Chapter 123

What answered him was a heart-wrenching roar, along with the miserable screams from outside.

Hels could not hear what Ben Yian was saying. In his eyes, there was only Horne, only the knives they thrust toward him, and Horne’s agonized screams and expressions.

“Aaahhh—”

“Ugh!!!” Blood splashed in his eyes, and the pale, twisted expression of the man outside hurt more than being stabbed to death himself.

They were killing Horne!

Thud!

Thud!

Hels nearly lost all consciousness. He could only watch wide-eyed as Horne was stabbed repeatedly by those people outside. He rammed against the glass—first with his arms, then with his head. Blood covered his face, but he kept smashing, never stopping for a moment.

That man’s screams were like an impossibly sharp knife, cleaving him into countless pieces.

Better to die.

He wanted Ben Yian dead!

Thud!

Thud thud!

In a blank haze of consciousness, Hels roared hoarsely as he watched until the blood-soaked man in the chair shouted his name.

Hels did not know how to respond. He only hated his own powerlessness, his own weakness.

Such hatred, such hatred.

“Aaahhh! H-Hels, ahh—save…”

Horne! Hels closed his eyes and smashed his head against the unyielding glass again and again.

Thud, thud—thud—

Thud, thud—thud—

He watched the person he loved most get killed right in front of him. His body was pierced by knives, blood spraying everywhere. He watched as Horne went from gritting his teeth to convulsing uncontrollably, his voice growing fainter, his struggles fading to nothing.

He watched Horne gasp his last breaths, eyes still open and unyielding, until he moved no more.

“Horne!!!”

Hels let out his first guttural roar in months.

Crack!!

Boom—!!

The load-bearing structure on the right side of the control tower exploded. Screams and footsteps were buried under massive stones and rebar, splattering chunks of flesh and tissue everywhere.

Ten seconds.

Dead silence.

Except for Hels’s soft murmurs.

“Horne, Horne? Wake up.” Hels knelt in front of the chair, blood soaking his pants. He half-pulled the slumped figure on the chair into his arms.

His fingers trembled as they gently stroked Horne’s face. His voice trembled too, but he never dared call out too loudly.

“Horne, I’m here. I’m right here. Can you say something?”

Horne’s face was deathly pale, his head tilted, resting against the chest pounding fiercely with a heartbeat. His eyes stayed open, staring blankly at some point, giving no response.

The blood on his body was still warm, and the blood on the ground still flowed, but the man in his arms said nothing, as if the knife in his chest had sealed off his life.

Hels did not dare move or pull it out, afraid that any motion would make more blood flow.

“Horne, please, don’t do this. Look at me, just look at me, okay?”

Horne had never been this indifferent before. Even when angry, he would respond somehow, but now there was nothing.

Hels pushed Horne away slightly and cradled his cheeks with filthy hands, trying to make those ever-open eyes meet his own. But those ice-blue pupils, once gentle or fierce, now gazed blankly past him to some nonexistent place, filled with resolute pain.

Blood covered Horne’s face. Hels wiped at it with his sleeve—smear after smear, making it dirtier and dirtier. The dirtier it got, the more frantically he wiped, until he felt suffocated. In the end, Hels’s arm muscles twitched uncontrollably.

Why won’t you speak? Not even willing to respond to me?

“Horne, don’t do this. I’m scared. Don’t do this,” Hels said as he wiped over and over, keeping his voice low and suppressing the tremors. But fear still spilled from his eyes. “Yell at me, ignore me, whatever—just not like this. Please.”

The belief of his life, his faith, the hope that kept him alive—he could not accept its loss.

“Horne, Colonel, look at me.” Hels leaned forward, forehead against the cold one. One hand still cradled Horne’s face while the palm of the other rubbed frantically at his own heart.

Ripping pain spread from his shuddering heart. He trembled, barely able to support Horne’s body.

His body dissociated. Particles wrapped around and surged into the holes stabbed through Horne’s body.

He was bleeding, too much blood loss. If the bleeding stopped, would he wake up?

“Horne, Horne, no more bleeding. It’ll be fine soon.”

More and more particles dissociated. The knife in his chest fell with a crisp metallic clink. Countless particles immediately adhered to the wounds, a dense black mass covering Horne entirely.

No matter how much it covered, there was still no sign of response. Hels placed his hand on Horne’s chest too, but felt nothing—no heartbeat that had steadfastly been by his side every night.

Particles could fill all the holes in Horne’s body, seal the gaps in his heart, but they could not make that heart beat again.

It grew colder and colder. Horne’s body grew colder, the temperature dropping. He did not know when the bombardment and fighting outside had stopped.

When Hels looked out again, he saw only the howling cold winds of the Frost Plains, the deep night sky, and the twinkling starry river. It was the same starry sky as when they had cuddled on the rooftop watching the aurora—still so brilliant. Now there were only human whimpers and the eternal lament of the universe.

