Chapter 117: You’re Dying

“Hey, Lee Tae Hwan!!”

Bodam, who had just arrived, screamed in horror at the sight of Tae Hwan.

His heart sank seeing Tae Hwan sitting in a pool of blood again.

The amount of bleeding was incomparable to last time.

Moreover, he was making an expression he had never seen before.

“Look at me. Lee Tae Hwan. I said look at me!”

Bodam ran to Tae Hwan, who was blinking as if he’d seen a ghost.

He was so startled he didn’t even realize Bodam was there.

Normally, Lee Tae Hwan would have called out “Yoon Bodam!” as soon as he appeared.

“Wait, ugh.”

Tae Hwan gently pushed Bodam away with his hand and gagged.

Seung Ho, who stood with his back to him, walked over to Team Leader Baek and Aram.

Ji Oh also had a nauseated look on his face, just like Tae Hwan.

‘Just how strong is Aram to have startled him this much?’

“Are you feeling sick? Where does it hurt? Has the bleeding stopped?”

Bodam, who was diligently patting Tae Hwan’s back and releasing his guiding, gradually grew puzzled.

For someone who had shed so much blood, Tae Hwan seemed quite alright.

He was fully conscious and his wavelength had already stabilized.

So much so that there was no need for mucosal guiding.

Smack!

After confirming Tae Hwan’s safe condition, Bodam hit him hard on the back.

It was a back packed with muscle and no fat, so Bodam’s hand hurt more than the one he’d hit.

“I told you not to be reckless with your body!”

Bodam, who threw a punch asking if his words were a joke, pulled the quietly accepting Tae Hwan into an embrace first.

“Lee Tae Hwan, you crazy, you bastard.”

He held back his curse, thinking that perhaps calling him a psycho over and over had made him choose to do only crazy things.

His chest ached in shock the moment he heard about Aram’s ability.

Seung Ho, who had at first told the ridiculous lie that Aram was a B-class firepower Esper, eventually lost to Bodam’s sharp glare.

Watching Seung Ho hem and haw, choosing the most common firepower Esper ability out of all the powers, Team Leader Kim made a new discovery.

He had thought Seung Ho was only inept at dealing with people.

It was the first time he realized he couldn’t even lie.

To Bodam’s retort asking how a B-class firepower could be dangerous to Lee Tae Hwan, Seung Ho had even made the flimsy excuse that fire was dangerous.

After finally confessing the truth, he pretended not to hear Bodam’s insistence on going to Tae Hwan.

That perfect Han Seung Ho.

“What happened?”

Team Leader Kim approached Seung Ho and asked, watching Tae Hwan who looked sufficiently recovered even from a distance.

“Are you hurt too?”

Seung Ho, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief, didn’t seem to be particularly injured.

Team Leader Kim’s gaze, now as puzzled as Bodam’s, soon focused on Aram.

‘What’s that now?’

Team Leader Baek was injecting some unknown green-colored liquid into the back of Aram’s neck.

Team Leader Kim’s eyebrows gradually rose as he watched the process unfold.

“Hk, ugh-. Heok.”

Aram, who had shown no reaction immediately after the injection, suddenly began to twitch and convulse.

Team Leader Baek, pressing down on her heaving chest, gestured to Seung Ho and ordered him to strengthen the barrier.

Seung Ho sent Team Leader Kim outside the barrier and added a protective layer to the reinforced wall surrounding Aram.

In that brief moment, Team Leader Kim noticed the change in Aram.

Beneath her furiously racing pulse, her significant wavelength was condensing.

As if it were about to be extinguished.

Thwack!

Bodam, whose anger at Tae Hwan for constantly breaking his promises hadn’t subsided, swung his fist again.

Tae Hwan begged him to stop, saying it hurt.

It was a punch that barely tickled, but he was worried Bodam’s reddened hand would hurt.

“I’m sorry. I’ll be really careful from now on.”

Tae Hwan, with his tail tucked firmly between his legs, was a completely different person from when he was beating up the unregistered Espers.

Seeing the pretend-nice Tae Hwan, Ji Oh grabbed the back of his neck.

He wanted to pull them apart, but he had a feeling that would only make Yoon Bodam dislike him more.

“How many times did I tell you to be careful? You completely ignored it all-.”

Bodam muttered as he wiped Tae Hwan’s crimson face with his sleeve.

‘What am I going to do with this bastard?’

He wanted to instill a sense of caution in Tae Hwan, who acted fearlessly, trusting only in his high rank, that even S-classes weren’t immortal.

He was even more worried because he was the type to have never lost a fight.

Tae Hwan’s nerve was too great.

While Bodam’s was too small for his own good.

“I won’t rampage. I had a plan when I faced her.”

“What plan?”

‘If I were to rampage, I was confident I could die before it happened.’

“What was the plan? Tell me. Let’s hear it.”

Tae Hwan kept his mouth shut instead of answering.

He had a feeling he’d get a bigger scolding if he told the truth.

“I said tell me!”

Bodam hugged Tae Hwan’s head tightly and wouldn’t let go until he answered.

In reality, he didn’t even give him a chance to speak, just held him fiercely.

He didn’t want to hear it, afraid that the answer he expected would come out.

Afraid that the reckless words, “I planned to die before I rampaged,” would come out.

“Yoon Bodam. I’ll catch them all.”

Tae Hwan grabbed the hand of Bodam, who was telling him to just take care of his own body, and spoke in a desperate voice.

A warm scent emanated from Bodam’s chest where he was buried.

