they really had time to mount a resistance.


    I always thought that we were ambushed and thus had no chance. But if we somewhat could have some counteraction, should we not be able to change the outcome? From what I saw until now the monsters, though abnormally much stronger than us human, didn''t use weaponry and they could be killed even with simple weapon, like knife.


    The way that god said it made me believe that we didn''t have a chance at all before he or she butted in. Why was that?


    "What are these dots?" I pointed several area that have white dots.


    "That''s usually city lights," the older policeman replied.


    No way! Those were lights? I felt chills run down my spine. These dots existed not only in several areas with known big cities but also within the new lands. And the dots on the new lands were more dense and wider compared to our known cities. I didn''t have a good feeling about this. I said nothing to the older policeman, though. If he hadn''t realized this by himself, then there was no need to cause him panic.

 Chapter 8. What a Guy

    "His name is Lt. Yoon Heeseung," said the boy while pointing at the older policeman, "My name is Han Wonseok."


    "Phineas Shi," I introduced myself. Well, they should''ve known it from my passport.


    "Mister Shi, you should stay here today and rest. Tomorrow everything will be ok. You can go home then," said Lt. Yoon Heeseung.


    I nodded politely. It was afternoon already and it was quite a day for me and everyone. In one day I changed from being an ordinary office worker to killer of monsters. And in truth I was a bit tired too. Not physically, it was more mentally.


    The people here looked happy when I nodded. They had been worried and frightened all this while, I could see they now changed to somewhat better expressions.


    I told Lt. Yoon Heeseung that I want to get some rest. He instructed me to sleep on the nap room inside and I wouldn''t be disturbed. Following his suggestion I went there, lied down on the small bedding.


    After about three hours I woke up, feeling refreshed.


    I washed my face on the sink and went out of the nap room. I found them gathering at the front area. There were many seats there so that was where everyone be.


    "Mister Shi, you should eat this," one of the elderly came and said to me with the help of Little Han Wonseok. She handed over a bread to me. The bread was inside a very nice plastic cover, looking downtrodden but still somewhat delectable. To be honest, to me anything looked delicious now that I was hungry.


    I said my thanks and took the bread. When I was about to eat it I saw Han Wonseok gulping down. The boy looked hungry so I offered the bread to him.


    "No.. no.. mister Shi, you eat," the boy shook his head.


    I laughed. The boy was obviously hungry, so why the refusal? I put the bread in his hand. He looked at it with doubt.


    "You haven''t eat anything since morning right?" I was guessing.


    He nodded.


    "Then eat it."


    The elder took the bread from the boy and gave it back to me. She was giving Han Wonseok a stern look. I had to be blind not to see it. I glanced a look and immediately understood the reason.


    "Lt. Yoon, may I talk to you for a second?" I asked to the older policeman. He went over with Han Wonseok. I brought them to the small office.


    "What is it, Mr. Shi?" asked Lt. Yoon Heeseung.


    "I need to borrow your police knife," I told him.


    "My knife? Well, sure, but... what do you need them for?"


    "I need to go out and find some provisions for my journey tomorrow," I honestly told him.


    "Provision? Where? Mr. Shi are planning to steal?" he looked at me with a troubled look. Woah, his police radar was good. Or was I too obvious?


    I faked an honest smile, "Of course not. I''m going to buy them. Is there any place selling food near here?"


    This Lt. Yoon, what a guy. His world ended but the man was still morally upright. I could not blame him though. He was, after all, a police officer. He really seemed to believe that his country military will be able to solve this massive problem. That''s probably why he still maintained his conduct properly.


    "There''s a 7-Eleven nearby. Just near the corner of this street. But it''s dangerous outside now. We should wait for tomorrow when things get better," he told me.


    "It''s going to be alright. I like to get ready ahead of time," I told him. "And I''m going alone."


    "Alone? Are you sure?" there was relieved in his tone. He thought I asked him to go with me.


    "Yes. You need to be here to protect everyone," I bullshitted him.


    He nodded in agreement, my reason was solid. There were only two cops here and one of them was hurt. He was indeed needed here. He took a key from his desk and open a locked cabinet. When he opened it, I got to see what was inside. It was a weapon and ammunition storage. There were a few guns there. He took out a spare knife with its scabbard and gave them to me. While receiving it, I also pointed to a baton.


    "Can I borrow that too?" I asked.


    "Sure," Lt. Yoon replied. He handed me the baton. "I don''t think it''s good enough against the monster though."


    He''s right. Blunt weapons weren''t good enough against such monster. The reason for it was our disproportional difference in strength level. I wouldn''t use the baton to beat the monster though, it''s just an extra protection.


    "I''m set. I''ll set off now," I grabbed my backpack, took out my clothes and stuff, and then carried the empty backpack with me. The other people were looking with bewilderement at my sudden departure. One of the young girl even grab my hand and said something in Korean so fast that I totally didn''t understand.


    I didn''t wait for little Han to translate. My reply to her was, "I''ll be right back."


    Then I added, telling Lt. Yoon, "If I don''t come back, don''t try to find me."


    Having said that I left the police station and headed to the direction I was given. It was not a long distance, only several hundred meters. However, only after walking a while I saw movements from the corner of my eyes. I hurriedly found a little secluded space and hid myself there.


    Was I discovered? Were they paying attention to the police station?


    I didn''t know the answer, however it was a fact that right at this moment three monsters came out of shadows and directly looking at my direction. They knew my hiding place and went after me.


    ''No kidding'', I thought to myself. ''This isn''t good.''


    This noon, when I defeated previous two monsters, it''s because there were distractions. Those two monsters were paying full attention to the two police officers who looked more attention grabbing than the inconspicuous me. But now, I was alone. I was the star of their attention, their early dinner.


    Knowing full well that I had been spotted, I left the secluded space. I ran toward a small alley, testing to open several doors. They followed me, as expected. On the alley, I kept running until I found a door I could open. I entered it without a second thought. Right now, my only chance would be to force them to face me one on one and a door would help me achieve that.


    "Rarrrr!" since I didn''t close the door, the monsters could see me inside.


    The first monster got in and I directly stabbed my knife into his heart, or so I thought where its heart would be in using our physiology as reference.


    "Just as I thought, not so smart, huh!"


    My speed was faster and I was ready, that monster didn''t get the chance to block it. It did try but failed miserably. It wailed in pain and tried to catch my arm. But I already pulled back. The monster was getting pulled as well. I kicked it away. It fell to the side, still wailing.


    The second monster lunged at me but I was already prepared. My baton met with its claws.


    "Skreeee!" it shouted something, angrily. The monster was angry because it could not finish me in one move. My hand was shaking. Even with my upgraded strength and the help of the police baton I still felt pain by direct clash like this.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    The monster sent its claws to my head. With the baton on my left hand I blocked it again. *Dang*


    "Zeeee!" the third monster were by the door now. I knew I should get rid of the second monster as soon as possible. My knife slashed at the second monster''s neck when it was still staggering. Blood was pouring from the neck wound but that second monster still stood, admittably wobbly. I kicked it toward the third monster. This made the third monster''s advance halted.


    When the second monster was trying to cover its wound, it was my turn to lunge at it. The knife went through its chest and then I dragged the knife down, trying to cut more of its flesh. It only sliced through slightly more than the kitchen knife did.


    "ZEEE!" the second monster was screaming in pain. Its life force dwindled rapidly.


    The third monster was mad that it was blocked. It didn''t care whether the second monster died or live. By itself the third monster swiped the second monster away, with my knife still lodged in.


    "Damn!" before that third and only monster jumped at me I immediately ran toward the now dead second monster. As I started to move to retrieve the police knife the monster swung it''s arm in my direction, forcing me to dodge.


    The monster swung its arm again, and again. Three consecutive times but they all missed. I dodged them all. Now I found having better agility really helped. Even though it wasn''t thoroughly effortless for me to do all that, but still, it''s far better than my normal body before the changes.


    I calmed down a lot after realizing this. On the contrary, the last monster was enraged. It kept swinging its arm endlessly. It was like raining of claws. I didn''t want to drag time and had a stamina contest with the monster.


    Truthfully speaking I didn''t feel I could win in terms of stamina. What I had was my strength and agility. I was still weaker than the monster, judging from the last clash with the second monster, but I was definitely faster.


    I never like fighting but now I really appreciate the time I spent with my grandfather accompanying him practice. Despite not having experience in real fights before the Doom, I could fully utilizing my agility to dodge and get close to the monster.


    Whack! My baton hit the beast on its chin. I didn''t stop and waste the momentum. My second and third hits landed flat on its wretched face. My fourth and fifth hits landed on the each side of the monster''s temple.


    That last monster lost balance and landed on its back, growling. It wouldn''t stay there for long so I swiftly took that chance to grab my knife from the dead second monster.


    "Zeeeee!" just as I pulled my knife, that third monster roared.


    "Noisy!" with the knife on my hand I leapt on the third monster and stabbed its neck mercilessly. The monster stared at me with so much rage. I stared back.


    ''Darn you! I was the one who should be in rage. You monster trespassed our world! You were like a robber coming into my house to murder and yet you dared give me that look?''


    The look that monster gave me evoked my fury. I sliced further, grinding my knife till it met with bone. I gritted my teeth and forcefully slicing it. The monster made a gurgling sound as its throat was filled by its own blood. It didn''t stay like that for long, it died soon enough.


    I looked at the three dead monsters and sighed. Good thing I had borrowed the police knife and baton. Real weapons really made the difference. And of course, limiting the fight to one on one was the correct strategy to go with.


    I took those three tiny translucent marbles and ate them right away. The energy swirling in my body felt wonderful. I decided to improve my strength this time. With improved strength, I could deliver more powerful strikes and ensured my attack goes through the monster''s thick skin.


    After taking the knife and the baton, I headed outside. After checking the surrounding for some time, I decided to run this time, forgoing half of my earlier prudence. The store was already close within my sight so I reached it in a short time.


    Inside the store I found no one at the cashier. I checked the back room, it was also empty. I hurriedly grabbed some food on the display and on the cooler before putting them on a paper bag and then stuff it on my backpack. The bag was full in no time, it was only a small backpack, not capable of holding much.


    When I was about to leave, I remembered Lt. Yoon face. What a guy. I sighed and then took out some cash from my wallet and left them on the counter.


    "This should covered it."


    Before I went out again, I checked the situation on the road from the windows. Right away, I saw monsters on the street.


    ''Great!'' fortunately, I managed to hide myself before they saw me. The door to this store was see-through glass after all. At a glance, there were more than ten of them. I crouched down lower than the upper threshold of the displayed merchandise. There were a few narrow openings through which I could see the outside.


    There were exactly twelve monsters roaming. At least those were what I could see. I didn''t know how many that were hidden from my line of sight. There''s no way I could survive from this many monsters in a fight.


    That was not what startled me though. It was a presence among the monsters that made me pay special attention. This particular monster wasn''t dissimilar to the others. Its physical build was still the same but the attitude of the others was obviously either fear or reverence to this one.


    One thing was different to the other monster from what I could notice, though. It was the eyes of this special one. They were yellow.


    Were they contact lenses? I meant I knew that there were colored contact lenses out there. The thought only passed my mind for a second and it already felt silly.


    I felt it was lucky for me not getting caught by their sight. Without mentioning the yellow-eyed monster, I couldn''t even survive the onslaught of the other eleven.


    The monsters were attacking every store and offices, in a pack of two or three. On one of the building they found a couple of humans. The human, from the look of their uniforms, were probably nightwatchmen of a building. They were thrown out into the street by the monster. I didn''t have to guess what they were going to do with them.


    The yellow-eyed monster stood in front of them. I could see how frightened they look. The other monsters were encircling them, shouting words I didn''t understand. It didn''t last long. The monsters suddenly stop when the yellow-eyed one made a motion to them.


    One of the human suddenly moved forward. On his hand was knife. I praised the timing of this guy. ''Good!''. There was no way I could have done it better. It''s obvious that he was more experienced in fighting than me. The knife met directly on the body of the yellow-eyed monster.


    ''What the hell?'' I was shocked. The knife didn''t penetrate the yellow-eyed''s belly.

 Chapter 9. The Yellow Thing

    Even though it wasn''t a military knife, it was still a sturdy knife. The hit was delivered accurately to the belly of the monster. And it failed? How was that possible? Did this yellow-eyed one has thicker skin than the other monsters?


    The knife fell and the man slumped on the floor. Desperation showed on his face. It was his best chance and it failed.


    For this to make sense, I was thinking that maybe it''s because this man''s strength was far to weak compared to the yellow-eyed monster. The knife attack he delivered didn''t have enough force. Yeah, that should be it.


    The yellow-eyed grinned at him, or at least I thought it was a grin. Then suddenly, very fast, its tongue shot out and pierced under the chest of the knife owner. When the tongue retracted, it was encircling a heart. A bloodied and still beating human heart! Then, without pause the yellow-eyed monster swallowed that bloodied heart. The owner of the heart saw his own heart was eaten while life seeped out of his body.


    The other man saw this and was paralysed. In a few seconds, it was his turn. The same thing happened again. The heart was taken out, leaving the body lifeless on the ground.


    The yellow-eyed signaled to the other monsters after he finished eating two human hearts. After this signal came, the other monsters were gathering and feasting on the corpses. I did not dare to look for fear of vomiting.


    So, the heart was the precious one? The yellow-eyed took only the hearts but left the other parts for his brethren. And to those other monsters, the other parts of human body was still important for their improvement? Or was it only for hunger?


    I didn''t know the answer to all my questions and wasn''t keen to find out about it either. One thing I was glad of was that I didn''t have to eat the monster''s body to improve. Simply imagining eating those filthy monsters was already vomit-inducing.


    I got to get out of here and hurried back to the police station. The monster had been targeting the stores or offices that have lighting in. There was virtually no chance for Lt. Yoon, Little Woonseok and the others to survive attack from this group of monsters.


    I crawled on the floor, heading to the back room. From the back room, I found a door and it could be unlocked from inside. From the look of it the previous people must have used this door to escape. I closed the door right at the moment I heard the front door was broken down. Did they see me?


    I looked around and found my orientation. With the sun as good as out, it wasn''t easy. Especially the fact that I wasn''t familiar with this place. Fortunately, the road wasn''t complex nor the distance great. I ran as fast as I could and at some point of time I passed the small road.


    Using the main road I reached my destination. I knocked on the door of the police station. Lt. Yoon peeked and confirmed it was me before he unlocked the door and let me in.


    The others were visibly relieved when they saw me. I hated to be the bearer of bad news but it was better than to be slaughtered. They had to know.


    With the assistance of Little Han Wonseok I told them to turn all the lighting off and retreated to the back room. The people were wondering why but I didn''t bother to give them lengthy explanation. I simply told them to listen because it was the only chance we have to survive.


    Looking at my seriousness Lt. Yoon didn''t waste time, he ushered everyone to the room at the back. We locked every door and turned every light off.


    It was like suddenly the police station became a graveyard. Only Lt. Yoon and me standing near the locked front door.


    It wasn''t long after we turned off the lights that the group of monsters were within sight, the lieutenant was trembling. I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him down. It did not help much as he was too frightened. He was reminded of how close he was to dying when facing only a couple of monsters. Now, there were a bunch of them outside. When the lieutenant hung his head down, I knew he had suddenly understood that help from the military was a wishful thinking.


    Just as I deduced, the horde didn''t pay attention to places without lighting and sound. They seemed to assume there was no human inside dark and noiseless buildings. However, they were going with their own pace and were not in a hurry. Their slowness was a torture to us. It affected me, it affected Lt. Yoon more, and I guessed it affected the people in the back room even more.


    When the horde had gone out of sight the lieutenant and I went inside and joined the people in the back room. They have been anxious to know what exactly happened. The lieutenant explained to them what we saw.


    It was dark, with only scattered light from the street lighting and moon, so I couldn''t clearly see the changes on their faces. After the explanation from the lieutenant came to an end, there was only silence in the room. Everybody seemed to be carried away by their own thoughts. The mothers were holding their children tighter, the young girls started sobbing and the elderlies were praying.


    I decided not to tell them about the yellow-eyed monster. Even the ordinary monster was too much for them to handle, why should they worry about the more stronger one?


    I handed the food I bought from the store. They were hungry but some of them seemed to have lost their appetite. The children were the only ones eating without much thinking, Little Han included. I wasn''t good at consoling or a pep talk, I didn''t know what I could say to them so I just stayed silent.


    The night went by slowly without much conversation in this police station. I closed my eyes while sitting on one of the chairs in the waiting room. That''s how I rested for the night.


    When morning came, I had already prepared my backpack. The others saw me but said nothing much. They knew that even with me around, facing such calamity was hopeless.


    "Lt. Yoon, Wonseok, everybody. I have to go now," I said to them.


    One of the elderly held my hand and nodded her head. She said something that Wonseok later translated, "Be safe. Your family is waiting for you. Good luck."


    The others also one by one shook my hand and wishing me luck. Some, like the girls I helped save and the children, even hugged me. And in the end Lt. Yoon handed me a police knife and a baton. He said they were for my protection. Glad he didn''t charge me money for them.


    I looked at their faces, said my goodbye and then left.


    I ran toward the direction of 7-Eleven store where I got the provisions yesterday. The convenience store itself wasn''t my target. It was another building some distance away across the street that I spotted. It was a bigger and taller building with large words that I couldn''t spell. We passed this building many times on the trip from the office to our hotel and I caught a glimpse of what this building was about. It was a department store.


    Needless to say, I was being very careful on my journey. After seeing the horde of monsters last night, I was sure that they weren''t the only group out here. The white dots on the map gave me some understanding that we, human, weren''t only out powered but also outnumbered.


