Chapter 53 Great Peace Sect (9)
The Great Peace Sect (9)
Episode 54
It had happened ten days prior.
Just like Park Ha-rin, my unpredictable little sister had been captured by a cult.
I had no idea how they'd managed to subdue a monstrously overpowered sister capable of twisting world history with her abilities... but regardless, given our past relationship—and the fact that we were family—I couldn't just leave her there.
『Park Si-hyun's Third Leading Cause of Death - Park Se-eun』
Not that I was afraid of Se-eun possibly turning dark... No, you damn cultist bastards... Do you even realize the life-threatening tension I endure every time heroines are involved? If you knew, you'd never dare pull this shit on me.
Honestly, I wanted to storm their headquarters right then and wipe them all out, but I couldn't underestimate the terrifying, sinister woman backing them.
If I barged in recklessly, I'd probably get ganged up on by a variety of abilities just like Do Ro-rang and end up getting wrecked instead.
Of course, if Park Ha-rin had been here, things would've been very different.
'Noona. You bitch. Where the hell did you go?'
Ha-rin's whereabouts had become a mystery again. What had she said before disappearing...?
─You know leveling up separately is more efficient, right? I've got something to take care of, so I'll be back soon.
And then she vanished without a trace.
Before leaving, she'd stared at the blade of her sword and grinned eerily, so she was probably off to slaughter someone.
Though my time with Kang So-eun without Ha-rin around had been blissful, I found myself missing her just a little now that I had to fight.
At any rate, thanks to the "Wish Ticket," no woman's purity would be defiled, so Park Se-eun wouldn't have suffered anything vile from those men.
Still...
'I should hurry as much as possible.'
I needed to rescue my family as soon as possible. Even if she was my Nemesis, family was family.
After carrying Kang So-eun back to the university, panting heavily, I immediately asked for help.
"You might not know, but something big's happening in Seoul right no—"
"I'll help."
They agreed before I could even finish.
Yu Yeon, the art student with the ability 「Depicts」.
"That white tower—all the zombies were swarming toward it. That's the big deal, right? Park Si-hyun?"
And our professor, Jang Hye-jeong, whose office attire and stockings were nothing short of art.
"I-I'll help too."
"Us too...!"
The college students I'd rescued while gasping for breath also volunteered.
The events at the Great Peace Sect had struck them as deeply unsettling.
A pure white tower had appeared beside the black one in a flash of light, and the zombies had all converged there as if obeying some command.
If they ignored this situation, something catastrophic might happen.
I could sense that unease in everyone.
Yet, among those looking at me, there was still a glimmer of hope.
Their expectations weighed on me more than I'd expected.
But that only hardened my resolve further.
I bowed my head to them.
"Thank you."
Though they were a group gathered for various personal reasons, at least we now had a plan to break through this situation.
That was enough for me.
#
As a hastily assembled group, we moved around dealing with villains.
Whenever I had free time at night, I secretly called Kim Seon-hwa or Kang So-eun over and creampied them.
Occasionally, while we were on the move, Kim Seon-hwa would sidle up and whisper.
"Park Si-hyun. I got a message from 'Perdain.'"
She leaked information to me like this from time to time.
"She's complaining that because she's near you, 「Know」 doesn't activate properly."
"Well, that's annoying—but also welcome news."
"She also said zombies are moving toward Seoul from all over the world. Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, and so on."
I glanced at the black tower standing at the center of the Han River.
The miniature version of <The Tower> that descended upon Earth appears without exception in every major city.
Meaning it wasn't just Seoul—it had appeared in major cities worldwide.
Yet the zombies, instead of showing interest in humans as The Tower commanded, were single-mindedly flocking to Seoul.
'An unnatural phenomenon so blatant even a blind man could see it.'
If circumstances allowed, I would've loved to ask Perdain why the Great Peace Sect had been created. Unfortunately, 「Convey」 was only a one-way transmission from the sender.
