The Tiger's Song [9]
"Damn this thing—!"
Jeong-in slammed her massive body against the barrier.
But—
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!
All she got for it was a violent rebound that flung her right back out.
"You know how many hundreds of talismans I burned just setting this thing up?"
—Hah! Listen to you, bragging like you've accomplished something!
Jeong-in somehow managed to twist her brand-new face into a sneer.
—It's not like this barrier will last forever, and being trapped in here doesn't change the difference in our positions, does it!? I'll just hover up here, look down on you, and wait for the barrier to drop. That's all it takes!
"You're smarter than you look."
She had a point.
A barrier this size, no matter how many talismans I'd poured into it, couldn't be fuel-efficient.
'Ten minutes at most? No, wait—I reused the talismans I'd spent on San-gun, so...'
Being generous, three minutes was probably my ceiling.
Within those three minutes, I had to find a way to knock Jeong-in out of the sky.
'That's more than enough time.'
Ignoring the stream of curses she hurled down at me from overhead, I focused on the Three-Eyes Tiger-Shattering Formation.
The Three-Eyed Nine-Part Rite had originally been a ritual to drive tigers away. By fusing it with the Soul-Locking Formation, I'd elevated it into a barrier that trapped a tiger instead. The effect was solid—but by the very structure of the sorcery, it could do no more than cage the beast.
'So from here on out, I just add to it.'
And what sorcery would I add?
'Nothing drops a bird out of the sky like lightning.'
I connected to Dongbin's Dao Study Room on the spot.
"There it is."
I opened a post I'd read once, long ago, and forgotten for ages.
The 49-Day Training Method of the Okchu-gyeong
"Heaven and Earth shine bright—huh? Oh right, defiled qi scattered apart! Within the cavern, dark mystery vast! Brilliance blazing through the Great Origin! Awed might of the eight directions! Let me be as I am by nature!"
—What are you doing? Why are you suddenly staring at your phone reading something?
Startled by the incantation coming out of nowhere, Jeong-in dropped her altitude.
"The numinous treasure's talismanic decree proclaims to the Nine Heavens! Geonla-Dalna! Donggang-Tae-hyeon! Slay the demons, bind the wicked, slaughter the ghosts by the tens of thousands!"
—Is that a scripture you're reciting? The Okchu-gyeong!? Don't tell me you memorized the Okchu-gyeong's sorcery in your phone's memo app? So you mean to tell me—you're casting a spell on me right now that you haven't even finished memorizing!?
Actually, it wasn't a matter of not having memorized it. I was seeing this spell for the very first time today.
Ignoring her squawking, I chanted on.
"The sacred spell of the central mountain! The jade writ of the Primordial Beginning! I recite it but once—illness recedes, life extends! I walk the Five Peaks at will, and the Eight Seas know my name!"
—It won't work! You've got no way out of this with the sorcery you have, so this is just flailing, isn't it!? GYAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
God, she never shuts up.
"The Demon Kings bow their heads! Attendants guard my carriage! Wickedness and filth are swept away—the Dao's qi endures forever!"
The instant the incantation ended, golden lightning began surging up from the ground.
The thunder-light blooming from the earth spread upward along the barrier like electricity racing down a power line.
—Wh-what is that? That's impossible!? A spell you couldn't even finish memorizing—!
The moment the climbing thunder-light reached the point where Jeong-in hovered, I delivered the final word to complete the spell.
"Swiftly, swiftly, in accordance with the statutes and edicts!"
⟨ Imperial Summons of the Thunder God ⟩
With that most trademark of Daoist cries, the thunder-light that had climbed the barrier descended on Jeong-in from all four directions.
And it came fused with the Three-Eyes Tiger-Shattering Formation—lightning charged with a tiger-specific killing power.
—You little—!
Jeong-in threw herself into aerobatic evasive maneuvers, but it was useless.
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!
Because the net the thunder-light wove was like Heaven's own snare—it delivered to the guilty a retribution befitting their crimes.
One strand of the lightning flashing in from every direction punched straight through Jeong-in's wing.
—GWAAAAAAAAGH!
And just like that, the ace pilot's dazzling aerobatics came to an end.
The fate of a wingless Icarus, as everyone knows.
