Chapter 35 - The Scripture of 66

The world lay in pieces.

Common sense was nothing but an illusion, long since hacked apart by the prejudices of countless people. The esoteric scholarship Anderson had so excitedly rambled about was soon hacked apart as well.

After that brief storm passed, everyone mulled things over and offered their conclusions.

Pastor Park Yo-han stroked the cover of his Bible, his voice unable to conceal his bitterness.

“In the end, we don't even know whether any of this is right...”

The pastor might call the pope the Antichrist and proclaim that salvation existed only within the church, but his faith was absolute to that same degree. There was just one reason a man like him would dabble in numerology and astrology.

He removed his glasses and let out a deep sigh.

“Baek Je-min. I'm afraid. Afraid this power wasn't given to us by the Lord, but by beings seeking to profane humanity. Afraid it's all a setup by the evil Adversary to beguile us and plunge us into despair.”

Pastor Park Yo-han was revealing his fear: that magic might not be a power given for humanity's sake, but for a greater despair. Being forced to depend on a power of unknown origin seemed to have led him into paranoid vigilance.

To him, magic was neither an opportunity nor a source of strength. It was a trap.

His investigations were merely debates intended to prove that it was a trap.

Hamza, meanwhile, rolled his eyes around before slowly shaking his head.

“Those who remain complacent for fear of His wrath provoke that wrath. Submission to Allah's will. Even if His will is for us to meet our end, obedience is a person's duty.”

This bastard grilled pork belly and guzzled soju, yet he got religious about the strangest things.

Hamza spoke with utter devotion despite his worldly habits. If God had decreed our end and given us this power along the way, we should accept it and use it willingly. Since nothing could change what God had ordained, his argument was that we should simply keep living as we were.

Lee Se-jun, on the other hand, shrugged and furrowed his brow.

“What's so strange about it? Are you going to give up magic, then? I can't. Whatever the price, I can't give it up.”

Having learned the true benefits of heart-branch magic, Se-jun had also joined the pro-magic camp.

The guy was oddly lacking in usefulness, but he never missed a chance to sing magic's praises. Learning that it gave him not only a stronger, healthier body but also resistance to aging had changed him completely.

And there was one more point he had his eye on.

“And let's say we succeed in getting rid of the fog and monsters. What does this country have left? Ten million people who'll have turned into monsters and a devastated Seoul? Do we all just look at that and starve together? This country is broken right now. Even if we survive, what can we do against countries around us like the United States, China, Japan, or Russia?”

“...”

“Je-min might sound like a lunatic, but he wasn't wrong. The Republic of Korea, a magical superpower! Whether we understand it or not, we absolutely have to know how to use magic. That's the only way forty million Koreans will survive. Though... I don't think it has anything to do with occult stuff like this.”

Shin Na-in didn't launch into one of his usual long, pedantic speeches.

Instead, he merely nodded and smiled with his arms crossed.

“Investigation and research are human arrogance. Simply using what God has given us as it is—that is what's right.”

That left only me and monk Cheong-hwi.

Keeping his palms together, he glanced at me and raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

“What do you think of the ritual Mr. Anderson proposed, Mr. Baek? If you intend to perform it, I will help you.”

Despite their seemingly different opinions, the Supreme Mages were converging on one point: they placed little value on the esoteric scholarship Anderson had spouted.

Only two of us were exceptions. Me, my eyes sparkling at the temptation of a slender possibility, and Cheong-hwi, quietly watching with an inexplicably meaningful smile.

I found myself remembering what monk Wonhaeng, whom we'd met in Seoul, had said: that Cheong-hwi had left the orthodox Seon tradition, with its emphasis on meditation and practice, and developed a greater interest in the practices of esoteric Buddhism.

“There's always that one-in-ten-thousand chance, so I should give it a try. It's magic, after all. It might have some connection to mysticism.”

Se-jun shrugged and lost interest. Hamza twisted his eyebrows, then slowly nodded.

That bastard Na-in didn't seem interested either. Only Pastor Park Yo-han let out a worried sigh.

“Just don't do anything foolish.”

And so we passed the time.

We deliberately avoided taking dangerous missions that would require all three alteration-type mages to head out together. My mind was entirely occupied with the ritual.

Until now, there had been only one way to investigate magic: dive into the fog, hunt every monster we encountered, and happen upon its traces and clues by chance.

But what if existing knowledge could do the job too?

What if, instead of relying solely on drops, I could attempt it whenever I wanted, in whatever way I wanted?