    Because I was being careful, I was slow. I didn''t cover much in ten minutes. But my carefulness was with merit. I met with several monsters roaming the street in a group of two or three and was able to avoid them every time. The last time I was lucky to be able to kill three of them without me suffering any damage. But that wasn''t something I should boast about.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I had to go back to my grandparents. To achieve that goal, I had to make it out of here alive and if that meant I have to creep around those groups of monsters cowardly, I''d do that.


    Finally, I reached my destination. Feeling safe I entered the big department store through its broken entrance gate. This place should have everything I need.


    Once inside I searched around and, just my luck would have it, found what I was looking for. A certain well-known brand of shoe store. It was really uncomfortable for me to run and fight using my working shoes.


    I crept my way through the area. There was some blood stain on the floor of the main path. It''s not a lot because when the change happened the store was not open yet. The blood most probably belonged to nightwatchmen or cleaning service staff.


    This store had many juicy looking shoes that I immediately attracted to. I calmed myself so I wouldn''t go on a shoe rampage. I tried on several shoes my size and finally decided on a pair of cross training shoes. Against my office shoes it was incomparably comfortable to walk and fit for running. This was enough for me.


    Though the department store seemed to be empty, I still tried to be as quiet as possible. The monsters were never lurking. They were always roaming. Since they were strong and numerous, they probably thought they were entitled to be arrogant and confident. Or perhaps, they were not built to think. Anyway, it made it easier for me to hide if I remained quiet.


    I found my next target on the next floor. It was a clothing area. I changed my current garments to something more comfortable for me to easily move around. I took additional two sets of clothes with me too. Except for shoes, I didn''t care about any other fashion. My only concern was to find something comfortable and convenient. And less conspicuous color too, though to be honest I didn''t even know whether they could differentiate color or not.


    It was close to summer, so jacket wasn''t really needed but I took one nevertheless. Just in case of rain or if I needed to spend the night in an open space.


    From the clothing area I went to other places. I took, or borrowed, things such as flashlight, batteries, rope, hat, sport water bottle, binoculars and others. Anything that I figured would help on my journey.


    I went to the food area and got myself something to eat. Some people, given so much free choices, would be confused of what to eat. Not me, I was never a picky eater so it was easy for me. Yesterday, even a bread looked tasty to me. I also got some dry rations such as energy bars and crackers for the road. I was about to grab a few medications and vitamins from the pharmacy but, no, it didn''t make sense. Being an Acolyte, I couldn''t be healthier now.


    My backpack was already bursting full now, some things could not fit in. This prompted me to change the backpack to a larger size. I found a medium size, sturdy backpack, then moved everything from my small backpack to this new medium size one.


    Believing that I got everything set, I left the department store. Since I set out very early from the police station, it could still be considered morning now.


    Based on the information I got from Lt. Yoon Heeseung I moved east toward the airport. I walked about a couple of kilometers when I finally decided that the road was too far to be covered by foot.


    Yes, I knew it was dangerous but I still made the bold decision. The noise car made would attract the monsters, however, at the same time the longer I was on the road the more unknown variables could sprang up. It''s really to choose between the lesser of two evils. When I found an abandoned car with key inside, I took it right away.


    It was a foreign brand car, with automatic transmission, and the best thing was that it has GPS navigation system. Too bad that the GPS navigation system was configured using Korean. However, it didn''t take long for me to set it up. It''s because there was a symbol of airplane on the display. The system gave me a selection. I chose the first and it showed the way to the eastern part of Seoul. There were English words written below the Korean. Incheon International.


    Yay! That''s it! That''s my destination. I drove away at high speed.


    The area was practically a dead zone of silence and, because of that, the sound of this car, even though it was only a small-engine car with minimal power, attracted some attention. Monsters were emerging from buildings alongside the road I was taking. I paid no attention to them. Most, if not all, could not do anything to me anyway since they were slower than a car.


    There were a few monsters attempted to block my path but I simply ran over it. The monster''s claws were really strong. They might not be able to stop the car but they were able to wreck the side of the car when I passed by. Ignoring it was my choice of action. And as for the monster that came out after my car pass by, they wouldn''t be able catch up with their speed.


    It seemed like I was not the only one thinking about speeding through the monsters. There were several others too, driving either cars or motorcycles. But the motorcycles were often got whacked by the swinging arm of the monsters.


    I had killed more than ten monsters by running over them. I didn''t bother to stop to take the translucent marbles. I didn''t have the balls. I could only feel hurt for such being a waste, but I valued my life more.


    I entered the highway and was now side-by-side with Han river. What was originally a peaceful and pretty river was now giving me a different feeling. It was like it was out of this world. It was surreal to see the lively and bustling Seoul became like this. There was no more of that peaceful world. Desolate feeling loomed over me.


    There were no monsters on the highway so my journey was smoother than I expected. After a short time driving on this highway, the GPS showed that I had to get off soon. Before that, I decided to stop and take a look around for a while. I parked on the side and took out my drink.


    One full day had passed since the start of the doom. I thought about my grandparents. How were they doing? I had no way to contact them now and it was driving me crazy.


    Yesterday, for the first time in my whole life, I put my life in danger for strangers. Why did I do that? I never had heroic tendency. I was definitely not a saint. I''d rather gobbled up all those tiny marbles to make myself stronger than to share it. Only by getting stronger would my chance to survive and find my grandparents increased.


    ''Ah, my grandparents''. Well, I guessed I know the reason now. I saw them through the elders. It made me feel anxious and impatient at the same time. I hated to think about how minuscule the chance for my grandparents to survive. I suppressed my feeling and firmed my resolution. I just had to reach home soon and then I could be with them. I couldn''t let this negative thought distract me.


    While looking at the distance, something caught my attention. I could not see it clearly since it was too far away so I took out the binoculars.


    Through the lens I saw the bridge that I was supposed to cross according to the navigation system. There were many vehicles stranded and smokes rising from them. On the intersection from where the highway came to meet the bridge were many burnt vehicles. It was like a junkyard of cars. In the middle of the bridge there were a couple of tanks and a few armored cars.


    Nothing was moving except for the many birds circling the bridge.


    "So the military did involve," I thought to myself. But what was the outcome? Why was nothing moving on the bridge?

 Chapter 10. The Acolyte

    I packed my stuff and entered the car. Once again, I sped toward the bridge.


    When I finally arrived at the intersection, my car could not go pass the many broken cars. Up close, now I could see and understood the situation better.


    The cars were a blockade. It''s a no brainer to know that it was our side, the human, who made this blockade. I heard screams and growls faintly far away, from the street below the highway. I peeked and saw monsters and blood everywhere, but since they didn''t see me I ignored them. I turned my car off so that the sound wouldn''t attract any unwanted attention.


    Because of those far away screams, the eeriness in my surroundings heightened. This felt like I was in the middle of a thriller and horror setting. It was far more real than the fake feeling I got when watching a scary movie.


    I shook my body, refocusing my attention to the bridge ahead. There were several openings on the blockade big enough for a person to pass through. I walked to the nearest one. When I stood at one of the opening, I froze.


    There were bodies everywhere, dead bodies. Literally everywhere.


    It was like seeing an opened graveyard. Now I understood why there were many birds flying on top of the bridge. Many of the birds were on the dead bodies. Needless to say that a battle happened here. I couldn''t tell when it happened. It didn''t look like the birds were here long since the corpses were still intact. Judging by the timing of this Doom event, it shouldn''t be more than a day.


    I noticed that all of the corpses were that of the monsters. This must be the side from where the monsters were attacking. The military must''ve tried to block the monsters'' advance but apparently failed, judging from the wasted tanks. However the monsters were not without casualties either. I reckoned the monsters lost a lot more than the Korean military did. As I guessed earlier, long-range combat was really better for us human.


    But these were just the grunts, the lowest level of the monsters. What if the monsters were all the yellow-eyed ones? Those weren''t easily harmed by a simple knife. Would bullets be enough to stop them? I certainly hoped so. It would be crazy, and disheartening, to think that bullets failed to hurt the yellow-eyed.


    Suddenly, I realized something. If they were fighting and the human was pushed back, then that meant nobody had taken the spoils of war. What I meant as the spoils of war were those tiny darkish translucent marbles.


    This was like a tremendous gift. This was a cheat! An unbelievable cheat! My excitement immediatelly rose to the top. This excitement alone caused me to shivered, unable to contain my happiness. I grabbed my backpack from the car and moved through the opening of the blockade.


    As predicted, the marbles were still in their place. I grabbed them, one by one. Each time I grabbed one I swallowed one. I cleaned them up, not leaving even a single one. Totally acting like a hungry wolf in front of food.


    - Wooosh - Wooosh -


    A torrent of energies was flowing in my body. It was like an unending flood. Without any doubt I channeled them to my strength line. The feeling of power surging in my body was thrilling. My muscles were pulsating, my blood flowed vigorously. I really enjoyed this feeling. My strength status bar was increased at a rapid rate. I had probably eaten close to a hundred marbles, I didn''t actually count. I was becoming stronger and stronger! I was like a Hulk, without going green and bulky!


    When I saw that there were still so many corpses, I got mixed feelings. I was both glad and miserable. Glad because there were still much, much more marbles to collect. Miserable because despite such high casualties on the monster''s side, we were still the one pushed back. I couldn''t imagine what terrible things happened when the military had to abandon this bridge.


    My strength bar was rising at steady rate and it was soon came to full circle on my wrist. I watched with amazement when it happened. The full white color line disappear, became transparent again. However, a tiny strip now became visible to me. Just like when the line first appeared, only now it was very faint yellow. I felt so much power came to me, it was amazing.


    The last increase when it changed from the white bar to yellow bar was very noticeable.


    ''Let''s try it out''. I prepared myself and then ran back toward the start of the bridge as fast as I could. Maximum speed!


    "Whoa, so fast!" I was thrilled at this finding. The strength of my leg muscles were beyond believe. It would be easy to win Olympic medals with such power and speed.


    After familiarizing myself to this speed, I decided to test this new power in a different way. Reaching one of the wrecked car, I punched it with my bare fist.


    Bang! The sound of my fist meeting the car door reverberated. Although dissimilar and not as loud as the sound of the clashing of metals, the effect was to my amazement. The car door was crooked deep, very deep. Its hinges broken and the car itself slid back due to the impact. Another important point I noted was that I didn''t much pain on my knuckles.


    I was ecstatic. My strength was now comparable if not a bit stronger than the monster individually. Ever since I saw how the monster could break metal doors with bare hands I was very wary. Now, I could stand on equal term against them. Yes, the claws were still formidable and frightening things, however, I could match that with some weaponry.


    Speaking about the yellow-eyed one, I thought I understood now. That particular monster was, obviously, an improved one. For humans, our status was shown as thin lines on our wrist. For the monster, it was their eyes. Yellow was the color of their second stage improvement.


    I was so glad that we could improve. More than that, I was even more glad that I didn''t have to eat the monster corpses to achieve that.


    I realized that I had to push myself more. I might not have much to worry when going against those ordinary low level monsters, but against the yellow-eyed ones? I assumed I would not stand on equal terms. As long as I did not let my guard down or let myself be badly surrounded, I should be able to protect myself or, at the very least, run.


    There were still so many marbles to collect so I wasted no time and ran back to pick them. One more, five more, ten more, all of them. I ate them all and channel the energy to my strength.


    "Huh?" I stopped my activity. My strength bar yellow line had near no improvement. The feeling of power up was also negligible compared to before when I was still in white bar line. ''Why was that?''


    I thought about it and concluded that the progress would become negligible once I reached a certain level. Because my strength line was now in yellow, the effectiveness of the energy from the marbles was reduced by a large margin. This made a certain sense.


    Since the color of my vitality and agility status lines was still white I decided to change the channels of energy to those two lines instead. Immediately, I felt so refreshed and my tendons strengthen. The changes inside of me were like my viscera being strengthened. Every single part of my body was transformed. If there was a level above being healthy, then this was it. Simply said, the bombardment of energy made me a new man.


    Just as I suspected, my status lines increased in previous speed. Since it was like this, I kept sending the energy from the marbles to those two lines.


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    Visible to me, the white status bars were raised and my body kept feeling those wonderful improvements. I got probably close to two hundred marbles and brought my vitality and agility lines to the brink of fullness. I could feel that I was at the peak even without looking at the bars. I swallowed four marbles at once and channeled the energy evenly between the two.


    "Whoa! Whoa!" I yelled in amazement.


    My body was floating and glowing. Not the dimmed light glow that only I could see myself but a faint yellowish glow. It was a totally different feeling compared to when my strength line changed from white to yellow. I was trembling as the magnificent sensation was much stronger than ever. My strength increase too? I could feel it happening.


    Suddenly a voice was heard speaking in my head.


    "Human Shi Huicheng. You have progressed rapidly. You have entered the second door to my realm. You are now an Acolyte. You are the first Acolyte."


    It was the voice of that so-called god again. Now it was clearer than before. Based on the voice, I determined that the god was a male. Or, at least according to my judgement, the god had a male voice.


    "I''m an Acolyte?" I said slowly. And then asked in rapid succession, "What''s an Acolyte. Is that like level 2? How many levels are there?"


    The god, totally ignoring my questions, continued, "As the first Acolyte, you may have a wish."


    Without a pause, I wished it, "I wish for the world to return back to normal."


    "It is not within my power to grant you that. You can only choose from what I am capable of giving," the god said.


    So much for being a powerful god. "How do I know what''s within your power or not?"


    "These are what I can grant you," that god said and then I felt something entered my head. Barrage of information suddenly came into my mind. They were the knowledge of the ''gift''. There were so many information all at once it gave me a headache. It was like my head was about to explode.


    "What should I do?" I asked the being.


    "Choose one and it will be yours," the god answered.


    "Can I have more?" again I asked, trying to haggle naturally.


    "One," the god didn''t get mad and the reply was flat as ever.


    Unbelievable, I thought, there was like thousands of choices and I could get only one? What a stingy god!


    "I can hear your thoughts," the god said.


    "Such an almighty and merciful god," I emptied my mind as fast as possible.


    "Your words are not sincere," again the god said.


    Woah, really? Asking me to be sincere?


    "Hm!"


    "Alright, alright, sorry about that. Anyway, it''s gonna take time for me to choose from this many," I switched the topic.


    "Time is meaningless to me. Take as much time as you need."


    I started browsing through the list the so-called god gave me. And I really did take my time. I made a ranking and was able to have a much shorter list.


    "Can you explain several items on this list?" I asked. I didn''t even have to tell the god about what items were on my head. I simply thought about them. Based on my previous experience, the god should be able to read my mind, right?


    Invincible Flesh, Rapid Torrential Fist, Titan Armor, Magnificent Above the Sky and Emperor''s Shadow. Those were what I wanted to know. And then another sudden stream entered my head and I was given full information about every item I was interesting of.


    I took a long breath and perused each information carefully. Finally, after considering as careful as I could, I said, "I choose Titan Armor!"


    Right after I said it a new light started to envelop my body. A weird feeling was emerging and in tiny pieces exploding all over my skin. It was like a new layer of skin was built on top of my current one. I couldn''t see it but could feel its existence.


    Titan Armor was a protective layer that enhanced the toughness of my physical body. It engulfed my whole body, from head to toe. The beautiful thing was that it was invisible and could be activated at will. In addition, it would evolve with me. The downside would be, just like fighting, it consumed my stamina. So the longer I used it the faster I became tired.


    "Human Shi Huicheng. You are the first human to become Acolyte and the only one right now. Child, I can tell you that the Purger now already has many Acolytes and above."


    The purger, so that was how the monsters were called. And they were advancing faster? What use was the chance this god gave then?


    "The chance is only as good as the person who receive it. Remember that!" the god was responding to my thought. When I didn''t need it, he actually gave a respond!


    After hearing that last sentence my head felt empty. The presence had gone. With the god gone, my body stopped floating and I landed on the bridge again.


    I started by assessing the situation. My body was completely different now. To say that I was improved wasn''t enough. The more appropriate term should be ''born a new''. Becoming the first Acolyte had made even my confidence rose. My goal to reach my grandparents now had a better chance to succeed.


    However, the purger had many Acolytes already. And, as the god himself said it, they had even higher level monsters. I clenched my teeth and fists. The god''s last sentence, I would definitely remember it.


    In front of me right now were still about thirty to forty marbles. Even though the improvement rate was much slower I still picked them up and ate them. For the current me, even the tiniest improvement meant something.


    I had reached almost the end of the bridge. At this point, there were less and purgers corpse until all I saw was red blood on the floor. That meant only human died at this end.


    I decided to find another car at this end instead of going back. I went to the main road and start searching. Probably my luck was used up when I found the hundreds marbles for free, now I couldn''t find even a single usable car. There were many cars parked around but they were no use to me since I didn''t have the knowledge to start them without the key.


    While searching for the new car I kept running toward the east. I met a few purgers on the road. Now I could fight them one on one easily. I did not let my guard down nevertheless. The yellow-eyed one would be tough to handle since it was at the same level as me while having stronger original power so I still avoided the purgers.


    Before long I suddenly heard the sound of moving car. Or cars, to be exact. I looked and saw two big buses coming in my direction. I saw cars and motorcycles on the road but this was the first time I saw the buses.


    I could see people inside the buses. My eyesight became better since becoming an Acolyte and I could see clearer even from this distance. Not that I had a problem with my eyesight before but there was still quite a distance between me and the buses.


    Since they were going straight in my direction, I signaled them with a wave of hand.


    The first bus totally ignored me but the second one stopped after slightly went pass me.


