When the massive missile reached the island’s outskirts, a huge red circle took shape from that point.

And that circle—

KWA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-ANG!!!

Expanded at a terrifying speed, swallowing everything around it.

Overwhelming heat, enough to surpass even the sun.

Not just the trees in the forest, but even the hard earth and the concrete buildings nearby—

...without leaving behind even the smallest speck of ash.

Everything within that vast space, stretching two kilometers in [N O V E L I G H T] radius, vanished from this world without a trace.

The explosion happened on the island’s outskirts, where there were no people.

No one was caught in that annihilation.

But... that was not good news.

PAAAAAAAAANG!!!

A massive shockwave erupted with the blast.

Everything around the hypocenter shattered like toys under the impact.

Even huge, solid-looking buildings were blown apart in every direction, leaving behind little more than exposed steel frames.

Whoosh...

Near the island, a colossal mass of plasma had formed, greater even than the sun.

Even the heat from that mere afterglow far exceeded what any ordinary person could imagine.

Every forest spread across the island burst into flames.

Mountains and woods burned, and black smoke shot into the sky.

A little while later.

The huge red plasma that had risen from the hypocenter disappeared.

And in its place settled an enormous cloud of smoke.

...The culmination of the technology humanity had built up over long years.

And the culmination of violence.

A shape that, before anyone realized it, had come to symbolize mankind’s ruin and downfall.

A gigantic mushroom cloud rose above the island.

Even the brilliant sun that had been shining so brightly was hidden behind that massive cloud.

And... in the middle of the island.

A deep darkness settled in.

***

“Cough... guh.”

“It hurts. It hurts...”

The huge red light blooming in the distance.

That explosion, which had happened at least dozens of kilometers away from them, brought down countless buildings with nothing but the shockwave, little more than the leftovers of the blast.

“Ghk...”

The man commanding the awakened.

Wei gritted his teeth, opened his eyes, and looked around.

His vision wavered in a blur, and a shrill ringing filled his ears.

He could not see anything clearly.

Nor could he properly hear what was around him.

Even so.

Wei could see and hear.

“Ah, ahhh...”

Pain and screams.

The disaster filling the area was something he could feel with his own skin.

“Kh...”

Wei looked down at his abdomen.

Part of the building had collapsed from the shockwave, and he himself had been thrown back.

As a result.

A steel rebar from the wreckage had punched through and was sticking into his stomach.

“Ghk... aaagh!”

Grinding his teeth, he forced strength through his whole body, yanked the rebar out, and rose to his feet.

“Guh... khk, ngh...”

His vision blurred from the pain, and it felt like he might lose consciousness at any moment.

Even so, he clenched his teeth, forced himself upright, and shouted.

“Everyone, calm down!”

If they had been ordinary humans, merely being caught up in that would have been enough to kill them.

But.

They were not ordinary humans.

“You’re awakened!”

“Hhk... hhk...”

And it was true.

The shockwave had been powerful, but the abilities of the awakened were beyond the bounds of humanity.

“If you get ahold of yourselves and focus... this alone won’t kill you!”

There were many with serious injuries.

But there were few whose wounds were severe enough to be fatal.

“Check the wounded... but if your injuries aren’t critical, pick up your weapons!”

It hurt like hell.

But if they weren’t dead yet, then they still had something to do.

“The air raid isn’t over...”

Papapapapapabang...

Even after that huge blast.

Missiles were still pouring down toward them.

***

Maybe the other side had not brought every last gun and launcher from the mainland after all.

Compared to the beginning, their numbers had decreased.

But it was still a tremendous amount of firepower.

“No matter what... we have to stop them!”

At Wei’s shout, the awakened, who had been groaning in pain, gritted their teeth and forced themselves back to their feet.

Even while rotten blood ran from their mouths,

Paaah...

they gathered mana in their hands and responded to the bombardment falling down on them.

Kwaang, pu-bubung...

Thanks to that, they barely managed to block the bombardment raining down on their position.

But... only that much.

“The power plant...”

In the power plant that had barely survived only because it was far from the hypocenter, a massive explosion went up.

