Chapter 109: Choking Its Breath

‘Damn it—what am I supposed to do here…?!’

The situation sped ahead without waiting for him. Lee Won-jae bit down on his lip, shooting a resentful glare at nothing in particular. His lips, dry and cracked, split open, and the metallic taste of blood spread in his mouth. The sharp pain snapped his mind into focus, and Won-jae hurled the water that had risen to his chin straight at the charging eagle.

As if they had been waiting for that signal, the other two instantly closed the distance with the monster.

Splash!

The water poured out with the roar of a waterfall, only to fall away pathetically, obeying the dungeon’s twisted gravity. There was no time to adjust.

The eagle, its head soaked through, looked more bedraggled than before—but it was still hurtling forward at terrifying speed.

Won-jae hadn’t choked its breath, hadn’t held it in place like Sung Ji-woo had said. In that instant, he felt like a complete idiot.

His body had acted before his thoughts, leading him to do something utterly pointless. Even if he was hanging upside down in the sky, it wasn’t like he was floating in zero gravity.

“…Ghk!”

Before he could fully sink into self-reproach, his body lifted into the air. This time, it truly felt like zero gravity.

“Mr. Lee Won-jae…!”

No—something was dragging him in the opposite direction of gravity.

His clothes caught on the eagle’s razor-sharp talons with a ripping sound. His body dangled helplessly, and it felt like the fabric would tear at any moment, sending him plunging into the abyss.

The eagle curved its body into a wide U-turn. Won-jae, who had never experienced such speed, couldn’t even open his eyes against the violent wind slamming into his face.

He gagged. In the meantime, the eagle completely changed direction and dove toward the two who stood frozen below.

His chest was crushed by the tension in his clothes, making it hard to breathe. Won-jae retched painfully as a dull ache flared at his side—perhaps the wound Sung Ji-woo had barely sealed had reopened.

The eagle beat its wings powerfully. A fierce gust erupted, flinging the two men far away in an instant.

Son Ji-hwan tumbled through the air several times before barely managing to land upright. Sung Ji-woo crashed down with a heavy thud.

Only when the eagle’s speed finally slowed could Won-jae open his eyes—but the sight before him was utterly devoid of hope, forcing him to squeeze them shut again.

At the same time, the eagle shot upward once more, straight toward the jagged mountain peaks embedded in the sky above.

No plea for mercy even made it past his clenched lips.

His body, soaring uncontrollably, felt unbearably heavy. The eagle paid no mind to the human struggling beneath its talons.

Had they reached the midpoint between the inverted sky he had been standing on and the peaks above?

Suddenly, the world flipped.

Like executing a flip turn, the eagle inverted vertically.

“…Ugh!”

Blood rushed to his head, and bile surged up his throat. Won-jae’s face flushed crimson as tears streamed from his eyes—not downward, but ripped away by the wind and scattered behind his temples.

The center of the world shifted. Floor and ceiling swapped places, and with them, gravity reversed. His entire body now spilled toward the mountain peaks.

Above him stretched a vast sky, and against it, the other two hung like distant specks.

‘Ah… there’s no one who can save me.’

Won-jae could only give in to despair.

The eagle seemed to be heading for its nest. A towering cliff loomed closer, and atop it, something wriggled and moved.

It was still too far to make out clearly, but given the circumstances, the answer was obvious.

Those had to be the eagle’s chicks—beaks gaping wide, waiting to devour him. A cold, formless terror washed over him.

Then, from far below, a voice thundered up as if dragged from the depths of someone’s core.

“L–Lee! Won! Jae!”

Each syllable of his name struck his mind like a hammer. Won-jae looked down and saw something moving atop a distant ridgeline.

“…Ms. Chae Min-jung?”

It was Chae Min-jung, who had been separated and left behind somewhere earlier. She was waving her arms with all her strength at Won-jae, who had reappeared dangling from the eagle’s talons.

“A–are you… okay?!”

He clearly wasn’t, yet absurdly, she asked anyway. When no answer came, she suddenly began swinging her arm as if throwing something.

Before he could even think about what she was doing, something flew through the air—only to fall short and drop back toward her.

Boom!

A potion exploded a short distance away from her, flames surging up before quickly dying out. It wasn’t a natural fire; the way it extinguished itself was unnatural.

‘S-she threw that…?’

Won-jae stared, dumbfounded. If that potion had hit him properly, he would have been engulfed in flames.

No—worse. If the eagle holding him had burned and fallen…

He looked at Chae Min-jung in disbelief and realized she was still shouting something.

“…Water?”

“Water! Water! Water!”

She ran desperately after the flying eagle, but soon reached a cliff edge and skidded to a stop, her face twisted in frustration.

She hurled another potion toward the eagle, but once again it fell short and vanished soundlessly into the abyss below.

The sight felt like a preview of his own imminent end. Won-jae lifted his head, unable to summon the courage to look into the bottomless depths beneath him.