    The bus door opened and someone yelled from the window near the door. She had a pretty face. I couldn''t understand a word she said but she was motioning as well, so it was easy to understand that she was telling me to get on the bus. I did so. The bus started moving again while the door was closing.


    Bang! Skreeeeeet!

 Chapter 11. The Road to Airport

    A purger hit the body of the bus causing the loud noise. Several people in the bus were screaming in surprise. The driver stepped on the gas, speeding up. The purger ran after the bus, trying to catch up, however, in the end, it couldn''t keep up with the speed of the bus. We left it far behing until it''s out of our sight after we made a turn.


    Now that we''re free from the purger, I got the chance to see all the passengers of this bus. There were a lot of good looking men and women here. I thought I saw some of them from somewhere before. The woman who told me to get on the bus earlier was particularly familiar.


    One of the passengers, a handsome and masculine-looking man, said something to the familiar woman. His tone told me that he wasn''t pleased with something. He was pretty loud so I could hear it clearly, plus he was looking at me with annoyance written all over his face. The familiar woman didn''t say anything to him.


    Another woman, with short hair, large eyes and bright red lips, no less pretty than the familiar woman, said something with cold voice toward that first woman but her eyes sometimes glanced at me. It didn''t take a genius to guess that I was the object of her words.


    The handsome man was not the only one ignored by the familiar woman, the short hair woman was ignored too. It seemed to me they had had this conversation before. She, instead, turned to me and said something to me. Too bad it was in Korean.


    I told her, "I don''t understand Korean well. Can you speak English or Chinese?"


    "I see. So you''re not Korean?" The woman said in perfect English. Her pronunciation was far better than mine.


    "Phineas Shi. I''m Chinese. I came here last monday for work. Thanks for stopping to pick me up," I introduced myself. Since we''re face to face, I couldn''t help admiring her beauty.


    "Jeong Yewon. And you''re welcome," She held out her hand.


    Jeong Yewon? That name sounded very familiar. Where did I hear it? We shook hands as we greeted each other. She had a really soft hand. When she smiled, it suddenly came to me. She was a famous singer and actor. She was featured in many commercials, that''s how I saw her. She was even more beautiful in person and, looking at her from such distance, I was pretty sure she wasn''t wearing any make up.


    Then I looked around and found out why I felt I''ve seen several of those faces. Some of them were South Korea celebrities. Not everyone were easily recognizable without make up but Jeong Yewon and probably a couple others, which I didn''t know their names of, were.


    "Where are you heading?" I asked.


    "We heard about our military setting up base at Incheon so we''re going to evacuate there," she said.


    "Military base? I''m going to the airport. I want to go back to my country," I was glad to hear that they were going the same way I planned to.


    Now, if the military really held ground at Incheon, there could be a possibility for me to return home.


    This reminded me of the map shown by Lt. Yoon yesterday. There was so much new land emerged during the change and that changed our world landscape tremendously. The sea between Korea Peninsula and China had most of it covered with lands now. Even without a plane, I could probably cross it on foot.


    However, who would be crazy enough to cross it on foot? Well, if I had to, I would. The only thing making my decision difficult was the fact that, on the picture sent by the American satellite, those new lands had too many white dots. Those white dots signified lights which in turn signified lives. Not human obviously.


    "I don''t know whether the airport is still working or not, but you''re welcome to join us to Incheon," Jeong Yewon said.


    She was obviously one of the most senior celebrity here. I guessed it was her who decided to pick me up, not the driver. It''s not that without this bus I wouldn''t be able to reach Incheon by myself but it was certainly a whole lot easier. She had my gratitude for that.


    "Thank you."


    Jeong Yewon nodded with a light smile.


    ''Gosh, she''s really pretty,'' I thought. From all the women I saw in my life, only Susan could compete with her.


    I didn''t know her background. I didn''t know whether she had family or loved ones that she failed to get connected to. Whatever her situation was, she was handling it pretty well. She was even kind enough to stop for a stranger like me. Later, I found out that I wasn''t the only one picked up during this trip.


    That was probably why that masculine-looking man and the short hair pretty girl were berrating her.


    The other celebrities were grouped together and didn''t mingle with us. Though except for the two aforementioned people, they weren''t hostile. They''re probably finding comfort among the people they were familiar with. Well, since I couldn''t speak Korean it was no big deal for me that we did not converse at all.


    Suddenly the bus stopped.


    All of us stood up, wondering what happened. Jeong Yewon and a couple others went to the driver. From where I sat, I could see that the first bus in front of us had stopped and, because of that, us too. As for the reason? I didn''t know.


    Our driver was agitated and said something. I could guess that he was worried. Well, I would be too. The buses were loud vehicles and in the surrounding area there was nothing producing sound but us. We were like a beacon looking for unwanted attention.


    We saw the people from the first bus started to get off while still staying close together. Someone approached our bus and said something. The faces of the people in my bus were changing. They paleness comparable to white paper.


    Jeong Yewon said to me, "The road is blocked. We have to continue on foot."


    While the original passengers of this bus were hesitating, me and others who hitchhiked weren''t. We got up and immediately get off the bus. After seeing us getting off, the rest followed reluctantly.


    We grouped up with people from the first bus. Apparently, the first bus consisted of all people I didn''t recognize at all. If they''re celebrities, then they aren''t famous enough for me to recognize. Two of them were talking through a translator. So, they''re unable to speak Korean too.


    "You don''t know who they are? That one is Traikun Praves and that one is Davi Brito," a man told me. He was one of the people who mingled only within the group of celebrities before. "Traikun is the most famous Muay Thai expert. Davi is an American-Brazilian Jiu-jitsu fighter. I guess you''re like me. I didn''t know them before either."


    "I see," I said.


    Seeing my expression, this good looking man introduced himself, "I think you don''t know me either. I''m Seo Daho. I used to be a singer, until the day before yesterday."


    "Ah, I''ve heard of you. You are very famous. I''m Phineas Shi," I introduced myself in return.


    Seo Daho laughed, "I''m only a bit well known in South Korea."


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    I told him, "Believe me, if someone like me heard of you, it means you have some fame in China too."


    Seo Daho smiled modestly.


    "They''re all participants of that fighting competition. We''re all staying at the same hotel when this happen," Jeong Yewon let me know about Traikun, Davi and the rest.


    "They''re really strong. We''re safe because of them," Seo Daho added.


    I agreed. Having more than thirty able-bodied fighting force at the same place really made a difference. I didn''t think all of them were top fighters. From the look of it, probably only about ten of them were the fighters who joined the martial competition, while the rest were bodyguards or trainers or some other capacity. Nevertheless, even the weakest of them should have more fighting experience than me. In other words, every single one of them was like John Wick to the old me. There''s no need to mention pencil, they could kill me with a band-aid. Fortunately, they didn''t bring their car nor dog here.


    Seeing that Traikun and Davi were the two who were always consulted it seemed to me those two must have somehow shown their capabilities in combat and thus their words were deemed important by everyone.


    At this time I was thinking whether I should leave the group and travel alone. I was silently considering.


    Travel on foot? A few of them might have the stamina to reach Incheon but how about others? How could a large group like this avoid encountering the purgers? They didn''t see what happened at the bridge. A force of purgers capable of driving back the military, which had heavy armor and artilery, was a tremendous force far beyond a mere few fighters could face.


    Jeong Yewon patted my arm, "Let''s go. Stay close in our group. Don''t stray away."


    I looked at the woman, amazed. She must''ve known the difficulty to survive in such a large group. She, herself, must have difficulty on her own. However, despite all this she still tried to look after others. Even her expression was still steady and calm. That made me ashamed for thinking about leaving her and this group. I banished my thought of leaving and walked together with the celebrity group.


    The fighters dispersed themselves around our group. Some were on the front, some on the rear, while the rest divided on both of our planks. I saw that every one of them carry weapon. Of course they had weapon, it make more sense than fighting monsters with tough claws empty handed.


    We moved through the road with haste. No one dared to tarry. Everyone was conscious enough of the situation and that the empty roads were frightening.


    I didn''t think every building, every place we passed were all devoid of human however the people were probably in hiding and didn''t dare to come out. Who in the world would be crazy enough to roam around when there were savage monsters prowling?


    At one point of time a couple came out of their hiding places and joined us. No one rejected them. Their appearances were wretched enough to generate pity even from the heartless.


    Not long after that, loud roar was heard. Apparently the couple was a purger''s target. It came out of the same building as the couple and directly sped up to our direction.


    Three people from our side nearest to the building came out to meet the purger. All three of them had each brought out their weapon. The purger was surrounded. It showed no fear at all.


    This was the thing I liked and, at the same time, hated the most about them. The purger was all brawn and no brain. We greatly outnumbered this lone purger but it just charged at us without the slightest doubt. Alone, their fearlessness will gave us an advantage. In large group, however, the same fearlessness would make them extremely dangerous. They would be strong enough to actually defeat a trained military force.


    Dang!


    The claws of the purger met with the weapons of two people. I could see the two fighters were having trouble. They were slightly thrown back, their hands were visibly trembling from the impact. With its claw blocked by two people the purger had no time to adjust nor escape from the attack of the third fighter.


    The third fighter''s knife almost reached the chest of the purger when the monster''s feet flew and kicked that third fighter. Fortunately the fighter was nimble enough to dodge the kick. Unfortunately, that meant he failed to stab the purger.


    Two more fighters came out. Both were armed with swords. The purger knew they were coming, at the same time the first and second fighters had come back too. Now it was surrounded. The fighters were attacking with all their might. Despite the attacks being uncoordinated, they were delivered ferociously. This lone purger had no way to avoid the incoming attacks. Immediately, wounds began appearing on its body. It roared in anger and swinging its arms wildly. Four fighters were working together blocking its attacks while the fifth, the knife holder, managed to position himself behind the monster. With a focused thrust, the knife went through the throat, killing the purger.


    Everyone was relieved. But not for long because another purger had appeared.


    "Kreeeee!"


    The purger came out from the building in front of us. It was facing directly to Traikun and Davi, who were the vanguards with another fighter.


    Traikun, Davi and the third person said something to each other. In the mean time, the purger was advancing at them swiftly. Traikun and Davi were both holding some kind of metal stick. The third fighter was holding a medium size knife. I guessed they were using the same tactics as the previous group.


    This second purger was also blocked, just like the first one, however the outcome was different this round. Both Traikun and Davi weren''t thrown back. The two of them held their own pretty well. I saw, for the first time, the difference of strength shown by these two top fighters. Granted they both used weapon and two hands to handle each arm swing of the purger but still, to me, it looked amazing. They were indeed strong.


    The third fighter didn''t waste any time. He lunged forward the same time Traikun and Davi blocked. The purger didn''t even get the chance to kick him away and was stabbed in the belly right away.


    The purger made screeching sound. It was stumbling. Traikun kicked it and made it fall. Davi moved fast, grabbed the purger head from behind and twisted it. Cracking sound was heard. The monster was finished.


    I had to hand it to them. Their personal''s strength was amazing and their coordination was good. The second purger, which should have comparable strength to the first one, didn''t have a chance to show its might at all.


    "They''re good, aren''t they?" Seo Daho laughed at my amazement. I nodded in agreement.


    We started moving again after this. For more than one hour we moved along the road. Moving as silent as possible while we passed many buildings and empty streets.

 Chapter 12. Safety is Relative

    Normally, it shouldn''t be too hard for ordinary folks to walk for a couple hours. However, the situation now wasn''t normal. It was so eery and dreadful, such that it built onto people''s anxiety. It affected everyone, the fighters and me included. It was more of mental fatigue than physical. We had to stop for a break. We found a stationary store and used it to hide and rest for a while.


    The couple that joined us the latest didn''t seem to have eaten anything for a day. I took my energy bars and water. I handed them to the couple. They received them with gratitude and devoured them in an instant.


    The store was not big so when more than fifty people suddenly flooded in it was immediatelly full. Since everybody needed a rest, it was pretty quiet.


    I took this chance to introduce myself to the fighter group. With the exception of a single translator, they weren''t Korean. Unfortunately, only a few of them could speak English. Davi was the best English speaker while Traikun only spoke a bit of English. Language problem aside, they were actually quite friendly.


    There was one proverb I learned in the past, it went ''be like the bamboo, the higher you grow the deeper you bow''. It taught us to be humble the further we grow. Traikun and Davi were an example of this kind of men. They''re strong yet modest at the same time.


    I took out my energy bars and crackers and then shared them with anyone who wanted. Practically, I took out every single piece of food I had. They were finished in no time.


    Ten minutes after we entered the store, there was an argument between the Korean. Some people were talking in angry tones to each other. I noticed that on one group there were people like that handsome masculine-looking man and the short haired pretty while the others were some ordinary looking people. Jeong Yewon was in the middle of the argument as well.


    Seo Daho left the argument area and sat beside me. I pointed to the handsome man and the pretty woman because I thought I saw them somewhere and asked Seo Daho about their identity.


    "Oh him? That''s Choi Doowon. Big shot actor. Have you never seen his movie? Anyway, he has a lot of backing so he used to having it his way. He said we''re in this situation because we kept picking up people. Like we did to you," Seo Daho explained, "Don''t mind him though. He''s always been a prick."


    "The girl is Min Songhee. Well, long story short, she''s the female version of Choi Doowon. Only difference is that Choi bullies people with his backing, Min uses her... assets."


    I watched as the argument just went back and forth without getting escalated from mere argument. At least they were still sane enough to try to keep their voices down.


    We rested for another ten minutes before getting ready to go. When we exited the store we took the same formation as before. Because of the arguments I could feel a bit of tension between the Korean. I felt lucky that I didn''t know enough of the language to understand the detail of their quarrel.


    One of the bus driver was leading the group through the roads. He knew the way like it''s the back of his hand. Traikun and Davi were on point as before. Every time they suspected something up ahead, we changed direction.


    Just because we had many people who knew how to fight didn''t mean we were able to go blindly. To be safe, it took several men to fight one purger, but what if we encountered a dozen purgers at the same time? That was why we need to exercise caution.


    Just like that, we traveled closer and closer to our destination. If my calculation was correct, we should soon be arriving near one of the two bridges that I saw on the GPS earlier.


    I never thought we would be so lucky as to not encounter any obstacle at all. This kind of luck should be considered comparable to winning a lottery. It was rare and almost inconceivable. And I was right. About half an hour passed when trouble finally found us. And it was not little trouble like earlier encounters.


    Three purgers appeared from the road in front of us. We didn''t get the chance to hide. When they saw us they immediately ran after us. They were making high-pitched sound while running. Its noise was loud and heart-wrenching. Were they announcing our existence? Was it like ''lunch is here'' or ''food spotted'' or something similar because right away two more purgers broke through glass doors from the opposite end of road.


    Being pinned down by five purgers from the front and back was terrible news for this group. I could see the faces of Traikun and Davi were really ugly. The other fighters'' expressions were even worse. I fully believed this group could actually fight them. But the worst thing happened, panic had spreaded out among the non fighters.


    "Run!" somebody shouted.


    The civilians immediately fled to another road intersecting with our current one. Some people were screaming in terror. This, to me, was something really foolish to do while running away. Everyone should just run as fast as they can, focused on surviving, why would there be any need of screaming?


    The fighters had no choice but to run along. They couldn''t just stay and fight here while the people they''re protecting ran far away. I would''ve help them fight but It didn''t matter much now.


    Choi Doowon was among the fastest to run away, leaving the rest behind. The way he ran show that he was a physically fit person. Davi sprinted ahead, catching up with people in the front. I was amazed, this guy could really be fast if he wanted to. He surveyed and then directed the people on the front to one of the buildings on the road. They entered the building which had only one door and metal barred windows.


    At this time, I didn''t know about Davy''s choice of escape route but later when I did know I praised him in my mind. He had the same idea I had yesterday. Davi wasn''t easily panicked and was quite fast to assess the surrounding.


    Because the building was located after another turn of the street, the monsters that were running at our back could not see it. Several tens of people managed to get inside the building. However, not everyone was fast runners. More than ten people got left behind.


    I could run much faster than anyone here but I stopped after I saw some people were falling behind. Jeong Yewon also stopped and encouraged people to run faster. Instead of running faster, two girls tripped and fell. Jeong Yewon and me both ran back. So was Traikun and another fighter.


    The purgers were getting nearer. The distance between those monsters and the girls were probably only twenty meters. I reached them before anyone and immediately picked up one of the fallen girls. It was easy for me to lift her up. All of us were now very near with the purgers, about ten meters or so. Traikun lifted the other girl while the other fighter threw his weapon at the incoming purger. The purger wasn''t hurt but it was slightly delayed.


    We ran, carrying the girls to the building. Choi Doowon saw us coming and immediately closed the door. I was shocked to see his action. Fortunately when I reached the door, it was opened again. One of the fighter who were already inside opened it and let us in. Jeong Yewon, Traikun and Davi, with all the rest of our group finally arrived.


    Because of the short delay due to the shuting door incident our distance was too near and the purger saw the last of us getting into the building. The purgers were now banging on the door. It was a thick wooden door, but I didn''t think it would hold for long. Some of the purgers were now also attacking the barred windows.


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    Bang! Bang!


    Davi, Traikun and all the fighters were standing at the front line, holding their weapons. I could see that even they felt various degree of fear. Their hands were slightly trembling, after all we''re trapped.


    Compared to the fighters at the front the others were even worse. Some began sobbing and knelt down limply. Jeong Yewon was holding hands with one of the female celebrity. Seo Daho was looking at the door intensely. Choi Doowon, stood at the far end, was cursing ceaselessly.


    Bang! Bang! Bang!


    "Everyone, get back!" Davi instructed to the non fighters. Nobody wanted to fight the monsters but if it really got down to it, then the fighters stood the best chance of repelling them.


