Chương 36: S.04 Memory of the Clock 07(02) - Parousia

Scene 02. Yu-seok, who had pressed 잿가루(Jaet-garu_Grey Ash) into the palms of the 내금부(Nae-geum-bu_Inner Guard) officers moments before they would have died, shook his head slowly at the officers now watching him wary. No need for that, the gesture said. Blood still on their robes, blades drawn at Yu-seok, the Inner Guard officers heard him speak in an unhurried voice. Yu-seok: I'd rather you didn't worry. I don't intend to go inside.

Inner Guard_04: But Executive Secretary — you are the one who set this whole thing in motion. Yu-seok: Not wrong. Inner Guard_03: And our standing order is to meet every hostile force as hostile. Yu-seok: If I were actually one of those, I wouldn't have just saved you. Inner Guard_04: Then — what is it you want, Executive Secretary. Why did you engineer this. Yu-seok walked a slow pace until he reached the 해치(Hae-chi_Mythic guardian beast) stone statue not far from the main gate and let his weight fall against it.

Yu-seok: Because when the tidying's done all at once, it goes faster. Better for you too. In the distance, the warped black water rose in a tower, swallowing the black shadow that had settled across headquarters. Yu-seok glanced back briefly at what was happening behind him, then turned his gaze back to the two Inner Guard officers still watching him with caution. Yu-seok did nothing. Arms folded, he simply leaned his weight against the stone Haechi, easy, unhurried. Scene 03_01.

At Hye-rim's unhurried presence, Yeong-min turned and glared at the room with pure hate. The yard had already begun to look like a battlefield — a storm of blood. There was only one way left to flip this, Yeong-min decided. She pulled out a black sphere wrapped in 삼베(Sam-bae_Hemp cloth). The thick hemp wrapping was weeping black water through its weave. Chae-rim saw it, whipped her 연철(Yeon-cheol_Iron wire) into a curve, and snapped it outward.

The headquarters people Ye-ju had turned to her side bared their hostility toward Chae-rim and moved to cut her off from Yeong-min. Chae-rim paid the oncoming blades no mind. She passed through every hostile edge aimed at her and lunged for Yeong-min's throat. Just as Chae-rim's blade was about to touch Yeong-min's neck, Yeong-min seized the black sphere in her hand and crushed it with her bare fingers. Yeong-min: Do you think!! I came any less prepared than you did!?

The black sphere that burst inside Yeong-min's fist spat out black water in a single instant. Hye-rim and everyone else inside hadn't fully grasped what they were seeing — they only stood and watched, dumb, as real black water erupted outward with Yeong-min at its center. The black water now bursting forth rose more violently than the warped black water that had shot from the Sealed Sanctum, and it began to swallow the whole ground. No one could keep their footing. They were being pushed back.

And inside that black water, death itself began to rise, dragging its ghastly shapes up into the air. 그슨대(Geu-seun-dae_Straw wraith) and every other thing that belonged to 저승(Jeo-seung_The world of the dead) clawed their way up, still dragging the unfinished hungers of the living world, shambling forward. Jeong-in snapped her fan hard and pulled up a ribbon of white smoke. Soo-a's 작법무(Jak-beop-mu_Ritual Dance of the Dharma) — one of her ceremonial dances — began to rise.

The intent: to drive off evil, to purify the consecrated ground, and to cleanse the inner selves of every participant in the rite. Jeong-in caught Soo-a's intent, unfurled both her fans wide, and gripped them in her two hands the way one would hold 바라(Ba-ra_Ritual cymbals). 명바라(Myeong-ba-ra_Opening cymbal dance) was the dance that announced the start of a 법요(Beop-yo_Dharma rite). The two of them wove an unusual figure, crossing past each other as they moved.

Soo-a had begun with 천수바라(Cheon-su-ba-ra_Cymbal dance of the Thousand-Armed), a dance meant to raise a 결계(Gyeol-gye_Warding seal) purifying the consecrated ground. She laid down that figure first as if chanting the 대비주(Dae-bi-ju_Great Compassion Mantra), and Jeong-in followed into 사다라니바라(Sa-da-ra-ni-ba-ra_Four-Dharani cymbal dance) — the dance performed when intoning the Transforming-Food, Offering-Sweet-Water, Single-Character Water-Wheel, and Milk-Ocean mantras.

The figure of two dancers pushed the white mist apart the way cymbals push air. But the gate itself had been broken. The dance of those two alone could not repel every presence of the dead world being dragged upward. Straw wraiths, 그슨새(Geu-seun-sae_Straw raven), 창귀(Chang-gwi_Tiger-leading wraith) and 아귀(A-gwi_Hungry ghost) filled the Inspectorate yard to the brim and spilled over the edges.

The warped black water had already been spent earlier, used to seal the four broken gates of headquarters; there was none left to throw at this. Hye-rim, who had not prepared for the situation unfolding now, hurriedly tried to recall the black water she had cast out, but she was certain — even pulled back, it couldn't close the side-door of the dead world that Yeong-min had just shattered.

Hye-rim swept both arms hard and used what black water she had left to throw everyone outward — everyone except herself, Jeong-in, Soo-a, and Eun-jae. As the warped black water brushed each person, Hye-rim's intent came through with it. Hye-rim: Let no one into this yard!! The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. As the Inspectorate gate slammed shut with a heavy crash, Na-hyun shook the black water off her body and pushed herself up.

Chae-rim and Na-hyun turned and looked behind them. Ye-ju, with the people Ye-ju had brought and turned, stood facing Chae-rim and Na-hyun's company — ready to meet them. Inside headquarters, countless deaths still lay in the black shadow. And among all those deaths, the most ghastly of them kept breaking outward, unbroken, from the yard of the Inspectorate. Scene 03_02. There were far more people to stop than they had thought. The company thrown out past the Inspectorate gate had no chance to gather themselves.

Dodging the blades of the turncoats pressing in on them ate up every second. Seong-hyeon, Chae-rim, and Na-hyun led a fragment of a special task force to hold the gate, but the problem was not the fifty-odd hostile people they'd started with. It was the creatures forcing their way up through the broken side-door of the dead world. The countless shadows pouring out of that shattered gate, and the monsters that obeyed the will of the dead world, pressed them harder by the minute.

The fight that had begun at daybreak dragged on toward the afternoon. There was no time to shore the gates up. There were nowhere near enough upper houses of the Covenant to call on. Because headquarters sat inside a basin hemmed in on every side, the black water of the River of the Dead had risen until it now lapped around everyone's ankles. The dead world's river touching the feet of the living — in that moment, across every person of headquarters, the will to hold and even the pulse of life itself began to dim.

The black water that should have burst out violently was being forced down, just barely, by the remaining upper houses sealing it shut — but they were nowhere close to keeping up with the flooding that kept erupting around the Inspectorate itself, gate by gate, body by body. The number of creatures the River of the Dead pushed out onto the ground kept climbing. It wasn't only the damp straw-knotted wraiths. Straw ravens surged in too, crashing down on every shaman of headquarters still trying to stand against them.

Inside that basin held shut by mountain ridges, every living thing rose as if in a single breath — as if determined not to let a single one of these upwelling creatures slip past the ridgeline — and fought back against the deaths being dragged into being. A small number surrounded by deep death, front and back, above and below, was waging a brutal fight. They told themselves: if we can just hold, it will be enough. No — if we can't hold, we at least have to thin the numbers.

Chae-rim steadied her grip as if pulling her own breath back in place, and she stepped forward first, into the ring of people encircling them. Chae-rim: I'll take the ones left here. You two — gather the scattered inside headquarters and bring them back to this side. Na-hyun: We don't have much of an intact task force left either. With this many, holding the line won't be easy. Seong-hyeon: Ah, SSibal. Seriously. Clearing a little guilt off the plate is ridiculously hard work.

Chae-rim: If we can just hold out a little longer, it will be enough. Rallying the scattered task-force members, shamans, martial officers, and the Eastern Province shamans Seong-hyeon brought — that comes first. I'll open the road for you. Right now, we are far too scattered apart. Na-hyun: Then, at least let Seong-hyeon go first, Seong-hyeon: I only came back after four years. Who exactly do you think's going to listen to a demoted one?

Pushing through the people still locked in standoff, Yu-rim stepped into view with Ga-yeon at her side. Watching Yu-rim walk in without a mark on her, Chae-rim's face hardened again into fury. Yu-rim: Give it up. All of you. Chae-rim: I don't care what other people might hear. I won't be listening to you, sis. Yu-rim: Inside is over. The entire task force and every other soul in headquarters, we've already pulled their consciousness aside for the moment. It's only here left.

So, Ga-yeon: Even if we split off now, there's no one left for you to salvage. No one to save either. The harder you thrash, the worse it gets for yourselves. Na-hyun: Really — you're not going to honor the Former The Oldest's will? Yeon-hui sis, what happened to her — you of all people, Ga-yeon sis, you know that best,!! Ga-yeon: I know. And it breaks me too. As Deputy of the 교무소 (Gyo-mu-so_Office of Occult Affairs), of course I would've wanted to follow every word the Former The Oldest said.

If the will hadn't been to put the Key in the Oldest's seat, I wouldn't have hesitated. Not once. Followed her down to the last syllable. Yeon-hui wouldn't have let things get this far either. Yu-rim: And you know. You know exactly what kind of treatment we've lived through. Sure, the Former The Oldest was the one who reached down and saved us — that's true. And that's exactly why this is so hard. At the end of it all, we were deceived. There's no way around that, I think.

Ga-yeon: Honestly, I'd have rather she just been deposed. Na-hyun: And because of that you're willing to drag death itself into headquarters and trample every last person who stood against it to the end?! You, of all people, sis?! Yu-rim: So that's enough. I'm telling you — we have no intention of hurting you. We haven't killed a single one of you yet. If you just give it up, we'll wipe the slate clean.

Once the new The Oldest is chosen, all of this — as if it never happened — we can all forget, Chae-rim whipped her iron wire and lunged for Yu-rim's throat. She didn't need to hear the rest. But Chae-rim was spent, and her blade-tip had lost its edge. The whip Yu-rim fashioned in her hand caught Chae-rim and slung her to the ground. Chae-rim kicked up dirt, rolled once, pushed herself up, and went at Yu-rim again. Seong-hyeon and Na-hyun couldn't just stand and watch.

Chae-rim's blade led the assault, and they followed behind her to take on Ga-yeon and Yu-rim. But Yu-rim and Ga-yeon — not a scratch on them — moved with hands the three exhausted dancers couldn't match. And the sheer number of people they had to face was overwhelmingly stacked against them too. Still, Na-hyun and Chae-rim, upper houses both, pressed Ga-yeon and Yu-rim — two middle-house women — to the wall. Not sharp, but effective.

They peeled Ga-yeon and Yu-rim apart from each other and split the mass they had to fight. What broke the tight balance of that sword-dance was Ye-ju crashing in, blades in both hands. Ye-ju half-severed Chae-rim's wrist and Na-hyun's ankle and dropped them both to the dirt. Ye-ju, jaw clenched on all her fury, glared around at everyone still refusing them.

While the task force barely held against the straw wraiths leaking out from inside, they were being cut down, one by one, by the turncoat headquarters people hunting the company. Ye-ju: Anyone else feeling bold? Seong-hyeon, rallying what was left of the task force, refused to let the balance tilt into a flat, one-sided defeat. Facing down Ga-yeon, Yu-rim, and Ye-ju, Seong-hyeon pulled up her white paper again. She had to take all three of them alone.

The numbers on the remaining task-force side behind her and the hostile side facing them were about even too. Going in alone like this meant a dog's death, plainly. Black shadow wrapped around the basin where headquarters sat, so thick no sunlight could get in — there was no reliable way to tell how much time had even passed. Seong-hyeon wrung the last of her strength out and scattered white paper through the air. Counting was a waste here.

Seong-hyeon's unpolished figure formed a 덧뵈기춤(Deot-boe-gi-chum_Mask-play leap dance), but it could barely meet the 진주검무(Jin-ju-geom-mu_Jinju sword dance) Ye-ju was working with a blade in each hand. Ye-ju, carving the driving sheets of paper apart as if hollowing them out, pressed inside the paper-figure Seong-hyeon had built and smiled, sharper. For a flicker of a moment, someone who wasn't Seong-hyeon showed through the paper.

The certainty that she couldn't possibly be seeing what she was seeing drove Ye-ju's dance a little wilder.