INV 87

It is a damn shame, but Kwon Yihyeon must go to work today as well. No matter what horrific sight he saw yesterday, the company does not take an employee’s personal circumstances into account. It is not that kind of space. Even if the superiors in the department were preposterously friendly, professional boundaries had to be maintained.

Before Chacha—who had approached and, for some reason, stood looking down at him for a long time—could wake him, Kwon Yihyeon sprang up, thinking it was better to get the pain over with early.

Chacha said nothing, even though he saw the dark circles cast under Kwon Yihyeon’s eyes.

Kwon Yihyeon, on the other hand, spoke like this:

“Good morning.”

“…”

Chacha gazed at Kwon Yihyeon with a subtle look. A gaze that seemed to think, ‘It couldn’t possibly be a good morning.’

However, Kwon Yihyeon was sincere.

He believed that as long as they could say, “Good morning,” they would be okay.

Kwon Yihyeon tried his best to think that way.

Kwon Yihyeon did not know what kind of being Chacha was. Chacha would not easily reveal himself, either. But they were in a contractual relationship, and they would continue to be together.

That was enough. Kwon Yihyeon could truly be satisfied with that.

“Did you have a good dream?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t remember very well what I dreamed about…”

But Kwon Yihyeon was a step too late.

“Oh dear. How unfortunate.”

The vague expectation that he would be by his side forever was his losing move.

“It is time to wake up now.”

…Never once, after the question about having a good dream that was repeated every morning, had words like these been added.

Even before Kwon Yihyeon could sense the strangeness, at the very moment that mysteriously profound voice trailed off.

Rumble, crash, roar!

A violent whirlpool erupted. What flowed out in five strands from the five fingers extended by Jae Angshin was wind, but the moment it encountered an obstacle, it was transforming into a storm that would sweep everything away.

Walls shattered, pillars were uprooted, and the roof was smashed to pieces. Unable to withstand it, Kwon Yihyeon was pushed back and slammed into a corner with a loud thud!

Heave, wheeze, short gasps were exhaled. Torrents like blades poured down in streaks. In the midst of the unrealistically raging rainstorm, Kwon Yihyeon could not even stand up properly.

However, sensing the crisis, his eyes, which had begun to glow gold, desperately clawed at the surroundings, chasing only the person named Chacha—the one who had spent time with Kwon Yihyeon.

But what was faintly visible through the rising dust was.

‘Calamity itself…’

Kwon Yihyeon held his breath without realizing it.

Like a beast facing a crisis, he instinctively covered and stifled even his panting breath so it made no sound.

Because the thing before his eyes was not a person. It could not be a person. A person could not do such a thing.

Because one could not call such a thing a person!

‘…Damn it!’

Was Kwon Yihyeon wrong? Was Kwon Yihyeon, who called such a being a person, the one who was wrong?

It was a cunning infant and a mayfly that lived for eternity. It was entrails sweetly decayed like rotted fruit. Simultaneously, it was a filthy light, a desperate salvation, a cursed hope, a clean destruction, a brilliant death. And a new era. A complete end and a perfect new beginning. The very horror of the abyss that would sound the finale even for reincarnation…

Every human gains another chance even after death. That is what the Underworld is for, and that is what the Afterlife is for. To understand one another—that alone was the reason humans were born to repeat life over and over. Thus, the reason reincarnation exists was, in the end, to realize the logic, truth, and prajna that cannot be fully realized in a single lifetime.

But the “monster” currently before his eyes…

Could break anything and destroy anything. That referred to the annihilation of the soul itself. At the same time, it was the collapse of providence, the erasure of spiritual providence.

And perhaps, the end of the world.

“…”

The yōkai, who wore a single sword slanted as if to judge this world, is smiling brightly while pouring out a demonic power the world cannot handle. In that appearance, Kwon Yihyeon feels that Chacha has refused to be a person any longer. Kwon Yihyeon’s head turned white. He couldn’t think of anything.

Only the obsession that he did not want to die surged up.

Despite this, Kwon Yihyeon desperately tried to deny his instincts. Even though his whole body told him to run, even though his fine hairs stood on end, he cried out to the fair-skinned man surrounded by a black current in that very spot.

He dared to call him.

“…Chacha?”

“Yes, Kwon Yihyeon.”

A tremor ran up his forearms. Just from that jewel-like voice rolling out serenely, a dizzying wave swept chillingly over his skin.

“You have the right to call me that.”

the maddeningly beautiful bride smiles redly. From inside the snow-white human skin, the demonic power that seemed to burst out and tear the flesh apart was dreadfully pitch-black. A bizarre aura, tinged with black and violet, was swirling with the human skin as its axis of rotation. He was so covered by all those pitch-black things that at times he could not even be seen.

The ruby-like eyes that met his for a fleeting moment were swallowed as if hidden between the black waves of energy.

Presently, it smiled thinly.

“Watch closely. Because this will be the last time.”

“What does that mean…!”

The next moment, the elite troops of the Afterlife arrived, having sensed the gestation of a calamity. The most valorous Haetae Department was at the very front. They wisely tried to say something to Jae Angshin instead of attacking recklessly, but the moment they blinked, everyone had disappeared.

They hadn’t been annihilated. They had simply been knocked away by the materialized aura unleashed by Jae Angshin. People vomited blood as broken ribs pierced their lungs, and they rolled into corners, crumpled as if hit by a dump truck.

The sight of the familiar bones of his superiors snapping was quite unrealistic.

Kwon Yihyeon gazed blankly at Jae Angshin through the sunshower that had begun to fall in a haze.

“The Celestial Realm commands! Jae Angshin, cease the use of force! We command again! Withdraw your demonic power! Otherwise…!”

“Ahahaha! This isn’t even funny! Begone, you insignificant things who do nothing but play at being immortals regardless of who dies.”

Jae Angshin was dancing.

As he flicked his fingertips, a storm of blood arose. The hazy mist wavered following the heat. Fresh blood was splattered, entrails protruded, and thus the hazy mist danced along with the calamity… in the moment his vision was being dyed bright red.

Kwon Yihyeon instinctively felt that Jae Angshin was giving him a teaching.

It was a truly strange delusion, but an unconscious immersion began. His eyes, glowing gold, deconstructed every single vibration of Jae Angshin’s moving demonic power, discarding the outer husk and sweetly swallowing only the inner core. In other words, Kwon Yihyeon was imitating Jae Angshin’s management of energy.

Since he had never properly learned internal mental methods, it was awkward and clumsy, but it was safe to say he mimicked it well enough. Like a child imitating an adult’s pretentious attitude, like a disciple swallowing a master’s demonstration to spit it out in his own way—as he focused his heart and soul on following him, his vision eventually blurred.

Only then did Kwon Yihyeon feel that he was pouring out tears.

In truth, Kwon Yihyeon wanted to ask this more than anything else.

‘What do you mean by the last time? Are you really telling me to end it like this?’

But Kwon Yihyeon knew it, too. The relationship between Kwon Yihyeon and Chacha had been maintained until now by Chacha’s one-sided insistence. As such, if Chacha let go, nothing would remain.

That a bride who approached capriciously one day might disappear capriciously another day.

Why had he only realized this now?

“Chacha—!”

Kwon Yihyeon shouts. Between Jae Angshin and Kwon Yihyeon, people are bursting, flying, and breaking. While limbs are scattered and upper and lower bodies are split, with all those fragments blending unrealistically.

Kwon Yihyeon, who had caught everyone’s gaze, began to walk across the landscape where the sunshower was falling.