Chapter 42

The structure of the base was so complex and chaotic that it was hard to believe it was built by a civilization with the technology to construct buildings at 9,000m underwater.

Every time they passed through a gate, everything changed – the height and width of the passages, their shape, the color and intensity of the lighting – to the point where even a short walk could make one dizzy and nauseous.

‘Was this made by someone with a twisted taste for tormenting people? Why is it in such a state?’

-It’s a bit messy because it’s made up of structures forcibly connected together, each produced by different companies in the consortium.

‘Even so, there’s a limit. It feels like a monster could jump out of these pipes and attack us at any moment.’

Splat!

The sound of something wet hitting against a surface – a sound that could never occur naturally.

Just as everyone’s attention turned to the ceiling, Yuseong instantly kicked off the nearby wall, leaped upward, and sliced through the pipe with his axe.

“Kiiiiiii!”

Along with an agonized scream, a Deep One, with only its upper body remaining, fell to the floor spilling blue blood and internal organs from between the cut pipe.

Seeing people break out in cold sweat upon realizing a monster had been moving right above their heads, Yuseong spoke as if it were nothing special.

“Seems they can get into the pipes too. Be careful everyone, they could pop out from anywhere.”

“……”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared?”

People’s faces reddened at Yuseong’s subtly mocking question.

No matter how advanced science becomes in the future world, a miner’s life remains dangerous and incredibly difficult.

Naturally, this tends to make their personalities rough and boisterous, and even those who weren’t actually like that would at least act tough on the outside to avoid being looked down upon.

Being miners of such disposition, they naturally wouldn’t stay quiet after such blatant provocation.

“No way! Why would we be scared of these things that look like a mix between a frog and a fish?”

“Th-That’s right! We were just surprised because it died so quickly.”

“Hmph, these things are nothing.”

Starting with the person closest kicking the Deep One’s corpse, others around also began poking at the body or spitting on it as if performing some kind of ritual.

‘Everyone working here has received enhancement procedures. Looking at specs alone, they could easily handle one or two Deep Ones head-on. The problem isn’t physical, it’s mental.’

Even if they could win in a fight, they might still fall prey to their fear of facing unknown beings.

That’s why Yuseong thought this process was necessary, even if it wasted some time – to instill in people the perception that Deep Ones were nothing special, beings they could definitely defeat.

“Damn! What are we waiting for? Let’s get going!”

Looking at the miner who pat his shoulder with a confident expression, Yuseong smiled brightly and said.

“Why are you waiting for me when there’s no need? You can go ahead.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m joking. Let’s go.”

Yuseong patted the shoulder of the miner whose face had turned bright red and walked forward.

It would be dangerous to let others take the vanguard.

What people were showing now wasn’t real courage, but mere bravado – a show of not being afraid that could crumble instantly given the slightest trigger.

Naturally, to prevent such a trigger from occurring, he had to take the most dangerous frontline position himself.

Beep!

When the gate opened revealing the passage on the other side, someone audibly gulped.

A group densely packed against the floor, walls, and ceiling of the passage, all staring in their direction. Once both sides finished assessing the situation, orders came from their respective leaders.

“Kyaaaaa!”

“Fire!”

As the Deep Ones charged forward with wild screams, Yuseong stepped back while the people behind him aimed their various weapons and began firing indiscriminately toward the opposite end of the passage.

The weapons weren’t anything special.

While the base, built for resource extraction, did have some powerful destructive tools, they could only bring weapons below a certain power level since breaking the walls would mean death by water pressure, enhancement procedures or not.

“Kek!”

“Grrrr!”

Of course, even such weapons were sufficient to inflict damage.

Flames from modified flamethrowers filled the passage, and dozens of nails shot from nail guns pierced flesh, spraying blue blood.

It was an assault fierce enough to instantly break a group of normal humans.

However, their opponents weren’t human but followers of an Outer God.

Dudududu!

Just as fear was about to spread at the sight of Deep Ones closing in despite the barrage of flames and nails, Yuseong shouted.

“Cease fire! Everyone prepare for combat!”

Gripping his axe firmly, Yuseong took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes.

‘A gap has opened.’

The biggest problem in dealing with these creatures was their density.

Body techniques become meaningless against enemies that charge as one mass, filling the entire space.

But in a situation like this, it’s different.

Using Flash Step to instantly dive into the group of Deep Ones, Yuseong raised his axe above his head.

Shadow Moon Style 16. Wood Splitting.

A technique that puts the entire body’s strength into a single downward strike, in some ways very similar to Flash Step.

