Chapter 321

“Really alive after all.”

As Baekgyeong slid his handgun back into its holster, he muttered to himself as if he couldn’t believe it. There was no trace of relief in his tone—no sign he was glad—and Anna’s emotions jolted into anger in an instant.

“Of course he’s alive!”

Anna shoved hard between Baekgyeong’s shoulder blades and strode straight up to Lewis. Lewis was alive. Color rushed back into Anna’s face, washed pale with exhaustion, and heat flared through her.

When she saw her brother’s face up close, Anna’s heart dropped. Lewis’s gaunt body looked as pitiful as a winter tree, and his face, smeared all over with blood, had lost its shining beauty like a damaged portrait. With her heart in her throat, Anna went to him and wrapped him in a fierce hug.

“Lewis, I was worried.”

Anna clung to him as if she might crush him. But Lewis didn’t return the embrace, like someone sunk into other thoughts. If anything, his hunched body went rigid, as if her arms around him were awkward. Fear struck Anna at the changed version of Lewis in her arms. It felt like hugging an empty shell wearing her brother’s shape.

“Why is your face like that? Are you hurt?”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

“There’s blood on your—”

After a brief silence, Lewis opened his mouth as if he’d suddenly realized.

“Ah. That. It’s not my blood.”

As if to reassure her, Lewis lightly patted her back. Then he gently peeled her arms away and asked,

“And what about you—what’s that ridiculous thing on your face?”

Anna, who had been touching her own face without thinking, finally understood what he meant.

“This? A thermal imaging camera. Well, technically it’s a camera without a recording function.”

Lewis turned her words over, then spoke at last.

“So it was you two who cut the power. Figures. There wasn’t any other way.”

As if mocking the flaw in their plan, Lewis picked up the flashlight that had fallen to the floor and shone it over Anna’s face. When she squinted against the harsh glare, he switched it off and said with an eerily calm air,

“Did you bring Rut Suppressant?”

“Huh?”

Lewis clicked the flashlight back on and aimed it at Baekgyeong.

“He’s going into Rut soon. Enduring it won’t help. It’ll start within twenty-four hours.”

Baekgyeong spread his hand and blocked the beam.

“I’m going into Rut?”

“Yeah. Your pheromones are right on the verge of going wild. You didn’t notice?”

A stunned feeling washed over Baekgyeong as he counted days in his head. By his usual Rut cycle, there should have been at least five days left before it started. Then a thought flashed through him at once—he’d had his Rut cycle pulled forward before, under Siron’s influence.

“...Fuck.”

Baekgyeong raked a rough hand through his hair. There was no way he still had any Rut Suppressant. Long ago he’d handed it over to Anna McCarthy, then when he returned to Baggers City he’d stolen it and fled—only for Isaac to snatch it from him again and vanish with it.

“There’s no suppressant. I kept it in the car, but Isaac stole the car.”

Face twisted tight, Baekgyeong snapped at Lewis.

“And you? Aren’t you in Rut? You can’t control your pheromones?”

“I’m in a hyperaroused state, so it’s not easy to control.”

Anna, who had been listening in silence, cut in.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s miserable, but if Siron’s nearby, it’ll be a little better.”

Feeling Lewis’s aggressive pheromones on his skin, Baekgyeong recalled the disease called Type-X Hypersensory Receptor Syndrome, shortened to Type-X Syndrome. In extremely rare cases, an Alpha existed whose Class-X Receptor had overdeveloped, allowing him to detect trace pheromones at a level ordinary trait-bearers couldn’t sense. Their Sympathetic Nervous System stayed activated far beyond normal ranges, leaving them in a constant state of arousal where every stimulus felt like an attack.

An even bigger problem was that most people with Type-X Syndrome died suddenly for unknown reasons. An Omega could suppress their pain like morphine, but it didn’t seem to stop the disease from progressing. Just like the unnamed kidnapper in Texas who had abducted Siron and then died suddenly under extreme stress, Lewis, too, might ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) stop breathing at any time, in any situation.

Baekgyeong cut in coldly.

“Siron won’t be staying at your side. So how about we get out of here first?”

Everything moved with crisp efficiency. Lewis seized the radios from the unconscious Alphas and fed out false information that the right-side Security Gate had collapsed in Isaac’s explosion and was impossible to approach. Unless someone came close to verify the truth, no Alpha would be coming through the right-side approach for a while.

