"Launch me!" Kim Jin barked, his eyes locked on the twisting, purple nightmare that had breached the subway's ceiling.
The man beside him a mountain of a player built like a siege engine didn't hesitate.
He dropped his center of gravity, interlocking his thick fingers to create a stirrup.
Kim Jin stepped onto the man's palms, the metal of his boots clinking against the Tank's armored gloves.
"Positioned well?"
The Tank grunted, his forearms bulging as he prepared to exert a force that would shatter standard concrete.
"Yes."
Kim Jin replied, his hand tightening around the hilt of his silver blade.
"Now!"
The Tank let out a guttering roar.
With a massive heave of his shoulders, he exploded upward.
There was a localized BOOM that sent a shockwave through the platform, shattering the remaining tiles beneath the man's feet.
Kim Jin was no longer on the ground.
He was a silver streak, a human projectile soaring through the jagged hole in the ceiling and into the open, ash-choked sky.
The Kraken's tentacle was a vertical highway of slime and barbs, rising hundreds of meters toward the swirling black-red gate.
Kim Jin reached the apex of his jump and slammed his blade deep into the rubbery flesh of the limb.
K-CHAK!
The monster shrieked, the sound vibrating through the air like a distorted pipe organ.
The tentacle thrashed violently, whipping through the air in a dizzying arc to dislodge the irritant.
Kim Jin gripped the hilt with both hands, his body trailing behind the limb looking like a ribbon in a hurricane.
[LIVE STREAM CHAT]
—"HE'S IN THE AIR! Kim Jin is actually going for it!"
—"The scale of that thing... it's bigger than the building!"
—"Look at the speed of that thrash! How is he still holding on?"
—"Save Woonhee! Please save her!"
Using the momentum of the swing, Kim Jin hauled himself upward, his boots digging into the barbed suckers and began to run.
It was a vertical marathon.
Every step was a battle against gravity and the corrosive slime that threatened to send him plummeting to the ruins of Seoul below.
He sprinted up the undulating surface, his blade carving a shallow groove in the monster's flesh for balance.
Suddenly, the circular pores along the tentacle's side began to dilate.
With a wet, sucking sound, dozens of monsters began to pupate and burst forth.
They were nothing but bloated, veiny masses with a single, lidless red eye and a ring of needle-teeth.
The one-eyed monsters hissed, launching themselves at his legs and torso.
Kim Jin didn't break his stride and dropped into a low slide.
SH-SH-SH-KLICK!
In one continuous, sweeping motion, his blade spun in a 360-degree arc.
The monsters were bifurcated before they could even snap their jaws, their gelatinous bodies sliding off as he surged back to his feet.
But the higher he climbed, the Kraken seemed to sense the intruder.
Three more tentacles, each as wide as a two-lane road, rose from the surrounding buildings to converge on his position.
They slammed together like giant clapping hands, aiming to crush Kim Jin into a red paste.
『KIM JIN HAS USED SKILL: [AVATAR]』
A violent, crimson light erupted from Kim Jin's body.
From his left and right shoulders, the space seemed to tear open.
Two figures, shrouded in a red, flickering holographic glow, tore themselves away from his physical body.
They were his perfect mirrors.
The clones moved with a predatory grace that matched the original.
As the three massive tentacles slammed toward Kim Jin, the left Avatar leaped into the air, its red-light blade glowing with intense heat.
It drove the weapon into the side of the approaching limb, forcing the tentacle to veer off course.
The right Avatar dropped low, its movements a blur of red and sliced through the barbed suckers that were trying to entwine Kim Jin's ankles.
The synchronization was terrifying.
The three moved like a single organism.
When the main Kim Jin leaped over a protruding bone-spike, the left Avatar provided a platform with its shoulder, boosting him further up.
When a swarm of the one-eyed monsters erupted from a higher pore, the right Avatar stood its ground, a spinning wall of crimson steel that shredded everything in its path.
[LIVE STREAM CHAT]
—"Is that his [Avatar] skill? I've never seen it used at this altitude!"
—"The coordination... they're moving like they share one brain."
—"Look at the red one on the left! It just took the hit for the real Jin!"
—"He's almost halfway to the gate! But the gate is closing!"
—"The Kraken is bringing more limbs! It's not fair!"
The sky above was a whirlpool of black and red, the Gate acting as a giant vacuum that was slowly pulling Woonhee's limp form into the void.
She was still trapped in the primary tentacle's grip, now a hundred meters above Kim Jin's current position.
Kim Jin pushed his lungs to the limit.
The air was getting thin, tainted by the stench of the Abyss.
He ran up the narrowing tip of the limb, his Avatars flanking him like guardian ghosts.
THOOM!
A new limb slammed into the side of the skyscraper they were passing, sending a shower of glass and steel across his path.
Kim Jin used the falling debris as stepping stones and moved across a shattered window frame and a steel girder as he leaped higher.
The monsters were getting larger now.
From the pores of the Kraken, creatures with long, spindly arms began to emerge, reaching out to grab the Avatars.
The clones fought back with a savagery that matched the original's desperation.
The left Avatar was currently locked in a struggle with a mass of tentacles, its red blade glowing white as it carved a path through the meat.
"Don't slow down!"
Kim Jin roared, his eyes fixed on Woonhee's white uniform, which was a tiny speck against the darkness of the Gate.
He swung his blade, severing the reaching arm of a monster that tried to snag his red long coat.
He was parkouring through a nightmare of flesh and gravity, leaping from one thrashing tentacle to the next.
The original Kim Jin dove forward, his blade spinning as he performed a mid-air somersault to avoid a spray of acidic ink.
He landed on a secondary limb and sprinted upward, but the Kraken was becoming more aggressive.
The primary tentacle holding Woonhee began to pulsate, accelerating its retraction into the Gate.
Kim Jin looked up.
The distance was still too great.
He was fighting a war on a vertical battlefield, surrounded by his clones, while a thousand lidless eyes watched him from the skin of the beast.
He slashed through a cluster of bone-spikes, his Avatars flickering as they took more and more damage to keep the path clear.
The timer in the sky ticked down, the red numbers bleeding into the purple clouds.
『TIME REMAINING: 00:22:11』
He was still too far.
The monsters were a wall of teeth and eyes between him and the girl.
Kim Jin gritted his teeth, his silver blade reflecting the dying light of the city below, as he prepared to push his [Avatar] skill to its breaking point.
The Kraken let out a roar that shook the very foundations of the city, and a dozen new limbs rose from the abyss to greet him.