Seoul Cyberpunk Story-Chapter 104: Strangeness (3)

Not long ago, the entrance to Dreamland had been steeped in eerie silence.

Now, it brimmed with the tense atmosphere of a military operation just beginning.

Filling the gateway were the soldiers of Paradigm Directive, the new company founded by Dominic Krilov after breaking off from Titan Tech.

This was the first official operation being conducted under the Paradigm Directive name.

Perhaps because of that, the soldiers’ faces bore a mixture of solemn duty and subtle excitement.

Dominic stood at the Dreamland gate, scanning through a report projected on his AR interface.

<Dreamland Investigation Report – Paradigm Directive Special Task Force>

<Field Analysis: Target area outwardly appears to be an ordinary amusement park, but is presumed to be completely isolated both physically and network-wise. Observation of the interior from outside is impossible.>

<Methodology: All available means—laser, radio waves, sound frequencies—were used, but failed to yield meaningful data. All signals are either absorbed or reflected at the boundary.>

<Drone Deployment 1: Attempted wireless drone entry, but signal was lost the moment it crossed the threshold. Unit unrecoverable.>

<Drone Deployment 2: Wired drone successfully ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) captured internal footage. Recorded video shows: a sky filled with gray aurora, countless floating eyeballs drifting aimlessly, and holographic photos scattered across the ground depicting grotesque scenes.>

<Hazards: Once spotted by eyeball-like unknown entities, all drone signals were cut. The operator controlling the drone simultaneously transformed into a holographic photo.>

<Conclusion: Further investigation deemed meaningless under current circumstances; direct entry is considered extremely dangerous. All operations terminated and reported to upper command.>

Dominic closed the report, concise but packed with disturbing implications.

“This isn’t good.”

A low sigh escaped his lips.

The creatures spreading through Babel lately had already stepped beyond the bounds of logic.

At first, they were just rare, peculiar biological anomalies—but as time went on, the situation grew progressively worse.

Now, the phenomena being observed were no longer monsters in the conventional sense. They were... something else.

Like the Fluorescent Lizard from Lex Chroma’s final broadcast—immortal, regenerating no matter how many times it was destroyed.

And now there were things that couldn’t even be damaged by bullets or explosions.

Recently, while fighting such creatures, Paradigm Directive had discovered something interesting.

Shadow.

The prototype tech once belonging to Titan Tech—now Dominic’s own power.

They discovered that Shadow-based weapons were uniquely effective against monsters with physical immunity and infinite regeneration.

Creatures that laughed off even miniature nuclear blasts were cleanly sliced apart by Shadow weapons.

It was undeniable proof that the abilities of these monsters weren’t based on material properties alone.

To study this anomaly, Paradigm Directive had quarantined several physical-immune and regeneration-type monsters within its research facilities.

And to gather more specimens and data, Paradigm Directive often responded to emergency requests from other corporations.

But this Dreamland case was different.

This wasn’t just the appearance of a monster—it was a phenomenon distorting and occupying the space itself.

Almost like...

“A Corrosion Domain,”

he murmured, gazing up at the rusted Dreamland sign.

“You can’t even call these things monsters anymore.”

Not creatures, but entities that surpassed the category of life—phenomena in themselves.

And so, Dominic arrived at a new name.

Aberration.

Entities that mocked physical laws and defied the logic of reality.

There could be no better term to describe them.

Just then—from a shadow beside Dominic, where no one had been standing—a face abruptly emerged.

As if someone were poking their head out from the surface of dark water.

It was A, the ruler of Dino Park—the one Dominic had been waiting for.

“You’re here.”

Dominic greeted her with quiet composure.

****

Dreamland, the crumbling amusement park in eastern Babel.

Riding the shadow, I arrived.

Dominic’s forces were already everywhere.

I recognized them from Titan Tech’s old Eastern Branch—but their uniforms no longer bore that logo.

Instead, they wore the sigil of Paradigm Directive, a new emblem like a shadow spreading outward.

Dominic noticed me and nodded in simple greeting.

Without wasting time, he shared everything he’d learned so far.

A hologram projection of drone footage appeared in midair.

“Only the wired drone managed to capture footage inside. The sky looked like this.”

In the video, the gray sky was filled with eyeballs slowly drifting, blood trailing from them in droplets.

“And these eyeballs don’t just float around. They appear to turn targets into photographs—complete with a shutter sound.”

“...?”

I tilted my head, frowning as I listened.

This was nothing like what I’d imagined.

I’d half-expected something like a giant glowing tyrannosaurus—maybe a cousin of the Fluorescent Lizard that devoured Lex Chroma—to tear through the park in spectacular fashion.

Instead, this sounded like something out of a horror film.

“That’s all we could gather from the outside. Since the drone operator turned into a photo, we figured any further remote observation would be too dangerous.”

