A train with eighty cars races across Siberia. Even if you estimate each car at about fourteen meters long, the total length easily exceeds one kilometer.
When something this long and massive barrels along the rails, it's bound to attract attention.
— Anyone with a free hand, get to Car 57, now! It's urgent!
Someone with time to spare, huh. With nearly hundreds of wings swarming in like a storm, where the hell am I supposed to find anyone with spare time?
"Damn it. Things are really going smoothly."
For example—monsters from the Corrosion Zone.
Right now, we're dealing with a swarm of wings with no bodies. They're grotesque: huge wings covered in clusters of eyeballs. Like peacock feathers that crawled straight out of hell.
And those wings aren't just flesh—they're metal, sharp as razors. Hundreds of them whirl around the train like a cloud of locusts, making the situation thoroughly miserable.
"If Lee Se-eun could step in, this would probably get a lot easier."
But that's impossible. For the train to keep running on the Siberian railway—whose tracks barely maintain their form—operation and track repairs often have to happen simultaneously.
The crews repairing the tracks in real time can't fight monsters on their own. If anything happens to them, the kilometer-long train we're riding will face the risk of derailing.
That's why Lee Se-eun is stuck right at the very front of the train, glued in place, unable to spare attention for anything happening further back.
"I don't know which bastard came up with this plan."
Tying down our strongest asset in one place. If I were the commander, I'd cut off the head of the idiot who suggested this and hang it in the marketplace.
I sprinted toward the assigned location. The spear in my hand repeatedly extended and retracted on its own, impaling the eye-covered wings that kept pressing in.
"Move!"
Shouting that, I gripped the spear just below the blade with both hands, extended it to full length, and used it to pole-vault.
While suspended in midair, the train kept racing forward, and I flew through the sky, swinging my spear nonstop to thin their numbers.
"One. Two."
Then I landed—right on Car 57. Just as the call suggested, several hunters were barely holding off the rushing steel wings. Cuts already scarred containers all over the cargo car.
"Get lost!"
I grabbed a wing that flew at my head with my bare hand, crushed it, and quickly scanned the surroundings.
"The cargo isn't their target."
They're just here to slaughter people. Should I call that a relief?
"Hunter Yoo Chan-seok, thank you!"
The hunters who'd been fighting these things greeted me.
"Go somewhere else."
I can handle this alone. They'd be better off reinforcing another section.
"You—take a break."
I spoke to one of the hunters who was about to move.
"What? I'm still—"
"Planning to be dead weight to someone else? Go rest."
The words came out as an order before I realized it. His mana was almost gone, and his body was exhausted. By my standards, he wasn't usable combat power anymore.
"If you die, that's the end. Go rest, recover as fast as you can, then come back."
Even as I spoke, my spear never stopped moving—lengthening, shortening, destroying the oncoming wings.
"Got it."
He retreated, and I continued doing what needed to be done. In a way, this was mechanical, repetitive labor. Sense the enemy, kill them one by one.
"Impressive. So they're just overwhelming us with numbers."
Despite killing so many, countless wings still hovered around the speeding train. There had to be thousands of them.
The hunters kept moving nonstop, but wiping them all out was impossible.
"Problem at Car 57 has been handled."
— Keep moving up and deal with everything through Car 30.
Receiving the order, I ran across the cargo cars atop the moving train, clearing away the monsters clinging to it.
That situation continued for a full two hours.
Eventually, whether because they gave up or because we'd crossed out of their territory, the monsters withdrew.
"Hoo."
Exhausted, the hunters collapsed onto the roof of the train. Without a word, I shortened my spear as much as possible and hooked it at my waist.
I looked over the resting hunters. None of them looked particularly good.
"Focus on recovering your mana as much as you can. There might be another fight."
At my words, the hunters—resting while sucking down elixir ampoules—looked at me like they couldn't believe it.
"Then why are you— I mean, Hunter Yoo Chan-seok—completely fine?"
"What are you talking about? And don't suddenly switch to honorifics and drag things out. Keep it short."
He nodded and continued.
"Your mana hasn't dropped at all."
"One of my many charms."
I dug into my pocket, pulled out a chocolate bar, and started chewing. Meanwhile, Han Sang-ah—her body marked with scratches—sheathes her sword and adds,
"He took out hundreds by himself. Without you, things would've gotten messy."
"Same to you. Another one of my charms. The Embargo Tower sure knows how to pick people."
After briefly looking at Han Sang-ah, I spoke again.
"Bring a few eggs. Let's see how much you've trained."
Without complaint, Han Sang-ah stood up and soon returned with some eggs.
After that, she diligently poked the eggs with chopsticks or needles and showed me the results.
I checked the contents and nodded.
"They're fully cooked now."
"But this one's a raw egg."
I meant your skill at piercing the eggs, not the eggs themselves. What am I supposed to do with this kid? Did she trade away talent and common sense somewhere?
"I don't think there's anything more this training can give you. Your hand sensitivity has definitely improved."
