Chapter 22
A-The Portrait of a Dismantled God (1)
For the first time, when I entered Extraction Room A Zone, I first doubted the air.
The smell, density, temperature—everything was completely different from the previous zones.
The density of the air made my throat ache, as if my lungs were being pressed down.
The more I breathed, the more I felt it.
‘It’s definitely different.’
A completely different law, a different world, a different set of rules operating this space.
The sensation at my feet felt strange.
The white floor was smooth and cold, but at some point it no longer felt like metal. It felt like I was stepping on living skin.
slap, slap.
Under my slightly sliding steps, there was a faint vibration that could only be felt in my eardrums.
‘It feels like something is inside my body.’
Even after working here and seeing countless bizarre things, this place had a uniquely overwhelming atmosphere.
It felt like walking through a blood-red rainforest, where brilliant light poured down but the ground beneath was flesh.
“Huff. The smell.”
Without realizing it, I flinched.
A strange odor stabbed my nose.
Oxidized iron, sticky sweetness, fermented stench from between dead animal fur.
The mixed aura of dimensional entities I had encountered before brushed past my nose.
“Ha-eil.”
A voice came from the left.
A familiar, slightly comforting voice—but still eerie, still scratching at something deep inside.
It was Assistant Manager Son.
“Stop fidgeting and keep your eyes forward if you don’t want your system breaking down. Don’t trust prototypes too much or you’ll regret it.”
His voice, calm but firm, carried through his heavy tone.
It felt sincere. Not a joke, not just a warning—but concern.
I closed my mouth tightly.
I turned my neck back from wandering and focused only on the back of Section Chief Mok walking in front of me.
A neck made of hardened bark, with teal leaves slowly swaying above it.
I synchronized my breathing with that movement.
‘Right. Don’t look at anything. Don’t hear anything. Don’t feel anything.’
I muttered it like a spell as I stepped forward.
From the left isolation rooms, something twitched.
From the right, a low vibration-like sound crawled through the air.
I could feel the relic of the “Martyr’s Bone” on my wrist slowly eating away at my fear with cold precision.
My brain screamed, but my heart beat calmly—an eerie contradiction.
A few more steps.
I heard my own breathing leaking out slowly.
My lungs dried, my heart alternated between pounding and stopping, sweat crawling down my back.
No one spoke.
Even Staff Officer Sik was silent.
Even that heavy, monstrous presence that always seemed different was quiet.
This place, covered in radiant, reddish flesh-like matter, was gradually revealing its meaning.
“Here we are.”
At Section Chief Myeon’s words, we stopped.
The door ahead looked completely different from any previous containment room.
Not metal. Not glass. Not reinforced alloy.
Bone?
A door formed from countless layers of intertwined bones.
A white skeletal wall embedded like nails into the radiant flesh-like structure.
Bones that were neither human nor animal twisted, grew together, and fused like welded steel, forming a living boundary.
It was strangely admirable that something so massive could be built from bone alone.
I bit my lip. The metallic taste in my mouth pulled me back to reality.
‘So this is an A-Class containment room.’
Beyond this door was an A-Class entity.
The Portrait of a Dismantled God.
“Employee Jeong Ha-eil.”
Section Chief Mok called my name quietly.
Beyond his bark-covered forehead, teal leaves slowly rippled.
One of them—at the very edge, trembling like a droplet of water—fell.
No wind blew, yet the leaf drifted toward me and stopped in front of my eyes.
He said nothing.
He simply raised his hand, caught the floating leaf between two fingers, and gently brought it toward my eye like a passing breeze.
“Ah, thank you.”
A sharp sensation spread.
It was not pain.
It was coldness—like dew from deep inside a forest.
The cooling sensation entered my eye and spread through my skull.
Down my spine. Into my ribs. To my fingertips and toes.
A strange calm settled in.
Staff Officer Sik’s claws.
Section Chief Myeon’s mask.
Assistant Manager Son’s head.
Manager Bartori’s tentacles.
And dozens of D-Class entities.
‘Still… I’ve survived here for a few weeks.’
Son had told me to stay focused, but maybe I had already grown somewhat numb to this.
Soon after, Section Chief Mok carefully removed the dried leaf from my eye.
I took a breath.
The air hadn’t changed.
Only the way I perceived the world had changed.
Edges became sharper. Colors became unfamiliar.
It felt like I wasn’t seeing with eyes anymore, but with raw perception itself.
Not light—but vibration.
“Employee Jeong Ha-eil. You’ll remain stable for about 40 minutes.”
Section Chief Mok spoke gently.
