Chapter 68

Though the humid summer heat lingered outside, the air in the vault had felt frozen solid. A fury far redder and hotter than the blood staining Seoul’s skin had boiled violently in Do-hyeop’s gut. Adrenaline fueled by murderous rage had tightened his blood vessels until they thrummed, clenching his molars so hard they ground together.

The instant merciless bloodlust crawled across his skin like a swarm of roaches over raw earth, Gye Do-hyeop had resolved to pulverize every single thing Gwak Chun-young possessed into dust—from the repulsive ring jammed onto the boy’s finger to the hoarded magpie’s nest he cherished above his own life.

Rustle.

Gye Do-hyeop lifted Geum Seoul into his arms. Squeezing his fluttering eyelids shut, the boy leaned meekly against his chest, pressing his blood-soaked cheek against Do-hyeop’s shoulder.

Geum Seoul rasped faintly, “Deputy Director… sir.”

His vocal cords sounded raw and hoarse, as though his windpipe itself had swollen shut. Yet even in this battered state, the boy braced himself every time he parted his lips. Pressing a fresh hemostatic pad firmly against Seoul’s forehead as he lengthened his strides, Do-hyeop gave a low grunt.

“Did I… do well?” Seoul asked faintly.

Halting his steps for a fleeting second, Do-hyeop lowered a chilled gaze to the boy cradled in his embrace. Seoul’s breathing was so shallow that only the palm pressed flat against his spine could detect the faint, fragile rise and fall of his ribs. Yet even now, the boy was asking whether he had pulled his own weight—the same question he had asked once before.

Do-hyeop answered without hesitation, “…You did dead fucking great.”

He answered with the same words as back then. Giving a faint nod, Geum Seoul closed his eyes, his limp, bloodstained fingers slipping from Do-hyeop’s broad shoulder. Swallowing a vicious curse, Gye Do-hyeop lengthened his strides, the large hand supporting the small, rounded back of the boy’s head trembling as though utterly at a loss.

***

“When will we wheels up, sir?” Yu Jeong-ham asked over the comms.

Do-hyeop replied flatly, “When the kid wakes up.”

Extracted from the subterranean passage and transferred to a secure agency safe house, Geum Seoul had remained unconscious for a full day. Seated on the armchair beside the mattress, Gye Do-hyeop stared down at the sleeping youth. Though physicians assured him there were no critical internal injuries beyond severe contusions, Seoul’s complexion was startlingly pale, his naturally rosy lips drained of color. High-dose cellular regeneration serums had dramatically reduced the swelling, yet consciousness refused to return.

Watching over the frail yet stubbornly resilient boy, Gye Do-hyeop turned over worn, ragged memories in his mind.

Minister Gye Gyeong-mu had disowned his son for refusing to dance to his tune. In truth, the son had severed family ties first by canceling an arranged political marriage, but Gye Gyeong-mu had never once sought him out afterward.

The woman chosen in place of an aristocratic Alpha fiancée was a slum-dwelling Omega peddling sex, drugs, or both in the back alleys. Naturally, Gye Gyeong-mu harbored zero affection for the blood born from such filth.

Yet when that son perished and left a solitary orphan behind, Gye Gyeong-mu brought his grandson into his cellar. For two reasons: the boy was a Dominant Alpha, and he was the spitting image of Gyeong-mu’s own youth. Having suddenly found himself without an heir, Gyeong-mu saw the potential to mold a successor.

Gwichang. That was what the old man called his grandson: a wretched, lowly ghost.

The boy had lived up to that moniker. Hiding his grandson’s existence from the world, Gye Gyeong-mu locked him inside the estate and subjected him to relentless, brutal conditioning. Beyond standard academic curriculums, every minute was carved into rigorous regimens of social sciences, economics, foreign languages, and lethal hand-to-hand combat from the age other children entered elementary school.

Young Gwichang couldn’t fathom it. If the old man despised him so deeply, why keep him? Why refuse to share a dining table, looking at him with utter disgust whenever they crossed paths, yet keep him locked behind iron gates?

‘If he can’t cut it, throw him in the gutter. I have no use for a brat who tarnishes my name.’

Before reaching ten years of age, he understood his grandfather’s design. The old man simply needed a bloodline capable of carrying on his legacy after his death. Love or familial warmth had never existed. His son had been a failure, and half the blood flowing through this grandson’s veins was tainted.

Gye Gyeong-mu tested his grandson continuously—from the first day he crossed the threshold, even through the years when assassination attempts by political rivals left the old man bedridden and dependent on caregivers. Gwichang was forced onto his grandfather’s testing ground again and again, swinging thousands of counter-punches in a never-ending trial of survival.

At fifteen, Gwichang sneered in silence at the grandfather who battled his illnesses and faded paler by the day. When life drained from the old man’s face and death finally settled in enough to fit him with an oxygen mask, Gwichang went to his bedchamber morning and night to pray—that his last breath would give out soon, and that the blackening funeral flowers would turn to pale blue mold.

Clinging to life by a nasal cannula for another full year, Gye Gyeong-mu finally drew his last breath in bed when Gwichang turned sixteen. Gye Do-hyeop was the one who found the body, and for the first time since entering that estate, he smiled. Yet upon returning home from the three-day state funeral, he was ambushed and knocked unconscious at his own doorway.

When Gye Do-hyeop opened his eyes, he was entombed in absolute blackness. A wooden lid hovered inches from his face, and to his left lay something stiff, frigid, and decomposing. Only after flicking the lighter held in his hand did he realize where he was.

