Honbul: Flame of the Soul

When Yoon Taehee opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a vast field.

Above him stretched a clear sky. A river flowed by at an unhurried pace, and green grass spread endlessly in every direction. Yet Yoon Taehee couldn’t remember why he was here or where he had come from. A breeze swept past him. He stood there blankly for a long time.

It was a scene of boundless peace and warmth, like something out of a fairy tale.

As he looked around, he spotted a small wooden cabin in the distance.

Like a butterfly lured toward a flower, Yoon Taehee walked toward it as if entranced. The wooden door creaked as he pushed it open and stepped inside.

The cabin was empty.

Then a voice echoed from somewhere.

“Seonoh.”

Seonoh recognized the owner of that voice immediately.

“Sisi?”

At the sound of it, Seonoh glanced down at his left wrist. He tugged up his sleeve slightly. But for some reason, his wrist was bare. The black snake Sisi, which should have been wrapped around it like a bracelet, had vanished without a trace.

“Where... where are you talking from?”

Seonoh turned his head this way and that, searching for Sisi. But no matter how hard he looked, there was nothing there. As confusion slowly crept across his face,

“This is your own doing.”

Sisi’s reproachful voice rang out suddenly.

“I warned you clearly. If you saved that child, you would die. But you never listened to me. That’s why you ended up here.”

The moment he heard those words, Seonoh’s entire life flashed before his eyes.

The house of his childhood overflowing with trash and junk. The ridiculous yet lovable miscellaneous ghosts. His grandfather, whom he could neither fully love nor fully hate. The moment everything burned away.

All of it blurred together and drifted past.

And then one final face surfaced in his mind.

“...”

Staring blankly into the distance, Seonoh slowly raised a hand to his chest. The wound where the knife had pierced him was gone without a trace. Only the eyes that had looked at him in disbelief still remained, lodged deep in his heart.

That had been the last thing Seonoh saw.

He remembered clearly whose face it was.

One day, a boy had appeared before him like a falling star.

And Seonoh had loved that boy as though he were sick with it.

“Am I dead?”

He asked the question calmly, without agitation.

“What if you are?”

Sisi shot back sharply.

Seonoh had never truly imagined his own death. He had thought the end of his life would come only after he destroyed the Office of Narye and completed the revenge he had devoted his entire existence to pursuing. He had never imagined death itself would be the ending.

“I never thought it would end like this...”

As Seonoh muttered and tilted his head back,

“That’s what I should be saying.”

Sisi finally burst out in anger.

“How many times have I left signs for you? And you noticed every single one of them. But you pretended not to. Did you think I wouldn’t realize? How much longer are you planning to waste my efforts?”

Sisi’s voice was openly furious now.

“How much longer do I have to keep watching over you? You already knew you shouldn’t get any closer to that child. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I never would have let the two of you meet.”

For some reason, Sisi was enraged. Seonoh couldn’t understand why. Naturally, he couldn’t understand what Sisi meant, either.

“This isn’t why I brought you two together!”

At those words, Seonoh’s eyes narrowed sharply.

“...Brought us together? What do you mean?”

“You were given a mission. And you have to fulfill it.”

Ignoring the question entirely, Sisi continued speaking.

“Don’t assume your hometown will always remain on your side. This is your final chance. If you stray from the path laid out for you one more time, you’ll lose everything you’ve built until now.”

After a brief pause, Sisi delivered the ultimatum.

“This is the last time I’m sending you back.”

In the end, there was only one thing Sisi truly wanted to say.

“Don’t go near that child again.”

The moment those final words fell, Seonoh’s vision went dark.

It felt as though someone had switched off the lights.

Darkness swallowed everything.

Then eyes emerged within it.

Like a peacock spreading its feathers, hundreds—thousands—of eyes slowly opened inside the darkness and stared directly at Seonoh. His expression stiffened at the grotesque sight.

One by one, the eyes began to close.

Until only a single pair remained.

Those eyes...

Looking closer, he realized he had seen them before.

“...”

Seonoh inhaled sharply.

Bloodstained eyes visible beneath a black mask.

Only then did he realize whose eyes they were.

Sisi had brought him back to that day.

The day his grandfather died after being discovered by the Naja.

The day he lost everything.

Suddenly the cabin burst into flames.

Darkness pressed in on him from every direction. The suffocating sensation of that day—when he had hidden inside a large box, barely daring to breathe—came rushing back with terrifying clarity.