In other words, Kim Seon-hwa was merely a receiver of information—she couldn't send anything back to Perdain.
So getting a direct answer from her was impossible.
'Still, no need to worry.'
I already had a rough idea where the Great Peace Sect's true origin lay.
The clue was the miracle of controlling corpses on a planetary scale.
Jeong Hye-seong, the corpse-loving weakling who got beaten up by me daily and was now sulking.
'That pathetic bastard isn't even worth comparing to...'
The true nature of the Great Peace Sect.
A faith that commands the undead.
'「Rest of the Gravekeepers Buried Underground」'
Gravekeepers who comfort those buried so deep that even traces of their lives have faded—and wield the power of the dead.
The necromancers' worshipped goddess and one of the Tower's five Administrators.
『Lord of Corpses』
But.
'A faith centered on gravediggers would only take root in another world where curses and magic exist. Earth's structure makes it impossible to spread here. Magic never existed on Earth to begin with. There's absolutely no way to perform the occult rituals needed to establish contact with the Lord of Corpses.'
Which raised another question.
'The Great Peace Sect was founded before the Tower appeared. But the Lord of Corpses, by nature of her insomnia motif, is notoriously lazy. She wouldn't even glance your way unless you'd consistently offered tributes for months. Yet the Tower has only existed for ten days. Magic only became usable after its appearance. The timing for tributes and blessings doesn't add up. There's no way the Lord of Corpses would shorten that period and bestow her grace using only Earth's knowledge.'
That leaves only one conclusion.
...Even before the Tower appeared, someone was already wielding magic.
#
No more zombies appeared in Seoul.
The National Assembly Building, which the Great Peace Sect had seized, emitted light and transformed into a pristine white tower.
It was a spectacle grand enough for people to perceive as a miracle.
Everyone who escaped the chaos outside flocked to the Great Peace Sect.
But five colossal monsters stood guard around the gleaming white tower.
『Zombie Swarm』
The massive zombies encircled the sect's temple like sentinels.
The same city-crushing behemoths that once ran rampant now stood motionless, utterly indifferent to the humans below.
To those wandering beneath them, it was nothing but an unsettling and surreal sight.
Yet some sought refuge with the miracle-workers, while others stepped forward with hidden agendas—one by one, they entered the Great Peace Sect.
And then—
Whoosh—
From the rooftop of a high-rise overlooking the sect,
I scouted their territory with my bare eyes, no telescope needed.
『「Read」is active.』
'There she is.'
Piercing through the building's structure, I found her.
The gray-haired beauty I'd been searching for.
Park Se-eun, clad in a revealing dress, imprisoned in the tower's basement.
Her face was gloomy, but thankfully, there were no signs of her being defiled.
'Hah.'
I let out a small sigh of relief.
Then, it happened.
Before long, the so-called sect leader came to see Park Se-eun.
'That fucking bastard...'
I read the conversation between him and Se-eun, then scrutinized the sect leader himself.
The situation became clear.
The Holy Maidens' Sanctuary.
Lee Ji-hyeon, Ga Da-hui, and Oh Han-yeong were being held hostage.
That was why Park Se-eun couldn't act.
Upon hearing this, Kang So-eun seethed with rage.
"I'll go to the Holy Maidens' Sanctuary and save them myself. The fact that another piece of trash like that exists right under my nose—I can't fucking stand it."
"..."
Unfortunately, she'd been caught red-handed backstabbing Kim Seon-hwa, leaving her in a foul mood.
And on top of that, today was that day for her...
『Kang So-eun is currently menstruating.』
Watching her bristling fury made me narrow my eyes like a grumpy old patriarch.
But despite her sharp words, there was a resolute determination in Kang So-eun.
Truthfully, she was the only one capable of acting on that sense of justice.
Both the basement where Park Se-eun was held and the Holy Maidens' Sanctuary were spatially isolated by the power granted by the 「Lord of Corpses」.