If there was one difference between Icarus and Jeong-in, it was this: Icarus had a brief moment of calm before hitting the ground to reflect on his life. Jeong-in, with no time even for that, was getting roasted by the lightning raining from all sides before she'd even started falling.
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!
—GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Seared through three hundred and sixty degrees, her gorgeous tiger-striped plumage charcoal black, Jeong-in plummeted.
"Yikes."
I stepped back to avoid the falling body.
KUUUUUUUUUUNG!
A heartbeat later, Jeong-in slammed into the earth.
Krrrrrrrrrumble...
I felt the shockwave ripple outward and walked toward the thing. I had to confirm the kill.
"Tough as nails, aren't you."
Astonishingly, Jeong-in was wrecked from head to toe—and still breathing.
—H-how...!?
"What, what do you mean?"
—How can a spell you couldn't even finish memorizing come out this perfect...?
Well, explaining would take a while, but if I had to sum it up in one line:
"Because I'm a genius."
A plain, unvarnished fact with nothing to add or subtract.
—Ridiculous...
"That all for your last words?"
I readied the Heaven-Shaking Talisman to end her breathing for good. But it looked like there'd be no need.
—Yukhon!?
Yukhon, the third Chang-gwi she'd collected, burst out of her without being summoned.
—Y-yes! Yukhon, become my sustenance! If I devour your soul, I can recover somewhat—!
—Finally...!
—Huh?
—Finally, my time has come!
Crunch!
Yukhon clamped onto the belly of the still-living Jeong-in and sank his teeth in.
—GWAAAAAAAAGH!
—Finally! Finally! Finally!
Yukhon tore at Jeong-in's stomach like a beast, repeating the word finally over and over.
I had a rough idea what that "finally" meant.
The most fundamental way for a Chang-gwi killed by a tiger to settle its grudge and pass on in peace: to kill the tiger, rip the raw liver from its belly, and chew it down.
Normally that duty falls to the eldest son of the family the tiger destroyed. In this case, though, the Chang-gwi itself had turned on its master the moment Jeong-in weakened.
Chang-gwi are supposed to be incapable of rebelling against their tiger hosts, weakened or not. The only reason Yukhon could defy her had to be that Jeong-in had trampled his dignity into the dirt with her cruelty.
"Reap what you sow, I guess."
—StopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopititHurtsHurtsHurtsHurtsHurtsHurts!
—FinallyFinallyFinallyFinallyFinallyFinallyFinallyFinallyFinallyFinallyFinally!
Jeong-in wrenched her ruined body around, trying to shake the Chang-gwi loose. But Yukhon held on like a remora, teeth locked deep in her belly. And the moment her strength drained away, he went right back to enthusiastically devouring that belly—now bald and bare where every hair had burned away—with his tiny mouth.
Crunch, squelch, rip-tear-crunch!
—AAAGH, AAAAAGH! AGH! K-kill me! Just bite my throat and kill me already!
The wound widened bit by bit, blood seeping out.
But even powering up, tearing through that thick belly-hide and those abdominal muscles to get at the liver would take Yukhon a long, long while. Which meant Jeong-in was going to savor the agony of being eaten alive—long, and longer still.
Even in Japan's seppuku, there's an official called the kaishaku whose job is to behead the dying so they don't suffer too long. That's how excruciating the pain of being cut open belly-first is. Being devoured alive while conscious? Only worse.
So I decided to extend Jeong-in a small mercy of my own.
"It wouldn't be right, after all, for a fellow human being to just stand here and watch you suffer."
—Ghk...! D-don't tell me you're going to kill me out of mercy...?
"Nope. I figured I'd keep you company until the end. A little chit-chat takes the edge off the pain, doesn't it?"
—......
"What?"
—YOU INHUMAN BASTAAAAAAAAAAARD!
Jeong-in squeezed out the last of her strength, and the tiger's roar shook the Inner Space itself.
"Wow, what lungs. You could've bitten your tongue off with that kind of power instead."
Wait, no—she's a bird now. Does that even work?
...Does it not?
Can birds even die from biting their tongues?
And so, while I was deep in scholarly contemplation of the question can birds die by biting their own tongues?—
—...Fine... chit-chat, like you said, ugh! Ghk, you said you knew exactly why my Chang-gwi didn't attach to San-gun... what's the reason?
"Out of the goodness of my heart?"
—You, ugh, you, you...!
