When the noise finally faded, Sonny lifted his head.
Half the building was gone. Just a pile of rubble now.
The survivors gathered in the street outside, coughing and wiping dust from their faces, eyes wide with horror. Some clung to each other, others just stared in shock at the ruins.
Sonny slowly straightened up his still trembling body.
Overall, his body was in best state and condition with mundane injuries that could be easily patched up. As for his mind and heart though, that was another story altogether.
Both of them were still reeling, caught in the chaos of it all. Sonny had come within a hair's breadth of death, surviving only by a cruel stroke of luck. If he hadn't broken free from that collapsing building when he did, he would've been crushed beneath the rubble, just like the others if they had failed to escape.
If they had blacked out, even for a moment, they'd be dead now.
Then, his eyes narrowed.
Something was off.
From a logical standpoint, it made no sense that everyone had survived. The conference store may have been small, but if the ceiling had caved in, someone should have died, at best coming out with crippling injuries. Yet, somehow, against all odds, they had all made it out unharmed.
Sonny tried to push the thought aside, but his rational mind refused to accept that this was just a stroke of dumb luck.
Was some unseen force at work here? And more importantly...
Snapping out of his thoughts, Sonny turned his head. There, approaching him, was the woman with the injured right arm. Coincidentally, she was also the mother of the child he had been carrying to safety.
"Ah, is this your daughter?" he asked, his voice softening.
"Yes, thank you so much! Thank you!" The woman's voice trembled with genuine gratitude as she bowed.
"There's no need to bow to someone younger than you!"
Sonny panicked and quickly stepped forward, urging her to stop. But she remained stubbornly persistent.
In the brief moment of interaction, Sonny took a closer look at her arm. His heart sank. It was in much worse condition than he had first thought. Blood soaked through the fabric, and the wound looked deep, perhaps even more severe than he'd realized.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed like her arm had been torn by something sharp during the ceiling collapse, likely a piece of rebar or pointed debris that had pierced through the skin, leaving a gaping wound. The blood was still flowing, though sluggishly, as if her body hadn't fully realized the extent of the injury.
Sonny's eyes widened.
The injury wasn't just superficial; it was deep, and from the way she held her arm, it seemed as though the bone might be fractured, too. The wound was starting to bruise around the edges, a sign of internal damage plausible. Even so, despite the severity of the injury, she had managed to stay on her feet, offering thanks, as if it were nothing.
"You need to get that looked at," Sonny said, looking worried.
She shook her head, her eyes clouded with fatigue. "I'll be fine. I just… need to find my husband. I have to make sure he's okay." Her words were strained, but she didn't break eye contact with him, as if afraid that even a second of distraction would cost her more.
"If you say so, but how are you going to carry your child if your good arm is injured to that extent?"
"T-That..." The woman lowered her gaze slightly and bit her lips. "I'll think about something."
He sighed.
"You don't have to worry about that. I can help you carry her until we reach somewhere safe."
"W-What? You..." The woman seemed puzzled by Sonny's offer, her confusion evident as she glanced between him and her child. "You don't even know me. I can't ask you to do that."
Sonny shook his head, stepping closer. "You're not asking. I'm offering." He gave her a reassuring smile, though his eyes remained full of concern. "You can't carry her like that so you'll definitely need someone to help you. Not to mention, we'll need to get a safe zone so I'll be coming either way."
For a moment, she hesitated, looking as though she wanted to refuse. But the strain in her face, the deepening circles under her eyes and lastly, the way she looked at her daughter told Sonny everything he needed to know.
"I... I don't know what to say," she murmured, her voice almost a whisper now. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Sonny smiled. It was a rare, geniune smile from someone who usually regarded himself as insignificant.
But as his eyes swept over his surroundings, that fragile smile faded just as quickly as it had appeared.
All around him were the wreckage of destroyed cars, shattered roads, and crumbling buildings. And worse still were the bodies. They were scattered across the vicinity like discarded trash, staining the ground with grim finality.
He grimaced, his stomach twisting at the gruesome sight. But what truly sent a chill crawling down his spine was the condition of the dead. These people hadn't died naturally.
Up close, it was clear: their bodies had been torn apart, as though they were nothing more than fragile tofu. Some corpses were even missing one or two limbs such as their arms and legs while some were missing their heads.
All in all, it was a grotesque scene, like something ripped straight from a horror game. The metallic stench of blood hung heavy in the air.
'Damnit! What the hell is going on?!'
Overwhelmed by the urge to vomit, Sonny swallowed hard, forcing the nausea back down. Moments later, the other survivors began to take notice of the devastation around them and all of them reacted differently.
"W-What? This is..."
"Shit! Everything is ruined. Are they any survivors?"
"Agghh! Dead bodies!"
Some of the survivors screamed, their voices raw and hoarse. Others fell to their knees, trembling, unable to comprehend the nightmare before them. A few just stood there, frozen, eyes vacant — as if their minds had already fled from this horrifying reality.
Elsewhere, a teenage boy doubled over beside a toppled streetlight, dry heaving violently. Even the woman standing near him recoiled in horror.