    The civilians didn''t tarry. With some of them still screaming foolishly everytime a banging sound was heard, they moved to the back until they reached the wall. I already put down the girl I carried so she could join the civilian group. I crept my way to near the front after this.


    Bang! Skreeeeee!


    The door was finally broken and a purger forced itself in. Davi and Traikun both held the monsters at bay by attacking it from both sides. Their action kept the purger from rushing in and, therefore, blocked the entrance from the others.


    The purger was struggling to get free but didn''t succeed. Both Davi and Traikun were very good at their blocks. They were both physically strong and they weren''t trying to take the purger down. They''re focusing on stopping the purger''s advance.


    I frowned on this. They should have killed it immediately. Just like they did before. I understood that the fighting area was limited and it wasn''t easy for a third person to join but this tactic would only make Traikun and Davi tired while the monster could keep going with its better stamina.


    The metal bars were finally creaking and breaking. The glass of the windows was already broken too. This cause the softhearted people inside to scream louder in fear. The ones with stronger mentality were preparing by grabbing anything that could be use as weapon.


    ''Looks like I have to jump in'', I thought. So I reached inside my backpack to take my police knife.


    Rattattattatta!


    Suddenly sounds of gunfire were heard.


    The purgers that were originally trying to break in now shifted their focus to outside. They left the windows and door. Loud firing sounds were mixed now with screeching and long growling voices of the purgers.


    Seeing that no other purger was at the door, Davi and Traikun used this chance to lure the one they were fighting deeper into the room. Two other fighters managed to sneak in from behind the monster and delivered their sword into its back. The purger screamed and swung its arms around causing the four people surrounding it taking a step back to dodge the powerful swing. Immediately after dodging they attacked it at the same time.


    How could an injured monster stood against the onslaught of four fighters? It went down.


    Shouts were heard from outside. Judging from the faces of the Korean, I guessed the shouts meant something good. Choi Doowon suddenly emerged from behind and shouted back. He went outside the door, the other people were following behind.


    There, on the road in front of the building, were two armored vehicles and several soldiers. The purgers were laying dead on the street. They were talking to the people from our groups.


    "We''re saved," Jeong Yewon told me with a smile.


    "I guess we are," I replied.


    But how were they gonna fit everyone into the armored cars? The answer to my question came right away as one the soldiers motioned to someone around the corner. An army truck appeared.


    We were all brought onto the truck and immediately departed.


    The sound of the vehicles were attracting several monsters on the way, but they were taken care of by the guns. One or a couple purgers every single attack meant nothing to the soldiers with superior weapons.


    Compared to the bus, the military vehicles were more robust and able to handle more situations. The soldiers were coordinated and good. They were fast and efficient when clearing the road whenever there were obstacles.


    Soon, we saw the bridge. Murmurs of relieve were heard among us. We crossed the bridge and arrived at what I''d guess a temporary and hastily built military outpost. It also served as refugee camp.


    They were setting up blockades started right at the end of the bridge straight until further to the front. I guessed they did the same thing on the other bridge too. This felt strangely similar to the one bridge I crossed alone this morning, the one that failed.


    They brought us to a place near the front line. There were many buildings here. I couldn''t tell what every single buildings were before yesterday since the building or store''s names were written in Korean. That being said, it''s easy to guess what building I was in now. It was a small transit hotel. We were registered and given medical care should we need one.


    I got a pretty good glimpse of the military status here. There were really not many soldiers. My rough count was that they were about a thousand, give or take. I later learned that they lost a good amount of soldiers back at the bridge where I found those hundreds of free marbles. They also lost their tanks. Based on what I saw here, the best weaponry they had here were probably those big machine guns at the end of the bridge. My grandfather would know the types and names of these guns, not me though.


    We were informed that this wasn''t the only military outpost built. They managed to built several defense lines and refugee camps. This was good, I thought. The purgers weren''t bulletproof. As long as we kept at it, we might push them back.


    On top of that, the American managed to get a satellite picture of our world with the new lands and, I assumed, shared it to many countries. I hoped they had time to fight back. A full military assembly would be different from what we had here and now.


    Well, I was thinking too simple, I knew that, but I could hope right? This hope would carry me through the tough time. The doom that the god started would not be as simple as some mindless strong monsters going around eating people. It would be more than that.


    After the registration, we were brought further deep near the airport area. This was where we saw ocean of people. There were probably thousands if not tens of thousands of people here. As far as my eyes see, were people.


    Their faces were that of confusion and uncertainty. Despair was a common theme here. They were safe for the time being but their homes, loved ones, their very lives were destroyed. None of us knew what was in store for us in the future.


    Admittedly, some people were still under the illusion that everything would be alright soon. Though, judging from the atmosphere here, most were feeling that their future were pretty bleak. I should say it''s our future because everyone was affected directly, me included.

 Chapter 13. The Airport

    In this area some tents were built to serve food and water. It wasn''t clear how long the provision could last if there were this many people. The military couldn''t have had the chance to gather enough supply. I thought I might as well eat while I still can. So together with my group I stood in the queue for food.


    Since we came together, we also sat together in one area. Jeong Yewon, Min Songhee, Choi Doowon, Seo Daho and other celebrities were well known to Korean. People were looking at them but they didn''t approached them as they usually would during normal time. They got the people attention for a while, distracting people from gloomy thoughts, and that''s it. A nice but short distraction.


    After I ate, I planned to look for information on to how to get back to my country. Then I saw Choi Doowon was arguing with Jeong Yewon and others. I approached Seo Daho and asked him about that.


    "It''s the same thing. Choi is blaming Jeong for picking up people. He thinks that if you and the others are not around and slowing us down, we won''t be in such danger like the last time," explained Seo. Davi, Traikun and others heard this explanation as well.


    "Is he always a jerk like this?" this time one of the fighter asked.


    "Yes," Seo laughed.


    "You knew?"


    Seo Daho then he continued, "Yes. Everyone in our industry know it. Though his backers and company make sure that no one outside our trade know about it. And he''s a pretty good actor if you understand what I mean."


    I understood of course. There were always people like Choi everywhere. Either on the entertainment industry or the ordinary white-collar office life. Anywhere. They used their position and/or backers to bully people around them and put on a fa?ade of faked faces and actions for others.


    I usually shrugged off people like this. But today I was irritated because he was targeting the lovely and kind miss Jeong. She was not scared of him and did pretty well holding her own, so I didn''t do anything for the moment. I had decided that if things heated up and he tried more than mouth-fight then I wouldn''t stay idle.


    In the end, things didn''t go that far. Choi went away with eyes filled with contempt towards me and the others hitchhikers. Several other celebrities went together with him, including Min Songhee.


    The rest of us stayed together. This was the time when I got Jeong Yewon to help me talk with an officer at the gate. In fact, I was not alone. Davi, Traikun and other fighters were with me too. All of us wanted to go home, to our own country.


    All our hopes were crushed when the officer told us that the planes weren''t operational. It wasn''t that they did not want to use the planes but they could not.


    Any plane that tried to take off was destroyed. Witnesses said that it was like the planes were in collision with an invisible ceiling. It happened during the ascending. The cockpit was the first to crash and only after that the rest of the plane were destroyed too. The last plane that took off was to carry the head of the government out of here. It was destroyed. No more attempt was made after that.


    I knew it would be like this. Our technological advantage and advance weaponry were only functioning in severe limitation.


    Since we knew that the plane didn''t work, we went back to our place. We called it our place but really it was just a shaded parking area.


    During this conversation I learned that Traikun was hoping to get back to his wife and son in Thailand. Davi was engaged and about to get marry as soon as the competition over. One of the other fighter was hoping his sole disabled brother survived back in his home country. One of the trainer, who was a widow, wished that his six year old daughter could find safety together with his parents.


    Each one of us have people waiting for us back at our home country. We had reasons that made us wanted to get back home the soonest. Everyone had their own stories. By talking like this we got to know and were consoling each other.


    When these fighters were in the arena, they always looked like a menace, a force to be reckoned with. The previous me wouldn''t survive in a one on one fight with any one of them. In reality, though, they were also normal human beings. They had feelings. They had family, friends and loved ones that they would like to get back to. Just like many other people here.


    While conversing, I suddenly heard sound from far away. It was very faint but I thought they were gunshots. And it was repeating. Because of the improvement on my body, my hearing got a bit better too. None of us really relaxed so my sudden change of attention, subtle as it was, caught the others'' curiosity since they did not hear anything.


    "What''s wrong?" someone asked me.


    "I heard gunshots," I told them.


    People were looking at each other. However, because they didn''t hear the sounds themselves, their reactions were lukewarm. I was sure of what I heard but made no effort to convince them.


    The reactions changed when the soldiers suddenly made a move and started to man the front line of our refugee camp. There were murmurs and mumbled discussions. People were wondering what happened. Everybody started to think of the worst but the existence of the military really helped them calm a bit.


    And then, gunshots were heard, and this time everyone could hear them. Their faces changed and bodies tensed.


    Why was the shooting sounded so near? I thought. There was only one explanation and it was because the shooting happened not far from us. The soldiers were pushed back! We had all those machine guns and still pushed back?


    Some people were starting to shout words that I didn''t understand. A lot of the refugee were running further deep into airport. In my opinion that would be a bad decision. We should fight where we had superior numbers instead of giving the monsters that superiority. But I also understood that many, if not almost all, of the people here were civilians and didn''t even know how to fight.


    It wasn''t easy for experienced fighters like Davi and trained soldiers to fight such ferocious monsters, it was even harder for civilians like the previous me and the rest of the people.


    Some of the people near the camp frontline shouted something. By the faces of the Koreans, I guessed that was bad news.


    "The defense has been breached!" Jeong Yewon told us non-Korean. She picked up a fork and held it vehemently. She must have picked it up during our eating time.


    I looked at her with blank expression. ''Really? A fork?'' However, Jeong Yewon seemed really determined so I didn''t say anything.


    She wasn''t the only one, the fighters were picking up their weapons as well. Together, we went closer to our camp frontline. These guys were having the same idea as me. I took out my police knife and baton.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Seo Daho was here with us. He wasn''t a talkative guy and took little part during those silly and unwarranted arguments. He didn''t sarcastically judge nor diss people who had different opinions. But above all those things was that a coward he was not. I liked this kind of guy. Admittedly, he was more decent than me. Unfortunately though, just like Jeong Yewon, he was armed with only a fork. Their mentality of ''contributing-where-it-mattered'' was really commendable, a total opposite from the more popular Choi.


    The gunshot sounds were getting closer and closer. The people who gathered here were probably only amounted to a few hundreds and most of them were soldiers.


    Soon, what previously could only be heard from afar were now displaying in front of our own eyes.


    Slightly more than a hundred soldiers were running toward our direction. I thought there were about a couple hundred soldiers stationed at the bridge front, but now they''re reduced to only this amount? They were frightened, even their movements were sluggish.


    Rumbling sounds were heard and now we could see what made the soldiers run away ever so frightened.


    "Kreeee!"


    I saw hundreds, no, much more than that, perhaps a thousand of purgers coming at us. They were tall and sturdy. They looked savage, with bodies full of bulging muscles. Their acts wild and beastly. Most of them have bloods all over their mouths and hands, evidence of their recent slaughter.


    "How.. are we.. going to fight them?" someone said. Fear was plastered all over his face. The same fear pervaded into everyone''s heart like a spider''s web, entangling and suffocating. Now we understood why the soldiers were retreating. It was literally too much to handle.


    I was somewhat scared too. This was the first time I saw this many purgers at once, it would be a lie to say I wasn''t affected. Being an Acolyte didn''t change that fact.


    The troop commander shouted something.


    "The soldiers from the other bridge are coming to help us," said Jeong Yewon, translating for us.


    "They better be here fast," Seo Daho grimly said.


    "We''ll hold them off until they do," Jeong Yewon replied.


    Optimist, I guessed it would be good for us to have that. I saw Traikun, Davi and all the other fighters were, with very serious expressions, readying themselves to face this challenge. Even with the additional soldiers coming to us, we were only amounted to about a thousand. And there was the fact that the running soldiers were already tired and scared, thoroughly demoralized.


    Other than by using the guns none of the people here, except me, was able to fight on equal terms against the purgers. The monsters slightly outnumbering us was a problem beyond our attention now.


    The commander gave a pretty graphic order. We were to hold the line in front of the camp. This area was the narrowest of all the paths leading to the camp. Still, it was more than thirty meters wide. The soldiers here were standing by, their guns on ready to fire at any time. They were waiting until their comrades safely passed by.


    Those soldiers currently running already ran out of ammunition. They must''ve shot everything they had. Anyone could see how desperate and exhausted they were. They had been running all the way from the bridge, which was not a distance too far for a soldier. The problem was that they were frantic and frightened. A distance that''s usually not a problem now exhausted them. It''s like, to cover this short distance, they were running with all their might. I was sure some of the soldiers fell during this retreat.


    Just as the running soldier went pass, the standing by soldiers started shooting.


    Rattattatta! Rattattatta!


    In front of our eyes the purgers were getting shot. Bullets were flying like there was no end. The air was full with the smell of gunpowder. The purgers, though stronger than any normal human, were riddled with wounds. After taking rain of bullets, they were falling. But they kept coming.


    The purgers weren''t really fast, so it wasn''t difficult for trained soldiers to shoot them. It''s just that it took several shoots to down one purger, their vitality was really frightening. And their numbers made it seem like there was no end to them.


    Just as I thought nothing could make things worse, something came up. Their appearances were like those other purgers only that they were a bit taller and leaner. But what was more important is that I recognized them.


    They had yellow eyes! Those were the yellow-eyed purgers. Not just one but many of them. Among the sea of the grunts, it wasn''t easy to pick on how many they were. Quickly counting, I found there were more than ten of them.


    "No...," I sighed.


    Nobody heard me saying that except Jeong Yewon who stood nearest me. "Do you know what they are?"


    Apparently, this woman was quite attentive and could see the difference, "The stronger version of the purger."


    She was silent for a second and then looked at me, "What did you call them? The purger?"


    I only nodded while looking away.


    "The purger... because they purge us? I see," Jeong Yewon''s voice trailed off.


    When the purgers at the front line were getting shot at and falling, those yellow-eyed purgers charged ahead of their brethren. Compared to the ordinary ones, they were faster and stronger. In a short while they were already close by. The soldiers were panicking and started targeting the yellow-eyed purgers in front of them.


    Yesterday, when I saw the yellow-eyed purger for the first time I thought that they were far tougher than the ordinary ones. So tough that they couldn''t be pierced by small caliber guns. I was wrong. It''s true that they were visibly much more durable, but not to the point of being impervious to bullet. Being under heavy fire, the yellow-eyed didn''t only slowed but also bleed.


    Some yellow-eyed purgers were gunned down, being the recipient of countless bullets, but there were also a few that managed to reach our frontline. The poor soldiers didn''t have a chance at all. One by one the shooting line were broken and the soldiers butchered. The yellow-eyed, now numbered only three, were wreaking havoc everywhere they went.


    At this time, because the focus of fire were the yellow-eyed purgers, hundreds of the still healthy ordinary purgers were arriving and starting their onslaught.


    The soldiers were out of ammo due to endless shooting. Everytime they were busy reloading they would be either clawed, slapped or bitten to death by the nearby purgers.


    It was now melee engagement, nowhere to run anymore. Immediately massacre ensued as soldiers and refugee alike starting to fall like autumn leaves. Yells and shouts were in the air. The symphony of butcher had started.


    "Attack!"

 Chapter 14. Not a Simple Civilian

    The number of monsters appearing here was far more than any of us had ever faced. Davi, Traikun and the fighters yelled as they engaged the purgers that were coming at them. I never saw them being this determined. It was a fight to the death for us.


    Jeong Yewon gritted her teeth when she saw one of purger coming to her direction and, with a fork in her hand, was preparing to defend herself from the coming purger.


    "Stand back," I told her while moving to stand in front of her. The purger leaped at me with its arms looking ready to smash anything in its way.


    Instead of backing, I moved forward, toward the purger. Like a shooting snake, my arm swung and my knife slashed through the purger neck.


    "Grug!" The purger was surprised. It frantically held its neck, trying to stop the bleeding. The blood pour out endlessly, like an overflowed river. The purger''s went down holding its blood-gushing opened neck, life seeped away from it.


    Great! Being an Acolyte, I was really more powerful compared to the ordinary purger.


    Without wasting time, I jumped onto the purger on my side that was targeting Seo Daho. The purger was swinging its open palm toward Seo. It''s just a palm, but if this palm landed on Seo Daho then the man would''ve at least had his neck broken. Seo Daho lifted his arm as his last attempt to block it.


    It saw me coming, but wasn''t fast enough to change its movement. Before its hand landed on Seo Daho''s blocking arm my knife stabbed its neck. The momentum of the stabbing caused the purger to sway away from Seo Daho.


    "Grgrl!"


    As I pulled my knife out, the life of the purger was pulled along with it.


    Both Jeong Yewon and Seo Daho looked at me with unbelieving expression. I had been calmed from the first time they picked me up with the bus. They had never thought I''d do this. Heck, I never thought I''d do this. Though I never thought of myself as evil, I certainly was never a saint.


    I nodded at Jeong and Seo before started picking next target. The closest to me would, of course, be the group of fighters. With a knife in my right hand and a baton on my left, I made my way.


    Traikun was fighting one on one with a purger. He was fast and precise. His knee hit the purger''s chest and stop it from moving forward. The purger wasn''t thrown away, though. It still stood strong. Traikun threw his second kick, the force contained within this kick was immense.


