Chapter 118: I Can’t Die

The sound of dozens of bullets firing rang out.

As Team Leader Baek pulled the trigger, Seung Ho withdrew his barrier, and the bullets, controlled by Tae Hwan’s psychokinesis, embedded themselves into the Crow’s body without exception.

“Keuk… Heok.”

The Crow, riddled with bullet holes, convulsed and groaned.

A green liquid overflowed from the holes where his eyeballs had burst.

The Crow’s blood, mixed with the deadly poison Team Leader Baek had prepared over a long time, became as sticky as a monster’s.

The stench of a rotting corpse already began to emanate.

Unable to contain his curiosity, Bodam’s eyes widened as he watched the dying Crow.

He was horrified by the shocking sight, yet he kept watching.

Just as his flesh was about to melt away, Tae Hwan covered Bodam’s eyes.

The Espers of Team 1, struggling with the monsters in the sky, were also focused on the Crow.

‘Did we finally get him?’

No, it couldn’t be.

Seung Ho’s grip on the Crow loosened.

Letting go of the Crow, who had instantly turned to gas and vanished, Seung Ho clenched his empty fist and met Team Leader Baek’s eyes.

It was a clone, not the main body.

“Han Seung Ho!”

The wavelength of the hidden Crow wrapped around Seung Ho.

Team Leader Baek, with her arm’s strength amplified to the maximum, struck the reinforced wall surrounding Seung Ho.

It only created a slight vibration and didn’t budge.

She attacked the wall repeatedly, chasing the invisible Crow’s voice.

“It would have been better if we had met as soon as you manifested.”

Blood welled up on Seung Ho’s left arm, trapped inside the reinforced wall.

The Crow, who tore through the reddened bandage and opened the sutured wound, expressed his disappointment, asking if he couldn’t even heal this much.

For a healing ability user to be unable to fix his own arm.

“Goddamn it, Team Leader.”

Tae Hwan, who had appeared in front of Seung Ho without a sound, pierced through the wall in one go.

He pulled Seung Ho out before the Crow could make a move and kicked him in the waist.

Not the Crow’s waist, but Seung Ho’s.

“You said you were better than me, who can’t multi-task.”

Tae Hwan, who had mocked Seung Ho for getting trapped in a mere reinforced wall, immediately rolled his eyes to check on Bodam.

He had left Bodam in Team Leader Kim’s care.

“I told you to go!”

He had clearly told him to teleport immediately.

Tae Hwan shouted, seeing Bodam still in the same place.

‘Could Team Leader Kim’s ability be bound?’

No, Bodam had remained at the scene of his own volition.

The Crow, invisible even to the Espers’ eyes, was visible to Bodam.

He wasn’t in his field of vision, but his gaze was drawn to his movements as if by a magnet.

“Lee Tae Hwan, behind you!!”

Bodam, who had shaken off Team Leader Kim’s hand, pointed behind Tae Hwan and yelled with all his might in a cracked voice.

Kang Yi Jun was there.

He could feel Yi Jun, desperately trying to make his presence known.

He was talking to Bodam.

‘Please look at me.’

‘Hyung, please, just look at me.’

From the first moment he saw Bodam until now.

Tae Hwan, who had moved instantly at Bodam’s single word, drove his fist, loaded with double the force, into the empty air.

Seung Ho, too, erected the same reinforced wall he had been trapped in, surrounding Tae Hwan.

Team Leader Baek, with few bullets left, was only aiming her gun, observing Tae Hwan’s reaction.

Crack. Tae Hwan’s right arm, which had properly pierced the Crow’s side, twisted.

The sound of his joint popping and breaking echoed graphically.

It was clearly audible even to the distant Bodam.

Before Bodam could get scared, Tae Hwan grabbed his right shoulder and forcibly popped the joint back into place.

With his hand still bent, he closed the distance with the Crow and slammed his knee into his abdomen.

It all happened before Bodam’s eyelids could even open.

“Lee Tae Hwan…!”

He had thought his arm was twisted, but when he opened his eyes, he saw Tae Hwan continuing the fight without any sign of pain, and Bodam was relieved.

The Crow, trapped inside Seung Ho’s reinforced wall, dropped his meaningless invisibility and revealed himself.

He had thought it was a body with its flame almost extinguished.

Tapping on Seung Ho’s surprisingly sturdy reinforced wall, the Crow was about to burst into loud laughter.

It seemed this would be quite an enjoyable fight for a change.

“Haha-.”

Bang!

Bodam covered his ears at the gunshot that rang out simultaneously with the Crow’s laughter.

Team Leader Baek, aiming her gun through the Crow’s wide-open beak, fired only a single shot.

If this was also a clone, the situation would become serious.

“Sorry, but.”

The Crow, who had once again turned to gas and vanished, laughed with a voice filled with mischief.

“I can’t die.”

Along with the laughter echoing through the air, the gate that had taken over the sky grew larger and larger.

The light from the glowing gate shone as bright as the sun.

No longer in the shadows but standing proudly in the bright light, the Crow climbed to the top of the tallest building for all to see.

“Watch carefully.”

Although he had lost Aram, he had a bigger weapon left.

“Watch closely.”

The Crow, drunk on the thrilling pleasure of receiving countless gazes focused on him, swung his arm.

The black smoke that generated within his wide swing soon transformed into a human form, becoming a familiar figure.

Tall, with reddish-brown hair that fluttered in the wind.

“That son of a b*tch!”

Ji Oh, whose feet were bound to the ground, cursed as he saw Kang Yi Jun held by the Crow.

