The world had gone quiet. There was no sound, no movement, no heat brushing Yoon Taeha’s skin. There was only a sweet nothing, a numbness.

  Everything around him was a blur. It felt as if he were swimming in endless red, floating on his back, ears submerged, searching for a sound to pull him back to the surface. But there was nothing. Jujak’s screams were now only distant hums, if even that.

  Even his heartbeat, which moments ago had pounded like a drum, was nothing more than a shallow thump.

  The ringing in his ears faded into silence. The salty tears he had tasted evaporated in heat he could no longer feel. The pain in his ribs had been replaced by something Yoon Taeha couldn’t even begin to name. Was he still alive, or had he died too?

  He couldn’t tell the difference between the dungeon and hell anymore. To him, they were the same, equally terrifying, equally silent. But the more he thought about it, the more his opinion shifted. Whatever hell was, it had to be a paradise compared to this. Even Dante’s Inferno felt like an amusement park next to what he had witnessed. Walking alone through eternal flames didn’t sound so bad. At least there, he would be alone, no screams, no deaths to witness.

  Hell needed a new definition. A mid-paradise.

  Yes. Compared to this, that was what it was.

  The only thing that remained in his vision was the cold body of a comrade. Someone he hadn’t seen in years yet had been happy to work with on this mission. He regretted that feeling now. Why had he been happy? It was wrong. There was no joy in fighting beside someone you might lose a minute later, and he had. He had lost him.

  Yoon Taeha wanted to call him a friend, but he didn’t know if he had the right. They hadn’t seen each other in years. They hadn’t interacted much back then either. Ri Seong-ho had come because he followed orders. Because he cared for his country. He probably had a family. If not a partner or children of his own, then parents, siblings, maybe even pets. But Taeha didn’t know. He never got the chance to ask.

  He hadn’t meant anything to this captain, and yet Seong-ho had greeted him with a warm smile, as if they had been close.

  Even if that wasn’t true, Ri Seong-ho was someone Taeha remembered clearly. Unlike Taeha, Seong-ho had always been popular, surrounded by people. Not the type to bully others or make them run errands, no. He was a kind one. He laughed loudly with his friends and snuck out for cigarettes during study hall.

  His training had always been harsh, but Seong-ho’s personality didn’t change with the hard shell he had had to build. He remained kind, and he took care of the people around him.

  Taeha wondered what Ri Seong-ho remembered about him.

  A memory surfaced, standing by a window, staring out at the training field in Pyongyang. Gazing at the northern men and women, alphas and omegas, hunters and soldiers training together. His gaze had drifted toward the trash containers between the school walls and the field fence. The boy who now wore a captain’s badge even in death had been there, hiding from others, holding a girl in his arms. Two teenagers sharing childish emotions.

  Taeha remembered frowning back then. But now, years later, he wondered if they had stayed together.

  Hang in there.

  Hang in there.

  Hang in there.

  The words echoed in Taeha’s mind in a constant loop.

  How long had he been out of it? He didn’t know. He didn’t dare look away from the cold body in his arms. If he let go of the body, he’d let go of the one who sacrificed himself to save Taeha. It was ridiculous. What had Taeha ever done to deserve that kind of sacrifice.

  All he could feel now was guilt. He had led three hundred soldiers to their deaths. Maybe not by his hand alone, but he had organized the mission. He had made the call to Pyongyang.

  A painful, desperate laugh escaped him, the kind meant to cope with loss. It didn’t help. It only made everything worse.

  He felt foolish for ever believing in the mission. Of course they failed. He wondered how optimistic they had been about everything. They never stood a chance. Even if they had three hundred more hunters with them, there was no way for them to win this. It was useless.

  His vision slowly began to clear. He saw shades of red, moving back and forth, mirroring black figures. They were still fighting.

  Why? Taeha asked himself.

  What’s the point?

  Their optimism had turned into horror. Whatever courage they had brought into the dungeon was crushed by the reality before them. This place wasn’t a battlefield. It was their last stop. It was a mass grave they had dug themselves.

  When his vision fully cleared, the number of bodies around him made his stomach twist. He nearly vomited. He had thought he’d be numb by now, but that moment had passed. He almost wished he had died earlier, when he felt nothing. Now he had to see everything again.