Wearing the spare thermal imaging camera Anna had prepared for emergencies, Lewis stood with Baekgyeong in front of the broken Security Gate. The latches caught on the floor tore free with a scream as the door finally inched open. When it swung wide, warm air poured out through the opening along with acrid smoke.

In that instant, gooseflesh surged from their toes to the roots of their hair. High-concentration pheromones steeped in killing intent and the stench of gunpowder slammed into them like violence. Like paints layered over one another until everything turned black, the blended pheromones were so dense they couldn’t distinguish anyone’s individual scent.

But there was one person’s pheromones that stood out with startling clarity, like a drop of water on oil. That distinctive afterscent carved a path to him even in the center of this hell.

Scenting Siron—familiar and intimate—Lewis felt a burning thirst. But just as strongly, he felt the shock of his world splitting cleanly in two. On the thermal imaging display, human-shaped masses lay piled in layers without the slightest movement. Alpha corpses.

“What is all this...?”

Anna clapped a hand over her mouth, aghast. All three of them were crushed beneath the reality that had turned into hell. It was a massacre Isaac Bazelli had committed—turning his gun on his own kind, driven by nothing but hatred for Alphas.

The standoff continued. No—control had already shifted to the enemy. They held a ripped steel door out front like a moving barricade, hiding behind it as they advanced by inches. Using it to block Isaac’s shots, they narrowed the distance, and whenever they caught the smallest opening, they poured down suppressive fire. Isaac fired grenades back at them, but he couldn’t break their formation.

Spitting out concrete grit that crunched between his teeth, Isaac raised the zoom on his monocular. It was a thermal imaging monocular he’d secured in preparation for Baekgyeong coming after him—because he’d expected Baekgyeong wouldn’t give up on Siron.

In the magnified view, the viewing window snapped into clear focus. He stared calmly at the narrow pane and the faint light beyond it, calculating his next move. Using the wavering glow as his reference, he lined up the reticle, held his breath, and fired a grenade with measured control. The round thumped out, tore through the dark—and the next instant, a dull blast erupted inside, followed by men’s screams.

He’d landed the shot in one go without wasting ammunition, but he couldn’t keep the standoff going like this. Because he’d lost time rescuing the victim and confronting Jackson, everything had slipped behind schedule. Now there were less than thirty minutes left until the Nathan River detonator went off.

By the original plan, Siron was already dead, and everyone left in this space would soon be submerged and meet the same end. Half a success. If he took the Designer’s life as well, Isaac would fully accomplish what he’d set out to do. Which meant retreating now, chasing down the Designer he’d let slip away, was the correct move.

And yet he stayed where he was, held in place by an incomprehensible obsession with confirming Siron’s life or death with his own eyes.

Just then, gunfire rang out somewhere in the distance. In front of the right-side Security Gate, enemies sprayed bullets as they tried to force their way through. As the muffled reports shuddered through the floor and walls, Isaac suddenly realized that his hatred for Alphas wasn’t enough.

If his hatred had been enough, he wouldn’t hesitate to leave these underground tunnels immediately to pursue the Designer. Yet he still held his ground. As if he didn’t care what happened to the world after he died.

Isaac let out a bitter laugh. The sound, drawn up from deep in his chest, echoed hollowly through the gunfire. His life would end here. Siron’s death had wrapped around his ankle like a snare, and he couldn’t make himself step away.

He didn’t know whether what kept him from leaving was the residue of guilt toward Siron, or whether he’d simply lost interest in a world that had become worthless. Whatever it was, what remained in his chest was only an emptiness he couldn’t name—hollow like a cavern where cold wind came and went.

“Interesting.”

It was an unfamiliar feeling. But he wouldn’t have time to savor an emotion he didn’t understand—he would die soon. Amused at himself, Isaac let out a low, breathy chuckle.

Then, suddenly, he sensed movement right nearby. About three meters behind him, he heard the shredded door of a Cell drag against the floor as it forced itself open. From the Cell that had been empty just moments ago, someone was opening the door and groping along the wall as they stumbled out into the dark.

“You’re laughing? You really sound like a psychopath. Huh—so, haah, this is, haah, interesting?”

A breathless, irritated voice sounded directly behind Isaac. A voice he’d been half convinced he would never hear again—clear and pure, bright as glass.

“You took so long to come, haah, I came myself.”