Gong Nosa Is Coming [7]

-Request complete. Exorcist Kim has been dealt with.

"Heh."

As Gong Nosa read the message from Deadman, a smile crept across his lips. He had guessed as much the moment the curse he'd planted on Exorcist Kim was severed—but seeing it confirmed in black and white made him feel like a blockage ten years old had finally cleared from his chest.

At last! At last, that detestable thief is dead!

Ever since his Fire-Tipped Spear had been stolen from him at Seonhwa High, Exorcist Kim had been a thorn lodged in Gong Nosa's throat. No matter how pleasant the occasion, no matter how delicious the meal, no matter how soft the blankets he slept in, that thorn always pulsed with a faint ache deep in his neck, souring every pleasure. And worse—the thorn had refused to stay a mere irritation. It had risen to prominence in the industry, until there wasn't a single day Gong Nosa didn't hear that name, each mention grinding fresh stress into him.

Now, at long last, the thorn had been plucked out.

Heh heh heh. The Fire-Tipped Spear won't be able to defy me any longer, either.

Gong Nosa smiled down at the spear slumbering within his own shadow. When he checked the next message, a photo was attached: a picture of Exorcist Kim's severed head. No traces of sorcery. The photograph was real.

Not long after he sent his reply, another message arrived.

Having read it, Gong Nosa stirred his own shadow. It was a shadow puppet crafted through Ghost-Shadow Dark Sorcery, and he sent it out to collect Exorcist Kim's head. Normally he'd have dispatched an underling for such work—one of his disciples, meat shield and body double both—but after nearly having the Fire-Tipped Spear stolen out from under him by Exorcist Kim, the trauma had left Gong Nosa unwilling to keep anyone close at all.

Some thirty minutes passed. The shadow puppet he'd sent returned carrying Exorcist Kim's head, nestled inside a black Boston bag.

"Heh heh heh heh... at last...!"

Ziiiiiiiip.

Gong Nosa opened the bag. Inside lay Exorcist Kim's severed face, eyes closed—the very sight he had dreamed of for so long.

And yet Gong Nosa could not laugh. Because—

"...What is this?"

What sat in the bag was not Exorcist Kim's head at all, but a puppet disguised by sorcery to look like one.

A decoy puppet with a transformation spell on it!?

That wasn't all. Inside the puppet, he could sense yet another trail of sorcery.

A tracking spell! And there's one more trace beyond that—!

The instant he realized he had walked into a trap, Gong Nosa's mind began racing.

He knew about the assassin from the start—he fed me the curse at exactly the right timing to deceive me. Then the photograph? A faked picture should have been impossible for me to miss...!

Gong Nosa's situational awareness was astonishingly fast. But he was not given enough time to piece together what had actually happened.

KUUUUUUNG!

His secret lair shook as if an earthquake had struck. But that was impossible—his lair lay in the Inner Space, a place ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠where natural phenomena like earthquakes simply did not occur. If the Inner Space itself was shaking, it meant someone was launching a spiritual attack against it.

"Exorcist Kim...!"

At that very moment—

KAGAGAGAGAGAK!

With a shriek like two slabs of iron grinding against each other, a crack split open across Gong Nosa's Inner Space—and through the crack, another Inner Space began to erode its way in.

KAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAK!

The boundary of Gong Nosa's Inner Space collapsed, and he was forcibly absorbed into the larger one. Into none other than Exorcist Kim's.

Then, ringing out sharp and clear above the thunder of two Inner Spaces grinding together, came the voice of the man Gong Nosa despised above all others.

Chwararararararak!

"Mmh!?"

Exorcist Kim's Inner Space had already been seeded with talismans before it ever breached Gong Nosa's. Suddenly finding himself standing at the very center of that array thanks to the erosion, Gong Nosa found chains of spiritual force coiling around him—and at the same instant, the final talisman that would complete the formation came flying straight at his head.

Fwish!

"Pathetic little tricks."

But the last talisman scattered into ash with a single glare from Gong Nosa.

"A good attempt."

The moment Gong Nosa moved to unravel the Nine Palaces Soul-Locking Formation—

Dododododododo

"A half-measure is only as good as its follow-through."

"What!?"

