* * *

THUD, RUMBLE!

As the battle between the Ink Dragon Unit and Eugene intensified, its effects reached every corner of Leviathan. There was the constant din, for one thing, and tremors shook the building every few minutes. Unless someone was exceptionally hard to wake, the commotion would have jolted them out of even the deepest sleep.

“Good heavens... A disturbance like this at Leviathan.”

“What on earth is happening?”

Most of Leviathan’s guests had woken and were spending the night wide awake. But that was all. Almost none of them seemed anxious or made any move to flee.

This was Hotel Leviathan. Even in the Age of Heroes, when Sword Masters ran rampant, it had protected its guests without fail, earning its reputation as the finest hotel in the world. If one of the ten great guilds had attacked, that might be another matter. Short of something on that scale, the guests were confident they were perfectly safe.

A page rustled.

Bellows was one of those untroubled guests. A wineglass in one hand, a book spread open on the table, he turned its pages slowly. Far from tensing at the occasional tremor, he sipped his wine at leisure. Anyone who saw him might have thought he occupied an entirely different space from everyone else.

How long had it been since the tremors began? By the time the wine bottle was half empty and he had turned five or six pages, Bellows spoke quietly.

“It's about time.”

He set down his glass with a clunk and stretched once, as though he had been thoroughly bored. Then he slipped the little bell from the table into his pocket, rose, and, book in hand, opened the firmly shut door to leave. Or rather, he tried to.

“Is there something you need, sir?”

The moment Bellows opened the door, a warrior appeared as though he had been waiting and blocked his way. Bellows showed no surprise.

“I can't sleep, so I thought I'd take a walk.”

“A walk... sir?”

“I've stayed here quite a while, but I haven't actually used any of the hotel's facilities. I thought I'd stop by a few while I'm out.”

It was a reasonable thing to say. Every facility inside Leviathan was first-rate, and since they operated around the clock, plenty of guests used them late at night. That was, of course, when every facility wasn't on emergency alert because of an intruder.

“I'm sorry, sir, but movement within the hotel is currently prohibited. For your safety, please remain in your room until the disturbance is over.”

The warrior might well have questioned the sanity of a guest who wanted a stroll while the building visibly shook, but he made his request politely. Of course, if Bellows refused, that request would become a demand—or an order.

“Under the rules, guests at Leviathan have the right to use its facilities, don't they?”

“This is an exceptional situation.”

“Then it can't be helped.”

Bellows nodded. Opening the book in his hand, he continued softly.

“I'll have to collect compensation for the breach of contract.”

The warrior tried to explain that the appropriate staff member would handle any compensation later. For now, whatever his complaints, the guest needed to go back inside his room and stay there. But he never got the words out.

CRRRUNCH!

“You arbitrarily broke an agreed contract and tried to confine a guest. I trust you won't feel wronged if you die for such a shitty thing.”

As if an invisible giant had stepped on him, the warrior was crushed like a tomato before he could even react. Bellows murmured calmly as he looked over the remains, then glanced around.

“Hmm. Leviathan's reputation had me a little worried... But it seems all my efforts weren't in vain.”

This was Leviathan. Even during an emergency, any disturbance should have brought warriors rushing over immediately. Yet one of their own had died in the middle of a corridor, and the air remained still. Bellows nodded.

“And my crazy comrade and foolish comrade seem to be doing better than I expected.”

Ryu Gang-cheol outside, Eugene inside. Each had gone on a rampage, leaving Leviathan in such disarray that no one noticed a guest roaming the halls. Bellows was pleased. Recalling the hotel's layout, which he had mapped during his stay of over a month, he smiled coldly.

“Time to enjoy a walk.”

A high-ranking officer of the Liberation Brigade. Fifth in the hierarchy of its twelve ghosts. The man known by the codename Judgment. Bellows, the braided-haired man, left the warrior's mangled corpse behind and strolled toward the place where he suspected his target was hidden.

* * *

THUD, RUMBLE!

[Oh man, all hell's breaking loose.]

Yu Na-gyeong shivered. Unlike the other guests, who were merely a little uneasy, she couldn't help recoiling every time the building shook. Perhaps because she had been reborn in a bird's body, her senses were sharper than a human's. She could feel far more—including the chilling, murderous intent that erupted whenever the Ink Dragon Unit clashed with Eugene. Only because she was Yu Na-gyeong did she merely tremble; an ordinary animal would have fainted long ago.

[Honestly, Team Leader always leaves me behind right when it matters.]

Of course, she knew why. It might have been different when she was alive, but now she was just a baby bird, not even a high-level player. She would only be a burden. That was why she hadn't insisted on following Limon. But knowing that was one thing, and enduring the storm of murderous intent for dozens of minutes was another. Exhausted, she couldn't help resenting him.

[I'm going to grow up fast and move out, if only out of spite. Seriously...]

CRUNCH.

[Huh?]