"C'mon, we're not exactly friends. We're not at the 'I'll tell you as a parting gift for the road to the afterlife' stage, are we? So here's the deal—you give me answers that satisfy my questions, and I'll teach you the truth about San-gun that you've been dying to know. How about it? Pretty decent deal, no?"
—Ugh... ghk... fine... but swear you'll end my life after you tell me the truth about San-gun.
"Deal. Look at us, communicating. First question, then: how many psychics stronger than you does Jeong-myung-gyo have?"
—...That's... ugh! Ghk!
Jeong-in hesitated for a moment, then smirked instead.
—Heh heh heh. Your talent is undeniable... but there is always a sky above the sky. Among the Divine Generals alone, two stand above me. Above them sit the Four Heavenly Kings. And above them all reigns the Messiah beyond Heaven, our Holy Leader. You'll be drunk on triumph over one dead woman, but to Jeong-myung-gyo, a thing like you is dust—!
"So seven, got it, thanks~"
—Ghk, how dare—! Ghk! Kghk!
Meanwhile, Yukhon had finished peeling the skin off Jeong-in's belly and was gnawing on raw red abdominal muscle.
Man, did he train his jaw strength living next to that tiger or what? Impressive bite.
"Second question. What's your Holy Leader up to right now?"
—Insolent wretch! Blasphemer! Honor him with 'His Holiness'!
"Sure, sure—Your-Holiness-what-are-you-doing-right-now? What, you wanna keep nitpicking my wording? Don't wanna hear the truth about San-gun?"
—Ghk...! ...His Holiness... even I don't know what he's doing. One thing is certain: he is preparing to save the world in its final days.
"Ooh? And his underlings are out here eating people on Bukhansan?"
—A sacrificial ox for the sake of the ages. The world has always turned that way.
"And your people are the ones who pick the ox?"
—Heh heh heh heh heh. Choosing the ox to be sacrificed has always been the privilege of those who change the world. This time, that's simply us. Does history not prove it?
Well-spoken, kid.
And not exactly wrong, either.
The tide of the ages waits for no one weak, saves no one weak. If necessary, it sacrifices them—cruelly, without mercy.
What Jeong-in got wrong was this: she, too, was nothing more than one of the sacrificed oxen.
—Hey, ghk! I've... answered this much, haven't I? Time to tell me the truth about San-gun.
"Fat chance. Look, even without your help, I could deduce the number of people stronger than you to within five either way, and on the Leader's whereabouts you just gave me a big vague shrug. And now you want the truth from me? You've got some nerve."
—......
"If you want a parting gift for the road to satisfy your curiosity, bring me something more useful. How's the war between Cosmos and Jeong-myung-gyo going?"
Cosmos and Jeong-myung-gyo.
The war between the two titans standing at the front and the underside of South Korea.
Nothing in the psychic community was a bigger hook than this, right now.
And the Aegis I'd received from the Chairman probably had a hand in it, too.
Both organizations were my enemies—so the Aegis had nudged their collision into motion, postponing the dangerous karma that would otherwise have come looking for me.
Though given how the karma had been steered, the two groups evidently didn't get along to begin with.
—...The front is deadlocked. After Cosmos's surprise full offensive, Jeong-myung-gyo carried out retaliatory terror attacks, and since then it's been a cold war of listless, small-scale strikes.
"I see."
Hm. Not great.
From my standpoint, I wanted the two factions tearing each other apart until I reached the Transcendent tier. The fighting cooling off like this, fizzling into a halfhearted ceasefire, was bad news.
'...If I play my cards right, I could tie this whole affair into it, couldn't I?'
But that was a problem for later.
Time for the last question.
"Final question. What does Jeong-myung-gyo think of me?"
—...Heh heh. So even you fear the church, it seems.
"Your guts are three seconds from hitting the floor. You might want to answer quickly."
I pointed at Yukhon, who had finished stripping out every strand of abdominal muscle and finally succeeded in shoving his face into her intestines.
Squish, rip!
The innards were comparatively soft, and Yukhon's pace of devouring sped up dramatically. Being eaten through the organs apparently hurt far more than skin or muscle—Jeong-in's enormous bulk shuddered violently.
—AGH! AAAAGH! GHEEEEEK!
"Well? Still got time to laugh at me?"
