1.

A large-scale mall located in front of the New Jungdong Station...

It was a quiet fortress now, crowded with people all the time.

All the windows were covered with newspapers, and the entrance, which enthusiastically welcomed the guests, was now walled with tangled shopping carts.

Three men approached the entrance, with thick jumpers, safety helmets and crudely made spears.

They stood in front of the automatic door, which was covered with newspapers, and one of them carefully pulled out a business card from inside and swiped it through the door.

Swish!

The business card disappeared as if it were a snake's tongue, and soon the door opened.

Beyond the door, three men stood tensely, aiming a spear at the door. They relaxed only after confirming the other party.

"What did you find?"

"I can't see anything. The weather looks crazy."

"What about group B?"

"I couldn't find them."

"You didn't find them?"

"There were no bodies."

It was not a pleasant conversation.

"What about footprints? You could see footprints, couldn't you?"

"Have you seen this weather? Our footprints are already gone!"

"So, you just came back?"

"What the hell was I supposed to do? Get out of my way! I am cold enough to die!"

Eventually, the conversation became intense at some point, and those who were guarding the door stepped to the side.

Three men, their shoulders and heads covered with snow, strode into the mall.

The three men who entered the mall immediately took off their helmets, and a man with a chubby face spoke up, "He's not a damn Awakener, but he handles us like slaves. A---hole! He can't do anything in front of a monster."

The words that were spoken out of anger were so low that they were close to speaking to himself, contrary to the fierce expression.

The two remaining men turned away from the subject as if they did not want to continue the conversation with such a man.

"It will be colder tonight."

"I'd sleep with a girl in that case. How about that? Do you want to take one?"

But the younger man replied to the fat man's words with an awkward smile, "It's okay."

"The only good thing we have in this damn world is that we can do it for free."

"...what happened to Group B?" Another man in his mid-20s wanted to turn the subject around.

"I'm sure there was an accident somewhere, trying to enjoy a girl named Baek Ji-yeon." The fat man changed the subject of conversation to an unpleasant one.

"There was a guy named Ahn Tae-seok who was crazy about women, and there's no way he's not going to be excited there with a naked woman lying in front of him in the snow."

The younger man gave up on continuing the conversation. 'You damn pig, is that the only thing that comes to your mind in this situation?'

Fortunately, the filthy stories of the fat man did not last long. "Damn it, I'm going to take a shot today…"

"Speak such stories alone." A woman walked out of the darkness, a skinny as a skeleton, as if she were about to fall apart right away.

The appearance of the woman caused a gruesome distorted expression on the fat man. But as soon as he saw the mark on the back of her right hand, his distorted face turned blue.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Get out of here, you are disgusting."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just spare my life, please spare my life…"

"Get out of here."

The three men nodded vigorously and disappeared as they ran into the escalator and fled to the second floor.

The woman headed for what was originally a pharmacy, located in the corner of the first floor.

There were two men in it.

One stood up as straight, acting as a bodyguard, and the other sat on the couch, tapping his smooth hair, holding a sword with the sheath in his right hand, like something out of a historical drama.

The woman said to the man on the sofa, "There must be a disturbance."

"Disturbance?" At the woman's words, the man stopped tapping his head. "What's the matter?"

"The group that went out to execute a woman as an example is missing."

"Missing?"

"Yes."

"Did a monster eat them, or did they run away?"

"The team tried to investigate, but it failed."

"Failed? Why?"

"Because of the snow and wind..."

At those words, the man let out a suddenly uncontrollable laugh and tapped his head again with the handle of the sword.

"You should have given the organization by a different name, not Messiah. Everyone looks at us like an angel who was sent from heaven for some paradise. I'll have to send the men who went out as a search team to the New Jungdong Station in the morning when the sun rises, with their Achilles tendon nipped, and hope the yellow-eyed devil likes it." The swordsman smiled faintly.

3.

The blizzard showed no sign of stopping, even in the dark night.

Kim Tae-hoon was looking down at the large mall from a building located across the street. The blizzard blocked his vision, but there was no problem drawing pictures in his mind.

'The gates are strictly guarded, but their armed state is crude, and no one stands guard on the roof.'

Kim Tae-hoon scanned the area through the blowing blizzard and thick darkness.

"Baek Ji-yeon said there were about sixty candidates for sacrifice inside, and there were about thirty people watching them and guarding the large mall. In addition, the sacrifices were kept on the second and third floor."

Darkness and a blizzard.

What all animals did in front of these two things was the same: they just crouched as much as they could in the dark where they could avoid the wind, and they waited for the cold and long night to pass.

Humans have escaped such behavior by using tools, but the humans in the large mall were no different from animals.

Kim Tae-hoon turned around.

The hunt began.

4.

Kwa-kwa-kwang!

It only took a moment

A huge truck rushed toward the entrance of the large mall, and after smashing through the automatic glass doors, entered the entrance of the large mall.

"Aaaaaaargh!"

The three people, who were guarding the door in this sudden situation, were hit by the car, and they were smashed away helplessly.

"What's going on?"

"Is it an earthquake?"

People, who were forced to sleep in the cold all over the large mall, were scared and woke up.

