The Return of Chi-woo
After confidently declaring that he would handle it himself, Yoo Se-hwan stepped onto the rooftop railing and dropped straight down. Jeong Se-a saw it and gasped, rushing to the railing without thinking, but of course Se-hwan didn’t plunge to his death. He landed lightly beside the Baektaek and was already pulling out a fresh talisman.
“You and I have a lot to talk about.”
The Chui rose with a growl and swung its massive forepaw again, but the Baektaek’s sturdy scales refused to yield, shielding Se-hwan completely. The Chui looked bewildered. Its paw could shred even a tiger, yet mere scales had stopped it cold.
While the creature faltered, the Baektaek opened its thick scales one by one and released another surge of yeong-gi.
“What exactly you did here.”
“Kaaahk!”
The Chui was blasted backward once more. The Baektaek’s spiritual power was overwhelming, strong enough to send the giant body flying. It made sense. The Baektaek was the sacred beast first discovered by the Yellow Emperor himself, a legendary figure of China. No matter how powerful a yokai the Chui was, it could not overcome a creature that had risen to the rank of divine beast.
“Human… how could a mere Joseon exorcist… contract with something like that…?”
The Chui stared at the impenetrable scales and growled low, openly showing its confusion.
Se-hwan’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “Looks like it recognized you, Baektaek.”
The Baektaek snorted, clearly not thrilled at being known by such a lowly being. Given the vast gap between a divine beast and an ordinary yokai, Se-hwan figured the reaction was only natural.
“Answer me…! Human!”
“Is there any rule that says a Chinese divine beast can’t lend its strength to a Korean exorcist? Sure, it was first discovered in China, but these guys wander everywhere.”
Legends of the Baektaek existed not only in China but in Korea and Japan as well. It was a divine beast that never stayed in one place.
“Besides, you’re asking the wrong question. Instead of that, you should be asking…”
Se-hwan held up the talisman he had just drawn. The character carved on it was the ice radical—.
“Whether I feel like sparing your life.”
The talisman ignited. Ice raced across the ground from beneath the Chui’s feet and instantly encased its legs.
Crack… crack… craaaack!
The road and its limbs fused together. The Chui roared, pouring every ounce of strength into shattering the ice, but it refused to budge.
“…!!”
The Chui stared at Se-hwan, unable to hide its shock. The talisman he had used was a freezing charm, a common tool exorcists employed to restrain yokai from a distance. The Chui had seen it many times before. Yet those versions had only slowed it for a moment. This was the first time the ice had been this unbreakable.
Though not a great yokai, the Chui was powerful enough to have survived multiple encounters with exorcists. Now it couldn’t even lift a paw. It understood exactly what this meant, and that was why it was panicking.
Exorcists might appear to be ordinary humans who simply used talismans, but that was far from the truth. A normal person could never produce the same results. If they could, anyone with a stack of paper charms could become an exorcist. The difference came from the do-ryeok—Taoist power—that exorcists were born with. It amplified the talismans’ effects and allowed them to form contracts with powerful shikigami.
The freezing charms used by the exorcists the Chui had met before had never restrained it this long. The fact that a single talisman could freeze it solid while its user strolled forward so casually proved that Se-hwan’s do-ryeok was immense.
The Chui tensed, realizing it faced no ordinary exorcist.
“Let’s keep this simple. Answer only what I ask.”
Se-hwan slapped a binding talisman onto the immobilized Chui as well. Now it couldn’t even struggle against the ice. Completely neutralized, the creature could only glare as Se-hwan stood over it, casually crossing one leg.
The arrogant posture made the Chui growl through clenched teeth. “You… bastard… are you… the greatest… exorcist… of Joseon…?”
“Joseon collapsed ages ago. Why are you still muttering about Joseon? And I’m not an exorcist.”
“…Not?”
“Also, I never gave you permission to ask questions. I told you to answer mine. Who said you could talk back?”
Se-hwan stepped back and gestured. The Baektaek immediately drove its horn into the Chui’s flank. A heavy thud rang out. The Chui’s face twisted. No blood was drawn, but the impact was so fierce the creature involuntarily spat saliva. It felt as if several ribs had cracked.
The Chui hacked and wheezed for a long moment. Se-hwan, who had kept his distance, walked forward again.
“Hurts, doesn’t it? If you don’t like pain, answer properly. Refuse, and I’ll keep having him ram you until you die. You just learned that’s nothing to us, right?”
“…Kk… ugh… w-what…”
“Why did you creatures cross over here? You’re not the only one who came to this land. What’s the purpose of all of you invading together?”
“…I received… an order.”
“An order?”
Se-hwan found that odd. The maegu that had tried to corrupt the spirit made sense—it was a species that lived by latching onto others. But the Chui was different. Like tigers, Chui usually lived solitary, independent lives. Their ferocious natures and extreme individualism made them unsuited for packs or organizations.
Yet this one was acting on orders. That left only one possibility: something powerful enough to threaten even a Chui had forced it into action.
Se-hwan frowned slightly. “Who?”
“That… person… declared… he would… rule… the world…”
For a moment Se-hwan was speechless. This wasn’t the ancient era of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Humanity had long since claimed the Earth as its own. The idea that a mere yokai would covet that world was absurd.
“What, did the Heavenly King Chi-woo get resurrected or something? You’re spouting nonsense.”
Se-hwan was about to move on to his next question—finding out what the creature had planned to do in Seomyeon—when the Chui suddenly convulsed.
“Kk… kkeueuk… kkeoeoeok…!”
“…What the hell?”
Se-hwan glanced at the Baektaek, wondering if it had done something, but the sacred beast shook its head.
“Kwaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!”
The seizure grew violent. The Chui screamed as if its soul were being torn apart, blood spraying from all seven orifices. Even Se-hwan recoiled at the gruesome sight.
The creature’s body, after gushing blood for several seconds, shriveled like a starved carcass. For a yokai’s flesh to wither that way meant not only its blood but every drop of yoki had been forcibly drained.
The Chui stared at Se-hwan with blood-soaked eyes. Yet it didn’t seem to be looking at him, but at something beyond him.
“How… I did… everything… I was told…”
It couldn’t finish the sentence. Its head dropped. Se-hwan dispelled the ice, but the Chui’s body simply toppled sideways, lifeless.
It suddenly vomited blood and died…?
As Se-hwan puzzled over the bizarre death, the Baektaek suddenly stomped hard, as if crushing something beneath its hoof.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ummeo.”
The Baektaek grunted irritably and pointed at its feet with its head. Se-hwan looked down and immediately understood why the Chui had died that way. The grotesque sight made him curse involuntarily.
“Damn it… a bloodworm!”
The crushed corpse of a bloodworm lay there. These parasitic yokai lived inside spiritual beings, and upon reaching maturity they killed their host and burst free. This one hadn’t fully matured, however. Someone had deliberately planted it inside the Chui to trigger an internal explosion the moment it tried to talk.
“They did this to prevent any information from leaking.”
The Chui had never been the loyal type. Threaten its life and it would have spilled everything. The mastermind behind it had known that and installed a failsafe.
Se-hwan clicked his tongue. He had hoped to extract far more, but he had only learned one thing. Still, at least he now knew their goal.
To put the world beneath his feet?
It sounded absurd, yet the bloodworm’s presence confirmed the words were genuine.
“Se-hwan, are you okay?!”
Once the situation was safe, the phoenix brought Jeong Se-a down from the rooftop. He hadn’t given any specific orders, but it was quick to read the room.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Jeong Se-a entered the alley, looking around with wide eyes. “Huh? That tiger from earlier…”
“It died and vanished. It wasn’t an ordinary tiger.”
“…A yokai? Something like that?”
“Yeah.”
I stroked the phoenix’s crest and the Baektaek’s head. “Thanks, both of you.”
The phoenix flapped its wings happily while the Baektaek lowed contentedly. Both gradually faded, returning to their talismans. With the phoenix gone, the yeong-gi that had filled the area disappeared as well. The street the Chui had wrecked while being tossed around by the Baektaek was suddenly pristine again.
The traces left behind before the phoenix’s power spread, however, remained in the real world. The fleeing civilians must have called the police; the street was now swarming with officers.
Jeong Se-a’s eyes widened. “Wait, there weren’t this many people earlier…?!”
“I stepped away for a moment to deal with the yokai.”
