Chapter 615

“Keugh!”

“Ack!”

Desperate screams rang out from all around.

Blood flowed like a river, and countless corpses were piled up in layers, forming a small hill.

At the center of it all stood a middle-aged man.

He had a neatly groomed mustache.

With deeply sunken eyes, he stared at those dying before him.

They were all people connected to him.

Friends, subordinates—every single one tied to him was being slaughtered in one place.

The state of the dying was truly horrific.

Bones were broken, bodies crushed to the point they were no longer recognizable.

It was as if they had been put into a massive press and ground down.

The man’s gaze shifted to the one responsible for this massacre.

Another middle-aged man, dressed in a perfectly fitted suit.

In his hand was a cane embedded with a blue gem, reminiscent of a gentleman from long-fallen Britain.

Despite causing such a horrific scene, a faint smile lingered on his lips.

His name was Grain.

The second-in-command of Numbers and the ruler of gravity—he was the one who had brought about this disaster.

The man glared at Grain as if he wanted to devour him.

“Grain! Why… why did you kill all my people?”

“You’re not asking because you don’t know, are you?”

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

“My, my. After serving as a high-ranking official at City Hall for so long, it seems you’ve picked up some bad habits.”

“Grain! I will never let this go. I’ll report this to the Mayor and have you punished.”

“Oh? You’ve properly equipped yourself with denial and shameless deflection. A public official should indeed have such skills.”

“Do not insult me.”

“Then why did you distribute drugs?”

“What?”

“I doubt you were given portal administrator authority to distribute drugs.”

“How do you—?”

The middle-aged man’s eyes shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck.

Grain casually twirled his cane with the blue gem and approached him.

“You were involved quite deeply. Head of Audit, Director of Facility Management, External Workforce Team Leader. And even mid-level officials from the East, South, and North Districts. When did you build such connections to pull this off?”

“……”

The man’s eyes trembled.

His name was Jo Chung-wan.

He was the head of the finance team at City Hall.

Known for his sharp mind with numbers and his integrity, he was highly valued within City Hall.

In terms of authority alone, he rivaled even Secretary Seo Taeran.

That was how much power he held.

When the portals opened, he was promoted to head of the management team, and his influence grew even further.

But none of that power worked against the man standing before him.

The subordinates who usually protected him, and even the Awakened he had hired for large sums of money, all died within ten seconds under Grain’s gravity attack.

Grain had merely flicked a finger once, and when Jo Chung-wan came to his senses, everyone except himself had been crushed like flies.

The scene was so horrific that he could barely keep his sanity. Clinging desperately to his fading consciousness, he shouted,

“Ev-evidence! Do you have evidence? To do something like this without any proof—do you think you’ll get away with it, even as a member of Numbers?”

“Wow. As expected of an educated man, your choice of words is refined. Evidence, you say? But you see, I don’t need evidence.”

“What?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, another name for Numbers is the execution unit. If someone is harmful to City Hall or Neo Seoul, we have the authority to execute them without any evidence.”

Grain smiled faintly and flicked his finger.

Kuuung!

In that instant, Jo Chung-wan felt an immense pressure crush down on him.

Grain’s skill—gravity increase—had activated.

Crack!

Unable to withstand the pressure, Jo Chung-wan’s kneecaps shattered, and he collapsed.

“AAAAARGH!”

He screamed in agony.

Grain looked down at him with disdain.

“So why did you do it? For a bit of money, you spread drugs throughout Neo Seoul.”

“I was wrong. Please, just spare my life.”

Jo Chung-wan begged, tears and snot running down his face, but Grain’s gaze remained cold.

“Pathetic worm. Even now, you still want to live.”

“If you spare me, I’ll do anything.”

“Sorry, but you’re dying here today. That won’t change.”

“Then I won’t say anything.”

“Suit yourself. But remember this—if you say nothing, your family will be exiled to the desert.”

“You bastard! You’d touch my family? And you call yourself human?”

“You still don’t get it.”

In that moment, Grain’s eyes turned chilling.

The smile vanished completely from his face.

Crack!

“GAAAH!”

Jo Chung-wan clutched his right hand and screamed like a beast.

All the fingers on his right hand had been bent in the opposite direction.

Grain had snapped them.

Jo Chung-wan had driven countless people into ruin.

He had never shown mercy to those who opposed him.

Instead, he dealt with them in the cruelest ways possible.

Using underworld figures like Teddy, he fed his enemies to magic beasts or used them as prey in arenas.

And yet, he had never exposed his identity.

From the shadows, he ruled over countless people.

That fear had been the source of his power.

And now, that same man looked at Grain with eyes full of terror.

Just five broken fingers—and yet he felt overwhelming fear toward Grain.

Grain’s eyes darkened as he looked at him.

“When you make others suffer, why don’t you realize that someday, you might suffer too? Jo Chung-wan, it’s only five fingers. You still have plenty of bones left to break—don’t be so afraid already.”

“You bastard! Just kill me. Kill me!”

Jo Chung-wan shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to shake off his fear.

