"Beats me," Jung Jae-heon shook his head. Most of the monsters they'd run into still had some scraps of awareness, but one that could actually hold a conversation like that horned freak? That was rare as hell. "Only monsters eat other monsters…"
He didn't spell it out, but the meaning was clear: once you turned, there was no keeping your humanity.
"I get it…" Cha Hyun-soo forced a bitter smile. Looked like infected people were doomed to become monsters no matter what.
...
Meanwhile, the whole apartment suddenly lost power.
After a quick group discussion, they decided to send Seo Yi-kyung to check the electrical room. She didn't argue, just grabbed a flashlight and headed down carefully.
The second she stepped inside, she felt something watching her. She swept the beam around but saw nothing. "Just my imagination?"
It wasn't.
A spider-like monster hung upside down from the ceiling, staring at her with pure predatory hunger.
"Something's wrong…" Seo Yi-kyung frowned and turned to leave.
Right as she reached the door, a tentacle shot out and wrapped around her ankle, yanking her backward. She didn't even have time to react.
More tentacles coiled around her in seconds. The spider monster wrapped her up tight and hoisted her upside down from the ceiling with thick webbing.
Downstairs, nobody had a clue what was happening to her. The power had come back on right after she left, so the group was now crowded around the TV watching the news.
On screen, the Korean President stood at the podium giving a speech.
"These monsters are extremely dangerous. If you see one, stay away immediately. The safety of our citizens is our top priority…" His face suddenly twisted. He looked like he was fighting something back. Then—splat!—he vomited a huge mouthful of blood. Nosebleed poured down his face. Blood vessels burst across his eyes.
In a distorted, broken voice he screamed, "You're all going to die! Every single one of you is fucked!"
Bang!
A bullet blew straight through his skull.
The gunshot made everyone in front of the TV jump. But the President didn't drop. He grabbed the podium and stood back up, roaring straight into the camera, "You're all going to die!"
Several soldiers rushed in, pinned him down, and one emptied his pistol into the man's head.
The TV screen suddenly cut to static with a harsh crackle.
"Is the President… dead?"
"He said we're all fucked."
The people gathered around the TV were falling apart.
One man ripped off his glasses and started bawling like a child. "What the hell do we do now? We're all gonna die! Just die together! Let's all die together!"
The others didn't break down quite that hard, but they stayed dead silent.
Lee Eun-yoo quietly slipped back to her room, grabbed a box cutter, and started slashing her ballet dress to pieces.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she cut. It felt like she wasn't destroying the dress. She was destroying her dream.
...
Down in the Green Home lobby.
Kim Seok-hyun locked the doors to his supermarket with a key. When his wife tried to stop him, he cursed her out. He announced to everyone that he was the only one with enough food. If they wanted any, they had to pay for it.
Human greed kicked in hard.
Even though he knew money might be worthless now, he refused to hand out anything for free. Not even the stuff about to expire or the stuff in the fridges.
When people started yelling at him, Kim Seok-hyun just smirked. As long as he controlled the food, they'd all come crawling to him sooner or later.
"Eat this for now." Lee Eun-hyuk dragged over a box of supplies and set it on the floor. Seo Yi-kyung still hadn't come back, and the bad feeling in his gut was getting worse. He headed to the security room with another man wearing camo.
He saw what had happened to Seo Yi-kyung on the monitor, but he kept his mouth shut for everyone's sake.
On the fourth floor, Pyeon Sang-wook had just woken up.
He stood in front of the mirror and checked the bite on his shoulder. Luckily it hadn't gotten infected. He pulled out a roll of duct tape, pressed some tissues over the wound, and wrapped it tight.
After that, he went to check on Choi. Seeing the man lying there with all four limbs broken didn't surprise him at all. After a full week of Ivan's methods, nothing shocked him anymore. Meeting Ivan Greevs was probably the worst luck of Choi's miserable life.
...
Late that night.
Outside the apartment, the darkness was filled with monstrous roars. Countless twisted, deformed bodies wandered through the burnt-out wasteland that used to be the city.
Boom!
A figure slammed into the ground under the moonlight, cratering the asphalt and kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
The loud impact instantly drew every nearby monster. They charged toward Ivan like a horde of demons in the night, an absolute nightmare.
