INV 72

“What words do you have for the groom who came out to meet you?”

“Whether he’s learned enough of a lesson that the sky isn’t suitable for public transportation?”

⋆˙⟡

When the human was embraced by the Jae Angshin, the yokai thought: why has it turned out like this?

Turning back time to the moment the Jae Angshin awoke, from the perspective of the yokai, the Jae Angshin should have naturally begun a rampage. The current level of madness was not enough. It should have been a full-blown frantic eruption of insanity.

Because that is what a Jae Angshin is.

Ten thousand years ago, the nameplate of “Jae Angshin” was a disaster and an act of god that made things like smallpox look like child’s play. If even a single word about the Jae Angshin coming escaped a yokai’s mouth, the stingy Taoists would recoil and run for their lives, and the shamans who specialized in warding off evil would faint and tremble. If just a single lie could turn the world upside down like this, what would it have been like when the actual entity appeared? Even the noble lords fled in horror. They say even the White Horse General tucked his tail. A high-ranking official of the Celestial Realm supposedly perished while trying to announce a royal edict.

There was such an era. That was why the Jae Angshin’s current behavior was so puzzling. To the Jae Angshin they knew, there was no reason. Even if he had a self, it would have evaporated and scattered in madness. If the Jae Angshin were the same as he was ten thousand years ago, this “human imitation” he was showing now was nonsensical. Yet, the current Jae Angshin was putting on a “human imitation.”

Whatever change of heart occurred, it is self-evident that he can enjoy slaughter all the more as he brings chaos to the world. That is why the Great Yokai came to this place.

To serve the Destruction conceived for the sake of destruction as their sovereign and once again enjoy the glory of the past.

Truth be told, there was one more scoundrel like that besides the Jae Angshin.

I’m talking about the monkey yokai, the Beautiful Monkey King, who was famous for being dragged around by some idiotic monk and viciously beating his own kind to death… If you ask who he is… you could say he’s a stone monkey born from a rock, a lunatic ruffian who just happened to ride the tides of fortune well.

For the record, this was absolutely not an evaluation mixed with personal feelings. Even the Immortal Realm loves to chew that guy out so much, so doesn’t that say everything about his temperament? The one whom both yokai and immortals—two incompatible groups—unite in hating is none other than the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Sun Wukong.

“With such a guy alive and well, the reason the yokai were just sucking their thumbs until the Jae Angshin awoke is…”

Actually, there wasn’t even a need for a reason. The answer was simple. The yokai who had gone to persuade Sun Wukong were already screaming in the hottest part of hell.

“Hey. You don’t know me? Where do you get off throwing a fit, telling the Great Victorious Fighting Buddha Sun Wukong whose side to take…”

“Y-you were a yokai once, too!”

“Do I look like I care?”

The Great Yokai of the past had long since changed his route while being dragged around by the Monk Sanzang, and now he was living as a Buddha.

“If a scoundrel like that can attain Buddhahood, couldn’t I do it just as well?”

Ah, that part seems like a personal feeling.

Anyway, the consensus among the Great Yokai was that the Jae Angshin was far more destructive, even compared to that Sun Wukong. It seems there are some idiots among them who think this is just a psychological victory because they lack the confidence to persuade Sun Wukong…

“The generations are certainly different, so they can’t help but be ignorant of the truth. Even I have met Sun Wukong, but I have never seen the Jae Angshin in person.”

However, it was said that the Bull Demon King, the Great Yokai among Great Yokai, had encountered the Jae Angshin. He did not personally participate in the gathering to seek out the Jae Angshin, but…

Sending himself as a representative must mean he is watching this moment that carefully.

“Go and find out with your own two eyes if the Jae Angshin is a being who can fulfill our desires.”

Everyone was gathering in this narrow land to follow that command.

As if the Jae Angshin had also sensed their hearts, he was waiting for them halfway up a sparsely populated mountain.

Clean humans were felt near the mountain peak to a disgusting degree, but once the Jae Angshin awoke, those puny things would realize that an act of god beyond human endurance had descended upon the world.

Therefore, Hong Haeah, the son of the Bull Demon King and Princess Iron Fan, bowed his head before the disaster without hesitation.

“Why are you in a place like this? This land is far too narrow to contain you. You are far too great to be trapped in the divisions of the lower world. Let us tear and kill everything. Let us tear apart everything that blocks the path and return to your true self. The one who tore to death the treacherous immortals who acted all refined and dignified, and finally dragged down the Jade Emperor! Is that not who you are!”

Just recalling the records from ten thousand years ago made Hong Haeah’s whole body shiver. Who was it that personally divided the boundaries of the world and drew the line, forbidding the direct involvement of the Celestial Realm? Was it not the solitary and pure Jade Emperor? No one knew that that lofty man, who looked down upon the likes of us as filth, would personally present a farce where he broke the celestial taboos he set himself to engage in a struggle with a mere fox yokai.

Even if he was sealed, there was no reason the achievements of that moment should be disparaged. To this day, the Jade Emperor was imprisoning his soul in a physical body and acting as his own torturer in the lightning prison to receive punishment for breaking the precepts. Now was the opportunity. It was the desire of the yokai to break the distinctions between worlds, liberate their brothers trapped beneath the Underworld, turn humans into slaves, and tear the immortals to death.

And the one who could achieve this was the Jae Angshin.

But…!

“Why do you look upon a mere human so preciously?”

Hong Haeah felt like he was going to faint. The one who, until just before, had empty eyes without saying a single word, was suddenly submerged in passion as if his personality had come alive, and was becoming soaked in deep emotion. It was all because of that guy. The killing machine had broken because of a single man who fell from the sky. A sense of crisis rang an alarm in his head that it shouldn’t be like this. If left like this, the Jae Angshin might not destroy the world. He had those kinds of eyes. He was looking at a person with those eyes.

