Chương 137: S.05 Time to Fly 11(04)

Scene 04. As if nothing had happened yet, the entrance of 현교(Hyeon-gyo_The Black Doctrine) was quiet. Several vans that had raced tearing through the deep night came to a dead stop after reaching the 도깨비(Dokkaebi_Goblin) Gate. The people riding in the halted vans came down in perfect order. As Jeong-in and Jeong-in's Deputy Ye-seung stepped down from a car, tall Si-yeon came down from another van. After getting down, Si-yeon rolled her neck this way and that.

While Ye-seung stayed behind to organize the 지식관(Jisik-Gwan_Directorate of Knowledge) officers who'd gotten out of the cars, Si-yeon and Jeong-in approached the gate. As if already knowing the two would come, the gate guards opened the great Goblin Gate. Guard_02: Welcome. Jeong-in: Is the Bishop inside? Guard_01: Yes. The Stewards and the worshippers are waiting. Jeong-in: It's urgent, so please, show us the way. Guard_02: This way. Guided by the guards, Si-yeon and Jeong-in stepped inside.

After walking a long while, when they'd passed between the fully repaired buildings of the Black Doctrine main sanctuary, Jeong-seon — who'd heard the news — came hurrying out of the hall to receive the two, Si-yeon and Jeong-in. Jeong-seon: You've come? At Jeong-seon's frantic greeting, Si-yeon roughly raised a hand and offered her a friendly hello. Seeing Si-yeon's listless greeting, no different from before, as Jeong-seon's mouth twitched, Jeong-in spoke.

Jeong-in: As you've heard, a large defensive force went to the northwest, and the entire Directorate of Support has come, following The Oldest's word, to aid the Black Doctrine. Jeong-seon: Who went to hold the capital? And is the manpower enough? Neither Jeong-in nor Ye-seung said a word. Jeong-seon: Right, Ji-young si —, ahem. The Oldest must have gone. Jeong-in: Have you heard all of it? At Jeong-in's careful question, Jeong-seon gave a small nod.

At Jeong-seon's nod, seeming to know to some degree what was coming, Jeong-in let out a small sigh. Having dwelt in thought a moment, Jeong-in quickly gathered herself and asked Jeong-seon in a polite voice. Jeong-in: Please, lead the way. The Bishop. Jeong-seon nodded and moved quickly, heading toward where the Stewards gathered. Si-yeon and Jeong-in followed after her. Scene 05_01. The firmly shut door opened.

After stepping into the row house that had held a deep hush, she flicked on the dead light and drew her unfamiliar steps back inside. The boiler had been set low, but it was more than enough to warm the house that had been an icebox. In the silence with no one there, the sigh she let out seemed to sound all the louder. Because of the chilly weather, she didn't go out; she sat in the unfamiliar row-house living room and faced the 장기(Jang-gi_Korean chess) board she'd spread out early, ahead of time.

There was no one before her. It was a fairly spacious old-style building, but it looked enough to keep the cold out. As if she hadn't been moved in long, the household fixtures lay somewhat busily strewn about. She switched on the TV standing in one corner of the living room with the remote. From the TV flowed the news of a peaceful day. As if to replay alone the stillness in which not a single chess piece had yet moved, she gazed intently at each chess piece standing taut in opposition, the camps drawn.

Yes, you have to give chase. Chase it well. Please — I do hope you chase it well. Her fine, fair hand moved, beginning to array her own pieces before the opponent's. Deeper than the low-volume news audio, the sound of the chess pieces settling onto the board rang out more clearly — the living room's stillness sinking deep and dark. Scene 05_02. You can open your eyes here. She'd gone haggard. She had no strength left to gather her wits.

When the voice came, all she could make out was that this wasn't where she'd been sitting. Unable even to hold up her own body standing blankly there, she turned her head slowly. She felt the gravel around the crunching rail line. The gestures of people shouting toward her from all sides felt faint, like a ringing in her ears. Someone's whistle in a work uniform, too, felt hazy alongside it like a mirage.

As Yeon-jin barely turned her trembling head and began to raise a twisted head-motion — the blood seeping from the soles of Yeon-jin's feet, bare on the gravel bed, grew steadily blacker. Blaring horns came from both sides. It was a rail line. Following the announcement that the train wouldn't stop at this station, a train that hadn't slowed came charging in from both sides, blaring its horn.

Into the eyes of Yeon-jin, who looked down at her bare feet in agony, reflected the sight of 검은 물(Geomeun-mul_Black Water) climbing up along her own veins. Yeon-jin, who dropped her body at the horrific pain, let out a fierce scream, but between the horns and the fiercely charging train, that fierce scream was no more than a paltry cry. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Scene 05_03. She ignored the cars packed filling the city center.

The car, racing heedless even of signals, headed for a train station set in the tangled heart of the city. It was a road so bustling that even the roaring engine couldn't be heard, yet the car raced on, ignoring even the signals. The car, which had raced madly over a fairly long road, finally halted only after facing the choked-solid city-center road. As if there were no time, Yeon-su — who abandoned the halted car without driving it any further — hurriedly broke into a run.

From a distance loomed the sight of a freight train beginning to overturn with a thunderous crash. Scene 05_04. She had no choice but to drive over a road filled full with cars. Re-summoning the phone screen that had been about to die, she searched again for the fastest route that also wouldn't clog. While she'd brought up the navigation, she moved her hand and switched on the radio. On the hand gripping the wheel was fastened a black bracelet.

The radio news, still carrying no particular word, flowed on meaninglessly. Wind gusted into the fiercely driven vehicle. The window she'd left open to drive off the stuffiness and the headache was turning the swift racing speed into wind. Even amid the loud wind, inside the earphone plugged in her ear was fairly still. She was following the navigation's guidance that came straight to her ear. Scene 05_05. Near some bustling train station. It was the hour the sun had only just risen.

Merchants noisily milling about, each with an armful of their loads, carried on haggling over goods or getting ready to sell even before reaching the market. Because of the market street set not far from the train station even in the early dawn, walking the narrow sidewalk didn't look easy. The central entrance of the train station. Two freight trains, overturned, could be glimpsed burning. To gawk at the thunderous explosion and derailment, a still larger crowd began to throng toward the station.

Into the gazes of the densely packed market-street people loomed a presence walking a clumsy gait — not limping, but off. They fixed on someone who had carried a lurching walk from the far-off platform. Blood-soaked Yeon-jin headed for the station entrance in the outfit she'd been dressed in. From her blood-stained hand she slowly drew out a long knife she gripped. Along her calves and thighs, wrists and arms, the black veins risen to her neck writhed. Yeon-jin stood still.

She surely had the memory of feeling the impact between the charging trains. The marks of a hard collision from the freight cars that had rushed in from both sides remained. On Yeon-jin's torn-open limbs remained the stains of black blood. To check the overturned train accident, all sorts of people, market merchants among them, thronged over. As more and more people began to peer in, meaning to step inside the station, the blank gaze of Yeon-jin — by now grown near the onlookers — and her blood-soaked hand writhed.

The knife Yeon-jin had gripped helplessly, dangling long over the ground, stirred. At Yeon-jin's suspicious presence, the people who tried to shrink back on instinct couldn't even scream. The black blade of Yeon-jin's fierce edge set itself dead-front to the gazes of the people watching inside the station. Just before the people gave up flesh and life to the knife Yeon-jin swung with all her force, a dull sound spread. Yeon-jin's sharply swung knife couldn't leave a single drop of blood.

Before Yeon-jin's blade, which hadn't even finished its swing, stood Yeon-su, who had blocked the knife hard with a blade shaped from 검은 모래(Geomeun-morae_Black Sand). Yeon-jin's blank, downturned gaze rose. The two eyes lifted as if to glare at Yeon-su, who had blocked the knife, were dyed black as if smoldering, turned toward Yeon-su. Unlike Yeon-jin's smoldering glare, only her expression, which cast nothing at all, stayed unchanged, glaring at Yeon-su beyond that blank, black-faded gaze.

Beyond the market street around the bustling station, the hotel building where Yeon-jin sat as president stood not far off. Yeon-jin kicked Yeon-su's body away to break her balance, then lunged again to cut down the people walking the city center. Yeon-su wrapped Yeon-jin's knife in black sand, blunting the sharp blade dull. It didn't cut or lop off, but among the people who'd begun to take the impact, screams burst out. It looked like a woman gone mad, swinging a knife from the early dawn.

Though she cut down the people, she didn't spill blood. However much she swung, when she couldn't cut down a single person, Yeon-jin realized her knife-work was meaningless. Leaving alone the people fleeing the scene in an uproar, she cast a sidelong glance at the 죽장검(Juk-jang-geom_Bamboo Cane Sword) in her hand. The Bamboo Cane Sword, wrapped in black sand, revealed only the bluntness of a mere cudgel. As Yeon-jin lowered the sword, Yeon-su, dusting herself off and rising, came briefly into her eyes.

Because it was the will of the 화마(Hwa-ma_the Weeping of Immolation), whose only trace lingered, Yeon-jin's consciousness didn't look wholly devoured. Yeon-jin's still-breathing, intact life had, like Yu-seok before, given over only half her body — she hadn't handed her whole consciousness to the Weeping of Immolation. Only, for some reason, she wanted to erase people. That much bloodlust, at least, was Yeon-jin's own thought. Whether that thought was Yeon-jin's own, there was no knowing.

The one fact that didn't change was that something transcending the human by a vast margin had settled into Yeon-jin. Because she knew that fact, Yeon-su was certain she could erase it all without hesitation. Yeon-su carefully set in order the 두루마기(Durumagi_Traditional outer coat) she wore over her hanbok, letting her tension show. That she couldn't win was clear. Then she had to hold out as long as she could.

After catching her breath, Yeon-su left the black blade shaped in her hand as it was and, with her other hand, spread black sand to screen the surroundings. Yeon-jin: A place to work together. It's right behind you, wench. Lucky. You — you're easy on the eyes. I like it. So, Toward the tense Yeon-su's ear, Yeon-jin's lurching voice, coming from a distance, cut off. Right before Yeon-su, who'd spread black sand like a curtain, Yeon-jin's leering two eyes loomed in an instant. Yeon-jin: Let's go together?

From the back of the charging Yeon-jin, black waterways spewed as if pouring out. At the black streams stretching in every direction, the breath of everyone in the area trying to flee was about to snuff out in an instant. Without minding her own body, Yeon-su hurriedly scattered black sand and turned aside the direction of the stretching, smoldering black streams. Into Yeon-su's belly — she'd surveyed the surroundings before Yeon-jin's charge — landed a heavy punch.

A great shock came through, but she couldn't lose consciousness. Blood burst spraying from her mouth. Yeon-su swung the black-sand blade she'd shaped and lopped off, wrist and all, the fist Yeon-jin had struck her belly with. Yeon-jin's red blood spewed, steaming white. Yeon-jin was not yet a dead thing. But the force Yeon-jin wielded was surely what one who burns pours out.

As if she had no room to think of the burn on her belly, Yeon-su, after lopping off Yeon-jin's wrist, immediately half-turned her body and kicked Yeon-jin. There was surely the feel of the kick landing, but Yeon-jin, not even shoved back, at once grabbed Yeon-su by the collar and drove her into the asphalt without pause. At Yeon-jin's rough handling, escalated to a level beyond human strength, Yeon-su's skull split and she began to vomit blood.

Wearing a leering grin, Yeon-jin trod down and sat on Yeon-su's slumped body. Yeon-su, in her reeling sight, couldn't so much as hold up her body. From Yeon-jin's eyes, black waterways heated scalding began to shape themselves like tears and pour down like daggers. Yeon-su held blood in her mouth. Even as her consciousness went hazy, she couldn't leave the black waterways beginning to fall from Yeon-jin's eyes alone.

Raising black sand, she first struck away the black waterways pouring from Yeon-jin's eyes, then flung off Yeon-jin, who trod atop her, as if rolling her. Yeon-jin, whose center had been unstable, finally wobbled and toppled her body onto the ground. Yeon-su drew out the 잿가루(Jaet-garu_Grey Ash) tucked in her bosom and hurriedly tossed it into her mouth. With no time even to tear the paper, she swallowed it whole.

Horrific pain came from the burst back of her head and her shoulder-bone, broken to a dangle, but she couldn't just sit there feeling the pain. Having gathered herself again, Yeon-su shaped black sand and aimed for Yeon-jin's black-faded eyes. Flinging the dagger-shaped black sand, she stabbed both of Yeon-jin's eyes dead-on. The black sand Yeon-su threw burrowed deeper and deeper into Yeon-jin's eyes.

Darting out like a shot, Yeon-su burrowed in an instant into the bosom of Yeon-jin, who flailed her hands to pull off the black sand stuck to her eyes. Yeon-su shaped one more dagger of black sand and drove the black dagger in her hand hard up into Yeon-jin's jaw. The staggered Yeon-jin didn't lose her balance to the very end. Yeon-su hurriedly stepped back.

Yeon-jin, standing there leering, gripped with both hands the black-sand daggers Yeon-su had driven into her two eyes and was about to yank them out — when the dagger in her jaw and the daggers in her eyes scattered and burst from within the eyes, blowing Yeon-jin's skull clean off. Yeon-su, catching her ragged breath, kept her wary gaze to the very end. Yeon-jin's knees gave way helplessly, and from the head, half of it blown off, she let flow congealing blood and black water.

The slumped Yeon-jin, without falling, wore a grotesque grin with only the lower jaw left. From her slump, Yeon-jin straightened her knees and in an instant charged at Yeon-su again.