Dominic paused, looking me dead in the eye.

“So here’s the plan: you and I go in personally. Our highest firepower.”

Calling it a plan was generous—it was simple to the point of absurdity.

But that was exactly why I liked it.

At his signal, the quadrupedal robots waiting in standby began to move.

Titan Tech prototypes—I’d seen them before at the Black Bio Plant.

“It’s been a while.”

Strangely, I felt a sense of nostalgia.

They’d been enemies then. Now they were allies.

And if I looked closely... they kind of resembled giant metal puppies. Cute, in a way.

Granted, each one was the size of a small truck.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Their heavy footsteps pounded toward the Dreamland gate, and I followed them at a relaxed pace.

Clomp. Clomp.

The sound of my footsteps blended into the heavy march of the robots.

Dominic walked beside me, keeping pace.

And finally, the moment we crossed the rusted front gate of Dreamland—

The world changed.

Like a sudden cut between scenes in a film, we were no longer at the entrance. We stood in the middle of the amusement park.

In the sky, a foreboding gray aurora danced wildly, and scattered across the ground were holographic photos depicting all manner of grotesque scenes.

I stooped down and picked one up without thinking.

“Ugh.”

The photo vividly showed a man screaming in silent agony, both his eyes gouged out.

Frowning, I tossed the awful thing back to the ground.

And then—

The gray aurora above twisted violently, and from it poured a torrent of eyeballs.

Dark swarms of them all came hurtling toward Dominic’s group and me with terrifying speed.

“Prepare for combat!”

Even before Dominic’s shout had fully left his lips, the Shadow erupted outward, engulfing our entire team in a burst.

The black veil writhed like a living thing, forming a pulsating barrier.

And the moment the Shadow wrapped fully around us—

Click. Click. Click.

Camera shutter sounds rang out from every direction.

With each click, a holographic photo fluttered down from the air.

Thankfully, the eyeballs seemed unable to penetrate the Shadow. The photos showed nothing—just blank white sheets piling on the ground.

After we withstood the first wave, Dominic launched a counterattack.

“Counterattack—go!”

Countless spikes emerged from the surface of the Shadow dome, firing all at once into the air.

The Shadow-forged projectiles skewered the floating eyeballs with deadly precision.

They burst apart, one after another—

But it was useless.

As if someone hit rewind, the shattered eyeballs regenerated instantly, returning to perfect form.

Watching the cycle of destruction and rebirth repeat, I muttered under my breath:

“What a pain...”

Around us, Dominic’s robots continued their assault without hesitation. But I purposely refrained from joining the attack.

Somehow, I could tell: ordinary attacks wouldn’t be enough to truly destroy those things.

It might sound strange, but I had a strong gut feeling—those eyeballs required something special. A condition. A method. Something beyond brute force.

Even if I used Circle Energy, the result would probably be the same.

Lately, my instincts had become eerily accurate.

It wasn’t some grand future-sight ability or anything like that.

But when I was about to do something, I could almost always tell whether it would work or not—and I was usually right.

Of course, if I used White Shadow, I could erase those immortal eyeballs permanently.

But with this many of them, White Shadow would be wildly inefficient.

With how long I’d need to wait for the energy to recover, a full cleanup would take at least a month.

Then, suddenly—a memory surfaced.

The moment I was caught in the Corrosion Bomb.

That overwhelming power that gripped the space itself and dragged it forcibly into the sphere of my control.

“If I can do that again...”

I spread Shadow out in all directions, trying to recapture that sensation.

With fierce determination to seize this entire space, I clenched my fist toward the air.

...

But nothing happened.

Maybe I wasn’t desperate enough this time. My fist just grabbed empty air.

I tried again. And again. Same result every time.

Just as I was about to give up, children came pouring out from beneath my feet.

Hundreds—no, thousands of children.

As if they meant to help me, they all dove into the Shadow together.

Each child’s will might’ve been weak, but when they gathered in the hundreds, the thousands—it became a massive, undeniable current of power.

More willpower than even what I’d drawn on to stop the Corrosion Bomb.

From within the Shadow, a colossal hand burst out.

Without hesitation, it reached for the eyeballs drifting through the air and grabbed them like prey.

“?!”

The eyeballs flailed wildly.

Shutters clicked in a frantic cascade as they struggled to escape—but it was useless.

The enormous hand clenched tight and dragged the eyeballs into the Shadow.

Crack. Crunch.

A bizarre sound echoed—like something physically indestructible being crushed into pieces.

And then, rising slowly from the Shadow, came a giant child.

Razor-sharp teeth.

A body that shifted like liquid.

Pitch-black skin.

Its form seemed to borrow every beloved trait of Water Pig, the fluid cat so adored by the kids lately.

The colossal Water Pig child let out a roar—and opened its massive jaws toward the sky, where eyeballs still swarmed.

—

KRAAAAH!