The history of monster research on Earth is still in its infancy. That’s why Hunters were caught completely off guard—no one had known the Anxious Mist could mutate into a mineral form. While monster division was rare, it was at least a known possibility. But turning into mineral matter? That had never happened before.
“How’s a Viking ship or a roller coaster supposed to attack…?”
“Maybe it spins around like a fan and shoots fireballs or something?”
The Anxious Mist didn’t leave them wondering long. The Viking ship’s swaying hull suddenly straightened, then slammed down like a hammer—right on top of the Greater Monster Subjugation Unit’s Hunters, who didn’t even have time to react.
“Watch out!”
Pi Minhyung shouted in panic, grabbing two people and blinking them to safety. But with only two hands, he couldn’t save everyone. One Hunter, stuck on the edge just outside his reach, could only stare in shock at the flames crashing down from above.
It was the moment the word death crossed everyone’s mind.
KAANG!
A heavy metallic clang rang out as the flaming Viking ship stopped mid-swing. Or rather, it was stopped—by Kim Sibaek’s blade. With nothing but a single sabre, he had intercepted a blow that mimicked a massive steel structure. His boots sank into the ground from the impact, but the arms holding his blade perfectly level didn’t waver in the slightest.
“You all right?”
“Uh… yeah…”
The dazed Hunter could barely mumble a response before collapsing. His teammates rushed in to drag him away. Pi Minhyung, already composed again, blinked out of sight and reappeared beneath the Viking’s hull, slashing upward with his sword.
Other Hunters joined the attack. The Anxious Mist kept trying to hammer down the Viking ship like a club, but Kim Sibaek blocked it every time. The Mist hadn’t yet adapted to its new mineral form, so its attacks were repetitive and easy to read. If the sweating Hunters hammering away at the ship had realized that, they probably would’ve fainted.
What about the roller coaster?
He glanced over—and thankfully, the situation was just as manageable. The derailed roller coaster, which had tried to ram into the Hunters, had been impaled by Tae Woon’s black thorns erupting from below. Now it was pinned in place, vulnerable to attack.
The Anxious Mist seemed to realize this tactic wasn’t working. The Viking and the coaster shrank in size, but multiplied in number. More targets meant a wider range of attacks, and the flames spread faster than before.
To outsiders, it might’ve looked like a scene from a cheap B-movie—Hunters battling theme park rides. But for those being battered by steel and fire, it was anything but funny.
“Where’s the Anxious Mist’s core?!”
“It depends on the form it took!”
Since this was the first time the Anxious Mist had mineralized, the Hunters had no clue where the core was. They were floundering.
“What about the scanner?!”
“It’s over ten meters! We can’t get a reading on the core!”
“Goddamn it! That stupid thirty-percent chance! When’s the support team getting here?!”
“They said there was an accident on the road, so it’ll take about twenty minutes to circle back…”
A monster’s core could be located anywhere depending on the form it took. With the Anxious Mist, it often appeared somewhere anatomically appropriate to the new shape—at the crown of the head for theropod-like forms, along the spine for kaiju types, near a faint glow for ghost types. But a mineralized form? They had no precedent to go on.
“Hmm. If it’s mechanical, then the core should be somewhere that allows movement… Maybe calling it an ‘engine’ isn’t quite right, but where’s the actual drive mechanism located?”
Despite the chaos, Kim Sibaek’s calm, level tone cut through the noise. It was so composed that the Hunters momentarily forgot the battle and just stared. Snapping back to reality, the head of the security team shouted to wait a moment, then sprinted off toward the magical barrier where the staff had taken shelter. He returned shortly after.
“Okay, so… for the Viking, the motor’s somewhere near the base of the rotating shaft. For the roller coaster, it’s right at the starting point.”
An officer responded sharply.
“Shit. I don’t trust you, but we’ve got to try something. We’ll take one of them.”
“Understood. But the Anxious Mist split from a single entity, so we need to destroy both cores at the same time. Can you coordinate with me through the flames?”
Kim Sibaek was just asking sincerely—but the officer’s face turned red, then blue, then red again, before he clamped his mouth shut. Even deploying every Hunter in his unit, he couldn’t honestly say they were on the same level as the S-rank Hunter who had single handedly blocked the Viking ship. That one question had completely shut down the man who had been sniping all day, and the security team leader had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
Despite his “Mad Dog” nickname, Tae Woon usually held back when Kim Sibaek joined a battle, quietly watching from the sidelines. But this time, he stepped forward.