“That’s more like it. You should struggle like that—it makes punishment more enjoyable.”

“Fuck you! Just because you got lucky and gained power, you act so high and mighty. You’ll die miserably someday too.”

“Too bad. You won’t live to see that.”

“Damn it! What are you going to do?”

“This.”

Grain focused gravity onto Jo Chung-wan.

It wasn’t strong enough to kill him instantly.

Rather, it was pitifully weak.

Not strong enough to kill, but not weak enough to escape.

For Grain, it wasn’t even worth a yawn. But for Jo Chung-wan, exposed to it directly, it was unbearable.

Creeeak!

Under the concentrated gravity, his lungs slowly compressed, and cracks formed in his bones.

It would have been better to die instantly, but Grain cruelly denied him that mercy.

He applied just enough force for Jo Chung-wan to barely endure.

“Ughhh…!”

Jo Chung-wan’s face twisted grotesquely.

Veins bulged across his forehead and body as he struggled against the pressure.

Crack!

At that moment, he heard something break inside his body.

It didn’t take long to realize—it was his ribs snapping.

Then Grain’s voice followed.

“The human body has over two hundred bones. From now on, you’ll hear more than two hundred breaking sounds… the sound of your bones shattering.”

‘N-no!’

Jo Chung-wan screamed internally.

Crack! Crack!

The sounds of bones breaking echoed continuously from within his body.

What made it unbearable was that he felt every bit of the pain vividly.

He couldn’t even scream freely—Grain denied him even that mercy.

His jaw shattered like a biscuit, leaving him unable to move it.

Then his spine broke, one segment at a time.

Even when his pelvis and leg bones were completely crushed, Jo Chung-wan was still alive.

Only after his neck and skull shattered did he finally stop feeling pain.

And just like that, his life ended.

Grain looked down at him indifferently, then suddenly showed a troubled expression.

“Ah… I was so pissed I forgot to ask for the names of the others involved. That woman’s going to nag me again.”

Even Grain, known as the ruler of gravity, feared Seo Taeran.

He was nothing more than the blade she wielded.

And right now, she was dancing with that blade—Numbers.

At this very moment, scenes like this were unfolding all across Neo Seoul.

In a single night, Seo Taeran identified everyone connected to the drugs.

Then she unleashed Numbers.

East District, West District—it didn’t matter.

She even issued a warning to the rulers of each district:

If you won’t help, then don’t interfere.

Interfere, and you’ll never use the portals again.

Her threat worked perfectly.

Normally, the rulers would have personally dealt with those involved in drug crimes within their territories.

Having Numbers run rampant in their domain would damage their authority.

But this time, they couldn’t step forward.

That was how intense the atmosphere around Seo Taeran and Numbers was.

In a single night, hundreds of people were killed.

No trials. No procedures.

Anyone even slightly connected to the incident was executed by Numbers.

What was truly frightening was that despite so many deaths, Neo Seoul remained quiet.

No one objected. No one criticized Numbers’ actions.

Rather, they supported City Hall’s purge.

Neo Seoul had just entered a new phase thanks to the connection between the Steel Fortress and the magic stone mine.

After so long, vitality had finally returned.

No one wanted that atmosphere ruined by drug addicts.

---

“Haah! Haah!”

Under the blazing sun, a man ran across the desert.

His name was Adam Brine.

He looked completely human, but elven blood flowed through his veins.

A quarter-elf.

Only a fourth of his blood was elven.

Because of that, he had faced heavy discrimination in the North District.

There, those with diluted elven blood were rarely given opportunities.

Adam was no exception.

After immense effort, the position he obtained was merely a member of a dungeon raid team in the North District.

Not a leader—just a member.

That was his limit.

His team consisted entirely of elves.

As someone not fully elven, the discrimination he faced was beyond words.

Still, Adam endured.

Believing that someday, an opportunity would come.

And as if by fate, it did.

He obtained a cursed grimoire in a dungeon they were raiding.

A book written by a curse mage of Kurayan.

There was no need to memorize or study.

The moment he opened it, all the knowledge was forcibly engraved into his mind.

Thus, Adam was reborn as a curse mage.

The first technique that came to him was the method of manufacturing drugs using the scent glands of the spike mole.

Drugs could serve as an excellent medium for curses.

From that moment, Adam used his position to recruit allies.

Being a mere member of a raid team might seem insignificant, but to outsiders, it carried credibility.

He exploited that psychology, building connections and turning them into his network.

And thus, the drug organization Illusion was born.

When he finally established Illusion, fortune smiled upon him again—the portals opened in Neo Seoul.

A stable supply route for spike moles had been secured.

He believed the heavens were helping him.

His business expanded rapidly, and he amassed enormous wealth.

At this rate, he thought he would soon rise to a high position in the North District.

He even dreamed of overthrowing Queen Serian and taking her place.

But that dream was shattered.

By the cursed Numbers.

“Hide well, hide well, or your hair will show.”

From afar, someone hummed a tune as they chased after him.

The man walking with flowing blue hair like water—his name was Choi Sung-ho.

A member of Numbers.