"Of course. You're the one who made me do it."
I stated that firmly, then grabbed one of the eggs she'd brought, preparing to move on to the next stage.
"Another egg?"
"Yeah, another egg. But the method's different, so it's fine, right?"
At my words, Han Sang-ah put on a pained expression.
"Outside of Korea, eggs are a huge luxury. By Russian prices, two eggs cost about 3,500 won."
I didn't realize they were that expensive. In Korea, ten eggs cost around 6,000 won. Even that is roughly twice as expensive as what I remember.
Still, compared to other countries, Korea has it relatively good.
"You're part of the Geumyang Group owner family, aren't you?"
"That's exactly why I can use eggs for training."
Using eggs for training isn't a problem at all. It's not playing around with food—it's training.
"Watch closely."
After speaking, I cracked the egg I was holding into a bowl. Inside the shell, the yolk and white were completely mixed together, turned a uniform yellow.
"Internal destruction technique?"
"That's what some people call it."
Using mana to destroy only the contents inside without damaging the eggshell.
"But just smashing the inside isn't enough. Anyone who can handle mana a bit can do that."
"I agree."
Han Sang-ah herself could probably burst the yolk without damaging the shell right now.
But that's not what I want.
"Stir the inside so thoroughly that you could make a rolled omelet the moment you crack it open."
"That sounds difficult."
"That's why it's training."
Han Sang-ah's expression burned with competitiveness. She really is easy to read.
"Let me say this in advance—this isn't a technique I'm teaching you to use in actual combat."
Unless it's a very special situation, using this in real combat would be inefficient.
In piano terms, it's a practice exercise. Like playing Hanon in front of competition judges and expecting to win a prize.
"Practice controlling your mana, and in real combat, use the techniques you've honed for real fights."
"Understood."
While talking with Han Sang-ah and scanning the surroundings, I suddenly froze and immediately grabbed my radio.
"This is Yoo Chan-seok. I just saw a cigarette light to the northwest."
— A cigarette? That means there are people nearby?
At that, I recalled the contents of the meeting held at the air force base and replied.
"Haven't we just arrived near Khabarovsk?"
— Yeah, that's possible.
The meeting naturally included discussions of potential threats we might encounter. The Khabarovsk region is known to be controlled by an armed crime syndicate called Nikolai.
— Obstacle detected ahead. Decelerating!
The train's speed slowly drops. In the brief moment I turn my gaze, I see massive boulders—easily hundreds of tons—piled up like a mountain, completely blocking the tracks. To make matters worse, they've been drenched in oil and set on fire, making them hard to remove quickly.
— Don't slow down. I'll take care of—
Lee Se-eun's voice came through the radio. At that moment, an enormous surge of mana churned on the horizon.
"Damn it."
Even just looking at it made my head spin. That mana was targeting the speeding train.
— Cancel that. Slow the train down!
It was Lee Se-eun again. At the same time, a massive mass of incandescent light blasted toward the train from beyond the horizon.
But the beam never struck the train. A single person slipped in between the incoming light and the train.
Lee Se-eun.
I saw her swing the sword she held with both hands, and the light—large enough to erase the train without a trace in a single hit—was deflected straight up into the sky.
"Hey… that doesn't look human."
She deflected that? What she just repelled wasn't something anyone could handle. And Lee Se-eun batted away that terrifying mana cannon like it was a ping-pong ball.
Was she ranked tenth? Well, she'd have to be at least that strong to place among the top ten hunters out of so many.
It was awe-inspiring. The beam, sharply redirected upward, exploded in the sky, turning the dark night as bright as day for a moment.
"There must be hundreds of them."
Illuminated by that sudden light, figures hidden in the darkness were revealed—hundreds of armed humans charging toward the slowing train.
The moment they were exposed, they rushed the train with bizarre horn blasts, accompanied by a song echoing across the night.
"What song is that?"
At my question, Han Sang-ah answered.
"It's a Soviet military song from the Cold War era. The lyrics right now are… 'If the enemy dares to test our strength, make him forever abandon the thought of testing us.'"
"Bunch of lunatics."
Lunatics here, lunatics there. The world's crawling with them.
In any case, the train had no choice but to slow down. And a train this long takes time to accelerate again once it decelerates.
"At least Lee Se-eun can move freely now…"
If the train stops, the track repair crews will immediately retreat into panic rooms, and Lee Se-eun will be able to act. One of the hunters, who had just resumed preparing for battle, muttered that.
At that moment, hundreds of sheets of paper suddenly appeared around Lee Se-eun's body, linking together with purple lines.
"Talismans?"
I immediately understood their purpose. In crude terms, someone had stuffed Lee Se-eun into a box. More elegantly put—a seal.
No one could approach Lee Se-eun, and she couldn't get out until she broke the seal herself.
"How is it this fast?!"
Creating a strong, durable seal is difficult enough. But what was even more shocking was the speed.
Fast enough that she couldn't avoid it at all. This was bad. Things were about to get complicated.