Chapter 326

Lewis fired his gun according to the basic principles he had learned when he first trained in marksmanship. Instead of aiming for small vital points like the face or neck, he targeted the torso—following the conventional wisdom that a wider area meant a higher hit probability. But the judgment he made instinctively was a miscalculation. The round aimed at the upper body was stopped by body armor and bounced off uselessly. And that failure led to a fatal consequence.

Lewis felt a searing, burning pain rip through his lower abdomen. Before he could even process the pain, strength drained from the legs that had been supporting him, and his body collapsed to the floor like a felled log.

“Aah! No!”

Isaac leveled his gun at Anna as she rushed toward Lewis, then kicked Lewis’s fallen handgun far away across the floor.

“Lewis, Lewis!”

“Hah... my legs—hah—I can’t feel them.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Lewis.”

Anna lifted her gaze, hatred blazing in her eyes. Beyond her tear-blurred vision, the black muzzle of a gun was aimed at her with chilling precision.

“You filthy bastard!”

“Hands up. On your knees.”

Isaac’s finger curled around the trigger. Trembling violently, Anna dropped to her knees.

“Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him!”

Panting, Anna begged. Rage and terror surged together at the sight of Lewis lying helpless on the floor—and at her own humiliation, reduced to groveling for mercy. Her heart throbbed so violently it felt as though pain pulsed with every beat. Isaac stared down at her with a reptilian gaze devoid of warmth or pity.

“Why should I keep sparing you when you get in my way every time?”

“Because Siron will be eaten alive by guilt!”

Isaac’s expression hardened to ice. Still aiming the gun at her, he fell into thought. After a brief silence, as though weighing something, he made a decision so swift it bordered on impulsive.

“I won’t kill him. So cooperate.”

Anna nodded frantically despite her shaking. Isaac pulled an envelope and medical tape from his bag.

“Compressed hemostatic agent.”

As Anna reached for it, Isaac abruptly lifted his head. He retrieved a suppressor from his pocket, fitted it onto the rifle’s muzzle, and switched off the flashlight.

“It’s too dark—I can’t see—”

“Get down.”

Isaac had realized the Alpha pursuit had resumed and barked the order at Anna.

“Finish the bleeding in two minutes.”

“But disinfecting—!”

“No. One minute.”

“Fuck!”

Gunfire poured down like rain, hammering the tunnel. Each time a round struck the concrete walls, sparks burst and dust and fragments scattered through the air.

Every enemy shot flared with light, betraying their positions. By contrast, the suppressor on Isaac’s rifle reduced muzzle flash to faint pinpoints. In the darkness, Isaac fired controlled bursts at the visible flashes, buying time.

“Hold on.”

Anna yanked up Lewis’s T-shirt and swept her hands rapidly above and below his navel. There were no tools and no time for sterilization. When she found the hole where hot blood was gushing out, she grabbed a fistful of compressed hemostatic gauze and shoved it deep into the wound.

“Hngh!”

“Please—hold on, Lewis. Even if it hurts, just hold on.”

Lewis sucked in a sharp breath, his body trembling as he stifled his groans. When the gauze expanded inside him until his flesh visibly bulged, Anna confirmed the bleeding had stopped and wrapped bandages tightly around his torso to maintain pressure.

“We’re delayed. Get up.”

The airflow was strengthening as wind swept in from the drainage tunnel. It meant the tunnel was filling with river water, forcing air outward. Frenzied screams and the sound of the earth collapsing echoed faintly on the wind. Like a submerged hellscape, unseen destruction was drawing closer.

The enemy’s behavior was no less abnormal. Even under fire, none hesitated or fell back. They shoved and trampled one another, climbing over piled bodies as they charged desperately toward Isaac. They looked less like humans than a horde of zombies stripped of reason.

After detonating all remaining grenades and wiping out more than half of the enemy force, Isaac hoisted Lewis onto his back. In the distance, a raging current was already surging closer.

The support beams erected at the tunnel’s midpoint to prevent collapse could no longer bear the weight and bent diagonally. Reinforcing the ceiling with spare beams, Baekgyeong thought that once he made it out of this tunnel, he wanted nothing more than to sleep like the dead.

Covered head to toe in dirt, Baekgyeong emerged from the tunnel and shone the flashlight toward the drainage tunnel. Nothing was visible in the pitch-black void. Yet his skin screamed with the certainty that something was coming.

He checked Siron’s position. Siron had been waiting several hundred meters away from the temporary tunnel. But while Baekgyeong had been inside, Siron had somehow closed the distance and was now right nearby.

Despite being smeared with dust and blood, Siron’s shadowed face radiated a fragile beauty. Feeling his resolve soften, Baekgyeong deliberately spoke coldly.

“Go back to your spot.”

Siron ignored him and peered into the tunnel. Just as Baekgyeong reached out to drag him away, the cold wind blowing from inside intensified, and the concentration of pheromones thickened to a sickening density. That wasn’t all. Screams and curses blended together, echoing through the tunnel in a swelling roar.

