Lee Kanghyun's name wasn't on the rescuer list. The temporary display board set up in front of the subway station showed only the rescue results.
[Survivors: Twelve] [On-site rescuer: Unconfirmed]
Beneath the display board, the injured woman was receiving treatment for her leg. The child stayed close beside her, wrapped in a blanket. Kanghyun pushed his chair toward the woman.
The Captain grabbed the back of the chair from behind him.
"Sit."
"I am sitting."
"Damn this guy and his self-sacrifice... Tch."
The Captain forced Kanghyun back down into the chair.
A paramedic rolled up the torn pant leg and washed the long gash across his thigh. A single tuft of black fur came out caught in the tip of the tweezers.
When the paramedic pressed his bruised side, Kanghyun bared his teeth in a grin.
"The bone's fine."
"That mouth of yours! You won't learn until your jaw gets knocked loose!!"
The paramedics were fastening paper wristbands for identity verification around the rescued people's wrists.
The child looked up at the display board in front of the station.
[On-site rescuer: Unconfirmed]
After staring at the words for a moment, the child picked up an empty wristband lying beside the first-aid kit.
"Mister, what's your name?"
"Lee Kanghyun."
The child wrote the name in crooked, uneven letters.
Then wrapped the wristband around Kanghyun's left wrist, where there was no black scar.
Lee Kanghyun.
A name that hadn't been on the display board.
Kanghyun looked down at the wristband.
The child pressed the end of the wristband firmly into place.
"You saved us."
Kanghyun pressed the end once more so the wristband wouldn't come loose.
"Thanks."
The moment he looked away from the child, the air above the station entrance split open into a thin line.
Creeeak.
Although it wasn't metal, it made a sound like a steel plate being twisted.
A translucent right hand clenched the black rift, thinner than a strand of hair, as if squeezing out the last of its strength. Its faint fingers trembled, as though refusing to let go of the space trying to tear open.
Stone dust fell from its fingertips.
Inside the rift, claws slowly scraped across space. The hairline rift trembled, so thin it looked ready to tear open at any moment.
Kanghyun braced himself on the armrest and stood. His bandaged thigh pulled painfully.
"Where are you going?"
"That hand is still holding him back."
The Captain looked back at the rift in the air. The translucent hand wavered in the night air, looking ready to vanish at any moment.
When Kanghyun took two steps, the people beyond the control line parted.
Three people wearing white hound masks approached. They were Executors serving the Hunter of Victory.
There was no way he could mistake them. For seven years, Kanghyun had fought beneath the same sigil.
The Lead Executor raised a hand. When the white claw sigil on the back of his hand lit up, the field personnel cleared a path.
The Executor's gaze passed over the scar on Kanghyun's wrist and stopped at the hand hanging in the air.
"Lee Kanghyun. Step away from there."
Kanghyun didn't move.
"I'd like to hear why first."
"An unregistered divinity has attached itself to the Gate boundary. We're putting it in containment."
The Captain stepped up beside Kanghyun.
"That hand pulled us outside!" "It even forced the monster back inside!"
"That makes it even more dangerous. It's uncontrolled."
The Lead Executor examined the black rift.
"We can't leave an entity that can alter the boundary between entry and exit at will without verifying it first."
At his gesture, a white barricade rose behind Kanghyun, cutting across the front of the relief station.
When Kanghyun looked back, the paramedics were moving the child and the casualties behind the barricade. The third Executor stayed in front of the barricade to help with the evacuation.
Their judgment was quick. Move the people out first, then contain the hand.
Kanghyun looked at the rift again.
"If you make the hand let go, whatever was inside will come out."
The Lead Executor pulled out a thick white sealing stake.
"It will only sever the divinity-boundary link. Then we'll close the rift with sealing."
The stake was driven into the ground in front of the station entrance. White light spread along the ground toward the black rift.
The translucent hand's pinky unfolded. The rift widened slightly.
Kanghyun looked at the Executor.
"Stop."
The Executor kept one hand on the stake and pushed more light into it.
"It'll close soon."
The second finger slipped away from the rift.
Something slammed into the other side of the rift once. The tip of the hairline rift quivered faintly.
A chill crawled up the back of Kanghyun's neck.
"Pull out the stake."
The last finger lost its grip on the rift. The translucent hand fell limply to the ground. The instant the hand slipped away from the rift, the black line split open.
The black beast's lower jaw tore open all the way to its chest. At that moment, every sound around the relief station vanished.
The emergency lights were still spinning. But there was no siren, no screaming.
A long foreleg shot out from beyond the black rift. When the enormous body reached the hand-sized opening, it flattened like paper. Bone and hide folded one after another as it squeezed through the rift.
The black beast's body unfolded to its original size once it emerged outside. The rift that had opened behind the monster thinned again into a hairline rift.
The nearby Executor raised his shield and blocked the way. The black beast slammed into the shield.
The Executor's body was driven far backward. Cracks spread across the shield, but it held.
The Lead Executor took his hand off the stake. A white bow unfolded from the sigil on the back of his hand.
The white bowstring trembled. A light arrow pierced the black beast's shoulder.
Its body slammed into the ground. Its gaping jaw struck the asphalt and snapped shut.
The sirens and screams returned all at once. Kanghyun let out a breath without realizing it.