Sonny glanced down at the girl in his arms. In a twisted way, he was almost grateful she was still unconscious, at least she wouldn't have to see this nightmare with her own eyes.
"No! No! No! This can't be happening. Not again. Not again. We're going to die. We're all going to die!"
At some point, Mr. Han had collapsed to the ground, crouched low as he muttered incoherent words over and over, like a man slipping into madness.
Sonny narrowed his eyes.
'Why is he behaving like that? Does he know what's going on?'
For a fleeting moment, he considered asking the despairing man if he knew anything, but quickly dismissed the thought.
What would be the point? The so-called adult had already sunk into hopelessness.
'Tsk. How pitiful.'
With a sigh, Sonny gathered his scattered thoughts, and then raised his voice to address the survivors:
"Everyone, listen up! The city's currently in a state of emergency. Right now, our best shot is to find shelter and let the military and Hunters deal with this!"
No one responded.
The group stood still, stunned and shell-shocked, with their minds still struggling to catch up with reality. Sonny's words hung heavy in the air, fighting to pull them out of their daze.
Then, slowly, a few heads turned toward him. Their eyes were hollow, desperate for someone or anyone to tell them what to do next.
Unbeknownst to him, a faint smile had crept onto Sonny's lips.
'Good. At least they're not despairing like a certain adult.'
"Standing in the open like this is meaningless and dangerous. If this is a natural disaster then we need to find shelter quickly!"
At the end of his words, one of the survivors, a teenage girl, hesitantly spoke up, her voice shaky. "B-But where? Where the hell are we supposed to go?"
'I was wondering the same thing,' Sonny frowned.
Though he'd urged them to find shelter, he had no idea where that shelter could be. London wasn't known for frequent natural disasters. The only events that could be described that way were the First and Second Impacts, both of which had been caused by the Black Tower.
'Wait... the Tower...!'
His eyes widened.
Of course. That was the answer. The First and Second Impacts had been triggered when the Tower's floors remained uncleared for too long, causing it to release monsters into the world through dimensional gateways. This meant the locations where these creatures would spawn couldn't be predicted by any human means.
But that shouldn't have been an issue. The Second Impact had occurred long before he was even born, and there had been over twenty years without any disasters since then. Moreover, the 71st floor had recently been cleared by the Assault Team.
To be more specific, the 71st floor was part of the labyrinth that had remained uncleared for over twenty years. Unlike the classic trope of climbing upward to conquer the mysterious tower, Awakened squads had to descend into its depths to make progress. Some even speculated that the tower was connected to hell, given the need to descend rather than ascend. The theory wasn't without merit, especially considering the demonic nature of the monsters that roamed its floors. In conclusion to that theory, these creatures were dubbed 'Hell Beasts.'
Going back to the matter at hand, since the previously uncleared floor had already been conquered, it made no sense for another Impact to occur. More likely, this was a rare case where a monster had escaped from the Tower.
In a situation like this, couldn't they just head for the Hunting Guild Association? He'd heard the building was designed to withstand even the fiercest earthquakes, so it seemed like the obvious answer. But given how far it was from their current location, could they really make it there in time? And surely, they weren't the only ones with that bright idea, there were bound to be others rushing there as well.
'Hold on...'
Why did he suddenly have a bad premonition?
Rumble! Rumble!
The ground trembled violently as a building collapsed in a thunderous crash.
Sensing it was no mere accident, he snapped his head toward the source and his face drained of color at the sight.
"!?"
Not only him, everybody else did the same and went utterly still.
Rising from the wreckage was a creature with the head of a bull and the towering, muscle-bound frame of a humanoid. Even at a glance, the towering, reddish monstrosity looked thrice the size of any ordinary human and its eyes blazed with a murderous, maddened fire.
A Furiataur.
Lowering his gaze, Sonny noticed the creature clutching something in one hand. At first, he thought it was some kind of object, but then he realized it was a person. Or rather, what was left of one at least. The body was so mangled and drenched in blood it barely resembled anything human anymore.
Narrowing his eyes, he recognized the tattered uniform. It belonged to the DCA, the Disaster Control Agency — an organization tasked with handling and containing monsters that escaped from the Tower. Their strength was said to rival that of Hunters, despite most of their members being ordinary humans. This was thanks to their advanced weaponry, rumored to be twenty years ahead of anything else humanity had produced.
But seeing one of their officers reduced to a bloodied, broken doll triggered every alarm bells inside his mind.
The man drifted limply, his body swaying here and there like a broken puppet.
Sonny couldn't help but wonder, in that frozen moment, how fragile the human body truly was.
"!!"
Snapping out of his daze, he forced his erratic thoughts and pounding heart under control. Then he roared:
"EVERYONE, RUN!!"
His shout cut through the silence like a whip, snapping the others out of their trance. As if a string binding them had been severed, the survivors turned and bolted without hesitation, driven by pure instinct.
Clutching the unconscious girl tightly, Sonny dashed forward, his mind blank with urgency.
Behind him, the furiataur growled low, tossing aside its broken 'toy.' Dropping to all fours, it bared its fangs and lunged after the fleeing prey.