Team Leader Kim and Team Leader Baek, aside from Tae Hwan and Seung Ho, were also bound by the Crow’s psychokinesis, watching the rooftop of the tall building.

Tae Hwan pulled Bodam, who was enveloped in Seung Ho’s barrier, closer and glared at the Crow.

He was gathering everyone’s attention, showing off his carefully hidden prey as if boasting to the world.

He would devour Yi Jun, whom he had saved to eat after Aram, in front of everyone.

“Only I can do this.”

The Crow boasted of his ability as he took a large bite out of Yi Jun’s neck.

The power to absorb everything.

This alone was completely the Crow’s.

He had forgotten his own name, age, and even his body, but he had never forgotten the ability he first manifested.

He had proven his own existence by absorbing others.

“Kang Yi Jun…”

Bodam, held in Tae Hwan’s arms, called his name.

“Kang Yi Jun, Kang Yi Jun,” he repeated, finally crying out, “Yi Jun-ah.”

Yi Jun’s emotions and memories poured down on Bodam like a torrential rain.

His short life was implanted into Bodam without a trace.

As if asking him to remember him.

“Yi Jun-ah!!”

Yi Jun, who had been bleeding black blood even before being eaten by the Crow, reacted to Bodam’s voice.

He couldn’t hear the sound of his own neck being voraciously torn apart.

Yi Jun, who had lost all his strength and was swaying in the Crow’s hands, was smiling.

He was happy to see his hyung one last time.

If only he could make a sound, he wanted to tell his hyung.

‘Don’t cry anymore. I’ll do it all for you, hyung.’

“Heo, heok…”

‘Because I’m going to kill him.’

The Crow, who had paused while crunching on Yi Jun’s bones, gasped for breath.

Thick veins swelled and began to twitch erratically.

Yi Jun’s half-swallowed blood leaked from the panicked Crow’s mouth.

A foul smell emanated from the dark red liquid, which had a thick viscosity like a monster’s blood.

The Crow’s face turned blue as he deliciously chewed and swallowed what he didn’t realize was blood corrupted by poison.

“Wh-what…”

The voice of an old man escaped from the Crow’s blocked throat.

Terrified by his own voice, he stumbled back, and his hip bone shattered on the spot, the arm that had been holding Yi Jun also bent powerlessly.

The years he had evaded were engulfing his entire body in an instant.

“You said you don’t die.”

Yi Jun climbed onto the Crow’s body, pressed his foot down on the jaw that held a piece of his flesh, and smiled.

His vocal cords were torn, so no proper sound came out, but his meaning seemed to have been conveyed well.

The anger of the Crow, mocked by his prey, was vividly readable even without superpowers.

“Good work, Kang Yi Jun.”

Team Leader Baek’s main body finally appeared, standing in front of the Crow and Yi Jun, who were precariously perched on the edge of the building.

At the presence of her, Yi Jun, who had been barely holding on to consciousness, let it go without regret and fell of his own accord.

His face was so consumed by fatigue that he could no longer even feign a smile.

Team Leader Baek did not catch Yi Jun as he fell from the building, but let him go.

He had served his purpose sufficiently, so she decided to let him go in peace.

“What… what did you do… to me…. What in the world.”

The Crow, clinging to his fading breath, asked Team Leader Baek.

He, who had filled his belly with countless lives, could not possibly die so futilely.

Never.

“No need to think so hard. You’re just dying from their poison.”

Team Leader Baek pointed to the monsters being brutally annihilated by her subordinates in the sky.

The green deadly poison extracted from the hearts of living monsters extinguished the powers flowing within the body.

It was a poison lethal only to Espers.

If they were unlucky, they would live, but most of the test subjects couldn’t bear the pain and stopped breathing.

Just like the Crow, who had collapsed in a mummy-like state, foaming at the mouth.

“Let’s finally end this. It’s been dragging on.”

With the cooperation of countless test subjects and Kang Yi Jun, she had finally caught the Crow.

Team Leader Baek, who had been contemplating how to inject the poison reliably, had asked for Yi Jun’s cooperation.

Predicting that the Crow would covet a rare mind-type ability user, she had given the poison to Yi Jun.

She had ordered him to inject the poison when he saw an opportunity if that bastard approached him.

To Yi Jun, who had asked how, she had only given the vague answer that there was nothing he couldn’t do if he was prepared to die.

And then, Yi Jun.

‘If I die.’

He had agreed to cooperate, proposing a condition befitting an Esper blinded by his guide.

‘Tell him I did it for my hyung.’

How fortunate the existence of Guide Yoon was.

If he hadn’t existed, Kang Yi Jun would not have thought to swallow the poison himself and willingly become the Crow’s prey.

Team Leader Baek, leisurely lighting a cigarette in premature celebration of the long battle’s end, chopped the Crow’s corpse into small pieces.

Flying up to her subordinates who were still wrestling with the monsters, she exhaled cigarette smoke and threw the finely chopped pieces of flesh to the monsters as feed.

It was a death that suited him perfectly.

“Good work!”

“Right. You all work harder. Three hours until sunrise.”

The speed of Attack Team 1, which had decided to end the operation before sunrise, increased.

Team Leader Baek also joined her subordinates and put her efforts into eliminating the gate.

Looking at Attack Team 3 gathered together below, it seemed the gate was the last thing on their minds.

Team Leader Baek chuckled at the tense breaths of the four Espers fussing over one guide.

‘Do they really like their guide that much?’