Found It
Churrrrrrlk.
Like film advancing in a movie theater, Ermo's dream slowly began to play out in the Monghwakyung.
In the dream, Ermo was committing atrocities. He gouged out Cheon Ji-hoo's eyes, tore off his limbs to expose his organs—if this were in Korea, it would have earned an adults-only rating for cruelty alone.
-Ugh!
Nok openly showed its disgust. It had been a while since it last enjoyed kicking demons around.
Cheon Ji-hoo stroked Nok's scruff to calm it down, then kept watching the Monghwakyung.
The Ermo who had killed Cheon Ji-hoo inside the rift let out a burst of mad laughter for a moment before unleashing demonic energy to shatter the rift itself.
What a ridiculous dream, Cheon Ji-hoo thought. Does he really think he can escape a rift just by blasting out demonic energy...? Well, it's a dream, so I suppose I have to cut him some slack.
"Now he's moving somewhere else."
Having escaped the rift, Ermo arrived in a conference room of the very building where Cheon Ji-hoo had first encountered him. He glanced around the silent room, a smile curling his lips, then leaped out the window.
Like a scene from an action flick, he soared on the wind, massive wings sprouting from his back and flapping as he flew over the city lights toward somewhere unknown.
The dream was surprisingly detailed. The night streets scrolling by looked like Seoul's skyline, complete with Namsan Tower broken by the great rift. But upon closer inspection, parts of the nightscape were a bit blurry.
The subconscious remembers what the eyes have seen, but unless you're blessed with perfect recall, the quality inevitably falls short.
If the subconscious self noticed those details, it would trigger lucidity. That was the limitation of dreams.
Cheon Ji-hoo nestled deeper into Nok's cozy fur, enjoying the show.
Flapping his wings, Ermo crossed the sea. He passed the lights of Incheon Airport below and headed to an island beyond the waves.
-Whoa, what's that? Water everywhere!
"That's the sea."
-Sea! I love the sea!
Seeing Nok so amazed, Cheon Ji-hoo figured he should take it sometime. Well, he'd be crossing the sea soon enough to hunt a Demon King anyway.
Ermo folded his wings and landed on the island. Judging by the location, it was somewhere in the waters off Incheon. A quick analysis of his flight speed and the surrounding map would pinpoint it easily.
It was an abandoned island, untouched by human hands. With current manpower, they couldn't manage isles that far from the mainland. If a rift popped up here, they'd have no choice but to leave it until it burst.
It might have been inhabited once, but not anymore. Only traces of past human life remained.
Ermo, who had landed on the shore, trudged inland. Pushing through dense trees and underbrush, he reached a massive rift.
Unlike any rift he'd seen before, it wasn't tinged with color—just a pitch-black hole punched in space itself.
"Oh."
-That looks creepy.
Definitely. Even viewing it through the dream made his mood sour instantly, confirming a Demon King lurked inside.
Crucial intel too: the entrance was black, likely due to thick demonic energy.
Ermo let out a mad cackle and stepped into the rift. The view flipped, and the Monghwakyung revealed a new scene.
A dead land dyed entirely in ashen gray. Everything was silent, as if all life had sealed its lips; the ground crumbled underfoot like death itself.
Ruins of stone pillars stood there—remnants of an ancient temple, perhaps. Seated amid them was a man.
A hollow-faced man with long black hair hanging down. On his forehead gleamed the clearest Demon King mark Cheon Ji-hoo had ever seen, sharper than any demon's.
Ermo bowed before him. He was the servant of the Silence Demon King, so devoted he bent at a perfect ninety degrees—impeccably polite.
Cheon Ji-hoo pulled a Soderia burger from his subspace, munching as he watched the movie unfold. He even stretched out his legs, resting them right on Ermo's head in the vision.
The Demon King finally spoke.
-Ermo of Silence, my servant.
-Yes, my lord Demon King.
-Have you slain my foe?
-Indeed. The fool who called himself the Archmage has returned to death. You need worry no more, my lord.
-A fool of a mage, was he?
-Yes. One I could have slain with my own power alone.
The Silence Demon King nodded at Ermo's words. The exchange felt oddly awkward for a Demon King.
Reflected from Ermo's deep psyche, it portrayed not a merciless tyrant, but a gentle lord concerned for his subordinate.
-Well done, Ermo. My faithful servant.
-My lord...
As Ermo raised his head, the Demon King leaned down, gripped his chin, and slowly lowered his face as if to kiss him...
At that moment, thoroughly disgusted, Cheon Ji-hoo snapped the Monghwakyung shut with a scowl.
What the hell does this psycho think about all day?
He stood, glanced at Ermo—who still hadn't woken from the dream—and flicked his fingers to deploy a spell.
A pure white magic circle glowed beneath him. The spell was called Detection Blast.
Originally designed for insurance kills, he'd tweaked the formula: it would detonate if his heart rate deviated from its current steady rhythm.
