Dark Heaven Descends
Agency Headquarters, the Agency Director’s office.
Even within Luoyang itself, the one who sensed the anomaly first—before anyone else—was the First Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon.
“Indeed…”
A chilling energy raced down his spine. A nauseating rejection surged up as if he had swallowed spoiled food. And yet, for some reason, that same energy felt almost familiar.
It was the force that eroded the characters of the cosmos and reality itself, corroding and distorting them.
Demonic qi.
“…So this is how the Demonic Cult’s first outbreak begins.”
In the original history, this event should have come much later—only after Yeon So-hyeon had become a live-in son-in-law and left the Luoyang Sword Family, only after the Sword Family itself had plunged into its period of chaos, would the Demonic Cult have truly risen in Luoyang.
Yet that first outbreak of the Demonic Cult had already begun.
“Is this my destiny?”
He had returned to the past. His mother’s great curse had been broken. The Heavenly Murder Star had risen. And because of him, the countless rivers of blood that should have flowed only during the Sword Family’s time of chaos were already running.
In the end, the Demonic Cult had risen.
It was not yet clear, but a correlation certainly existed.
“…In the end, is destiny something that cannot be avoided?”
His gaze turned toward the heavens. Invisible to ordinary eyes, yet all too vivid to Yeon So-hyeon, a star shone with a brilliant, bloody red light.
The Heavenly Murder Star.
Jang Sam, an officer of the Peacekeeping Detachment under the Luoyang Central Government Office, felt as if he were trapped inside a terrible nightmare.
Cold sweat poured down his entire body. A deep chill seized him until he trembled violently from head to toe.
“…Snap out of it!”
A voice seemed to call from somewhere far away, but Jang Sam could not easily recover his senses.
I—I’m certain that just a moment ago…
The government troops stationed in the Valley of Sin, himself included, had gathered upstream to reassemble after taking cover from the bombardment.
Poison had been scattered through the midstream, so we were waiting… weren’t we?
And then, in the midst of that…
What was that?
He remembered a violent tremor, as if an earthquake had struck, and an unidentifiable sound that had rolled through the entire valley.
A groan? It had been exactly like the sound his comrade made when he was ambushed during a patrol of the underworld and stabbed, dying with a blade in his gut.
Weeping? It had been exactly like the wail of a woman who had been robbed and lost her husband and children all at once.
Laughter? It had been the sound of a mad shaman sawing through a thrashing chicken’s neck, bathing in its blood, and leaping atop a blade, her twisted face laughing while children’s screams tore the air and entrails filled a pot—
“I said snap out of it, you bastard!”
Smack.
Light exploded before his eyes. A searing pain flared across his face. Jang Sam’s mind snapped into focus.
“Hah—?!”
The moment he opened his eyes, what he saw was a blood-red sky.
The sky is red…?
Just a moment ago it had been black night. Now clouds the color of blood twisted and tangled like snakes writhing in a den, filling every corner of the heavens.
The sheer wrongness of it froze him solid.
“If you don’t want to die, grab your spear!”
The voice was an order. And he was a government soldier. Jang Sam’s hand shot out reflexively and seized his short spear.
In that instant—
“Dieeeeee!”
Something charged him. Jang Sam thrust the spear he held on pure instinct. Through the shaft he felt the blade tear flesh and churn through entrails with terrible clarity.
“Gueeehk—!”
Whether it was because he had polished that blade so diligently under the seniors’ constant abuse, or because the enemy’s charge had been so recklessly straightforward, the man now impaled deep upon the spear locked eyes with Jang Sam.
Blood vessels burst in the whites of those staring eyes as they trembled. The tattoos covering the man’s face were something Jang Sam knew all too well.
The Luoyang Mountain-Sea Gang?!
The Mountain-Sea Gang was one of Luoyang’s most notorious underworld organizations. Why one of its members stood before him now was a mystery—yet Jang Sam’s body, trained again and again until the motions were pure habit, twisted the spear without thought.
“Grrrk—”
A thick stream of dark blood spilled from the man’s mouth and splattered across Jang Sam’s face, but he did not close his eyes until the man’s own eyes rolled back and his breath finally stopped.
The body went limp. No vibration remained in the shaft he gripped with both hands.
I… I killed him.
The same voice that had woken him slammed into his ear again.
“Not yet!”
Only that shout let Jang Sam reflexively dodge the teeth of the corpse still skewered on his spear.
“Crush the head!”
“I said crush the head!”
Jang Sam poured strength into both hands and, still lying down, twisted his entire body with all his might.
“Uwaaaaah—!”
“Gwoooooooor—!”
The corpse hanging from the spear rattled its bones and thrashed violently with hands and feet. For a dead thing its strength was monstrous—like a man-sized fish flopping and fighting on a line.
But the positions had already reversed. Straddling the thrashing corpse’s belly, Jang Sam yanked the short spear free and drove it through the skull in one brutal stroke.
The sudden motion after coming to left him gasping, his head spinning.
“It’s not over yet!”
Using the spear still buried in the corpse’s head for support, Jang Sam scrambled to his feet. The place where he had been lying was the half-collapsed interior of a house whose roof had been blown open. All around him stood the backs of those holding back dozens—no, hundreds—of advancing corpses.