“Where?”
“The spirits’ realm.”
Jeong Se-a’s eyes spun. “Did I… become a ghost? Was I dead?!”
“No, nothing like that.”
If you fought a yokai in the physical world, buildings would collapse, roads would shatter, and the cleanup would be a nightmare. That was why I had used the phoenix’s yeong-gi to shift us temporarily into the spiritual plane where the dead reside.
“If you were dead, you wouldn’t be standing here looking this healthy.”
“Ah… that’s true.”
Jeong Se-a gazed at the chaotic Seomyeon streets. “It got really messy…”
The accident the Chui caused in the alley had left marks in reality. Aftercare would definitely be needed.
“Se-a, sorry, but let’s call it a day. I’ll walk you back to school.”
“Ah… yeah. Okay.”
She looked understanding, but the disappointment on her face was obvious. I gave her a light smile.
“We can hang out again next time. Don’t look so down.”
“I wasn’t!”
“Sure you weren’t. It’s written all over your face.”
“Saying it like that makes me sound desperate to hang out with you, Se-hwan…!”
“Weren’t you? It was fun, right? Playing around like we used to after so long.”
Jeong Se-a stared at me with round eyes. “…Really? You had fun with me?”
“Of course. Would I have laughed and joked the whole time if I wasn’t enjoying it? You know I’m not the type to force myself to be nice.”
“…Yeah, I know.”
She looked at me with an oddly fascinated expression, then suddenly let out a small laugh. A bright, blooming smile spread across her face.
“What’s so funny? We were in the middle of hanging out and now we have to head home.”
“…Hanging out with you. I really, really liked it too. So I just…”
“Yeah. It brought back a lot of old memories. There was a reason I used to follow you around all the time.”
It felt a little embarrassing to admit, but it was the truth, so I didn’t hide it. As expected, Jeong Se-a was still the person I got along with best. We hadn’t actually done that much today, yet it had been genuinely enjoyable.
“Yeah!”
She answered with a radiant smile. The girl really hadn’t changed at all.
After walking Jeong Se-a home and returning to Seomyeon, I turned on my other phone—the one I used to contact Kim Kang-cheol. I gave a brief explanation of what had happened and hinted that cleanup would be necessary. The reply came almost instantly.
I was thinking I wouldn’t need to head back to Seomyeon after all when another message arrived from Kim Kang-cheol.
I deliberately left out the part about the Chui exploding from the bloodworm. I wanted to hear an objective opinion from another yokai before sharing more details. Yet Kim Kang-cheol’s reply made further probing unnecessary.
Her tone suggested she not only believed me but had already suspected as much. She spoke as if this was a perfectly plausible development.
She doesn’t think it’s ridiculous?
I typed back, still skeptical. “You don’t think it sounds absurd?”
“I consider it entirely possible.”
Why did she sound so certain? It was as if she had concrete reasons to believe such a thing could happen. A yokai trying to conquer the human world? This wasn’t a fantasy novel.
“I don’t understand. How could yokai possibly conquer and rule over humanity in the modern age?”
“I am not saying it is guaranteed. Merely that there exists an individual who might attempt it.”
“Huh?”
There was such a being?
“And should that individual begin to act in earnest, humanity itself may not perish… but this country could very well be reduced to ruins.”
“Who on earth could do something like that? Is it some kind of dragon?”
“Even a dragon could not manage such a feat, Se-hwan.”
Exactly. Most dragons wouldn’t be capable of it. Dragons were among the highest-ranking divine beasts. If even they couldn’t do it, then who—
“The Heavenly King.”
…What?
“Recently, a strange energy was detected in Hebei Province, China.”
The ridiculous joke I had thrown at the Chui earlier suddenly didn’t feel like a joke anymore. Kim Kang-cheol’s mention of Hebei and the strange energy detected there…
“And that location matches the site where we sensed the energy.”
The more messages Kim Kang-cheol sent, the less my earlier words felt like a joke.
“I believe you already understand what I am trying to explain.”
A yokai based in Hebei. A great yokai also known as the Heavenly King. The yokai king who was slain by the dragon Yinglong, said to be the greatest among dragons.
Chi-woo.
“…You’re saying that thing is still alive?”