A moment ago, that monster hadn't stopped even when a blade was driven into it inside the station.
"Just as expected of an Executor."
The Lead Executor didn't lower his bow.
"So get back."
For a moment, it looked as if the situation had been resolved.
The black beast twisted its shoulder. The wound pierced by the light arrow split open as if bursting. Black blood sprayed out. Ignoring the pain, it rose to its feet.
The monster passed straight by Kanghyun, who was closest. Its gaze never left the translucent hand lying on the ground.
Kanghyun pointed at the hand.
"It's going for that hand!"
The Shield Executor blocked the monster's path. A black foreleg came around the side of the shield. The Executor was sent flying into a tent pole.
The black beast didn't look back at the fallen man. It charged toward the translucent hand again.
The Lead Executor's second arrow pierced the black beast's foreleg and pinned it to the asphalt. The monster pitched forward.
Kanghyun looked back and forth between the stake and the motionless hand.
Ever since the stake had been driven in, the fingers had been coming loose one by one.
'The sealing is severing the hand from the rift.'
"Please pull out the stake."
"If we undo the sealing, that divinity will move again too."
"That hand trapped the monster."
"Then nothing will be holding the monster back."
Kanghyun watched the black beast twist its foreleg.
"It's already out. We need to save the hand first."
The black beast twisted its foreleg. Cracks spread through the asphalt around the embedded arrow. The arrow snapped.
The Lead Executor stared at the stake. Whether to maintain the sealing, or save the hand.
The Lead Executor's white bow scattered into light. The white glow went out.
He pulled the stake free with his bare hand.
The translucent hand's index finger moved. Kanghyun ran toward the hand lying on the ground.
The moment he touched its fingertips, lukewarm warmth seeped into his wound.
Before Kanghyun could move, the translucent fingers slowly curled inward. The black hairline rift remaining above the station entrance narrowed slightly in time with the movement.
'Why is it closing...?' 'Can it not move the rift?'
Following the hand's movement, Kanghyun curled his fingers all the way in.
The black rift that had been spread open locked shut in a single line. Only a mark thinner than a strand of hair remained in the air.
The black beast shook off the broken arrow and rose. Its red eyes were still fixed solely on the translucent hand.
Kanghyun's gaze stopped on the empty air between the monster and the hand.
"This time, over there."
The translucent hand slashed vertically through that spot. A new black rift opened.
Beyond the rift was the darkness inside the station, where the monster had emerged moments ago. A new rift now lay between the black beast and the translucent hand.
A white bow unfolded again from the back of the Lead Executor's hand.
"We just drive it over there?"
"Just get it to touch the rift."
Kanghyun stood behind the new rift, still touching the translucent hand. The black beast charged.
The Lead Executor's arrow pierced the monster's right shoulder. The black beast staggered, losing its balance.
But it didn't stop. It leaped straight toward Kanghyun and the translucent hand standing behind the new rift.
The black foreleg reached the hand-sized rift. The enormous body flattened like paper and folded into the rift.
The Lead Executor fired a second arrow. The white arrow sank into the monster's chest.
The impact shoved even the remaining black body through the rift.
Something heavy slammed into a wall in the distance.
"Close it."
Kanghyun curled the fingers touching his own. The translucent hand slowly closed the new rift.
The open black space narrowed into a single line. Only a mark thinner than a strand of hair remained in the air.
The translucent hand broke away from Kanghyun's fingertips and pressed down on the mark.
When Kanghyun stood, his bandaged thigh burned and pulled. He limped toward the Executor beneath the tent pole.
He lifted the mask and checked his breathing.
"He's alive!" "Paramedic!"
The Lead Executor dropped to one knee first. He pressed down on the fallen Executor's side and didn't lift his hand until the paramedic arrived.
Only then did Kanghyun look back at where the new rift had closed. The translucent right hand was pressing down on the hairline rift. But it had grown so faint that nothing below the wrist was visible.
A copper-colored line rose above Kanghyun's wounded palm.
A short sentence was engraved in the light.
『You trapped the calamity that crossed the boundary once more.』
Kanghyun held out his hand without a word.
The translucent hand slowly approached. When their fingertips touched, the copper light seeped between the translucent fingers.
The fading outline knitted itself back together. The trembling in the fingers stopped as well.
The Lead Executor froze as he watched while still pressing down on his companion's side.
"Just now... did you offer your achievement to that god?"
His gaze moved back and forth between Kanghyun and the hand in the air.
"The god didn't choose you."
For the first time, the Executor's voice trembled.
"Did you choose that god?"
Kanghyun didn't answer.
Instead, he jerked his chin toward the fallen Executor.
"You should check on your companion first."
The Lead Executor lowered his gaze and pressed harder with the hand he had been keeping down.
Claws scraped across space inside the hairline rift in the air.
This time. From somewhere closer.
The translucent hand didn't move away from the closed hairline rift.
At that moment, the white claw sigil on the back of the Lead Executor's hand lit up on its own.
Something different from the presence beyond the hairline rift had responded. The Executor's shoulders locked up.
Kanghyun knew that presence all too well.
The god that had filled his body for seven years, then turned its back on him first of all. The heavy silence of the Hunter of Victory shattered.