Ronald, who had been lying among the corpses, smiled when the Linkers failed to find him and left.
He was a Special Ability User with assassination and transformation abilities.
A black panther-type monster could change its color to match surrounding objects, but compared to him, it was nothing special.
Ronald could cover his body with his Dimensional Power and make himself look like a completely different person.
Thanks to this ability, he had been able to eliminate all the Awakened from the 16th floor up to here.
He assassinated ordinary people and low-level Awakened with his assassination abilities, and for high-level Awakened, he approached them disguised as their comrades and killed them before immediately transforming into someone else.
He had been caught several times along the way, but because he changed his appearance constantly, no one could stop him.
This gymnasium was the last place where Awakened had gathered, and those here were equipped with gear for training, so eliminating them wasn’t easy.
However, he managed to infiltrate among the Awakened and sow distrust among them, eventually killing them all.
Fortunately, he was slightly faster at killing the Awakened than the Linkers were at reaching this place.
When he heard footsteps approaching the gym, Ronald had lain down among the corpses to disguise himself.
After the Linkers left the gym and their footsteps faded, Ronald, who had been lying down until then, rose to his feet.
The wound on Ronald’s abdomen disappeared, and the handsome man with brown hair transformed into a plain-faced, expressionless man.
Ronald had been somewhat conflicted while lying down.
He had debated whether to let them go or eliminate them himself.
In the end, he decided to leave the Linkers alone.
After all, they were the president’s prey, and his assigned mission was something else.
He surveyed the fallen corpses.
After a while, he found the most intact Awakened among the corpses. Ronald carefully examined the body.
His eyes, which had turned gray, began to glow with Dimensional Power, and his entire body started to distort. His transformed Dimensional Power began to cover his body.
In an instant, his appearance changed to match that of the fallen corpse. His eyes also changed to the same brown color as the corpse.
He erased a few severe wounds and walked toward the gym door. As he walked, he placed a hand on his neck and began to speak.
“Ah, ah, I guess I’ll have to keep hunting as I go down. Since I cleared everything from the 16th floor upward, there should be decent prey if I head down below the 15th floor.”
As he spoke, his voice gradually changed. It became similar to the original owner’s voice of his current face.
However, his voice couldn’t completely mimic the original, just as his appearance couldn’t perfectly replicate it. It couldn’t be helped.
Since he couldn’t replicate the structure of the vocal cords with Dimensional Power, this voice was merely an imitation.
Still, even this much was enough to avoid detection. No one had discovered him, neither in the other world nor in this one.
Holding a spear in one hand and limping as if severely wounded, he stepped out of the gym.
“……!”
As soon as he exited the gym, an Awakened stood before him. Ronald broke into a cold sweat at the completely unexpected situation.
As expected, it was a Linker.
The man in front of him had suppressed his Dimensional Power so much that Ronald hadn’t noticed him at all. It was almost on par with an assassin-type.
But it was fortunate. His habitual mimicry proved useful in situations like this.
He bent forward slightly and cautiously looked ahead.
In front of him stood an East Asian man. It was an Awakened he was seeing for the first time. Behind him, other Awakened were gathered at a distance, watching this way.
They were all Awakened Ronald knew well.
Ronald ground his teeth inwardly. The enemy’s formation was bad for him. His ability worked best when the enemy was alone or all grouped together, but in this case, he could barely handle the one in front of him.
He gathered Dimensional Power and let it flow out of his mouth.
Ronald coughed up blood and fell to his knees. As he glanced ahead, he saw the Awakened behind the man were startled and running toward him.
Yonghoon stretched his hand backward to stop the approaching group.
Then he infused his sword with Dimensional Power. Yonghoon raised his brightly glowing sword and swung it at the Awakened before him.
Ronald panicked when he saw the sword flying toward him. It wasn’t fast, but it was clearly aimed at his neck. If he stayed still, he would definitely die.
‘Damn it!’
He cursed inwardly and threw himself backward. As the sword passed the spot where he had been, he noticed the blade rippling, but he couldn’t figure out why.
With his bloodied face, Ronald looked at Yonghoon and pleaded pitifully.
“Cough, what are you doing? Why are you trying to kill me?”
Ronald made one last attempt at acting. It seemed clear he had been exposed, but he aimed to catch his opponent off guard.
He watched his opponent, waiting for the right moment to switch to assassination mode.
Yonghoon made a slightly odd expression.
“Honestly, it was just a little suspicious.”
After reaching B-Level, Yonghoon had gained the ability to sense his surroundings even without seeing them. It felt like a third sense covering areas beyond his sight.
Even earlier, as he stepped out of the gym, he sensed the expression of one of the corpses behind him move.
At first, he thought it was postmortem rigidity, but the uneasy feeling persisted. Eventually, he stopped his group and turned back.
Then, from inside the door, a figure he thought was a corpse came out alive. Yonghoon checked to see if it was the person whose expression had moved earlier, but it was a completely different person.
Yonghoon scrutinized him carefully but couldn’t find anything particularly strange about his appearance. He could have been an injured person they hadn’t properly confirmed.
