Chapter 90

Chapter 90
Chapter: 90

Chapter Title: Don’t Move a Muscle

—

Han Sang-ah reacted to my instructions.

“Simply stay in a fixed position without shifting at all.”

“Exactly.”

I wasn’t folding space or physically moving the ground beneath them to transport them. Simply put, if they remained anchored to that specific spot without taking a single step, they would be safe.

“I have a lock on your current coordinates. If you stay rooted right there, I will go out, dismantle the magic circle, and return for you.”

Both Han Sang-ah and Jeong Oh-hun signaled their understanding with a nod.

“Fair warning, this is harder than it sounds.”

It might seem straightforward, but resisting the onslaught of fabricated sensory input without succumbing is a brutal challenge.

“The illusions might show you my corpse, or play on your deepest fears by showing those you love in mortal danger.”

They might hear phantom screams pleading for assistance, or a deceptive operator’s voice claiming the danger has passed and giving false orders.

Furthermore… through all of this, the ghosts will relentlessly attempt to hijack their bodies.

“You might even witness a mirage of me turning my blade against you.”

The key was to disregard every bit of it. People often mistake hallucinations for simple parlor tricks, but high-level illusion magic is among the most predatory forces in existence.

“Do not move, regardless of the circumstances. If an attack seems to be coming your way, parry or block it from your standing position without stepping away.”

“Won’t we be able to tell if an attack is real?”

Hallucinations are systemic sensory deceptions. They manipulate all five pillars: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.

“If phantom steel hits yours, your nerves will register the impact just as they did before.”

If a blade appears to open your skin, you will see the gash, scent the metallic tang of blood, and endure the agony. That is the hallmark of a master-level hallucination. Ultimately, human beings interpret their reality through the filter of their senses.

Subvert those senses, and the ability to distinguish reality from fabrication vanishes.

“Low-tier illusions from hacks are one thing, but…”

I was beginning to appreciate the sophistication of Jaun Valley. This massive illusion magic circle was intricate, polished, high-output, and incredibly precise.

“Treat this as a test of your mental cultivation and hold out as long as possible. Also, keep in mind that once I obliterate the first of the 24 convergence points sustaining this field, I’m not going to be stealthy anymore.”

At this moment, the enemy likely doubts our ability to deconstruct the circle. They might not even realize we are attempting it. But the moment one node shatters, the game changes.

They will pull out all the stops, using every psychological horror at their disposal to break us.

“Stay alive. We’ve spent too much time together for me to find you with holes in your chests; it would kill the mood.”

Naturally, if they succumbed to the ghosts or the madness of the illusions, I would have no choice but to end them. There is no coming back from that.

I had said my piece. I intended to move like a lightning bolt to tear this circle apart. With those final words, I vanished from their side, plunging into the dense, violet fog.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

In the wake of Yoo Chan-seok’s departure, Han Sang-ah, who had been standing rigid, silently sank to the ground and sat cross-legged.

“…”

“Hey, Sang-ah. Come over here for a second.”

Han Sang-ah gave no sign of hearing Jeong Oh-hun’s voice. If nothing can be verified as true, then trust nothing at all. The mandate to stay put was clear. She would simply remain.

“You’re just going to ignore me? Hey!”

The voice of Jeong Oh-hun continued to echo, accompanied by desperate wails for help. A hallucination of a dying hunter materialized in front of her, sobbing and begging for salvation.

As she sat there, Han Sang-ah’s brow furrowed slightly as she felt the sensation of a thousand needles piercing her skin from below.

In the distance, a massive wall of fire roared toward her position.

She felt the blistering heat and heard the sound of flesh searing. The inferno swallowed her whole in a heartbeat; she watched her own skin turn to ash and crumble away, exposing the white bone underneath.

“Ouch.”

Han Sang-ah whispered the word, looking at the raging flames with an eerie calmness.

“It seems he broke the first one.”

She spoke softly even as she appeared to be burning alive. Suddenly, the cacophony of voices and the images of the wounded flickered and died.

Looking down at her arms despite the stinging pain, she saw shapes moving under her skin. Parasitic, toothy worms tore through her flesh from the inside out.

It wasn’t localized to her arms; the creatures were burrowing everywhere, turning her physical form into a gory disaster.

“How repulsive.”

Han Sang-ah remarked, inspecting the damage with detached curiosity. It was painful, but the intensity was manageable. The physical sensation mimicked the visual horror, but it lacked true substance.

The agony of the fire earlier hadn’t actually matched the reality of burning. It felt more akin to a scalding shower—uncomfortable, but survivable.

It was exactly at that threshold. Still, enduring that sensation while watching yourself be incinerated would drive most people to believe it was real.

Reaching into her gear, Han Sang-ah retrieved a chocolate bar.