    "Uh!" Traikun''s kick landed on the purger''s arm, as it blocked him. If this kick landed on another human being this should threw that person away, now, however, it was Traikun who slightly lost his balance. The purger used this chance to push him. Traikun fell and the purger was about to trample him. It''s at this time I arrived and slashed the beast from behind. My knife went deep, almost cutting it in half. Traikun kicked it away.


    I didn''t stop here, I moved again.


    Davi managed to slip and grab one of the purger, trying to lock its movement. When he was about to slam it down, the purger elbowed him right on the side of his head. Extreme pain assaulted Davi and he immediately lost his focus. Instead of the purger, Davi was the one on a brink of falling down. Seeing that its enemy was staggering, the purger didn''t waste time. The claw swung down.


    I managed to reach it before the claws reached him, stabbing its neck. The purger went down, it had barely made a growl before going silent.


    "Phineas?" now, I got the same expression from the Davi like the one I got from Jeong Yewon, Seo Daho and Traikun. I didn''t bother with it and moving on to the next purger.


    Everytime I got close to one purger, I would immediately dispose of it. It''s easy for me to do it because those purgers weren''t originally paying attention to me. They were already busy engaging the others that I could just jumped in and finished them in one or two moves.


    Whenever I finished helping one person, he or she would just stare at me at amazement. All of their eyes were following my movements. I didn''t noticed this at first, but when I did I got irritated.


    I yelled at them, "What are you doing? Go help the others!".


    As if awakened from their folly, they immediately complied with what I said. They started ganging up on the purgers. This time, I could see the difference in their fighting style. They were fighting with more hope now. Of course, many versus one would tip the balance in our favor.


    The purgers were going down at a faster rate as time went on. Wherever I went I would make sure to introduce them to the cold knife I was holding now. The normal purgers couldn''t go against me one on one. As for the one being gang up on, they''re falling down too. It took time but they were slowly killed off.


    From the hundreds that survived the machine guns now only twenty or so left. Everybody was ganging up on them. However, among the purgers, there were still two yellow-eyed alive and they were still butchering our people. They were simply stronger and moved faster than the lower level ones. Even for me, they''re scary.


    "Focus on shooting those two!" I pointed at the two yellow eyed to the soldiers.


    Some people who understood what I said helped to translate it. Most of the soldiers who still had their guns were shaking their head. The commander and one of his soldiers took out their handgun and started to shoot at one of the yellow-eyed. They were emptying their bullets on it.


    "Kreeeee!" the particular yellow-eyed''s attention was drawn to the commander and his man. It was bleeding profusely and it''s angry. It started charging at them.


    I ran and intercepted that bleeding yellow-eyed.


    When we met, the yellow-eyed swung its arm while I dodged downward. I moved my knife upward and it thrusted the monster under the chin. It bellowed hard, then tried to grab me. I made a somersault backward and leaped forward again just as I landed. The yellow-eyed monster tried to catch me but it was staggering, weaken from losing too much blood, and missed me. I turned in the air and grabbed its head, locking it with my baton.


    The yellow-eyed purger shrieked full of rage. As I twisted it''s neck, a snapping sound was heard, the neck was broken and it went down.


    The last shriek attracted the attention of the other yellow-eyed purger. That last yellow-eyed looked at me and ran toward my direction.


    "No bullets," the commander shouted at me when I looked at him. It was in Korean but his gesture was enough for me to understand.


    Well, this was just great, I thought. This one yellow-eyed only had minor wound from gunshot. It was not enough to make it hurt.


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    "Give me that sword!" I said to one of the fighter wielding a short sword. He immediately threw the sword to me. I let go of my baton and grabbed the short sword.


    Clank!


    When the yellow-eyed''s claws met my sword, sparks flew and we were both stopped. I felt numbing sensation but could still held onto the sword. Then the yellow-eyed''s other set of claws met with my knife.


    Clank! It was a stalemate for us.


    The onlookers were flabbergasted. An ordinary human being could stand one on one with a higher level monster like this?


    Before, when they saw the large amount of purgers that were coming for us and how easy for the yellow-eyed to slay us human, even after heavily wounded by gunfire, they all thought we didn''t have any chance to survive at all. But now, not only the ordinary purgers were defeated, even the yellow-eyed one was stopped.


    With both our hands occupied, we were both struggling. This monster was as strong as me. I suddenly thought of something I saw yesterday. On that very second, I jumped backward. At the same time, the yellow eyed''s tongue shot out.


    "Damn, too fast!" my thought flashed and I immediately activated, "Titan Armor!"


    The yellow-eyed''s tongue hit my chest squarely. The force threw me back. The onlookers were gasping. They were frightened. I was even more frightened.


    I stood up, touching my chest. This Titan Armor was amazing. The tongue attack was the yellow-eyed special attack. I assumed it''s stronger than the claw attack. However, I wasn''t injured. My shirt was torn exactly at the part where the tongue landed, that''s all. This made all the difference. I had just proven that my strength was comparable with the yellow-eyed and now I found out I have great defense as well.


    This great defense was not free though. It did consume quite a good portion of my stamina. Still, it felt good.


    Subconsciously I grinned at the yellow-eyed purger. Without wasting time, we both were going at it again.


    The clash between the yellow-eyed claws and my weapons caused sparks flew. It was blinding to the eyes of the onlookers. Not only the sparks, even the sounds of us hitting each other were making the people frightened.


    I could not, no matter how hard I tried, break the claws. It had the same quality as my sword and my knife, if not better.


    Fortunately, even though the yellow-eyed was faster than the ordinary ones, it''s still not as fast as me. Because of that fact, I could maneuver myself and hit it. It wasn''t easy though. This yellow-eyed purger had amazing reflexes and unbelievable stamina. Some of my attacks were blocked by it and it even managed to score several tongue attacks on me.


    Once or twice was alright for me to activate Titan Armor but later on I started to feel the toll it took on me. My breathing was starting to get heavier and heavier.


    "Not good!" this had became a battle of attrition. And I realized that I would be the one losing if this kept going. I needed to change my tactic.


    Since I already managed to make it bleed in several places, I decided to focus my attention and relied on my speed to avoid getting hit by its tongue attack. Thus I could stop wasting my stamina because of using Titan Armor.


    Whenever it attacked, I dodged. And whenever I dodged, I tried making a small effort to counterattack it. Small additional wounds started to add on the yellow-eyed body. I stopped taking the initiative to start an ambitious attack. Just simple dodging, stabing, dodging and slashing.


    This simple tactic worked. The yellow-eyed purger couldn''t land a single tongue attack anymore. As for its claw attack, I merely blocked or dodged them.


    The yellow-eyed was beginning to show weaker attacks and slower response. It was already minutes since we started fighting. The beast was amazing to be able to hold such a long time while bleeding profusely.


    When I could start attacking again, the yellow-eyed was already so much weakened.


    "My turn!" I saw this as a chance. My stamina was also almost depleted, I knew I should take this chance. The passive tactic had now changed. My sword and knife stabbed and slashed everywhere, making it bleed even more.


    Finally, the yellow-eyed purger succumbed and fell down on its knees. It couldn''t even avoid or block when I stabbed the short sword into its neck. It struggled a bit but could not do anything of worth and then with a slashing on its throat I ended its life.


    The onlookers, who were watching intensely, suddenly erupted in cheers. This sudden turn of event made everyone rejoiced. The fighters and soldiers ran to me and lift me up. There were shouts of joy everywhere. People were patting me on the shoulders and words of congratulation were delivered, or at least I thought of those as congratulatory words since I didn''t understand Korean enough. I could feel their excitement were as real as can be.


    "You should be the one titled Undefeated," Davi said sincerely while hugging me. Oh if he only knew, I thought to myself, before this world changed I would not even have a slightest chance against a real fighter like him, much less an ordinary purger.


    Traikun, with his limited English, wrested my arm and shouted, "Good! Good fighter! Strong fighter!"


    Davi and Traikun made me think a bit. They''re experienced fighter but they didn''t find that I wasn''t really a fighter?


    Jeong Yewon came to me. She made a slight bow, the bow Korean usually made when greeting. After that, to my surprise, she moved closer. To the point we were almost cheek to cheek. I could smell her lovely fragrance and feel her breath. And then she whispered directly to my ear, "Thank you."


    After that, people were taking turns to shake my hand. I grinned and smiled for a long time that my face felt distorted.


    The reinforcement came, a bit too late, and dumbfounded when they saw that we had survived the onslaught.


    The commander decided that we couldn''t maintain two frontlines. They started to work on closing the other bridge. Minimal guards were put there which served only as warning. They focused their defense on one bridge only. All resources were gathered to defend that one bridge.


    The refugee who ran away were coming back. Thousands of people were now back to their original camps. They heard about how we survived this ordeal.


    I didn''t know what to do with this sudden celebrity status I got and I didn''t like how I was given a private room all by myself. I was guessing the commander did that to allow me to rest without getting disturbed all the time.


    I went to find the commander. When we met, I asked him something that make him astonished.

 Chapter 15. Sharing and Killing

    I wanted to borrow a bus. When he asked for the reason I told him about the group of people in the police station where I spent the night before. I wanted to bring them here.


    The commander didn''t have any reason to reject me. More so, it seemed he was reluctant to let me go but didn''t have a reason to stop me. A bus was prepared for me with a couple of soldiers acting as driver and escort.


    At the frontline, where the bodies of the purgers and our human casualties were being moved. I stopped the bus. I got off and moved toward the purgers. It was close to a thousands purgers here, some even yellow-eyed ones. The greedy me, how could I resist the temptation to harvest the marbles? I had a plan for these later. The soldiers didn''t understand what I did when I picked up things from the chest of the purgers. After all, the marbles were tiny and translucent, not easily seen. I didn''t pick them all since I didn''t want to waste too much time. I put them in my backpack.


    We moved again and arrived at the bridge where the defense were built. Here I saw another ocean of bodies. A path was cleared to let us pass while some soldiers were throwing the dead purgers into the water.


    With the soldier driving I could sit relax while watching the scenery. When I said scenery I meant it in very sad way.


    Seoul was a busy, lively and bustling city. Livelier than some of capital cities in the world. But now? It was torn and desolate. Marks of fire and smoke were everywhere. The buildings were left in destitute. We didn''t even see any human corpses. The purgers took care of that neatly.


    It was like a civilization on a brink of destruction.


    We were mostly on highway so there was almost no obstacle there. When we got off the highway we met with some roaming purgers but it was easy to take care of them. We either hit it with the bus or the soldiers shot it.


    When we arrived at the police station, I could see someone was peeking from inside. I disembarked the bus and hurriedly called them out.


    The door was open and the first face I saw was Lt. Yoon. I didn''t want to waste time to speak through Little Han''s translation so I let the soldier do the talking. Immediately the face of Lt. Yoon lighted up. He called out to the others inside. One by one they emerged. Looking at me and the soldiers with happiness.


    Four purgers appeared, attracted by the noises we made, coming from different directions.


    While the soldiers were helping the civilians to get on the bus, I single-handedly took care of the incoming purgers. The people were afraid when they saw purgers coming our way and were about to run inside the police station again. But then they saw that I killed all of the purgers so everything went smooth again.


    On the bus, one of the elderly took my hand and again said her thanks. I gave her a warm smile. Everytime I saw them elderlies I couldn''t help myself from thinking about my grandparents. Little Han Wonseok came to me and while grinning gave me a thumb up, "Mister, you are a really strong man."


    I laughed and rubbed his head.


    We arrived at the bridge and after the registration were driven to the camp. It''s already afternoon by the time they settled in.


    I asked the commander whether he was planning to gather provisions and ammunitions because we seemed to be low on those. His eyes were wide and brighter than sun as I offered to accompany his troops on this trip. He immediately made the arrangement.


    Less than half an hour later we were already moving in convoy. About a hundred of soldiers and near a hundred of civilian volunteers were in this group. Some of the civilians were the fighters I knew including Traikun and Davi.


    During the convoy we met several obstacles like the purgers and damage cars. I took care of the purgers without creating unnecessary sounds like gunfire while the others would be working together to clear the road.


    It didn''t take long to arrive at our destination since there was simply no traffic.


    We immediately loaded provisions from the goverment warehouse and a couple of supermarkets. Since close to two hundreds people were working, we immediately fill up the trucks. After that, we stopped by a military storage depot and gathered what we can to fill up the rest of the trucks.


    In the last supermarket, we found something very unsettling inside. There wasn''t any sign of purgers getting inside, however, we found bodies. Dead bodies. Most of us gathered to see the scaterring human corpses, some ended up puking.


    "Who killed them?" someone asked.


    Davi gave his opinion, "It seemed like they.. kill each other."


    Several others agreed, including the soldiers. It didn''t take a genius to see that. It''s even easier for people like Davi and Traikun, who were constantly training in fight. There were evidences that these people fought with each other. Of course, having no trace of any purger inside helped this deduction too. Purgers wouldn''t leave our corpses intact like this, they''d eat us.


    Davi commented, "Why did they kill each other?"


    I saw something more disturbing. On the wrists of all the bodies were faint thin lines. They''re obviously improved men, like me. Why, then, were they dead? I was immediately reminded of what I had been afraid of. They''re killing each other for the marbles.


    They were many people and simply too limited number of those tiny darkish marbles. It''s not like the marbles fell freely from trees. So, instead of sharing, people opted to fight for them.


    I had been in corporate life for a long time and, thus, had subconsciously expected such outcome. It wasn''t that apparent in small businesses, but became worse in larger companies. We are expected to compete. People would do literally anything to get ahead of the others. Even to the point of ''killing'' the others by ending other''s career. That was what happened before the doom, a ''peaceful'' era. Now, however, was savage time, and I saw the proof in front of my eyes how people became crueler to each other.


    Was the god right about us? Well, I wouldn''t argue with the god about this. Greed, indeed, often drove our action, be it as main motive or subtlely hiding behind.


    The moment some people knew that we could power up like this, they would start competing. They would fight, even kill, others for it. And once the news about these darkish marbles known to everyone, we didn''t even need the purger to eliminate us. We''d be fighting amongst us to extinction. Currently we didn''t have the mean to control and prevent this from happening.


    I paid extra attention to those wrists. One of the corpses had longer status bars. Not too much ahead but obviously more than the others. This person could be me. He might be the first one among this group of people who knew about the tiny translucent marbles. After he naively told some people about this, one or a few of those people got greedy and started this incident. Multiple probable scenarios ran in my head, all ended up here.


    Some people wouldn''t mind sharing, but there''d be many people, like whoever managed to survive here, who would simply eliminate those good-natured folks.


    The person who survived the fight here, he or she could''ve gone to any refugee camp in the city. Or, that same person could already be inside Incheon refugee camp, looking for the chance to cut me and any other competitor. Somehow, I was scared by this prospect. I had to be careful.


    You see, I had greed too. I wanted all those marbles for myself. There''s a limit of what I''d do to achieve that, though. I didn''t think I could kill another person for those marbles. That said, I wasn''t going to be a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. If targeted, I''d retaliate.


    If god wanted to announce the existence of those tiny things, the god could do so without hassle. The all-powerful, all-knowing god didn''t need a megaphone. I had no interest in becoming a self-proclaimed god''s prophet.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    The fact that god didn''t blast this thing in some kind of mass memo showed how much the god understood us. I had suspected all along that the reason why god didn''t announce the marbles was because the god believed we would end ourselves faster once everyone knew of the existence of the marbles. This had been something in my mind, if the god didn''t want us gone, why allowed Doom to befall us in the first place?


    Well, just as the god said, there''s still good people in the world. This was the reason I''d still go with what I had decided to do later.


    The sun was already set when we reach the bridge. Darkness reigned once more.


    The ammunitions and weapons delivery were stopped here. The provision trucks moved further back to the camp. Seeing the arrival of trucks bringing provisions made many people happy. The lights were already turned on and I could see their expressions. It pained me to remember that the provisions were probably only enough for a few days. Feeding more than ten thousand of people were not easy.


    I let the others do the unloading while I took Traikun and Davi to search for Seo Daho. When we met him I took the man with us. The three of them were wondering why I asked to meet them in private but I didn''t say anything for the moment.


    As I was bringing them to my room when we were stopped by someone on the way. It was Jeong Yewon.


    "Going somewhere?" she asked.


    "I ask them to join me for a drink," I said, trying to avoid her gaze.


    I did not know whether she could see right through my lie or not but she softly said, "Can I join?"


    I did not know what to say to her. However I did not want to include her in this so I said, "It''s a guy thing."


    She didn''t let me finished, "Really?"


    Now I knew why she was a top star. She had this unique aura around her. The way she looked at me, directly at my eyes, made me don''t want to lie to her. She was such an enchanting fox. She didn''t even force me and yet I succumbed and asked, "Would you like to join?"


    Jeong Yewon smiled and then said, "Gladly. Let''s go."


    We walked to the building where my room was located. The room was pretty big. It had a small dining table in the middle. I asked them to sit comfortably around the table. There was no drinks there but the four of them didn''t ask.


    I put my backpack on the table and slowly poured what was inside, carefully so it wouldn''t fall off the table. Tiny translucent darkish marbles filled the table.


    The four of them were looking at the marbles I collected earlier. Their mind reeling, probably wondering what they were.


    "What is this?" one of them asked.


    "These are what make me strong."


    "What are you talking about?" Jeong asked, full of curiousity. Her reaction was the mildest one, the others were looking at me even more ridiculous.


    Instead of explaining, I gave one marble each to Traikun, Davi and Seo Daho. Jeong Yewon extended her hand in front of me, asking for her part. I was very reluctant but the other three were not moving either and they were looking at me and waiting for my response to her so I finally gave one to her too.


    "When the monsters died, everyone of them will produce one of this," I told them.


    "This came from the dead bodies?" asked Seo Daho. They all looked at the tiny darkish translucent marble on their hands with some repulse.


    "How could you become strong from this tiny thing?" asked Davi.


    "Swallow it," I told them.


    "What?" all four of them had astonished look. Seo Daho even had a frowning look. These were, after all, came from the dead body of the monsters.


    "Are you sure?" Davi slowly asked. He wanted to make sure. I nodded.


    After my nod, the first to swallow was Jeong Yewon. Without the slightest doubt she put the tiny marble in her mouth and swallowed it.


    The others looked at her with amazement. And they became more amazed when she suddenly slightly floating in the air with her eyes closed.


    "Whoa! What happened?" the three guys shocked to see the floating Jeong Yewon.


    "She is transforming. Becoming strong and receiving some information," I told them to calm down.


    Jeong Yewon was currently in the same state I was when I first introduced to the marvelous marbles. This was my first time seeing this as a third party, so I, honestly, as amazed as Davi and the rest. I was only acting cool.


    It was a while when Jeong Yewon finally landed on the floor again. Her beautiful face was radiantly shining now. She was smiling widely and lifted up to see her wrist. Everyone paid focused attention and could see three very faint white transparent lines.


    "Amazing. Thank you," Jeong Yewon looked at me with happiness.


    Seeing her reaction, the other three guys immediately swallowed the marbles on their hands. This time it was Jeong Yewon who watched with amazement as the three men slightly floated off the floor.


    "I was floating like this too?" she asked me.


    "Yup," was my answer.


    "Cool," she smiled. We waited for the three guys for a while. I accidentally caught Jeong Yewon glancing at me meaningfully. What was the meaning? I didn''t know.


    The three of them landed down at almost the same time. When they exhaled and opened their eyes, they had different reaction. Traikun was cupping his palms together and put them in front of his forehead. Davi was making a cross sign. I guessed they believed it was really god who talked to them.


    All of them were looking at their wrists. Now they understood why I was so strong. Their faces were full of smiles. I extended my arm and show them my wrist.


    "Yellow?" Traikun said while wondering.


    "Yes. Once you ate enough of these marbles and have all the three bars raised to full you will have a change of color too," I told them. "How you divide the power raising is absolutely your decision."


    I then divided the hundreds marbles on the table into four equal parts. Well, as equal as I could be without actually counting. I put the group of marbles in front each of them.


    "Go ahead," I nodded to them. They looked at me with gratitude as a response. Then they focused their attention to the marbles with apparent glee. Some glints swiftly seen and disappeared from the guys'' eyes when they glanced at the marbles in front of the others. Jeong Yewon, the one I originally didn''t plan to share the marbles with, was the only one without such gaze.


    My heart skipped a beat. Was I seeing things? I hoped I didn''t make the wrong decision. I didn''t want this sharing to end up with killing.


    Each of them solemnly looked at the tiny marbles in front of them and then started to swallow the marbles one by one. Slowly but sure the white bars on their wrist were raising. Their expressions were gleaming with confidence and gladness. When all the marbles were gone, everyone has raised their white status lines to about three-quarter.


    "So much power," Davi tried to throw a punch in the air. He was laughing.


    "Phineas, thank you," Traikun said in full gratitude. I knew the sincerity of his thank. Now, he thought that he had a chance to go back to his family.


    "Yes, Phineas, thank you very much," Davi and Seo Daho both said in solemn expressions. They understood that my sharing this to them had given them a bigger chance to survive. A lot bigger.


    They looked at the empty table with longing expressions. I knew they wanted more.


    I smiled and then warned them, "Don''t be hasty and don''t put your guard down. You''re not that much stronger than ordinary purgers and definitely weaker than those yellow-eyed ones."


    "Now I understand how you get to know their name, purger," Jeong Yewon said.


    An intelligent woman like her would have guessed, I knew.


    "Take some exercise to familiar yourself with this power," I reminded them. The change in their bodies would need them to adjust their power output so that they wouldn''t accidentally hurt anyone or themselves.

 Chapter 16. Treacherous Couple

    I told them about what I found in that last supermarket. Davi and Traikun were there too, so they could confirm it. All of them were intelligent people and, right away, knew the reason why it happened.


    "Those dead people, their outfit seemed to be uniform. So, I think they probably worked at the same place. Some factory or something like that. They might be friends before," I stopped for a little while, letting the fact sinked in. "I won''t dictate your choice. Just... be careful."


    Understanding what happened out there in that last supermarket, and then my sharing with them the information about the marbles, the four of them were in more gratitude to me than ever.


    Well, I had my reason to choose them. During our short interaction, they looked like good people. At least that''s what I think. I just wished that they didn''t end up killing each other later on, or be killed by others they let know about the marbles.


    When Traikun, Davi and Seo Daho finally left my room they were leaving with such happiness on their faces. Jeong Yewon stayed behind.


    "You''re not leaving?" I wondered.


    Jeong Yewon looked at me with an amused expression. She was really beautiful. Whatever her expression was, she still looked amazing. "Tell me, why did you want to exclude me before?"


    I had no ulterior motive so I told her the truth. "Good people, like you, with such power will be inclined to jump into fights. The danger you face will be constantly much higher than other normal man."


    "But my survival chance will also increase at the same time," she argued.


    "True. But, call me old fashion, with the constant high danger lingering, I prefer we the male do the fighting."


    "I see. So you don''t like me to be in danger," she smiled amusingly.


    "Ah..," I stammered slightly, but since it was probably easier for her to accept her own deductive reasoning then I just nodded slowly.


    "Hm, thank you for acknowledging that, Phineas Shi, even if it''s not completely honest," Jeong Yewon grinned.


    Before I could argue anymore, Jeong Yewon rose to her feet. I, naturally, followed her movement and wanted to stand up too. But she put her hands on my shoulders, stopped me from getting up and then she bent forward. Her perfect smooth face hovered on top of mine and then her lips landed on my mine.


    I was stunned. I didn''t know what to do and what to say. The kiss was not a lighthearted one. It was a french kiss. I was perplexed and could only follow her lead. It lasted for a long time before our lips parted because she fell down on my lap.


    Her knees must''ve suddenly lost the strength. I voluntarily held her fragrant, soft body in my embrace. I thought she looked a bit thin, but now I found that she actually quite meaty at all the right places.


    She didn''t say anything, she just grabbed my neck and opened my mouth with her tongue again. While we continued our kiss my hands became dishonest as they roamed without obstruction. It went for a while and our breathing became ragged. We had to stop for air.


    When we stopped the union of our mouths, both of our faces were already burning hot. Even as an Acolyte, I was gasping for air, as was she. This beautiful woman must''ve guessed that I would react this way. She giggled while wiggling away from my embrace and then she left my room.


    What did she just do to me? Was this a reward or punishment for me? Thank goodness Davi and the rest didn''t have the same idea.


    When Jeong Yewon was getting out and closing the door of my room, someone saw her. Jeong Yewon tidied up her long hair and clothes which had been a mess. She was smiling happily and went back to her camp.


    The person who saw Jeong leaving my room was looking with cold stare. I didn''t think much about what I saw. After the door was closed I lost my sight of that person.


    It wasn''t late into the night, but I thought I''ll call it a day. Many things happened in one day and I needed to rest for my plan tomorrow.


    Just as I was laying down on my bed, I inspected my wrist and sighed. I didn''t like what I see. I had taken the marbles from the yellow-eyed and ate them. As for the rest, the marbles from the ordinary purgers, I gave all of them to Jeong and the others. The faint yellow lines were raised a tiny bit. My guess was right. The improvement on the yellow bars was more visible compared to when I took the marbles of the ordinary purger.


    This was a headache. I had trouble fighting one yellow-eyed, I simply couldn''t imagine how to gather those hundreds of yellow-eyed''s marbles I needed to level up. I might have to resort to taking the lowest level marbles, instead. Sigh, there''s simply not enough of them.


    Thinking about the difficulties of obtaining those tiny translucent marbles reminded me of what happened at the last supermarket. This was one of those time when I hated when my gut was proven right. A bit scared, I got up, wanting to barricade the door and windows.


    It was at this time the door was knocked. I thought Jeong Yewon came back for more, so I opened it. But it was not her, it''s someone else.


    I didn''t know why this girl was here. I remembered her name because Seo Daho once told me, but since we were never introduced I just pretend I did not know her.


    "Do you know who I am?" Min Songhee asked, in English.


    "I saw your face before. You must be famous," this was not a lie. I didn''t have the habit to know entertainment celebrities. For someone like me to recognize an entertainment personage meant that that individual ought to be famous.


    She smiled and extended her delicate hand, "Min Songhee."


    "What can I do for you, Miss Min?" I asked politely.


    "Aren''t you going to invite me in?" she said, smiling sweetly.


    "Uh, sure, come on in," I parted the door wide and let her in. When she walked pass me, our bodies touched. I thought I opened the door in full, apparently it''s not wide enough for her. Her sweet scent assaulted my nostrils. Unlike Jeong Yewon''s calmer scent, this woman''s was fiery and passionate.


    After she came in, I closed the door. She walked slowly, and looked around, as if she was appraising the room.


    "Nice room. A bit too big for one person, isn''t it?" without me being able to do anything about it, she right away sat on the bed. I just realized that she wore a skirt, which although not terribly mini when she was standing but short enough to show a whole lot of skin when she sat down and crossed her white flawless legs.


    "It''s ok," that''s all I say. I sat on the couch near the desk. "Well, Miss Min, do you have something in mind?"


    "So straightforward. I like that. Anyway, Miss Min sounds so old. Just call me Songhee. Then how should I call you? Big brother? Are you older than me? I''m 28 this year," Min Songhee kept talking without stop. She was pretty cheerful. I could understand why many people found her charming.


    "I''m older. You can call me any way you feel comfortable," I told her.


    "Then I''ll call you big brother," she said, playing with her tone, "I have a proposal to you, big brother."


    "What is it?"


    "You know, our world has ended. Our family, our friends, gone. All gone. Our lives changed completely. Do you agree, big brother?" She said.


    I nodded. Those were facts.


    "I think lingering on the past isn''t a good thing. I want to strive forward and create a new future. Do you want that too, big brother?" to this question I gave a simple yes.


    "So, I think we should create new friends and new family," Min Songhee said that with bright alurring smile.


    "I like making new friends," I replied.


    "I''m glad," Min Songhee reached her blouse and started unbuttoning.


    "Whoa!" I was startled and hurriedly stopped her from continuing. One button was already off and, since she wore a low cut shirt, showed enough skin to tempt a man''s heart. She had fuller front compared to the slimer Jeong Yewon.


    What was wrong with this girl? This was her idea of making new friends?


    "What are you doing?" I demanded answer, while my hand still held hers.


    "Older brother, why are you being shy? I want us to be friends, good and close friends. I will become your woman and you will become my man, okay?" she said coquettishly.


    "I think there''s been a misunderstanding. I''m not looking for a relationship," I told her.


    "Oh, are you talking about feelings? Feelings will develop once we get more intimate," she smiled and pulled her hands from my grab. She, again, resumed unbuttoning her shirt.


    Seeing that this woman had no wish to stop. I walked to the door and opened it wide. At this time, Min Songhee, with her determination was fast enough and managed to take off her shirt. She sat on my bed with nothing on top, showing an unblemished upper body that made her able to become one of the top celebrities in South Korea.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    I said to her, "If you have nothing else to talk about, I''m tired. I need rest."


    Min Songhee''s face suddenly became stiff. I didn''t know what went in her mind right now and, quite frankly, this big brother didn''t care. She was obviously holding her anger while putting her shirt on again and left without saying any words.


    I didn''t approve what she did, but I could understand the reason. People were looking for a way to survive this new savage world that they went to do crazy things. Just like how some people would kill for the marbles, others would do what Min Songhee did just now. In such a world, power meant everything. And I, evidently, provided enough proof my strength. Her attitude was a total opposite from when she saw me hitchhiking their bus this morning.


    Well, I decided not to dwell on it and went to sleep. It had been a long day.


    When morning came I went to meet Jeong Yewon and the others. I found them at the meal area where they were having breakfast. Jeong Yewon saw me and had a fresh smile on her face.


    "Morning," we were all greeting each other. I sat with them and had my morning meal. They were in a good mood. I guessed they were still in the euphoria of the new power they now possessed. The power upgrade was really amazing so it''s understandable.


    This breakfast would probably be the last hot meal for me for a long time. I didn''t think I could make a meal like this on my journey. That was why I devoured what I can.


    "Is the food that good?" Seo Daho watched with amusement as I finished the meal in no time.


    I stood up, rubbing my stomach in satisfaction.


    "What''s with the bag?" Davi asked when he saw me carrying my backpack.


    "I''m going back to my home," I broke the news. I told this to the commander before coming here, he was very reluctant but there was nothing he could do to stop me.


    There was silent.


    "Are you guys alright?" I still asked, even though I kind of knew that something like this might happened.


    "Well, I should have expected that, shouldn''t I?" Jeong Yewon softly said.


    I nodded, "I have family there."


    "We understand, brother," Davi stood up and gave me a hug. Traikun did the same thing. So did Seo Daho.


    Jeong Yewon came close to me and said, "You.. are you coming back?"


    "I highly doubt that."


    "I see. This is good bye then," after saying that she hugged me and gave me a kiss on my cheek.


    "Where will you start?" asked one of them.


    "North Korea." I made this decision yesterday, when I knew that airplane was out of question.


    "Safe journey, Phineas Shi," Jeong Yewon said with soft sound.


    "Safe journey, brother."


    I said my goodbye to them and then head out. We only knew each other for a little more than a day. Although our feelings were not deeply connected but we made a bond when we were facing life and death together. It was a bit sad but I had to go.


    Five minutes later I was walking out of the camp when I met someone I didn''t think would want to speak to me. It was that handsome and masculine guy, Choi Doowon. He was accompanied by Min Songhee.


    "Are you leaving?" Min Songhee talked to me. She did not looked upset at all about last night.


    I nodded. News traveled fast.


    "Going back to China?" she continued.


    "Yes."


    Choi Doowon said something which Min Songhee translated to me, "Are you planning to go through North Korea? He got some information that might help you. He found out about it yesterday. I think it may help you."


    Information that can help me? I was intriqued. I already knew about the physical change happened in our world. Did he have other information? I doubted that. But, no matter what doubt I had, I still wanted to be sure.


    "What information?" I asked.


    "It''s better if you see it for yourself," the actress said.


    "Where?" I wanted to know. Every information was important at such time, the time when we didn''t have access to internet and phones.


    "To the east, past the airport. Come with us," Choi Doowon said and my reaction was to follow them.


    We were walking pass the refugee camp. I saw thousands of people were lining for breakfast. Even though they survived yesterday ordeal and for a moment it seemed like they had hope, but after a night rest they were faced with a harsh reality. They were still in a refugee camp and they still had to queue for a simple hot meal. They weren''t on their dining room or nice restaurant.


    After passing through the camp we arrived at the airport. The once beautiful and sophisticated Incheon now was filled with refugees. Various kind of people were there. The airport was capable of handling a lot of people but that was when it was supported by many staff. Now, many people were still wallowing in their own suffering and did not have any will to do anything else.


    Although the water and electricity still ran, not sure for how long, no one was taking care of cleaning up the restrooms. With so many people using them, the restrooms soon became dirty and unsightly. Trash was also everywhere to be seen.


    The appearances of both Choi Doowon and Min Songhee, famous actors, would usually garner many attention but not today. They were not the only famous people amongst the survivors. At such time, being famous meant little. Actually it was more harmful to them.


    Choi Doowon was famous for playing heroic and manly characters. But yesterday he was running and hiding furthest to the back of the airport while at the same time people saw that Jeong Yewon and Seo Daho, which were also famous people, fought at the front line. This event had kind of damaged his image.


    "It''s there," Min Songhee pointed to the far end of the airport.


    "It changed?"


    I was here some days ago. I got a good look of the landscape because it was nice. I even took some pictures. But now it had changed. I should not be too shocked since I saw the satellite picture but, still, to look at it with my own eyes was something else.


    "You''ll be more surprise later. Let''s go," they beckoned to me. I followed them. We walked hundreds of meters outside of the runway before finally stopped. What I saw was breathtaking. And scary as well.


    In front of me, the land descended at least a few hundreds of meters. It was like a canyon. It spread so wide I could not see either end from where I stood. It was probably as wide as the island itself.


    The view was amazing. The new land was formed of red scorched earth. The landscape was hilly with some large weird plant patches and pools. The red soil was like blood on earth. In peaceful times, this could be an interesting tourism venue.


    But it was not what made me scare.


    On the new land I saw the purgers. Thousands, no, tens of thousands of them. They were swarming the land like ants. I could not see their level from this distance. They were grouped on the nearest cliff. There maybe thousands of tents of various size. The tents were circling a round shiny platform.


    There were simply too many of the purgers down there. On the far horizon I could see some fires from the other camps. They probably did not know we were up here. If they knew, we would be overrun since yesterday. And we being on a much higher cliff really helped hide that fact.


    "Look at that," Min Songhee pointed somewhere in the near camp.


    "What is it?" I did not know what she was pointing at.


    "There. Near the middle," she continued.


    I squinted my eyes, trying to see what she saw. Then suddenly I was falling down the cliff.


    Someone pushed me!


    I turned my body mid air and saw Choi Doowon and Min Songhee were both looking at me with smug looks. Satisfactions were plastered pretty clear on their faces. I could not believe it! Why the hell did they do this?


    The fall was fast and within a blink I already went down hundreds of meters. I could not think of anything else. Was I going to die here? What about my grandparents?


    Titan Armor! I activated it at last moment before hitting the ground.


