She stood up and ran into the large Vatican courtyard. Bishops were scattered around, looking up at the strange phenomenon unfolding above them, but Salina didn't see anyone looking as panicked as the people outside.
They looked serious, yet very calm, as if they had anticipated this would happen.
Although deeply puzzled by the priests' and bishops' demeanor, Salina's attention was entirely focused on the other side of the crack.
She saw a black tentacle, with debris swirling around it, begin to emerge. It grasped the two sides of the crack and pulled with such force that she could hear the wind change intensity, carrying with it the taste of blood.
Simultaneously, gunshots rang out sharply from multiple directions. The black tentacle quickly released its grip on the crack, shot up like an octopus, and then slammed down onto the ground below.
Salina saw that even though the tentacle didn't touch them, the roofs of tall buildings suddenly shattered into many pieces.
Terrified, she wanted to turn and flee the Vatican courtyard, but for some reason, she collided violently with an invisible barrier in front of her, sending her sprawling backward.
Salina sprang up, touched the invisible wall before her, then looked up at the sky.
The black tentacle was now smashing down on surrounding buildings and extending, coiling around a large skyscraper, then breaking it in half and hurling it straight at the Basilica.
Desperate screams assaulted her ears. Salina wanted to run, but fear paralyzed her like a wooden statue.
She was petrified, seeing hundreds of people screaming inside that building. From such a height, their lives seemed to have been snatched away the moment that monster extended its tentacle towards the building.
Salina squeezed her eyes shut, trying to fall flat to avoid the debris, but surprisingly, the shield around the Basilica seemed impregnable; the building disintegrated into dust the moment it touched the invisible wall above!
At the same time, soldiers began running along the two curved colonnades surrounding the basilica, carrying weapons she had never seen before.
A soldier in a black military uniform, wearing a wide belt adorned with rhombus-shaped stones of various colors, dashed forward. His hands were encased in silver-gray gauntlets, and the gun he carried looked like an SG-550, inlaid with glowing blue gems along its barrel. Upon reaching the edge of the wall, he leaped towards the monster.
Salina was stunned to see his military boots begin to reconfigure into small jet thrusters, propelling him upwards while he maintained balance in a fighting stance. The soldiers behind him leaped up in unison, and the deafening barrage of gunfire filled the sky.
The monster's tentacle recoiled before the soldiers' relentless barrage; it seemed to be pushed back.
But suddenly, Salina heard a Bishop in the courtyard scream something, and then the sky shattered before her eyes!
The cracks in the sky abruptly spread. From the chasm, a massive creature with a gleaming red eyeball looked down upon her world.
Salina had never seen such an enormous eyeball; the owner of that eye could have been as large as an entire city.
More black tentacles continuously emerged from the sky through the crack – now a hole the size of an airplane's length.
They relentlessly lashed down at the ground, using wind force to demolish buildings and trying to break through the invisible wall protecting the Vatican.
Sparks flew as the protective shield clashed with the monster's blows, like darkness and light intertwining, like fire and ice, wind and earth.
The powerful strikes grew more and more frequent; it seemed the terrifying invader was growing frustrated with the resilience of the defensive wall.
Overhead, the fissure widened at an alarming rate. It was now becoming a chasm perhaps as large as Fiordland National Park in New Zealand. Salina got a clearer view of the octopus-like monster. She saw sharp black plates growing around its eyes, each black plate a large mouth filled with sharp teeth and dripping purple-red saliva.
On its tentacles, what appeared to be bluish-gray suction cups protruded, but upon closer inspection, they were many human-like faces screaming, with jagged spines sprouting from them.
The large eyeball rolled into a circle, then the pupil opened, splitting into other blood-red eyes. They spun and interlaced, making Salina feel dizzy.
From within the monster's retina, many tiny arms emerged and flailed about while dripping a thick, sticky black fluid.
She clapped her hand over her mouth, trying not to bring up her lunch.
Even though only a part of its colossal form was visible, the monster's appearance was so disgusting that anyone looking at it would vomit until their insides came out.