Unfortunately, I lacked the means to breach such barriers.
No matter how strong I was, I had no divine power of my own.
But Kang So-eun was different.
'Then I'll leave the kids to Kang So-eun. What I need to do is...'
Draw attention away from her.
A weight settled on my shoulders.
But.
I reflected on the days it took to get here from Korea University.
To save Park Se-eun, I'd roamed every corner of Seoul, sweeping away villains, losing sleep night after night.
All to steal their stats and grow stronger.
─So you're Park Si-hyun? Your name ends here... Gahk!?
─You're Park Si...!? Keugh!
In the process, my name kept circulating through the community.
Some cursed me as a serial killer, but others thanked me for saving them.
Even now, it was the same.
People stood behind me, volunteering to infiltrate the Great Peace Sect to aid me.
Their eyes brimmed with trust.
'Can't afford to falter in front of them.'
Time to shift my perspective.
'Just like me, the sect leader must be restless. Over the past few days, word of my strength has spread as I've swept through the area, and he's been monitoring my approach through his followers. He'll be scrambling to prepare his trump card before making a move on the girls.'
The Apostle of Justice, who had slaughtered Seoul's villains, was coming for the Great Peace Sect.
And they had his little sister locked up? With multiple skeletons in his closet, the sect leader would inevitably try to use Park Se-eun against me—one way or another, I'd be on his mind.
After completing a final check of my body, I turned to look at my companions.
"We'll go in with So-eun too."
The women had decided they couldn't send Kang So-eun alone and would infiltrate the Holy Maidens' Sanctuary together.
"Huh? Wha—? You really don't have to—"
For once, Kang So-eun waved her hands in flustered refusal. I respected the women's firm resolve.
I saw off the group of women surrounding Kang So-eun.
Now it was my turn to enter the Great Peace Sect.
『"Optimal Progression" is reshaping your physique.』
『"Depicts" has altered your facial features.』
Using Optimal Progression, I reduced my skeletal frame. With the ordinary face Yu Yeon had drawn for me, I infiltrated the Great Peace Sect.
After sketching my new face, Yu Yeon had followed Kang So-eun.
"I'll be back."
With Yu Yeon's beauty, she should have no trouble entering the Holy Maidens' Sanctuary. Provided she didn't show them her usual gloomy expression, that is.
As for me—
"Park Hyeon-si, reporting."
I marched straight through the Great Peace Sect's main gate.
Beside me, Kim Seon-hwa—who'd been planning to infiltrate with me—froze solid.
She dragged me to the farthest corner of the believers' waiting room before grabbing me by the collar.
"You crazy bastard...!!"
"Huh? Wh-who are you? Why are you talking to me like this?"
"Stop fucking around! Why go through all the trouble of changing your face only to register under a flipped version of your real name? Are you an idiot?!"
I smiled lightly with my generic face.
"Doesn't matter."
Kim Seon-hwa's expression soured instantly, as if she hated my current face.
"What do you mean it doesn't matter? It matters, you little shit!"
I nodded toward a young man in his early twenties entering the sect's front courtyard.
A punk with a smirking face, wearing flamboyant believer robes as if to flaunt his status as an inspector.
After having my collar thoroughly shaken by Kim Seon-hwa, I muttered:
"Looking at him makes me want to die from sheer boredom."
"Oh really? Then let me kill you!"
"Gaaah!"
My head got crushed in a headlock.
#
Commonly called the Holy Maidens' Sanctuary.
A beautiful woman lay sprawled spread-eagled, her long skirt hiked up.
Her sigh echoed through the woods loud enough to make the earth collapse.
"Haa... My goddamn life. Fuck..."
She'd been imprisoned in this flower-filled sanctuary for several days.
The moment the Tower appeared, she'd unfortunately caught the attention of Great Peace believers and been dragged here immediately.