    Sharp pain entered my mind. I couldn''t move. I saw my surrounding. The purgers camp was in commotions. My fall must have created a loud noise. I saw movements from the camp. I was sure some of the purgers were running toward me. I couldn''t see clearly, everything was blurry.


    I passed out.

 End of Arc: Away from Home

    This is to mark the end of the first arc.


    The story so far:


    The world was changed over night. The main character was on business trip and have to find a way to get back to his family. With the help of God, he kind of evolved into a stronger version of human.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    So begins his journey.


    Characters introduced so far:


    Phineas Shi


    Stuart


    Susan Xu


    Lt . Yoon Heeseung


    Han Wonseok


    Jeong Yewon


    Seo Daho


    Traikun Praves


    Davi Brito


    Choi Doowon


    Min Songhee

 Chapter 17. The Start of 400 miles Journey

    After an undetermined time had passed, I was awakened. I felt weak, even opening my eyes took a little effort. I check my surroundings when I did manage to open my eyes. Not much I could see from this point of view. I knew that it''s not the night, since the sunlight was there, although I must say that this place felt pretty secluded, judging from the shade covering my sight. My head couldn''t move, it felt like the sides of my face was enveloped by something, blocking me from moving freely. I exerted my strength to get up. It''s like I had to use every ounce of energy to be able to move my body. After some time passed, I was finally able to move my head and see more things.


    I was somewhat buried behind a rock. The rock itself wasn''t extra big, however its shade covered more than half of me. Almost all of my body was under the cover of red soil. This soil, it''s almost as sticky as gum and, at the same time, had characteristic of mud. A small part of my face was probably the only thing still on the surface. That was why it''s so hard to move.


    Trying to get out of the soil, I found that the soil was both dense and sticky. It took me quite some time to free my hands. Now that my hands were free, I grabbed the rock and used it as a support. When I got to the part where I managed to free my legs, I realized that I couldn''t move them. In fact, I couldn''t feel anything on the lower part of my legs. I could sit but I failed to stand up.


    "Damn!" I cursed. Was I crippled? This sucks! I showed my power and this was what I got?


    Based on the information from Seo Daho, Choi had been with them from the start, so he couldn''t be the one who came out alive from the fight at that supermarket. Meaning, he shouldn''t be an evolved like me. I couldn''t be really sure because he wore long sleeves shirt. As for Min Songhee, now her I was pretty sure that she wasn''t an evolved. I meant, she wasn''t modest with her choice of clothing at all.


    What then, could be the reason of their action?


    Also based on the information from Seo, Choi was someone who liked to be in limelight. So was Min Songhee. I wondered whether that related to me at all, with me being suddenly famous? In the end, I couldn''t understand what''s going on in their mind and what prompted their vile action.


    Thinking up to here, I promised myself that from now on, I''d be more careful and be as low key as possible.


    My whole body was covered with red sticky soils. I probably looked like one of the purger now, being bulky. Considering I just fell a few hundreds meters and still alive, I considered it lucky. Well, I had Titan Armor to thank. Still, the fact that I was crippled due to the fall proved that even with Titan Armor I wasn''t invicible.


    Looking around, I saw foot marks everywhere. It was like the earth was trampled on. I looked up and saw to my horror, various kinds of tools were hanging on the cliff. There might be hundreds of them.


    A terrible feeling crept into me, it''s like tiny ice cubes were slashing my spine. Even taking a guess about what happened to the people up there frightened me.


    The purgers on this new land, before my fall, didn''t seem to know that there''re human up this tall cliff. My fall must''ve alerted them and thus they decided to climb up. Even though the cliff was hundreds of meters high, for monsters like them it wasn''t impossible. Using their strength and claws, they could climb the cliff easier than any professional climbers. Not to mention if they used some kind of tools, like hooks and ropes.


    One interesting thing plague my mind. How had I survived with only broken legs? The purger had one motto and one motto only: Take No Prisoners.


    I couldn''t possibly be sure of what really happened, but I guessed it had something to do with my Titan Armor and the fact that I was buried due to the fall to this particular part where the red soil was softest and partly blocked by a rock. Titan Armor kept me alive despite falling this high while the red soil and the rock hid me from further disaster of becoming fresh food for the purgers.


    I felt hungry and weak. Titan Armor had taken every bit of stamina I had. I had only regenerated a bit of stamina during my faint so I guessed I didn''t passed out too long. I wanted to know what happened up there but it would have to wait.


    Throwing my sight afar, I eyed the purger''s camp. That nearest camp must be where the climbers came from. It should be near empty or fully empty now. From where I lay I could see fire totems inside the camp. From this distance, no purger was sighted, which was good. Or bad, depending on whose perspective it was.


    There could still be left over purger at the camp, I couldn''t really be sure. Anyway, I still got to give it a try. If I could get at least one marble from a purger, my vitality would be replenished faster. This was what I learned from repeatedly consuming the marbles. As for my legs? I''d think about it later.


    I started crawling toward the camp using my arms and torso only. With my strength, it wasn''t suppose to be that hard to drag my body. The problem was I felt weak. My stamina hadn''t recovered. Something that should''ve been easy for me to do was now a challenge.


    The sun shone quite bright at this time. Judging from the its position, it should be a little bit after noon. There was no hiding place between where I fell and the purger''s camp. Sure, there were rocks and some weird shrubs everywhere, but they were too small to hide me. Fortunately, my body was covered with the red soil, making me much less conspicuous on the land.


    It took me probably one hour crawling just to get near to the camp. I kept checking whether any purger would appear. Whether it was due to my luck or not, there didn''t seem to be any purger around.


    While crawling I thought about my fall. Since I didn''t see any visible physical trauma on my legs I was guessing that as long as I could evolve up a level then my legs would healed too. When I progressed from white status to an Acolyte, the improvement to my body was great. See, I was an active youth. I played futsal, plus a couple other high impact sports and retained several injuries. All my previous injuries that I got from those sports had vanished now.


    How far was the extend of reparation that an upgrade brought? I had no idea. Could it regrow severed limb? Or could it regrow smaller incident like, for example, severed finger? And how about people who was birthed with disability, would it help them?


    Anyway, since I had no information nor experience in that matter, let''s leave it at that.


    Coming back to what''s ahead, I was thinking that, even with my legs crippled, I was pretty sure that I could overcome a single purger. I could at least activate Titan Armor once. I was nimbler than any ordinary purger and my strength was far above it. The purger didn''t fight with a tactic, it would simply charge at me. With all these advantages, there was a very high chance of me winning. That was, of course, as long as I stayed defensive and faced only one of them.


    Since I didn''t see a single purger there, I decided to make my way to the center of the camp. This was where I first saw the strange round platform. I was no explorer, even so, I found everything on this new land both interesting and intriguing.


    ''Shoot!'' my eyes caught about a dozen of purgers coming from the opposite direction.


    I pushed myself hard to move away, as hard and as fast as I could. Ignoring the pain from rocks and heavy friction with the ground, I hurriedly hid behind one of the tents. After settling in, I pulled myself up so I''d be in a sitting position. I was almost late. They arrived as soon as I managed to drag my currently dysfunctional legs.


    They must''ve came from the other camp. I took a peek at what they were doing here. They were encircling the round platform. From this angle, I only managed to see part of the strange platform, nothing more. The purgers were ordinary ones. I didn''t dare to fight that many of them in my current condition. Even in full health I still had to be extra careful.


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    The purgers were kind of growling at each other. Wow, they''re having a conversation? Of course they were. How silly of me to be surprised by this. I had been placing the purgers as something below us human while in fact I didn''t know much about them. I knew the marbles produced by their dead bodies were beneficial to us and I knew the purgers were hierarchical based on strength. And that''s it.


    Eavesdropping from my hiding place, I was somehow fascinated by the way they talked to each other. I couldn''t precisely find any similarity between their conversation style with anything in our world. Amidst that gibberish, one of them walked forward and stood on top of the circular platform.


    The platform suddenly lighted up in soft light, covering the purger''s whole body. That monster was making loud scream, its body was trembling hard. If I had to make a guess of what kind of face this particular purger was making now, I''d say it''s in pain. Then its body was emitting some light and it floated a bit.


    ''What the hell!'' I almost shouted when the purger started floated. What happened to it? This scene felt familiar, it made me anxious.


    It''s only a short moment before the soft light started to dim and the purger landed on the platform again. That purger walked down the platform, and to my surprise, with yellow eyes. If I didn''t have good control over my body, I''d probably pissed my pants.


    One by one the other ordinary purgers were also going to the platform and came down as yellow-eyed ones. My head was spinning with confusion. I thought they needed to eat our hearts or our whole body to evolve? But what did I just witness? If they could evolve just by standing on that magical platform, then we, human, were definitely doomed.


    I felt anger toward the god. Why gave me hope only to crush it in the end? Wasn''t this looking more and more like a joke?


    The freshly evolved yellow-eyed purgers went back to their camp together. I saw their departure with redden eye. I could only swallow my indignation. There was no way I would ambush them now. Before, when they''re still ordinary purgers, ambushing them could be considered a reckless and stupid move, but now it''s a complete, sure fire, suicidal.


    I waited for at least a couple minutes after I lost sight of them to make sure no purgers suddenly popped out. I circled around a bit so that I could get a good view in the direction of where those new yellow-eyed went. By doing this, I could be certain that no purgers were coming this way. I came out of my hiding place and crawled until I got myself next to the circular platform.


    The platform was very peculiar. There were engravings of what I guessed to be some kind of writings of words I didn''t recognise on the outer side of the circular platform. The inner part was comprised of engraving of pictures which was divided into four parts that circled around a single picture in the middle.


    Those four engraved pictures that encircling the middle picture were like avatars of several kind of creatures. I felt there were some familiarity when seeing those creatures, but I couldn''t name them. I didn''t dwell on it for long. The single picture in the middle of it, however, was definitely a picture of a woman. She was a beautiful woman, with unblemished face and slim figure. She''d look like human, except for the almost illusory wings on her back. Her facial expression was that of lofty and high, like she was looking down on everything else.


    Without any doubt, I crawled up to the circular platform right away. If the purgers could evolve with this thing then, using the same logic that certain god introduced when talking about changes, I should be able to evolve too.


    The platform lighted up. Immediately, I was engulfed by the light. The light on my body was not coming from outside, it was from inside.


    "Ugh!" my whole body was in pain that I almost let out a scream. I gritted my teeth, enduring it all. The pain was like needles pricking on all of my blood vessels. The same with how the light came, the pain also came from inside of me. Now I understood why the purgers were screaming just now. This was totally different with my previous evolving.


    And then suddenly my consciousness plunged into emptiness and the pain was gone.


    In the emptiness a small light was suddenly emerging. The light was green. It was slowly coming near me. When it was nearer, I could see the silhouette of a woman.


    "Mortal Shi Huicheng," a voice was heard in my head.


    This voice was clearly that of a woman. This was definitely different than the previous god. I then asked, "Who are you?"


    "You are the first human who come to me," she said, totally ignoring my question.


    She shared the same characteristic with that previous god when he talked to me, which were haughty and speaking in lofty tones.


    "Your god thinks that we will not notice his tampering with our decision about his world. Well, I do notice. And I like it. So I decided to add a little flavor to this."


    "Oh no," I thought. With the appearance of this female god I now understood. This female god, together with other gods, must''ve been the side that push our creator god to agree to Doom. And since our creator god didn''t want to see us perished, being his creation and all, he gave us the chance through the marbles.


    "Oh yes," the female god voice reverberated loudly in my head.


    To say I was shocked was an understatement, "You can hear my thought too?"


    "You think just because you are not my creation I will not have the power to hear your inner thought?" she sounded proud.


    "My mistake, oh great god, powerful god. Please continue," I decided to play docile. She must''ve heard what I thought about her just now. I would be in huge danger if she decided to pursue it and punish me for it.


    "You think I would punish you alone? We have already sentenced your whole world with Doom! You are an interesting mortal. You''re not a bad man, but you''re not a good man either."


    She read my intention! I should stop thinking, at all.


    "Mortal Shi Huicheng. Just as I grant our creations power, I will also grant you power. Fair isn''t it?" then she laughed. It''s a very interesting laugh, coming from a god.


    Stop! I told myself to not think or have any opinion.


    "Hmh! You actually managed not to curse at me. Good control, mortal," she scoffed. I could be mistaken, but her reaction was like she lost the chance to play me around. Was this something the god enjoyed? She continued, "Nevermind. Here, choose!"


    Her hand reached out and touched my chest. A stream of information suddenly came to my mind.


    "Whoa... this... this is awesome!" I could not help blurted out. It was a genuine amazement.


    The female god was laughing. As if she knew I would say that. A self-satisfactory laughed.


    "I have to choose one from these?" I carefully asked.


    I could described her respond as something like Monalisa''s smile. She could either be smiling or not. Not easy to decipher.


    What she told me to choose was totally different to what the previous god gave us. This was not the level up of my three power of strength, vitality and agility. This was something else entirely.


    I turned to the female god. My face must''ve shown how dumbfounded I was. She could read my mind, she understood right away. The female god nodded haughtily, smirking.


    If this was true, it''s like me becoming a whole new person. My heart was beating fast. What should I choose?

 Chapter 18. Braver Come Forth!

    She gave me the option to choose from the total of four different types of personification. The more correct term should be classes. Those four names of the classes were floating in my mind, looking very enticing and intimidating at the same time.


    They''re nothing short of miracle. The information about the four classes entered my mind.


    The first was Braver. A Braver was someone who specialized in charging and attacking with direct physical contact using nature and elemental weaponry.


    The second was Lifesaver. A Lifesaver was someone with the proficiency to manipulate and redirect natural and elemental energy to tend to injuries and provide health regeneration.


    The third was Breaker. Simply said, a Breaker was capable to borrow the power of nature and elements and channeled them to protect him/herself and others.


    And last but not least was Soulstealer. A Soulstealer was someone who used the power of nature and elements to attack his/her opponent from distance away.


    What should I choose? It didn''t take long for me to make my mind up. I chose something that I liked.


    "Granted! Braver, come forth!" the female god touched my chest again and, this time, a flow of energy was swirling from outside of my body and condensing in my chest. A very faint greenish aura started to emanated from me.


    "You have additional status now," she pointed at my chest. I immediately understood what she meant as the information came to my head. On my chest right now appeared a symbol of one of the four creatures I saw on the platform. It was very faint, even fainter than the status lines on my wrist. And unlike a tattoo, the symbol was like emerging from inside of me, it''s like it existed in my flesh and I could peek at it through my skin. It was both eery and, at the same time, looked absolutely amazing. The creature''s symbol was moving in circular motion until it finally stopped. It became my Spirit status.


    "Choose your first art," she again said to me.


    With the information flowing in my head, I started scrolling through. There was not overly abundance choices, like the time when I chose Titan Armor, but it''s still a lot. I became greedy, everything seemed useful, it made me confused about what to choose.


    "Because you are the first mortal to come to me, I will grant you one extra art," with a proud tone she said to me.


    ''These gods really like having it their way, don''t they? In an instant they could decide to give another gift easily. The way I see it, our lives meant nothing to them. But who was I to question their method? I could only accept the gift obediently.


    Another interesting thing popped up in my mind. Why did she call them ''art''? Based on the names, I felt it''s more proper to call them ''skill''.


    "Just choose, less commenting," the female god chided. I meekly stopped my train of thoughts.


    It took me some time to choose. I believed time didn''t matter for this god as well. She didn''t say anything when I was perusing the ''arts''. It wasn''t as easy as choosing the class since there were so many to choose from. After some time passed, I made up my mind.


    The first art I chose was called Fiery Sword. The second was called Earth Breaker. Both of these arts relied on my Spirit status. The higher my spirit the stronger my arts will be. I got the information about how strong my Fiery Sword and Earth Breaker from the moment when I chose them. As a start, the Fiery Sword was said to be capable of cutting through wood while the Earth Breaker was capable of paralysing nearby enemies for a tiny bit of time.


    How cool was these skills? Oh, I meant arts! It''s enough to make me totally forgot that I was mad at the god just now, because of the existence of this magical circle.


    "Now leave, mortal," the female god commanded. Without waiting for my respond, not like she ever waited anyway, the female god moved. Her silhouette was flying away, getting smaller and smaller. Until the light vanished and I floated down the platform.


    I looked at my legs as I was standing. Carefully, I tried to move them. Just as I thought, my legs were healed! If it were not for the fact there was a camp of purgers at some distance from here, I would scream my heart out.


    I contained my excitement, not wanting to get ahead of myself. Despite the fact that I was now getting new capabilities, my physical strength was still the same. I was still an Acolyte. I still had three yellowish status lines on my wrist. Only now I had additional status called Spirit on my chest.


    Having skills, or arts as the god put them, such as Fiery Sword and Earth Breaker was a big deal to me. Their effect was a game changer.


    My best weapon was the military knife, which now I got two of them. The knife was strong and durable. It fared better when fighting the ordinary purger, considering I was much stronger than them, but it wasn''t the same when facing the yellow-eyed purger. It took more effort just to cut the yellow-eyed''s thick skin.


    Fiery Sword''s sharpness, according to the description entered into my mind by the female god, was capable of cutting through a block of wood. Yup, that''s all. I hoped it was a more measured information like, for example, able to cut through one meter or ten cm thick block of wood, but that was it.


    Still, there was no way a military knife capable of cutting through a block of wood just based on sharpness alone. It''s ridiculous to think of how much strength needed to achieve that with the knife. With Fiery Sword, I could just imagine how easy it would be for me to cut through the purgers, including the yellow-eyed. Even if those yellow-eyed purgers had consumed hearts and upgraded their power, it should be a comparably easier fight than my previous one on one with one yellow-eyed.


