Ha Eun-seong drifted endlessly onward.
The tubular dimension he traversed was like a half-flooded tunnel. Bewitched once more, he advanced carefully, ensuring he didn't touch the surface of the raging torrent of Talent. Closer to the source. Farther upstream.
As the ghost pushed forward, he noticed the flow of Divine Blood gradually slowing down. Just as he realized how sluggish the current had become—
Ha Eun-seong felt himself pass through something.
The scenery around him shifted in an instant.
'Ugh!'
Light flooded every sense. It was a blinding flash, one that would have instantly destroyed his retinas had he possessed physical eyes. It felt like plunging into a heatless sun.
It took time for him to perceive what lay hidden within the brilliant glow. Gradually, the contours of his surroundings came into focus.
Even in his spiritual body, Ha Eun-seong's jaw dropped.
It was a hollow, spherical space.
Ha Eun-seong corrected his earlier assumption. Rather than a sun, this place felt more like the interior of a hollow light bulb. Only, instead of a filament generating the glare, the entire inner wall was emitting light.
The light that had momentarily paralyzed his senses radiated from every direction.
'Talent!'
As his paralyzed vision slowly returned, Ha Eun-seong could finally examine the scenery in detail.
'Who are all these people?'
Coffin-like containers were densely packed along the inner walls of the space. There were too many to count. And inside each Coffin...
'Humans?'
Their appearances were all too familiar to Ha Eun-seong. People who looked entirely human were fast asleep, their eyes closed.
Ha Eun-seong realized that every single Coffin lining the sphere was a light source. Like stars blanketing the night sky, the radiance they shed filled the space with a profound beauty.
Then, he noticed the bizarre devices lodged into the people's necks.
Brush.
He subconsciously touched his own neck. A Dagger was lodged in his spiritual body. These people had strange devices impaled in that exact same spot.
And from those devices, Talent leaked out. The Talent siphoned from each Coffin cascaded down the walls of the sphere, flowing directly into the hole Ha Eun-seong had just emerged from.
Ha Eun-seong scanned his surroundings, but he couldn't spot any other passage besides the entrance he had used.
It was a dead end.
'This is the source.'
If the tunnel-like dimension he had traced upstream was a vein, this space was the heart—an organ that had abandoned the very concept of circulation, blindly pumping blood in only one direction.
'Everyone here is asleep. So who called me?'
What was the true identity of the voice that had lured him here?
Right then.
"You did well to make it this far. Thank you."
Just like when he first perceived it, the voice sounded like a single entity and a multitude all at once.
Gripped by tension, Ha Eun-seong asked,
'Who are you?'
Immediately after, he noticed something strange.
'...Why is your voice coming from inside me?'
When he first decided to head this way, the voice calling out to him had definitely been echoing from the source.
Bizarrely, the voice was now ringing directly from within Ha Eun-seong's own spiritual body. It was a phenomenon he had never experienced before.
"I'm sorry for deceiving you. And I'm sorry for startling you."
'...!?'
Ha Eun-seong halted his spiritual waves and fell silent for a moment.
Only after a bit more time passed did he perfectly decipher the hidden meaning laced within the other party's mental waves.
He was appalled.
'You... were you hiding inside me from the very beginning? Were you calling out from in there all along? Tricking me into thinking it came from the source?'
"Yes. I must confess, it wasn't easy. I knew beforehand, but you truly are a special existence."
Why the deception?
He could guess the reason for that, too.
'To lure me here?'
"And so that I could hitch a ride inside you and enter this place myself."
'How did you even hide? Why didn't I notice? Just who the hell are you?!'
Ha Eun-seong's spiritual waves grew sharp.
However, the inner voice remained perfectly calm.
"I wasn't hiding there from the start. I slipped in when you saw the Pope's face in front of the Cathedral of Resurrection."
Ha Eun-seong recalled the moment he had spiraled into a panic upon seeing Asiph-1's face.
Then, he repeated the question that had gone unanswered.
'I asked who you are!'
"I am a fragment."