Thanks to that, his strength surged.

“Trust me.”

At Tae Hwan’s serious gaze, Bodam could only move his lips.

He still had a long list of nagging to do as his dedicated guide.

But when he made his request with such a somber face, no more words would come out.

The guiding he sent out through their touching skin became stickier and stickier.

His heart pounded at the words “trust me.”

“Yesterday, I really just changed your clothes. I swear.”

Bodam’s face flushed at the out-of-the-blue oath.

“So what? You, you bastard Lee Tae Hwan. Ugh!”

Bodam, who got angry at Tae Hwan for reminding him of a memory he had momentarily forgotten, raised his arm.

Just as he glared, ready to strike,

Kwoong-!!

Tae Hwan, who had suddenly pulled Bodam into his arms, sent a building flying into the air.

Instinctively sensing the Crow’s energy.

“Don’t move.”

Bodam nodded at Tae Hwan’s low voice and clung tightly to his solid body.

He huddled up, shut his eyes tight, and held onto Tae Hwan with all his might.

Bodam’s pulse began to race at the aggressive wavelengths emanating from Attack Team 1 and their subordinates, who had arrived on Team Leader Baek’s signal.

After vaguely hearing someone’s shout that a gate had opened, Bodam could hear no more.

Even the wavelengths of the unfamiliar Espers surrounding them disappeared.

Thanks to Seung Ho’s barrier enveloping Bodam.

Calmed by the sudden silence, Bodam tried to lift his head, but closed his eyes again at Tae Hwan’s hand pressing it down.

He couldn’t tell what was happening, but one thing was certain.

Kang Yi Jun was nearby.

“What did you do?”

The Crow opened his mouth.

Having revealed himself, his left arm was pierced by Team Leader Baek’s torso.

He, who had deliberately not aimed for the heart, asked about Aram’s condition, who was bound by Team Leader Baek and Seung Ho’s barrier.

“I said, what did you do?”

The Crow’s anger, veins popping on his head, flared so intensely it felt tangible.

He paralyzed the bodies of all the Espers standing on the ground and sliced Team Leader Baek’s upper body in half.

His heart crumbled at the miserable sight of Aram, foaming at the mouth.

“Aram. My Aram.”

The Crow, who had shattered the reinforced wall in a single blow and checked Aram’s pulse, trembled.

He raged, spreading his uncontrollable anger in a huge wave.

The body he had been waiting for the perfect time to eat was now empty.

For Aram’s precious ability to have disappeared.

He had cherished and saved it.

“Why is Aram yours?”

Team Leader Baek, who had turned her body into gas, quickly reattached her severed torso and sneered.

Her separated hands climbed onto the Crow’s shoulders and knees, transforming into syringes to inject poison.

It was the same deadly poison as the green liquid absorbed into Aram’s body.

The much darker and murkier liquid was burned away by flames before it could even touch the Crow’s body.

However, Team Leader Baek’s clones, which had multiplied into dozens, didn’t miss the opening and rushed at the Crow.

This time, she turned her hands into guns and fired a volley of bullets.

The bullets, combined with Tae Hwan’s psychokinesis, were also laced with poison.

“Keuk.”

The Crow, whose movements were heavy from continuously breaking through Seung Ho’s reinforced walls, couldn’t avoid the bullets fired through the gaps in the broken barrier.

He had tried to open the gate wider to summon monsters, but thanks to the early discovery of the gate’s location, Attack Team 1, having already completed their battle plan, had taken control of the sky.

They were in the middle of a bloody battle, following Team Leader Baek’s orders to end the fight with the monsters in the sky.

The blood-loving bald man roared like a beast as he smashed the head of a balding monster that looked just like him.

Tae Hwan’s heart pounded along with the heated energy of the battle surrounding the sky.

Tae Hwan, too, enjoyed fighting.

Perhaps because he had inherited a destructive nature, his eyes had gone wild at the sight of blood since he was a child.

“Lee Tae Hwan…”

Bodam, made anxious by Tae Hwan’s pounding heartbeat, called his name.

Tae Hwan, who didn’t miss the faint sound from where he was buried in his chest, immediately calmed himself.

He held Bodam tighter and reassured him that it was okay.

Telling him not to worry about anything.

“You’re that healer, aren’t you?”

The Crow, who had quickly lost interest in the now-useless Aram, read Seung Ho’s ability and laughed loudly.

Trapped within Tae Hwan’s psychokinesis and Seung Ho’s reinforced wall, the Crow had holes all over his body from being shot by Team Leader Baek’s bullets.

Only then did Ji Oh, freed from the Crow’s restraint, teleport to Tae Hwan.

Ji Oh and Team Leader Kim, who had relatively lower abilities, were having their stamina drained just by withstanding the Crow’s wavelength.

“You lived so quietly, I thought you were locked up.”

Team Leader Baek’s clones aimed their guns again at the Crow, who was proving difficult to kill.

Just before she pulled the trigger, counting the few remaining special bullets, the Crow broke through the reinforced wall and pulled Seung Ho’s body towards him.

“You’re dying.”

The Crow wrapped an arm around Seung Ho’s waist and smiled grotesquely.

The closer they got, the more he could feel that the healing Esper’s body was just as worn out as his own.

It was a body that had already surpassed its limits.

And he was a rare ability user he had just rediscovered.

Seung Ho returned the Crow’s twisted smile with a stronger embrace, signaling to Team Leader Baek’s clones with his one remaining right hand.

“Yes. Just like you.”