Mid-grumble, Na-gyeong tilted her head. Her keen animal senses had caught a sound, like a cracker breaking or fruit being crushed. It was faint, yet strangely clear in her ears.

[Did that maid step on something again?]

For a moment she pictured the clumsy maid who cleaned Limon's room every day and was forever dropping things or crushing them underfoot. But unease crossed her face. It wasn't simply that Leviathan was in the middle of a crisis. When she'd heard the sound, she'd sensed something, however faint: a sinister chill every bit as disturbing as what came from the lobby.

[Hmm... Should I just take a quick look?]

Unable to shake her unease, Na-gyeong pattered toward the door. She remembered Limon telling her to stay put in the room, but surely a quick peek would be fine. Yet the instant she used Teleportation to leave the room, she froze.

[...?!]

Blood soaked the floor. Mangled scraps of flesh lay scattered, with shards of bone protruding from them. The once beautiful, elegant corridor looked like the entrance to hell. After a moment of shock, Na-gyeong pulled herself together and assessed the scene with the cool head of a former PAB agent.

'Are these... the security warriors? Did the intruder do this? No, but the intruder's still on the first floor.'

She examined the clothes and weapons buried among the flesh. The occasional tremor still carried fragments of murderous intent, confirming that Eugene was wreaking havoc in the lobby. Na-gyeong's mind raced.

'Another intruder? If they'd broken in from outside, there's no way they could have sneaked this far... Then from inside? Were they hiding among the guests? How?'

Leviathan did not accept just anyone as a guest. Thorough identity checks were standard, and since the massacre at Black Dragon Construction and the attacks on the subsidiaries, the hotel had screened guests even more carefully. If an intruder was already inside, then—

'They were here from the start! Before the attack on Black Dragon Construction!'

To hide in Leviathan, the heart of the Black Dragon Clan, knowing an attack would send the Seven Dragons Society hunting for them with everything it had—it was sheer madness. If discovered, they would have had no chance to escape and would have died horribly. Then again, perhaps that wasn't surprising. They were ghosts of the Liberation Brigade, officers of a deranged group made up of every sort of lunatic criminal.

'But why? What are they after?'

The question wasn't how, but why. Why take that risk to infiltrate Leviathan? As she racked her brain, Na-gyeong spotted a trail of bloody footprints leading to the elevator and jerked her head up.

'The penthouse!'

The elevator near Limon's room had been set to go directly to the top floor, where the penthouse was. Li Qingyu had arranged it so he could visit her easily, but it had created a shortcut to the penthouse that bypassed the strict security procedures. What if the intruder had come here knowing that?

'Are they after the princess?!'

Na-gyeong recoiled in horror.

She sometimes forgot because they were so close, but Li Qingyu was one of the owners of the Seven Dragon Group. There were plenty of criminals who might target her, whether for money or to use her. And unlike usual, Leviathan was in turmoil both inside and out, with its main forces tied down. That meant almost no one was left to protect Qingyu. If a terrifying criminal like one of the Liberation Brigade's ghosts had hidden in the hotel to get to her...

'T-Team Leader! I have to tell Team Leader!'

[Team Leader! Something terrible's happened here!]

Na-gyeong urgently sent a telepathic message. Luckily, the telepathy item Qingyu had obtained for her was top-of-the-line and could send and receive over long distances. Unless Limon had gone clear out of the country, he'd get her message and come running. Then whoever the intruder was, he'd deal with them in a flash.

... Or so it should have gone.

[Team Leader? Hello? Team Leader?]

She clutched the ring around her ankle, growing more anxious by the moment. No matter how many messages she sent, she felt only a hollow echo, as if she were dropping pebbles into a bottomless swamp. Na-gyeong groaned.

'The telepathy's blocked!'

Should she find a phone? As she fretted, her feathers suddenly stood on end. Instinctively, she darted back and hid behind a nearby vase.

DING.

Just then, the elevator doors slid wide and someone stepped out.

“Hmm... Security is tightest at the penthouse, so I thought they'd hidden it there. It seems I guessed wrong.”

The soles of the braided-haired man's shoes were drenched in blood, though not a drop stained his clothes. Bellows stepped out of the elevator and closed the book in his hand.

“Can't be helped. If it's not at the very top, I'll have to start looking at the very bottom.”

Footsteps sounded down the corridor.

Bellows walked slowly across it and stepped into another elevator, his lips curling slightly.

“I may see more blood than I expected.”

He smiled with the delight of someone anticipating a festival. Na-gyeong clung to the vase and trembled until the elevator carried him out of sight. It wasn't only the overtly vicious murderous intent in his voice. It was what he'd said.

'The very bottom? Leviathan's underground facilities?'

A chill ran through her. Beneath Leviathan were all sorts of lavish facilities a criminal might target: a bank on the scale of a central bank, a jewelry store, a casino, and more. But of all those places, only one came to mind.

[Our kids!!!]

Na-gyeong thought of the childcare facility where her younger siblings lived, and terror seized her.