    Of course, comparing a block of wood and the flesh of purgers was not apple to apple. Some real life testing was needed to know the extend of its power.


    The next art, the Earth Breaker was ready to very briefly paralyzed a small surrounding enemies. Its importance couldn''t be underestimated.


    After getting excited by all those benefits, now came the bad news. The bad news was that both Fiery Sword and Earth Breaker used my stamina, just like Titan Armor. The even worse news was that while Titan Armor grew with me, meaning that Titan Armor would level up as long as I did, these two arts would not. Their level depended on my Spirit''s level, which I didn''t even know how to upgrade.


    Since the female god didn''t tell me the Spirit''s level name, I''d just call it first level.


    How good would it be if Fiery Sword and Earth Breaker didn''t cost any stamina. Oh, what a dream! Alright, I knew it''s silly to have such wish. Because if it''s true, then this event wouldn''t be called Doom, it''d be called Practical Joke on the Purger.


    With my body recovered and hunger subsided, I decided to went back to the cliff. I didn''t do this because I want to fight the monsters up there. I did this because I needed to know what happened to the people up there. Plus, I was very curious about the reason Choi Dowon and Min Songhee did what they do to me. I was petty that way.


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    I ran up to the cliff. Looking up, I saw many primitive tools made of either wood or stone embedded into the tough wall of the cliff. I used those primitive tools left by the purgers to climb up. Even though I was never a professional, or even amateur, climber but my strength was comparable to yellow-eyed purgers, so if ordinary purgers were able to climb this cliff, with or without tools, then I should be able too.


    At this time, with my health maxed out, just basing on me being an Acolyte, my strength level could be said to be the same with the yellow-eyed purger, while my agility was better and my vitality was lower. I surmissed that the difference was because of our innate as a being. Me being human, them being purger.


    There could also be differences between us human. For example, when comparing between the time Davi first become an evolved and me when I first evolved. By common sense, people like him, who was originally a trained fighter, should have better attributes than me. Meaning that at the same level he was more powerful than me. Of course, all of that was only my personal deduction since I had no proper means to investigate it. I made an assumption based on common sense, regardless the fact that common sense had little meaning in the eyes of the gods.


    When I arrived at the top, I scouted the surrounding carefully. Although my body was healed but my clothes were ruined. My backpack suffered the same fate. I managed to salvage several things like my identity card and passport since they were inside plastic bag, they were crumpled but overall safe. The clothes, however, were very dirty and the rations were crushed. The water container were dented and spoiled.


    Under this bright sun and green grassy land, the red soil on my thethered clothes was like a beacon for attention.


    The runways were empty. The windows of the terminals facing the runways were also devoid of any movement. I saw neither purgers nor human, which was disconcerting. Since this was a large empty space it was better for me if I could run as fast as I could toward the airport buildings. Thus, I sprinted.


    When I entered, the eerieness of silence immediatelly surrounded me. No sound was heard, not even the hum of the air-conditioner. I saw blood at many places. The walls, the glass, the floors, the chairs and the elevators, none of them were free from blood stain. However, there was no bodies. The purgers had the habit of eating every single thing part of us. Knowing the fact about the purger made this scenery looked more and more vomit-inducing.


    I saw a well-known brand clothing store inside the building. I charged inside of it, avoiding any blood on the floor, and hurriedly took a set of clothes. I went inside the fitting room to change into the new and clean clothings. It wasn''t due of decency that I still changed inside a closed room, it''s mainly because I didn''t want to be caught with my pants down by a purger.


    The store sold small bags too, I took one and moved my salvaged things from the backpack. I grabbed a couple pairs of new clothings my size and then put it in the small bag. It was full right away. This won''t do, I should find a bigger bag but at the moment this would have to suffice. I left the store carefully.


    Like an answer to my wish, I passed a store selling bags. From here I changed the small bag to a medium size backpack. Now I had space for other stuff too. I was able to fill it with bottled water and some dried food i found along my way. Later, I had the chance to change my ruined cross training shoes with a new one as well. I hoped this one lasted longer.


    Too bad I didn''t find stores that sold watches to replace my broken one. The reason I couldn''t tell the precise time was because my watch broke during the fall and my phone was broken during my first fight with the purger at the hotel. Reality really sucks, it wasn''t like movies where people could get into heated fight and still had their phones in perfect condition afterward.


    I left the airport building without seeing anyone at all. It was previously packed with people, but now it was thoroughly empty. Only pools of blood stayed as proof that there were human here before. Based on the digital clock that could be found at many places in the airport, it''s true that I had passed out for more than an hour.


    It made me very anxious and jittery. I was scared for the lives of the people here. They had no protection at this part of camp. All the troops were focused on defending the front line, the bridge, which was a logical tactical plan. There should be a few guards stationed at certain part of the airport, however their number could be very small. They didn''t think that it''s easy to climb the hundreds of meters tall cliff, and that the few guards were enough to gun down any rouge purger that managed to climb it.


    As I was enroute toward the refugee camp I saw several group of purgers. The group consisted of five to ten purgers. They scattered all along the road. That meant I have to take care of them if I want to reach the camp. There was no other road.


    I sneaked closer to one of the furthest group of seven purgers. I saw that they have no yellow eyes among them, which was good. I throw a small stone to a slightly hidden bent. The noise the stone made when hitting the ground was minimal, but it''s enough to attract their attention. This group of purgers moved to investigate, almost instinctively. When all of them have made it to the bent, out of sight from the other groups, I jumped out. Time to use my new arts.


    Earth Breaker!


    I landed near the middle of the purgers. When my feet landed, earthen mirage were visualized with my feet as the center. Within the radius of about two meter from me, the ground those purgers were standing on was immediately shaken. They were losing balance, unable to stand straight and could not make any meaningful action. While me myself was in perfect balance. This was the effect of my new ability, the Earth Breaker.


    Fiery Sword!


    From my right hand sprouted a luminous translucent sword about two inches wide and slightly more than half a meter long. The sword was emiting greenish aura. This greenish aura mesmerized even me, it was so pretty. If I didn''t remember that using Fiery Sword costed my stamina, I would''ve used it more often.


    I immediately swung my right hand, right at the next of the nearest ordinary purger.


    Shiiing!


    The sword went through its neck. I didn''t feel much resistance. This sword was awesome! It''s very sharp, a lot sharper than any weapons I had ever used. I didn''t even have to use a lot of power. After the first purger went down, I went on to slash the others. The other purgers were losing balance, they couldn''t react to my attack in time, and my sword was moving faster now as I familiarized myself more and more.


    One by one the purgers fell down until none left. What could''ve been a risky fight had been reduced to this.

 Chapter 19. Is Orange Good for Health?

    Excitement swept through me as I stood proudly looking at the translucent sword on my right hand. There was no blood attached to it at all. As if after the action was finished the sword went back to its transparent state. I used my fingers and poked the sword. It went through, like it was not there. The sword could recognize me as the owner, the origin of its power. I would never be accidentally hurt by it.


    That was a terrific finding.


    I deactivated the sword and picked up the marbles. I put them in the container I prepared from one of the stores in the airport. It would not satisfy hunger, but it would provide me with energy. And the energy these tiny marbles provide would be much better than any normal food, vitamins, etc.


    Like this, I targeted two more groups.


    The last two fights were slightly different as I changed my strategy. I didn''t use Earth Breaker against these two groups because I found out that this art was a bit noisy. It produced some crackling noise when my feet were stomping on the ground. And that wasn''t the only disadvantage. Earth Breaker had cooldown period. When I first used it, I found out that I couldn''t immediately use it again. I had to wait for close to a minute. By then, the fight had finished. So, I thought that I should time it carefully.


    Fiery Sword, however, was truly amazing. I admit that it was very eye-catching compared to the other physical weapons because of the greenish luminescent aura, but the sharpness was far beyond them as well. And no, it didn''t look like light saber at all. I used a lot less effort to cut through the ordinary purgers with it, the fight ended faster than I anticipated.


    Hm, Fiery Sword indeed consumed my stamina to use, but, at the same time, using it meant I could kill the purgers faster and thus helping me conserved my stamina from prolonged fight. Well, there''s no free meal. To make a car runs you had to put fuel in it.


    I arrived at what was previously the back of the refugee camp. I had to stop here because I was unable to move further. In front of me was no longer refugee camp, it''s a camp for the purgers instead. There were so many of purgers it scared me. They were literally everywhere, as far as my eyes could see.


    Fighting a group of five or ten purgers was fine for me, but I didn''t want to try fighting thousands of them. I hid myself deep and took out my binoculars to check further.


    Although some of the tents were damaged, most of them were still intact. I could see splattered blood everywhere. Not sure if I was weird or not, sometimes I wished that I could just see the dead bodies instead of a pool of blood only. Till now, I still could not easily stomach the fact that the blood owners had been fully eaten by the monsters.


    If it''s any consolation, it''s probably a good thing that our heart was the part that the purger wanted the most. It''s always their first target. That way, we would always have died before we got eaten. Imagine if their favorite was our left foot. I shuddered at the thought.


    The purgers here were ordinary ones. All those that I just killed were ordinary ones. Further to the center, there were more and more yellow-eyed ones. Their number were not mere ten now, but tens.


    ''Wait a minute!'' I stopped moving my binoculars and paid more focus to a certain area where a few purgers were gathering. I specifically paid more attention to the eyes of those few. The color of their eyes were not yellow. They had a deeper, darker hue.


    It was orange. The color of their eyes were orange!


    The treatment those yellow-eyed gave to these new type was definitely submission. Judging from that, it''s safe to assume that those orange-eyed purgers were in higher hierarchy than the yellow-eyed ones. Which translated to me as they being stronger than the yellow-eyed.


    Good thing I was careful. Even with Titan Armor and Fiery Sword, I highly doubt my current overall power was enough to handle them. Not to mention that these two skills consumed a lot of stamina.


    I wondered if my Fiery Sword could hurt the orange-eyed. I got to try it one day for sure. But before that, I should look for the chance to try it on the yellow-eyed purger first. Not against many of them at once, of course.


    Since the purgers needed to consume human to evolve, I assumed there were so many high levels purgers so fast after the Doom was because of the shiny platform created by the female god. The platform was like a cheat code, for both of our sides.


    Thinking this far, I remembered Jeong Yewon, Davi, Traikun, Seo Daho, Lt. Yoon, little Han Wonseok, and all the people I met here. What happened to them? Did they make it out of here alive?


    Even though I gave the marbles to Jeong and the other three, I didn''t think they can make a difference against foes with such numerical advantageous. And I hadn''t taken the orange-eyed into the equation yet. Even if it''s me, I would be in grave danger and could only resort to running away.


    Had I, instead of helping, ended up harming them? I hoped they survived somehow. The kindhearted Jeong Yewon, the strong Traikun and Davi, the nonchalant Seo Daho, the honest guy Lt. Yoon, all of them, I really wished they would be able to lead some people to safety. With them along.


    Regarding Choi Dowon and Min Songhee, my hatred toward them was flamed further. I blamed them for what happened to the refugee here. Indeed, I admitted that I had benefited from this incident. Because of those two hateful action, the purgers were attracted to this place and I was able to find the magical platform in an empty camp. If I used my previous planned path, which was through North Korea, I probably wouldn''t become a Braver this easy. There''s a limit to what I would do, though. No matter how greedy I was about getting stronger, I wouldn''t purposely use the innocent lives here as bait only so that I could enter the camp unobstructed.


    Since I have no other way to know their whereabout I decided to continue with my own journey. It''s not like I could break through a camp of so many purgers anyway. If I could make sure of my grandparents safety I might come back someday. Probably.


    I retreated the same way I came. The sun was already setting when I reached the canyon. The far distance of red land was where I would be heading. According to the picture I saw, the land should be connected all the way to my home country.


    I hoped the north in the compass was still the same north, otherwise I would be screwed once I was on the new land. Yes, the sun could help, but you see, I didn''t plan on travelling much in daylight. The night was now my favorite time.


    I climbed down pretty much the same way I did climbing up a few hours ago. After that, I travel northwest. It took me less than an hour to reach the outskirt of the next camp, right after the first abandoned camp. By this time it was totally dark already. Even though I was still a few hundred meters away from their camp, I was very careful. The appearances of those orange-eyed purgers scared me.


    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    I scouted this camp, wanting to know their level of strength. I found out that it was not far from my guess. Many of them were ordinary purgers. Apart from those ordinary ones I could see more than a hundred yellow-eyed purgers. And at the last, several orange-eyed ones. So this was how their group was composed of.


    Such composition pretty much shut down any thought I had of farming the marbles from the low level purgers. Why farming? Simple, I needed to level up. Even though the marbles from the ordinary ones weren''t as good as the higher level ones for the current me, they''re still not totally useless. It''s just that the number was staggeringly high. I reckon might need ten thousand of them, if my calculation was correct.


    The stronger I became, the bigger my chance to get to my grandparents in one piece. Unfortunately no matter how hard I racked my brain I couldn''t find better strategy to get to them faster. I tried calling the landline to talk to them but it wasn''t connecting. I got the same result when trying to call our neighbor''s landline number.


    All this time, I believed that I had a calm personality, but my failure to contact my grandparents drove me nuts. It had been a thorn in my mind.


    "Calm down," I told myself. Let''s face the problem one at a time. Worrying too much won''t do me any good. For now, I should just focus on getting home first.


    Since the start of my journey in this new land, it was pretty easy for me to travel without the purgers knowing. I was in the dark, they were the opposite. The fire totems were lighting their camps in abundance. The purgers were usually grouped inside or near the fire totems. Some wandered a bit further, but still within the light. As for me, I made use of the surrounding landscape to my benefit. Be it trees, large rocks, small hills, shrubs, practically anything, I used them to hide my presence.


    A curious thought entered my mind. How did they spend their time when they''re not purging us? I wondered what exactly were they doing. Were they busy doing it? You know, making little purgers. Were they simply playing cards or practising golf?


    Hm, now that I thought of it, I had never saw a female purger before. At least, based on their clothing and physical appearance, they''re all male. I couldn''t be a 100% sure since I had never take the time to strip them and check in more detail. If there were no female purger then where were all the new purger came from? There''s so much I didn''t know about them.


    With the help of the binoculars I could see further into the camp. At the center of the camp, many of those purgers were sitting in circular pattern. There must be more than a thousand. Their lips were moving, as if murmuring something. I could not hear anything of worth from this distance. A yellow-eyed purger were standing at the center. The third and fourth row of circles, encircling the yellow-eyed purger, were consisted of all the other yellow-eyed. The second circle consisted of four orange-eyed purgers.


    Shhhh! Shhhh! The wind carried some of their chant when they became louder and louder. However, it''s still like a broken whisper to me.


    They were certainly doing something, I was sure of it. There something about this activity that somehow attracted my attention, I thought I need to know about it so I kept observing them.


    Since they were sitting in a circular pattern, I could only see the faces of some of them. The orange-eyed''s hands dipped onto something in front of them and then painted half of their face with brownish color substance.


    Hm, this color looked familiar. What was it?


    I looked for a tree and climbed up. Now, with more height, I could see better. The moment I saw where they got the brownish substance from, I almost lost my grip on the tree. There were three purgers laying down on the ground between the single yellow-eyed in the middle and the four orange-eyed. That substance was the blood of the three purgers. It was taken from their opened abdomens.


    What a freakish ritual!


    Aside from being used as paint, the blood from the abdomens of the three purgers were magically swirling in the air, close to the ground, and then crept up into that single yellow-eyed''s body. I couldn''t tell what level of purger those three belonged to, they had their eyes closed. They''re most probably dead with their stomachs opened like this and losing a tremendous amount of blood.


    I didn''t know how long they have been doing this before I arrived. About three hours after I spotted them doing this, something happened. The amount of blood from the dead purgers had diminished now, nothing else came out and the corpses shriveled like every drop of liquid had been subtracted out of them. The yellow-eyed at the center suddenly screamed. I could hear the scream from where I hid. Its body was trembling. It was probably in agony. I could not tell since I didn''t recognize their expressions that well, I was only deducing based on the scream. And then the purger fell down to the floor, face down.


    It took about a minute before the yellow-eyed rised up. Now, it had orange eyes.


    ''They can do that?'' I almost froze. Shaking my head and blinking my eyes didn''t change it, the yellow-eyed had became orange-eyed.


    Was this really a predetermine advantage the purgers had over us? Which was why the male god, our creator, said that we originally didn''t stand a chance to survive. The magical platform was the doing of the female god. It was created after the female god found out about our creator god''s meddling. So, I didn''t think it was her that did this. Their consuming our hearts and bodies was equivalent to our consuming the marbles from their dead. So, my guess would be that this was their natural way of evolving.


    Another explanation was that there existed another god playing with us aside from the two I already knew. Still, the first explanation made more sense to me. Whatever it was, I felt my mood just gotten worse.


    I left my hiding spot and walked away. The temperature of the night was actually moderate, but somehow I felt like being plunged into the abyss of ice. It felt really cold. I shivered involuntarily. It wasn''t my body that felt the cold, it was my heart. What a screw up world.


    After leaving the vicinity of the camp, I checked my direction again and then I started running, taking advantage of the darkness of the night. Sometimes, when my path was near a camp, I switch to walking. Being alone in this new land, the last thing I wanted to face was a group of hungry purgers. This was a bit embarrassing, I realized, but I didn''t want to nurture the idiot complex in me where I charged at every obstacle in front of me. What''s wrong with avoiding dangers or hiding from stronger enemies, anyway?


    For hours, I kept running and walking alternately. I ate a marble when I felt my stamina was near exhaustion.