Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“Then let there be war.”

The voice that drifted out beneath the veil was eerily calm.

...War?

Manager Choi’s eyes slowly widened.

The Leader, who had been whispering into his ear, abruptly straightened.

Manager Choi remained sprawled against the dirt floor for several seconds before slowly lifting his gaze as though possessed. His eyes fell instinctively toward the Leader’s feet.

But the entire ground had already been swallowed in darkness by Black Emperor’s power. He couldn’t tell whether the Leader cast a shadow or not.

Still, Manager Choi could not imagine for even a moment that the being before him was human.

The ghostly force rolling off the crimson robe was so sinister it made his skin sting.

The Leader stood with the night sky behind him, silently looking down at the fallen man. Though the black veil concealed his face, Manager Choi could instinctively feel the Leader’s gaze resting on him.

It was the gaze of something that ruled from above.

For a fleeting instant, Manager Choi thought that perhaps standing before an evil god would feel exactly like this.

“We are Byeoksadan.”

This time it was Paehyeon who spoke coldly in the Leader’s stead.

“I hear the Office has branch sites besides this one.”

Manager Choi’s expression hardened.

So they already knew.

Byeoksadan already knew that branch facilities had been established not only in Gyeongju, but also in Gongju.

“This coming Chilseok,”

Paehyeon continued,

“we’ll destroy those as well.”

Manager Choi’s eyes widened.

There was a reason they had deliberately announced the next attack in advance.

Make noise in the east, strike in the west.

Tonight’s attack on the Gyeongju branch was merely preparation for a larger diversion. It was both a declaration of war and a demonstration of power.

To lure out a tiger, the bait had to be large enough.

In truth, however, the attack on the branch had never originally been part of Yoon Taehee’s plan.

His original intention had been to infiltrate the Office of Narye quietly and end everything in a single day without ever openly declaring war.

But the moment he decided to steal the Bangsangsi mask, the course of the ten-year plan he had painstakingly built began to change.

The reason for attacking the branch now was simple.

If Byeoksadan suddenly appeared out of nowhere and stole the Bangsangsi mask, it would look unnatural.

Jaegyeom was perceptive.

There was a real possibility he would connect Byeoksadan to Yoon Taehee.

To avoid that suspicion, Taehee decided it would be better to first plant the fear that the mask itself could become a target and establish Byeoksadan as an independent threat.

That was why the Leader intended to perfectly disguise himself as the Bangsangsi.

“Our master, the Bangsangsi, will return.”

At Paehyeon’s words, Manager Choi instinctively looked toward the Leader again.

The Leader slowly pulled the sword from the ground.

Then he extended one arm and pointed the blade toward the unfinished building.

His eyes closed once.

Then opened again.

A moment later, immense ghostly force began surging around his body.

The hem of the crimson robe whipped violently in the wind. Pebbles, fragments of stone, and loose dirt around him began trembling and vibrating against the ground.

“......”

The Leader stared at the building in silence.

And suddenly became aware that a faint hesitation still lingered somewhere deep inside him.

To say he felt no anxiety would have been a lie.

Now that the plan had deviated from its original course, he could no longer say with certainty that victory was guaranteed.

That was why, the day before, he had shut himself inside the pavilion and played Go alone from morning until night.

He neither slept nor drank water.

He alternated between black and white stones, becoming ally and enemy in turn, playing against himself dozens of times over.

Yet even after all that, hesitation still remained.

But the die had already been cast.

This was the path he had chosen.

At this point, he no longer knew which mattered more—taking revenge on the director of the Office of Narye, or reclaiming the Bangsangsi mask.

The two had become inseparable.

Finally, the Leader swung the sword through the air.

The ghostly force released from the blade erupted like lightning and swallowed the building whole.

The amount of power unleashed was overwhelming.

KWAAAAANG—!!

A deafening roar exploded through the night.

The unfinished structure collapsed instantly, crumbling apart in one violent strike.

The Leader calmly pulled a talisman from his sleeve.

The moment it touched his palm, it burst into flame.

He tossed the burning talisman into the wreckage below.

Fire spread rapidly through the shattered remains.

