Chapter 81

Chapter 81
## Harbin’s Swarming Dead

The city was overrun with the living deceased, crawling through the streets like a plague of roaches.

They were everywhere. Finding a square foot of pavement not occupied by a ghoul was becoming a genuine challenge.

No-hun and I remained pressed against the cold stone of a rooftop, maintaining total silence as we observed the morbid parade passing below us.

“The Pope himself couldn’t draw a crowd this massive in Korea,” No-hun whispered.

It was a staggering sight, undeniably grand in its own horrific way. An endless sea of corpses staggered along, their limbs twitching and contorting with the frantic energy of addicts in the throes of a high.

“Don’t these things ever actually decompose?” he asked.

“They aren’t your run-of-the-mill cadavers,” I replied.

The truth was, if they rotted at a natural pace, Harbin would be nothing more than a valley of bleached bone fragments by now. A body left out in this weather usually doesn’t take long to turn to soup.

“They don’t seem to possess a shred of logic or sentient thought,” No-hun noted.

I gave a curt nod. “Nanami’s tracking might struggle to pin down every single one of them…”

Before I could finish the thought, my eyes caught a lone figure on a distant sidewalk. It began to shake with violent intensity, emitting a jagged, metallic shriek.

The corpse vibrated as if surging with high-voltage electricity before it detonated with a thunderous crack, spraying jagged shards of bone and putrid tissue in a wide radius.

“It just combusted,” No-hun remarked.

“Clearly.”

The explosion had vaporized everything within a five-meter circle. Comparing them to mobile claymore mines was an understatement.

“If we had just charged into the fray…”

“To put it simply, this city is a hornet’s nest, and we’re the intruders poking it with a stick.”

Wiping out thousands of these husks wasn’t the issue. The complication lay elsewhere.

“The volatility is the problem.”

Dashing into a crowd only to have them pop off like a chain reaction would be suicidal. The shrapnel was dangerous, but the lingering miasma of plague energy attached to the gore was the real threat.

“We have to identify the catalyst for the detonation.”

Since that one had just gone off spontaneously, it suggested these things were inherently unstable.

Like a shipment of nitroglycerin—one wrong bump and it’s over?

I cut the thought short and signaled No-hun with a sharp hand gesture. He started to speak but clamped his jaw shut instantly.

I felt a surge of mana. It was a heavy, damp sensation—the specific signature used for necromantic manipulation.

It was hunting for us. This wasn’t a broad scan; it was far more surgical than Nanami’s radar.

“Deceiving it isn’t a problem, though.”

I dissected the magical frequency before it could lock onto our position.

“It’s a thermal sweep. It’s looking for body heat.”

I wasn’t giving a lecture on magical theory. I’m no scholar. But you don’t have to be a developer to know how to beat a level.

In a heartbeat, I cloaked myself and No-hun in Paradox Flame, incinerating the heat signatures our bodies were throwing off.

Simultaneously, I tracked the magical tether back to its point of origin.

“It’s coming from below,” I whispered, my eyes fixed on the pavement.

I’ll never understand why these puppet masters are so obsessed with sewers and catacombs—places that reek of dampness and gloom.

If you’re going to practice the dark arts, you might as well do it in a sunlit penthouse. It might actually help keep your head straight.

An undead thrall isn’t going to go on strike just because you summoned it in a five-star hotel.

“At least the caster is getting sloppy.”

I’d seen this pattern before, back when I dealt with the entity that had latched onto So-hwi. These beings, once they have a bit of intellect, always fall into the trap of looking down on humans.

They assume our grasp of mana is primitive.

To be fair, they aren’t entirely wrong. I once compared a complex shield generator to the patterns on some old pottery.

But the person standing here had survived a lifetime in a world where you either mastered mana or you were eaten by it. I had used pure energy to smash through every obstacle in my path.

I was willing to bet my life that my intuition for mana was far more advanced than whatever monster was hiding down there. I turned my attention back to No-hun.

“You’re absolutely certain that equipment will hold up?”

He tapped the bracelet on his wrist and gave a firm nod.

“It’s solid. It’s kept me breathing and put others in the ground more times than I can count.”

No-hun’s artifact gave him a literal eye-in-the-sky view, functioning like a tactical map. Even if the enemy utilized heavy cover, he could pick them out with the perspective the bracelet granted.

“You’re the linchpin for this operation.”

Positioned at the peak of Harbin’s Longta Tower, No-hun would use his enhanced vision and that bracelet to act as our primary reconnaissance hub.

“Understood. I’ll stay off their radar.”

“It won’t be easy, but I’m counting on you.”

If the controller had any sense, they would eventually realize our movements were too precise to be random.

I couldn’t gauge the intelligence of the thing in the tunnels, but if it felt a disturbance, it would likely scour the city for the source.

We moved out. The main thoroughfares were choked with the dead, looking like arteries blocked by plaque, so we took to the rooftops, leaping from one building to the next.

“This feels like a quantity-over-quality setup.”

