"I'll show you who you've messed with."
Yoon Taehee muttered to himself as he dragged his long sword along the ground.
"W-what is that...?"
Kim Yekwon trembled, clutching his head. A man in old-fashioned clothes had appeared and transformed into a sword. It was an unbelievable sight, even though he saw it with his own eyes. Offering an exorcist as a sacrifice to his teacher was something that had been agreed upon within Naryecheong. But they had never requested this kind of sacrifice. What exorcist in the world could control ghosts? And not just miscellaneous ghosts, but intelligent ones…
The long sword, which could be called either a weapon or a ghost, was so well-forged it seemed like it could slice even a falling strand of hair. An eerie and heavy spiritual energy emanated from the blade.
Yoon Taehee, holding the sword, strode towards Kim Yekwon who had been huddled among the building debris. He turned pale and fled to a corner. Clutching his head and shaking violently, he screamed.
"Ahhh! D-don't come any closer!"
Yoon Taehee's hand, about to swing the sword, hesitated in mid-air.
"No, no. This isn't right..."
He couldn't just easily end his life like this. He had to return exactly what he had received. Yoon Taehee tossed the sword aside. It clattered as it rolled on the ground.
He must have momentarily lost his senses.
He shouldn't end it so easily like this. Yoon Taehee realized he wasn't in his right mind. His thoughts, which had never stopped for a moment, seemed enveloped in a hazy fog.
"Sorry, l'm a bit worked up right now. Just a moment."
Yoon Taehee muttered in a flat voice, having regained his senses. It was a belated apology to Paehyeon, who had transformed into the sword, for carelessly throwing him aside. Yoon Taehee wiped the blood flowing from his forehead with his forearm and took off the wristwatch on his left hand.
"I shouldn't kill him carelessly."
Setting the sword aside for now, he grabbed Kim Yekwon by the collar with an expressionless face, gripping his wristwatch like brass knuckles. As he shook his hand lightly, the metal watch made a clanking sound. Yoon Taehee positioned himself with one knee against Kim Yekwon's abdomen and began punching mercilessly.
"Clench your teeth tight. Unless you want your tongue cut off."
Though it was just bare fists since his spiritual energy was blocked, Yoon Taehee didn't mind much. In terms of pure physical strength, he was no less than Jaegyeom. A chilling anger flashed in Yoon Taehee's eyes as he beat Kim Yekwon mindlessly, as if possessed. His expression, focused on striking with all his might, conveyed a wordless madness, malice, and raw desire for revenge.
Though his ribs were broken, he couldn't even feel the pain. Yoon Taehee swung his fists like a madman before finally releasing his grip after a long while. By then, Kim Yekwon was in a miserable state, crumpled on the floor. At last, Yoon Taehee looked down at Kim Yekwon lying at his feet with a chilling gaze, catching his ragged breath. It was the very gaze of an oppressor looking down on those beneath him.
Kim Yekwon collapsed on the floor, pleading in a half-conscious state.
"Please... spare me..."
Yoon Taehee stared expressionlessly at the watch on his fist. He tossed aside the shattered watch and picked up the long sword he had thrown earlier. Yoon Taehee approached Kim Yekwon, brushing back his blood-soaked bangs with his bloodied hand. His blood-stained shoe firmly pressed down on his hand.
"Stay still. I always repay what l'm given."
Kim Yekwon writhed his hand and screamed. Yoon Taehee raised his sword-wielding hand. Stepping on Kim Yekwon's fingers to hold them in place, he stared blankly at the ceiling and muttered in a low voice.
"Don't move."
With that halfhearted command, Paehyeon's blade pierced through Kim Yekwon's hand and into the floor.
"Aaaaargh!"
Kim Yekwon screamed at the excruciating pain. Born as an ordinary person who poorly imitated being a gwijae, he had no way to overcome a natural gwijae.
That's why they had paralyzed his spiritual energy, but everything became useless the moment Yoon Taehee summoned the ghost.
There was no way such a person could be used as a
"sacrifice". Perhaps he might die here today. Kim
Yekwon raised his uninjured hand to clutch at the toe of Yoon Taehee's shoe and begged.
"Please... please... s-spare me..."
It was a desperate plea that came out like a mumble to himself. Yoon Taehee silently looked down at Kim Yekwon, listening intently to his sobs. He took a deep breath to calm himself and relaxed his shoulders.
"Don't worry. I won't kill you."
Yoon Taehee replied readily. Of course, he didn't add the rest of the thought: 'Not right now.' There were things he needed to hear before killing him. Kim Yekwon, who had been half out of his mind, raised his head with difficulty, as if creaking.
"-is that really true..?"
Yoon Taehee smiled silently with his blood-stained face.
"It would be a waste to kill you."
"Tell me everything you know about immortality."
Yoon Taehee asked Kim Yekwon a few questions. The first was about the immortality Kim Yekwon had mentioned. Kim Yekwon, beaten so badly his face was unrecognizable, sobbed as he began to speak.
