"Damn you!"
"How much longer do we have to wait? How much longer?! How much longer?!"
"Stop pushing me! I can't see anything!"
Those voices exploded from behind, like a nest of stirred-up hornets, buzzing and drilling into his ears with maddening force.
Lynus desperately wanted to ignore the complaints, the shoving, the chaotic sound of heavy boots stomping on the metal floor—but the sheer volume of his comrades had already reached a nauseating peak.
Clearly, that idiot who had first announced he was "opting out" had leaked the news.
He didn't even need to turn around to know. In front of that colossal French window overlooking the bottomless abyss, a crowd of Blue Cloaks must be packed shoulder to shoulder. Even more were likely rushing in from all directions, like sharks scenting blood in the water.
Hiss... hah...
A warm, moist sensation seeped through the tips of his white-gloved fingers.
Lynus paused slightly, startled out of his irritation.
The girl's face was flushed a dangerous, mottled red. Her lips were parted, gasping desperately for air.
He loosened his fingers a fraction.
Hah... hah... hah...
The girl's agonizing gasps immediately poured out. Her chest heaved violently, that blaze-like red hair trembling wildly with each frantic breath. Physiological tears mixed with cold sweat poured like a breached dam down her pale cheeks, dripping onto the cold armrest of the wheelchair, seeping into the purplish-black straps that viciously bound her wrists.
Her eyes were half-open, mapped with frantically pulsing bloodshot veins. Her pupils violently contracted, trembling in raw terror.
"Just wait a little longer," Lynus murmured. His voice was incredibly soft, like coaxing a frightened animal.
But his other hand—the one that had just relaxed—now pressed down even harder.
He ruthlessly smothered her mouth and nose.
The force was brutal, snapping her head back against the chair. Her whimpers were forcefully choked deep within her throat, allowing only extremely faint, muffled whimpers to leak from her nasal cavity.
She struggled. Just once. A single, pathetic twitch.
Then she stopped. She only looked at him with those tear-drowned eyes.
Lynus ignored her gaze. He turned his head, looking down the corridor toward the French window.
There, in front of the massive glass, the Blue Cloaks were already packed tight. A dense mass of dark blue, like carrion flies pressed against a transparent pane, peering hungrily into the abyss. Some were frantically pointing, some excitedly whispering, some even had their faces pressed hard against the freezing glass, their features distorted by the pressure, eager to dive into the Deep Dive pit themselves and witness the spectacle.
Lynus slowly exhaled a breath of stale air.
Relieved. Nothing soothed his irritation quite like witnessing the sheer ugliness and mediocrity of his peers firsthand.
He turned back.
He looked down from on high at the red-haired girl before him, her mouth and nose smothered in his vice grip, deprived of breath, left with nothing but tears.
The curve of his mouth slowly lifted, spreading wider and wider. That smile was brimming with morbid smugness, and an indescribable, utterly twisted possessiveness.
"Seems like I care about you more after all," he whispered.
He paused.
"My bomb."
The subtle tension of the girl's rigid body violently resisting the straps—Lynus's palm greedily savored that sensation. It was a state suspended between desperate struggle and complete submission, every single muscle trembling from severe hypoxia.
When his fingers loosened slightly, that body went limp in overwhelming relief; when his fingers suddenly clamped down, that instantaneous near-death rigor and spasm... All of it was indescribably exquisite.
This sense of control, toggling effortlessly between life and death, suffocation and survival—the submission of flesh, the collapse of spirit, the fragile thread of life—he held it all tightly in his palm.
This was true control. Not the kind of cheap vanity that needed confirmation from the eyes of others, not the kind that needed to be shown off to those worthless fools. This was an absolute and intensely private sadism, an experience meant only for him, traveling from the temperature of his fingertips straight to the depths of his nervous system.
He closed his eyes, intoxicatingly enjoying the afterglow.
—
HUMMMM—
A low, vibrating pulse echoed from some unknown depth, instantly slicing through all the noise in the corridor.
The sound wasn't loud. But like an invisible guillotine, it severed every sound—the complaints, the shoving, the murmuring—with absolute precision.
Everyone stopped talking.
Silence.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
—
"Does anyone else think they're all..."
A voice floated from some dark corner of the crowd. It was incredibly soft, carrying a hint of uncertain, creeping dread.
The next second—
"SHUT UP!!!"
Countless angry shouts exploded simultaneously!
—
The corner of Lynus's mouth, hidden in the dark, slightly curved.
He didn't open his eyes.
Only the hand pressing over the girl's face applied a fraction more force.
"I think I'll have to retract my earlier promise."
Lynus's voice drifted from in front of the wheelchair, neither loud nor soft, yet sharp enough to pierce the eerie silence.
"You won't complain, will you."
He paused, as if allowing the air to digest those words.
"Clearly, I'm the one losing the most here."
—
With his back to all the other Blue Cloaks, Lynus rose with exquisite elegance.
The hand pressing over the girl's mouth remained perfectly motionless.
He turned around.
His gaze, like two icy blades, slowly swept from the far left end of the corridor to the far right.
Sweeping over those petrified figures. Over those mouths that hadn't yet managed to close. Over those pale faces flickering in the dim light.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Those Blue Cloaks who had just roared "SHUT UP" couldn't utter a single syllable now. They were nailed in place by his gaze, like frogs paralyzed by a viper.
—
WOOOO—WOOOO—WOOOO—!!!
A piercing alarm exploded without warning!
The sound was deafening, loud enough to make the entire corridor tremble, loud enough to make the very glass vibrate!
"What's wrong?!"
"What's happening?!"
"The alarm! It's the breach alarm!"
The petrified crowd instantly erupted into absolute panic! The Blue Cloaks, frozen like statues just moments ago, now scurried in all directions like headless flies! Some screamed, some pounded frantically on the glass, some desperately tried to retreat but found themselves wedged immobile by the crushing tide of bodies!
Splat.
Splat.
Splat.
Splat.
Splat.
Countless sounds erupted from behind the French window.
Those sounds were too grotesque. It wasn't the sound of explosions, nor the shattering of glass. It was a visceral, wet, sickening thud. Like massive chunks of meat being violently crushed against a surface. One after another, densely packed, falling like torrential rain, something was continuously, violently splattering against the other side of the glass.
Lynus's hand, still pressing over the girl's mouth—
Never once loosened. From start to finish.
He just stood there, at the dead center of the chaos, perfectly still. That hand maintained its vice grip, allowing only the faintest mmph mmph sounds to escape her nose.
A panicked stampede.
Someone screaming bloody murder.
Someone pounding wildly on that colossal French window, roaring incomprehensibly at the pitch-black abyss beyond the glass.
Someone collapsed on the floor, trembling violently in a puddle of their own making.
Someone desperately sprinting towards the other end of the corridor, only to be knocked sideways by the surging tide of bodies.
Lynus still covered the girl's mouth.
He calmly circled behind the wheelchair. Gripping the handles with both hands, he pushed the wheelchair straight through the panicked crowd. Through the screams and the terror that had absolutely nothing to do with him. Step by step, he pushed it to what he considered the optimal position.
Right in front of that heavy grey blast door.
He stopped.
Looked up.
Watching his "comrades" still struggling in the chaotic meat grinder of their own making.
"For your cooperation."
His voice drifted over. Neither loud nor soft, yet exceptionally clear amidst the deafening chaos.
"Comrades."
—
He finally released the hand covering the girl's mouth.
That hand moved gracefully upward—past her chin, past her pale cheek, past the corner of her tear-streaked eye—
It stopped before her eyes.
And tightly covered them.
—
"AAAAAAHHHHHH—!!!"