Chapter 35: The Difference Between the Strange and the Uninvited (8)

Realizing its identity had been exposed, the stone stopped pretending to be an ordinary rock and began to release divine power.

The divine power, materialized due to its excessive quantity, began to illuminate the main hall like a bright light, and as it gradually brightened, it gathered in one place to form a shape.

And finally, it formed the shape of a large dog made of light.

Its name was Mukurikokuri no Inugami.

This was the sacred object that the Saigo family had worshiped for generations, and a cowardly being that had hidden itself straightaway to save its own skin upon sensing Jinseong's presence.

"Mukurikokuri no Inugami, Mukurikokuri no Inugami, Mukurikokuri no Inugami."

Jinseong muttered the name of the sacred object three times as he looked at it.

"Such a long name indeed. But with that name, I understood why you hid without even fighting properly, why you fear me and can't bring yourself to bite my neck."

[ Grrr.... ]

"I expected that I’d gain a lot, but to think I'd be this lucky from the start!"

Jinseong burst into laughter and said:

"The dog god of Mukurikokuri. The watchdog brought by Mukurikokuri. You pitiful beast who has forgotten even your duty as a hunting dog, gorging yourself on faith for so long. Yet, as a hunting dog, you can't bring yourself to harm your master's bloodline due to your instincts."

The past.

A past that went back not decades, but hundreds of years.

There were the Mongols and Goryeo.

The Mongols were displeased with the Wakou (Japanese invaders) who periodically invaded the coast and plundered, and finally, unable to bear it any longer, they organized an expedition. The Mongols, who had made a name for themselves throughout the world by turning the continent into a wasteland, feared nothing and thought they could easily conquer Japan as well.

However, as their power was dispersed due to their fame spreading throughout the world, they pressured Goryeo, which had become their subject, to participate in the expedition, and this became the Goryeo-Mongol allied forces.

They were able to easily push back the Japanese army with their combat techniques honed in fierce battles and battle weapons developed by absorbing and improving from various countries. Moreover, the Mongols were able to obtain all sorts of byproducts while compiling and organizing sorceries collected from various countries, and they did not hesitate to share it with Goryeo, their vassal state.

They literally turned Japan into a wasteland.

They killed everyone taller than a wagon wheel.

If people holed up in castles, they would bypass them, clear the surroundings completely, and spread plague inside.

They set fire to granaries and sprinkled salt, and if they saw water, they poured filth and threw corpses cursed with the sorcery of decay.

The combination of the Mongols and Goryeo was terrifying.

The warriors' coordination was quite good, but the power of the Mongol and Goryeo sorcerers they brought especially created an overwhelming difference in military strength that was impossible to resist.

The Mongol sorcerers wore clothes made from deer heads and raptor wings, and they used these to cast spells on the warriors. Warriors who received their spells could move as nimbly as deer, gain strength like eagles, and see through everything as clearly as owls even at night.

And that wasn’t all. Horses that received their spells didn't hesitate to bite other animals and drink blood like wolves, becoming predators that moved in packs and hunted people.

The Goryeo sorcerers were experts in geomancy and shamanic curses. They wore colorful clothes and carried various sorcerous materials, casting spells as they went. They cast defensive spells to protect warriors and sorcerers from harm, and if they found enemy commanders, they used curses to assassinate them.

Moreover, to prevent troops from regathering in devastated areas, they created cursed objects in the form of wooden dolls with nails in their heads.

People would inevitably die wherever these dolls were placed, and these deaths were so difficult to understand with common sense that the Japanese people feared these terrible curses and dared not stay in those lands.

However, their unstoppable advance didn't last long, for it was the will of nature.

At that time in Wakoku, a massive typhoon, which would later be called Kamikaze, caused great damage to the Goryeo-Mongol allied forces. This typhoon made the allied forces stop their advance and return, and when they invaded Japan again later, it came again, making them abandon their expedition.

But the fear they instilled remained in place and continued until now.

Mongol Goguryeo.

Mokuri Kokuri.

Mukuri Kokuri.

The fear caused by the Goryeo-Mongol allied forces transformed into a yokai and ghost named Mukurikokuri, becoming a fundamental fear spread to all Japanese people to the extent that they would scare disobedient children by saying, "If you don't listen, Mukurikokuri will come and take you away!"

Even as ghosts appeared all over Japan due to hon and baek, and later even as the phenomenon of Hyakki Yagyō occurred and it became a land of all sorts of ghosts, Mukurikokuri didn't appear, but people still feared Mukurikokuri.

From when Japan changed its name from Wakoku, to when Japan consumed Joseon, was defeated in the World War, and accumulated wealth again to become the modern Japan of today.

That fear did not disappear.

"It became a fear that couldn't be escaped because it had no substance. Isn't it truly ironic?"

Perhaps it was because it had no substance.

Japanese people had to live a life coexisting with fearsome beings, evil spirits, and demons due to the side effects created by the energy heat dome.