While the monster's eight tentacles were still ravaging the city and angrily hurling various structures at the shield between it and the Basilica, the special forces soldiers quickly split into formations: about ten maintained their positions, continuing to fire at the tentacles to limit their destructive speed.
Roughly thirteen others divided into three small teams and fanned out. They began assembling a weapon shaped like a cannon with a strange iron frame.
It resembled a Browning M2 machine gun but was completely hollow, its outer frame bone-white, and no ammunition was visible.
A soldier from the sniper team (she presumed) took a sphere from a black metal hard case. It looked like a snowball with a soft red light emanating from its center.
He gently inserted the sphere into the hollow part of the gun, and it slid smoothly into the exact center as if pre-set; each such gun had a different colored sphere.
Although governments had produced many special weapons to date, this gun was truly the strangest she had ever seen.
However, for Salina today, after a monster appeared from a crack in the sky, a strange weapon was like seeing a dog walk on two legs – surprising, but not beyond the realm of the newly impossible.
"Could they possibly fight that horrendous monster with such small guns?"
Salina wondered, a strange nausea rising within her.
She was half-afraid the firepower from the bone-white guns wouldn't even scratch one of the monster's tentacles, and half-hoping it would yield good results in repelling that beast.
The three gun muzzles were aimed by the squads directly at the monster's tentacles. In an instant, dazzling beams of light flashed towards the chasm in the sky.
Astonishingly, when the beams of light touched the tentacles, they caused the monster to disintegrate in an instant!
Perhaps due to overconfidence, the monster was caught off guard by the special forces' powerful attack.
It shrieked hideously with a sound indescribable by words or letters – a cry that was part bell-like chime, part jet engine roar, and at times like an owl's hoot, heralding ill fortune.
Faced with the strong counter-fire, the monster quickly retracted its tentacles back to the other side of the chasm, but whenever there was an opening, it would shoot out one or two tentacles to fight back.
A sharp tentacle whipped out from the sky, the wind whistling like tearing silk.
The monster struck down at one of the gun emplacements that was overwhelming it but was blocked by the shield. Enraged by the persistent resistance, it glared with its hideous eye and let out a terrifying shriek.
At this point, the airborne soldiers began to fire more intensely at those opportunistic tentacles. The entire team coordinated seamlessly, gradually pushing the monster back.
From a distance, the roar of aircraft engines echoed through the space.
Five military planes with "The ZONEs" painted 크게 in white on their tails appeared; this seemed to be the name of the agency responsible for this counterattack.
One of the five planes landed in the Basilica's courtyard, passing through the invisible shield.
The clerics moved aside to make way for the aircraft.
About two platoons, dressed similarly to the soldiers fighting the monster, disembarked in two columns. The commander, around fifty with a stern face, shouted into the walkie-talkie in his hand.
The squads, without needing further orders, moved to advantageous fighting positions. In their hands were guns that looked like submachine guns, but their bodies had no ammunition magazines; instead, there was a transparent chamber containing a swirling purple-orange gas.
"Omega-level Entity, unidentified species, form and size classified as Outside. Arrange formation as planned."
He shouted amidst the gusting winds. Salina understood that the man was referring to the monster on the other side of the crack in the sky.
The soldiers' faces tensed, and their eyes seemed to change. She knew that look.
It was the look of those ready to sacrifice their lives; the Middle Eastern soldiers she had interviewed also had that gaze.
Each soldier gripped their gun tightly and aimed towards the airborne enemy. The first volley erupted with shots as loud as booming bronze drums. A dense barrage of projectiles flew towards the crack, exploding into clouds of purple-orange dust that melted any tentacle that carelessly touched them.
The remaining half-platoon used jet boots and formed a large V-shape, beginning to circle and provide cover for the platoon below.
What was peculiar was that although the strange dust projectiles could harm the monster, they seemed completely harmless to the soldiers.
They could fly through the purple-orange dust and continue to press the enemy, forcing it to retreat behind the crack.
Salina had never known such a bizarre weapon.
