The high-pitched, rhythmic shrieks of a hundred thousand smartphones erupted simultaneously across the district.
It was the sound of a modern apocalypse Disaster Alert.
『EMERGENCY: CLASS-4 CALAMITY BREACH DETECTED.』
『LOCATION: SEOUL, YONGSAN DISTRICT.』
『EVACUATE TO THE NEAREST SUBterranean BUNKERS IMMEDIATELY. ALL REGISTERED PLAYERS ARE REQUESTED TO ASSIST IN CIVILIAN PROTECTION UNTIL GUILD DEPLOYMENT.』
Outside the shattered window of Kang Min's apartment, the sky had turned a bruised, necrotic purple.
The black-red gate pulsing above his building looked like an opem throat.
Usually, a country was cursed with one gate during a Stagnation Leak.
By some cruel twist of fate or the sinister design of the Tower's constellations, Korea's gate had opened directly over the roof of a low-income residential block.
"Woonhee! Get behind the counter!"
The human-sized mosquito he had been staring launched.
It moved with the velocity of a bullet, its serrated proboscis aimed directly at Woonhee's throat.
Min moved with the raw, instinctive speed of a man who had survived six centuries of slaughter.
He stepped into the insect's path, his lead foot cracking the floor tiles.
His right hand shot out, catching the mosquito's long, needle-like nose mid-air.
With a guttural grunt, he twisted his wrist.
The sound of chitin snapping echoed through the room like a dry branch.
Before the monster could even buzz, Min's left fist punched the creature squarely in its compound eye.
-Splat!
The insect's head imploded, spraying the kitchen with foul, black fluid.
"We have to move."
Min said.
"The building is the epicenterI
If we stay here, we're the first course."
Woonhee was trembling, her hands white as she gripped her Porter gear.
"The... the alert says the guilds are ten minutes out.
We have to wait for the rankers!"
"The rankers aren't coming for this block, Woonhee!
They're going to secure the government buildings and the hubs first!"
Min grabbed her arm, hauling her toward the door.
"We're on our own."
They burst into the hallway just as the building groaned under the weight of a car-sized shadow landing on the roof.
The ceiling cracked, dust and plaster raining down like snow.
Shrieks erupted from the apartments nearby.
A door across the hall burst open, and a young man likely a college student stumbled out, his eyes wide with terror.
Before he could utter a word, a massive, spindly leg, tipped with a hook like a scythe, punched through the hallway wall behind him.
It skewered him through the chest, lifting him off the floor as easily as a piece of fruit.
"NO!"
Woonhee screamed.
The student was yanked back through the hole in the wall.
The sound of wet tearing followed, then silence.
"Don't look!"
"Woonhee, use your summon! Now!"
Woonhee shook off her shock, her hands glowing.
「"Pinky! Expand!"」
The pink slime appeared, but instead of its usual small form, it bloated into a thick, rubbery shield that blocked the hallway.
"Down the stairs! Help the elderly from 4B!" Min ordered.
As they descended, the building was being systematically dismantled.
Monstrous insects; wasps with stingers the size of broadswords and beetles with shells like armored tanks were crawling down the exterior walls, smashing through windows and dragging people out into the open air.
Min encountered a swarm of smaller, dog-sized crawlers on the third-floor landing.
They were feeding on a screaming security guard.
Min didn't hesitate and wove through the swarm like a ghost.
He kicked a crawler, the force of his blow sending the creature flying through a brick wall.
He grabbed two more by their wings and slammed their heads together until they were nothing but pulp.
His fists were coated in the blue and black ichor of the Abyss, but his eyes remained fixed on the exit.
They reached the lobby just as the front glass entrance shattered.
A beetle the size of a city bus had rammed into the building, its massive mandibles snapping at everything in sight.
Beside the pulsing red gate, a massive, translucent system window hung in the air, visible to everyone in Seoul.
『STAGNATION TRIAL: THE LONG NIGHT』
『REMAINING TIME: 23:02:59:58』
『OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE.』
"23 hours?"
Woonhee gasped, clutching a small child she had snatched from a crying mother on the second floor.
"We have to survive twenty three hours of this?"
"Not here."
Min said, looking at the street.
The residential street was a graveyard.
Cars were overturned, some still burning.
People were running in every direction, but the swarm from the gate was picking them off with surgical precision.
A woman was snatched from the roof of her SUV by a winged calamity, her screams fading as she was carried toward the gate to be fed to whatever was waiting on the other side.
"The bunkers."
Park Woonhee said, pointing toward the main road.
"The government built the deep-shell bunkers under the transit hubs.
The closest one is nearly a kilometer away!"
Woonhee cried.
"We have twenty civilians with us now! We'll never make it on foot through that swarm!"
"We have to."
Min said, his eyes scanning the horizon.
He saw a group of survivors huddled behind a line of trash bins.
He signaled them over.
"Everyone! Stay in the center! Woonhee, Pinky on the rear! I'll take the front!"
"We can try getting to Sinyongsan Subway Station first."
The journey was a descent into hell.
The "Swarm" noticed the movement.
A cluster of wasp-like calamities dived from the clouds, their stingers buzzing with high-frequency mana.
"Get down!"
He leaped into the air, his fist cocking back.
He focused every ounce of his available mana into the strike.
『Skill - Focus is in use 』
The lead wasp disintegrated upon impact.
The shockwave of the blow sent the other three spiraling into a nearby storefront.
Min landed on his feet, not stopping for a second.
A car-sized spider dropped from a telephone pole, its silk strands glowing with a corrosive red light.
It aimed for the group of survivors.
Min moved faster and grabbed a discarded metal signpost from the sidewalk, using it like a club.
He swung with such violence that the signpost bent into a U-shape around the spider's thorax, pinning it to the asphalt.
He followed up with a heavy stamp of his boot, crushing the monster's head into the sewer grate.
"Move! Don't stop!"
Woonhee was doing her best, her slime stretching into a long, protective wall that deflected the smaller projectiles the insects were spitting.
Her face was pale, her mana nearly exhausted, but she kept going, driven by the terrified whimpers of the people behind her.
They saw the entrance to Sinyongsan Station ahead.
It was the familiar yellow and blue signage of the Seoul Subway.
"There! We're almost there!"
Woonhee shouted, hope finally sparking in her voice.
The crowd of survivors surged forward, their desperate feet pounding against the blood-slicked pavement.
They reached the stairs of the entrance, the cool air from the underground offering a momentary reprieve from the heat of the fires above.
But as they reached they saw a massive, red digital display flashing.
『STATION STATUS: EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN.』
The trains wouldn't be in use to get to the nearest bunker.