Chapter 47: Surrender to karma (II)
Dan Woo, in the shell of Cha Hwa Rim, walked through the misty expanse as he felt his Meaning being stretched in all directions. He was on the hunt for Kim Jin Ha, but the conditions weren’t favorable.
He could feel that, due to the multiple effects granted by the system, he was running a multilayered nightmare-scape where he had to create nightmares for twenty-five people. It felt as though his mind was being forced to run multiple systems at once, stretching him and drawing him in every direction. At one point, he could even feel Cha Hwa Rim’s body being stretched apart in all directions. While he wanted to move toward a specific direction, the friction was becoming too much, and he couldn’t find a way to deal with the issue.
He suddenly sat down upon the endless mist that expanded toward the great endlessness as he felt various connections sprout from him, each one tracking one of the twenty-five members. If he didn’t deal with this situation, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.
The situation felt strangely familiar, reminding him of the four doors that always seemed to remain just out of reach.
That was when an idea came to him.
What if he merged the various dreamscapes he had and then attracted them all toward himself?
This would allow every one of them to face the same nightmare scenario while keeping him sane and free to look for his own target. The plan seemed sound and feasible, but the problem was that he wasn’t sure if this was his true domain. More than anything, he wished he could simply end the scenario here and continue on his own mission.
Maybe he could, using the Domain Sync ability.
He turned to look at his system.
The domain had barely synchronized. It was only at seven percent. He couldn’t hope to use that at all. As for the bounds of movement, he was still stuck playing the role of Lady Justice. Whenever he even tried to think of deviating from that path, Dan Woo could feel a searing pain emanating from the flaming sword tattoo on Cha Hwa Rim’s chest—one that burned with a power he couldn’t explain.
He was still trapped playing that aloof being who sought justice.
He could only laugh in resignation as he sat down, ready to use the Ark of the Guilty and the connections he had.
Then, all of a sudden, he felt a tremendous wave of strain—one that couldn’t be explained—wash over both his body and mind. It was as though he were trying to pull a truck loaded with impossibly heavy cargo, burdened by ton upon ton of weight.
He immediately stopped channeling his mind, abandoning what he had been trying to enact.
Instead, he turned to attracting a single individual—his person of interest.
Maybe if he attracted him first, he could use his resonance to draw in the other holders of the Mark of the Guilty.
And even if it didn’t work...
Cha Hwa Rim could still have her own revenge.
He spread his Meaning and spirituality, focusing on that single objective—looking for Kim Jin Ha.
He went through the various variations and splits of Cha Hwa Rim’s own horror avatars before finally arriving at the person of interest. But when he tried to force that same person to be attracted toward Cha Hwa Rim within the endless mist, there was still that lethargic feeling one would have after pushing their body to do the impossible.
At least now it was manageable.
Slowly but surely, like he was reeling in a fish, he attracted Kim Jin Ha toward Cha Hwa Rim. But the more he did so, the more the sword on her chest began to flare. Not in a searing-hot way, but in something else. It was as if the sword was reacting to her own thirst for justice.
He could also feel the effect of Unfinished Business doing something to her.
All these things only seemed to motivate Dan Woo even more as he slowly reeled Kim Jin Ha in like a great catch of fish—one he was going to savor.
As he did this, the mist around him began to churn and churn once more as something started to form, as though the nightmare-scape plaguing Kim Jin Ha was leaking into the surrounding area.
But just as they were about to make contact—
Just as they were about to meet—
The nightmare suddenly collapsed, imploding upon itself before being reduced to a single crimson bubble.
When that happened, it glowed and throbbed before gently landing in Cha Hwa Rim’s hand.
Dan Woo was confused by the situation, yet he could still feel that link to the crimson bubble before him. It was warm, and that same Meaning and spirituality leaked from it, yet he couldn’t get in touch with the entity inside the bubble. It was as though something was preventing Cha Hwa Rim from reaching Kim Jin Ha.
Cha Hwa Rim could feel her anger explode as frustration flooded her.
That feeling of being so close to something, only to be stopped from achieving it.
Dan Woo couldn’t understand why this was happening or for what reason. It felt just like what had happened previously when he had tried to meet Kim Jin Ha, as though someone had been stopping him then as well.