Among them was a maid of the First Young Master of the Sword Family, one of the so-called Yellow Tiger Heroes, and government soldiers like himself.
“What are you staring at?!”
“Help us, now!”
Officer Jang Sam did not need to think twice.
“Uwaaaaah—!”
Whether it was a battle cry or a scream he could no longer tell, he lunged past the wall they had formed and stabbed his spear into the enemy again and again.
Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
How many times had he thrust? Severed heads of corpses rolled across the ground in every direction. The dead that had risen again finally stopped moving.
But—
“Next wave incoming!”
The fighting was not finished. Across the valley, allies driven into corners were still locked in battle. The enemies from downstream had somehow mixed with their own forces. Kill them and they rose again. Kill them, kill them, and still they came without end.
“Uwaaaaaah!”
Not understanding the situation, Jang Sam simply drove his spear forward.
“Die! Die!”
How many had he killed? How long had he fought? Enemy corpses piled high, only for those that rose once more to lose their heads and collapse again.
“Hah— hah—”
Breath burned in his throat. One of his arms hung in tatters. He no longer had the strength to lift the spear.
“Hah— hah—”
Jang Sam’s gaze, drained of force, swept the surroundings. The First Young Master’s maid who had danced through the enemy with terrifying speed was dead. The man said to be one of the Yellow Tiger Heroes was dead. The government soldiers were dead.
Everyone was dead.
“Hah— hah—”
Yet the enemies still poured in like an endless tide. Just as no human hands can hold back the sea when the tide comes in, the enemy pressed forward without pause.
As they tore into his flesh and ripped out his entrails, Jang Sam loosed a final death scream.
“Gyaaaaaah—!”
“…Uuugh.”
Jang Sam, officer of the Peacekeeping Detachment under the Luoyang Central Government Office, felt as if he were trapped inside a terrible nightmare.
Cold sweat poured down his entire body. A deep chill seized him until he trembled violently from head to toe.
“…Snap out of it!”
A voice seemed to call, but Jang Sam could not easily recover his senses.
I—I’m certain that just a moment ago…
The government troops stationed in the Valley of Sin, himself included, had gathered upstream to reassemble after taking cover from the bombardment.
Poison had been scattered through the midstream, so we were waiting… weren’t we?
And then, in the midst of that…
No. No.
A powerful sense of déjà vu struck him.
Is that right?
Allies and enemies had mixed throughout the valley. He himself had fought to the very end…
“What the hell are you doing spacing out in the middle of a fight?!”
Smack.
The sudden heat across his face snapped him awake.
“Uwaaaaah—!”
He surged to his feet, seized his spear, and drove it through the skull of the charging enemy. He stabbed and stabbed again.
“Uwaaaaah—!”
It felt as if he had fought an entire day. Or two. Or three.
“Gyaaaaah—!”
As he was torn apart alive, as his entrails were ripped free, the sky he saw was a vicious, unrelenting red.
How many times had he died? How many more times must he die?
“Snap out of it and get up!”
Jang Sam shook his head. He no longer wanted to rise. Yet his hand found the spear by habit, and his body moved exactly as it had been trained.
“Uwaaaaah—!”
He could no longer tell whether the sound he made was a battle cry or a scream. He fought and fought again.
He simply…
Mother…
He wanted to see again the mother who would be waiting desperately for him at home. He howled as his entire body was torn open.
“Rise.”
Again the voice reached him. But now Jang Sam was exhausted. He could no longer stand and fight.
“Awaken.”
Yet this voice was different from the one that had woken him until now.
Clearer and more distinct than any battle cry around him, clearer than the enemies’ howls, clearer than the screams, clearer than the wailing.
“Ah…”
And cracks began to spider across that cursed, blood-red sky. The red heaven that had remained no matter how many times he died and woke and died again was shattering. Through those fractures, black energy seeped and writhed, devouring the crimson vault.
The ominous red sky collapsed and stained itself black.
Jang Sam murmured without realizing it as he stared upward.
“…Dark Heaven.”
The false sky crumbled. Dark Heaven had arrived.
Jang Sam opened his eyes.
There was no need to push himself upright. He was already standing. His hand already gripped his short spear. His arm had not been torn away. His entrails had not been ripped out. The only wounds on his body were the scrapes he had taken while fleeing the bombardment.
“Wh… what…?”
“What is this…?”
Around him, the fellow officers who had been waiting with him were only now coming to their senses, checking their own bodies and then one another’s safety.
“You all right?”
“What about you?!”
“C-check the numbers!”
“Head count!”
The night sky was black. Wind from the valley fluttered their clothes. He—they—were back upstream in the valley. Or perhaps they had never left at all.
Just as the final voice had said, everything had been nothing more than delusion and illusory dream.
But if they had remained trapped inside that nightmare…
Jang Sam abruptly lifted his head.
He rubbed his eyes and looked at the sky again. Only clouds filled the night. Nothing else was there.
And yet Jang Sam felt it. Someone had been there. Someone wearing a white mask so vivid it stood out even against a sky black as pitch.
As if to prove it, the same voice that had spoken inside the nightmare now rolled across every ear present.
The voice added, briefly: