Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Jaegyeom was enveloped by a sense of dissonance unlike anything he had ever felt in his life.

“I shall bring calamity upon this world.”

The moment he heard those words, an indescribable foreboding swept over him.

Calamity?

What was that supposed to mean?

He was just about to ask when darkness fell.

After the boy’s ominous declaration, his vision went black in an instant, as if someone had flipped a switch. His whole body felt as though it were floating.

He could sense nothing, yet his consciousness remained vividly awake.

It was an extremely strange feeling.

He was conscious, but there was nothing for that consciousness to grasp. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

No time.

No space.

Then, at some point, Jaegyeom realized he was tied to a tree.

Startled, he craned his neck to examine it.

The tree was enormous and completely black. It had no leaves. It was utterly rotten and dried out, and the aura around it was unbearably heavy and gloomy.

What is this tree? And why am I tied to it...?

“This is my true nature.”

At that moment, the boy’s voice came from somewhere nearby.

Jaegyeom looked down and saw the boy sitting with his knees drawn up, staring blankly at him. Unlike Jaegyeom, who was bound, the boy was free.

“W-What’s going on?”

“You handed over control of your body, didn’t you?”

It was Jaegyeom’s consciousness that had been tied to the tree.

“Th-Then are you outside right now?”

Calling it “outside” felt strange, but there was no other way to express it.

“Yes. That’s right. This is a fragment of my consciousness.”

Jaegyeom’s consciousness was bound by the power of the boy inside his inner self.

Tied to the enormous tree, Jaegyeom could not move an inch. Every motion was blocked. He could barely turn his head and look around.

Then, suddenly, the darkness filling everything split open horizontally.

Beyond that darkness, the view unfolding before him was what the “real” Jaegyeom’s eyes were seeing.

“W-What is that?”

“It’s the outside scenery visible through your eyes.”

Jaegyeom was visibly shaken.

If he had to compare it to something, it did not feel like seeing directly with his own eyes. It felt more like watching a screen in a movie theater.

The separation between mind and body created a strange distance.

His vision felt cramped and far away at the same time.

Having given control of his body to the boy, Jaegyeom had become a spectator.

He did not understand exactly how it had happened, but it was clear that things had unfolded just as the boy had said.

Setting everything else aside, he was deeply relieved that his body had at least gotten up.

But that relief lasted only a moment.

The red storm created by “Jaegyeom” summoned dark clouds that seemed ready to devour the world.

It was truly a divine power, one that overwhelmed nature itself.

A massive tidal wave surged up.

The sea began to overturn.

Lightning struck.

The mountains and forests withered, and with a deep rumbling, the earth split apart.

It was monstrous power.

A power like disaster itself.

“W-What is that...?”

Watching from inside, Jaegyeom could not help but gasp.

At that moment, “Jaegyeom,” wrapped in red spiritual force, kicked off the ground and shot forward like a bullet.

Jaegyeom was startled by the sudden movement, something he had never agreed to.

“Jaegyeom” passed Yoon Taehee and charged straight toward the mermaids.

It had nothing to do with Jaegyeom’s own will after surrendering control of his body.

“Jaegyeom” swiftly cut off a mermaid’s breath.

The touch was careless and light, like plucking a roadside flower.

It happened in the blink of an eye.

After tossing aside the blackened, withered, twisted mermaid, “Jaegyeom” spread his arms wide.

“As expected, this is an incredible vessel...”

The “Jaegyeom” who had taken over the body murmured softly, looking down over every part of himself as if checking how well a set of clothes fit.

His admiring voice was tinged with wonder.

It felt as though he had finally put on clothes made perfectly for him.

Uncontrollable power overflowed through him, and he was elated, as if he could fly.

At that moment, Jaegyeom, watching from inside the body, spoke urgently.

“You—what are you doing?”

“Huh? Why?”

The boy remaining in his inner self looked up at Jaegyeom with a puzzled expression.

“What do you mean, why? You just acted on your own.”

“Can’t you see? I’m helping you.”

The boy blinked, still looking confused, then continued.

“It isn’t easy for you humans to kill them, right? So I’ll kill them for you.”

At the same time, “Jaegyeom” swung his hand toward the sea.

The evil spiritual force that had spread like fog plunged into the water in the form of spears.

Soon, a bloodlike liquid, dark green as though paint had dissolved into the sea, spread between the rocks.