There were no specialized undead in sight—just mass-produced fodder designed to be used once and discarded.

The only exceptions would likely be the elite guard stationed in the underground lair.

“Chan-seok. What’s your guess on the master?”

“How should I know?”

“You usually have an answer for everything.”

“That’s exactly why I’m hesitant.”

Having too much information meant there were too many variables to weigh.

It could be a lich, a high-level necromancer, or perhaps a demon…

“Sometimes I think this whole situation is insane… but my bank account says otherwise, so here I am.”

Sang-ah wasn’t one for socializing. I had definitely chosen the right companions for this trip.

Since the hidden master hadn’t detected us with its initial scan, it hadn’t made a second attempt. No-hun and I reached our destination—the Longta Tower—without any interference.

“It’s a long way up.”

From the summit, I surveyed the horizon. The view was panoramic.

With No-hun’s sight and the bracelet’s data, nothing in Harbin could hide from us.

“If this entire horde is being micromanaged…”

While he kept the enemy’s attention focused on the surface, we could breach the underground and eliminate the source. Our odds were high.

Granted, killing the master wouldn’t make the zombies vanish into thin air.

But they would lose their unity. Despite their numbers, they were low-quality constructs. Without a directing will, clearing them out would be a simple cleanup job.

Then we could establish the route to Jaun Valley as we intended.

“The heavy hitters arrive tomorrow. Just stay hidden until then, ‘Spy-Cam’.”

“What kind of terrible code name is that?”

We couldn’t afford to be compromised. The name fit. No-hun began his camouflage routine immediately; he was the type who could go days without blinking if necessary.

I wrapped him in a layer of Paradox Flame to mask his presence entirely, then began my descent to prepare for my exit from the city.

—I’ve located you at last. I knew there was a flaw in the silence.

I had put some distance between myself and the tower, just crossing the bridge over the river on the city’s outskirts, when I heard the voice.

I spun around to see a massive limb swinging toward me. I ducked, the air whistling over my head, and leaped back to create space.

“What is this? Some kind of giant crab?”

The creature before me was a corpse with a monstrously overdeveloped right arm—it was taller than the rest of its body.

It reminded me of a fiddler crab, known for that one oversized pincer.

“This isn’t your true form, is it?”

—Risking myself is unnecessary.

I let out a scoff. Unnecessary or not…

The construct was clumsy. If this was the best it could field, the controller wasn’t a top-tier threat.

That was a relief. It meant there were no genuine obstacles in the city—at least none worth losing sleep over.

—I am a student of the end of all things.

“I’m sure you are.”

But not a very good one. Flooding a city with cheap thralls didn’t equate to mastery.

I’d met plenty of people with massive mana pools and zero talent. This thing speaking through a dead mouth was cut from the same cloth.

A researcher? More like a plagiarist who built a career on footnotes stolen from a dumpster.

The crab-armed puppet in front of me was proof of that. Still, there was no reason to fight a pitched battle here and tip my hand.

The reinforcements would be in Harbin soon. We could settle the score then.

So…

“The weather is too nice for this. I think I’ll be going.”

Time to exit. I gave a mock wave and took off. I didn’t push my speed—just enough to stay a few inches ahead of the clumsy construct.

My escape was casual, and as I suspected, it couldn’t keep up. Taking Harbin was looking much simpler than anticipated.

“This should keep the heat off No-hun.”

I keyed my comms to give him the update.

—Understood. It’ll probably convince itself it chased the intruder away.

“Yeah. Believe that if it helps you sleep. But if things go south, you’re the one on the menu.”

—You really have a way with words. I’m touched, you prick.

No-hun ended the transmission. He would be checking in with the Gull Team on a set schedule from here on out.

Once I regrouped with the forward team outside the city limits, I looked at Sang-ah.

“The backup?”

“They’ll be here before the sun comes up tomorrow.”

“Perfect. Let’s finish this and get out.”

Nanami spoke up.

“It sounds like it’s going too smoothly?”

I looked her in the eye and nodded.

“The numbers are high and the self-destructing is a pain—but the craftsmanship is garbage.”

Once the extra forces arrived, we could burn through them like a dry forest.

“And if there’s a variable we haven’t seen?”

I nodded again. Every war has its surprises.

“Unless something comes from the outside, we hold all the cards.”

“Outside forces. Like what?”

There was only one real candidate.

“The Immortal Legion.”

Nanami’s expression became unreadable.

“I know they’ve been spotted in the region, but… China is a massive territory.”

The probability was low. But it wasn’t zero.

“The fact remains: we don’t know why the Immortal Legion left Beijing to wander out here.”

If Harbin was their objective? Then a collision wasn’t just bad luck—it was an inevitability.

“So, make sure our retreat paths are clear. Just in case.”

Winning a fight you’re supposed to win is easy. Navigating a disaster with everyone intact? That’s the real work.

If the Immortal Legion did show up, only a handful of us could even hope to stand our ground: myself, Sang-ah, No-hun… and maybe Nanami providing fire from a distance.