Hong Haeah didn’t realize that he had somehow become desperate. He tried to stir up the Jae Angshin’s impulses once more, feeling as if he were grabbing at the hem of his trousers.

“Look into your heart! The desire for destruction… emptiness… the thirst that isn’t quenched unless you break, demolish, and ruin! All that futility is you!”

This was true for all yokai. Though there were differences depending on innate martial power and temperament, a yokai was something that could go berserk at any time if they lost their patience to madness. Regardless of whether it was a conscious or unconscious rampage, a rampage inevitably accompanied violence. Having strong power meant the damage from violence increased accordingly.

In terms of swinging violence impulsively due to an inability to control anger, humans and yokai were not much different, but there was a reason the Immortal Realm loathed yokai so exceptionally. It was because the aftermath of a rampage by a yokai with yokai power was immense. Because of that, the Immortal Realm has criticized yokai as hybrids that cannot discard animal instincts and were born with a nature that enjoys slaughter. However, Hong Haeah thought differently. Humans were weak, so they lacked yokai power, and yokai were strong, so they possessed it. Therefore, humans deserved to be ruled.

“If it is only right for the strong to rule the world anyway, is there any reason why yokai should not write a new history?”

The Jae Angshin the Bull Demon King supposedly witnessed in the past was a monster itself, robbed of reason and devoured by madness. A completely crazed being had somehow been wearing a human mask like a gentle lamb until now. If so, madness should be consuming his reason by now. Hong Haeah desperately hoped his words would become the trigger to turn the world upside down.

“Why do you intend to leave the world as it is!”

Had the wish been granted?

In the next moment, the world began to tilt upside down, then, thump, thump, roll, thump.

It fell into a strangely pitch-black darkness.

It was something incomprehensible, but at the same time, even the concept of being unable to understand became blacker and blacker…

⋆˙⟡

“…Gasp!”

Hong Haeah snapped his eyes open. He was certain his head had been cut off, but his eyes opened again. He was certain he had faced death… Was it an illusion? Could it have been an illusion? Could such vivid sensations all have been an illusion? His hands and feet trembled. Yet, he couldn’t collapse, so he forced his frozen, unmoving fingers to bend. He felt his neck. It was damp. His head wouldn’t move, so he desperately cast his eyes downward. He wanted to see his palms, but he couldn’t see them. He felt as if it took over ten minutes just to pull his arm forward. He knew it was an illusion. But his head was broken as if something were wrong, and he couldn’t count the time properly. Cold sweat poured down insanely, and finally, Hong Haeah was able to see the fingers that had felt his neck.

They were drenched in blood.

So, what this means, I can’t possibly underst—

“Did you say I would leave it as it is? Me.”

At that moment, a chilling voice poured down. Stopping his rambling thoughts, Hong Haeah instinctively looked forward.

His mind grew hazy at the sensual gaze.

He couldn’t remember anything about what he had been doing just a moment ago or why he had come here. Do I need to know such a thing as who I am? Since this person didn’t command me to do so, could there be a reason why I should be allowed to? The ability to perceive and the reason to think were all crushed. Just as long, white fingers gently touch a flower bud to squeeze out honey, his mind was completely rummaged through.

Now, just being stared at felt like reaching the Land of the Peach Blossoms. Even if he had to dip his head into the Sanzu River, there was an ecstasy there that made him want to keep looking.

Meanwhile, the perspective of those watching Hong Haeah was entirely different. Hong Haeah, who had his head cut off and then was forcibly regenerated, seemed to have completely lost his soul and couldn’t even feel fear.

The emotions he felt were only complete ecstasy and reverence.

That very fact was drowning those watching in terror.

“Well, do you like it?”

The Jae Angshin spoke, but no one could open their mouths. No, in fact, the Great Yokai couldn’t even understand the Jae Angshin’s words and couldn’t even accept them as language.

They simply perceived it as an act of god erupting in a roar.

They were Great Yokai who reigned like rioters in their own territories, but they were now feeling poignantly that everything was useless in the face of overwhelming terror.

“You don’t like it?”

However, Kwon Yihyeon was different.

Held in the Jae Angshin’s embrace, he bit his chilled lips and desperately shook his head.

The Jae Angshin watched Kwon Yihyeon intently, then slowly moved his lips.

“Right, I see.”

At that moment, starting from Hong Haeah’s toes, he began to turn into gray ash and scatter in the wind. The Great Yokai who had commanded the yokai and slaughtered humans was breaking into pieces. However, no one realized that it was strange. They were simply being suffocated by terror.

Hong Haeah was smiling vacantly even until then.

Only then did they instinctively feel it. That something had gone wrong.

“Did you believe that the hands and feet of mere things like you would be of any help?”

The god who had annihilated Hong Haeah was smiling with detachment. As if it were only natural. Even though he had erased a being from the world just by lowering his gaze. Even though he had easily killed a powerful Great Yokai, whom even immortals could not treat lightly, as if treading upon a single mangy bug…

At that moment, those who had ridiculed the claim that the Jae Angshin was superior to the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, and those who had gathered here because they judged it to be credible, all recalled a single moment.

The very moment the Bull Demon King commanded Hong Haeah.

“Go and find out with your own two eyes if the Jae Angshin is a being who can fulfill our desires.”

The Bull Demon King had already known. That he was not a being who could fulfill their desires.

“That is…”

Disaster, calamity, an act of god.

An irresistible, supernatural, unknown terror.

“If we were to pull it down into a concept we can understand and give it a name.”

Only this word could provide an explanation.

Heavenly Punishment.