Gong No-sa Is Coming [3]

Dammit, dammit, dammit! That cursed old hag...!

Yoo Dong-cheol, Director ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the Paranormal Administration Bureau, ground his teeth at the personnel order handed down from above.

He had known, ever since Baek Gong-ju first set foot in the Bureau, that a day like this would come eventually. Knowing it hadn't meant accepting it, of course — he had done everything in his power to make sure the day never arrived. Specifically, he had reported her achievements to his superiors in terms trimmed down to the barest minimum, and he had assigned her work that demanded plenty of hands and hours while leaving nothing to show for it — re-auditing the spiritual defenses of the distinguished gentlemen up top, that sort of thing. Detaining her throughout the Seonhwa High incident with every excuse he could dredge up had been part of the same scheme: if Baek Gong-ju resolved a catastrophe on that scale, her merit would blaze far too brightly in the eyes of the higher-ups.

The irony was that Yoo Dong-cheol had ultimately lost his seat over none of that. It was punishment — for keeping his mouth shut about the Hospital That Eats People even after learning that Baek Gong-ju's corruption had been reversed. He had, in the most literal sense, dug his own grave with his own two hands.

Of course Yoo Dong-cheol knew how sordid his own conduct had been. But he had clawed his way up from the very bottom, racking up results year after year, and he could not bear to have his chair snatched away by a stone that had simply rolled in from outside. Above all, he could not — absolutely could not — accept that the stone in question was Baek Gong-ju, the woman who had once shattered the Paranormal Administration Bureau single-handedly.

'That shameless woman...'

Even now, the faces of the senior colleagues who had died at her hands back then were vivid before his eyes. Granted, the Bureau of that era had ruthlessly dragged in psychics at the slightest provocation, threatened and tortured them — sometimes killed them — but surely one had to account for the times they lived in?

'I can't just roll over and take this.'

Yoo Dong-cheol took out his phone and placed a call. The party on the other end was Gwangmok Cheonwang, Guardian of the West among the Four Guardian Kings of Jeong-myung-gyo. Yes — Yoo Dong-cheol, for all his position as Director of the Paranormal Administration Bureau, was also a collaborator of Jeong-myung-gyo. It was the cult's unstinting support that had lifted him into the Director's chair in the first place, and he was the very man who had introduced President Lee Jin-seok to Jeong-myung-gyo in the first place.

"Director Yoo."

"Glory to heaven and earth, peace and radiant light, light upon all the world — I greet the Guardian of the West."

Yoo Dong-cheol laid out his situation and moved to ask for the man's help. 'I matter to Jeong-myung-gyo too. They need me.' He intended to request Baek Gong-ju's assassination. Strong as she was, even she would die if one of the Four Guardian Kings or the cult leader himself took the field.

But the Guardian of the West's voice was faster than the words leaving Yoo Dong-cheol's mouth.

"You have grown hasty, Director. This is not a mistake you would normally make..."

"Yes?"

"Yoo Dong-cheol."

A voice spoke from behind him — familiar, yet so young it sounded almost wrong.

"Ugh!"

He whirled around to find a girl who looked barely into her teens, standing there in an ill-fitting formal suit and a pair of dark sunglasses. It was Baek Gong-ju — rejuvenated, after being caught up in an anomaly and whatever else had happened to her.

"Ah— aaah..."

Yoo Dong-cheol's eyes trembled. The rejuvenation had shrunk away her once-oppressive height and muscle, leaving her with the frame of any other girl her apparent age. But her bearing had not diminished one whit. If anything, some change of heart had sharpened it further. That keen presence was scrupulously impartial: to the innocent, it warmed like spring sunlight; to the guilty, it cut colder and crueler than a midwinter frost.

The problem was that Yoo Dong-cheol was, himself, guilty.

"I knew you'd reach out to your backers the moment your position turned against you, but I never imagined you'd handle it this clumsily... and that your backers would turn out to be Jeong-myung-gyo, no less."

"Th-that is...!"

"Spare me the excuses."

Baek Gong-ju removed her sunglasses and wiped the lenses with a handkerchief, letting out a small sigh.

"A rotten field grows rotten crops in the end. It's only fitting."

"Ghk...!"

The moment Yoo Dong-cheol understood that "rotten field" meant his dead seniors, fury surged up through him.

"A sealed mouth, you say...!"

He yanked a talisman from his coat and slapped it against the wall. In that instant, a ripple that shook space itself washed over the two of them.

"An Inner Space? That's beyond your level — something the cult gave you, then?"

"Quite the chatterbox. Scared?"

Yoo Dong-cheol smiled crookedly and slipped his hand into his coat. With his ties to Jeong-myung-gyo exposed, Baek Gong-ju had to die — within the hour, if possible.

The trouble was their location: the corridor of the Bureau's own headquarters. He had unfolded the Inner Space to smother any commotion and settle the matter as quietly as possible. Of course, against a Special-Grade psychic like Baek Gong-ju, his odds of winning were slim to none — practically zero, if he was honest. But that assumed Baek Gong-ju was in her right state.

'One look at her says she isn't. Which means I have a fighting chance!'

Whatever else you said about him, Yoo Dong-cheol was a Grade-A psychic — and not merely Grade-A, but its very pinnacle. They didn't hand out the Director's chair at a game of go-stop.

WHAM!

"Huh?"

Yoo Dong-cheol's world went abruptly, totally black. It took him the better part of a minute to grasp why: both of his eyes had just burst.

"AAAAAAAAAGH!"

He rolled on the floor, clutching at his ruined face.

"We were colleagues once, so I've no wish to be needlessly cruel..."

"Heek! Heeeeek!"

Blind, Yoo Dong-cheol crawled across the floor in raw animal terror.

"...E-even like this, do you really think I'm finished!? I know any number of politicians who—!"

"Assemblyman Shin Se-hee? Assemblyman Park Min-su? Or perhaps Assemblyman Jeong Chan-ho? You sent Bureau personnel out as bodyguards and collected so many promises of support from so many politicians that I honestly can't tell which one you mean."

"......"

"But it hardly matters who you mean. Why? Did you seriously believe they'd avenge you over a connection as thin as that?"

"...Ha!"

At last, Yoo Dong-cheol burst into hollow, broken laughter.

"Goodbye, Director. Don't feel too wronged."

With that final word, his body burst apart with a wet pop, spraying a fan of blood across the corridor. Not a single droplet so much as touched Baek Gong-ju. She regarded the stain that had been Yoo Dong-cheol with mild indifference, then gave her hand a light, casual flick.

CRREEEAK—

The Inner Space he had unfolded tore open like cloth. An Inner Space belonging to a gifted-grade anomaly might have given her pause, but a flimsy thing like this, a Special-Grade like Baek Gong-ju could rip apart with a gesture. Returned to reality, she murmured to herself:

"With this, the bare minimum of preparations to help that child are complete."

But Baek Gong-ju had no intention of stopping there. Having acknowledged Kim Yi-yeon as the savior who would see the world through the coming end times, she meant to give everything she had.

"A great undertaking will need the politicians' help as well. Assemblyman Choi Sun-woo has ties to that child — building the roster around him should serve nicely."

While Baek Gong-ju quietly laid the foundations for the future Kim Yi-yeon would build, Yi-yeon's consciousness was floating high above Seoul — there to inscribe the golden narrative Paracelsus had left behind: [AZOTH].

'Wait. Hold on a second...'

He had been in the middle of using [AZOTH] to convert the Outside Energy — a shortened name, since "energy from beyond the Outside" was far too much of a mouthful — saturating all of Seoul into spiritual power, when he changed his mind.

'Even if I convert everything out there right now, as long as the gates remain open, the Outside Energy's just going to flood back in, isn't it?'

And he couldn't simply cast [AZOTH] again every time it did. Its effects were radical enough that its usage interval sat at a hefty three months. If the Outside Energy swelled beyond his capacity to handle during that cooldown, it would be game over.

'Is my order of operations wrong?'

The ideal way to use [AZOTH], obviously, was to seal every gate leading to the Outside first, and only then invoke it. But the Outside Energy already filling Seoul had crept dangerously close to critical mass — too much to keep sitting on until then. The proof was in the black clouds blanketing the city: something inside them stirred with the unmistakable quickening of a living thing.

Squirm... squirm...

It was the prelude to the birth of an anomaly composed of pure Outside Energy, root and branch — like the Fake Dragon King. Beings whose very existence was made of that energy corroded everything around them simply by being there, as the corrupted Baek Gong-ju and the Fake Dragon King both had. 'I absolutely cannot let that thing be born.'

Just then, an idea flashed through his mind.

'What if I adjust the narrative's conditions?'

Narrative Coercion was, at bottom, a kind of covenant — and by adjusting its terms, its effects could be bent to his intent. He narrowed [AZOTH]'s scope from the Outside Energy already spread across Seoul to the energy flowing out of the gates in the present, ongoing tense.

The result: [AZOTH] transformed from an active skill with a three-month cooldown into something like a passive, constantly in effect. This would buy him the longest possible delay on that final step from end times to outright apocalypse.

'But is this really the right call?'