He split the frontmost creature from crown to crotch with Wood Splitting, then carried that momentum into an upward diagonal slash that severed another one’s arm.

‘Don’t finish them off.’

The moment you waste time ensuring a kill is the moment you get swept away.

Just wounding them is enough – the people behind can handle the rest. Now was the time to keep pressing forward endlessly, riding the momentum.

Crack!

Activating Asura Perception Way, Yuseong began spinning like a windmill in the slowed time, constantly adjusting angles in real-time to avoid touching the enemies’ bodies.

If he had tried this with a normal cold weapon, he would have lost momentum and stopped without cutting even one, but the weapon Yuseong now held was no ordinary cold weapon.

Before the cutting power of concentrated plasma, the resistance of bone and flesh might as well not exist, and naturally, Yuseong’s rotation continued unimpeded as it dismembered countless Deep Ones.

“Keeeek!”

After taking down about half, the creatures seemed to realize this wouldn’t work and tried to retreat to regroup, but Yuseong wasn’t about to let that happen.

‘Thorny Vine.’

Thorny vines burst through nearby corpses and shot out like snakes, entangling the creatures’ legs. Though only three lost balance and fell, just as it doesn’t take much force to topple dominoes, this small gap was enough to bring them down.

Crack!

Once again, the rotation of death unfolds.

When the rotation stopped, all that remained were dead Deep Ones or those awaiting death while screaming, bewildered-looking people, and Yuseong covered head to toe in blue blood.

‘…Was that a bit much?’

-…I think it was way too much.

This isn’t a martial arts or fantasy world.

Even with the advantage of his weapon and enhancement procedures, how would people react to someone charging head-on with just an axe against dozens of strange life forms and performing an unrivaled display…

“Woaaaah!”

“Hahaha! You monster! If we make it out of here alive, I’m buying you a drink! My god, how did I not know about a monster like you?”

“Are we just going to watch that guy do all the work? Let’s at least finish off the ones still alive!”

“Huh? What’s this thorny vine?”

“Don’t worry about it. Monsters can grow thorny vines from their bodies, right?”

“Is that so?”

‘…I feel foolish for worrying even for a moment.’

Though somewhat deflated by how casually people accepted the situation, this battle had greatly boosted morale nonetheless.

After finishing confirmation kills and regrouping, the party began moving in somewhat higher spirits, and they succeeded in easily defeating the groups they encountered soon after.

“Damn! They looked weird but turned out to be nothing special!”

“We should be able to get there in 15 minutes?”

“Ah, we were scared for nothing.”

The atmosphere had completely loosened up.

Between the casual jokes being exchanged and occasional laughter, even Yuseong, who had been maintaining tension, began to have somewhat relaxed thoughts.

‘At this pace, I might even have time to go back and bring the people from the warehouse? There are about 20 people left, so it’s a chance to earn 200,000 points – should I turn back now?’

Everything was going smoothly.

So smoothly that it was starting to feel unsettling.

‘…Something’s wrong. For a C-rank incident related to the notorious Cthulhu Mythos, the difficulty level is disappointingly easy. Objectively speaking, it might even be easier than the Alice incident.’

Though he’d benefited greatly from his skills and equipment, thinking about it coldly, this was a difficulty level that could be cleared with just Jerome’s body.

Once they somehow defeated the initial Deep Ones, all they had to do was join up with the people in the warehouse, arm themselves, and move to Section C-5 where the submarine was located.

Of course, in that case, they wouldn’t be able to instantly defeat enemies with breakthrough tactics like now, and morale would drop with casualties in every battle, slowing their pace, but even accounting for all that, they had more than enough time to reach their destination before the base collapsed.

Something was wrong.

And that prediction proved brilliantly accurate.

Beep!

“Stop!”

Yuseong, who was about to open the gate to the next section, had to stop at Casey’s near-scream.

“Why suddenly?”

“The section beyond this has started flooding.”

People’s expressions twisted as they checked the device Casey held out.

They saw the section they were about to enter flashing red, indicating flooding.

“Then we need to go back. There must be an alternate route?”

“We can go back through Section K-15. It’ll delay us about 3 minutes but…”

Beep!

Once again the sound rang out, and another section began flashing red.

Before anyone could ask what this meant, numerous beeping sounds started ringing out.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

“…The sections around us are flooding one after another.”

A deadly silence where you could hear a pin drop.

But they didn’t even have time to despair.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The sound of metal striking metal.

When Yuseong realized this sound was coming from outside the base where they were, he said with a face turned pale white.

“…Everyone run.”