  These bodies, these hunters, never stood a chance.

  Taeha looked at the faces of the men and women around him. He didn’t know any of their names. Most were strangers. But some weren’t. The corner of his mouth twitched into a horrified smile as he recognized them. His team, his friends, lying cold on the ground. Dead.

  There was still one body he searched for. One he wouldn’t have minded seeing there, lying cold and lifeless. The coward who never entered the gate. The General who had begged Taeha to help organize the mission, only to abandon it himself. Of course it had been easier to sacrifice the na?ve, young omega lieutenant.

  Brains of the mission, he had said. As if.

  But the truth was harsher. Even if the General had been there, nothing would have changed. Even Chief Seo had died. But no matter how heroic her death was, there were other heroes too. But who would live to tell their stories? This was their reality.

  Another memory of Ri Seong-ho flashed through Taeha’s mind, the handsome soldier smiling widely at him behind the training field fence, as if they had known each other all along.

  Everything hit him at once.

  Yoon Taeha’s chest tightened. His ribs felt as if they were cracking all over again, as if self-destructing. His body locked, frozen in place. His heart clenched so tightly he thought it would burst. Nerves fired, spasmed, in precise patterns. He thought he was dying.

  He dragged himself upright despite the excruciating pain. He heard someone calling his name, or maybe his title. He couldn’t quite tell. The ringing in his ears returned, as if someone was screaming into his ear. He dropped back to his knees, palms pressed against the ground.

  His body pulsed, as if his soul were preparing to leave him. But it didn’t. A flash. Areen light spread across his entire body. The pain vanished.

  He stayed where he was, knees and hands on the ground. He could hear again, but just a little. A familiar voice cut through the noise. Someone calling for him.

  “Lieutenant.”

  “Taeha!”

  Kwon Jeonhak stood right in front of him. But something was wrong. He looked different. Jeonhak was holding what should have been his arm. Only a third of it remained. Still, his eyes were fixed solely on Taeha.

  Something shifted inside Taeha, first starting as a spasm in his chest, moving through his arms, finally down to his palms. The ground beneath him changed. A web of green light spread from his palms rapidly, covering the field in seconds. It wasn’t something he could control. It spread without permission.

  He hadn’t meant to do it, the green flashes around him. Hunters who had been lying motionless moments ago began to rise. Their wounds were gone.

  A hunter, the closes to Taeha, got on his feet, staring at his hands like the didn’t belong to him.

  “I—” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t feel—” He turned to Taeha, eyes wide. “I couldn’t feel my limbs.”

  Another hunter pressed her hand to where a wound should have been.

  “I was bleeding out,” she whispered. “I was sure I was dead. Why am I alive?”

  The voices around Taeha were filled with confusion, mixed with something else.

  “What happened?”

  “Did someone—?”

  “Was that the Lieutenant?”

  “We were already dead,” a soldier said, gripping his weapon. “We have to take this chance!”

  “We can’t waste it!” another hunter shouted.

  “Doesn’t matter if we die after,” someone else added. “We were done anyway.”

  The birds’ screams no longer shook them.

  Taeha’s stunned gaze shifted to Kwon Jeonhak, who was staring at his restored arm.

  “Man,” he said calmly, “I thought I lost this.” That was just how he was.

  Taeha could only stare. He looked close to collapse, close to giving up, unaware that he was the one who had just changed everything, the only one who could still change the course of action.

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  Jeonhak grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Hey,” he snapped. “Stay with me.”

  Taeha’s breathing was shallow. His eyes unfocused.

  “You can’t give up now,” Jeonhak said.

  “I can’t let them die. I can’t—”

  Jeonhak shook him once, hard.

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  Taeha clenched his fists. “You have a wife. A son. They’re waiting for you.” His voice cracked. “I don’t have all that. I’m alone. If I can heal myself until you all get out, maybe I—”

  Jeonhak’s eyes widened. Taeha’s talk of self-sacrifice terrified him.

  This is not him.

  “Taeha.”

  Taeha looked up.

  “You have your mother,” Jeonhak said. “And your sister. They’re waiting too.” He leaned closer. “You were never alone.”

  Taeha clenched his jaw.

