Chapter 28

Jun-gyeong turned his head toward the enormous tree stump standing alone near the entrance to the central park.
Around the bare stump, pitch-black iron stakes had been driven deep into the ground in the formation of a perfect hexagon.
Behind them stood arrogantly raised flags of dark funerary cloth, the kind used only for death rites, covered in grotesque formation patterns painted with red cinnabar.

The Six Evil Iron Stakes bound the Seonghwangsin’s limbs, while the ritual array formed by the flags forcibly trapped his power within this space.
The reason the spirit had been staggering and trembling like a leaf was that he had been forcing out his spiritual power in an attempt to tear free of those vicious restraints.

Jun-gyeong clicked his tongue and glanced at the Seonghwangsin.

“You should have just endured it. Why did you come out now?”
“…There are six Taoists inside. The spiritual power their leader is drawing out is no ordinary amount…”
“Enough.”

Jun-gyeong strode toward the park.
He might have ignored it if he had known nothing, but now that he knew, he couldn’t simply leave the spirit like this.
Up close, the barrier looked even crueler.

Six pitch-black iron stakes as thick as a grown man’s forearm pierced brutally around the base of the tree as though crushing the life from it.
Dark-crimson blood, impossible to tell whether human or animal, had dried hard inside the roughly engraved Taoist characters covering their surfaces.
In the suffocating stillness without even a breath of wind, the funerary-cloth flags shuddered grotesquely with a flap-flap-flap, like the hide of some living monster.
An unpleasant ringing scraped against his eardrums.
Jun-gyeong silently clenched his fist.
Dense internal energy surged blue over his rough knuckles.
There was no hesitation.

BOOM-! KRAKABOOM-!!

Every time his fist tore through the air, an iron stake exploded apart as though dying with a scream.
Each time a stake burst into fragments of scrap metal, the linked blood-red flags flared up and burned away without a trace.

BOOM!! BANG!! BANG!!!

The brutal sound of destruction shook the park.
No, it shook the entire seemingly deserted neighborhood.
The moment the sixth and final iron stake crumbled into dust and every ritual flag vanished into an inferno,

FLASH-!

The Seonghwangsin’s Sin Level and the Corruption Level that had stood at forty-two percent rapidly dropped before Jun-gyeong’s eyes, reaching zero in an instant.
The corrupt energy dispersed, and clear divinity filled the park.

At last freed from his restraints, the Seonghwangsin straightened his once-bent body.
Then he bowed deeply to Jun-gyeong.

[…Thank you.]

The agonized rasp that had seemed dragged up from the depths of Hell was gone.
His voice was now clear and dignified, gently resonating through the surrounding air.

Jun-gyeong waved a hand dismissively.

“Protect the neighborhood properly from now on. I might be moving in here myself before long.”
[Yes, Your Majesty.]

Jun-gyeong walked toward the building.
The Seonghwangsin watched his broad back with reverence for a long while before smiling and dissolving into a handful of white light.

A pitch-black future.
A collapsing sandcastle.

The wealth and power he had believed firmly within his grasp were slipping uselessly through his fingers.
But he couldn’t simply collapse here and let everything be taken from him.
Besides, none of this had been his fault in the first place.

Someone else had ruined the entire game.
Wang Jo-young, the CEO of Taehwa Pharmaceutical, who had suddenly caused that disaster in Korea.
The general public might know nothing about the truth, but to Mayor Han, deeply entrenched in political circles, it was obvious.
That lunatic Wang Jo-young had clearly screwed everything up.

He didn’t care what sort of drug the bastard had taken before causing such a scene in front of powerful figures from around the world.
What mattered was that the damned butterfly effect had driven powerful figures and major capitalists who had previously remained in the background to openly obstruct his plans.
Mayor Han ground his teeth and roughly pulled a satellite phone from deep inside a drawer where he had kept it hidden.
Only one number was saved.
Chairman Wang’s name appeared on the screen.

“Chairman Wang. You do realize this situation is your side’s fault, don’t you?”
-What are you talking about, Mayor Han?

The voice from the other end was unnervingly calm.
Mayor Han deliberately raised his voice to hide his anxiety.