The teddy bear that had been lying on the floor, knocked loose by the shock of the collision, came sprinting without a sound and latched onto the back of Gong Nosa's skull. In that instant, the talisman hidden inside the bear activated and completed the Nine Palaces Soul-Locking Formation.

Chwarararararararak!

Then hundreds of Spirit-Binding Talismans came streaking in, lending the formation their weight. It was Exorcist Kim's original technique: the Nine Palaces Soul-Locking Spirit-Binding Formation, a fusion of the two arts. From the moment Gong Nosa opened the bag to this—a swift, precise ambush executed in exactly ten seconds. A perfect surprise attack, carried out in the space of a blink.

But it didn't end there. No—if anything, this was where it began.

The consecrated sand that had been laid out alongside the talismans beneath the Vairocana Mantra Barrier ignited into blue flame. The same fire that had burned the high-rank demon Seire now swallowed Gong Nosa whole, held fast within the formation.

HWARARARARARARARAK!

This time there would be no repeat of the mistake at Cosmos Medical Center—a restraint framework had been laid from the start so that every ounce of the barrier's heat would pour onto Gong Nosa and Gong Nosa alone.

CHIIIIII!

When the blue fire, hot enough to melt the Inner Space itself, had swept through and passed—what remained on the scorched ground was...

Jurururururuk.

...nothing but a single lump of black shadow.

"Reckless fool."

The shadowy lump melted away, and from beneath it Gong Nosa emerged, utterly unharmed. He looked around. The Inner Space that had eroded his own was a vast, drab gray room. He surveyed it slowly. But the gray room was empty—no one else at all. Not even Exorcist Kim.

Tch. He ran?

Clicking his tongue, Gong Nosa mentally dissected the tricks Exorcist Kim had employed.

First, he rammed his Inner Space into mine and forced an erosion.

Even a Special Grade like Gong Nosa was no exception to that rule—and Exorcist Kim had seized on exactly that fact. He'd pre-seeded his own Inner Space with the Soul-Locking Spirit-Binding Formation and the consecrated sand, then drove the whole thing into Gong Nosa's like a battering ram, denying him any window to respond and planting him dead at the array's center.

Clever. Face to face, there'd never have been time for all that fiddly preparation.

And the firepower he'd assembled that way was more than enough to kill a Special Grade—given the element of surprise.

What Exorcist Kim had overlooked was that anyone who reached Special Grade inevitably accrued enemies and grudges along the way, and so lived in a state of constant readiness for battle.

"Ptoo!"

Gong Nosa spat up several lumps of flesh that had risen from his throat—special curse-talismans that activated automatically against sorcerous attacks, dampening their power.

"A good attempt."

Gong Nosa let out a dry chuckle and formed a hand seal. The instant he did, shadow flooded out from beneath his feet, repainting the floor and walls of the gray room entirely.

This has already been explained twice, but to say it once more—

Inner Spaces built by human hands are always soft.

KWAJIJIIJIK!

The shadows of Ghost-Shadow Dark Sorcery crushed the gray room's Inner Space as effortlessly as a child twisting a doll's wrist. Both Gong Nosa's Inner Space and Exorcist Kim's were now shattered, which meant they should have spilled back into real space—a building in Yeouido that Gong Nosa owned under a borrowed name.

But what emerged was not a building. It was hundreds of tons of water, pouring in from every direction.

"What!?"

"I figured it out messing around with the Inner Space, you know—you can build another Inner Space inside an Inner Space."

Exorcist Kim's voice rang out amid the deluge. But there was no time to hunt for its source. Water of that mass was a killing weapon in its own right, quite capable of crushing a person flat.

And Exorcist Kim was not satisfied with that.

CHWAAAAAAAAA!

The pouring water began to spin, gathering into waterspouts that crashed down on Gong Nosa from all sides at once. Naturally, Gong Nosa did not simply take it. Colossal shadow arms conjured from Ghost-Shadow Dark Sorcery lashed out in every direction, shredding the waterspouts apart. Considering that each spout carried physical force enough to tear a dump truck in half, the strength of arms that shredded them like a cat ripping through a paper door was frankly absurd.

A Special Grade at full strength really is on another level!

But even this was within my calculations.

Click.

I fished the Green Immortal Pill out of my pocket the moment I felt it, tossed it into my mouth, and poured my strength into Fey's authority.