Then, far inside the tunnel, a single black silhouette emerged from the darkness. Someone with long blond hair spilling loose was crawling forward on their belly.

“Lewis?”

Siron shone the flashlight on the man, but his face was caked with dirt and blood, making him unrecognizable. The man crawled like a larva and finally dragged himself out, rising unsteadily to his feet.

He wasn’t Lewis.

A huge man with an imposing frame charged at Siron, his eyes dulled as if drugged.

He slammed Siron to the ground and hastily yanked down his pants, pulling out his exposed sex. As he bent down to force a kiss on Siron—who stood frozen like a deer in headlights—his neck snapped backward.

Baekgyeong had mounted the man from behind, locking his arm around the man’s throat and strangling him with all his strength.

“Don’t kill him!”

Lewis’s shout burst from inside the tunnel. Baekgyeong flinched at the sound. In the instant his grip loosened, the man counterattacked, wrenching Baekgyeong by the collar and arm and hurling him with brute force.

Slammed into the wall, Baekgyeong sprang back up without even time to groan and charged again. As the two men grappled violently, the oncoming water surged closer, licking at the floor and shaking the ground with thunderous noise.

“Lewis!”

Running toward the voice, Siron realized the ground beneath his feet was already slick with water. It was pouring relentlessly out of the tunnel.

Lewis was halfway inside it, dragging himself forward with both arms. His entire body was soaked, and his lower half hung uselessly, swaying and scraping along the ground as if it could no longer move at all.

Seeing his condition, Siron’s heart dropped.

He rushed over, grabbed Lewis by the arms, and hauled him away from the tunnel entrance. The moment he did, Anna emerged behind him.

“Help—! Ngh—hurry—please—get me out!”

Half-dazed, Siron seized Anna’s arm and yanked her violently clear. As Anna collapsed to the floor coughing up water, Siron demanded urgently,

“Where’s Isaac?”

Anna couldn’t answer through her violent coughing. Instead, a chorus of desperate screams and shrill howls erupted from beyond the temporary tunnel—answer enough. The river was right at their heels.

The water surged with terrifying speed, climbing up to Siron’s shins in moments.

Behind him, Baekgyeong screamed for him to run, but Siron dropped to his knees and shone the flashlight deeper into the tunnel.

Far away, a yellow light like a firefly was racing toward them. A glow stick. It was unmistakably Isaac.

But he was bringing chaos with him.

Behind his dark silhouette came a torrent of shrieking voices.

Isaac crawled forward as though pushed by the current—yet maddeningly slowly—until he hooked his body over the tunnel entrance. The instant he fully emerged, he kicked the support beam at the mouth of the tunnel.

The ceiling folded down as if hinged, and the tunnel collapsed in a domino chain. The Alphas’ screams were swallowed inside the collapsing passage. The violent tremor shook every bone in their bodies, and the roaring sound tore at their ears.

Siron sank to the floor.

From within the crushed tunnel came the blood-soaked screams of those trapped inside. Terror suffocated him, while an unbearable grief crashed over him all at once. The sight before his eyes inflicted a pain so overwhelming that merely witnessing it felt like a crime—an agony he had never experienced before.

The wailing that seemed as though it would last forever faded before long. The temporary tunnel was sealed by shapeless debris, rising like a massive wall that severed life from death.

No one spoke. Even the Alpha who had been strangling Baekgyeong regained his senses, stunned by what he had just witnessed.

The silence was broken by Isaac.

Brushing the mud from his palms, Isaac stood and inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled—as though engraving the foul air of the drainage tunnel, now a colossal grave, somewhere deep inside his body.

He drew a revolver from the waterproof holster against his chest. The muzzle pointed at the head of the unfamiliar Alpha who had been choking Baekgyeong.

“Bazelli, please. Don’t kill him.”

Lewis pleaded in a broken voice.

“You tried to kill us. We didn’t want to kill anyone. Please!”

But Isaac’s gun never wavered. With the safety already off, he glanced sideways at Siron just before firing. Siron sat near the tunnel, watching everything with an intense, unblinking gaze.

A suffocating silence stretched on.

Then Isaac turned his head, his expression unreadable.

Without the slightest hesitation, he shot the Alpha in the head. The man collapsed like discarded cargo across Baekgyeong’s body, a hole blown clean through the center of his forehead—dead before he could even beg.

Isaac swept his gaze across the four of them, none of whom seemed capable of standing, then turned away.

“We have to clear the Entry Route before dawn. Don’t waste time. Follow me.”

Yet no one dared take a step after him. Even as Isaac carried the flashlight and receded into the darkness, they remained frozen in silence.

Then it happened.

A frail sound slipped out—neither quite a sob nor a moan. It was Lewis, crying softly. His weeping grew harsher, more broken, until it became a wrenching sob. He shook uncontrollably, pounding his head against the floor as he cried—so fiercely it made the listener’s chest ache.

As though there were no one else in the world left to mourn the dead, his grief tore deep into the heart, a solitary lament for those who would never be mourned again.