I didn't think so little of magic that I could ignore that sliver of possibility.

Instead, I volunteered for reconnaissance missions using my eye-branch magic, scraping together military scrip a little at a time.

I couldn't earn dozens at once as I could on dangerous missions, but it was enough to order the things I needed for the ritual.

First Lieutenant Shin Han-gi at the military gear shop frowned, though.

“You're asking for porn so you can perform repetitive hand work to help achieve mental stability and spiritual calm?”

“Yes. I mean, post-nut clarity really is...”

“Well, I'm not saying you can't. But couldn't you just repeatedly disassemble and reassemble your gun? What if you get tired after doing that other thing and fall asleep?”

“Oh.”

Disassembling and reassembling a gun. Good.

Of course, I still paid three units of military scrip to order some porn. It absolutely wasn't for me to watch. I figured I could rent it out and make some scrip.

To do that, naturally, I had to check the quality myself and make sure customers would be satisfied.

I genuinely never discharged any of my precious vital essence.

And time passed once more.

March 20, 2028, 5:56 p.m.

I checked the time through my phone's cracked screen. The portal site, now under heavy government censorship and control, displayed only relatively hopeful news articles.

[U.S. Senate Reaches Agreement on Resumption of ROK–U.S. Trade... A Dramatic Achievement.]

[Korea-Friendly CEO Anderson Mackenford Speaks Out Again... “The Seoul unrest is a threat to an allied nation that we cannot possibly stand by and ignore. My grandfather also fought in the Korean War, making this all the more personal.”]

It was about time to get ready.

As everyone headed to the dining hall for dinner, Cheong-hwi slowly approached from a distance, drawing his monk's robes closed. He still wore his usual kindly smile, but today there was unmistakable personal delight in it.

“Let us go, Mr. Baek.”

* * *

Anderson Mackenford was a pretty decent man.

Aside from his excessive enthusiasm for magic and the resulting nonstop chatter, that is.

He had even passed his number along through the colonel, telling us to contact him if we intended to perform the ritual. When he heard that Cheong-hwi and I were the Supreme Mages preparing to do so, he sent all sorts of supplies through Pyeongtaek Port. That alone made his generosity clear.

Cheong-hwi's help was invaluable here. Knowing I was hopeless at occult rituals, he taught me all sorts of things and guided me through them.

“To receive mysterious and auspicious energies, you must empty the vessel that is your body. Even Communion for Christianity's Great Brahma originally had a rule requiring fasting before receiving the Eucharist, the flesh of God. You may drink water until the ritual is complete, but you must not eat.”

Fasting. Emptying the body to accept mystery.

That wasn't enough, either. I had to shower thoroughly, washing away dust and stray hairs to settle my mind and prepare so that other energies wouldn't disrupt the ritual. Cheong-hwi added that an experienced practitioner might be another matter, but as a beginner I needed to be particularly careful.

Then we gathered our supplies and headed to the ritual site we'd picked out.

It was a workshop normally used to check firearms. I'd managed to borrow it for the ritual by offering free porn rentals as bait.

I set down the light I'd brought instead of a lantern, then started by tidying the workshop with Cheong-hwi. Only afterward could I read Anderson's letter and take stock of the ritual supplies.

“Dragon's blood incense?”

The letter kindly included an explanation.

[Dragon's Blood...]

The instant I saw the first English words, I folded the letter up nice and neat. What exactly did Anderson think I was? I struggled with Korean, never mind English. I was considering using my phone for an AI translation when Cheong-hwi carefully picked up the letter, unfolded it, and began reading it aloud.

“Apparently it's the red sap of a certain tree. He says we can trust it, as it is a specialty of an esoteric organization, extracted directly in its native Socotra rather than in South America. It may not be very pungent to Koreans, but he says this should be pungent enough.”

“Should we sprinkle in some chili powder?”

“It's red, pungent, and potent, so it should be suitable for a ritual seeking correspondence with Mars. But we mustn't add so much that it spoils the fragrance of the dragon's blood incense.”

For a moment I thought of tear gas and chemical-defense training, but I dropped the idea.

They were certainly pungent and potent, but I doubted I'd have the presence of mind left to conduct a ritual. I also wondered whether wearing a gas mask during it would be acceptable. This was my first attempt, and I was still skeptical, so there was no need to get too adventurous.

After inspecting the unfamiliar dragon's blood incense, we immediately moved on to the preparations.

