Black Badger

This time, he had truly come back from the very brink of death.

The moment he opened his eyes, Kairos thought so.

And even now, it couldn’t be said that he had completely escaped death.

The sand fog was thinning. The stench of smoke and blood stabbed at his nose.

He felt a senior wriggling in his arms. He loosened his grip and released Ami, then, after confirming she was unharmed, broke into a crooked grin.

The young sharpshooter looked up at him, frowning.

The Badger who had flown in to snatch him away just before the Remnant /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ Wraith fired its energy blast.

Ami snapped in anger.

“I recover faster than you do!”

Kairos chuckled softly, then turned his head and spat out blood.

The battlefield was in a temporary lull.

There was little movement, little sound. Everyone was still reeling from the overwhelming energy that had swept through the area. Many had probably died. Some wouldn’t even be able to have their bodies identified. The Remnant Wraith’s energy left no trace of death behind.

If not for Milk, they too would have vanished without a trace.

There was a saying that a fearless thief-snowflake could bring down an entire village.

It was no exaggeration.

If a thief-snowflake refrained from attacking and stored energy for ten years, it could fire an energy cannon rivaling that of a Remnant Wraith.

But due to their species’ timid nature, they rarely managed to store energy for even a week, let alone ten years.

Usually, they would spit out a bit of energy as a threat and then flee.

But Milk hadn’t fired once in fifteen years.

That was why it had been able to neutralize the Remnant Wraith’s cannon—originally something Kairos had intended to use against Kyle.

Thanks to that, they had escaped immediate death.

Kairos crawled across the ground toward Milk, who lay collapsed nearby.

「Thank you.」

Milk let out a series of squeaks.

「Get some rest. When you wake up, you’ll be home.」

Pyak, pyak. The thief-snowflake looked up at its master with a pitiful expression.

Kairos smiled bitterly and stroked Milk.

He carefully tucked the fluffy creature into his pocket. After securing his familiar’s safety, he turned his head to assess the situation.

The place where the Remnant Wraith’s merciless beam had swept through.

The dust was so thick that even a point one kilometer away was invisible.

But Kyle was still alive.

His weakened presence could be felt nearby.

He must have taken quite a few wounds pushing his subordinates away....

“Huh.”

Ami gasped.

“Black roots are forming on the ground.”

Absorption.

Black, vein-like strands began to spread across the earth.

The reason the Emperor had obsessively gathered the Children of the World Tree.

They absorbed everything, not just the ashes left behind. In doing so, they revived hosts that looked utterly beyond saving. Those beings, said to be close to immortal, were what the Emperor feared most, and he placed the most outstanding among them in the position of knight commanders.

As with any ability, the gap between those who had mastered it and those who hadn’t was immense.

Zzzzzzt—

Kyle was among the most fully mastered.

Unlike Hilde, who avoided using absorption, Kyle used it more than anyone.

Jet-black roots greedily devoured the shattered fragments of Creatures.

They began in the invisible dust and aggressively spread, as if staining the land itself.

“We have to go.”

Kairos felt Kyle’s presence growing clearer by the second.

The Empire’s sharpened claw.

The tribe’s eldest son.

The one destined to inherit the tribe.

“If we don’t run now, we’ll die.”

Zzzzzzzzt!

No sooner had he finished speaking than the ground was covered in black lines, turning pitch-black.

Ami let out a small squeak.

She wrapped herself around Kairos’s torso like a tree.

“How are we supposed to beat that?!”

“We can’t.”

Kairos lifted his head, accurately gauging both Kyle’s suffocatingly immense presence and the heavy, eerie presence of the Remnant Wraith.

“He’ll chase us to the end and cut off our escape unless we drag the Remnant Wraith along with us—”

Boom-boom-boom-boom!

Sand surged like claws.

Behind the rising sand came a sword strike. If Ami hadn’t shot straight up into the air, they would have been split in two. The massive impact of the slash created a gale, and Kairos and Ami were flung back by it, barely regaining altitude before being slammed into the ground.

But they couldn’t fly upward to escape.

The Remnant Wraith’s body was covering the sky above them.

So that was it—if they dodged the sword strike, he’d herd them all the way here.

The moment Kairos grasped Kyle’s intent, golden eyes appeared before him.

The enemy closed the distance in an instant, cutting through the sand fog.

Their escape routes were blocked.

They rolled beneath an arch formed by the Remnant Wraith’s massive body and arms. They couldn’t shoot upward into the sky, and both sides were blocked by its limbs and torso.

Kyle was advancing from the front.

The only escape route was behind them—but there wasn’t enough time to retreat backward and then soar skyward....

Bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-boom!

A silver wall rose up.

It didn’t block Kyle’s sword completely, but it bought them time.

The instant the blade struck the silver wall and slowed, Ami twisted her body and pulled back. Once she cleared the shadow cast by the Remnant Wraith, she immediately shot up into the sky.

Wind sliced sharply across their skin.

The enemy receded rapidly.

The Remnant Wraith looked at them again.

But its gaze soon shifted elsewhere. Kairos saw it scanning the drones and helicopters that had just filled the sky.

The Commander-in-Chief was aboard one of them.

When he turned his head, he saw Yehyeon standing at the open aircraft door, looking down.

The Commander-in-Chief gazed down at Kyle.

“Send the Remnant Wraith back.”

Having noticed the gaze, the superior issued the order calmly.

“Go.”

“Yes.”

Even amid the roaring wind of the aircraft, Kairos heard the command.

The person who had dropped a morphing weapon onto the ground and intervened at just the right moment to save their lives.

The aircraft carrying him plunged swiftly into enemy territory.

Kyle’s quiet curse drifted up from below.

Seizing the moment, Kairos quickly shifted his focus.

