Sera finally allowed herself a smile. She'd really thought Jody, her beloved friend, wouldn't make it in time.
Roxxy, now realizing she'd just been saved, didn't say anything—she only stared at Jody.
And the one who looked the most annoyed of all was Soomin. She clenched her teeth tightly.
"Good thing Roxxy's small and light... I didn't need a lot of wind to carry her. Still, summoning enough wind to lift a person drains a lot of energy..."
Jody gently laid Roxxy down.
"The parasites' effect depends on the perspective of the host, huh..."
A blue aura gushed from Jody's body—there was a lot of it.
Without wasting a second, she raised her five fingers and fired air bullets directly at the positions of Sera and Soomin.
"Pointless! The bullets will just get dissolved by her power again!" Roxxy called out, but Jody didn't flinch.
Instead, she answered Roxxy flatly.
"Look at her face."
"!?"
Roxxy looked up—and saw that Soomin's face had gone pale, as if she knew she was about to die.
"Shit!"
Soomin quickly aimed her gun at Sera, but Jody's air bullets reached her just in time.
Three of them hit Soomin's gun hand dead-on, forcing her to let go of Sera.
Sera's ankle was safe, though it probably felt like getting hit with a sledgehammer—but thanks to Sid's buff, she was unharmed.
She immediately hoisted herself up using a steel beam and climbed back through the first floor window.
One more air bullet slammed into the back of Soomin's head—right where Toshi's bullet had been lodged.
!!!!
It was like hammering a nail into place. Soomin's eyes rolled back. Her body dropped lifelessly to the ground, completely still.
"...."
"...."
Silence returned. Roxxy stood there, her mind uneasy.
"...What the hell? Why didn't the air bullets get dissolved?"
"Soomin's parasites need a medium to spread through... and that medium is air."
"!!!"
So that's it... When Jody used the wind to blow upward... she blew the parasites away too!
That answer left Roxxy speechless.
"I figured it out when I caught up. The rusted-out car with an untouched driver... and what Sally said about seeing parasites floating in the air..."
"Jody, for God's sake! Took you long enough!" Sera was now running up to them, but then—
"Sera! Stop!" Jody shouted.
"!?"
"...."
"What...? What is it, Jody?!"
Jody stared intently at Soomin's lifeless body.
"...Hey... you..."
She started speaking to her, which confused Sera and Roxxy both.
"You're basically dead anyway... so I might as well tell you something out of kindness. I can sense air movement. And you know what I see right now?"
"..."
"I can still see a small amount of air... moving in and out of your lungs."
"!!!!"
Jody's words immediately put Sera and Roxxy on high alert.
"She's not dead yet?!"
Auras of different colors surged from all three women as they focused their eyes on Soomin's body.
And then the truth revealed itself.
Soomin slowly pushed herself off the ground. Her shoulder was dislocated, her ribs broken and sticking out grotesquely.
"..."
"Why is she still alive?!"
"She replenished the parasites in the air just before the last bullet could finish her."
Sera was even more confused.
"What do you mean?!"
"I fired five fingers—so five shots. But only four hit her. One disappeared in the air."
Jody's explanation made everything click for Sera.
Even if Roxxy aimed now, her bullets would just dissolve. The air was surely swarming with parasites again.
"You planned this... you knew we'd regroup..."
Soomin grinned and said, "You don't seriously think I went up to the second floor just to bait you guys into moving, do you?!"
With that, all three women felt the ground tremble beneath them.
And when they looked up—
The second floor of the building was collapsing!
Which meant the third, fourth, and fifth floors above it began to topple too—like dominoes.
"That bitch! Did she unscrew the foundation bolts or what?!"
"You all lost the moment you stepped in here!"
Soomin laughed maniacally. While waiting for them to enter the site, she'd gone around unscrewing most of the foundational bolts.
And the moment Sera used her powers to grow a steel beam to cling to earlier—that was the push that tipped the balance. Like removing a tiny support that sent the whole structure crashing down.