In this situation, clinging to the eagle’s talons as safely as possible seemed like the best option. Powerlessness weighed heavily on his body.

He stared blankly as a nest the size of a small house drew closer. Inside were chicks slightly smaller than the adult eagle—though even “smaller” meant nearly the size of a grown man. Their gaping beaks looked more than capable of swallowing his head whole.

Their shrill cries rang out, drilling into his skull. Four or five of them screamed in succession, as if trying to rattle him unconscious.

Thud.

His body was dropped into the nest, rolling helplessly. The rough surface scraped his skin painfully, but Won-jae crawled anyway, driven by the need to live.

He squeezed himself between shattered eggshells and covered his ears. It did nothing to stop the vibrations rattling through his body.

The chicks twisted and squirmed, trying to find him, but they were so unsteady that they tangled with each other instead.

Thinking he’d be crushed to death before being eaten, Won-jae pulled an eggshell over himself and crawled toward the corner of the nest.

Beyond the edge of the nest was sheer open air. Before landing, he had seen that it was precariously perched atop a massive rock along the cliff face.

Which meant there was no escape route from here.

Nor was rescue an option. Chae Min-jung couldn’t climb the cliff alone, and the other two were still hanging upside down in the sky.

“I have to do something…”

Pushed to the extreme, his sense of reality began to crumble. A cold numbness spread from head to toe.

“Something…”

An inexplicable defiance flared up, like a last struggle before death. Sung Ji-woo’s words—You can at least try—ignited it.

Now that he had no choice but to try, his sense of purpose finally sharpened.

Won-jae crawled up the edge of the nest. It was high, but since it was woven from branches, it was easy enough to wedge his feet in.

If he’d known this would happen, he would’ve trained his body more seriously. His office-softened body slid like water, dizziness washing over him. He suddenly craved caffeine—the modern cure-all.

‘If I get out of here alive, I’m drinking an iced Americano.’

Motivated by that utterly ridiculous thought, he finally managed to climb onto the top of the nest.

“Hah… huff…”

An endless cliff spread out before him, a dizzying sight. Far below, faint but unmistakable, water flowed. White spray exploded upward through the gorge like bombs going off.

Won-jae stretched out his hand and drew in water again. This time, he pulled it up to his absolute limit, until it felt like even his brain was soaked.

Screee! Screee!

The eagles’ raucous chorus rang out. The mother eagle, which had been circling nearby, landed on the edge of the nest where Won-jae clung.

It threw its beak wide open and shrieked like a scream. Terrified, Won-jae instinctively tucked his head in and thrust out his arms.

As if vomiting out everything churning inside him, he blasted water straight at the monster.

Flap—flap!

This time, there was no sound of water pouring away uselessly. The water swelled into a rounded mass, wrapping around the eagle’s head.

Choke its breath.

Sung Ji-woo’s voice echoed in his ears. The eagle’s frantic wingbeats grew more violent, and Won-jae lifted his head.

The eagle writhed in agony, beak opening and closing uselessly. Bracing his legs, Won-jae shoved it outward, toward the edge of the nest.

“Go… go away…! Get lost…!”

Disoriented, the eagle misstepped and fell from the nest. It flailed its wings, trying to recover, but flew erratically, unable to regain control.

Boom!

With a thunderous crash, the eagle’s massive body slammed into the cliff below. The impact rippled through everything.

Spinning wildly, the eagle plummeted further down, while the nest—precariously balanced on the rock—lost its center and began to shake like during an earthquake.

“N-no… no…”

Clinging desperately to the branches, Won-jae pleaded. Panicked, the chicks thrashed about, making the nest tilt even more.

The end of the nest Won-jae clung to rose upward—meaning the opposite side sank down. His body floated as the enormous nest slowly slid.

Scrape… scrape…

Despair closed in on him inch by inch. Beneath his dangling feet, the raging waters of the gorge appeared and vanished over and over.

Like riding a tilted seesaw, meaningless jolts continued.

Screeeeee!

At last, one chick fell first. Perhaps it hadn’t learned to fly yet—its desperate wing flaps were pitiful.

Splash!

Only then did the sound of the mother eagle meeting its final end echo up. Even now, Won-jae hadn’t released the water choking its breath.

The remaining chicks shrieked even louder. Two of them, unable to forgive Won-jae for killing their mother, pecked at him viciously.

One of them caught his foot in its beak.

“f*ck…! Let go…! Let go, you crazy bird…!”

His shoe slipped off with a yank, and crushing pressure threatened to snap his ankle. The pain felt like being run over by a massive truck tire, and Won-jae screamed as he thrashed.

The more he struggled, the harder he tried to grip the nest.

But enduring the immediate pain was harder still. In the end, Won-jae let go of the nest and desperately tried to pry the chick’s beak open.

The chick resisted, flailing its body and wings wildly.

Clunk.

A sound rang out—the nest, pushed to its limit, had caught on something and stopped.

But whether that was a brake or a prelude to disaster, the halted nest began to tip over the edge of the rock.