—Th-the church...! We first learned of your existence through Jeong-myo! Or-originally, ghek! We merely thought of you as, ugh! A troublesome ghuuuuhk! Individual, but then—AAAAAGH! Cosm...os! When we learned Cosmos had taken an interest in you...! Our wariness climbed sky-high! Right now, ugh! The church's intelligence division is digging, digging through your information...!
"Is that so..."
Damn it. Had propping up Cosmos as Jeong-myung-gyo's shield actually backfired on me?
—I-I've told you everything! Now tell me the secret of San-gun and ki—AAAAAGH! Kill me! Please, kill me!
Yukhon's entire upper body was now buried inside Jeong-in's stomach. And a volume of intestines matching that upper body was being shredded to ribbons and flung out of the gaping belly.
'Bigger body, bigger organs, I guess.'
With that utterly pointless thought, I threw out my last question.
"Okay, this one's the last. Why didn't a Chang-gwi attach properly to the Mountain God of Bukhansan?"
—...What?
"Give me an answer that satisfies me, and I'll tell you San-gun's secret—and end your pain with it."
—Y-you...! You son of a—! You promised! You promised! If I answered your questions—!
"I said 'give me an answer that satisfies me.' That's exactly why I saved this one for last. So go on—satisfy me."
—I curse you! I curse you and curse you and curse you again!
"Go right ahead. You know, you're actually pretty funny?"
Thud.
I set my foot on the head of Jeong-in, who was being devoured alive from the inside out.
"For someone who spent so long deceiving everyone else, you're the easiest one here to fool."
—GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
—My vengeance is finally at hand!
Crunch!
With Yukhon's ecstatic voice ringing out, a horrific final spasm shuddered through the Inner Space of San-gun.
And Jeong-in's face sagged against the ground.
With death, her body returned to its original form.
And from the naked corpse of Jeong-in, her belly split open horribly, the Chang-gwi wormed his way out, a torn piece of liver clamped in his mouth.
He looked at me.
—My thanks.
With that one word, the Chang-gwi vanished, liver and all.
"Don't mention it."
"Then again, even with the stream running, I couldn't have broadcast this ocean of blood."
I took in the hellscape painted in the blood and viscera that had erupted from Jeong-in's transformed body. The kind of sight that would make an ordinary person retch on contact.
I counted myself lucky I hadn't streamed this scene live. My channel would've been banned on the spot.
"Well then, time to head down the mountain."
Afterward, I descended, switched off the Narrative Coercion, and traded places with Exorcist Kim at the perfect moment.
"Uh, um, heh, so about the collab stream—"
"I'll contact you from my end first. Just sit tight."
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
Then I pulled the two sealed Chang-gwi out of my storage pouch.
—Ahh! Finally!
—We're free at last!
In the same instant, I-ol and Gulgak passed on to their rest.
Like Yukhon, they'd been freed the moment the tiger that killed them died. Passing on the second they tasted freedom—maybe they'd been decent sorts after all.
'Well, whether they end up in heaven or hell is another question.'
Manipulated by Jeong-in or not, the fact remained that they'd aided in murder. If it's a sin, it's a sin.
Heaven might be a stretch; hell, who knows.
Or does the afterlife's legal code recognize diminished capacity like ours does?
'Pointless speculation. There's no proof heaven or hell even exist.'
The two Chang-gwi vanishing was indirect proof that the Bukhansan Maneating Tiger legend had been exorcised.
Nowhere near the reaction The Suicide Train had gotten.
Granted, compared to vaporizing a train of raw flesh with a bow of light in the middle of the Han River, today's result was pretty tame.
But what could I do?
"This has been Kim the Taoist. See you on the next stream~"
And so I ended the broadcast, a little wistfully.
"Phew...!"
"Th-thank god we weren't spotted...!"
"S-so what the hell happened? Tell us the story!"
I looked down at my crew, slumped on the ground in exhaustion, and said:
"What are you doing? It's not over yet. Up. You've got to wrap up the job properly."
"What!? Wrap up? What do you mean there's more!?"
I pointed at San-gun, who at some point had climbed onto Kim Han-soo's shoulders, wrapped around his neck.
San-gun—possibly both the greatest contributor and the greatest victim of this whole affair.
After all the help I'd gotten, this time it was my turn to repay the debt.
"We're going to soothe San-gun's soul."