The believers kept calling her a "Holy Maiden candidate" or whatever, but frankly, she couldn't care less. It wasn't like she'd chosen to be here.
After spending a few days here, she'd learned one thing:
She was to be sacrificed to some god. If that failed, she'd become the sect leader's breeding stock.
That was the frequent abuse hurled by the deputy leader, who visited the Holy Maidens' Sanctuary often.
Probably throwing tantrums because all the girls here were prettier than her.
Sigh... Never even had a boyfriend. Why should I get pregnant with that greasy old bastard's kid...
In gloomy spirits, she stared quietly up at the sky.
No sun visible anywhere. It should've been dark, yet light streamed in from somewhere, maintaining perpetual dawn.
She'd been staring at this unchanging sky for days now. It was enough to drive her insane.
'I wanna get out...'
Not that she hadn't tried escaping. She'd joined forces with other beauties to attempt breakouts several times. They'd scoured every inch of this place. But in the blink of an eye, they'd always find themselves back where they started.
Overcome by emptiness, she glanced around.
"Wow, so pretty."
"Yeah. Yeah."
New arrivals were marveling with sparkling eyes.
The sanctuary's scenery was truly fantastical—a flower-filled plain. Like being in some foreign countryside. The air was fresh too. But that novelty wore off after a few days. Seeing the same thing daily grew tedious.
Elsewhere, stunning beauties who could turn heads anywhere sat huddled. All wore gloomy expressions, most having given up entirely. No will to escape remained.
Well. That was only natural.
Women resigned to eating the deputy leader's diet meals until they were either sacrificed or impregnated.
But then—
Scritch-scratch.
The disinterested holy maidens turned toward the sound.
A beautiful girl was doodling in the dirt with a twig.
The woman smirked and muttered under her breath:
"Your mental fortitude's impressive. What the hell are you even—?"
Her words died abruptly.
Whoooosh!
The doodles suddenly blazed with radiant light. Colors filled them in, textures formed, and they rose from the ground.
As the drawings vanished, a 5x5 cube emerged.
A toy with perfect physicality floated up amid the light before dropping down.
The girl caught it casually and held out the cube.
"Want to try?"
"...Nice ability."
An ability that appeared alongside the zombies.
She was likely one of the truly chosen.
"Envious."
The Holy Maiden candidate smiled lightly as she took the cube, then scrambled its tiles. The girl returned it with a smile.
"...It's not really anything special. The truly amazing person... is someone else."
"Ohhh, I see. A guy?"
The lavender-haired girl twisted a strand of her short hair with her index finger and nodded sheepishly.
"...Yeah."
The beauty smiled softly at her reaction.
"Must be handsome, huh? For someone like you to like him that much."
"...It's not that I like him... It's just... He's so good-looking it's a problem. Someone like me wouldn't even register in his eyes..."
"Huh? You wouldn't register in his eyes? Are you out of your mind?"
She stopped solving the cube, suddenly excited. The other beauties, now subtly intrigued, perked up their ears.
"What exactly are you lacking?"
"...Well, the people around him are just... too dazzling..."
"What, are you saying you're inferior?"
"...My chest."
The beauty glanced down at the girl's chest. Squinting, she could barely make out the outline.
"...Padding?"
"..."
The girl's gloom deepened.
Feeling slightly guilty, the beauty brushed her bangs back.
"Hey. Let me tell you something. In situations like that, just get him alone for drinks and grab his dick—game over. Got it?"
It was a crude remark, but since they were all women, there was no need to hold back.
The only problem was that the one saying it was also a virgin. Most of the beauties around them looked equally confused about whether that was sound advice.
Yu Yeon, her face flushed, stammered.
"O-okay... I'll... I'll try..."
"Damn, where do you even find a girl like this? What kind of bastard wouldn't even glance at someone like you? I don't care how handsome he is, I need to see him at least once—"
"Yes. You'll get to see him soon."