Of course, we didn't begin the ritual right away. First, under Cheong-hwi's supervision, I turned off my smartphone and meditated, shutting out surrounding noises and concentrating. Only after some time had passed did he take out his phone to check the time.

“9:40 p.m. The hour of Mars. Let us begin preparing the ritual.”

Salt water.

“Since ancient times, salt has symbolized purification, driving away evil and preventing decay.”

Next came meteoric iron, the central ritual object for this ceremony.

It was literally iron from a meteorite. The name alone sounded expensive, yet Anderson had given it to us out of generosity—proof of his passion for magic. Holding a lump of iron smaller than my palm and probably worth more than my entire body, I immersed it in the salt water and washed it.

“Won't this turn into iron oxide? Iron rusts when it touches water.”

“We will use it for the ritual before that happens, so there is no problem. Leave it soaking in the salt water for a little while.”

At Cheong-hwi's answer, I set the meteoric iron down in the water.

I was starting to think there was something strange about this man. But with magic and monsters popping up, what wasn't strange? I let it slide.

And more importantly, I needed a strange person right now. Not someone ordinary and sensible who was no help at all, but someone strange who could guide me through this insane world with eccentric logic.

Next was the red cloth.

We laid it in the exact center of the room, even patting it down firmly to make it lie flat. We placed the candles we'd brought to hold it in place. Following Cheong-hwi's emphatic advice, they would sit at the ends of the lines forming the grid.

“In the distant past, candlelight was humanity's only light in dark places. Thus, people believed it protected them from evil, malevolent beings lurking in the darkness. It also symbolizes the light of truth illuminating a dark world.”

As he spoke, Cheong-hwi handed me a ruler and chalk to draw the grid.

“Now, draw the grid with a steady hand.”

“Yes, sir.”

Except it was a tape measure.

I had to move busily around the red cloth, carefully drawing chalk lines along the tape. A rigid ruler would have made this so much easier. Why had he specifically brought a tape measure?

As though he understood, Cheong-hwi answered me.

“They say the unit has no spare rigid rulers at the moment.”

Life was fucking miserable.

Fortunately, one thing I, Baek Je-min, could boast of was my ability to draw a perfect circle without a compass. A closely spaced, neatly squared grid took shape on the red cloth, with candles placed at the ends of every line.

CLICK, CLICK.

Cheong-hwi began lighting the candles with a lighter, while I took a ball of red thread out of the supplies.

“Let us connect the candles with red thread, laying it over the grid.”

Red thread overlaid the white chalk marks on the red cloth.

“Let's prepare the censer. I'll bring the dragon's blood incense and a very small amount of chili powder.”

The lid of the silver censer opened, and dragon's blood resin was mixed with chili powder. I saw the charcoal intended to retain the heat being slightly moistened.

By then, it was 11 p.m. As soon as Cheong-hwi checked the time, he switched his phone off again and looked down at me.

“Now let us disassemble and reassemble the gun you brought.”

“Does it have to be the new one?”

The AR-15. I was worried I might break the gun I'd sunk fifty units of military scrip into while taking it apart and putting it back together, before I'd even fired it once.

But Cheong-hwi shook his head firmly.

“You could thoroughly scrub another one with salt water to purify it, like the meteoric iron over there.”

“I'll just use the new one.”

“I will assist you with mantras, but you must concentrate as well. The success or failure of a ritual like this depends entirely on the practitioner's degree of focus.”

“Yes.”

I knelt, set the AR-15 I'd brought in front of the ritual site, and began disassembling and reassembling it.

Despite what I'd said, I was still deeply skeptical.

We seemed to have finished some fairly convincing preparations, but could this really advance my alteration-type magic? What if this magic system had nothing whatsoever to do with the occult?

Wouldn't it be much better to just dive into the fog and hope for a drop?

Those distracting thoughts naturally slowed my hands.

After several dozen minutes had passed, I heard the voice of Cheong-hwi, who had been standing quietly and watching.

“Do you consider it meaningless?”

“Pardon?”

“These attempts to find truth. These attempts to cast light upon ignorance.”

Cheong-hwi chuckled softly and bowed his head with his palms together, then continued in an even calmer voice.

“Everything depends on what people see and feel, so it is only natural for one thing to inspire a thousand, ten thousand perspectives. Believing only the senses can be trusted, we accept only what we see and feel as truth. Only when we learn that even our senses cannot be trusted do we finally ask what is true.”

