Chapter Text
In this world, spiritual beings were familiar, yet still unknown creatures to humanity. Humans learned their existence through many folktales and rumors, but none of it had been clarified.
It wasn't told amongst ordinary people, to them, it was just some fictional stories to read for their children before sleep, they never had known the dangerousness of those creatures to humanity. If it were not for the efforts of the forces specializing in solving spiritual being related problems, their daily life would have been messed up.
“SMDO”, standing for “Spiritual Mystery Deciphering Organization”, was one of the organizations that were sponsored and granted permission by the government. They were not a very large organization in scale, but they contained many capable individuals. Thanks to them, several cases related to creatures at Dangerousness Level or above had been successfully solved without any severe consequences.
Ivan was a member of that organization and processed many missions like that. In this corporation, employees were recruited occasionally if they had the capability to see and impact spiritual creatures, or through incidents related to it. Ivan was the second case, and also a special case that needed to be monitored.
They told him it was because he was the sole survivor of the massacre caused by a mysterious spiritual creature. When they had found him, he was surrounded by several corpses with holes in their heart, only he as a child who still breathed unconsciously lay in the pool of blood.
He couldn't remember what had happened, nor who he was, what he had done before the incident. They detected he did not lie, and they couldn't find any other evidence of that mysterious creature. All they found on the scene was the tremendous spiritual energy belonging to the powerful being that could be listed to the highest level - Catastrophe, and his bruised and wounded body showing him being sexually assaulted.
So they decided to take care of him. Even though the adoption was the facade of his surveillance, he still appreciated them for breeding him and providing him with a job to live normally.
To him, SMDO was his home. Under their sympathetic and affectionate care, while being treated as the most vulnerable individual in the world, he could feel the tenderness and the warmth in the hearts of these people, which tightened his bond with the organization.
The time passed, until Ivan was 22 years old, nothing had happened to him nor traces related to that creature had been found. He still lived a normal life and protected ordinary people from those creatures with other members.
Not until the mission involving the above Dangerousness Level spiritual beings that Ivan was forced to assign in.
This was the most extreme case in recent years, as several murders had occurred mysteriously. The victims were brought into a coma before they were completely brain-dead. Some could be saved, but mostly passed away without any warning.
During the investigation, there was another piece of information, in which this case had the participation of humans.
It was the doing of religion that worshiped the creature named “Peace Of Eternal Slumber”. They lured the people who were distressed in life, made them willingly sign the contract and fell into slumber. The sweet dreams of them would be fed to that spiritual creature until their soul dried.
The organization defined the religion's ambition as creating a powerful weapon against the national forces, which signified the crime of reactionaries.
But the thing that made this incident more sophisticated was the massacres of the religion whenever SMDO found out their bases and came to suppress them.
These were the scenes of various corpses of followers surrounding the ritual circle. The ritual circle was considered to belong to the creature they worshiped, but the hole in the place of their heart, plus the tremendous energy devouring the air, belonged to another mysterious spiritual being.
Two spiritual creatures involved, especially one of them was an unrecorded Catastrophe Level being, triggered SMDO's alert to be cautious.
They had to put Ivan under the highest level of surveillance because of the resemblance of this and the incident in the past, to track more information about that mysterious being.
“Protection, they said… Hmp, such hypocrites! If they really want to protect you, they shouldn't assign you to this mission.”
“They had no choice. It's a Catastrophe Level spiritual being. They're forced to find out what ‘it’ is to anticipate its impact on humanity. I'll do my best to protect Ivan, so don't you worry. We also have to keep our guards on as it might be a deadly dangerous mission.”
Said Hyuna, one of the strongest individuals in the organization and leader of this mission, replied to Sua's criticism.
“Actually, I don't mind if they use me as bait to lure ‘it’ out. I'm willing to do this. It's already my intention the first time I know about its appearance.”
Ivan said while assembling the gun in his hand and loading bullets. He insisted on discovering ‘it’s abouts and his past. The mysterious catastrophic spiritual being, left him to survive alone in that massacre with no memories of his origin. There was no exception in the murders of ‘it’ beside him until now. What was ‘it’? Who was he? Why didn't ‘it’ kill him?
Sua sighed because of her stubborn coworkers. Part of her was quite concerned for Ivan due to the similarities of them as the main individuals involved in the spiritual creatures incident and being under surveillance. Fortunately for her, her incident had been solved, and she had formed an unbreakable bond with her beloved spiritual being, Mizi.
Mizi was a rare creature that had a good-natured personality and was affectionate to humans, especially Sua. She used to have power that was comparable to Catastrophe Level, but because she tried to protect Sua and sacrificed herself, now it was just a small spirit following Sua, which was considered to be at Misfortune Level, lower than Dangerousness Level one category.
Due to Mizi's assistance, Sua was quickly appointed to the high position and was one of the unfolding cards of SMDO even though she was just a freshman who recently joined SMDO.
Compared to Mizi, the catastrophic being Ivan was involved in was more difficult to deal with, the number of murders ‘it’ had done was the clearest evidence.
“Don't worry! You have Mizi by your side. We could rely on Mizi to protect him, right?”
“Don't think of Mizi as the god who could solve anything! She's just a little girl who is so exhausted because of incompetents like you!”