Ivan stood up slowly and retracted the fleshy wings on his back.
With his current weight, the wings would need to be seven or eight times his body length to let him fly properly. He wasn't a bird—his bones weren't hollow and his body wasn't built for it.
He could reshape himself that way, but it was a pain in the ass and burned way too much energy. Not worth it.
If he really wanted to fly, he'd have to steal that ability from Homelander one day.
"Since you're already here, why the fuck would you leave?" Ivan growled.
Some smarter monsters took one look at him and ran the other way. Not every freak liked eating its own kind. Most still only had humans on the menu.
For the next hour, the monsters lived through pure hell.
Ivan hunted them relentlessly. Their survival instincts screamed at them to stay the fuck away from him, but it didn't matter.
His fusion progress shot up from 14% all the way to 35%. It would've climbed even faster if his digestion could keep up.
Of course, everything had a price. The desire was growing fast and starting to fuck with his head.
The progress was still low enough that Ivan believed he had it under control.
But he didn't notice how his eyes had changed when he looked at the monsters.
The cold calculation was gone. Now the eyes burned with raw, terrifying greed.
A voice kept whispering in his skull: keep eating, keep getting stronger.
And it was true. The higher the fusion went, the more terrifying the power he could wield.
He kept hunting until the sky began to lighten.
Only then did Ivan finally stop. He could feel the changes happening inside him. Desire was never satisfied. It was an endless abyss dragging you down. Even his iron will was struggling against the temptation.
Because every time he thought about stopping, another voice answered: You're not at your limit yet. You can still eat more. Don't waste this chance.
Ivan's mind was a fucking storm.
A ship getting hammered by endless waves, yet refusing to abandon it. The desire kept whispering like a devil in his ear, tempting him without pause.
It told him the ship was tougher than it looked. Keep sailing and the rewards would only grow bigger.
By now he had devoured almost every monster around the apartment. Ivan sat on a slab of broken concrete, eyes closed. The countless eyeballs covering his body kept opening and closing.
Almost all of them had turned completely black.
[Gluttony Talent Fusion in progress. Current progress: 99%]
"I told you we'd meet again," the black-eyed Ivan appeared beside him, grinning like a maniac. "How does it feel? That insane rush of power. Pretty addictive, isn't it?"
"Haa…" Ivan exhaled slowly, face blank. He had made his choice.
"I only ate that many monsters and you're already at 99%? You're fucking pathetic."
"What?" The Desire Mirror looked confused.
In its eyes, Ivan was already drowning in the swamp of desire, sinking deeper with no escape.
"I said you're pathetic," Ivan sneered coldly.
"Your willpower is impressive, but so what? You'll submit to me in the end…"
"Has anyone ever told you that you talk too fucking much?!" Ivan's body exploded in size. His massive hand shot out like a claw, grabbed the mirror's head, and ripped—hard. He tore the head and spine clean out in one brutal motion.
But the Desire Mirror was different now. Even without a head, it still didn't die.
It laughed wildly, blood dripping from its torn neck. "As long as you still crave strength, you can never kill me! Go on, try it! Hahaha! I am the deepest desire in your heart!"
"No. You're not." Ivan smiled the exact same vicious smile right back. "Are you sure you want to face my real desire?!"
"In front of my real desire, you're nothing but a fucking clown."
The second Ivan finished speaking, the entire mirror space started collapsing like the apocalypse had arrived. The dimension couldn't handle what was coming.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Huge fractures spider-webbed across everything, shattering like broken glass.
Deep, pitch-black light poured through the cracks, swallowing the whole space in endless darkness.
The black-eyed mirror looked up, confused as hell. What the fuck is happening? Wasn't he supposed to be the master of this place?
"Get ready to meet my true desire," Ivan said, spreading his arms wide. His voice dropped low, thick with mockery. "Immortal. Omniscient. Omnipresent. Existing above all dimensions!"
With every word he spoke, massive, mountain-sized black shadows rose behind him. They were colossal, blotting out everything, their mere presence enough to crush the fragile mirror space created by gluttony.
The Desire Mirror's smug face finally twisted in fear.
___
[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69