“Didn’t everything go wrong because your family’s Wang Jo-young caused that whole disaster in Korea?! If not for that, why would all those rich bastards and powerful people who stayed in the shadows suddenly be blocking me this openly?!”
-Ah~ So… this is my fault?
“Whose fault would it be, then? If someone throws ashes onto a table that’s already been fully set, somebody has to take responsibility.”
-Hehehe. True. Someone does have to take responsibility. That’s how politics works.

Only after Chairman Wang readily agreed did Mayor Han’s tightly furrowed brow begin to relax.
A sly smile appeared on his lips.

“Exactly. Responsibility. Whether it’s politics or business, you need to know clearly where responsibility lies before you can draw the next picture.”
-All right. How would you like me to make this right?
“It’s simple. Judging by the way things are going, another term as mayor of Seoul is out of the question. So I might as well make sure I come away with something worthwhile and head straight for the presidency. I need ammunition.”
-Ammunition? Money, then. Fine. But if the Sajik-dong redevelopment collapses, where do you plan on finding that enormous amount of funding?
“Who said the redevelopment was finished?”
-Hmm? I thought you were blocked on every side.
“I even had those bizarre structures planted right in the middle of the Sajik-dong entrance, just like you asked. The administrative procedures are already out of my hands. All that’s left is to send in the heavy equipment as planned.”

A cold silence lingered over the line for a moment.
Eventually, Chairman Wang’s quiet cough broke the silence.

-…Ah! It seems you haven’t visited Sajik-dong yourself yet, Mayor Han.
“Do I really have to personally set foot in those filthy, musty little alleys?”
-You normally wouldn’t need to, but this time you should. Someone capable of resolving all your burning worries at once has arrived there.
“Someone? How exactly are they supposed to help me?”
-There are people in Sajik-dong who can clear the road blocking your future in one decisive stroke. Go and meet them. I guarantee your entire life will change.

His entire life would change?
Mayor Han’s brow narrowed again.

“My life?”
-Indeed. Famous Maoshan Taoists from the mainland are stationed there. You never visited even when those structures were erected, so naturally you wouldn’t know how miraculous their powers are.

Just as Chairman Wang said, Mayor Han had never visited the site even once while the structures were being erected.
He had merely issued orders through his subordinates.
There was no way he could have known about the Taoists who had secretly entered Korea from China.

“Taoists… Are you saying they can really use Taoist sorcery to put me on the road to the presidency?”

He was hardly in a position to dismiss such claims as nonsense. Even the former president and his wife had been deeply superstitious.
And Mayor Han himself had risen to the mayor’s office under that president’s power.
He too believed in superstition and sorcery, and he believed that if such powers pushed him forward, becoming president would no longer be merely a dream.
Subtle anticipation and greed entered Mayor Han’s eyes.

-Even in Korea, if you want a reading from a truly gifted shaman, don’t you have to meet them in person? Go and see them yourself.
“I suppose I should. Haha! Thank you. You always open a path for me whenever I’m in trouble.”
-Think nothing of it between us. I’ll contact them in advance.
“Of course. Then I’ll look forward to the day I can treat you to a fine drink on the mainland.”
-That day will come.

Click. The call ended.
An intoxicated smile of triumph spread across Mayor Han’s face.
His grip tightened as he lowered the satellite phone.

“That’s right. As long as I can secure the money for a presidential campaign, those bastards in the other party can have the mayor’s seat. I’m going higher.”

He roughly pressed the intercom button.

Beep-

“Have the car ready. I’m going to Sajik-dong right now.”
-Yes, Mayor. We’ll prepare it immediately.

Thinking of the sorcerers from the mainland who would fulfill his dark ambitions, Mayor Han looked out the window of his office.
Far in the distance, ominous storm clouds were gathering over the sky in the direction of Sajik-dong.
The sly smile hanging from his lips deepened.

RUMBLE-

Rain-heavy storm clouds blackened the sky and growled low and heavy.

-It looks like all of Sajik-dong is trapped inside a barrier. Every CCTV camera in the area is down. I can’t get any visual feed at all. Smartphones are out too, and I can’t even pick up signals from ordinary car dashcams.

