Chapter 32: Eucharist
"Are you... the Sanctifier and Redeemer?"
The question hit Dan Woo, and a mix of emotions could be seen churning through Sang Hun Lee’s body.
Choi Ae Ran was the first to notice the words and their familiarity, coupled with the raw emotions spilling forth from Sang Hun Lee. But she paid it little attention, as both Once Upon Reality and Truth or Deal had already informed her throughly—
Yet before she could speak up, she felt something happening to her body once again as she looked at the meal.
Was this real? Was it the Eucharist?
If so, then her probability of becoming a Star was all but guaranteed.
She looked down at her body as it blinked through various forms. She couldn’t help but feel even more excited and elated. They were going through a transfiguration caused by the sanctification and redemption.
Just as Sang Hun Lee thought.
She turned to see him, only to find that his body was also going through the same process. Then she looked toward the two other teenagers.
It seemed the four of them were indeed going to be ordained as Stars by this unfathomable entity.
She kept silent, letting the strange energy wash over her. Her life seemed to be laid bare before the entity, yet she didn’t fight it at all. In fact, she welcomed it, letting the memories wash over her as her sickly childhood resurfaced before her.
She had been so weak. So helpless.
But now that power had presented itself to her, why would she not accept it willingly?
She would not go back to living through machines.
Suffering just to breathe.
And what about her family?
With enough power, she would be able to protect them all... to care for everyone.
She turned to look at the others going through the same thing, watching the other teenagers sink into the wondrous sensation, sharing in her joy.
But when she turned to Sang Hun Lee, it was another story.
He was fighting it with all his might, refusing to let the Meaning washing over everyone present take root within him.
She looked toward the divine being seated at the end of the table, hoping it would not take offense at Captain Sang’s refusal of the baptism.
Her body soon faded, sinking deeper into the Meaning as her Vestige seemed to connect to something beyond herself.
Meanwhile, Dan Woo was suddenly alarmed by what was happening in front of him.
He could see the bodies of all four of the people who had just partaken of his meal begin to transfigure into something similar to what had happened to him before entering his house, when he had suddenly been catapulted a few hours into the past.
Were the people before him now going to go back to the past just like he did?
Yet what was happening wasn’t them going to the past. Instead, a slice of each of the four people’s experiences began to form, stretching into the endless distance. To Dan Woo, it looked like the timeline of a movie, with special points of despair and suffering marked by something unseen.
At first, Dan Woo wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but once his gaze landed on those slices of life stretching into infinity, he felt a familiar sensation—the same feeling he had experienced when he was Cha Hwa Rim.
Yet this was a little different.
He could feel that familiar sensation of Actualization as his spirituality and Meaning spilled forth into every one of them, as if he were baptizing them with some kind of energy, marking all the suffering in their lives.
He could feel the energy flowing freely through the three teenagers, what should have been an intrusive procedure instead being accepted with a kind of reverence and solemnity.
Yet for the adult male agent...
There was a lot of friction.
It felt like he was fighting a raging current, like a mad bull trying to wash away the Meaning with his own, refusing it in every way possible.
Dan Woo wasn’t alarmed by this.
In fact, he felt this was the right reaction one would have.
So he wanted to stop it.
But for some reason, he found that he couldn’t.
He tried to do what he always did to stop an Actualization, yet there was no response.
"I should have known," Sang Hun Lee said angrily as he fought with all his might to break free from the strange transfigurative state he had been placed in.
He turned to face Dan Woo with a fierce expression, his body channeling his Meaning as he readied his spells and reached for his weapons.
Yet the more he struggled, the less he found he could do.
Dan Woo could feel the man’s pain and rage practically leaping from his body, ready to tear him apart.
Yet he found he could do nothing.
The man tried to charge at Dan Woo, only to find himself unable to move as his consciousness slowly faded into that overwhelming sensation of being washed by spirituality and Meaning.
As this happened, Dan Woo could feel a heavy memory protruding from the man’s transfigured state.
He could see glimpses—fragments and hints of where that deep rage and hatred stemmed from.
And before he realized it, he found himself watching those memories...
...as though he were watching a movie.
The memory began with a young Sang Hun Lee conducting the funeral rites for a woman who seemed to be his mother. A crowd of people had come to pay their respects and offer their condolences, praising her for her sacrifices and contributions to the well-being of all living things. They spoke of how she was up with the angels now.
Yet those words seemed to burrow into something deep within him as his mind drifted back through his memories. He calmed himself and let it pass.
Before he could do anything, however, a mob of people—likely gangsters—forced their way into the funeral hall, startling everyone present. They walked to the casket first to pay their respects before getting down to business.
Turning to Sang Hun Lee, they informed him that he had inherited all of his mother’s debt and was expected to clear it within the next seven days.
It was another blow to Sang Hun Lee.
His thoughts drifted back to how his mother had always taken out countless loans, yet never once spared any of that money for them, pouring away everything their father had left behind into her church as donations. She would always say that others needed it more than they did, that it was the right thing to do, that it was the only way they could continue living.
Sang Hun Lee watched as the men left, and soon after, the mourners followed, leaving him completely alone.
He couldn’t help but break down.
He was only nineteen years old, yet he had been left with such an enormous burden—to care for a sick sister, to pay off a crushing debt, and for what?
Because of the blind faith of his mother?
She herself had been sick and knew she needed hospitalization, yet she had continued praying to that mysterious entity that was supposed to sanctify her sins and redeem her soul.
He felt hopeless.
Consumed by despair.
That was when he first saw the Red Moon and was taken into the Instance.
The Seven Deadly Sins Instance.
An Instance born from the anomaly known as the Sanctifier and Redeemer.
He played its game.
All seven tests, each one corresponding to one of the seven deadly sins, each trial more gruesome than the last. Many died within them.
He endured countless horrors just to survive, his humanity slowly hollowed out.
Only to discover that the entity behind it all was the very same god his mother had worshipped.
The same one that had plunged him into despair.
Sure, he had received enough money to solve his immediate problems.
But that didn’t wash away anything.
The members who had given him the money spoke as though that alone was supposed to heal everything, praising him for having been sanctified and redeemed.
What nonsense.
From that day onward, he swore to have his revenge.
For a time, he tried to return to normalcy, but he found that he couldn’t.
That was when the Bureau found him.
And then came his first mission.
He thought he had won.
After all, he had claimed the anomaly’s Meaning, making it his Concept Heart.
So how?
Why?
Dan Woo could feel the raw emotions washing over him like relentless waves as he watched Sang Hun Lee’s frustration gain tangibility, a familiar situation—much like the one he himself had experienced as Cha Hwa Rim—beginning to take shape.
The expanse of mist began to swirl around him, quickly subduing the man’s rampaging energy, spirituality, and Meaning before he became an Echo.
This time, Dan Woo actively channeled the same feeling of security and salvation that Sang Hun Lee had fought against only moments before.
Yet as he did so, it felt as though Sang Hun Lee’s condition only worsened.
Then...
Something blinked between the trials.
A memory.
One that was unfamiliar to Dan Woo.
A memory of his own mother.
And how he had lost her in this world.
As that feeling permeated Dan Woo, he felt a faint resonance with Sang Hun Lee.
So he wrapped his Meaning around that shared feeling.
This time...
It worked.
Sang Hun Lee slowly calmed down, seeming to regain his sanity, though the raw emotions had yet to completely disappear.
Dan Woo turned inward as he looked at Sang Hun Lee.
One question quietly surfaced within his mind.
How had his mother truly died?