An unusual phenomenon was occurring at the Nakdong River.
The river began to churn violently.
The air rippled, like a trembling mirror.
Moments later, that mirror shattered.
A dimension had opened.
From within, a massive creature burst out.
Splash!
As the monster, seemingly 4 meters tall, fell into the water, the hole it came from quickly vanished.
“Kraaaah!”
The monster roared into the air.
Captain Eun in the passenger seat checked the monster through her binoculars.
“C-Rank Scout-type, Gorilla type.”
Hearing her monotone voice, Yonghoon muttered under his breath.
“A power type?”
Yonghoon immediately accelerated. The gorilla monster was getting closer.
From the trenches along the river, various weapons were fired at the gorilla monster.
Bullets and shells rained down on the monster, but they had little effect. As a being from another dimension, the laws of causality of this world barely applied to it.
The shells only managed to slow the gorilla monster’s advance.
Still, the trenches continued to fire desperately. If the monster reached the ground, the trenches would be in danger.
But soon after, the gorilla managed to climb onto land. A faint green light flowed around the gorilla monster now standing on solid ground.
Once it emerged from the river, the gorilla monster began to rampage.
Clenching its fists, the monster punched forward. A powerful light burst from its fists and shot ahead.
The light sliced through the air and slammed into the frontmost trench.
Boom!
The trench exploded with a deafening roar.
The gorilla monster that had fired the light attack placed both hands on the ground. Then it began charging toward the rear trenches.
The faces of the soldiers in the trenches went pale.
But their fate was not sealed yet.
Crash!
The gorilla was stopped by something not far from the trench.
As the soldiers regained their senses and looked ahead, they saw a tall man, nearly 2 meters, blocking the monster.
It was First Lieutenant Park Ganghyuk, the youngest of the team. He stood before the monster more than twice his size, holding a massive shield.
But his body was slowly being pushed back.
“Captain, I’m losing in strength! I can’t hold on!”
Glaring at the monster pushing him back, he shouted behind him.
“Hold on a little longer.”
A gruff voice from behind-Yonghoon was running from afar.
In his hand was a long metal spear, faintly glowing with light. It was the Dimensional Power of a Strike-type Awakened.
“Damn it.”
Hearing the footsteps behind him, Ganghyuk lowered his body and pushed forward with his shield.
Gaining speed, Yonghoon leapt up just behind Ganghyuk. Appearing above him, he stepped on Ganghyuk’s shoulder and launched himself again.
The monster’s face appeared right in front of Yonghoon.
The gorilla monster scowled at the human who suddenly appeared before it. It swung its arm at the man.
Thud!
But the monster was a step too late. Yonghoon had already driven his spear into the monster’s neck. His spear pierced the monster’s skin, which even shells couldn’t penetrate.
As the monster’s arm appeared before him, he shoved the spear in without hesitation. He was flung backward.
The monster’s arm struck empty air, and blood gushed from the wound in its neck.
Landing behind Ganghyuk, Yonghoon drew a skewer-like sword. With that blade, he charged at the monster again.
The area began to descend into chaos from their battle.
Ganghyuk blocked the monster’s attacks with his shield, while Yonghoon pierced holes into its body.
The enraged gorilla monster launched another light attack like the one that had destroyed the trench, but Ganghyuk was able to block it using his ability.
Though Yonghoon’s attacks left the monster bloodied, they couldn’t deliver a fatal blow. The size difference was too great.
Still, he kept attacking, locking the monster’s attention on himself.
A faint ripple passed beside Yonghoon.
The ripple moved behind the monster and climbed up its body. Moments later, it stopped at the back of the monster’s neck and transformed into Captain Eun Sunhee.
Despite the monster’s violent movements, she clung steadily to its neck.
Placing her hand on the back of its neck, she focused her mind. Her Dimensional Power pierced the monster’s and began searching for its Dimensional Core.
Moments later, having located the Dimensional Core, she drew out a fine thread of Dimensional Power and extended it deep into the monster’s body.
The gorilla monster trembled from the energy burrowing into its body.
Just as the monster tried to defend itself from the invasive energy, Yonghoon’s attack struck its shoulder.
“Kraaaah!”
Screaming, the monster turned its attention back to Yonghoon. At that moment, Sunhee’s Dimensional Power began synchronizing the gorilla monster’s Dimensional Core with this world.
From then on, it became a battle between her Dimensional Power and the monster’s core.
The gorilla monster, which had been relentlessly attacking the men, suddenly froze. The green light around it began to flicker violently.
Yonghoon stopped his attack and watched the monster tensely. Ganghyuk also began moving to the side.
