Chapter 122: May His Light Illuminate
"This is nothing!"
Seo-jin finished the sentence by lifting a sword off the table, one of the cleaner pieces, its edge so precise even the gang's dullest idiots could see the craftsmanship.
"This is just to start us off. From here on, every one of you can earn contribution points. Gregor'll build the structure for it."
Gregor looked at him like he'd been handed a mountain to eat. His shoulders sagged.
"With those points, you'll earn gear that makes this thing look like a damn toothpick. As powerful as the armor I wear myself!"
System light snapped across the room. Metal screamed as five Severborne blades tore free from his pauldron and circled him like hungry wolves.
"You'll be able to earn gear all the way to A-rank. And if you bring materials, the cost drops. So—did your boss do good?!"
The room detonated. Men slammed bottles, threw drinks, roared until their throats shredded. Even Lynn's eyes lit up as if she forgot she was trapped inside a dying body. Better gear meant power. Power meant rank. Gear closed gaps only blood and luck normally bridged.
Turning to her, Seo-jin held out a hand.
The cheers twisted instantly. Whistles, hoots, filthy jokes. Even Gregor's brow ticked upward. Min barked for silence, seeing Lynn start to fold under the weight of it.
"It's okay. I won't bite."
His words cut straight through her. She took his hand like it burned, standing on shaking legs.
Facing the crowd again, he felt the heat of her palm trembling in his grip.
"Anyone who proves themselves—anyone who bleeds for the gang—will grow stronger without needing to run dungeons. Without having to carry scars like Lynn does."
He lifted her hand so every Dead Hand could see the withered skin, the trembling joints.
"Her scars are proof. No one here can say she hasn't earned her worth."
Crimson light cracked in his other palm. A vial formed...crystal wrapped around glowing red liquid.
"She's earned her reward."
He uncorked it and pressed it to her lips before she could speak.
"Drink."
She almost collapsed. But she drank.
[You're enjoying yourself too much…poor thing.]
'She likes it.'
He tipped the vial empty and pulled it away, stepping back as the room held its breath.
"Horrid—"
Lynn's face pinched as the brew scraped down her throat. She tried to force a smile, thinking she'd offended him...then stopped dead.
"It's cold…"
Her breath came out white. Frost feathered from her lips, spreading fast. Her hands rose in front of her, skin draining of color, blue sinking in like death. Ice crawled up her arms in branching lines, tightening across her joints.
She looked at Seo-jin, terror and grief stacked in her eyes.
The room shifted. Chairs scraped. Voices tightened. Min stood, ready to lunge, but froze the instant Lynn screamed.
"Why—?!"
Her hand reached for him.
Then the world detonated in frost.
Ice burst from her spine, shoulders, chest, an explosion of needles and shards that swallowed her in a single breath. A pillar of solid ice locked her inside.
Cold rolled through the hall. Every Dead Hand stopped breathing. Everything held still.
Except Min.
"Bastard—"
She took one step.
Seo-jin met her eyes. Calm. Flat.
"Wait."
She did...but only because the warehouse shattered like glass.
The pillar burst apart, shards spinning across the tables as white light spilled out. A soft sigh drifted through the mist—female, alive, steady. Every head snapped toward it.
"I'm… but how?"
Her voice was young again. Her skin smooth again. Her hair bright red and curled. Her limbs whole. The crowd stared like they'd witnessed resurrection. In a way, they had.
Seo-jin let the silence stretch. He enjoyed the weight of their awe. Humans breaking easily under spectacle. Made nights like this worth the breath.
During the dwarves' mourning rites he'd spent hours with Thragdur talking forgecraft, sharing stories, including his first dungeon, the Deathcaps, Lynn aging herself into a husk. The dwarven smith had laughed when he heard her tale. Fae-born himself, dwarven remedies existed for the mushroom's side effects, old brews that reversed every curse except death. A simple favor to ask.
No reason anyone here needed to know that.
"When I left, half my purpose was finding a cure for our Lynn."
He spoke to the party, his voice carrying through the hall.
"She threw away her youth without hesitation. What kind of boss lets a woman rot for loyalty? Wohan Seo-jin isn't that kind of man!"
The warehouse erupted once more. Seo-jin was surprised the tables still stood as he watched them celebrate again. Then Lynn hit him like a battering ram, arms locking around him, face buried against his chest as she sobbed.
"Thank you—I thought I was stuck! I checked every day—every day—and nothing! I even put up requests, and no one—no one responded. All I needed was you. All I ever needed was you!"
He swallowed the urge to slam her through the table and instead patted her head, slow and controlled, giving the crowd the picture they needed.
[Well they're motivated, but what good is that now? You're grounded, remember?]
'Still working on that.'
He watched the crowd with a tight jaw.
'But incentives don't need to wait. And if the wrong person hears the wrong thing, I'll know exactly who doesn't belong. News like this has a way of spreading.'
He let his eyes sweep the warehouse again. The familiar ones stuck out—Slims, Split-jaw, John, the old hands who'd already bled for him. But the rest were strangers. Fresh faces pulled in while he was gone. Faces he hadn't tested. Faces he didn't trust.
The Dead Hands continued to roar through the night, drunk on hope and steel. The hall vibrated with shouts, weapon-clangs, boots on concrete. They feasted like they owned the city.
But above the warehouse roof, perched on warped sheet-metal and shadow, Panic crouched with his jaw hanging in a burning grin. His ember eyes watched the sprawl of Shatterbay like a predator sizing up a carcass.
Behind him, dozens of smaller eyes blinked in unison. Broodlings crowding the dark, their glow marking every rooftop and beam like scattered embers waiting for a command...waiting for someone to step out of line.