As Seonoh stared at the black-masked figure standing before him, his body convulsed violently. He jerked upright with a gasp—

—and at that exact moment, the metal hospital bed rattled beneath him.

A dull pain tore through his chest from the sudden movement.

Seonoh let out a low groan and immediately doubled over. Reality crashed over him in a wave.

Pale-faced, he pressed a hand against his forehead.

Fuck, Sisi...

Whatever Sisi’s intentions had been, the method had certainly worked. Emotions that time had managed to dull now pressed against his throat like the edge of a blade.

He never expected to be dragged back like that.

Then the owner of those eyes spoke.

“Are you awake?”

Seonoh flinched and looked up at the person standing before him.

“Do you recognize # Nоvеlight # me?”

The gaze directed at him was cold, but concern still lingered within it.

Cold sweat ran down Seonoh’s back as he lowered his eyes to inspect himself. At some point, he had been changed into a hospital gown. An IV needle was inserted into the back of his hand, and thick bandages were wrapped tightly around his chest. Every breath sent a dull ache through his body.

“...Department Head Seok?”

The place where Yoon Taehee had awakened was a hospital.

Seok Juryeon remembered that day vividly.

It was late at night. As usual, she had been sitting alone in the head of the Exorcism Unit’s office reviewing documents when the silence was broken by the faint vibration of her phone.

Exorcism Unit Chief Yoon Taehee.

The call was coming to her personal number.

The moment she saw the caller ID, Seok Juryeon answered.

“Yes. What is it?”

But no answer came back.

“Chief Yoon.”

Silence.

At first she assumed it had been a mistaken call, but Yoon Taehee had never once dialed the wrong number before. Then she noticed the faint sound of breathing on the other end of the line.

A strange unease crept over her.

“...Chief Yoon?”

Realizing something was wrong, Seok Juryeon tightened her grip on the phone.

-Chief... Yoon... won’t...

The moment she heard the voice, a chilling sensation swept through her entire body.

-He won’t wake up.

The voice trembling through the receiver did not belong to Yoon Taehee.

It was Jaegyeom’s.

Seok Juryeon rose abruptly from her chair. Before even asking what had happened, she demanded their location.

But she couldn’t get a coherent answer.

-No matter how many times I call him, he won’t wake up...

Jaegyeom sounded completely out of his mind. Just hearing his voice was enough to make her blood run cold.

Seok Juryeon immediately ended the call and coordinated with the police to trace the phone signal.

The location came back as an island called Geoyeo-do near the southern coast of Namhae.

Without hesitation, Seok Juryeon gathered the Purification Unit Naja stationed at headquarters who specialized in healing and ordered the nearest rescue helicopter to transport Yoon Taehee to a hospital.

By the time the helicopter reached him, Yoon Taehee was already in critical condition.

He had lost so much blood that his pulse was barely detectable, and his life was hanging by a thread.

He was airlifted to the nearest regional emergency hospital and taken straight into surgery.

Fortunately, the blade had narrowly missed his heart and other vital organs, but the internal injury was severe.

Not only did the Office of Narye immediately take control of the hospital staff, but eight Naja from the Purification Unit were deployed as well. Because of the massive blood loss, several packs of blood had to be transfused into him, and every drop of cleansing water brought from headquarters was used to maximize his body’s recovery.

Only after all of that did the surgery finally end.

Even then, the prognosis remained grim.

Afterward, Yoon Taehee was transferred to a university hospital in Seoul, where he remained isolated in intensive care under the supervision of both medical staff and Naja from the Purification Unit.

There was still no guarantee he would recover safely. Without the Purification Unit, however, survival itself would have been impossible. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The attending physician from the Office of Narye repeated several times that if the rescue had been delayed even a little longer, Yoon Taehee could not have been saved.

At present, Yoon Taehee was staying in a private room in the VIP ward on the top floor of the hospital.

Every day, Seok Juryeon visited twice—once before work and once after—to personally check on his condition.

The moment she confirmed that Yoon Taehee had regained consciousness, she immediately called for the medical staff.

“The doctor will be here soon.”

Her voice remained calm, but her fingertips trembled faintly.

Until then, Yoon Taehee had been pressing a hand against his forehead. Slowly, he raised his head and looked at Seok Juryeon, whose face seemed worn down to half its usual sharpness.

“You were unconscious for two weeks.”