Chapter 86 - 86: « Blue Blood [2] »
[Bonus Chapter for 80 Golden Tickets ~ refer to the Author's Reward system.]
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"Run! God, just run!"
Min-ho's voice was a jagged rasp, torn from a throat constricted by pure, unadulterated terror. He didn't look back. He didn't need to. The sound of wet, rhythmic slapping—feet hitting the black Abyssal sludge in a disjointed, unnatural cadence—was right behind them. Han was stumbling, his face a mask of dried blood and fresh tears, his hand white-knuckled as he gripped the strap of his crate. They burst through the final corridor of the stairwell and into the vast, lightless expanse of the third floor, screaming for the Rankers.
"Help! Help us!!"
The main party spun around. At the front, Leonhardt Weiss of the Europe Coalition stood like a statue of tempered gold. His armor, etched with the sigils of the Holy See, caught the dim, flickering mana-light and amplified it until he glowed with a soft, divine radiance. Beside him, Hyeonwoo of the Iron Aegis Guild adjusted his grip on a staff made of twisted World-Tree wood, his eyes narrowed behind thin-rimmed glasses.
Gunnar Volkov, still shirtless and coated in the white, honey-scented blood of the World Tree's heart, narrowed his eyes. His double-sided axe, The Storm-Biter, hummed with a low, predatory vibration. Sasha Kim had her twin daggers out in a heartbeat, her eyes scanning the dark.
"What are you babbling about, porter?" Sasha hissed, her voice like a whip.
"Tae-soo is dead!" Han shrieked, skidding to a halt behind Leonhardt's massive, shielded frame. "The Elite Team... Captain Kang-dae... he's back, but he's not—he's not him!"
Before Sasha could retort, the darkness ahead of them didn't just ripple; it parted. Standing in a semi-circle, blocking the only path forward into the heart of the third floor, were six figures. They stood in the dim strobe-light of the party's lanterns, their silhouettes familiar yet fundamentally wrong. Min-ho's knees gave out. He stared at the group, his breath hitching. "No... it's all of them. The whole vanguard."
There was Min-Gyu, the Tank. He was a mountain of a man, his shoulders broader than the crates the porters carried, his thick beard matted with black mold. He held a Grade-A reinforced steel shield that was dented and scarred, yet it pulsed with a sickening, sapphire light. To his left stood Hana, the B-rank Assassin. Her lithe, agile build was hunched over, her twin daggers held in a reverse grip. Her face, once known for being perpetually flushed a healthy red from the exertion of her high-speed movements, was now a bruised, necrotic purple-blue.
Behind them, Eun-Bi notched a feathered arrow into a bow made of dark yew. So-Young, the youngest of the group and their primary healer, stood with her hands glowing—not with the warm, gold light of restoration, but with a cold, flickering blue flame. Tae-Woo, the mage, adjusted his cracked glasses, his eyes solid orbs of black ink. Finally, Sang-Hun, the vanguard, stood at the center, his posture rigid and robotic.
They were all tinted a strange, luminescent blue, as if their skin had been replaced by translucent sapphire. Their eyes were voids, and they didn't breathe. There was no mistaking it: the Blue Dragon Guild's finest were puppets of the Abyss.
"They're not breathing," the rookie mage, Minseok, whispered. He stood slightly behind Hyeonwoo, his eyes—wide and glowing with a strange, analytical silver hue—darting between the zombified elites. "Their mana circuits... they aren't generating power. They're being fed. It's an external source."
"I don't care if they're dead or dreaming!" Gunnar roared, his laughter returning with a manic, bloodthirsty edge. "If they stand in my way, they get buried twice! HA!"
"Wait," Leonhardt's voice rang out, deep and resonant like a cathedral bell. He stepped forward, his heavy claymore—Luminos—unsheathing with a metallic song. "These are fallen warriors. Treat them with the dignity of a final rest, but do not underestimate them. The Abyss does not animate the weak."