“And even the food stores...”

The food that had made it possible for them to hold out on this island.

A single missile was turning it into a mound of ash.

And.

That was not all.

“Ghk... kh...”

One of the awakened who had been gritting through the pain and intercepting the bombardment looked down at one arm with tears streaming down the face.

The arm had heated up from the tremendous heat around them.

That burn alone would have been devastating.

But to the awakened, that was not what mattered.

What mattered more was...something they could feel even though they could not see it.

“Ahh, ah...”

Because the awakened possessed not only physical abilities beyond human limits, but also heightened senses, they could tell.

“Please... get out...”

Something was pouring out from the center of that explosion.

The finest product of humanity’s long accumulation of research.

And... the result of vast malice meant to kill countless members of its own kind.

“Don’t... come into my body...”

Dense radiation, something no shield could block, was vividly felt piercing their skin and burrowing into them.

‘It’s spreading.’

Dense radiation spreading across the whole island.

Everyone who felt it invading their bodies became certain.

Even if they somehow survived this moment, there was no way to know whether they could survive afterward.

And also.

‘...No one can live on this island anymore.’

The safe territory they had built had become land no human being could live on any longer.

“...Hup!”

Even as they fired their guns, tears streamed down their faces.

Even as they clenched their teeth and cast magic, they could not suppress their groans of pain.

The future before them had gone dark.

Even so, not a single one of them wanted to die right then and there.

Their lives might have been cut down to only a few weeks because of that radiation.

But to win even that much life, people struggled with everything they had.

But...even that resistance did not last long.

“That’s...”

Wei, moving frantically, directing the surviving awakened and rescuing those trapped under collapsed buildings, noticed something approaching in the distance.

Unfortunately for him.

It was not an unfamiliar sight.

“With one shot...”

A missile even larger than the others.

Its grotesque form was plastered with black specks, like barnacles stuck all over it.

“So it wasn’t over...?”

Even those who had been fighting to claw out even a short life for themselves felt the faint resistance still left in them gutter out at the sight.

Even the last nuclear weapon, the one that had fallen on the outskirts, had driven them to the brink of annihilation.

And now this missile approaching them, as if it knew exactly what state they were in, was aimed near the central area where people were gathered.

If they had still had enough firepower, maybe it would have been different.

But with so many badly wounded, their interception firepower had been reduced to less than a tenth of what it had been before.

And.

At that moment.

Piiiii...

Wei, focused on what was in front of him, suddenly felt the scenery around him change drastically.

The pupils in his narrowed eyes widened sharply, trying to gather what little light remained and restore his dimmed sight.

‘It got darker.’

Startled, Wei turned around.

And only then did he realize.

‘Ah.’

That brilliant light that had protected them from the vampires.

The light that had still been shining on them even during the bombardment.

The light that, even while hidden behind the giant mushroom cloud, had still poured outward and kept the vampires beyond the island from approaching.

Their guardian god.

‘It’s over.’

The sun was gone.

A deep darkness settled over their heads.

***

KWAAAAAANG!!!

“Kh...”

The shock from the explosion in the distance hurled my body violently through the air.

I barely managed to roll across the ground in a breakfall posture as I thought,

‘Damn it...’

I’d been intercepting the air raid in my own way through the [Assistant Chef]s.

But I couldn’t respond to that missile.

‘If Suhyeok had been here...’

My class was chef.

I didn’t have the kind of power that could intercept an attack falling from that far away.

After rolling a long way and pushing myself back up, I steadied my mind and looked around.

“...”

The first thing I saw was the mushroom-shaped cloud towering high in the distance.

And at that moment.

-My lord, are you there?

A voice coming from inside the building at the island’s center.

Karhin’s uneasy voice pierced my ears.

-What in the world was that explosion just now? I have never felt such a massive shock in all my life.

“...”

-What in the world is happening outside? Are my people holding it back...?

At that voice soaked in fear, I hesitated for a moment, then opened my mouth.

“I’d like to lie and say they’re holding it just fine... but you know it too.”

-...

“Come out and see for yourself. The sunlight’s blocked by that cloud now anyway.”