He called out to Echo, who was clinging to his back.

「Let’s do it again.」

No matter what, a Remnant Wraith that had awakened had to be returned to its original pit.

He had awakened it, so he had to see it through to the end.

「Sing.」

A song that captured the hearing of living beings.

Amid the chaotic mix of its clear, bell-like tones, the engines of drones and aircraft, and the enemies’ shouts, Kairos heard Kyle let out a snort.

Kyle was now directly beneath him.

“So you at least have the decency to clean up a Remnant Wraith you woke up yourself.”

Kyle wore an expression like someone finally rid of a long-standing ache.

“Good luck until you manage to put it back, Fire Dragon Lord.”

With that, he vanished into the sand fog.

He had gone to deal with the seniors who had arrived by aircraft.

He wasn’t foolish. He knew that leaving Kairos alive meant the Remnant Wraith—something that would be a massive headache for them too—would be taken care of.

And so, a pair of man and woman were left behind with the Remnant Wraith.

Beside the calamity they had awakened, and now had to put back to sleep.

“To the portal!”

Ami shouted.

“They’re watching us!”

Good. Let’s do this again.

Kairos stared straight at the Remnant Wraith.

Deliberately not thinking about Hilde’s situation, dragged away by the enemy.

All he could do was give his all here.

“Let’s go.”

He whispered into the endless darkness.

“I’m ready.”

Flames burst from Ami’s boots.

***

“An earthquake?”

Sophia murmured.

The Badgers stood still, muscles tensed.

The non-humans also froze, sharply scanning their surroundings. The one called a tactician muttered to himself, “There’s no Creature detected that could cause ground tremors....”

Yun narrowed his eyes, observing those capable of sensing with their instincts.

But they too seemed unsure of what was happening.

Was it because the magic still prevented them from sensing enemies with their instincts?

The unstable ground trembled ominously.

Karl asked,

“Is this some kind of magic too?”

“I don’t think so.”

Igor frowned.

“Even if it were magic, why use a method like this?”

Not a Creature, and likely not magic either.

As soon as those two plausible options were eliminated, Yun checked the tracker signal.

Because he still had one hypothesis left.

The moment he checked the still-active signal to confirm it, the green-eyed junior muttered behind him,

“I’ve got a bad feeling....”

Yeah.

The junior’s intuition was probably right.

Yun caught the slow movement of Hilde’s position—someone who had shown no sign of moving until now.

Choi Yun narrowed his eyes.

“Hildebert moved.”

Heads snapped up.

“What?”

“Huh?”

“The Leader?”

“Ah, fuck....”

Igor’s, Sophia’s, and Rose’s exclamations overlapped with Ricardo’s irritated muttering.

Yun understood why he reacted that way.

He was thinking the same thing.

Did he break free?

Letting the tactician’s muttered words—“Did he get loose?”—go in one ear and out the other, Yun watched the moving signal. It blinked, now heading in a different direction.

Movement with a clear destination.

Yun recalled something his adjutant had once told him. A story Hildebert Taleb had never shared with anyone during his time in the Empire.

Because they didn’t know that story, the Titans couldn’t grasp what was happening. They would think that once a rampage began, nothing could stop it—and thus never imagine that Hildebert had ever rampaged before.

But the Badgers here knew.

They knew that the current situation was exactly the kind that could flip Hilde’s trauma switch.

Yun furrowed his brow, then looked at the large knight.

“Take off the balaclava.”

“What?”

“Take it off. The situation’s changed.”

Yun had never seen a rampaging humanoid Creature with his own eyes.

But Yehyeon, who had seen its end, said it seemed to retain some level of consciousness until the very last moment. He said he thought he had heard its final words.

He never revealed what those words were.

And Hildebert had once said he could maintain a rampage for a full week at Swordmaster level....

“We might have to bet on that faint shred of reason. Show your face.”

“Brat. Say something that makes sense.”

“What?!”

Beside the grumbling Igor, Yoow screamed.

“Why did his presence suddenly—!”

The ground collapsed.

They fell.

The place they had been standing caved straight down. Like someone punching the top of a hollow cream bun. Like pressing down the lid of a warm coffee bun with a spoon. The ground split, then dropped away, and people cried out in shock.

Their voices were swallowed by the sound of collapsing earth.

Shooong!

BOOOM....

Silence followed.

Debris of trees and soil scattered across the cavern floor. Dust from the fall.

For a while, nothing moved. No sound, no motion, until the shock of the fall subsided.

Then, as the pale dust began to settle, the Badgers moved.

Those with enhanced bodies, recovering quickly.

They crawled out of the rubble first.

They emerged, stayed where they were, and stared at a single point.

And then, a moment later, a skilled knight pulled himself up from the ground as well.

Spitting dirt from his mouth, the knight turned his head, following the Badgers’ gaze.

To where the Black Badgers, gripping their guns tightly, couldn’t look away.

At the very center of the collapsed ground.

The only place where, strangely enough, no debris had piled up.

“Leader?”

There stood someone he knew well.

Holding a blood-soaked scalpel in his right hand.

Barefoot.

“...Hilde?”

At his blood-wet feet was a trembling, unfamiliar man.

Hildebert, who had been looking down at the nameless man, slowly turned his head, as if he had heard his name being called.

The other’s distinctive features came into view.

Golden eyes visible between white hair.

Milky-white eyelashes....

For a moment, Igor forgot how to breathe.

Because the corner of the whites surrounding those golden eyes was pitch-black.

A darkness so deep it sent a chill through him. As if the eyes themselves were burning away.

Like someone in a rampage....

「There were more people.」

Hildebert murmured as he looked at them.

「Where were you hiding?」

“We’re fucked.”

Yun said.