  “Look around,” he said. “Our team is barely there anymore. How many are left?”

  Jeonhak glanced across the field of bodies.

  “…Not enough.”

  “Then let me do this.”

  Jeonhak’s grip tightened. “No. You don’t get to die on us either.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  Jeonhak’s eyes narrowed.

  “You heal, and we fight.” He said with his calm tone changing to a firm one. “You can’t mourn them if you don’t survive. We will get out of here, and we will honor our friends by taking down this motherfucker.”

  Jeonhak grinned.

  Taeha understood then. His body might have been strong, but his mind had broken. And that would get him nowhere.

  If Jeonhak could still smile like that, amid all, why was he still on the ground?

  The dead did not rise. It was too late for them. It was too late for Ri Seong-ho. But maybe it was for the best. He had become free of duty. Dragging him back just to suffer again would have been cruel.

  He looked peaceful. But it didn’t ease Taeha’s heart.

  Fully healed, Yoon Taeha gritted his teeth in fury and stood up. He pulled out the Hydra once more and fired. Every shot landed. He backed up whoever needed it. The birds never rested. Their attacks weren’t any less deadly, but now there was a spark, just a tiny piece of hope at the back of Taeha’s mind.

  The birds charged again and again, throwing hunters to the ground. But it didn’t matter. Taeha dropped to his knees again, and this time, with intent, with his permission, he spread the green light across the field. The hunters stood back up.

  None of them understood what was happening. But that was a small detail they didn’t have the luxury to pay attention to. What mattered was moving. They didn’t have time to fear the pain; they only trusted that Taeha would take care of them.

  “Stay close to the Lieutenant!” Jeonhak shouted. “I don’t care if you fall trying, but we need him the most!”

  A hunter flew near Taeha, collapsing right in front of him. Taeha barely managed to reach, his fingers brushed the man’s arm, and the green flash covered him. The hunter snapped back up like he had been yanked from the gates of heaven. Taeha could heal with touch. He knew what to do.

  He quickly realized he didn’t need to pour everything into the whole field at once. Still, he was ready to give it his all. If his power took away from him, he would gladly provide. If his body had to break to keep them standing, then so be it. He refused to stop while the others kept moving. He refused to become the coward he felt himself turning into.

  He ran across the field, touching shoulders, wrists, collars, touching whoever looked the worst. But smaller injuries too. It was a desperate sprint, but it carried a little bit of hope, and direction.

  Kwon Jeonhak ran beside him. Taeha reached out and healed the minor burns and cuts on him without even thinking. Jeonhak didn’t need it, but Taeha couldn’t risk anything. Not when it came to him. Not his best friend.

  Another quake hit and threw the hunters off balance. But this was where the real horror started. The guardian lifted upward. Smashing every flying-type hunter down on the ground with its wings. Jeonhak barely escaped, sliding down a bridge of particles he created mid-fall.

  The beast didn’t need complicated attacks. One strike was enough.

  The little hope Taeha had gained drained away again. But he refused to give up. He wouldn’t let the deaths they had already suffered become meaningless. He kept healing, nonstop, never taking a break.

  Hunters joined together, merging their attacks. Kwon Jeonhak shouted orders, and the remaining shields moved to Taeha immediately, to protect him from the guardian’s attacks. Even if Taeha had lost hope, his comrades grasped whatever fragment of it was left. They wouldn’t let go until they were all down cold. Hope was the only thing that still kept them standing.

  Yoon Taeha was their hope.

  “If there’s any chance,” one of them barked, “it’s him!”

  A shield hunter planted himself directly in front of Taeha without waiting for orders.

  “We will protect you,” he said.

  A hunter Taeha had healed only moments ago was struck down again, body crushed, spine snapped. Taeha rushed forward, hands glowing, but he stopped. There was no green spark, no healing. The man was gone.

  Someone screamed the hunter’s name. This hunter, this person, mattered to someone, yet Taeha didn’t even know who he was. But the hunters charged again anyway, not wasting the second chance they’d been given.

  The guardian screamed again. And the slaughter continued.

  Jeonhak passed Taeha without looking at him, without stopping.

  “You’re doing good, don’t give up!”