At my words, Karhin, who had been hiding inside the building, cautiously stepped outside.

And then.

-Ah, ahhh...

He looked down at the island’s scenery and let out a scream with tears streaming down his face.

A building built on the island’s very center, atop its tallest mountain.

From here, the island was visible far too clearly.

All the major facilities had been destroyed, the entire island was burning, and bombardment was even falling where people were.

“This won’t hold.”

-Ahh...

When I said that, Karhin’s body, overcome with despair, crumpled to the ground.

“...”

And.

I glanced at him, then stooped—

picked up my knife scattered on the floor, and started checking the condition of my body.

-What... are you doing?

“What does it look like?”

Karhin, staring at me in a daze, asked that question.

I answered like he had asked the obvious.

“I’m going to save people.”

-Save... them?

“First, I pull out the injured.”

After that.

“We get off this island.”

-...!

At that, Karhin’s face was swallowed by shock.

-You mean to escape the island?!

“What choice do we have? Doesn’t look like we can hold out here any longer.”

-Everything beyond this island is Melchiorn territory. If you go out there, you’ll only become prey for the Grand Duke!

“Yeah, probably.”

Until now, it had been a sanctuary the vampires couldn’t invade.

But now the island had become a burning ruin under that saturation fire.

No one was going to survive on this island anymore.

Besides.

‘...Even if we get off the island, the problems don’t stop at one or two.’

The radiation spreading out had already burrowed into people’s bodies.

No matter how exceptional the awakened’s physical abilities were, they wouldn’t be completely free from its effects.

But even so.

“It still gives us better odds than staying here.”

-...

At my words, Karhin muttered in a dazed voice.

-You still have not given up?

“Hm? Of course not.”

-Even after coming this far... you still think there is a way to survive...?

“I told you.”

This wasn’t about whether it was possible or impossible.

What always mattered was—

“whether there’s a way or not, what matters is doing it.”

Not whether it can be done.

Whether it has to be done.

That was all.

-...

Whatever he took that to mean, Karhin just stared at me blankly, mouth slightly open.

“Keep that sun up as long as you can. Then I’ll figure out—”

I turned my eyes away from him and looked into the distance with weapons in both hands.

But then.

“...Good God.”

Far away.

I spotted something.

Another nuclear missile.

Covered in vampires.

‘One wasn’t all they had?’

The instant I saw it, my mind started racing.

‘How do I stop that?’

‘If I feed the people below on the island right now, can they intercept it?’

‘But... they’d be dishes made with ingredients that don’t have mana. They wouldn’t be useless, but enough to stop that...? No way.’

‘Do I use that? But if I use it, then my next move...’

It was only a brief instant.

But every possible option flashed through my head once and was discarded.

And then.

-That blood scent is drawing near.

Karhin, collapsed on the floor, muttered blankly.

-It was like this earlier as well. I thought that hateful blood scent was drawing close, and then I felt that enormous explosion. An explosion so vast and terrifying it was hard to believe such immense power could exist.

“...Yeah. Not something to brag about, but it’s the purest essence of violence humanity ever created. The heat at the hypocenter burns hotter than the sun.”

-Hotter than... the sun.

“Yeah. If it goes off nearby, even you won’t leave a trace behind.”

-I see.

Then.

Karhin carefully rose to his feet and said,

-Last time, I heard that in your homeland, you were the leader of a great group.

“...”

-From what I can see, I can still smell the blood of the bloodline on you... but at least to others, you seem no different from a human. So perhaps that was true.

He looked at my face.

Then turned his gaze toward the distance.

“More important than whether it’s possible or not... is whether it must be done...”

“You...”

-Yes... that must be it.

And then.

As if he had made some kind of decision—

-If I enter Melchiorn territory, I will no longer be able to raise the sun. I am a body that can do nothing but burn in my own sun. I cannot wander while being pursued by Melchiorn.

“Wait.”

-So.

Whoosh.

The great fire that had lit the island went out.

-I leave the escape to you.

Across the middle of the dark island, now stripped of sunlight, a figure with red eyes cut through the darkness.