----
Miles north of the docks, in a stretch of Shatterbay that still pretended to be whole, the night streets throbbed with bodies. Clean lamps. Fresh paint. Stone swept enough times to fool outsiders. The rest of the city rotted in the dark, but here the air carried a pulse, forced and manic.
It was long past midnight, yet the crowd moved like it feared slowing. Families pushed forward, faces worn from real Shatterbay life, clothes mismatched and threadbare. But every pair of eyes burned with a feverish shine, the kind that came from wanting salvation bad enough to believe anything.
Standing above them, two men watched from the top of a long set of steps. Both wore white robes, the eye-and-rays sigil stamped across their chests like a brand. Their calm looked practiced, but their smiles didn't reach their eyes as they kept their voices low.
"How many you think you could take?"
The other didn't break his stare from the crowd.
"All of 'em. Wouldn't even sweat."
They nodded politely to a family squeezing through, stepping into the only building on the block that looked new, its stone scrubbed raw, its banners spotless. The two guards glowed slightly with D-rank aura, just enough force to keep peace among the desperate. Their robes did the rest.
Once the group disappeared inside, one guard leaned closer.
"What if they all rushed at once?"
A soft scoff.
"Don't care how many shardless there are, they'd drop before they—"
"Words spilled without care often drip from a mind with weak foundations."
Both men froze. Their spines snapped straight. Sweat beaded at their brows as they bowed hard enough to strain muscle.
"Cardinal Chelk! May His Light illuminate and guide!"
Both men quivered under his gaze, though the Cardinal's body gave them nothing to fear. Short. Soft. Round in the way spoiled nobles often were. His gold trimmed robe strained against a belly that wobbled with his breath. Brown hair sat on his scalp like an unwashed mop. His eyelids drooped so low it looked painful, his eyes impossible to see.
Still, neither guard dared to lift their gaze.
"Rise. Continue your work in guiding our flock. For if they stray—toward earthly filth…or the slander of the uncaring—we fail the Lord in our holy charge."
He lifted a pudgy hand before his face and gave a shallow bow.
"And failure demands correction. May His Light illuminate and guide you."
Then he turned his back on them and drifted inside, leaving the guards sagging where they stood, sweat soaking their collars.
'Idiots. I need to speak to that rat about how he trains his men.'
[The Lord has use for him still, but that won't last. Once he's spent, we'll peel him clean like the rest.]
His smile twitched, one brief crack, before reforming into the soft, serene curve expected of his station. He moved through the corridor toward his private chamber, steps slow, deliberate, heavy with indulgence.
'No grace. No beauty. But the class he holds…too rich to ignore. We must secure it. This one has nearly reached its limit. I refuse to be forced to wear something…last season. Imagine…'
The fat around his cheeks jiggled as his expression twisted. His fingers traced the underside of his forearm where the skin sagged. The smile twitched again...then steadied.
'Between pressure from above and dealing with that rat, I've stretched myself past acceptable thresholds. When this ends, I'll demand lighter duties. A year off, at least!'
He reached his chamber door and shoved it open. The moment it clicked shut behind him, his face collapsed.
His eyes opened.
They were dead. Not exhausted or hollow. Grey film. Warped pupils. A wet grinding sound as they jerked inside his skull.
"Where is he?!"
His voice cracked through the chamber like a splitting bone.
"What good is this branch if they can't find a single gangbanger?!"
[Patience. Too much rides on your performance. Remember why you came. Remember the reward.]
He drew a slow breath, rubbing his arm as if the meat beneath offended him. Then the Cardinal drifted to his ornate desk and settled into the chair with a practiced, brittle grace. The sigh that followed sounded rehearsed, hollow.
"The death of a Cherub…how could I forget."
His dead eyes rolled in their sockets as he opened a drawer and pulled out a hand mirror. He lifted it, tilting his chin, tugging gently at loose flesh as if sculpting it into shape.
"If I'd known this place was so degraded, I would've declined the assignment. My skin has wilted since the day we arrived. A mule and three carries barely cover the cost."
[Any levels gained at your rank are invaluable. The last one took nearly six months. At that pace, the timeline for our plan—]
The mirror shattered against the desk before the sentence finished, the crack echoing.
"My timeline will not bend! Waiting for another group to form is unacceptable. I won't allow myself—"
A bead of deep blue light pulsed into existence on the desk, cutting him off mid-snarled word. He stared at it, irritation sliding into resignation.
"He better have something useful. That dungeon collapsed too quickly—they must have thrown a huge force at it."
The bead swelled fast, its glow hardening, lines sharpening until the shape of a corded phone burned into the air. A final pulse, and it snapped into full form, real enough to cast a shadow...then rang.
He snatched it up at once.
"Report."
"He's returned."
Chelk's dead eyes flared, green light ripping through the film like fire inside rotten fruit.
"Seo-jin? When?!"
"I don't have long. He came back right before the dungeon collapsed. Stronger—way stronger than what the file said. And he brought weapons. Lots of them. He's arming the Dead Hands."
"Perfect! No changes. Maintain observation until the next contact window. Gather every detail. Stay alive. May his light illuminate and guide."
"May his light illuminate and guide."
The line clicked dead. The phone split apart in a burst of blue fragments and vanished.
Chelk rose from his chair. His aura pushed through him like a leak in cracked stone...bleeding from lips, eyes, ears, nails...green light spilled out in thin, seething ribbons. It flooded the room in seconds.
For a breath, barely a sliver of time, even the guards outside felt it. A crushing weight. An aura far above theirs. A Rank.
A pressure so heavy the shardless in the chapel below dropped to their knees, convinced that the God of Light himself stepped onto the earth.