“Cough, cough!”

He’d inhaled a lungful of dust, and his throat was raw. He could faintly taste blood, and he scowled as he surveyed his surroundings. He’d managed to deploy a skill just before the concrete crushed him, avoiding being flattened, but his situation was far from good.

He was surrounded by a tomb of debris, and he couldn’t sense his companions anywhere. There were three possibilities: they were too far away to detect, they were dead, or the sheer mass of concrete was blocking his senses.

This is a mess.

It would have been much simpler if they were all trapped together. Being isolated like this made it difficult to act decisively. He was in a cramped space, not even a few square meters, and trying to expand it could easily trigger a secondary collapse. He might save himself, but he couldn’t guarantee the lives of his team.

The helplessness of the situation was infuriating. His simmering rage turned on the bastards who had blown up a perfectly good building.

Goddamn sons of bitches.

Treacherous? Look who’s talking.

The irony was laughable. He had expected they would try to steal the Desert’s Punishment if they lost the auction, but he never imagined they would resort to burying their own guild members along with it. He’d assumed they would risk their lives to secure the artifact for Dern’s sake, but it was the exact opposite. His fatal mistake was underestimating just how valuable the artifact was to them; he never thought they would be willing to abandon it.

They must have been truly desperate.

It was a choice that screamed their fear of him surviving and dismantling their organization. Sa-yoon sneered at the thought and looked down. A hand was sticking out from beneath a pile of rubble—the corpse of a Scorpion member, though it was impossible to tell if he’d been killed by the blast or the collapse.

Staring at the mangled hand sent a chill down his spine. It wasn’t his first time seeing a dead body, not by a long shot, but a wave of nausea rolled through him. Something felt terribly wrong.

This is bad.

He had a bad feeling about this. First, he had to find Han Geon-joo, Lee Jaehee, Han Gyeongjin, and Yen. Then they had to get out of here, but…

“…Even if we get out, they’ll have the place surrounded.”

Shit.

Sa-yoon ran a hand roughly through his hair. It was one damn thing after another. This time, Scorpion would have surely brought their executives. To avoid fighting them in a state of exhaustion, it was crucial to escape the building using the least amount of energy possible.

He waved a hand to clear the dust and cleared his throat. He’d never been caught in a building collapse before, but he was sure he wouldn’t die. Gyeongjin, the weakest of the group, was the most vulnerable, but Jaehee was with him and would have done something. Yen was the type to survive no matter what. And so was Han Geon-joo. Still, his heart wouldn’t stop hammering in his chest, so much so that he wondered if he was having a delayed reaction to the poison.

“Han Geon-joo!”

He called his name first, then cursed himself and checked their Pairing.[^1] The silver ring showed no markings. The absence of a notification warning him of his partner’s danger could mean he was alive, but he couldn’t rule out the other possibility.

After all, instant death didn’t trigger an alert.

“Han Geon-joo!”

Sa-yoon started moving.

If only he would answer, he could breathe again, but the suffocating silence was tightening its grip.

After I tried so hard to protect you, what if I lost you?

What if I’ve lost you?

It felt as if his heart was being squeezed between two palms, crushed until it burst. The feeling persisted. As he clawed at the concrete, which had turned to a wall of ice, Sa-yoon clenched his fist and called his name one more time. The suffocation intensified. It wasn’t just a feeling. It was becoming physically difficult to breathe.

“Ah.”

Shit, oxygen.

Being an Awakened meant he wouldn’t die from a few minutes without air, but more than ten minutes would be dangerous. He was an Awakened, but he was still human.

On top of having to move with extreme caution, he was now on a timer. His life was already a disaster movie; he didn’t think there was room for another sequel. A bitter laugh escaped him, and he bit down on his lip. His eyes darted around, his mind racing. Just as he was trying to figure out what to do, thump! a sound echoed from a nearby wall.

“Hyungnim? Are you in there?”

It was Gyeongjin’s voice.

“Han Gyeongjin!”

He scrambled towards the sound, shouting his name. He could faintly hear someone murmuring on the other side. Gyeongjin kept hitting the wall, but it was clear his strength alone wasn’t enough. Sa-yoon drew his blade and began to chip away at the concrete.

He could have hammered at it, but the shockwaves would be too great. Unless he froze the entire building solid, he couldn’t avoid the risk of another collapse. It was better to freeze only the immediate area and carve his way through.

With each swing, he scraped away a chunk of the wall. By the time beads of cold sweat were forming on his forehead, loose stones began to fall from the wall, and a small hole appeared. Through the opening, barely big enough for a fist, he could see Gyeongjin’s eye.

“Han Gyeongjin! What’s your status? Are you okay? Who’s with you?”

The words tumbled out in a rush. Thankfully, Gyeongjin wasn’t in the mood to torture him and answered immediately.

“We’re okay. We’re in a gap between the concrete slabs. Jaehee-hyungnim is with me. What about you? Are you alright? Shit, is that blood on your head?”

“Ah.”

Only after Gyeongjin mentioned it did the memory of being hit by falling debris surface. He reached up to his forehead and his hand came away wet. His entire palm was red. Sa-yoon clicked his tongue but quickly reassured Gyeongjin, telling him not to make a fuss, and inspected the hole.

“I’m widening this, so get ready to come through. If you’re in a crevice, you’ll be in more danger during a secondary collapse.”