Within moments, the entire building was engulfed in towering flames.

Yoon Taehee no longer hesitated.

The appearance of Byeoksadan alone would be enough to throw the Office of Narye into chaos.

By the time the Naja who received the emergency call arrived at the scene, the damage was catastrophic.

The Gyeongju branch, scheduled for completion later that year, had burned completely to the ground.

Nothing remained except ashes.

The construction workers mobilized for the project had all collapsed unconscious and were immediately transported to nearby hospitals.

Manager Choi, the site supervisor, had suffered severe injuries and was placed under treatment by the Purification Unit.

An organized attack by intelligent ghosts on an Office facility—

such a thing had never happened before in the entire history ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) of the Office of Narye.

Headquarters immediately launched an investigation into Byeoksadan based on the testimonies of the workers and Manager Choi.

But despite their efforts, no meaningful clues emerged.

Manager Choi remembered the incident itself clearly enough.

Strangely, however, he could no longer properly recall the Leader.

Before leaving the scene, the Leader had ordered Black Emperor to tamper with his memories.

The workers’ recollections were equally inconsistent, each person remembering the events differently, which only deepened the confusion.

News that Byeoksadan had attacked the Gyeongju branch spread through the Office like wildfire.

The atmosphere inside headquarters became grim almost overnight.

Department heads from every division gathered for an emergency meeting, while all Naja currently on standby were placed under emergency mobilization orders.

And during the investigation of the site, a letter was discovered.

The letter, recovered from the ashes, had been moved to one of the conference rooms.

Jaegyeom and Yoon Taehee headed there together while receiving a briefing from Pyo Jiho.

Taehee strode quickly down the hallway, expression unreadable as he listened to the report.

Walking beside him, Jaegyeom glanced sideways at him once.

Though Taehee’s face remained calm, something about him seemed complicated.

Honestly, Jaegyeom himself was equally unsettled.

It had only been yesterday that he first heard about Byeoksadan from Bima.

And now, barely a day after hearing the suggestion that he personally seek out Byeoksadan for a seal, he was suddenly confronted with this situation.

For Jaegyeom—who until now had held absolutely no interest in Byeoksadan—it was deeply bewildering.

At that moment, Seok Juryeon hurried down the opposite hallway.

She had received the news during the department heads’ meeting and rushed over immediately.

Her complexion already looked terrible at a glance.

Without even noticing Jaegyeom and Taehee turning the corner, Seok Juryeon pushed open the conference room door first.

The room inside was noisy.

A single letter had been pinned to one wall of the conference room, and a crowd of Naja stood gathered before it with grim expressions.

Among them were the members of Team 1 of the Exorcism Unit.

The moment Seok Juryeon entered, the gathered Naja immediately stepped aside to make room for her.

The letter was densely filled with classical Chinese characters.

The Book of Odes says: “Revere the wrath of Heaven and dare not be negligent. Revere the changes of Heaven and dare not act arrogantly. Heaven is always beside you, and Heaven is always watching you.”

If Heaven has granted precious talents unto humanity, then Heaven’s will is surely that the living and the dead exist in harmony, and that all things be reconciled.

Yet when the world falls into immorality, Heaven sends calamities as rebuke. And when men still fail to repent, Heaven sends strange events as warning.

But alas—an empty vessel incapable of understanding Heaven’s rebuke now governs the world, like a chicken pretending to be a phoenix.

Life and death were originally one body. Ghosts are merely flaws shed by the world itself, and thus ghosts are what the living become after death.

If ghosts cannot leave this land and wander endlessly beneath the nine heavens, it is because this world itself bears karma.

If they harbor resentment, it is because those who deserve punishment indulge in luxury without consequence, while sinners live shamelessly without remorse.

And that sin belongs to you.

As Seok Juryeon read the letter, she pressed a hand against her forehead.

Her face had already gone deathly pale.

Shock overwhelmed her.

Ah... finally...

Her body swayed unsteadily against the wall.

The sudden dizziness blurred her vision.

Han Juyoung hurried forward to support her.

“Unit Head! Are you alright?”

But before she could answer—

Seok Juryeon collapsed unconscious.