Ha Eun-seong wore a blank expression.
"I am the dust scattered when his soul was torn to shreds. As individual particles, I possess neither will nor ego, but clumped together like this, I can maintain something resembling a consciousness. The reason you failed to notice me was because I dispersed myself among the particles of your spiritual body. Every time I projected my voice, I would gather together before scattering again. It's only natural that you didn't notice me."
Ha Eun-seong wracked his brain, trying to figure out how to separate this fragment from his spiritual body.
Just then, the voice spoke again.
"Once again, I apologize. For startling you, I mean. But I had no other choice. It was the only way to make you jump into the spatial rift."
That apology wasn't about secretly infiltrating his spiritual body.
The ghost was utterly bewildered, unable to grasp the situation.
'What is that supposed to mean?'
"You were quite shocked when you saw his face, weren't you?"
It was referring to Asiph-1, who had stepped out onto the cathedral balcony.
The very person who had triggered his panic attack.
'Of course I was! That's the face of the man who murdered me!'
"No, he wasn't. The man who stabbed you in the neck didn't look like that."
Ha Eun-seong's mind froze.
What was this voice talking about?
'But, my memories definitely... my memories suddenly came back...'
Wait a minute.
Ha Eun-seong asked himself again.
Never once since his death had he been able to recall his killer's face. So why, of all moments, had he regained his memory the exact second he saw Asiph-1?
If the killer was truly the one who had erased his memories—if he possessed such an ability—
Would he have done such a sloppy job that Ha Eun-seong would recover them the moment he saw a similar face?
Wouldn't erasing them be completely pointless in the first place?
'Could it be...?'
"Yes. You didn't regain your memory in that moment. You saw a fabricated one."
Battered by an endless barrage of shocking revelations, Ha Eun-seong felt like he was going to pass out, even without a physical body.
"When did that memory return?"
'When I saw Asiph-1 resurrected as a human...!'
It was the exact moment Asiph-1 had stood on the balcony.
"Correct. That was when he brainwashed you."
'...!'
"Your soul is so extraordinary that he had to employ a convoluted method. Simply maintaining the suggestion to erase the killer's face was taxing enough; implanting something entirely new was a different beast altogether."
True to its words, it was an incredibly complex method.
"The fragments wandering around the cathedral were too small to be assembled. He gathered 'us' up and embedded us directly into your spiritual body. The brainwashing only worked in that state. In the process, I managed to recover a semblance of consciousness. Since then, I've been following the directives of the main body... the nearly perfectly reassembled him."
Ha Eun-seong couldn't comprehend it.
Why implant such a fake memory?
"As I said, your soul is truly special; controlling you like a perfect puppet is impossible. That's why he had to resort to this method. He needed the trauma to induce a panic attack. He needed you to desperately attempt to flee. That way, you would dive through the black door that opened just in time. Doing all that... was the only way to bring you here."
Enraged and horrified, the ghost shouted,
'Then who was the one who actually stabbed me?!'
In that very instant, his true memories ambushed his mind.
The scene from the past unfolded once more. The amusement park. The man rushing at him with a Dagger. Just as he had last remembered, the killer was dressed in a crisp suit. Unlike Asiph-1's unkempt, flowing hair, the killer's hair was short, neat, and styled with dignity.
And the face.
The killer's face that Ha Eun-seong now recalled was no longer Asiph-1's.
It belonged to a complete stranger Ha Eun-seong didn't recognize. Unlike Asiph-1, who had the appearance of a young man, this face belonged to someone in their early to mid-forties.
The voice murmured in a pitying tone.
"If he had known in advance that he couldn't completely suppress your memory, he would have at least changed his face before stabbing you. The fragment that possessed him at the time wasn't meticulous, either. It was an impulsive, accidental act driven by unconscious urges. Even without his memories intact, he instinctively felt it. He knew that killing you would be useful. That you would make the perfect scapegoat for the happiness of all. Regardless, looking at the outcome, it was the right choice. Even if the objective might have shifted slightly."