Hearing he was okay brought a small measure of relief.

“Lee Jaehee. You help too.”

At his command, he began carving at the wall again. From the other side, he heard a distinct panting. Judging by the rhythm of the breaths, it was Rai.

With man and beast working together, hammering and carving, the hole gradually widened. When it was finally large enough for a person to squeeze through, Sa-yoon extended his hand.

“Come on.”

“Okay.”

Han Gyeongjin’s nonchalant voice was unchanged, even while trapped in a collapsed building.

The weakest one is always the first to put on a brave face.

Knowing it was an act to keep others from worrying, Sa-yoon gripped Gyeongjin’s hand tightly and pulled him through. Lee Jaehee followed, his expression grim.

“We’re running out of oxygen, Sa-yoon-ssi.”

“I know. We need to get out of here fast.”

As soon as we find the other two.

Jaehee’s grave expression was a stark reminder of their peril. Sa-yoon called out for Geon-joo again. This time, a response came from behind him and to his right, but it wasn’t the voice he was hoping for.

“Hyungnim. While you’re at it, mind getting me out? I’m about half-crushed over here.”

The cheerful request for rescue was completely at odds with its content. He sounded so flippant that Sa-yoon almost thought it was a joke, but the slight tremble at the end of his words told him it was the truth. Sa-yoon sighed and swung his blade toward the sound. It was a good thing it was an item; a normal blade would have shattered by now.

He carved and carved until the wall thinned, finally reaching Yen.

“Don’t move. Stay still.”

He gave the warning through a small crack, then used his ice to prop up the debris forming the ceiling before pounding the area around the hole with his fist.

Clang!

As Rai helped, the sound of breathing from behind them grew more ragged. Cold sweat soaked his hair. Everyone was starting to struggle for breath.

“If all five of us die here, we’ll become legends,” Yen chuckled, and Sa-yoon was dumbfounded. He couldn’t believe he could find anything to laugh about in this situation. He glared through the opening and carved out a hole just big enough for Yen to be pulled through, even if he got a few scrapes. Deciding that another person trying to enter would be more of a hindrance, he had Jaehee summon Shiro to help pull Yen from under the debris. The building groaned and shifted as he released his ice skill from the spot Yen was lying on, but it didn’t come down completely.

It won’t hold for long. They had to find Geon-joo before the next collapse. Sa-yoon forced a potion on Yen and called out his name again. Yen playfully splashed half the potion he’d drunk onto Sa-yoon’s face, then turned around as he watched the gash on his own forehead heal.

“Your little brat is back that way.”

Sa-yoon’s eyes shot open at his words and followed Yen’s pointing finger. Unsurprisingly, the first thing he saw was a tangled mess of rebar and concrete.

It was, of course, the most difficult spot. Leaving Yen with the others, Sa-yoon put his strength into moving the rebar and knocked on the surface.

“Han Geon-joo!”

When he shouted, he felt a faint vibration from within. He seemed to be quite deep inside. Sa-yoon swung his blade again. This being the third time, he’d gotten the hang of it and could mix his skills to swing with measured force.

He carved into the wall more boldly than before and finally saw into the space within.

“Hyung!”

Covered in dust, Han Geon-joo was taking short, shallow breaths, trapped in a triangular space formed by two crossed steel beams. He had to get him out. With that single thought, he reached out his hand. Han Geon-joo’s pale hand grasped his.

And in that moment.

BOOM!

The building, which he thought had been holding up, finally began to give way again. The sections he had braced with ice shattered with a deafening crack. Sa-yoon’s eyes widened. So did Geon-joo’s. He yanked hard on their joined hands.

CRASH—!

Sa-yoon’s body pitched forward, and the space above his head collapsed.

BEEEEEP—!

A piercing whine screamed in his ears. A part of his body was crushed under the debris, and he coughed up blood. He could feel someone groaning, trying to free him. An arm lifted him a few times before letting go, followed by the sound of a muffled curse.

“Hyung!”

At the shout, Sa-yoon’s eyes fluttered open, and he winced. When his blurry vision cleared, he saw Han Geon-joo staring down at him, at his legs pinned beneath a steel beam. His blindfold had slipped askew, and beneath it, his dark, intense eyes churned.

“Hyung, are you okay? Shit, of course you’re not okay. This thing is heavier than it looks, it won’t budge, so, ah…”

Geon-joo muttered frantically, unsure what to do, his eyes darting around helplessly before locking back onto Sa-yoon. As Sa-yoon met his gaze—a chaotic mix of worry, self-blame, regret, anxiety, and fear—a truly vile emotion flickered through it. Sa-yoon’s eyes widened.

Fuck. No, it can’t be, right?

“Hyung…”

But his hope was shattered. As if to confirm what he saw was no illusion, the emotion in Geon-joo’s eyes intensified the moment he spoke his name. Sa-yoon sucked in a breath.

“Hyung, for now—”

His voice, trembling with anxiety, was cut short. Acting on pure instinct, Sa-yoon clapped a hand over Han Geon-joo’s eyes, blocking his view. He bit his lip, but even that wasn’t enough. He grabbed the back of Geon-joo’s head and pulled him down, burying his face in his shoulder. Only when he was certain Geon-joo couldn’t lift his head did he blink.

“Hyung?”

There wasn’t enough oxygen.