Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

Murderers has a particular characteristic that distinguish them from other users. It was the fact that the more they kill, the stronger they become. Thanks to that, Seongho’s stats were far above all other survivors, and he starts killing the Chinese without giving them time to react.

Hyun-woo, who was watching from the roof of the warehouse, couldn’t utter a single word and just stared blankly.

‘A lion that jumped into a flock of sheep…’ No, even sheeps would not be so helpless in front of a lion.

Has he perhaps acquired a skill that specifically enhanced his ability to kill survivors?

Of course, Hyun-wooknew that wasn’t the case.

‘He overpowered them with his instinct and movement alone.’

Even as one of the Chinese’s heads flew into the air, Seongho’s sharp eyes didn’t falter in the slightest as it was immediately aimed at his next prey. However, at that moment, someone tried to hit him from behind. But to Hyun-woo’s surprise, the guy was cut by Seongho’s sword without him even having to look at the guy.

‘Does that guy have eyes on the back of his head?’ It was truly an unbelievable sight for him.

‘He’s strong…” Hyun-woo was filled with despair at the sight. Seongho was doing what he desperately tried to do effortlessly. It was always like that. He suddenly remembered the day Seongho joined the Korean Shelter. That day, he witnessed a new side of the President, who normally lived a solemn and modest life. Even when Lee Beom-seok opposed his decision of giving so much, too much even, to Seongho, the President didn’t heed his opinion and just kept smiling.

Hyun-woo coveted that smile. Thus, he always tried to please the President. He didn’t go as far as killing everyone who opposed him, but he was still cutthroat enough to make anyone who saw him tremble in fear. Nevertheless, Jang Won-taek’s gaze was always pointed towards Seongho. In Lee Beom-seok’s words, the President was more attached to the fish he couldn’t catch rather than the fish he already had.

‘Maybe I…’ He might be jealous of him. It probably started when his assault team failed to hunt the ogre, or even way before that. He was jealous of him for getting people’s attention by being at the frontline of humanity.

‘The President wants him very much…’ However, he rejected the President’s interest as if it was nothing but a mere clan invitation. As of now, he was a member of the Korean Shelter, but that too, was not without any price. Even after all of those things he had received, he was still stuck on being only a temporary member, and would leave any time he wanted. It was absolutely absurd.

‘If it’s now…’ Hyun-woo put his finger in the trigger cage and then hurriedly pulled the gun out of the holster. If he took him down here, the President would definitely give all the attention that Seongho had to him.

Hyun-woo clenched his teeth and moved his finger to the trigger. But before long, he shook his head and threw the thoughts away. His conscience didn’t allow him to do it.

He focused on the battlefield once again and watched Seongho’s performance. Less than 10 seconds had passed. However, even more corpses, spilled intestines, limbs, and blood were scattered around Seongho. He could also see the Chinese, who were high on drugs, faltering. If it wasn’t for their leader, he bet that they would’ve run away from long ago.

“Eugh…” Liu Wei turned away from the devastation in front of his eyes and staggered backwards. In his mind, the man who was responsible for the slaughter of his brothers wasn’t human. He’s nothing but a demon-like being in human skin.

If not, how can he kill people this ruthlessly?

What was more frightening was that the heartbeat he heard from him continued to grow louder.

Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump.

Everyone covered their ears and closed their eyes to the regular heartbeat. At this point, Seongho was almost 1.5 times stronger than when he entered the battle. It’s almost impossible to maintain these stats and skills for longer, but it’s a very huge help at this moment. Thanks to his stats, even though he had fought dozens of men, his body was still overflowing with vigor.

Then, the monsters near the area flocked to the smell of the blood. They ate the scattered corpses without even paying attention to him.

“Oh, no…”

“This isn’t it… something’s wrong with this…”

Eventually, the Chinese started running away one by one. Seongho followed closely behind, and Liu Wei became desperate. No matter how far he was from Seongho, he kept feeling like he was right next to him thanks to the loud heartbeat. In his effort to run away, he grabbed one of his brothers and threw him to the chaser.

“Keuk!” Unfortunately for him, his action was pointless. Soon after his brother fell to the ground headless, he could feel something wet on his chest. When Liu Wei wiped it with his hands, he was horrified by how red his hands were.

“Huuuh…” When he grabbed the blade protruding from his chest, he crumbled to the ground.

Seongho approached him in a hurry and grabbed the sword’s handle and put his strength on it.

“Aaaaaaah!” Liu Wie shouted as sharp blade cut through his left rib and exited his body,

Then, Seongho whispered to his ear.

“Just wait, I will send your brothers to meet you soon.”

“S-s-spare me…” That was Liu Wei’s last words. Seongho stopped and gave up on the idea of tracking down the other Chinese. After all, the Koreans might need their cooperation to finish the battlefields formed nearby. Of course, the price of that cooperation was death.

He wiped the blood from his sword with Liu Wei’s clothes. Above the warehouse, Hyun-woo was looking at him with a bitter expression.