More accurately, governments around the world had never announced this invention.
This surprised her considerably and reminded her of the captain's words, using the noun "Entity."
Salina had heard this noun before, in a discussion topic on a Reddit forum.
"Entity," those who used it referred to extraterrestrial monsters, or something of that sort, that had coexisted with the universe for millions of years.
She had also skimmed through their discussions; at that time, it was a very hot topic on the global network, but soon after, it quickly faded into oblivion.
In that discussion thread, participants had claimed there were secret organizations working to protect humans from the destructive power of "entities," but she didn't think they actually existed. And now, the army of one of those organizations was deploying right before her eyes.
At this moment, it was clear that the monster was being pushed back by the special forces' firepower. Its tentacles slowed, and it seemed to be gradually retreating to the other side of the chasm.
Following the commander's orders, the special forces soldiers began to arrange their formation while continuously firing at the crack; it seemed they were trying to seal it.
The scene before Salina reminded her of the eighth Avenger movie, released a few years ago, where alien monsters were repelled by heroes.
"They can do it; this is about to end," Salina thought cheerfully.
Although fear still dominated most of her mind, hope had begun to rise within her as she saw the balance gradually tipping in favor of the special forces soldiers.
No matter how hard the enemy tried, it was blocked both above and below, and its attacks were thoroughly neutralized by the dust projectiles.
It looked even more furious. Its large eye contracted, and the faces on its tentacles shrieked cursing sounds.
On the other side of the crack, faint red spots lit up. A loud roar echoed, and the earth and sky seemed to tremble.
"Oh God! This is a terrible nightmare!"
A priest knelt and exclaimed, clasping his hands and bowing his head in prayer.
Other clerics also knelt simultaneously and recited prayers amidst the roaring sounds everywhere.
Salina felt her hands tremble; it seemed that roar was the trumpet call signaling the rise of a dark force that no government army could match.
The sky turned pitch black, and blue lightning flashed continuously. Whirlwinds descended, lashing at any victim daring to obstruct their path.
The monster's pupil dilated. Its viscous saliva rained down on the city below, filling it with a foul stench.
It roared loudly again. The ground shook, and thousands of buildings collapsed under the pressure of that sound.
Salina could almost hear the crackling sound of the fissure, and in an instant, the sky shattered before the eyes of the witnesses in Rome!
From within the chasm, a long, gaunt arm began to emerge, followed by a completely faceless human head, slithering out of the chasm and clinging to the sky like a lizard on a wall.
"Slender!"
A few soldiers shouted. The real trouble began as more monsters of all hideous shapes appeared from the other side of the chasm, which had now widened into an arched gateway hanging in the middle of the Italian sky.
The world was now divided by a massive, dark gateway, hovering directly above St. Peter's Basilica. A layer of blood-red electromagnetic energy ran along the space between Earth and the side where more and more monsters were pouring out.
Their screeching was as grating as someone dragging fingernails across a glass window, making everyone who heard it shudder and their eardrums ache.
The special forces team seemed to panic at the sight of a multitude of monsters appearing. They began calling for reinforcements, but the situation was likely already quite dire.
From the other side of the arched gateway, a dozen flying ships, looking as if they were made in the Middle Ages, hurtled out at incredible speed. They moved using six large wings attached to the sides of the ships.
The mast was as tall as a large skyscraper, with strange symbols painted on it and an unceasing black flame burning atop it.
On the prow, a carving of a creature with curved goat horns was attached and painted blood red; the statue's eyes sparkled, making it look alive.
And upon them, she struggled to find words to describe, were creatures she could only call "Demons."
The sky began to change color. Auroras appeared right in the middle of Italy, and the smell of smoke mingled with the thick, metallic scent of blood.
A barrage of projectiles erupted from the flying ships, creating many large fires. The blue flames incinerated everything they touched.
Screams and wails of mourning rose from everywhere. It seemed in that moment, people realized: God had truly abandoned them.
Amidst the landscape being consumed by fire, Salina knew that the Apocalypse had truly begun.