"Shit! The building's coming down! And to escape, we'll have to move!"
Sera was close enough to Roxxy that she grabbed her immediately.
But Jody was farther away—so Sera reached out a hand.
"Jody! Grab it!"
But Jody didn't move.
"Jody! What are you doing?! Grab it! If you stand still, the building will crush you! But if you move, the parasites will—!"
Instead of responding, Jody crouched low, planted her hands on the ground like a sprinter—and then...
Sera and Roxxy felt a breeze blow from their direction toward Jody.
And then—something no one expected.
Even though the wind wasn't particularly strong, Jody's body lifted off and launched toward Soomin!
"!!!"
She hurled herself forward, smashing through falling bricks and debris—utterly fearless.
Even Soomin looked stunned.
"That maniac! She's using wind to launch herself at me?!"
Sweat dripped from Soomin's face.
"You think you can use wind to blow my parasites away again?! It won't work! You'll only blow away the airborne ones! The ones inside you are still—"
But her face went sheet white when Jody replied:
"Yeah... I know."
BANG!
Three air bullets shot clean through Soomin's neck, bursting out the back.
Jody continued her arc and slammed into a concrete pillar.
And at that moment—the entire building came down with a thunderous crash.
KRROOOMMM!!
Roxxy and Sera made it out just in time, dodging the cascading debris.
Dust and rubble clouded the entire construction site. The five-story building was now a heap of ruins.
"JODY!!!!" Sera screamed, dragging Roxxy back toward the wreckage.
And what they found among the rubble...
"Agh... ack... ha..."
...was Soomin, standing eerily upright. Eyes wide open. A gaping hole blown through her throat.
"Ugh..."
Sera instinctively grabbed at her own neck...
Blood spurted rhythmically from Soomin's neck in time with her pulse. She stared at Sera and Roxxy one last time... then fell backward.
Thud... thud...
Sneaker footsteps echoed behind her. A limping figure emerged from the dust and smoke.
Jody.
Her forehead was split wide open, blood soaking her face. Her left leg was broken, forcing her to limp. Both collarbones were shattered. One arm hung limp. Her clothes were stained black with blood and dust...
"I told you... one way or another, you were going to die."
Jody said flatly.
"...d-d...do...do it... h...how...?"
Soomin croaked—the sound barely registering. Her voice box was gone. All she could do was rasp out a few dying syllables.
"You want to know why I wasn't dissolved, right?"
"....."
Soomin wasn't the only one who wanted to know. Sera and Roxxy stared too.
Soomin's gaze scanned over Jody's battered body... and she spotted something on her collarbone.
A deep gash, exposing red flesh. It had been torn open by some jagged rebar or metal debris.
But it didn't look like torn human skin.
It looked... like ripped plastic.
And that was the final clue they all needed.
"Wait... Jody's wound... it tore like a plastic bag!?"
Sera pointed, wide-eyed.
"..."
"When Sid gave us his buff on the bridge... I asked him to swap my body's properties with a piece of plastic bag I picked up. Plastic is light, so it floats on the wind... and it's also resistant to decomposition."
That's why Sid looked so uncomfortable when she went to talk to him… Roxxy thought to herself.
"But... wait! That means your body is way more fragile than ours, Jody! Sure, plastic resists decay for thousands of years—but it tears just as easily as paper!"
Sera's voice cracked.
Roxxy realized the same thing: all those injuries Jody had—head wounds, internal bleeding, broken bones, bruises...
Jody had taken far more damage than any normal person could survive.
And it was true.
She had lost a massive amount of blood. Her scalp was torn open. Her face was soaked. Her bones were shattered.
"...Yeah, Sera... I'm in a hell of a lot of pain right now..."
Jody inhaled. Exhaled slowly.
"But it was worth it... if it meant we could kill her."
"...."
That one sentence left Roxxy speechless.