Honbul: Flame of the Soul

As midnight drew near, a solemn tension [N O V E L I G H T] hung over the Gongju branch.

Protect the Gongju branch and suppress the invasion.

That was the order handed down from headquarters.

The Gongju branch had been built somewhere deep in a vast mountain range, where one peak flowed into the next. It was not a place one could reach by simply walking there on two human feet. Like headquarters, the Gongju branch could not be seen with ordinary human eyes. Just as one had to open the gate of Jongmyo to enter headquarters, the Naja needed to use a passageway to reach this place.

That passageway was a pavilion nestled halfway up the mountain.

When the door at the back of the pavilion was opened, it revealed a low, flat expanse about the size of a large athletic field. The Gongju branch looked like a small village. Beyond the stone walls encircling the dense trees stood several traditional Korean-style houses, some of them still under construction.

The Naja assigned to the Gongju branch were in the middle of preparing for the raid.

The Purification Unit had cast a barrier over the area, and the Talisman Unit had set up formations in multiple spots starting from the mountain entrance. The Ritual Implements Department had distributed swords said to slay ghosts and other ritual implements, while the Covert Division was tasked with rear support and cover. The Exorcism Unit was responsible for patrol, defense, and suppression, which meant they would have to clash head-on with the intruders on the front line.

For that reason, the Naja of the Exorcism Unit, each wearing a mask, were stationed at intervals along the wall surrounding the branch, spread out like streetlights.

Through his Fool mask, Yoon Taehee gazed up at the full moon hanging in the night sky.

It’s almost time.

Yoon Taehee knew the Buddhist power here was strong. He had already warned the intelligent ghosts in advance. To avoid being affected by the Buddhist power, they must not touch the ground. The longer they remained on the ground, the stronger its influence would become, so he had told them beforehand to move over the trees and rooftops without setting foot on the earth.

“Chief Yoon!”

Just as he was standing with his arms crossed, keeping watch over the whole situation, Unit Head Kim of the Talisman Unit approached him.

Yoon Taehee stopped and looked at him.

“There’s been an intrusion at the mountain entrance.”

Unit Head Kim frowned slightly and looked back toward the distant sky. He took a talisman from his robes and examined it. One corner of the talisman had turned black. It was a signal that something had been caught and trapped inside the formation.

The Talisman Unit had arrived early and meticulously drawn formations starting from the mountain entrance. They were formations meant for confinement and suppression, designed to activate when something without human energy touched the ground.

“Something foul has entered the mountain,” Yoon Taehee said calmly, looking at the talisman with the blackened corner.

“If it’s Byeoksadan, this may go more easily than expected.”

“I hope so. But it could also be a wild boar or some other animal passing through. If it is one of Byeoksadan’s intelligent ghosts, we must capture it on the spot. Chief Yoon, will you come with me?”

“Understood.”

Yoon Taehee nodded and began walking after Unit Head Kim.

There was not much time left before the operation was set to begin. The intelligent ghosts were supposed to appear at midnight, the moment the date changed to July 7.

Could one of ours have been caught?

He thought it was impossible. Even so, unease crept in, and he checked his wristwatch. The hour hand was drawing closer and closer to the number 12, which marked midnight.

Before they even crossed the threshold of the Gongju branch, he would know whether the one caught in the trap was one of his intelligent ghosts or not.

Following Unit Head Kim, Yoon Taehee slowed his steps at a certain point.

Two.

One.

At last, the hour hand pointed to 12.

WHOOOOSH—

With a sound that sliced through the air, a great flash of light burst across the black night sky.

It exploded like a firework.

The flash erupted, illuminating the dark sky more brightly than the moon.

Unit Head Kim and Yoon Taehee flinched and stopped in place, looking up at the sky.

It was the signal that the operation had begun.

As expected.

Behind his mask, Yoon Taehee smiled faintly.

The thing caught in the formation was not one of theirs.

There was no way an intelligent ghost would be foolish enough to be caught in a trap like that.