“We’ve got me, Hyung, and Pi Minhyung—shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Too easy, huh?”
“Pi Minhyung’s Trait is Blink, right? Just drop me and Hyung each onto the core locations. We’re already in sync—you don’t even have to say a word.”
In other words, just throw them straight into the heart of the fire. The Hunters, busy dodging monsters and only catching parts of the conversation, were stunned. But Kim Sibaek lit up.
“You’re right—that’ll work. Whose little brother are you, being this damn clever?”
“Unghh, I’m your little brother, Hyung.”
As Tae Woon dipped his head expectantly for praise, the darkness spilling from his coat skewered the monsters in front of them, briefly clearing a path. Kim Sibaek took the opportunity to ruffle his hair.
Pi Minhyung finally snapped back to reality and shouted,
“Are you insane?! With something that massive and dangerous, the demonic energy is so thick I can’t get a precise lock! And you want me to take two people?! What if I miss and drop you straight into the flames? Even you’d burn to death, dumbass!”
“Oh, so it’s a no?”
“It’s a hell no, Hyung!”
With most monsters, a slight miscalculation wouldn’t be fatal—they could recover somehow. But the Anxious Mist wasn’t just a monster. It was a living inferno. In there, even a one-second delay could mean death.
But Tae Woon didn’t hesitate.
“It’ll work.”
“I just told you it won’t!”
“You can do it, Pi Minhyung.”
That calm, matter-of-fact statement landed like a punch. He wasn’t pleading or trying to convince him—it was just a fact. Pi Minhyung clenched his fists. It had always been this way. Every time someone said a mission was impossible, Tae Woon would just say:
“With your ability, you can do it.”
And somehow… he always could. Just like at Dongdaemun Stadium, when little Yang Eunho had managed to bring down a flying monster.
So this time too, no matter how much Pi Minhyung grimaced, he had no choice but to go along.
A mage from the Jeongmyeong Guild squeezed out the last of his mana to prepare fire-resistance enchants for Kim Sibaek and Tae Woon.
“I’m not really a support mage, so it won’t hold for long. Two minutes, tops. Sorry I can’t do more…”
“No need to apologize. Two minutes is enough.”
As Kim Sibaek reassured him, he couldn’t help but think of Naslueik and Gloiuken—how confidently they’d wrap him in layers of magic like a suit of armor.
[Death and Beauty says that if she were my Paladin, we wouldn’t even need Blink. She could just throw you through.]
“She’s got a point. She’d just chuck me.”
If it were Gloiuken, she might’ve been able to hold off both versions of the Anxious Mist on her own—and toss Kim Sibaek through the flames, right to the core.
Maybe a dying world like this doesn’t need someone like me. Maybe it needs someone like her.
Unlike him—whose powers depended on divine strength—her abilities were innate, not borrowed from a weakening force.
While he drifted in that fleeting sense of longing, Pi Minhyung finished reviewing the drone footage and pinpointed the motor locations.
“Okay. I don’t think I can make it in one jump, so I’ll close the gap bit by bit. If you get motion sick, tough it out.”
“Drop the weird disclaimer and just do it like always.”
“You say that like I regularly toss people into firestorms!”
Still scowling, Pi Minhyung shot Tae Woon a sharp glare and took a deep breath. The moment the enchantments settled over them, he grabbed both by the waist and activated Blink.
The air changed instantly.
The temperature surged—so dry and searing it felt like razors against their skin. They appeared midair above the Viking ship, but before gravity could take hold, Pi Minhyung blinked again.
With each jump, the scenery blurred and twisted. The flames below roared like they were ready to swallow the world whole. When they reached the top of the rotation shaft, Pi Minhyung let go of Kim Sibaek—just as planned—and vanished again, heading for the roller coaster with Tae Woon.
Even with the enchantments, the heat was unbearable. It didn’t just burn—it melted. As the scorching air tore at his skin, Kim Sibaek sprinted across the Viking’s platform, silently grateful he’d left Biendeoé out of this one.
There it is.
Though the Viking ship shouldn’t have needed power to move, a fake motor was still spinning—pretending to operate the ride. That was the target.
They’d agreed beforehand to strike both cores at the exact same moment. From the instant Kim Sibaek landed, they would count to 100, then attack.
He started counting, each breath like inhaling fire.
…28, 30, 31…
The Anxious Mist stirred.
Right where the core lay hidden, it sensed something—an ominous ripple in the air. A monster’s primal instinct flared. It had felt the threat.
