Chapter 114
Being drunk on the moon's madness didn't mean you gained immortality. The man's head, struck head-on by Cecilia's bullet, burst like a balloon. Blood and brain matter splattered everywhere, and the demons in the tunnel burst into cackling laughter at the slaughter.
Ian gritted his teeth and steadied his swaying body, ignoring the gunshot that had gone off right beside his ear.
Beeeeeeeeep-
Maybe his eardrum had been slightly damaged, because tinnitus had started to ring in his ears. His hearing wasn't completely numb, but keeping his balance had become a little harder.
He ignored it again. He wasn't in a position to complain about it.
KWAANG! KWAANG!
Even after blasting the man's skull apart, Cecilia kept pulling the trigger. Ian endured it somehow, then when he felt he couldn't take it anymore, took out his lighter and lit it.
Fwoosh!
The lighter's flame cleanly swallowed the surrounding noise. But the ringing in his head still didn't stop, and his stumbling steps were still precarious.
He ignored it to the very end. Ian bit down so hard his molars might crack, ran through the moon's residents rushing at him, and bolted out of the tunnel. He almost toppled at one point because of the viscera underfoot, but he barely managed to keep his balance.
“Ugh!”
Cecilia squeezed her eyes shut the moment the light came into view. She had been told that she must not look at the moon. She clung to Ian's body again and focused only on his warmth. The smell of blood and gunpowder rushed into her nose.
“Hah...! Hah...!”
He kept running down the straight road. There were only one or two pursuers behind him, but the enormous moon floating in the sky kept drifting directly above him. Like the eye of something, it fixed its gaze only on Ian and flew through space with lofty grandeur.
It couldn't have been a more fucked-up situation. Ian cursed as he headed toward the bike that had come into view.
‘If I'd known this would happen, I should've made the Veil of the Mortal World instead of the Soul Vessel...!’
The Veil of the Mortal World, made so you could hide by slipping between the otherworld and this world. It was the perfect tool for the current situation, but he didn't even have the materials, let alone a finished product. Making it on the spot was impossible.
It was too late to regret it now.
What, he'd have made it if he'd known? He hadn't made it because he didn't know, had he?
Since self-reproach wouldn't get him anywhere, Ian neatly cleared his thoughts and mounted the bike. He even had Cecilia sit in the back.
Vroooom!
He started it up and twisted the throttle without hesitation. The gears, shifting automatically with the speed, quickly climbed to third, then fourth.
“Switch to autonomous driving. Destination... home or the officetel. Or the Bureau building.”
[Setting complete. Beginning fully autonomous driving.]
The bike moved along the route it had set for itself.
Bwaaaang!!!
At the same time, a truck driving the wrong way raced along the road. The driver of the truck barreling straight toward Ian wore a gloomy face as he mashed the accelerator.
It was proof that the moon's madness had spread beyond the village too. Ian clicked his tongue and gripped Cecilia's hands wrapped around his waist tightly so they wouldn't come loose. Then he floored the throttle.
With a deafening roar, the bike charged at the truck like a mad thing. If they collided, it wouldn't be strange at all for their bodies to be crushed flat and for them to die on the spot. But there was no fear to be found on Ian's face.
Because he knew what magic was cast on this bike.
KRAKAKAKAK!
At the moment of impact, the bike planted its front wheel squarely on the truck's front bumper, then moved sideways as if running along a wall and glided on smoothly.
It was blatant defiance of gravity. Thanks to that, Ian managed to get back onto the road without taking any real hit. He looked back at the truck racing away in the opposite direction, a thin, vicious smile on his lips.
“Don't drive like shit! You fucking foreign god!”
SKREEEECH!!
Taking his words as a provocation, the truck quickly kicked into a drift and started charging at Ian. But it was still just a truck. It wasn't fast enough to keep up with the bike.
Ian checked the widening gap between them, then pulled out his phone. The signal that hadn't worked inside the village had started coming through once they got closer to the city.
Ding.
At the same time, an endless flood of messages poured in.
[Godmother: Mr. Ian, the situation is bad right now. Are you outside Seoul? Please say yes. The sky is....]
[Godmother: I don't think I can hold out that long either. I keep hearing a song. The song, the song. The moon is....]
[Godmother: The moon feels beautiful. The more that happens, the heavier the melancholy in my heart grows. For one last time, I'll summon a demon toward the moon....]
[Godmother: The attack failed. Ah, I don't think I can hold out any longer. I'll say goodbye here.]