There was no problem with the plan. Everything was proceeding smoothly.

“There! Over there!” someone shouted, pointing.

They were the members of Byeoksadan, dressed in black.

Figures could be seen standing here and there on the trees outside the wall. There were six of them in total, bathed in moonlight. The intelligent ghosts, each a different size, wore black overcoats and veils.

One of them was as small as a child and held a geomungo as large as its own body. The young intelligent ghost settled into playing posture with the geomungo and gripped the plectrum in its hand.

A mournful melody began to flow.

The moment the music started, Black Emperor spread his arms.

The ground instantly turned black, and the lights illuminating the area burst.

The flash vanished.

The Gongju branch was plunged into darkness.

Midnight.

Byeoksadan’s raid had begun.

It was a truly bizarre situation.

“Ah, this is driving me insane! What the hell is going on?”

Im Hyomun was wandering through the mountain, sweating heavily with Jaegyeom on his back. No matter how far he walked, he kept ending up on the same path. A fog had suddenly rolled in, and he had completely lost his sense of direction.

After vomiting, Jaegyeom had gone limp like blanched greens and could not muster any strength. Im Hyomun shifted Jaegyeom on his back and asked, “Seventy-Seven, are you okay?”

Jaegyeom had looked too weak to even walk, so Im Hyomun had immediately hoisted him onto his back and started moving. But thick fog obscured every direction, making it impossible to see even an inch ahead. Ever since the fog had swallowed them, he had felt a strange floating sensation.

Startled after losing sight of his seniors, Im Hyomun had pulled out his phone, but for some reason there was no signal. No matter how loudly he called for them, no answer came back.

He had no idea how long he had been wandering.

Im Hyomun was growing more and more frightened.

“Hey... Hyomun...”

At some point, Jaegyeom, who had been lying on his back, spoke weakly.

“How much farther do we have to go?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. I think we’re lost. What do we do?” Im Hyomun whimpered, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“Anyway, are you feeling a little better now?”

“Yeah. Better than before, I think.”

Riding on Im Hyomun’s back made him less dizzy than standing on the ground. It seemed the effect of the Buddhist power weakened when he was farther from the earth. Getting on Im Hyomun’s back had been the right choice.

“Hey, stop for a second.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Put me down for a minute.”

Jaegyeom staggered as he got off Im Hyomun’s back. He was a little better than before, but his body was still weak. He was dizzy, and his head ached. Still, Jaegyeom focused and placed one hand on the ground.

“This is...”

Wiping away cold sweat, Jaegyeom said, “Fuck. We’re caught in a trap.”

“A trap?”

“Yeah. A confinement formation that traps intruders.”

Im Hyomun’s eyes widened.

“How do you know that?”

Jaegyeom did not answer. Instead, he tried to calm his churning stomach and fell into thought.

He did not know why they had been caught in such a trap, but breaking the formation itself would not be difficult.

The problem was that Im Hyomun was watching.

After thinking for a moment, Jaegyeom told Im Hyomun to turn around.

“Why? You need to pee?”

“...Yeah.”

“Oh. Okay. Go ahead.”

Im Hyomun obediently turned his back.

Jaegyeom quickly bit the tip of his finger and wrote a character in his palm with blood.

With things as they were, he had no choice.

Jaegyeom bent over and placed both hands on the ground.

As he muttered something under his breath, a strange rumbling sound rose from beneath the earth.

RUMBLE—

Startled, Im Hyomun jumped.

At that moment, the fog scattered in an instant, and the black night sky revealed itself again.

Im Hyomun’s eyes flew wide open.

“Wha-what the hell!”

The oppressive fog lifted, and a vivid sense of reality came rushing back.

With a look of complete astonishment, Im Hyomun looked around, then flared his nostrils as his face brightened. He turned back toward Jaegyeom.

“Seventy-Seven! Did you do that? How did you do it?”

“I don’t know. I think it just happened on its own...”

“Did the trap break because you peed?!”