His green eyes shimmered through the hollow bark sockets.
At the same time, Section Chief Myeon pointed through the bone-barred window with his fingers.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
“Look.”
I looked.
And I froze.
There it was.
God.
No.
The remains of that existence.
The form of a god.
And the dismantling of a god.
A massive structure of gold and ivory interwoven like geometric muscle.
So refined, so immense, it looked alive.
Like Michelangelo’s masterpiece—balanced, sacred, sublime.
But it was not complete.
It was broken.
It was shattered.
It was carved apart.
And within those fractures—
flesh moved.
Muscle. Organs. irregular embedded matter. decomposed cellular tissue.
Something like crawling veins filled the broken gaps like sticky membranes.
At the skull. The arm. The abdomen. The back.
In every missing section, countless glass-like structures were embedded.
Eyes rotating like galaxies.
Eyelids trembling like flames.
Gazes that felt like they could crush a heart.
All of them looked at me.
At the same moment.
“…Ah.”
My knees nearly gave out.
My breath stopped. My mouth went dry.
My brain could not interpret what it was seeing.
It was beauty.
Blasphemy.
Fear.
And absoluteness.
The Portrait of a Dismantled God.
An indescribable vastness circled through my organs.
A fragment of overwhelming existence.
Broken, yet complete.
Disassembled, yet alive.
Dead, yet still existing.
A god that should not be.
My wrist beads began pounding violently.
I realized I was looking at a god.
At the Portrait of a Dismantled God.
When I first heard the name, it felt like exaggeration.
But what stood before me made the name feel insufficient.
In fact, any other description felt meaningless.
Massive. Refined. Sacred. Grotesque.
Above all—alive.
Between the broken pieces, something beyond “life” was writhing.
When I finally looked away from that unholy thing, I could feel my superiors’ presence again.
“Grrrr… ha…”
Staff Officer Sik exhaled lowly.
A chained, clawed monster with dozens of teeth.
He, who always watched expressions and moods, lowered his body slowly.
Even his growl had disappeared.
Clear fear.
“Hoo…”
Assistant Manager Son also lowered his head slightly.
Above his fist-shaped head, five fingers trembled awkwardly, unsure of themselves.
The usual confident man who spoke casually with folded arms—there was no trace of that now.
But not everyone was the same.
“How interesting.”
Manager Bartori.
Not a single tremor in her fingertips.
Her posture remained elegant and composed.
Her pale skin and rose-colored eyes simply observed the sculpture with interest.
“I was wondering what I’d do with a Class ■ entity… but that concern seems unnecessary. Of course, it’s clearly classified as an A-Class entity.”
Section Chief Mok.
He pressed his bark-covered fingertips against the glass, moving them as if taking notes in the air.
His green eyes flickered and blinked.
“Employee Jeong.”
Section Chief Myeon looked at me quietly.
A part of his smiling face turned toward me.
“From here on, I will go in personally.”
click.
The door opened.
With a decompression sound, the overwhelming air of the containment room spilled out.
It felt heavier than any room I had seen before.
Section Chief Myeon straightened his sleeve with one hand and slowly stepped forward.
Through the glass door.
Finally, into that space.
“….”
I watched him.
More precisely, I watched what stood before him.
It moved.
The god’s fragment.
From the cracked forehead.
The shattered cheek and broken jaw.
Something turned its head.
No sound.
Just space distorting.
Light bending.
The face of the massive sculpture turned toward Section Chief Myeon.
From its broken chest, back, abdomen, wrists, ankles—even beneath torn eyelids—
countless eyes writhed and focused on him.
Hundreds of gazes.
Without emotion, without intent, without identity.
Only perception.
“…Ugh.”
It felt like blood was flowing in my ears.
My feet froze.
My lungs tightened.
The most horrifying part—
was that Section Chief Myeon was still smiling.
He did not move back even a millimeter.
“Within the external structure classified as an object, biological tissue is present. In this case, it is categorized as a composite type.”
He folded his arms calmly, looking up at the entity.
Completely composed. As if observing an ancient statue.
No fear.
Only curiosity.
And familiarity.
“It doesn’t seem to have high physical aggression. But that’s actually more dangerous. Unstructured responses like this make non-physical reactions unpredictable, so caution is needed.”
Even inside the containment room, he continued speaking politely.
All I could do was nod and write it down in my notes.
As if this were just another routine inspection.
As if he were not facing a shattered god.
But a company’s raw material.
Section Chief Myeon was truly standing before it.
A distorted divinity beyond the world’s cracks.
A collapsed form and living void.
And in front of that grotesque existence—
he stood completely still.