What if he had misread Paracelsus's intent? The anxious thought flickered through his mind — and he brushed it away just as quickly. They had already left the choice in his hands, and this was the best answer he could give with the judgment they had trusted. 'Let's do it.'

The moment the decision was made, he inscribed the narrative [AZOTH] upon the world.

Vmmmmmmm...

And soon the surge of power took on form, tracing out a vast transmutation circle that wrapped around the entire planet.

'Magnificent...'

The golden narrative [AZOTH], left to this world by Paracelsus, the alchemist of the elements. Across a span of several hundred years, that narrative was laid over the face of the earth. And in the same instant, the fetal throbbing of the Outside Energy writhing through Seoul fell silent.

The birth of new life demands an enormous quantity of nutrients — and it seemed even beings from the Outside were no exception to the rule. With the additional supply of Outside Energy cut off, the thing's birth slowed to a crawl. Yi-yeon let out a breath of relief. He had no way of knowing whether his choice had been the best one, but at the very least, it appeared not to have been the worst.

Now, then — on to the remaining problem.

Whooshhhhh—

He watched pillars of light surge up from points scattered across Seoul — no, across the whole planet. Outside Energy converted into spiritual power by [AZOTH]. Which meant that every place a pillar now rose was a site with a gate leading to the Outside.

'Well, that's an unexpected stroke of luck.'

Yoon Chang-sik had given him the locations of some of the gates, but it had been truly only a fraction. He'd been puzzling over how to find the rest — and now the problem had half solved itself.

That said...

'Ugh, there are a disgusting lot of them...'

Just within Seoul, the visible pillars numbered close to fifty. Cosmos had secured thirty-two gates in the city, which meant the remainder belonged to Jeong-myung-gyo or some other faction — though every ounce of energy pouring through them was being converted into spiritual power even now.

And then—

'...Those ones.'

Four points where [AZOTH] was failing to purify the entire inflow — which meant, in turn, that the volume pouring through the gates at those locations was colossal. 'Four...' Four in total. Grade-1 gates, almost certainly. He calmly burned their positions into his memory.

Now, the last remaining question was what to do with all the converted spiritual power. Honestly, he'd already settled this one. From the moment he'd decided ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to inscribe [AZOTH], he had turned the problem over and over: store the surplus somewhere for power-hungry sorceries like Huye-sail, or funnel it into crafting ritual implements and artifacts. But either way, concentrating this much spiritual power in a single place invited trouble, and simply spending a fraction and scattering the rest felt like a criminal waste.

Then the answer had occurred to him: the Inner Space.

Yes — that very Inner Space anomalies used to devour people. Psychics could weave one too, if they set their minds to it. The catch was simple. 'It eats an obscene amount of spiritual power.' When an anomaly unfolded an Inner Space, it was like a spider spinning its web — a home and hunting ground in one, built to lie in wait and hunt from a single spot for the rest of its days. The miserable fuel economy was a fair price for that.

'But I can't afford to stay pinned to one place like that.'

He couldn't just bury his head in an Inner Space like a turtle, because the world was well on its way to becoming hell. Interpreted the other way around, though, that meant some psychics — the hermits who shunned all outside activity — did unfold Inner Spaces and simply live inside them. Dwelling within one granted a nearly perfect defense against the physical attacks of non-psychics.

'In other words, a shelter. Exactly the thing for psychics who've made enemies everywhere they go.'

Having chosen to cross Cosmos, he needed protection against massed physical assault by sheer numbers of people. So he gathered up the spiritual power streaming purified from the gates. It was less than what purging all of Seoul's Outside Energy would have yielded, but with so many gates running, the accumulated amount was nothing to scoff at — and since he would be drawing it out continuously, the long-term yield would be far greater still.

He compressed the gathered power into a single point, perceived the surface of space itself, slipped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the point into the seam, and pried. Drawing on his experience of reaching into an Inner Space from the outside, he began to weave one of his own.

'There we go!'

First attempt or not, the weaving went off impossibly smoothly. He could feel the Inner Space he had made settling into place on the far side of reality's surface.

The problem was—

'Uh... whoa?'

It was smooth to the point of absurdity. Partly because spiritual power was flowing in from the gates in real time, the Inner Space spread at a tremendous pace, as if ink were soaking into paper — and it didn't stop there. It raced on through Dongjak, Seocho, Geumcheon, and Guro, devouring district ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after district.

And by the time he came back to himself—

'You've got to be kidding me...'

An Inner Space nearly equal in area to the whole of Seoul stood complete. Which is to say—

'I just acquired a private space the size of Seoul, didn't I?'