Ha Eun-seong screamed in absolute rage.
'Who is he?! That man... just who the hell is he?!'
The voice answered calmly.
"In your homeworld, that man went by the name Jang Tae-jun."
'Jang... Tae-jun?'
It was a name Ha Eun-seong had never heard before.
"He was a dragon disguised as a human."
The ghost recalled how, despite being murdered in broad daylight at an amusement park, absolutely no one had witnessed the crime.
It wasn't even caught on CCTV. The mega-corporation running the park had handed the investigation over to the Magic police, but even they failed to turn up a single trace.
"A dragon nearly as old as an Ancient Dragon thoroughly erased his tracks; it's only natural the police couldn't find the culprit."
The voice added,
"If you have any desire to get revenge on Jang Tae-jun, you'd better give up. He doesn't even know he killed you. His memories were wiped clean. Besides, he already died a few months ago. He was slain by the hands of the 'Planner'."
'The Planner?'
"Someone you know very well. The Planner gave birth to the Ruler, and the Ruler emanated the Advancer. These three are all connected, dividing their roles among themselves."
Ha Eun-seong felt dizzy. He couldn't make sense of a single word.
"You are the Advancer who journeys far. Before you, any boundary loses its meaning. Fences and walls are useless. Upon the path you walk, spatial constraints do not exist. That is why you are special. Thanks to that, I was able to make it this far."
'I'm asking who you are!'
"I am a fragment of the 'Ruler.' Yes, the soul you call Asiph-1. He devised this plan for the father who birthed him."
The voice declared,
"That is the reason you were brought here. Those people... must not wake up."
Ha Eun-seong's spiritual body raised his head to look around once more.
Figures as numerous as the stars in the night sky. Embedded in the walls, radiating brilliant light like a nebula.
They bled in a state of deep slumber.
Ha Eun-seong chewed over those words internally. They must not wake up?
"My main body partially agrees with the plan laid out by his father. In other words, he supports exacting revenge upon those beasts. They insulted the primordial race and threw them into a hell of boiling blood. They must be punished. But the problem is... what he plans to do after that."
"After concluding his revenge, he intends to wake his kin here. But my main body determined that to be a terrible idea."
"Think about it. How would the primordial race treat their king once they awake? He is the one who already failed his grand scheme for his people, driving them to the brink of ruin. How would they react to a king guilty of endangering everyone?"
"My main body believes he has already sacrificed enough for his subjects. Eons of time, agonizing sleep, and endless nightmares have ravaged his soul. It's time he received a reward. A reward instead of punishment. Even if he avoided their wrath, is it right for the king to repeat that agonizing cycle of waking up only to fall back asleep?"
"Instead, he shall become the god of the new, approaching era. This part aligns with the original plan. However, there is no need for the sleepers to awaken. And there is no need for the already awakened king to fall back asleep."
"It's fine if this is all too much to understand. All you need to know right now is that you must help me. Help me ensure they never wake up."
Ha Eun-seong found a logical flaw in those words.
Why was the voice so certain the awakened would punish Minjun? Minjun himself had never so much as hinted at such a thing.
Furthermore, if Minjun chose to endure the torment of slipping back into a long nightmare after waking them, did anyone have the right to stop him?
Rather than pointing all this out, Ha Eun-seong raised his guard and asked,
'Why should I help you?'
The voice replied with a calm resonance.
"Because you wouldn't want to lose the people you love."
*
Minjun pulled his hand away from Asiph-1's head. The resonance between their two souls ceased. The fluctuating light of Talent around them vanished as well. He had just consumed a staggering amount of Talent to peer deep into the Pope's soul.
A brief silence followed.
Amidst the quiet air, Minjun reflected on his past actions.
Bestowing free will upon a tool capable of manipulating free will had been an inevitable necessity.
So, when they first invented it, the primordial race crafted a mind for their tool. A mind capable of thinking freely for itself.
The creator asked his tool,
"Why did you lie?"
All expression vanished from Asiph-1's face.
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