The zombified elites moved simultaneously. There was no battle cry. There was only the sound of six bodies breaking the sound barrier at once.
Min-Gyu led the charge. The massive tank slammed his shield into the ground, creating a shockwave of blue mana that rippled through the sludge. Gunnar met him head-on, The Storm-Biter crashing against the reinforced steel, but the impact didn't move the zombie. It was as if he were rooted to the very core of the planet.
"My turn," Leonhardt declared. He stepped past Gunnar, his armor flaring with a blinding white light. "『Judgement of the Sun』!"
He swung his claymore in a vertical arc. A pillar of holy fire descended, slamming into Min-Gyu's shield. The blue mana hissed and boiled away, but Min-Gyu didn't flinch. The zombie tank pushed back, his physical strength augmented by the Abyssal energy to a level that rivaled Leonhardt's own.
While the tanks were locked in a struggle, Hana vanished. She didn't just move fast; she flickered out of existence, reappearing behind Sasha Kim. "Not today, shadow-crawler," Hyeonwoo muttered. He slammed the base of his staff into the ground. "『Seismic Shackle』!"
The sludge beneath Hana's feet hardened instantly into jagged stone teeth, snapping shut around her ankles. She was forced to stop, her twin daggers parrying Sasha's counter-strike. Hana's movements were disjointed, her joints popping loudly in the silence. She moved like a marionette with its strings being pulled too hard. Even bound, she slashed at the stone with a feral strength, her blue skin shimmering with every strike.
From the rear, Eun-Bi unleashed a volley of feathered arrows. Each one was coated in a freezing blue aura. They didn't target the players; they targeted the ground, creating zones of localized frost. "Hyeonwoo! The archer is pinning us!" Boris shouted.
"I see her," Hyeonwoo replied calmly. His glasses glinted. He raised his left hand, tracing a complex sigil in the air. "『Arcane Flare: Supernova』!"
A bead of pure white energy shot from his fingertip, streaking across the hall. It exploded above Eun-Bi's head, not with fire, but with a blinding flash of destabilizing mana. The arrows in her quiver detonated prematurely, encasing her in her own frost. However, So-Young, the youngest, raised her hands. Streams of blue mana flowed from her fingertips, connecting to the backs of her teammates. The frost on Eun-Bi melted instantly. The wounds Leonhardt had inflicted on Min-Gyu's arms closed with a sickening squelch.
"They're regenerating!" Boris shouted, firing his heavy rifle into Sang-Hun's chest. The bullets tore through the vanguard's torso, leaving gaping holes, but no blood flowed—only a thick, blue vapor. Sang-Hun didn't even flinch. He walked forward, his sword raised, swinging with a mechanical precision that drove Boris back.
"Minseok! Stay back!" Hyeonwoo commanded, his staff glowing as he cast a 『Mana Shield』 over the porters. But Minseok wasn't looking at the monsters. He was looking above them. His "Gifted Eyes"—a rare trait he'd awakened during the first floor—perceived the world not as matter, but as flow. He saw the way the blue mana pulsed, not from their hearts, but from thin, ethereal chains.
"Hyeonwoo-nim! Leonhardt-nim!" Minseok yelled, his voice cracking. "Look at the ceiling! They aren't zombies—they're puppets! There are chains! Blue mana chains hooked into the base of their skulls!"
Leonhardt blocked an overhead strike from Sang-Hun, the shockwave cracking the marble floor beneath his boots. "Chains? I see nothing but darkness!"
"I see them," Hyeonwoo said, his voice dropping an octave. He began to chant, his mana pool expanding until the air around him hummed with static. "『Dimensional Sight: True Vision』!"
Hyeonwoo's eyes flared purple. The world shifted. Above the heads of the Blue Dragon Elites, he finally saw them: thin, translucent threads of sapphire energy reaching up into the unreachable heights of the cavern roof. "The boy is right," Hyeonwoo said, his face hardening. "Leonhardt, I will provide the opening.
We cannot kill what is already dead, but we can sever the connection