The Book of the Dead
“Hmm?”
“What is that?”
The moment Canteas drew out the Book of the Dead, Metatron and Baal reacted first.
Faint as it was, the object carried the aura of a god.
“The Book of the Dead.”
“What?!”
“That’s the Book of the Dead?”
The two beings who knew exactly what the Book of the Dead was nearly jumped out of their skins.
It was the grimoire carried by Anubis, god of the underworld — more precisely, a divine magic book.
“So it really was here.”
Metatron gave a slow nod. Before coming to this place he had already heard the whole story from Do-ha, yet he had never truly expected the Book of the Dead to be waiting for them.
And why would he? It was an artifact of the gods. Rumors about the whereabouts of divine relics were almost always lies — not merely “likely” lies, but lies ninety-nine percent of the time. That was why he had dismissed the tale of the Book of the Dead’s burial as empty hearsay. He had only followed Do-ha to stop Anubis’s summoning.
“Have you opened it?”
“I was just about to.”
Canteas took hold of the front cover, and the entire group fell dead silent.
A soft rustle.
“…….”
“?”
Canteas frowned as he spread the pages. The first leaf was packed with unreadable characters; every page after that was blank white paper.
“What the hell is this?”
Do-ha stepped closer and frowned the same way. The book had been opened in silence, so he had come over expecting something written there — only to find script he could not begin to decipher.
“Hey, Metatron. What country’s writing is this?”
“You’re asking me about some country’s alphabet…?” Metatron let out a long sigh. He was not even a being of the middle realm; what was the point of asking him? “Give it here.”
He took the Book of the Dead into his hands.
“Hmm… I don’t know this either. What script is this supposed to be? Can you make it out?”
“I can’t either.”
Even Baal shook his head.
The language of the gods? But none of them had ever heard of the gods speaking in a tongue of their own.
“Damn it…”
When even Metatron and Baal failed to read a single line, Canteas’s temper finally snapped. They said the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment — and that was exactly where his heart sat now. He had obtained the Book of the Dead and still could not read it. Disappointment climbed from the soles of his feet all the way up through his body.
“Just burn the thing.”
With that, Canteas turned on his heel, shoulders slumped, and walked away. Everything they had come to Iceland to do was finished anyway.
“Ca… Canteas!”
Selenia called after him as he receded into the distance. She had not seen him look that crushed in decades.
Do-ha met her glance and gave a small nod. Go after him.
“We should head back too. Hand me the Book of the Dead.”
Metatron passed the volume over to Do-ha.
A few days after their return from Iceland.
Do-ha watched the broadcast, a thin smile curling his lips, and switched off the television.
Good thing I went around and cleaned everything up at the end.
Together with Canteas he had walked the whole of Iceland, rewriting every trace with magic so that the slaughter of the island’s original citizens would look like the cult’s own handiwork.
I’d love to see the Pope’s face right about now.
How must he be feeling? Every plan the man had laid had collapsed because of Do-ha. The Icelandic citizens he had so carefully brainwashed were all dead. Anubis, summoned at the cost of a portion of his own soul, had been driven back to the underworld. And now the cult itself was being named the murderer of an entire nation.
From this point on they’ll be branded an international criminal organization for real.
Until now the cult’s religious façade had made it hard to classify them as a crime syndicate. They had always been out doing charity work, making donations, treating the wounded for free — a perfect performance. New Age had publicly accused them, but New Age itself was a globally infamous criminal syndicate, so most people had assumed the cult was the victim.
“I couldn’t stand watching that.”
Every time public opinion had praised the cult, irritation had climbed all the way up his throat. Even if there was no one better to praise, dressing up the Demon God Cult as something wholesome had been too much.
“But now that evidence has surfaced that the cult wiped out the people of Iceland… public opinion should swing hard the other way.”
A satisfied smile settled on Do-ha’s face. He picked up his phone and rose from his seat.
“Ah, Do-ha.”
Selenia, who had been setting the table, looked up at him. They had been about to sit down to eat — where was he going?
“Where are you off to?”
“Just somewhere I need to stop by for a bit.”
“Don’t be too late.”
She smiled softly. They had lived together long enough now that the exchange felt entirely natural.
“Where’s Canteas?”
“He hasn’t come out once since we got back a few days ago.”
“The disappointment must have hit him hard.”
Do-ha glanced through the window toward Canteas’s house. He knew that feeling better than anyone. Not only he — every being who climbed toward greater power would understand what Canteas was going through.
The path upward was right there in front of him… and then it vanished.
Knights, mages, martial artists — when the road to the next height disappeared, they broke. Some simply stopped training and settled into the realm they already held; others retired altogether. And of course, the higher the realm, the harder a new path was to find.
So what of someone at Canteas’s level? He was already at the Eighth Circle. The climb to the Ninth was not merely difficult — it bordered on the impossible. To have a road to that Ninth Circle appear and then dissolve like a mirage… the shock was only natural.