"Huh?"
The Holy Maiden candidates wondered if they had misheard.
BOOOOM—!
The air inside the Holy Maidens' Sanctuary visibly twisted.
The movement of the air was so distorted it became visible.
A sense of unease washed over the candidates, and they all looked up in unison—only to gape like fools.
Goooooo—
The sky was being churned in a spiral.
Even if it was just the small sky of the sanctuary, it was still unmistakably the sky.
A natural phenomenon that should never have been disturbed like this.
『"I shall control the Gravekeepers' Temporary Shelter."』
But there was no time to process the anomaly.
"Huh?"
The passing wind shimmered conspicuously. Different-colored lights began flickering chaotically around them. Even the air, which had resisted holding light until now, surrendered and was dyed in hues.
It was a majestic spectacle—streams of light converging into one.
"What—what is this?!"
Like the auroras of the Arctic, curtains of light unfurled in all directions.
The Holy Maiden candidates, witnessing this abnormal phenomenon, panicked and scrambled away.
The candidate who had been with Yu Yeon mustered her courage and ran forward.
The lights gathered into one, then rippled like a rainbow-colored aurora.
Beneath it, a beauty with long brown hair fluttering rose into the air.
Light converged into the hands that controlled all power and radiance. The forces of all things merged and were governed within her palms, held before her chest.
The nearby Holy Maiden candidates trembled in shock.
"Huh? Wait, isn't she the girl who just arrived today?"
"Sis?! She's not one of yours, is she?"
The eldest-looking beauty, who had been walking through the foliage, raised her head.
Jeong Hye-eun.
A renowned actress in Korea. The birth mother of Kang So-eun, the girl who had made her stomach ache during labor.
Jeong Hye-eun let out a hollow laugh as she watched her daughter suddenly appear.
'You didn't even come looking for me, yet you show up so dramatically? How cold. When did you grow this big?'
Her daughter was frowning, deep in concentration.
Her fingers moved, touching the shimmering lights.
Amid the overflowing radiance, her daughter's eyes opened—bold and gleaming with a resplendent gold.
Between her hands, the remaining lights swirled.
Then, like a thin wash of paint, a new hue bloomed within the mass of light she had crafted.
『"Primal Force Control has been activated."』
"Such a complicated structure."
Kang So-eun clicked her tongue in annoyance.
And then—
FWOOOSH!
A new light was born from her hands.
『"I shall control the Gravekeepers' Shelter."』
A color incomprehensible to the eye rose like a pillar.
The sky, pierced by the pillar, revealed a nebula in this land that had only ever known daylight.
Dawn and dusk mixed like water, warping and undulating across the heavens.
CRACKLE—BOOM.
Constellations flickered in the gaps, creaking and shifting their positions.
The nebulae settled into new arrangements.
KOOOOM!
The sky, dyed in new light, sent out circular shockwaves.
The trembling horizon flickered brightly.
"Ah—!"
Along with the constellations, the night sky was wiped clean as if purified.
The background burned away transparently, like melting ice.
...The scenery of the Holy Maidens' Sanctuary, isolated from the outside world, vanished without anyone noticing.
Suddenly, a corridor illuminated by torches came into view.
Before the astonished eyes of the Holy Maidens...
An ordinary man and a short elderly man stood.
"You've suffered a lot."
Blood sloshed on the floor.
The deputy leader, eyes wide open and no longer breathing, collapsed into a pool of blood.
The candidate maidens were stunned for only a moment—
"Calm down."
The deputy leader's voice rang out.
"!"
There were now two deputy leaders.
But the one who had always been hysterical was now smiling gently.
"There's no need to worry. The deputy leader is gone now. I've just borrowed this appearance for a little while."
The hundreds of candidate maidens exchanged uneasy glances.
Could they really trust the people before them?
Having been imprisoned for days, suspicion naturally arose.