I had the illusion that an eerie chill was settling over the ritual site. It felt as though the temperature around me had dropped about five degrees.

Only when I belatedly noticed my visible breath did I realize it wasn't an illusion.

“As above, so below. The Buddha is within me; divine Buddhas already dwell within me. Sentient beings and Buddhas are not arbitrarily divided. That is why we practice to attain Buddhahood in this very body. If we merely promise ourselves another life and do not seek it in this one, how can we escape countless eons of reincarnation?”

At that instant, the fluorescent light we'd turned on in the room flickered.

It flickered precariously, then went out with a faint pop. In its place, the candles arranged along the grid on the red cloth wavered.

“Magic is, by nature, spiritual practice. It was another system of the meditation and cultivation discussed in Buddhism. Just as Taoists cultivate themselves to form an inner elixir and transcend the mundane, advocating effortless harmony with nature, Western occultists studied numbers and transformed matter through alchemy, hoping to reach the domain of the Great Brahma said to have created the world.

“Wealth and glory were never things to pursue in themselves, merely by-products of practice. Yet look at magic today.”

The red threads laid over the grid began to glimmer.

I couldn't tell whether it was an optical illusion. At some point I'd looked away from Cheong-hwi, and now I was preoccupied with the line of cold sweat trickling past my ear.

“They neither question nor investigate. They desire power without seeking to know it. They say they desire truth without trying to obtain it. To those who claim to want magic, it is nothing more than a trick for turning lead into gold, a means of killing enemies by hurling fireballs.”

At that moment, a hand rested on my shoulder.

“But you, Mr. Baek, are different.”

Cheong-hwi spoke from behind me, bending slightly with his hand on my shoulder as we looked down at the ritual site together.

“You are captivated by magic itself. Of course, you are not without worldly afflictions, but a desire firm enough to overcome even those afflictions is engraved upon your soul.”

Then he spoke of each member of the Supreme Mages.

Pastor Park Yo-han. He would preserve his faith even if it meant turning away from the truth.

Lee Se-jun. He would use magic as a means to remain loyal to his country.

Shin Na-in. He would misread magic through misguided fanaticism.

Hamza. He had no desire whatsoever to hone his magic beyond its current state.

“Mr. Baek. You lamented the possibility that this omnipotent power called magic might vanish in a nuclear fireball. This may be the last opportunity given to you. To grasp the mystery revealed to the world, or turn away from it and remain content with reality.”

“...”

“Unlike the mystics outside, you have personally walked through a hell overrun by monsters. That gives you an earnestness they cannot have, and a decision only you can make.”

My hands were no longer assembling the gun.

Instead, I was toying with the bolt carrier group, feeling the distinctive texture of metal warmed by my body heat.

“What will you do?”

I tightened my grip on the bolt carrier group and thought.

For a moment, I remembered what Pastor Park Yo-han had said when our organization was founded under the name Aphorism.

It shall end before our faith shatters. We shall become terror before terror brings us to our knees.

We are madness confronting madness, absurdity confronting absurdity.

To stop hell from seeping in, we march into hell.

Only then did I speak.

“Pastor Park Yo-han seems to have noticed something some time ago. I guess that's why he feels he's headed for hell.”

Cheong-hwi gave a bitter smile and did not deny it.

I slowly set down the warmed bolt carrier group and recalled everything that had happened.

The evacuation train that had crashed into Suwon Station, and the Amalgams and predatory spines that spilled out. The priest monster and Madam Geulmun monster that had subsequently risen again. What was happening in Seoul at the first cordon, and the teratomas disguised as human babies, unleashing mental attacks.

We were already in a hell without flames.

In that case, even if this was an express ticket to hell, what was there to fear?

Besides, I wasn't even Christian.

By their logic, unbelievers went to hell anyway. What the hell was I hesitating for?

“Let's begin.”

* * *

March 21, 2028, 4:53 a.m.

It was the hour of Mars before sunrise, as Cheong-hwi had told me.

After washing my face with water that had gone cold, I took the meteoric iron out of the salt water and carefully wiped it with my hands. Then I set it down in the central cell of the five-by-five magic square at the very center of the ritual site, just as Cheong-hwi directed.

“I will light the incense.”

Smoke escaped from the censer, spreading a heavy, sweetish scent. It had a slightly sharp finish like cinnamon or cloves, with a little chili powder scent mixed in.

Then the incense smoke began flowing toward the ritual site as though seeping into the red cloth marked with the grid. After several dozen minutes, the smoke from the censer hovered over the site like a cloud.