The story that flowed from his mouth was surprising.
"Mermaids... if you take the blood and flesh of mermaids, you can achieve immortality..."
At this unexpected story, Yoon Taehee paused and narrowed his eyes slightly. As it happened, he had been tracking the whereabouts of mermaids and immortality. He hadn't expected to get a clue about mermaids here.
"By capturing mermaids, separating their flesh and blood, and using them as ingredients for a spell..."
Kim Yekwon's explanation went like this: Among now-obsolete alchemy practices, there was one where you completely separated a mermaid's blood and flesh, then used them as sacrificial ingredients to make a pill. If you ate this "immortality pill," you would become immortal. However, as mermaids went extinct, this spell could no longer be used.
"So... as an alternative, there's another spell that uses gwijae as sacrifices..."
Yoon Taehee listened with narrowed eyes to Kim Yekwon's words. All of this was new information to him. According to his explanation, since mermaids as alchemical ingredients were so hard to find, they performed a spell using "gwijae" as substitute sacrifices, and that's why they went around looking for gwijaes to use as sacrifices.
"So your teacher became immortal using this immortality pill?"
"That's right."
"Then what does it mean to become your teacher's
'vessel'?"
Kim Yekwon hesitated before continuing in a halting manner.
"There was a problem with the immortality pill made from gwijaes."
The immortality pill made using gwijaes instead of mermaids had a fatal flaw - "aging". The pill couldn't stop the body from aging.
Though one wouldn't die, as time passed, they would gradually weaken and transform into a mummy-like state, losing bodily functions.
"To compensate for this problem, blood of a gwijae was needed. To maintain youth continuously, one had to drink gwijae blood periodically. Otherwise, youth couldn't be maintained."
So Kim Yekwon said he was in charge of gathering gwijaes from outside to supply blood to his teacher. As the head of a welfare foundation, he was running orphanages and nursing homes to find gwijaes, and was extorting blood from them to offer to his teacher.
"But the teacher... Perhaps tired of drinking gwijae blood every day to prevent aging, this time ordered me to bring a new shell. He wanted to transfer his soul into a fresh vessel..."
According to Kim Yekwon, the teacher wanted to create another immortality pill using a strong gwijae as a sacrifice, to obtain an entirely new vessel. That's why they needed not just anyone, but a strong one, and they targeted Exorcism Department exorcists,
said to be the strongest among gwijaes, as the sacrifice.
"..."
Yoon Taehee, who had been listening quietly, fell into thought with an expressionless face.
A sacrifice, huh.
The person they originally targeted was probably Kang Yibin. After all, she was the one who initially received the dispatch order, and it made sense since she said she received instructions from the Undercover
Department Head. It occurred to him that this might be more closely connected to the upper echelons within headquarters than he thought. The same went for how the spiritual energy spray developed by the Ceremonial Instruments Department was leaked externally - there was a possibility it was made internally for this very purpose from the start.
Thinking about it, the office would know by now that he had been captured here. Yet no support personnel had arrived so far. Under normal circumstances, more than enough time had passed for them to arrive. Kang Yibin seemed to have safely returned to headquarters, and she had spoken with Seok Juryeon just before infiltrating. Though she hadn't explained the full context, Seok Juryeon would have already sensed something was wrong from that brief call.
"Then my last question."
Yoon Taehee, who had been lost in thought for a moment, asked in a low voice.
"Who is this 'teacher' you're talking about?"
Kim Yekwon, who had been answering obediently until now, shut his mouth.
"I... I can't say that..."
"Oh really? Then I'll make you say it."
Yoon Taehee nodded and tapped the other's head lightly with his shoe, then firmly stepped on his uninjured wrist. As soon as he picked up a nearby brick, Kim Yekwon, sensing what was coming, wailed.
"Aaaargh! I can't say it!" Just as Yoon Taehee was about to raise the brick in his hand.
Suddenly, Kim Yekwon spat something out with unintelligible sobs.
"Ughh... huu... hic..."
What the man spat out was a small piece of flesh - half of his tongue. He had bitten off his own tongue. At this, Yoon Taehee narrowed his eyes. Kim Yekwon, who had been lying on the ground, retched and vomited black liquid instead of blood. The black liquid he spewed from his mouth suddenly began to writhe and clump together, transforming into a leech-like worm in the blink of an eye. Just as Yoon Taehee's eyes widened and he drew his sword, the black leech, about the size of a finger, quickly slipped between the debris of the building and vanished.
"I'm... I'm sorry... To the great.. cough... presence..."
Kim Yekwon mumbled something unintelligible with his half-bitten tongue, seemingly addressing someone unknown, then smiled like a madman and suddenly burst into tears. His head drooped limply.
His head hit the floor with a thud. He collapsed just like that. Yoon Taehee quickly knelt down and felt around Kim Yekwon's neck. His pulse had stopped. He slowly raised his upper body, then stared blankly at the ceiling and muttered.
"Ah, fucking hell..."