The moment Ermo woke and took even a single ragged breath, his pulse would spike, triggering the blast.
A small courtesy from Cheon Ji-hoo, letting him savor his pleasant dream a bit longer(?). Of course, he'd explode the instant he woke.
"Let's go, Nok."
-Ung!!
And so, Ermo of Silence was left alone in the rift.
* * *
On the rooftop of a high-rise, Cheon Ji-hoo stood tall, his white hair whipping in the night breeze, with a faintly green-tinted sacred deer beside him, both gazing down imperiously.
"Nok, even you think I'm pretty nice, right?"
-Nice! Super nice!
"Yeah, yeah."
He incinerated the Soderia burger bag with magic, hopped sideways onto Nok's back, stroked its flank, and pointed in one direction.
"Then let's go see the sea."
-Sea! Love it!
Nok dashed through the air with practiced ease now. Legs pumping even without ground beneath, it cleaved the night sky at high speed.
The deer racing through the heavens headed for the waters off Incheon, following the exact route from Ermo's dream.
Glancing down mid-run over the ocean, Nok cried out.
-Whoaaa! Sea's scary!
"Weren't you just saying you liked it?"
-Scary! So scary!
Cheon Ji-hoo soothed Nok with a neck rub—"It's fine"—and looked up. Several islands came into view, but they weren't his target.
Farther out still. Analysis pegged it as Mungapdo.
Mungapdo belonged to Incheon Metropolitan City, but no one went there anymore. It was overrun with monsters beyond saving.
Touching down on Mungapdo with Nok, monsters sensed his presence and burst from the woods.
Infused with demonic energy from proximity to the Silence Demon King's rift, they were far more ferocious than typical rift spawns.
But.
"Nok, mana cannon."
-Maaaaaaang-!!
Was that its battle cry? Cheon Ji-hoo chuckled at the varying sounds as he watched golden beams streak out.
The mana cannon gathered in Nok's mouth split into streams, piercing the monsters' foreheads. They crumpled in sprays of blood, never to rise, as he patted Nok's side.
"Deeper in."
-Okay!
Nok blasted away charging monsters nonstop. Cheon Ji-hoo swept aside obstructing brush with a finger flick, clearing the path.
Soon, they reached the island's heart.
-Tingly tingly.
"Gets my nape crawling too."
Just as in Ermo's dream: a black rift oozing viscous killing intent and demonic energy.
The Silence Demon King was inside. An existence modern humanity couldn't hope to face.
If it had rampaged outside, chaos would ensue—but as expected, some constraint kept it pinned until broken. It used demons to shatter that.
That Tol of Dark Clouds seemed to collect souls, probably tied to breaking free. Necromancers might use human souls for undead, but demons? Rare, and he hadn't cared much anyway.
Cheon Ji-hoo dismounted, stroked Nok's scruff, and said,
"Hide in there for a bit."
-Okay! Call me later!
As Nok faded into transparency and vanished, Cheon Ji-hoo blinked, then stepped into the rift without hesitation.
An ashen world unfolded. The ground was silent, the sky gray. Nothing held color but him, it seemed.
He inhaled. The air felt thick, ashen too. Demonic energy and killing intent mixed, no doubt.
But he strode forward undaunted, toward the ruins that looked like an old temple site.
As he approached, the interior came into view past the pillars. There sat the black-haired man from Ermo's dream, head bowed.
But his attire differed. In the dream, a stylish rider jacket; in reality, simple gray cloth like ancient Greek garb.
This guy's got it bad...
How deep did he have to delve into delusion?
Rustle.
Sensing the presence, the Silence Demon King looked up, eyes locking on Cheon Ji-hoo. Dull yet hollow gaze. His skin was deathly pale, corpse-like.
Their eyes met.
The Demon King shot to his feet and strode forward. The air fell utterly silent.
True to its name, demonic energy incomparable to any demon's filled the space, seeking to dominate it.
But Cheon Ji-hoo blew it away with a casual exhale.
The Demon King halted at a safe distance.
"Sharp instincts."
One more step, and the minefield he'd laid would have blown.
Cheon Ji-hoo spoke flatly; the Demon King replied in kind.
"...You're the mage. Who killed my children."
"If you mean those pathetic demons, yeah, that's me."
He'd slain Tol of Dark Clouds. Ermo of Silence was next.
His eyes said so what?
"Couldn't stand a deficient Demon King like you invading my turf. You've always been like that—coveting what's not yours, oblivious to your place."
"...Deficient Demon King?"
It reacted to that phrase.
"Yeah. A Demon King's a Demon King—no such thing as 'Silence' this. Is the fractured Demon King trying to swallow this world? Hope your gut doesn't burst."
"...".
No reply now. Just thick demonic energy and killing intent rising.
Cheon Ji-hoo drove in the final nail.
"To me, you're subpar scrap. Don't go calling yourself a Demon King anywhere. You're just walking trash."