“Ah.”

When she unwrapped it, the treat was crawling with thick, writhing maggots. It was enough to kill any appetite. The pungent odor of rotting trash filled her nostrils.

Her hunger vanished instantly, and she tossed the bar aside. She suspected the water would be the same.

Suddenly, she felt something scuttling in her mouth. She spat reflexively, and the mangled half of a massive cockroach fell to the dirt.

“…”

It was every bit as foul as Yoo Chan-seok had predicted. However, while illusions can fabricate new sensations, they cannot fully erase existing ones.

‘If they could, he wouldn’t have been able to distinguish the real operator from the fakes.’

Legitimate sounds were bleeding through the auditory clutter. Han Sang-ah reached out and picked up the discarded chocolate—maggots still appearing to squirm on it—and took a bite.

She heard the crunch of insects and tasted the rot, but beneath that… was the taste of dirt?

“Bleh.”

She spat it out. She had accidentally grabbed a hallucination; her actual chocolate bars were sitting nearby where she had dropped them.

One was physical; the others were phantoms. Only one was real.

“This makes me want to kill the casters.”

Once Yoo Chan-seok finished with the circle and pinpointed the Erosion Core, the task of conquering it would remain. Even the stoic Han Sang-ah was feeling a sharp edge of irritation.

She decided that once they were back in Harbin, she would request to handle the finishing blow, assuming they survived. She tightened her fist.

“…”

All the while, spirits tried to invade her psyche over and over—entering her mind, only to recoil with shocked groans before fleeing.

“I wonder how Jeong Oh-hun is managing.”

He had a shallow personality, but as Yoo Chan-seok noted, he was a hunter who showed consistent growth. If he survived this, he would be a valuable asset for the upcoming Rank-1 Erosion Core raid.

It would be a waste of potential for him to die here.

Contrary to her concerns, Jeong Oh-hun was enduring through his own desperate methods.

“Uwaaaaaagh!”

He had fastened heavy-duty shackles around his own ankles. These were high-grade restraints designed specifically to hold hunters—and they were doing their job perfectly.

He usually carried them for other reasons, never dreaming he’d use them on himself.

“I was a fool! Uwaaaah!”

He banked on the hope that Yoo Chan-seok could burn the locks off later with his black flames.

The method worked, but the experience was agonizing. He felt himself being scorched, frozen, and hacked by invisible blades.

“…What kind of sick joke is this.”

The images of his parents, who had perished in an accident, stood before him.

Then came the vision of his ex-wife, paralyzed from the waist down. Jeong Oh-hun, who had been screaming just a moment ago, suddenly went stone-cold still.

Human emotions are fragile. Strike the right chord, and a person’s resolve shatters. But strike the wrong one, and you might accidentally forge a fortress.

The ghosts trying to sift through his soul found themselves ejected faster and faster, unable to find a foothold in his mind.

“Money.”

There are two kinds of people with disabilities: those with wealth and those without. Capitalism defines that divide for everyone, of course.

But for those with physical limitations, that gap is an ocean.

He needed the capital. It wasn’t just for the hospital bills.

Medicine wasn’t the only answer. The power of wealth could purchase a level of comfort that a cure could not provide.

The sound of grinding teeth echoed from Jeong Oh-hun. That was how he weathered the storm of illusions.

“Whoever is responsible for this, I’m the one who’s going to kill them.”

Once Yoo Chan-seok neutralized the circle and found the Erosion Core, Han Sang-ah and Jeong Oh-hun would have to move in sync for the next phase.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

I am moving at terminal velocity. The moment the first convergence point broke, the atmosphere of the magic circle shifted—all subtlety was thrown out the window.

As it began venting massive amounts of mana, the intensity of the hallucinations spiked.

“I need to move faster or they won’t last.”

I put everything into my stride; the ground exploded into craters behind me as I accelerated. A sheer precipice appeared suddenly in my path.

“Fake.”

I didn’t slow down, charging right off the edge. My body felt the sensation of falling—the stomach-churning weightlessness, the roar of the wind, the visual of the ground rushing up.

It was all garbage. I could feel the circle’s mana clawing at my nerves. My only task was to keep my legs moving through what felt like empty air.

Barriers appeared, resulting in bone-jarring impacts. I ran across fields of jagged metal spikes. My mind told me my legs were snapping and blood was geysering. Rivers of burning sulfur erupted, and monstrous serpents and beasts lunged to tear at my throat.

“You pathetic losers.”

My expression never wavered as I tore through the targets. An hour into the sprint, half of the nodes had been reduced to ash.

I had survived actual hell—years spent surrounded by real sulfur that melted skin.

This? Even if it were real, it wouldn’t stop me. But as an illusion? It was meaningless.

The pressure intensified. I only pushed my pace harder.