At last, the glow around the monster vanished. Sunhee’s Dimensional Power had won. The monster had become a creature of this world.
Now, the gorilla monster could be killed with conventional weapons.
Her Dimensional Power depleted, she fell downward.
And the monster began to move again.
“Kwooooooh!”
The monster screamed toward the sky and looked for the human who had done this to it.
But once again, Yonghoon was faster.
Like lightning, he grabbed Sunhee and began running to evade the monster. At the same time, Ganghyuk threw away his shield and ran in the opposite direction.
“Fire!”
Shells flew toward the monster. It was the soldiers, who had been waiting for this moment, who fired them.
Now, conventional weapons were the deadliest tools. Dozens of bullets and shells flew from the trenches.
Boom boom boom!
The shells began to tear the monster’s body apart. Unlike before, the monster’s body was now being shattered by the blasts.
After a moment, the attack ceased, and the monster slowly toppled backward. More than half its upper body was gone.
Ten years ago, auroras appeared in every sky, and people with supernatural powers began to emerge. Following them, monsters from other worlds appeared.
In the end, it was to stop those monsters that Awakened beings, empowered by this dimension’s Dimensional Power, came into existence.
Monsters that crossed over from other dimensions could ignore this world’s causality to some extent. That’s why they were nearly immune to conventional weapons.
As time passed and the world was ravaged by monsters, Awakened beings stepped forward.
Thanks to them, humanity was able to fight back, and the world became somewhat livable again.
But that didn’t last long, as new beasts began to appear.
After the monster fell, Yonghoon and Ganghyuk returned to its side.
Still holding Sunhee in his arms, Yonghoon gently set her down.
Then, Yonghoon and the squad members sat side by side next to the fallen monster.
“Oh! It went up quite a bit. Just two more fights and I’ll probably reach B-rank!”
Ganghyuk exclaimed excitedly as he looked at his wrist.
On his wrist was something that looked like a watch. It was a Dimensional Power Detector-a device that measured an Awakened’s Dimensional Power.
Yonghoon looked over at Sunhee.
She was also looking at the detector.
When she noticed him looking, she covered it with her hand and looked away. She seemed to feel guilty.
It was clear that just a few more battles would push her to B-rank as well. Then she would be sent to Jeju Island.
Yonghoon looked at his own Dimensional Power Detector.
Level: C
Dimensional Power: 1499/1500
It didn’t increase this time either.
His Dimensional Power had been stuck for seven years already. He had more or less given up by now. His limit level was C-rank.
Several military trucks appeared in a line from the south, albeit belatedly.
It was the evacuation unit that had come after hearing the gorilla monster had been taken down.
The three men and women sat beside the monster and watched the trucks approach.
A large man was sitting on the ground with a half-crushed shield laid beneath him. It was Lieutenant Park Ganghyuk, the youngest of the team.
With his defense-type Dimensional Power, he was in charge of the team’s defense.
The woman leaning against Yonghoon’s shoulder with her eyes closed again was Captain Eun Sunhee.
She was a beautiful woman who looked to be in her early twenties, but her expressionless face made her seem older. She was an assassin-type Awakened.
Lastly, the team leader Yonghoon was carefully inspecting his skewer-like sword. Beside him, a well-polished spear sparkled. He was a strike-type Awakened and the team’s leader.
He was now thirty years old and had been on the battlefield for over nine years. Many teammates had come and gone, but now only the three of them remained.
Three trucks came to a stop here. One other truck moved toward the trenches. It had come to resupply the ammo that had run out earlier.
The disposal team got off the truck to dismantle and retrieve the gorilla monster. Various parts of the monster would be taken to the rear for use.
As the soldiers approached the monster, Yonghoon’s strike squad got to their feet. It was time to return.
They had been patrolling the front lines to reduce dispatch time, but now that the battle was over, they had to return to division headquarters.
In any case, with Sunhee’s power depleted, further combat was impossible.
As Sunhee staggered a little while standing up, Yonghoon picked her up and carried her. Behind them, Ganghyuk followed, glaring at Yonghoon with an annoyed look.
They returned to their military jeep.
Yonghoon placed Sunhee in the passenger seat, sat in the driver’s seat, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. When he unfolded the handkerchief, an item inside was revealed.
It was a Dimensional Core.
Yonghoon had found it before the soldiers arrived.
The Dimensional Core looked like a polygonal gem, but this one, tainted by an assassin, had turned a murky gray.
Though not as pure as a clean Dimensional Core, even this contaminated one was a valuable item.
Normally, Dimensional Cores could be used for power generation and also served as a kind of battery to store Dimensional Power.