Expressionless, “Jaegyeom” approached the corpse of a mermaid that had been hiding there.

Its body, pierced through by the spear, hung limp.

At the horrific sight unfolding before him, Jaegyeom’s eyes trembled.

“Stop.”

Of course, getting his body back and returning to reality would not solve everything.

They still had to deal with the mermaids.

Mermaids had excellent healing abilities and regenerated quickly even when injured, so they had to find some way to break through the situation and escape Geoyeo-do safely.

“Why? There’s still one left.”

Because of that, Jaegyeom knew a confrontation with the merpeople was inevitable.

Even so, for some reason, he felt instinctive revulsion toward the actions of the “Jaegyeom” outside.

It was too overwhelming.

There was not even a hint of hesitation or reluctance in the way he twisted a mermaid’s neck and killed it.

“What I asked you to do was heal my body.”

Jaegyeom spoke while trying hard to suppress his emotions.

“Now let me go. Get out of my body. I’ll handle the rest myself.”

The boy was silent for a moment.

Then he abruptly stood and answered.

“No.”

“...What?”

“Can’t I just keep this body?”

“...”

At the boy’s serious question, Jaegyeom fell silent for a moment.

Jaegyeom did not think the boy had deceived him deliberately.

The boy clearly felt favorably toward him.

But apart from that goodwill, he also had his own honest, unmistakable desires.

Just as his emotions were pure, he was also capricious.

It was obvious that, now that he had taken possession of the body, greed had risen in him.

“You little bastard...”

Jaegyeom tried to move his arm with all his might.

But as if some force were resisting him, the joint bent in a strange direction.

His body would not obey.

It felt as though heavy stones were hanging from all his limbs.

An intangible power was binding Jaegyeom’s consciousness and will.

“Get out while I’m still asking nicely. This isn’t what we agreed on.”

“How about becoming my complete vessel? If you become subordinate to me like this, you can forget everything and live. I’ll make that happen for you.”

The boy /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ looked up at him and spoke.

“You said you were sick of living, didn’t you? I’ll take your life away from you.”

The boy had seen Jaegyeom’s past.

He knew very well that Jaegyeom wanted his life to end.

If the boy devoured his consciousness completely like this, then even if it was not death, it would be close to the form of rest Jaegyeom desired.

But Jaegyeom began to struggle violently, twisting against the tree that bound him.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who the hell do you think you are?”

At the same time, the boy clutched his forehead and began to suffer.

“Ah... ugh...”

Their consciousnesses wrestled back and forth, fighting for control of the body.

The effect reached the “Jaegyeom” in reality as well.

“Jaegyeom” suddenly vomited blood.

He could feel Jaegyeom struggling inside the body.

One of his eyes felt as though it might burst.

Because he currently held control of the body, the one suffering was “Jaegyeom”—the boy who had taken over Jaegyeom’s body.

“Damn it, if you keep acting like this...”

Just as the boy muttered softly, the rope binding Jaegyeom suddenly snapped.

The boy froze.

He had not expected Jaegyeom to break the rope through sheer will alone.

His eyes widened in surprise.

Jaegyeom immediately straddled the boy and grabbed him by the collar.

SMACK—

The moment Jaegyeom struck the boy hard across the face, his own eyes flew open.

At last, Jaegyeom felt a familiar sense of reality.

As sensation returned to his whole body, he clearly felt the wind mixed with raindrops brushing his cheeks.

He had succeeded in forcing the boy’s consciousness out.

But something was strange.

The world looked entirely red, as though a pane of red glass had been placed over his eyes.

Everything he could see began to warp and blur.

His vision swam.

A tremendous anger surged up inside him.

Emotions rose like waves.

They were not Jaegyeom’s emotions.

They belonged to the boy.

The boy, pushed out by Jaegyeom, was venting his frustration.

“Damn it... Stop it already...”

Jaegyeom dropped to his knees.

An unbelievable headache struck him, as if his skull were splitting open.

The boy stirred up every negative emotion Jaegyeom carried within him, and like drawing water from a well, dragged up the deepest feeling settled at the very bottom of Jaegyeom’s heart.

Hatred.

Jaegyeom suffered in the middle of those excruciating emotions, clutching his head.

“I said stop it!”

At that moment, something caught Jaegyeom’s eye.

Someone was standing over there.

“...Myojeong?”

When he called the name, Myojeong slowly turned his head and looked back at Jaegyeom.