  Taeha didn’t answer, but he didn’t stop either. With most of the men on the ground again, he healed them endlessly. Still, it became clear: fewer and fewer were getting up. They were losing too many lives.

  How many had they lost so far? Taeha couldn’t count anymore. Every fallen hunter he counted hurt. Hunters screamed each other’s names across the bloody field until the names blurred into nothingness.

  The bodies kept piling up, hunters were falling, until there were only a few left. Yoon Taeha, Kwon Jeonhak and three shields. This time, Taeha asked for their names. He needed to know the people who had protected him against all odds.

  “Baek Yoonwon, sir!” an older, sturdy hunter called out.

  “Han Yura, at your service!” the only female hunter left said with a confident smile, like she refused to give the dungeon the satisfaction of seeing her break.

  “Choi Seungwon,” the last one said with a firm northern accent.

  “Yoonwon. Yura. Seungwon.” Taeha repeated it under his breath.

  Taeha greeted them with a smile, but he knew it wouldn’t last. He healed them one last time.

  Kwon Jeonhak was taking the lead on attacks alone now, the only fighter left. Taeha focused on healing him from afar. His web reached him every time he landed.

  Yoon Taeha suddenly tasted iron in his mouth.

  Not yet. Just a little longer.

  “Sir, your nose—” Han Yura said. “It’s bleeding.”

  Taeha wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  “It’s fine,” he lied.

  Jujak kept trying to strike past Jeonhak, aiming for the hunters protecting their healer. It was as if the beast understood Taeha’s role. No, Taeha confirmed it with the next attack. The guardian lifted itself higher, circling around the healers. It aimed for Taeha’s back, but Choi Seungwon moved first.

  “Lieutenant—!”

  Taeha turned too late. Seungwon was struck down in a single movement. He hit the ground with his eyes wide open, lifeless.

  Taeha gritted his teeth. The two remaining shields were shaking, tears in their eyes as they saw Seungwon’s body, but they didn’t move away, they didn’t stop. They stayed in front of Taeha while Jeonhak fought the guardian and dodged the remaining birds.

  Then a bird snatched Jeonhak mid-air and tore his leg off before throwing him down. Taeha and the shields ran for him as the birds attacked. Han Yura went down in seconds. Only Baek Yoonwon remained.

  Taeha, however guilty he felt, didn’t have time to look at Yura. He dropped beside Jeonhak and slammed his hands on him. The green light grew the leg back.

  “This skill of yours—” Jeonhak grunted as he forced himself upright, “is fucking awesome.”

  No normal person, no S-class hunter, not even God himself, should’ve been able to stand up with a grin after that.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Taeha sighed, barely audible.

  Just because the injuries healed didn’t mean they didn’t hurt. A normal person would’ve gone into shock just seeing it happen. Seeing their limbs torn off.

  But not Kwon Jeonhak. He had the strongest mind Taeha had ever seen.

  Yoon Taeha, however, began to waver. Holding himself together became harder by the second. It was only the three of them now. What could three people do?

  Taeha coughed blood. “Fuck.”

  “Sir,” Baek Yoonwon said, eyes full of worry, “you’re exhausting your power. Stop for a moment. I’ll protect you.”

  “But who’s going to protect you two?” Taeha cried. “I need to do this.”

  Jeonhak didn’t wait. He created a particle bridge and charged directly at the last two birds. Black ribbon wrapped around them.

  No one else left to heal.

  “Bang, motherfuckers!” They exploded and Kwon Jeonhak was thrown back down again.

  Only the guardian remained now, and it surged forward, full speed. It grabbed Baek Yoonwon with its beak, crushed him, and swallowed him whole. They were alone now.

  No one else left to heal.

  The bird laid its claws down. It stood still. Kwon Jeonhak’s gaze shifted sharply towards Taeha.

  “We need to run.”

  “Run where!?” Taeha shouted. “If we leave it here, we’re exposing the whole world to it!”

  “We run back to the gate,” Jeonhak said, voice serious. “And once we’re close… we take it down and leap. That’s all we have to do.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Taeha’s anger surfaced. “If we could take it down, wouldn’t we already have? If we could have taken it down, we wouldn’t have lost all these men.” He threw an arm out toward the bodies.