Listening to Ok-hee’s urgent voice through Dokkaebi Transmission, Jun-gyeong quietly looked up at the sky.

“…Is this Dokkaebi power?”
-What? What do you mean…?

Instead of answering, Jun-gyeong lowered his head and slowly clenched and opened his fist.
Each time the heavens growled, immense energies of Water and Lightning surged from deep within his dantian as though resonating with the storm.
This downpour was no coincidence.
Jun-gyeong’s very presence was stirring the energy of the land.
Or perhaps it was the work of the Seonghwangsin, newly freed from the barrier.

“Good.”

Jun-gyeong looked at the building crudely painted with skulls in red and black spray paint.

RUMBLE! PATTER, SHAAAAA-!

As though it had been waiting for that moment, the rain began pouring down in sheets.
Jun-gyeong raised one corner of his mouth and walked through the rain toward the building.

“I’m going in.”
-…I won’t be able to help you anymore because of the barrier. Be careful.
“It’s fine. Doesn’t matter.”

Shhhk-

Jun-gyeong frowned at the sensation of tearing through an invisible, unpleasant membrane.

“They’ve placed a wide-area barrier over all of Sajik-dong, then layered a sealed barrier over the building itself. Including the formation in the central park, that makes three layers. Even for a secret laboratory, this is excessive protection.”

He had already destroyed the formation in the central park, but the barrier around this building was structured so that it couldn’t easily be dismantled without finding and destroying the ritual object hidden inside.
And just as expected, the moment he crossed the barrier, his connection with Ok-hee was completely severed.

The moment he stepped into the first-floor lobby, damp, oppressive heat clung thickly to his entire body.
Perhaps the building had once been a hospital, because the first-floor lobby had high ceilings and a wide-open layout.
They had probably trusted their barriers too much, because there were no guards protecting the entrance or blocking his path.
Instead, a horrifying sight awaited him.
Three small hills of corpses had been piled up as though put on display.
Jun-gyeong’s eyes widened.

There were elderly people, women, and children.
It looked as though they had slaughtered everyone who had been in the hospital and piled the bodies here.
He had seen a sight like this before.
It was what the northern barbarians had done when they crossed the border and raided villages.
They would massacre the villagers and pile their bodies at the entrance to display their strength.
Jun-gyeong ground his teeth and clenched his fist hard enough to crush it.

The central stairwell and emergency-exit doors burst open, and armed men poured out.
Books of Karmic Sin appeared above their heads all at once, but Jun-gyeong had no need to read them.
No, there was no point.
The gleaming sashimi knives and steel pipes in their hands, and the corpses scattered around them.
That alone was reason enough to kill them.

Jun-gyeong opened his right hand, and black mist rippled through the air as a sword materialized in his grasp.

“Not one of you will leave here alive.”

The gangsters spread out and systematically surrounded the lobby.
Their perfectly coordinated movements gave Jun-gyeong a strange sense of wrongness.

Despite dozens of grown men moving at once, there was not a single shout or even the sound of footsteps.
There was no leader issuing orders, yet they paired themselves into groups of two and three and formed ranks like parts of one enormous organism.
Looking more closely, he saw that each beastfolk was mechanically paired with one human, or sometimes two.
There was no stench of rotting corpses like the Jiangshi, nor the turbid aura of a demonic creature.
Their eyes were simply unfocused as though drugged, while an oppressive heat and clammy stickiness pervaded the entire lobby.

“Are they drugged, or under some kind of sorcery?”

He couldn’t tell exactly what kind of sorcery had been used, but the vicious killing intent to crush any intruder here was unmistakable.
At that moment, a low, resonant voice entered Jun-gyeong’s ears.

[There is a Taoist deep underground issuing commands through sorcery. He is the leader coordinating the formation and controlling every puppet in this building.]

It was the Seonghwangsin’s voice.

“Did he know I was coming and prepare for me?”
[He did not prepare specifically for Your Majesty. He merely received a message from someone not long ago and gathered these people. Then, when he sensed the Seonghwang Tree formation collapse moments ago, he hurriedly assembled a defensive formation.]
“A barbarian Taoist… Things are getting interesting.”

Once again, memories of the past rose vividly in Jun-gyeong’s mind.