“Here you are.” Seongho found a resurrection scroll and a Crime Pardon Scroll near the corpse of the last Chinese he killed. Now, the battlefield in Yeouido has ended as well. But, the ‘Shackles of War’ debuff was still there in his status window.

Are there any other conditions?

At that moment, Hyun-woo staggered towards him. He swallowed dried saliva and asked.

“The President?”

“He survived. I’ve contacted the Chief of Staff, so it’ll be fine. You can tell them this battlefield has ended.”

Seongho said so and turned around.

“I don’t like you.” Hyun-woo suddenly said in low volume.

Seongho paused for a moment and then turned his head towards him.

“Is that so?”

“At first I thought you were going to be a good friend. After all, in this apocalypse, you are someone who can quickly judge situations and make decisions… but I no longer thought so.”

“Think whatever you want.” Seongho waved his hand and left, However, Hyun-woo didn’t just let him walk away and shouted. It was an outburst of anger that he had been suppressing for months.

“Why are you so arrogant! Why don’t you try to follow the President? Do you believe that you can solve everything on your own? That is an illusion!”

Seongho turned his body at his cries and creased his brows. In his eyes, Hyun-woo’s anger was nothing but foolishness.

“Don’t shout and speak slowly. I know you don’t like me, but what specifically do you dislike about me?”

“Everything.”

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore, since I’ll be leaving soon.”

“You saved the President, and for some reason, you helped in the construction of the Korean shelter. As long as you are alive, the President will always think of you.”

Hearing that, Seongho’s face darkened.

“Then, what do you want me to do?”

“If it wasn’t for you… if it wasn’t for you!”

“You are not normal. I’ll just leave.”

As he turned around, Hyun-woo felt the desire to kill Seongho resurfaced. He thought that if he stopped him from coming back from this battlefield, the President would depend on him.

Hyun-woo thought so and closed his eyes, but when he heard a familiar metallic sound, he opened his eyes. To his surprise, Seongho was aiming a pistol equipped with a silencer at him.

“Wha-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Seongho’s finger moved.

Bang-!! Bang-!!

At an instant, there were two small holes in Hyun-woo’s chest. When he cast a look of disbelief, Seongho opened his mouth humbly.

“I’m sorry, but I’m someone who leaves no loose ends.”

Hyun-woo’s mind turned white and he collapsed to the floor.

“If I let you go, I feel like you are going to fall to their temptation.” The ‘they’ in his words refer to the doctors and nurses. Seongho bitterly shoved the pistol back to the holster on his waist. He believed that death solves all problems, but he wanted to avoid situations like this if possible.

“This is unavoidable…” He couldn’t just let a man who put his finger on the muzzle right behind him alone.

Seongho returned to his motorcycle and cleaned the surrounding monsters. But it was simply impossible to kill them all. As he disappeared, the monsters that had only been watching from afar rushed in towards the carnage he had left behind.

.

.

.

Their brother, Liu Wei, who headed to Yeouido to finish their great mission, had died. Some of the other brothers seemed to have survived, but they were scattered all over the place, making it unclear whether they were alive or dead.

Li Jugang, the head of Hwacheong, who heard the news, went all the way to Ju Seung Su’s room and started shouting.

“Tell me, what are your excuses now!?!”

“What do you mean?”

Ju Seung Su asked sternly as he sat in his chair. A mithril knife was spinning on his finger.

“What is your reason to drive my brothers to their death?”

“Calm down. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Calm down? Are you serious? Are you saying that the lives of our brothers are nothing to you?”

Ju Seung Su stood up, raising both his hands.

“I admit I was wrong. He was a lot stronger than I expected.” He’s referring to a Korean who suddenly broke into the comment section of the Chinese chat room. It was clear that he had intervened.

“At first I was against the plan, but you…”

“Are you serious? Who gave the drugs to our dear brothers in the first place?”

As the story flowed there, Li Jugang faltered.

“I was just wondering if it would help change their mood.”

“Thanks to you, our brothers are now addicted. It’s not potent, but it’s addictive. Opium is much better.”

Li Jugang clenched his fists as he saw Ju Seung Su smiling and was unable to channel his rage into action. He sat down helplessly in the chair across him, and Ju Seung Su sat back down.

“I understand the pain of losing brothers, but let’s see the brighter side. More brothers are coming from our land. Although most will die in the storm, thus who survived would be more than enough. They will certainly help us if we tame them.”

“…”

As Li Jugang wrapped his hand around his forehead, Ju Seung Su pointed out.

“See the blue door over there? According to Koreans, it seems to be a portal to the Great Labyrinth.”

“The Great Labyrinth? What is that?”

“I don’t know for sure, but it looks like a great place. It is very dark inside and there are many monsters. I’ve sent an expedition inside, and to my surprise, they reported that they had caught the sight of an animal.”

However, what Ju Seung Su did not say was that most of the expedition members were dead. He also hid the fact that the animal they had witnessed was a human-sized rabbit.