Cha Hwa Rim simply sat there, trying to understand the crimson sphere that leaked Meaning yet refused to let him interfere with it.
Then, as he tried to connect with that Meaning, he suddenly felt something resonate.
Something inside her pants pocket.
It was the piece of paper.
The very same piece of paper she had received while Cha Hwa Rim had been desperately searching for the kidnappers of Cha Ha Rin.
Dan Woo was stunned as the piece of paper suddenly began to glow with a brilliant light. He felt something deep within his very being resonate with it when, all of a sudden, a book made its appearance before him, and the paper slipped into one of its pages.
The paper slid smoothly across the page as more of that unintelligible writing continued to appear.
Then, suddenly—
A wave of knowledge and memories violently flooded Dan Woo’s mind.
They came in flashes.
Broken bits and pieces of fractured visions.
Ones that seemed to be of the future.
He first saw the red moon turn purple.
Afterward, he saw chaos reign as anomalies began appearing everywhere, both during the day and throughout the night.
Finally, he saw something attempting to descend, washing its Meaning over the entire city and almost causing devastating casualties and countless deaths.
He could see people being displaced.
Many suffering.
Others left homeless.
He couldn’t understand what had caused all of this when, suddenly—
He heard his system chime.
[Ding]
[Core Concept under development — 13%]
Then it dawned on him.
Was this the future his constellation was going to cause?
Maybe if the Core Concept reached one hundred percent, that would mean his body was finally suitable to be used as a vessel for the constellation to descend through.
Dan Woo could feel his body shiver as he remembered all the possible deaths that might be caused by the constellation’s descent.
Yeah, sure.
He had been pacifying his guilt so far by telling himself that this was only a fictional world—that the lives that suffered here or were lost meant nothing.
But Cha Hwa Rim’s memories...
They were as real as they could be.
It didn’t matter whether this was a world inside a book or not. What mattered was that the lives of everyone around him felt real.
Whether it was Cha Ha Rin, Lee Hyun Joo, Kim Si Won, or even Baek Ha Ri herself.
They all felt like real people.
He couldn’t simply sit around and wait for himself to be taken over by this so-called constellation.
Suddenly, Cha Hwa Rim’s eyes landed on the crimson bubble as knowledge of how to use it flooded his mind. It was as though he had always been familiar with the knowledge but had somehow forgotten it, and only now had that fog finally lifted.
He began channeling Meaning through the pathways and methods his newfound knowledge directed him toward. He could now trigger a resonance that made use of the crimson bubble.
As he did so, he felt something deep within search through the crimson sphere as the consciousness—or whatever resembled one—inside it split into countless fragments.
Initially, he had wanted to find information regarding the other perpetrators.
Unfortunately...
He found something far stranger.
That was when he saw one part of Kim Jin Ha that was dark...
And another that was normal.
That darkness also seemed to be Kim Jin Ha.
It was then that he remembered his meeting with Dr. Kyung Ju Yeon and her discussion about the Shadow.
Was this...
The Shadow?
Then suddenly, an idea came to Dan Woo.
What if he used Kim Jin Ha’s own Shadow to punish him?
To make him taste his own medicine.
As he did so, he caught more and more glimpses of Kim Jin Ha’s True Name as everything was laid bare before him.
Suddenly, the sword upon Cha Hwa Rim’s chest flared.
Her body began leaking Meaning into that True Name, stretching toward it as a small tree suddenly began to sprout.
At that very moment, Cha Hwa Rim felt her body become gigantic as it assumed two forms at once.
One was that of a towering statue.
The other...
A great tree.
Within that space, several hells had been created.
Kim Jin Ha’s screams echoed endlessly.
Inside that domain, the rules of time and space felt more like suggestions than absolutes, with each session of torture stretching into years...
Even decades.
Dan Woo wasn’t sure how any of this had been achieved. It hadn’t been his intention.
But he let it continue.
As it did, the phenomenon began leaking into the other chains—the very ones being drawn in by the same resonance.
Cha Hwa Rim could see a small ship floating upon the endless mist in the distance, slowly being attracted toward her.
Dan Woo could only hope that this story point—or whatever was about to happen—would soon come to an end.
He still needed to find Cha Ha Rin...
And stop himself from falling into the conspiracy surrounding his own constellation.