“Dimerof used to be the same way, remember?”
“Ah — that’s right.”
Selenia nodded at Do-ha’s words. Thinking back, decades earlier Dimerof had been exactly the same. Now he stood at the great height of Grand Master, but in those days he had lived in constant frustration, unable to break through to Sword Master.
“Have dinner with Grandfather. I’ll be back.”
“Come back safely.”
Selenia waved as Do-ha stepped out of the house.
“My, my~ just look at these solid muscles.”
“Heh. Not a bad body, is it?”
High noon, the sun hanging at its peak. On the shore of a lake called Soryeong Lake in the Sichuan region, a man and a woman were laughing together, flowers of mirth blooming between them. People walked past on every side, yet the two still held each other close.
“Though… this place does get a lot of foot traffic…”
The man glanced around. Soryeong Lake was broad and beautiful, a destination that drew crowds — and ever since the connection to Earth, the number of tourists had only grown.
“Mmm~ look only at me.”
The woman gently caught his cheek and turned his face back toward hers.
“I hear people on Earth call a man something special…”
“What?”
“Oppa…”
“Heh. Oppa, huh… I don’t know what it means, but it sounds nice.”
“It means something like ‘older brother’… If you like it, may I keep calling you Oppa~ from now on?”
“Of course, of course. Naturally.”
The man grinned foolishly at her coquetry — and the light in the woman’s eyes grew steadily sharper.
“Ahh… why am I so sleepy all of a sudden. Must have drunk too much.”
“Rest a little. I’m right here.”
She slowly stroked the cheek of the man whose eyes were drifting shut.
In that instant —
A soft rustle of footsteps.
“Fall asleep and she’ll eat your liver.”
Do-ha had somehow already drawn near and was looking down at the pair.
The man jolted upright.
“Wh… what? Where am I?!”
Do-ha’s voice snapped him awake. Only moments earlier he had been playing baduk with his friends.
“Go. Now.”
“Wh… who are you?”
“The man who just saved your life.”
“……Pardon?”
The man tilted his head at Do-ha’s words — then asked nothing more. One look was enough to tell him he was dealing with a martial artist.
“Th… then I’ll be on my way.”
He offered a hasty bow, shot one last glance at the woman, and fled at a full run.
“Long time no see, Ki Cheon-hwa.”
“Ha… haha… lovely weather today…”
At Do-ha’s greeting the woman rose with an awkward laugh. Damn it. Of all the people I never wanted to run into — why is he here?
“You’ve been sucking the livers out of men so long your own liver’s gotten big, huh? Pretending you don’t even know me.”
“I do not eat livers! I only take vital essence!”
She finally snapped and shouted. Why did he always spout that nonsense about eating livers every time he saw her?! That ridiculous rumor had forced her to run for ten straight years. The talk had finally died down and life had become livable again — so why had he reappeared just to torment her?
“Grew another tail, did you? Now you’re even raising your voice.”
Do-ha smirked at Ki Cheon-hwa. The being before him was a nine-tailed fox in the making — more precisely, a three-tailed fox climbing toward that height.
“Hmph. I have four tails now, I’ll have you know.”
“Oh? A four-tailed fox already? That why you’ve gotten so short with me? Miss getting grabbed by the Heavenly Diamond and taking a scenic tour of the sky?”
“Haha… of course not. I was just so happy to see you after so long that I… slipped without meaning to…”
“I’m so happy to see you I feel a fist about to fly on its own.”
“Could you perhaps put that feeling away?”
Ki Cheon-hwa scratched her head, sweat beading on her brow. When that mad emperor spoke like that, he was never joking.
“Come on, I’m kidding. You think I’d actually throw a punch?”
“Y… ye— No! No, sir!”
“You’re all over the place yourself. Mind getting a grip?”
Why did every creature he hadn’t seen in a while end up this flustered? Maybe a beating really was the best medicine.
“I was just so hungry my words came out wrong!”
She dropped to her knees and bowed her head to the ground. Even with one more tail than before, challenging Baek Do-ha was pure suicide.
“So… why have you come looking for me…?”
She peered up at him with uneasy eyes. Whenever Baek Do-ha came calling, some headache always followed. Those ten years of being hunted had been his fault, after all.
“I came because I need you.”
“An Absolute Being has no need of a lowly spirit like me!”
“No need? Then a spirit that threatens the world should be dealt with, shouldn’t it?”
A cold killing intent bled from Do-ha’s eyes as they iced over.
“Eek! I—I am needed! I will help you no matter what!”
She wailed and wrung her hands. You damn emperor. Why do you have to torment someone who’s just trying to live her life?!
“You’ll help no matter what — you said that?”
“Yes!”
“Then open a gate for me.”
“Pardon? What gate all of a sudden…?”
“Don’t play dumb. You can open the gateway that leads to the Peach Blossom Spring.”
Seon-gye — the realm where the Taoist Immortals dwelled. To decipher the Book of the Dead, that was where they had to go.