The Dying Dragon's Triumph
“Score 4:2! The Mir Guild decides the match!!”
“They did it! The Mir Guild has finally done it!!”
“The conclusion of an all-time legendary season. In the Grand Final, the long-awaited champions are none other than the Mir Guild!!”
The instant those words poured from every screen across Busan, the fireworks rigged throughout the city detonated skyward in unison.
From bridges to the tops of skyscrapers, over massive displays, atop coastal lighthouses—the works.
A barrage so colossal it made an ordinary fireworks festival look like kids playing with sparklers swallowed the night sky above Busan.
“Right!!”
“We did it! You’re the best!!”
“Championship at last! We’re champions, hahaha!!”
The Yongbungs who had been glued to their screens at home, hearts in their throats, shot to their feet as one and roared their triumph.
“Uwaaaaack!! Subin!!”
“Fuck! This is it! This is exactly it!!”
“Drink! Let’s drink until we die tonight!!”
All across the city, Yongbungs who had been cheering from the streets thrust their glasses high, surging like a human wave.
“We love you!!” “Mountain King is Lee Shin!!”
The stadium had become a living explosion of cheers and pure joy.
Music thundered, lights blazed, flower petals and fireworks burst in every direction, yet the tidal wave of ecstasy rolling off the Yongbungs swallowed it all and still shook the entire arena to its foundations.
And somewhere in the heart of that storm stood Toegail-jwa, Park Seong-cheol.
“……”
He couldn’t make a sound. Caught dead center in the whirlwind of emotions, he simply stared at the screen, eyes wide and unblinking.
“Four years ago the Mir Guild was a dragon dying, its once-proud name now meaningless. A dragon in the intensive care unit. No one spared it a glance, and the guild had been driven into such a dead end that even mockery would have felt like a blessing.”
A dragon left to rot in the forgotten corner of Busan, on Yeongdo, simply waiting for the day it would breathe its last.