He patted his knee and said. “The opportunity for us to survive is now wide open! So, should we really fight over such small matters? Shouldn’t we just focus on getting revenge for our fallen brothers?”

Li Jugang unclenched his fist at Ju Seung Su’s words. Then, he looked out at the portal. The entrance to a normal dungeon was only enough for a single person to enter and exit, so why was this portal different?

“…the inside is connected to another place, isn’t it?”

“Not in this Korean land… No, It’s our land now. So, it seems like there are doors like that in many places. In there is a dark place called the Great Labyrinth. How about it, isn’t it interesting?”

“…I don’t know anything else, but I like the fact that animals live there.”

“Let’s send our brothers in.” The two looked at the portal outside the window. With every passing day, food was becoming scarcer and everyone was starving. The emergence of the Great Labyrinth in this situation may be an opportunity.

Or the beginning of ruin.

.

.

.

“It appears that Major Kim Hyun-woo has died.”

“Is that so…” Jang Won-taek and Lee Beom-seok, who had arrived at the Korean Shelter, found out that Major Kim Hyun-woo had passed. It looked like he was dragged down by the Chinese and lynched while defending the shelter. However, all the Chinese who did that were also dead. The corpses left behind by monsters were lined up around the warehouse.

Jang Won-taek put down his rifle and knelt in front of a corpse that was supposed to be Kim Hyun-woo.

“To think that all I can do for you is this when you’ve done so much for me…. I’m sorry…. I’m really sorry…”

Meanwhile, Lee Beom-seok felt something odd. From what he remembered, he knew that Major Hyun-woo was still alive when Seongho left the reserve shelter. No matter how many dozens of people rushed in, considering the firepower he possessed, the odds of him being defeated was small. However, he still died, leaving only one leg behind.

‘Maybe…’ Lee Beom-seok shook his head and erased the creeping suspicion. Even if the two didn’t get along well, their relationship wasn’t bad enough to the point of killing each other.

The time for the two to mourn the death was short. It was because there were so many corpses to be cleaned. The news that the Korean Shelter was safe was spread to the Auction House, but people still hadn’t dared to come yet. After all, if they step into another battlefield, they would be forced to fight.

While everyone was racking their brains, unexpected news came from the Auction House. Seongho had figured out a way to break the ‘Shackles of War’ debuff.

-The debuff wouldn’t be lifted just because you win your battlefield. The nearby battlefield must also be completed.

Though, he did not say that the info he had gained was the result of him annihilating all of the Chinese who escaped from the Korean Shelter raid.

Jang Won-taek, who heard the news, left a comment.

-So in the end, a lot of people still need to die.

-There is nothing we can do. It is necessary to do it. If not, their growth will stagnate.

When someone wins their Battle Royale, their stats would rise slightly, but there’s a limit to that. Since it was impossible to live with the ‘Shackles of War’ debuff constantly holding them back, people had no other option than to kill others in order to get rid of it.

The fortunate thing was that, the land connecting Yeouido and Gimpo Airport was completely free from any kind of battlefield as of now, as the path has been cleared by Seongho.

Some people inquired about something towards Seongho after he finished explaining about the shackle.

-I Love Gimbap-nim, do you know why Rapwi-nim is blocking the entrance to the Great Labyrinth?

– I told him to do so. If you go in there now, you will die.

No one said anything on Seongho’s words. But unexpected news came. Some people who ignored his words and entered the Great Labyrinth unexpectedly discovered foreigners inside.

-Huh, is this place connected to another country?

-Who did you see?

-It was dark, so I couldn’t see well, but it seemed to be someone from Russia. The guy was just screaming and running away.

-I think the whole world is connected to the Great Labyrinth.

-Then, shouldn’t we go in sooner? Whoever gets it first is the owner.

-I bet my life that, if you go in now, 90% of you will die.

At I Love Gimbap’s warning, everyone shuddered and decided to just follow his advice.

-Ah also, You guys should clear the battlefield around you.

As he said, broadening the scope of their activities would be the priority. Currently, the area where people can move freely is less than 1/20 of what it used to be. But to break the battlefield, people must die. Therefore, a lot of Koreans start to have deeper grudges towards the Chinese. Those Chinese people were wandering in their land without any regards to the event. Thanks to that, more and more battlefields were made.

In one of the Auction House item, someone wrote:

-Their level is low, and they don’t know much about the current situation… Let’s just kill them.

-No one can say anything. For now, let’s focus on surviving.

People realized that in order to live, they had to kill them. If possible, lure them to a place where the battlefield hadn’t ended yet… and kill them. If they did it like that, they would kill 2 birds in one stone.

Meanwhile, Seongho, who had been completely freed from the debuff, tore the Crime Pardon scroll.

「Level has risen to 40」

「You have earned 1780 points」

「You Have Acquired ‘Toughness’ Skill」

「As you have reached level 40, another additional effect will be added to your Unique Skill」

「Another Portal」

Because he had killed so many people in his Murderer state, his level rose. And then, when he tested the new additional effect, he couldn’t be more confused.

After all, a pair of portals opened in front of him.