Yang Noori raised his hand.
A gust of golden heavenly energy swirled to life at his fingertips. It was a heavenly energy that crackled with fury and purity.
He knew she wouldn't even try to dodge it. Not Eum Muak, the one desperate to prove she had no evil inside her. The one who'd rather be beaten than fight back.
Her eyes widened. What was coming wasn't a slap, it was magic. Heavenly magic. A slap bruises but heavenly magic shatters. Her immortality… could break.
She gasped, her voice barely rising through her fear. "Yang Noori! I really don't want to fight with you!"
But he wasn't listening. He didn't want words. He wanted an ending, he would end her. More energy pulsed in his palm as he moved.
Eum Muak ran.
Eum Muak vanished, her form blurring into streaks of light and shadow. Her soul trembled and her heart screamed as she had no destination in mind and no home at all.
Her essence carried her toward the back mountain which was a very much cursed place. It was a place where the human world ended and the realm of monsters began.
A forbidden border gate.
No holies allowed.
No heavenlies allowed.
No human would survive.
Even the immortals, the ones who delighted in her misery stopped.
"Not there…" They stepped back, eyes wide.
No one chased close to the border.
No one, except Yang Noori. He didn't stop.
'Good. Let her run. Let her cross. Let the monsters tear her apart. Let Hell do what Heaven could not,' he thought.
Suddenly… he halted.
"EUM MUAK!" His voice echoed across the hills, over rock and mist and blood-soaked ground.
She stopped and turned. There were tears in her eyes. And there he was not summoning magic anymore, instead he reached up to his white hair and pulled free a single, silver, sacred hairpin.
"You know how much I treasure this pin?"
Eum Muak nodded slowly, wiping her tears with the back of her trembling hand.
Yang Noori's voice dropped, almost kind. "Then you'll fetch it for me… even if it's lost." He took a step closer. "And you'll return it to me… at Heaven's Academy, where I will personally plead your case. I will beg them to let you back in. As a heavenly. Right?"
Her eyes widened. This… this was the brother she remembered in the academy. The kind one. The pure one. The golden twin, bathed in light and generous good.
She nodded, breath catching in her throat.
"Yes."
And like that… Whoosh!
Yang Noori flung the pin into the air, his hand slicing the wind, and the divine breeze carried it far, farther, impossibly far like a shimmering trail of silver spinning in the sun.
"Go get it for me, Sister Eum Muak."
She watched the pin arc into the distance,
the divine metal twinkling like a falling star. And without hesitation, she turned to go.
Her body ached, her soul was tired, but the fear of being cast from the heavens—of becoming mere mortal—clung to her more tightly than pain ever could. She did not delay.
She touched her heart. She could feel the twin connection to the pin, hers and his were bound by heavenly creation.
She could feel the truth in his request. He wanted her to return. He wanted redemption; for her, and maybe even for himself. The only thing she failed to do was read his mind.
She smiled through the pain. "I will bring it back."
Unexpectedly, the weight of the wind wasn't just pushing the pin but her too.
The divine air shifted to a violent current and she stumbled. The moment Eum Muak tried to take control of it, she fell back with a THUD. Not to mention the pain all over her body, the pin was suddenly out of sight.
"Yang's pin!" She cried out, scrambling to her feet, panic rising.
Her eyes searched, her vision blurred but it was truly gone. It had crossed the gate border. Into the monster realm!
She didn't hesitate still. Not for a second.
Eum Muak leapt forward, her arms crossed over her chest, eyes shutting in focus. She started whispering the incantation to cloak her divine signature.
Her feet left earth's soil and entered hell's breath.
On the other side of the Goemul¹ (Monster) Realm Gate, the air was thick with sulfur and silence.
A green-skinned man sat slouched on a crooked rock, black T-shirt clinging to his lean frame, black pants torn at the edges. His name? Irrelevant. No one here cared.
Even he didn't.
He was watching… nothing.
Until… THWACK!
A sharp metallic ping echoed through the air, followed by a deep, vibrating roar.
The Oenunbaki Goemul² screamed, loud and long.
The man didn't flinch. "...Tch. Monsters fighting themselves again," he muttered, bored. He didn't even lift his head, until the second scream.
That one was different. More pain. Less pride. Monsters had pride here in the Goemul Realm and that scream had a ting of pride in it, but real pain and vulnerability.
He cracked an eye open.
He saw something stuck to the only eye of the one eyed monster. A pin. Long, silver and definitely… divine.
It glinted where it had embedded itself deep in the Oenunbaki goemul's pupil. The creature thrashed like a drunk boar on fire.
The man furrowed his brow.
No one; not humans, not immortals, not even reckless half-demons, ever came this close to the border gate. It was suicide. That was why it was so boring here at Goemul Realm, nothing of interest. But this….
He stood and walked lazily to the gate's edge. He scanned it and around. He looked beyond and then he saw her.
Thin. Black-haired. Flying forward.
Skin so pale she looked like a haegol magwi³, arms crossed over her chest as she spun through the air and went straight into the pit below the Oenunbaki's lair.
"...Huh." He blinked.
If he hadn't heard her weak cry, "Yang's pin!", he might've really thought she was one of those mute shadow-demons from the Dead Root Clan.
He looked down at the pit. Then at the Oenunbaki goemul still screeching, stumbling blind. Then back at the bottomless pit again.
That pit was deeper than a quadruple-sized rabbit goemul nest. Which was already insane.
"...She gone." He clicked his tongue.
Should he help?' he thought.
He had lived for 1,007 years and in those, he had done exactly zero good things in the last 997.
"...Would helping her kill me?" He scratched his neck.
Still at the corner, the Oenunbaki's wailing didn't stop. And the man found it so annoying.
"Loud bastard," he growled.
Two minutes. That's how long he stood there thinking if he was prepared to just do good and die or let the human girl die instead. But he thought, nah, death was better. He had lived long already, doing nothing but glowing green.
So then, he dove headfirst into the pit, his eyes sharp and his smile twisted.
If he died, he died.....
_____
¹ Goemul is Korean for 'Monster'.
² Oenunbaki goemul is Korean for 'One-eyed Monster'. In greek mythology is known as Cyclop.
³ Haegol Magwi is Korean for 'Skeleton Demon'.