But then—
"Senior Yu Yeon. Do my makeup again, please. In the cult leader's style."
"...Okay."
Ignoring their hesitation, the man handed Yu Yeon a brush.
As she lightly brushed his face, his features began to shift.
It was the face of the cult leader—the very man the maidens had wanted to tear apart.
"T-The cult leader?!"
They couldn't comprehend what was happening.
"I've come to save you all. It's alright."
Yet even amidst the confusion, one thing was clear:
This man had killed the deputy leader and freed them.
『「Censored Ability」 is activating.』
"Then let's go. Everyone."
Park Si-hyun, now transformed into the cult leader, stepped forward, draped in the leader's robes.
"We should at least slap him once. I'll handle the rest."
The maidens who had been summoned to the cult leader's bedroom widened their eyes.
If not for their lack of male anatomy, their chastity would've been in danger.
"A slap? That's it?"
"I'm gonna crush his balls. That bastard."
Park Si-hyun broke into an awkward sweat and forced a smile.
Every single one of them was a beauty, and their fury was no joke.
Cult leader... may you rest in peace.
You severely underestimated the wrath of women.
"I'll be the one to shatter that bastard's cartilage."
Beside him, Lee Jeong-don also gritted his teeth.
#
The cult leader strode down the white corridor, dragging Park Se-eun by the hand behind him.
Her expression remained blank, her eyes lifeless.
If she resisted, her friends would become nothing more than zombie fodder.
'Soon, I'll have her.'
The cult leader's face twisted with ecstasy. Soon, he would perform the sacred marriage before the god and finally take her—now fully grown—into his arms. As a man, there could be no greater fulfillment.
But there was a problem.
'Why can't I get hard?'
He had taken every prescription for virility, yet his erectile dysfunction remained incurable. No, in truth, he couldn't insert anything into a woman. It was as if some transcendent force shielded them.
Well, it didn't matter. Once he made his request to the god today, the issue would be resolved. And then, all women would submit to him.
He had rightfully ascended to this position, after all.
'Nothing stands in my way now.'
The cult leader stepped into the wide-open chapel.
The envious gazes of the believers bore into him.
He lowered his head slightly, maintaining an air of dignity before raising his eyes.
A cult leader must never lose his majesty, no matter the time or place.
But then—
"......?"
His eyes bulged.
Someone was already standing on the pulpit.
A perfect copy of himself—an identical cult leader...?
"Eh, eh...? Two cult leaders...?"
The believers panicked, their eyes darting between the cult leader at the door and the one on the pulpit.
The cult leader on the pulpit wore the exact same expression.
They were indistinguishable twins.
'W-What the hell...?!'
Even the executives behind the cult leader were stunned.
'What's going on? How is this possible?'
As the believers murmured in confusion—
The cult leader on the pulpit took a step forward. Without even glancing at the crowd, he smirked at Park Se-eun across the room.
"Ha..."
Park Se-eun let out a hollow, disbelieving laugh.
Really, how could she not recognize that face?
'That infuriating smirk...'
It was the same expression he had shown her three years ago—and every day since.
'...Oppa.'
Behind her brother—
Lee Ji-hyeon, Oh Han-yeong, and Ga Da-hui were tearfully welcoming her.
Even Lee Jeong-don, standing beside him, wore a rare smile.
Unnoticed, tears of relief spilled from Park Se-eun's eyes.
Seeing this, the Great Peace Sect leader's face twisted as he stepped forward—
But before he could—
"SILENCE!!"
The deputy leader's stern voice boomed.
Not from his side—but from beside the fake cult leader.
The cult leader's eyes widened in realization.
"That woman—!"
Her finger pointed accusingly at the stunned cult leader.
"That man... is an impostor! A heretic who dares impersonate the cult leader!!"
『Kim Seon-hwa activates Lee Ji-yeong's 「Wave Enhancement」.』
A hysterically amplified shriek shook the chapel to its foundations.