“Hey, Ivan! Do you think you could be like Sua? Imagine the catastrophic spiritual being under your control… Wow~ How terrifying it is!”
Dewey wrapped his arms around Ivan's shoulder and enthusiastically teased him. Only then he sensed Ivan's shoulders were instinctively stiff due to his sudden action and realized what he had done.
“Ah! Sorry! I didn't mean…!”
“No, it's okay…”
It was the behavior of Dewey when he communicated with his pals, so he forgot he could do that to anyone except Ivan.
After Dewey stayed away from him, Ivan trembled and was soaked in sweat, he tried to moderate his harsh breaths and calm his heart which could explode from intensive beats. The atmosphere was cold down when the members noticed what had happened. Sua silently gave him a water bottle and handkerchief while Hyuna gave Dewey a hit on his head.
Even though Ivan didn't possess any memories of him being raped, his body still remember the trauma. Whenever somebody was close to him too much, he would tremble uncontrollably, and he would be startled and sweat in panic by any sudden touches, especially from men.
The only exception was Mizi, who was slightly rubbing his cheek to soothe him. Maybe to Ivan, she was a sweet, tender spiritual being that would never harm him. All members had already known about this, so they always kept a safe distance from Ivan.
Only until Ivan settled down, did they start to complete their preparation and begin the mission.
Isaac was in charge of monitoring the situations and deciphering spiritual energy with the information team, while Dewey and Hyuwoo were in charge of ambushes and support in distances. The remaining members would follow Hyuna's commands and directly invade the secret base of religion.
This time they got a jackpot, as they had found out the main base where was holding the core of “Peace Of Eternal Slumber” based on the information obtained from spies. All of the victim's souls were carried to this location and fed to the creature through a ritual circle maintained by followers.
Mizi created the protection halos surrounding each member to prevent the impact of spiritual energy. Hyuna and Sua always accompanied Ivan to protect him if there was any sight of ‘its appearance approaching him, while other members continued to interrupt and suppress the followers.
“THEY'RE COMING!!! OUR BASE WAS EXPOSED!!!”
“WHAT!!! HOW COULD—”
“RUNN!!!”
“THERE'RE TRAITORS AMONG US!!! PROTECT THE CORE!!!”
“PROTECT THE CORE—!!!”
Without any preparation beforehand, the religion was suppressed instantly under the control of SMDO.
“... No… NO!!! THIS COULDN'T END LIKE THIS!!! HAHAHA— YOU’RE LATE!!! LATE!!! TOO LATE!!! HAHAHAHAHAH—”
The head of the religion turned into a lunatic and laughed sarcastically, babbling unmeaning words as he was cornered to a dead end.
Staring at the badass forces that ruined all of his works with eyes as red as blood, he smiled, a creepy smile filled with madness. He suddenly threw the core into his mouth and swallowed it before they could stop him.
“BEHOLD!!! THE BIRTH OF A SUPREME BEING!!! THE BIRTH OF A GOD THAT WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD!!!!”
His bone was broken, his skin was melted, and his whole body was distorted and swirled into an unidentified shape. The strings from his body appeared like a flashlight stabbing the followers and absorbing them until the dry corpses remained. He was not a human anymore, but a monster that could bring down the world.
“Hyuna!!! The spiritual energy is increasing significantly, it has reached Catastrophe Level!!!”
“SHIT!!! Isaac!!! Call for reinforcement!!! We're fucked up!!!”
“HAHAHA— This is the consequence of your audacity to go against god! Now, CRY FOR MERCY!!!”
The sharpened claws of it stabbed with the speed of light. The force could barely react and dodge it, more than half of the team had been severely injured. Only some members with outstanding talent were still able to fight. They tried to break its claws as much as they could, but it unceasingly multiplied, only the hue of disgusted black could be seen in this space.
“Beware! If its energy contaminates us through wounds, it could control us!”
Sua had to dodge the teammates attacking and the limbs stabbing at the same time while warning the others. Mizi tried to heal and purify the energy devouring the members, but it was just a drop in the ocean. Compared to the golden age, her power right now was too weak in front of the Catastrophe Level creature.
“I can't find any opening! If it continues like this, we'll all die at this point!”
Ivan frowned in frustration. The adrenaline rush made his face reddened.
“If only ‘it’ came and swept this shit for us… Just where the fuck is ‘it’!?”
Hyuna furiously swore nonstop and hit her teammates to faint without mercy. Her movement was smooth even though her whole body was drenched in blood.
“Hehehe—Look at those insects crawling around. How amusing!--- Hm? Wait… It's that…?”
The current monster was the combination of the man and spiritual creature's egos, so it had the memories and behavior of both. It excitedly wiggled its head because it noticed an interesting thing related to the creature it hated the most.
“What? What!? What do we have here?~~ HAHAHAHAH----- Never knew ‘that cattle’ would even do that! Now I understand why! Why ‘that filthy cattle’ always disturbs me!!! Cattle and insect, how matched! Hehe~~ I should give ‘it’ a gift as gratitude for trampling on my work!!!”
All of the claws attacking the teams immediately changed their target to Ivan and rushed toward him. It happened so quickly that none of them were able to react to this.
“IVAN!!!!”
“NO!!! IVAN!!!”