"A truck crashed through the entrance!"

The disturbance reached the third floor after passing the second floor.

The watchers, who had originally been in the hair salon and the laundry, now used as prisons for locking up the sacrifices, looked at each other as soon as they heard the disturbance.

"What the hell happened on the first floor?"

"A monster?"

During the turmoil, the iron door of the emergency passage to the third and fourth floors of the parking garage was carefully opened.

Someone moved swiftly through the open door, and the man who opened it so secretly closed the door so hard that it was obvious secrecy was not his goal.

Bang!

It was a really solid door.

Their eardrums thundered. It was enough for everyone on the third floor to hear.

"Argh! What is this sound?"

"Well, it sounds like a door closed."

"Door? Where is the door here? It's connected to the parking lot by a moving walk, isn't it?"

"Emergency exit, there is an emergency exit, but the emergency exit was locked..."

People began to swallow hard, tense and nervous about what was going to happen.

Those who were waiting to be sacrificed with their hands and feet tied up also trembled.

"Go."

"What?"

"Go, it could be a monster."

"Fuck."

Eventually, one of them put his helmet on, grabbed his crude spear in his hand, and headed for the emergency exit.

'Damn it, why is this happening?' His footsteps were full of regret and irritation, and his anxiety and fear made them heavy.

What if it's a monster?

What if something happens?

Will I die here?

Am I going to be food for a monster?

In such a situation, the man investigating the emergency door approached it carefully. He glanced around, looking for signs.

'Nothing?'

There were no traces in his eyes. There was only a faint hint of the trail of a man, and the door closed, but not a very noticeable sign.

No, the man was hoping that this was nothing, and so it seemed to the man that this was nothing.

"Whew!" At that moment the man sighed with relief.

With that sigh, the man who decided nothing was going to happen returned the way he had come with a lighter step.

Then he said, "Nothing! Nothing…"

When the man returned to his original place, the first thing he saw was someone with a hole in his head, and a co-worker on the floor with his neck turned 180 degrees.

"Hmm?"

And that was the last thing that he saw, as the man approaching from behind broke his neck at once.

krak... When the man fell limply, one of the women slated for sacrifice screamed.

Ignoring the scream, the man acted calmly. He didn't bother to stop her. Rather, he let her scream and took the jumper and helmet one of the fallen guys was wearing.

Then, he shouted down at those who heard the scream coming up to the second floor via the escalator.

"We have a problem on the third floor! Come on!"

"Problem?"

"Come on! Quickly!"

"Oh, okay."

The man, who replied immediately, headed for the escalator, and behind him came a featherless Arrow.

5.

"Goddamn it, there's no one in the truck!" a man shouted, checking the driver's seat of the truck that had broken through the entrance.

The ten men gathered around the entrance showed a similar look at his words. Their heads were cocked, and they knitted their brows.

"Did the truck move by itself?"

"Does it make sense?"

"What the hell is going on? This truck isn't a monster, is it?"

The disturbance added a new stir.

"Something happened on the third floor!" A man came down through an escalator connecting the first and second floors.

He was not any different from the others in jumper and helmets. No one stopped the men from running down the escalator to the first floor.

Rather, those on the first floor looked at the person coming down in surprise. One of them asked, "The third floor? What happened?"

"What? What's wrong with the first floor? Why is a truck stuck in the entrance?"

"We don't know, damn it, suddenly the truck just ran into the entrance!"

"So? Is that why you're here? What about the guards? Are they watching the sacrifices?"

"Shit, that's not the point! Tell the men up there to come down now. What can a sacrifice do?"

"So you're almost all here, then." The voice of the man changed in a flash.

"Hmm? Wait, wait, who are you-"

The man acted very quickly.

Pak!

He punched the face of the person who noticed that he was not a colleague, smashing in his face as if he had been hit by a huge hammer. His skull crumpled like tofu.

At the same time, the man pulled the safety pin from the grenade he took from his jumper's pocket and threw it at the crowd gathered around the truck.

No one responded in time.

Of course, everyone was caught in the killing blast of the grenade, without any resistance or preparation.

It was not even the end.

"Aaaaaaargh!"

The moment a scream burst out from the mouth of a lucky survivor, a short gunshot rang out.

A confirmation shot.

The confirmation shots finished off everyone gathered around the truck in the time it took to draw a long breath.

No survivors.

Kim Tae-hoon's gaze immediately turned towards the corner of the grocery on the first floor of the large mall, which was visible from the entryway.

At that moment, his Hobgoblin's Sense warned him of danger.

As soon as he turned his head to the left, two crackling baseball-sized fireballs flew towards him.

The fireball touched Kim Tae-hoon's jumper, and moved over it like a living creature, setting it aflame.

Kim Tae-hoon immediately threw off the jumper, pointed his gun in the direction it came from, pulled the trigger, and immediately dove between two counters.

At that moment, he heard someone say, "I didn't know I am going to fight a real Awakener so quickly, but this is fun."

It was the first time he heard it, but Kim Tae-hoon was convinced at this moment.

'Lee Jin-sung.'

Who was the owner of the voice? The chief of the Messiah was here!