A long, long time passed. Hels slumped exhausted amid the ruins, leaning against a wall with no expression on his face. His hand mechanically stroked the skin of the person in his arms, like caressing a rigid block of ice. That person leaned against him, more obedient than in all the years past—no gentleness, no smiles, no kind intentions, but also no coldness, no anger, no blame.

Just silence. And Hels was silent too, staring at the black-red blood and corpses everywhere as they sat amid the mutilated stench.

He had always thought that if anyone died, it would be him first… He had never considered how he would live if there was no more Horne in the world.

“It’s okay, Horne. I’ll take you home.” Hels pressed his lips to Horne’s hair, his voice gentle as if afraid to disturb his peaceful sleep.

He carried Horne’s body home, discarded the black prison uniform, and slowly washed the filth and blood from his body.

“Won’t be cold, right?” Hels gazed at Horne’s closed eyes. With no response, he assumed the water temperature was fine.

The body was no longer its familiar softness. Repositioning it was harder than usual, but Hels took his time. His hands and the clean water passed over every inch of skin, even avoiding the wounds.

The bathroom floor was a black-red mess.

After drying him, Hels solemnly carried Horne back to bed, as if he had merely fallen asleep from exhaustion.

“Haven’t rested well in a long time? Prison must have been rough, huh?” Hels knelt by the bed, draped over the edge with his head tilted, staring motionlessly at Horne. “They shouldn’t have treated you like that.”

His fingertips rubbed over the slightly stiff skin, his voice always gentle.

“I’ll find some books for you again, okay? We’ll read together tomorrow night.

“Sorry, I… I was too weak. But I can protect you now.

“I can dissociate. If you don’t hate me… even as an alien, I’ll protect you.”

Hels’s voice grew smaller and smaller. He felt very sleepy, but he lay there on his side, unwilling to close his eyes. He hoped that when he opened them, those emotionless eyes would be gazing at him, coldly saying, “What are you doing sprawled here?”

“Waiting for you to wake up,” Hels murmured to himself.

Horne might turn over helplessly, back facing him, his lazy voice drifting from the other side. “Oh, come up and sleep a bit more.”

“Don’t want to sleep.”

Horne would ask puzzledly, “Why?”

“Because…”

Sleep brought dreams, and dreams led to waking.

“See you tomorrow, okay?”

Hels did not remember how many “tomorrows” he spent like this, or how many times he wiped Horne’s face. The third? The fifth? Maybe he never did. Each time, he dreamed of wiping, only to start over upon waking.

Particles gradually covered Horne’s body to slow the emerging corpse spots. The man on the bed never spoke, from start to finish.

Hels always forgot the time. He tried setting timers to help clean Horne, but each time he looked up, the hour and minute hands were in the same position.

Maybe the watch was broken. Or maybe he was. Time was rotting, and so was he.

He stored Horne’s silver service pistol in his own inventory.

Aliens continued circling over Loch City. They sometimes attacked humans when spotted, sometimes did not. Humans hid in their homes waiting to die. The Military District still resisted, but with little success—as if the aliens swarmed endlessly, replaced instantly upon each kill.

Among the vast numbers of aliens, one began slaughtering the Military District and government people day and night nonstop. Human laser cannons were useless against it—it could dissociate instantly, flee to safety, and reform immediately, unbound by the ten-second limit. People thought the rampaging killer was not the same one each time.

It did not stop there.

A Falcon flew through the air, laser bullets precisely sweeping at oncoming aliens.

This was a week after Bai Yin had begun his high-intensity resistance, but as the day neared its end, he witnessed something unbelievable: an alien flew into the sky, charging straight at another alien. The weaker one dissociated instantly upon collision.

That alien proceeded to slaughter dozens, even hundreds, of others in midair.

Was it protecting humans?

As Bai Yin puzzled over that alien’s allegiance, it grabbed a shooting soldier and dove, blood splattering.

No—that alien attacked humans and aliens indiscriminately.

Even more unbelievable, Bai Yin fired countless laser cannon shots at it, but it always dissociated instantly and vanished from sight.

To evade it temporarily and seek countermeasures, Bai Yin circled to the North City Gate of Loch City. He glanced down inadvertently and suddenly held his breath.

A corpse hung high above the city gate.

In the past few days, mutilated corpses had been everywhere in Loch City. Most were bloody, mangled messes of flesh and mud, but this one was extremely eerie.

That person’s face looked familiar. The body had been split into four parts, cleaved straight down the middle before being forcibly pieced back together. The internal organs had all been pulled out and stuck to the surface of the skin. The heart was stuffed in the mouth, and the intestines were tied around the organs and severed limbs like ropes, resembling some kind of exhibit. It simply hung there, swaying in the wind of the Snowfield and the blasts of cannon fire.

–

——To one’s comrades, leave some leeway; to oneself, know the height of the heavens and the thickness of the earth.

What was leeway? What was the height of the heavens and the thickness of the earth?

The aliens would perish, and humans too.

–