While walking on the street, evil spirits in the form of weasels would inflict wounds on people's bodies with invisible blades, and huge horned demons would beat people to a pulp with clubs. Evil spirits that dwelled in the bodies of courtesans and mutated their flesh ran rampant, and things that possessed objects and bewitched people and cast curses proliferated everywhere.

The demons were ferocious, and the evil spirits were bizarre.

To escape from these unpredictable and harmful beings, Japanese people used the method of naming them and describing them ridiculously. They struggled to escape by mocking and ridiculing them, and by using independently developed sorcery to exorcise them, they reduced them to mere topics of conversation.

This method was quite effective, and those that had been objects of fear in the past were now reduced to beings only consumed in creative works in modern times.

However, they couldn't carelessly name and reduce Murikokuri because it had no substance at all, and as it was a being surrounded only by indescribable fear, they couldn't even exorcise it.

Even if they wanted to forget, those things imprinted in their genes and unconscious were impossible to erase...

So the Japanese created another solution, which was worship.

They tried to escape from this incomprehensible fear by making this paranormal being, that is, placing it in the same position as transcendent beings. Their will to escape fear through worship if they couldn't understand was remarkable.

Thus, Mukurikokuri faith was created all over Japan.

In some places, they made songs praising Mukurikokuri.

This was called the Mokko lullaby and helped people overcome their fear and sleep.

In some places, they made dolls to be taken instead of people, and prayed for a good catch in return for taking the doll.

This became an object used in festivals in modern times, called Mukurikokuri dolls.

In some places, they made it into a divination sorcery to rely on its omnipotence proportional to the fear.

This was called Kokkuri-san.

In the past, it was called Kokkuri-san (高句麗さん) using Chinese characters meaning Goguryeo, and after the Japanese colonial period, as part of the unity of Japan and Korea, it became a sorcery called Kokkuri-san (狐狗狸さん) replaced with animal names.

This sorcery spread to Korea under the name Bunshinsaba (like the Ouija board), and due to the loss and change of rules, it degenerated from divination to necromancy.

[ Grrrrrr! ]

And in some places, they enshrined the shamanic curse brought by the Goryeo-Mongol allied forces as a god.

This was the sacred object growling and showing its teeth in front of Jinseong.

"You've accumulated power far beyond what a mere animal spirit dwelling in a shamanic curse deserves. However, since you haven't ascended into a demonic immortal even after hundreds of years have passed, you shouldn't have any regrets about being used by me."

Jinseong laughed as he looked at the dog that showed its teeth but couldn't pounce on him.

"You beast steeped in inertia, you half-baked being that couldn't reach transcendence. Receive my gift."

Boom!

He stomped his foot powerfully. Although it was just a simple stomp, it shook the main hall by spreading huge vibrations and sounds like the sound of bells, and twisted the door panels and bent the pillars as if an earthquake had occurred.

[ Groooowl! ]

Crash bang bang!

As the main hall shook, the dog threw its body into the air as if it had been waiting for this moment. The dog, gliding through the air like a lighthouse beam taking shape, collided with the twisted door panel and went outside. The door panel shattered easily as if it were paper, and the dog should have easily gone out and run away... but.

[ Woof? ]

There was nowhere for the dog to escape.

What the dog saw was a black sky.

A sky that had turned so black it was hard to believe it was daytime.

The blackened sky had descended to the ground and isolated the space by enclosing the shrine in a dome shape, plunging the entire shrine into darkness by completely blocking the sunlight.

No matter how much light the dog emitted from its body made of light, the darkness wouldn't disappear.

Rooooar---

The black sky spoke to the pitiful god with a thunderous sound.

There is nowhere for you to escape.

You will meet the same end as hunting dogs usually do.

"If you had gained spiritual nature, you would have shown interest in the outside, and if you had shown interest in the outside, you would have surely noticed this. All of this stems from your laziness."

Jinseong said this while flicking the small bell with his fingernail.

Ding-----------------

The bell sound.

But unlike the clear sound from before, it was a thin and grating sound.

A sound that made one's hair stand on end and gave goosebumps, as if scratching a chalkboard with wire and resonating like a smooth and hard stone. A sound that gave one chills just by hearing it, as if a siren had grown more and more high-pitched on the verge of exceeding the limit of human hearing.

The sound that stimulated the ears and awakened the brain spread in all directions like before.

And the black sky that heard the sound slowly began to move.

Small holes appeared here and there in the curtain covering the sky like it was decaying and let sunlight through, and it began to ripple as it became like cheese with holes poked all over it. And it started to gradually close the distance, heading towards the dog.

To the luminous dog's eyes, it looked like the sky was collapsing.

It looked like the sky was collapsing on top of it, and it looked like the curtain of darkness had turned into waves crashing down on it.

Past memories of being carried on surging waves at the hands of sorcerers came to mind, and the nightmare of that time when hands made of seawater kept reaching out to grab it and breaking apart in a world plunged into darkness flashed in the dog's mind.

[ Kwaaang! ]

The dog howled at that memory of the past and spread its divine power in all directions, and.

Roooooar----

The black sky.

No.

A swarm of mosquitoes enough to dye the shrine black rushed towards the dog.