Like fog.

We waited like that for a while.

As thrilling elation ran down my spine, I gazed past the disassembled gun at the gridded red cloth, my hands twitching. The question of whether this would really work still hadn't left me.

But with Cheong-hwi watching calmly, my agitation never grew beyond what was necessary. Meditation and preparation continued like that for roughly an hour.

I took out the final item, a bayonet, and prepared to cut my right palm.

March 21, 2028, 6:33 a.m.

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.

At the quiet alarm, Cheong-hwi checked his phone and spoke.

“Cut your palm and let it bleed, then grasp the prepared meteoric iron with that hand. I will teach you the incantation. Repeat after me.”

“An incantation...”

“66 to make 7. 55 to complete 66. Two sets of five fingers dreaming of 55.”

“66 to make 7.”

6:34 a.m.

Sunrise began.

I drew the bayonet across my right palm. The cloud of fog made from incense smoke extinguished three candles. Melted wax and burnt wicks vanished into the fog cloud.

“55 to complete 66.”

I reached out before I could feel the sting. The lump of iron felt cold through my blood. Blood flowing from the wound mingled with the meteoric iron, giving off a strong metallic smell.

Then every candle went out.

That was when I felt the lump of iron shrinking.

But I had to recite the incantation, so I did.

“Two sets of five fingers dreaming of 55.”

With the final words, the hand gripping the iron closed into a fist. There was no longer any iron in my hand.

Instead, my fingers pressed tightly against my bleeding palm.

At that instant, intuition struck.

I looked at the grid drawn on the red cloth beyond the cloud of incense fog. My mind was forcibly altered. Knowledge I'd never heard of or seen surged into the head of Baek Je-min, a man who struggled with even one language.

The ritual had succeeded.

However lowly and untalented a person might be, simply performing this ritual gave them the necessary qualification.

At the moment I realized that the right to reach higher mysteries and greater power depended on will before talent, I reached Stage Two of the hand branch.

The veins in my left hand, writhing with each beat of my heart, burned hot. It felt as though this hand, which I'd once shot and seared with fire, was finally unleashing all the aftereffects it had held back.

Fortunately, it wasn't enough to make me groan, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

Clutching my left hand, I stayed on my knees for a while and cried my eyes out. Of course I did. I'd learned that when something fucking hurt, bawling was the best thing to do.

“Heh heh... Heh heh... Hehehe...”

Even as I cried from the pain, my freeloading delight at having snagged hand-branch Stage Two for nothing made me laugh.

I was simply happy there was a way to pursue higher stages without fighting monsters. The exhilaration of learning that this was a system human intellect could reach, rather than incomprehensible knowledge, was immense.

Just as I was overwhelmed with joy at no longer having to stumble blindly through uncertainty, at being able to peek at the answer sheet, my mind went cold.

“Cheong-hwi?”

When I looked around, every sign of another person's presence was gone.

Belatedly, I stood, opened the workshop door, and looked outside. Soldiers had begun walking the corridors with the sunrise. I ran up and asked them, but they all blinked and shook their heads.

“No. I haven't seen the monk.”

“I'm not sure either...”

Apart from their evident annoyance, they genuinely seemed not to have seen him.

Pastor Park Yo-han arrived after hearing the commotion and questioned me urgently, not even bothering to fix his slipping glasses.

“The sham monk disappeared? As soon as he helped with your ritual and it looked like you'd succeeded?”

“He disappeared while I was bawling from the pain.”

“Where did he go? Did he say anything? No, more importantly, where does that sham monk even have to go outside this place?”

“That's not what's important right now, Pastor.”

Seeing my grave expression, the pastor swallowed and looked around solemnly. Only after confirming there was no one nearby did he ask cautiously,

“Baek Je-min. Do you know something?”

“There's something you need to see.”

“What? What is it?”

I led him into the workshop where we'd performed the ritual.

A couple of candles reduced to wax, a fragrant cloud of incense smoke, the rattling silver censer, a bayonet smeared with my blood, the AR-15 I still hadn't reassembled...

“This is...”

Turning toward the pastor, I told him the most important part with utter seriousness.

“He was supposed to help me clean this up, but he disappeared. If we leave it like this, the soldiers will curse us out. For the sake of the Supreme Mages' image, how about you help me clean, since you're our leader and all?”

Fuck this.

Clean all of this by myself? Not a chance.

I. Am. Not. Cleaning. This. Alone.