In the end, uncertain, Yonghoon swung his sword at him. Yonghoon created a space tunnel next to the man’s neck, and his sword couldn’t harm him at all.
However, the opponent, frightened by Yonghoon’s sword, revealed his true nature.
As Yonghoon muttered, Ronald immediately switched his Dimensional Power.
His appearance instantly reverted to his original form and then became invisible. Holding an invisible spear, he lunged at Yonghoon.
Clang!
“Kuh!”
His spear didn’t reach Yonghoon.
As he closed the distance, Yonghoon swung his sword. It was as if he could see him. Yonghoon’s sword shattered Ronald’s spear, and Ronald was flung sideways.
His assassination ability broke, revealing his form, and real blood flowed from his mouth.
‘Damn it, just how strong is he?!’
Screaming inwardly, Ronald dashed forward.
This East Asian Awakened was not someone he could handle. He had to hide among the Awakened gathered ahead and find a way.
As he ran forward, his body blurred and transformed into a woman with long brown hair.
The Awakened, who were preparing to fight upon seeing Ronald rush toward them, widened their eyes. Ronald had transformed into Samantha.
Caught off guard by the sudden situation, they froze, and in that moment, Ronald managed to leap among the Linkers.
‘Now I just have to keep changing bodies among them. That should be enough to cause chaos. Huh? But why isn’t my body stopping?’
Ronald looked confused as the Awakened passed by him. He hurriedly tried to control his body, but it wouldn’t listen. The world flipped upside down.
Samantha’s face rolled across the floor. Yonghoon had sent a dimensional sword flying from behind and severed his neck.
Samantha turned pale as she watched her own face roll across the ground.
The fallen body soon reverted to an ordinary man, but Samantha seemed to be in considerable shock. Her face turned white as she subtly edged away from Yonghoon.
“My God, Dimensional Power can even transform? There aren’t more guys with abilities like that, are there?”
Instructor Seo muttered as he looked down at the corpse. He seemed quite surprised too. The ability to transform into another person had been completely unexpected.
“Special Ability Users are definitely terrifying against people.”
Grace said, patting Samantha on the back.
Samantha wore a gloomy expression. She felt her adaptability was too lacking. That must have been why Jake, who had recently died, had opposed sending her into the field.
“Special Ability Users are definitely scary.”
Instructor Seo glanced at Yonghoon and nodded. At Instructor Seo’s words, Yonghoon gave a bitter smile and started walking forward.
They were almost there. Just a few more floors and they would reach the president’s office.
Yonghoon had quite a few questions to ask the president of Link Corp.
“Team 3 is guiding the civilians outside. There were a few brainwashed guards, but they were easily subdued.”
Dennis nodded at his teammate’s report.
The report continued.
“Team 2 from the Korean team is entering the 25th floor. It’s assumed that all Awakened up to the 24th floor have died. Also, the monster Linker suspected of killing the Awakened has been successfully eliminated. Ah, that monster Linker’s ability was transforming into other people.”
Dennis’s face darkened at the report. The loss was too great. Although not all of Link Corp’s Awakened were stationed at HQ, most had been here.
With more than half the Linkers dead and a massive number of Awakened killed, the United States’ monster defense capabilities had been significantly weakened. At this rate, it would be difficult to stop the upcoming Dimensional Beast invasions.
“Still, we should consider ourselves lucky this much was achieved. That Korean Linker must have been the one who killed the transforming monster.”
At Dennis’s words, one person came to everyone’s mind.
“Combining spatial ability and strike abilities really creates an amazing power.”
“Spatial abilities are extremely rare to begin with, right? They were under special management even in the other world.”
Dennis nodded at his teammate’s words.
Dennis thought he should try to push for Yonghoon’s naturalization to the United States. He was planning to offer the remaining equipment at Link Corp HQ and a hefty contract bonus.
Dennis and the American Awakened were diligently cleaning up the research facility. Although the guards here had been brainwashed, ordinary people armed only with pistols were no match for Awakened.
Fortunately, the enemies hadn’t destroyed the research facility or killed the researchers. Seeing how the enemies had only targeted the Awakened, Dennis felt a slight sense of oddity.
They finally reached the last floor.
In front of them stood a large iron door. Next to the door was a sign displaying the name of this place.
[Dimensional Power Plant, Dimensional Power Generator Research Center]
This was the place where Link Corp had created its greatest invention, the energy generators, and where the world’s most powerful Dimensional Power Generator was located.
They opened the door and went inside. A massive generator came into view, and in one corner, they saw researchers cowering in fear.
Dennis stared blankly at the enormous generator.
“Now that I think about it, this generator is way too big for an experimental model. I remember the researchers constantly grumbling about the waste, but I just ignored it.”
Cold sweat trickled down Dennis’s back at his teammate’s comment from beside him.
The principle behind this generator was also to generate power by utilizing the repulsion between a Contaminated Dimensional Core and a regular Dimensional Core.
If the wall between dimensions thinned due to the Dimensional Power repulsion between an Awakened and a monster, then this generator would undoubtedly be the primary culprit in breaking down the dimensional wall.