"Push through with brute force!"

-Understood.

CHWAAAAAAAK!

For every waterspout Gong Nosa batted aside, Fey conjured more—more than he could cut down—in real time. It devoured an obscene amount of spiritual energy, but the effect was undeniable.

CHWAAAAAAAAAK!

Under an offensive so massive it bordered on stupid, even Gong Nosa was finally forced onto the back foot. Even then he tried to counter, pulling jiangshi out of his shadow—

-Where do you think you're reaching?

CHWAK!

Fey and I were hiding inside a pocket of air we'd carved into the water, and the moment the jiangshi entered it, they were diced into pieces by the water-pressure cutters Fey spun up around us.

I can do this!

The instant I felt the fight tipping my way—

"Ugh!"

My eyes met Gong Nosa's. In that moment my breath seized, and a crawling, insectile wrongness surged across my whole body.

-Thee!?

The moment my spiritual support cut out, the power Fey was wielding dropped off sharply. Naturally, Gong Nosa did not miss the opening. His shadow arms flailed like a maddened beast, tearing the weakened waterspouts to ribbons.

"Damn it...! No wonder the old geezer's a Special Grade."

I circulated the Daoist power in my body, purging the curse Gong Nosa had cast with his eyes alone. But in that brief gap, he had shredded every last waterspout and finished preparing to shatter the Inner Space again.

KIIIIIIIIING!

With a piercing shriek, the second Inner Space began to collapse. But—

"Three layers of Inner Space... this insufferable—"

"Why are you so desperate not to run?"

I stepped out from behind Fey's wall of water and showed myself. If Gong Nosa escaped here, my plan ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠failed. If that happened, I'd be living in fear again, never knowing when he might send another assassin.

Not a chance.

Reckless or not, the gamble had to happen here. I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to make him feel certain he could kill me—so that he would stay.

"A frightened beast hides in the water like a cub. Why crawl out so foolishly?"

Gong Nosa glared at me with open disgust. I funneled my Daoist power into my eyes, blocking his curses in real time while stealing glances at his shadow.

"......"

I could feel it. The blue flame slumbering in that shadow. The tether of fate binding him to the Fire-Tipped Spear.

Gong Nosa's heterodox arts had forced the spear's compliance—his hand had been permitted, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠however grudgingly. But the Fire-Tipped Spear was a divine relic of the mythic age. No matter how tightly heterodox sorcery bound it, its spirit would not break. Least of all now that its true master stood before it.

Come. Come to me. Come to my hand!

Jolt!

"...Ugh!"

Gong Nosa's face froze. At the same moment, the shadow spreading from beneath his feet began thrashing like something possessed.

I could feel it—the heartbeat of the Fire-Tipped Spear, buried in Gong Nosa's shadow!

Come back to me!

The more I called to the spear through our connection, the more violently the shadow pulsed. Before long, a faint azure light began seeping up from beneath Gong Nosa's feet.

At that very moment—

"Do not defy me...! Submit and become mine, as you were meant to!"

WHAM!

The instant Gong Nosa stomped his foot, the vast spread of shadow converged inward, smothering the azure light. He was pouring the whole of his shadow sorcery into suppressing the Fire-Tipped Spear.

"Hahh! Hahh!"

Gong Nosa's breath came ragged. Even now, he was surely burning spiritual energy and mental focus to keep the spear down.

A flawless surprise attack. And a mutiny from his own weapon. Right now, Gong Nosa was weaker than I had ever seen him.

This was likely the first and last chance I would ever get to kill Gong Nosa.

And I was not the only one thinking it.

Gong Nosa was looking at me, too. He could still have escaped the Inner Space at any moment—a few more layers remained, but for him that was no real obstacle. And yet he stayed, eyes fixed on me.

He was running the numbers. How much strength he could spare while pinning down the mutinous Fire-Tipped Spear. Whether any other allies of mine were lying in wait. And whether, all things weighed together, he could kill me.

Before long, Gong Nosa finished his calculations.

"Yes... it's always been this way. The more important the matter, the more it must be settled by one's own hand—not someone else's."

A cold smile curled across Gong Nosa's lips.

"That's my line."

And I smiled back at him. It was time to put a period at the end of this long, ugly feud.