[Godmother: If there is an afterlife, let's meet again.]
[Han Yuna: I, Ian! Ian! Something's wrong with me! I keep hearing a song, a song! What is this? From a speaker that wasn't even turned on....]
[Han Yuna: Ah. An announcement just went up in the community. They said not to look at the moon. Looks like there's something weird about the moon. Are you okay? I'm already....]
[Han Yuna: Mm. I'm scared of dying, but still, I'm okay. Better than becoming someone who isn't me.]
[Han Yuna: Since it's now, I'll tell you. Honestly, when you pretended to be my boyfriend back then, my heart fluttered a little. Ehehe.]
[Han Yuna: See you tomorrow.]
[Lee Seo-ah: Ian.]
[Lee Seo-ah: The Busan Bureau has been annihilated. They suddenly started fighting among themselves and then it was over. Ridiculously enough, this is real. I....]
[Lee Seo-ah: I'm on the subway right now, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is coming out of the speaker. Listening to it over and over is driving me insane.]
[Lee Seo-ah: I saw the community post. Things have gotten so fucking bad. I was only planning to solve the school ghost story and head up to Seoul, but what is this....]
[Lee Seo-ah: Ian, you're okay, right? Why isn't this getting read? Could you already be dead?]
[Lee Seo-ah: Ahaha. That could be it. It's okay. I'll go after you now.]
[Lee Seo-ah: Let's be friends again next time!]
Ian's face twisted violently as he checked the message chain that kept going and going. He gripped the phone so hard it looked like it might shatter and looked up at the moon.
“That fucking bastard...”
Mages are the kind who detest having their minds taken over by someone else to a sickening degree. The sort who'd rather kill themselves than have their sense of self stolen away. That's what a mage is. So there was no need to dwell on what they had actually done.
Ian always put his own safety first and foremost, but that didn't make him some pathetic bastard who couldn't grieve or get angry over someone else's death. Ian felt an urge to bring that moon crashing down and smash it to pieces right this instant.
But... but yeah. He didn't have a proper move right now. Until he found one, all he could do was keep quiet and hold his breath.
Even if the world were to end, even if the last moment were pitiful beyond words. He would absolutely kill that thing.
“…….”
With that vow, Ian lowered his head again.
The more he felt something boiling up inside him, the calmer his mind became. He checked the very last message, the dispatch sent under Kim Iseo's name, and let out a long breath.
[Kim Iseo: Mage, a foreign god has descended. It appeared before the prophet even noticed. One of the doomsday scenarios I told you about....]
[Kim Iseo: Please provide immediate support. Repeating, please provide immediate support. Please answer the phone.]
[Kim Iseo: Ah.]
[Kim Iseo: Support impossible. It's over. Do not come to the Bureau building. The moon-drunk mysteries have escaped the quarantine zone.]
[Kim Iseo: You've done well.]
[Kim Iseo: We are heading to the Bureau's central hub for the final operation.]
[Kim Iseo: May you find peace, Mage.]
[Kim Iseo: If you're still alive, I'm sorry.]
The message had arrived just three minutes earlier. About thirty minutes had passed since the moon had begun acting in earnest, so it was practically the same as the Bureau being taken over in a staggering amount of time. Even an institution struggling tooth and nail for humanity's preservation couldn't resist the hand of a god swimming through the cosmos.
But if they called it the final operation, it seemed they did have some kind of means after all.
Maybe it was a regression device, or maybe it was something that would fire a spear to kill a god. The Spear of Longinus was still trembling, hungering for divine blood.
Whatever it was, all Ian could do was pray for their rest, just as Kim Iseo had.
He casually tossed away the phone, now no longer needed, put a cigarette between his lips, and opened the second grimoire. The moon, which had trembled briefly at the sight of two volumes of the foreign god's grimoire, was ignored by Ian as he flipped through the pages, checking whether there was any magic that could break this situation.
Even at speeds of over 200 km/h, the grimoires turned their pages smoothly without a single flutter.
And then, at the same time, it stopped on one page.
With a rustle, the opened page contained only a brief explanation.
[Summoning]
[The author of this grimoire invokes the reconstruction of all things.]
[Material: death.]
[Descent]
[The master of the Outer Sea descends. The price is the life of the current owner of this grimoire.]
Ian's face stiffened slightly as he checked the contents.
At that moment, new writing was etched beneath the Hand of Re-Creation.
[Trust.]
“…….”
Ian bit his lip slightly.