  “I don’t need you to understand me.” Jeonhak clenched his jaw. “Just—just listen to me this time.”

  Taeha stared at him, shaking.

  “Fuck,” he spat blood, turning his gaze toward the guardian. “Let’s go then.”

  So they ran. The guardian stayed behind them, still, unmoving, gaze fixed on their backs.

  The run between the canyon walls felt endless, but the gate was in their view now.

  Yoon Taeha glanced back once more. Jujak hadn’t moved, but he knew it wouldn’t be for long, it would come for them. They needed to run faster, but with what stamina? The fight had gone on too long to measure. At that point it didn’t even matter. Had it been, minutes, hours, days, the result was the same. No rest, no pauses, only bloodshed and death.

  The guardian allowed them to run. For now.

  The gate was there, too close now, and Taeha felt it. The surge. The heat coming toward them. They stopped and turned to face it.

  Taeha placed his hand on Jeonhak’s back, healing him immediately, and then coughed blood. Jeonhak saw it. His eyes widened. He clenched his jaw and shoved Taeha behind him.

  “I’ll take care of this.”

  “You can’t do it alone,” Taeha said, pulling out Anvil.

  Jeonhak nodded once.

  “Stay low,” he ordered. “Don’t let it catch you.”

  Taeha did as told, but he was restless. Jeonhak was already off the ground, trying to reach the guardian. He would draw it away, distract it, force it to follow, creating openings. Kwon Jeonhak fired between the Anvil shots.

  Even while fighting for his life, Jeonhak stayed calm. It stirred something in Taeha. Taeha didn’t know what it was, but he felt it. Something was wrong.

  Jeonhak flew back to him, and Taeha healed. Again and again. They only had each other now.

  Jeonhak landed again, just like every time, stumbling, and laughed like it was nothing.

  Taeha didn’t laugh. Nothing about the situation was amusing to him. He pressed his hand to Jeonhak’s chest again. This time, the sparks of healing were quiet and weak. Jeonhak didn’t fully heal.

  Yoon Taeha placed both hands on him. But nothing happened. Nothing healed.

  Nothing more happened.

  “It’s not working.”

  “It is,” Jeonhak said. “I can still stand.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  “It is for me.” Jeonhak smiled at him anyway. “Take a rest. I’ll be back.”

  Taeha’s power had finally started to give up on him. After healing nonstop for so long, it shouldn’t have surprised him.

  Jeonhak kept fighting, injured and in pain. Still, he couldn’t let Taeha see his pain, and he couldn’t let the beast reach him. Not the only person he wanted to get out of the gate alive. He no longer cared for himself. His family would survive without him. He might become only a name on a memorial tablet for the public, but his wife and son would remember him. They wouldn’t resent him for his choice, for staying. For saving his best friend instead of himself.

  He was ten years older than Taeha. He had lived a good life, surrounded by good people, and he left no regrets behind. Taeha still had a full life ahead of him, a life that could mean something. He’d meet some handsome alpha to take care of him, and he’d live a happy life with that person.

  He smiled thinking of children that looked like his best friend.

  Jujak surged toward Taeha, but Jeonhak took the opening. The bird was distracted.

  He tied the particle ribbon around the guardian and slammed it down. It didn’t die, but it hit the ground hard enough that the canyon walls cracked.

  This is it. I’ll take it down, but first…

  Jeonhak rushed to Taeha’s side again, right in front of the red gate. Taeha was already prepared. He placed his hands on Jeonhak’s chest, pouring everything he had left into him. All his power. Jeonhak’s wounds healed like they had never existed.

  Taeha coughed blood again, his ears rang and his nose bled. Jeonhak grabbed his wrist and smiled.

  “Taeha,” he said quietly, “take care of them.”

  “What are you—?” Taeha’s eyes widened. Jeonhak placed a hand on Taeha’s chest.

  “I’m taking this bitch down with the last bang.” He shaped his fingers into a pistol.

  “No—” Taeha shook his head, realizing it too late. He was going to self-detonate, taking the beast with him. “No, Jeonhak—”

  “Live happy,” Jeonhak said. And with one hard push, he threw Taeha toward the gate.

  As Taeha fell back, the last thing he saw was Jeonhak’s back, walking toward Jujak.