Overjoyed, Im Hyomun slapped Jaegyeom on the back.

“Holy shit, that’s amazing! Hey, good thing you had to pee.”

Jaegyeom forced himself to play dumb as he wiped away his cold sweat.

Yoon Taehee had been right.

He had said Jaegyeom’s identity might be exposed.

If he told Im Hyomun the truth, Im Hyomun would undoubtedly find it strange that a probationary Naja possessed this kind of power.

Pretending ignorance was the best course of action.

With a dumbfounded expression, Im Hyomun kept looking around, then at Jaegyeom, then around again, marveling over and over.

“Let’s go. You said you know the way.”

“Yeah. Want to get back on? Can you walk?”

“No, I can’t. I’m exhausted.”

The dizziness and nausea had worsened in the short time he had been on the ground to break the formation. Jaegyeom decided to stay on Im Hyomun’s back, even if it was partly for appearance’s sake. He really did feel a little better when he was off the ground.

Having found his bearings again, Im Hyomun carried Jaegyeom toward the pavilion on the mountainside.

“We’re here! Ah, what a nightmare. I thought I was going to die of fright.”

Im Hyomun went to the front of the pavilion and looked around. Just as his seniors had told him, he placed his hand on one of the pavilion’s pillars and focused his mind.

A door he had not seen before appeared at the back of the pavilion, where there had been only a wall moments ago.

Im Hyomun quickly threw the door wide open.

But even after the door opened, no scenery appeared.

What greeted the two of them as they entered the Gongju branch was acrid smoke.

A scorching wind, mixed with embers and burning fumes, whirled around them.

“Wha-what the hell!”

Im Hyomun’s face turned pale as he covered his mouth.

“What’s with all this fire? Is there a fire?”

Still on his back, Jaegyeom sucked in a sharp breath.

“No. No way...”

During the short time they had been lost, it seemed the raid had already ended.

Deeply shaken, Im Hyomun ran inside the gate.

He frantically looked around.

A massive fire was spreading through the branch buildings and the surrounding mountain.

His face ashen, he started running with Jaegyeom clinging to him.

What in the world had happened?

Im Hyomun’s body trembled, but he kept running.

“Seniors! Seniors!”

As he ran blindly forward, he spotted someone collapsed on the ground, their sword dropped beside them. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

“H-hey! Are you okay?”

He shook the fallen Naja, trying to wake them, but they seemed to be unconscious.

Im Hyomun started to cry.

“Gasp, what the hell happened here!”

Between the burning smoke and his panic, Im Hyomun’s face quickly became a mess of tears and snot.

His eyes stung, and his nose burned.

“How... how could this happen...”

Jaegyeom was just as stunned.

No matter how he looked at it, the scene at the Gongju branch was already over.

The buildings were on fire, the flames were spreading to the nearby trees and forest, and Naja had collapsed everywhere.

There was no sign of movement.

Only then did fear finally come crashing over Jaegyeom.

“P-put me down.”

“What? No! Let’s get out of here first!”

“Fuck, I said put me down!”

He had to check whether Yoon Taehee was safe.

Jaegyeom thrashed wildly. Unable to withstand his strength, Im Hyomun let him go. Jaegyeom fell with a thud and was staggering to his feet when—

“Aaaaaaaah—!”

Im Hyomun suddenly shrieked like a dolphin.

“What? What is it?”

Startled, Jaegyeom turned to look at him.

“An evil ghost! It’s an evil ghost! A ghost! Aaaah! Ah!”

Im Hyomun screamed and backed away. His legs tangled beneath him, and he fell flat on his backside.

Jaegyeom snapped his head toward the direction Im Hyomun was pointing.

In the distance, he saw two tall figures.

One wore a black overcoat, the other a red one, and both had their faces hidden beneath black veils.

The two intelligent ghosts had been headed somewhere, but now they had stopped and were looking this way.

“Byeoksadan?”

Jaegyeom could not believe his eyes.