Inside a buried coffin.

A single lighter. A loaded service pistol. And a corpse slated to rot beneath the soil from this day forward. Gwichang realized instantly that this was his grandfather’s final examination. A short gasp tore from his throat, followed by wild, disbelieving laughter. He had never once asked for this wretched bloodline, never registered to sit for this test. All he had ever wanted was to live.

Gwichang clawed his way out of the earth after three days. Gye Gyeong-mu’s retainers, who had assumed he would suffocate beneath the dirt, treated him like an actual ghost upon his return.

Just as anticipated, the ordeal had been a condition in the dead patriarch’s will. Having survived covered in graveyard mud, he inherited every scrap of Gye Gyeong-mu’s empire. Yet he walked away immediately, haunting Seoul’s foulest slums to murder rivals and trade narcotics—desperate to drag the prestigious blood Gye Gyeong-mu held so sacred straight through the gutter.

The reason he abandoned his plan of rotting in the muck and accepted Director Hwang Gi-dong’s recruitment pitch was entirely because of the promise the man offered.

‘I’ll let you beat the shit out of people far more often. From politicians down to junkie scum, with zero untouchable sanctuaries, and without having to run like a fugitive.’

Politicians. The prospect of legally beating the hell out of hypocrites who traded lives for prestige just like Gye Gyeong-mu sent an electric thrill down his spine. Though stashed in the counter-terrorism tactical unit until he earned sufficient rank, having the authority to beat corrupt vermin half to death suited his nature impeccably.

Yet Gwichang often recalled that dark pocket beneath the earth. No matter how frantically he clawed, he never knew whether he was digging upward or sinking further into the grave. The artificial soil trickling into his eyes, nose, and ears had reeked of stagnant dust. That rancid stench had glued itself to his brain, birthing the piercing migraines that had tormented him for a decade.

***

A sweet breeze drifted from somewhere unknown.

A gentle draft whispered against his lashes, and Geum Seoul opened his eyes. An immense azure sky spread above him. Pushing himself upright, he discovered that he had been lying in an endless meadow. Nothing here resembled the old neighborhood with its charcoal ruins, collapsing hovels, and weeds gone wild. This was a sea of living green, rolling toward towering trees that seemed to reach all the way into heaven. Seoul brushed off his trousers, sprang to his feet, and started running as fast as he could. There was no reason for it. He simply wanted to run.

Whoosh—

He ran across the glittering meadow until his heart was full. A colossal golden sun hung overhead, yet the air carried none of summer’s suffocating heat; it was cool and effortless, so clean that even at a sprint his chest never tightened. Seoul spun in dizzy circles, opened his mouth toward the sky, and drank in sweet drafts of air. When he stumbled across an orchard heavy with crimson fruit, he plucked a ripe apple and bit deep. Crisp, tart juice burst across his tongue, and delight shivered through him from head to toe.

“Let’s go over there!” Seoul cheered.

He bounded forward with long, joyous strides. Running as though astride a unicorn, he burst into a great laugh, proud of how fast he was.

“Wow!”

The meadow opened into a sea of blossoms—pink, lavender, canary yellow, and vibrant orange. Huddling low amidst the petals, Seoul took deep, lingering breaths. The fragrance was so intoxicating that he never wanted to leave; burying his nose in this floral haven until death sounded like pure bliss.

‘Eowung!’

A sudden sound broke the stillness.

Geum Seoul lifted his chin. Someone’s voice was calling out from the distance. Rustling grass swayed around him, yet across the broad meadow, he was utterly alone.

‘Eowung!’

This time, he tilted his head straight toward the sky.

“…Did you say that?” Geum Seoul addressed his skeptical question directly to the colossal sun blazing above.

“……”

Squinting through his brows, Seoul dusted his hands and planted his palms on his hips, arching his back to peer higher.

“My name is Seoul,” he called up. “Not Eowung.”

The pronunciation sounded thick as though he had candy stuffed in his cheek, yet he somehow knew with certainty that the voice had been calling out to him.

“……”

Yet the golden sun remained serenely silent, as though it had never uttered a word. Feeling teasingly provoked, Seoul blinked several times before straightening his spine.

Whoosh—!

Right at that moment, the sun unleashed a single beam of light unlike anything seen before. As though fired from a taut bowstring, the radiant shaft whipped through the atmosphere with a crisp rushing roar, streaking across the heavens.

Like a midday shooting star, or a fragmented shard of the sun itself. As the brilliance washed over the meadow, every blade of grass caught the luminescence, glowing as though drinking and exhaling golden daylight. The flowers parted gently to open a path as a shimmering white trail cascaded behind the arrow of light.

It was a beauty he had never witnessed before—so brilliant and overwhelming that tears pricked behind his eyelids.

Swish.

The solar fragment was searing white, vibrant crimson, azure, and cool lavender. Harmonizing every hue like stained glass, it charged directly toward its destination without the slightest hesitation.

“Ah…”

Smiling brightly, Geum Seoul spread both arms wide. Swelling in size as it drew nearer, the radiance seemed poised to swallow him whole. Yet he felt no fear, no terror. The light smelled sweet like cotton candy, promising wrapping warmth.

Flash—!

Though gazing at the sun had never strained his eyes, looking directly into the descending arrow proved impossible. Smiling until his brows curved into arches, Seoul embraced the incoming warmth with all his strength, gladly surrendering to the enveloping light.