“Oh! This one’s not bad. Judging by the size, it should sell for a good price.”
Ganghyuk said, poking his head forward from the back seat, his face beaming with satisfaction at a job well done.
Yonghoon nodded. This wasn’t a bad haul.
Yonghoon put the handkerchief back in his pocket and started the jeep.
The military jeep drove along unpaved and poorly maintained roads and entered a small town after forty minutes.
It was Uiseong-eup, Uiseong County, North Gyeongsang Province, where the Nakdong River Defense 3rd Division Headquarters was located.
Humanity, which had barely maintained a balance with the monsters, began to be rapidly pushed back by the invasion of new beasts.
Retreat after retreat, and eventually, humanity was driven out of most of the continent.
Now, most of the surface belonged to the monsters. The few remaining humans continued their resistance from the corners of the continent and islands.
Korea had been steadily pushed back by the monsters’ offensive and had finally drawn a last line of defense at the Nakdong River.
Only about two million civilians remained in Korea. Most of them and the government resided on Jeju Island.
And here on the Nakdong River front, soldiers and Awakened were risking their lives to protect the last industrial facilities.
If they lost these industrial facilities, the Korean military might have to fight barehanded.
The inside of Uiseong-eup was filled with scars of war. It looked just like Korea during the war sixty years ago.
Yonghoon’s jeep arrived at the division headquarters located in the town office.
In the parking lot, massive electronic equipment rose toward the sky.
Dozens of long antennas pierced the sky above the complex electronic gear, and two diesel generators were powering the equipment.
It was a device that blocked Dimensional Movement by monsters. Thanks to this device, monsters couldn’t appear near Uiseong-eup. The very reason the division HQ could exist here was because of this equipment.
Ganghyuk gave a quick goodbye to Yonghoon and Sunhee and ran out of the division HQ. It seemed he was going to buy a woman and relieve some tension.
Yonghoon left the tired-looking Captain Eun in the car and went to report to the division commander.
As Yonghoon entered the division HQ, the surrounding soldiers flinched and stepped aside.
A faint killing intent radiated from the strike squad members. It was something that came from fighting monsters face-to-face on the front lines.
Many strike squad members suffered from mental illness due to the aftereffects of battle.
Yonghoon’s team was no different.
Ganghyuk hid his violent tendencies with chatter, but after battles, he relieved his stress through deviant sexual behavior.
Sunhee had built a wall between herself and the world and had become numb to her own death. That’s why she always ran toward danger, and it kept Yonghoon constantly on edge.
Fortunately, thanks to Sunhee’s help and a place to rest, Yonghoon was still relatively sane.
When uncontrollable combat weapons roamed around, people naturally became afraid. But aside from them, the military had no other means to resist the monsters.
Yonghoon reported the battle at the river to the division commander and immediately exited the building.
The division’s strike squads operated in three shifts. Since Yonghoon’s team’s assassin couldn’t fight, the other two teams had to patrol for 24 hours until her Dimensional Power returned.
With only one assassin remaining per team, if even one of them died, this front line could no longer be held.
Yonghoon woke Sunhee, who had been sleeping in the car, and left the HQ with her. A short while later, they entered the last remaining motel.
The motel owner recognized them and handed over the key right away, and Yonghoon gave him a monster’s liver. It was something he had quietly taken from the gorilla monster they killed today.
Unable to let the exhausted Sunhee rest in the military barracks, Yonghoon had been using the motel this way.
They entered their room. Thankfully, it seemed the room was well soundproofed, as the moaning from the hallway could no longer be heard.
As soon as they entered, Sunhee wrapped her arms around Yonghoon’s neck and kissed him deeply. Her eyes were half-closed.
“I’ll sleep first.”
She got into bed and fell asleep right away.
Yonghoon sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Sunhee. Her face, now free of its stiff expression, looked lovely.
After gazing at her face for a moment, Yonghoon undressed her and wiped her down with a wet towel. Then, after taking a shower himself, he lay down beside her.
Yonghoon took a machine that looked like a pair of headphones from his bag and put it on his head.
What kept Yonghoon sane was Sunhee’s presence and also the machine now on his head.
Dimensional Connector.
It was a device meant to explore the monsters’ dimension in reverse.
But the project had failed, and the Dimensional Connector was being used for a different purpose-to peek into parallel versions of oneself.
Now it was time for Yonghoon to relieve his own stress.
Yonghoon pressed the switch near his ear. The machine vibrated slightly and began to operate.
Yonghoon placed both hands on his stomach and closed his eyes.
He connected to another dimension’s version of himself.