Chapter 33

As he drew closer, the noise vanished completely, as if mocking him for imagining things. Telling himself the suspicious sounds had ceased and that he should head back inside, he still could not turn away so easily, terrified that if a demonic fiend truly lurked here, his sisters were only a short distance away.

The surroundings were dead quiet. Beneath a serene sky untouched by wind, the Mongolian and sawtooth oaks growing thick behind the hotel held their branches still, quietly watching over him. Swallowing dryly, Myeong-joo pressed his back against the exterior wall to peer into the gap.

At that instant, another violent screech tore through the air, and something whipped around his ankle.

“Ugh—!”

Before he could scream for help, Myeong-joo was yanked backward. Just before the back of his head slammed against the pavement, an immense force threatening to snap his ankle hoisted him aloft into the air. Something had coiled tightly around his leg, suspending him helpless and dangling above the ground.

“What on earth—!” Myeong-joo shouted.

It happened in the very breath he drew to scream for help.

“You…”

Myeong-joo could only gape in stunned disbelief. It was that very demonic fiend from before—a massive beast the size of a house, its visage inspiring deadly terror and awe in equal measure.

“What… How did you get in here—?!” he stammered.

He hastily craned his head toward his ankle. Only then did he realize that the restraint binding his leg was the demonic fiend’s tail, the coarse texture of its fur unmistakably vivid against his skin.

“Let go of me!”

He thrashed with all his might. Unlike their previous encounter where the beast had waved a paw as if understanding human speech and let him go, an eerie obsession emanated from the tail coiled around his ankle.

Just as before, his life flashed before his eyes. How on earth did this demonic fiend evade the Aberrants to slip into the heart of Seowon time and time again? Wonder surged within him, eclipsed immediately by cold fright.

Behind the hotel, the grounds were utterly deserted without a soul passing by; the chilling reality that his furious shouts had brought no response only heightened his dread. Amidst the terror, the salon director’s absurd warning to beware even a gentle breeze flashed through his mind. Suspended upside down like a bridegroom hung from the rafters to have his soles thrashed with dried pollack in traditional wedding hazing, his hair and suit were falling into total disarray. With the ceremony imminent, to be suddenly wrestling with a demonic fiend was preposterous beyond belief.

“Let go! I told you to let go!” he yelled desperately.

Panic seizing him, he began flailing even more violently. As his free foot kicked fiercely at the tail, the creature tilted its head while studying him intently. In that same instant, before Myeong-joo could even squeeze out a gasp, he was slammed against the brick wall.

“Hurk…”

A ragged gasp tore from his lips. Squeezing out such a wretched groan was the sum of his resistance. The beast had whipped its tail in a broad arc, hurling Myeong-joo against the masonry. The impact sent violent tremors through his entire frame. Having inhaled sharply upon collision, a searing pain stabbed deep beneath his ribs.

“Ugh… khh…”

As he groaned again under the lingering shock, the demonic fiend—perhaps mistaking his agony-fueled writhing for an escape attempt—swung its tail once more. Once again, he crashed hard into the wall. A pain so acute it robbed him of breath assaulted his body.

His vision blurred; blinking repeatedly did nothing to clear his eyes. As Myeong-joo could only gasp for shallow breaths, the demonic fiend seemed to judge him finally pacified. Slowly elevating its tail, the creature drew Myeong-joo right before its snout.

“Kh-urgh…” he muttered in pain.

Silence hung between them. “…”

Consumed with fighting to catch his ragged breath, Myeong-joo had no idea the demonic fiend was gazing down at him with unblinking stillness. He was barely enduring the agony that battered his ribs with each shallow gasp. Suddenly, a lukewarm gust carrying the musk of a wild beast brushed against his cheek.

“Gasp…”

Only then did Myeong-joo meet the gaze of the beast peering down into his face. In those olive-green eyes, unlike their previous encounter in the alleyway, there was no trace of reason or intellect. Back then, it had seemed capable of communication, as though understanding speech; now, it fixated on him with the inscrutable gaze of a pure predator. Its magnificent physique—flowing golden mane and solitary prominent fang—remained unchanged, yet the inability to read any emotion from those eyes inspired the chilling terror of confronting an unknown monster.

He held his breath in dread. “…”

Myeong-joo released a faint, trembling breath. Perhaps there was a specific reason it had attacked him unlike before. Whether demonic fiends possessed reason was uncertain at present, yet even if they did, expecting it from this beast now seemed impossible. The fleeting thought struck him that it might be an entirely different demonic fiend that merely looked astonishingly identical.

Following that thought, a prickle of dread raced down his spine. He had raised such a fuss believing it would let him go unharmed as before, but the premonition that he might perish right here drained the blood from his veins, leaving behind only icy helplessness.

Yet the first image that flashed across his mind was not his sisters, but Lee Yi-tan standing alone at the altar.

Yi-tan’s face, confined in the bunker on the brink of rampage for lack of harmonization, seemed to shimmer before his eyes. In the next breath, however, realization that he had forgotten his siblings stiffened Myeong-joo’s expression. In a life-or-death crisis, to think of Lee Yi-tan instead of anxious concern for his young sisters! How boundless was this love that it refused to leave him even now?

Contorted with self-loathing, Myeong-joo lashed out once more. “Let go! Let me go—!”

To make matters worse, his solar plexus began to seethe. Whether from hanging inverted or from the inability to quell his sudden agitation, the harmonization substance inside him boiled over, surging upward to strike violently against his diaphragm.

“Ugh…!”

The sensation of blood regurgitating welled up forcefully. Unable to endure it any longer, Myeong-joo doubled over. Choking as he attempted to vomit the blood, a fit of harsh coughs tore through him in rapid succession. It was just as he had spent a long moment retching up crimson fluid.

A low, resonant keening vibrated through the air, humming against his ribs. Trembling uncontrollably, Myeong-joo forced his eyes upward and locked gaze with the demonic fiend staring down at him.

He stared back in a daze. “…”

“…”

For a moment, they shared that unbroken silence. Though his mouth was filled with the metallic stench of blood, and despite having stained the tuxedo Myeong-in had spent all morning nagging him not to soil, Myeong-joo could only stare blankly at the creature. It felt as though the beast were commanding his gaze, preventing him from looking away.

It was then that Myeong-joo, frozen as if nailed to the spot, flinched and resumed thrashing violently. “Ugh, wh-what are you doing…?! Kh—!”

Having hung him upside down like a dried pollack by his ankle all this while, the beast now snatched him around the waist, pulling him flush against its chest. A long, wolfish snout pressed down over Myeong-joo’s lips. The moment he felt the scorch of its breath and the prickly fur around its mouth, Myeong-joo recoiled in stark terror, convinced he was about to be devoured; but the demonic fiend permitted no feeble escape. Gripping his chin with crushing force until his jaw threatened to splinter, it thrust its thick tongue into his parted lips.

“Mmph—!”

Terror washed over him in waves.

Something as thick as a serpent invaded his mouth, battering against his throat and inducing violent nausea. Sluggish saliva flooded in, forcing him to swallow some of it against his will. As his Adam’s apple bobbed, the creature plunged its tongue deeper as though thrilled by the response. Myeong-joo could neither open his eyes nor shut them, shivering uncontrollably. He feared the tongue invading his throat would slide down into his entrails to rip out and devour his liver. Come to think of it, the beast resembled a wolf or a fox. Who knew if it possessed the appetite of a nine-tailed fox craving human organs?

In the very next moment, Myeong-joo’s eyes snapped wide. He sensed that the foreign entity thrashing inside his mouth was actually moving with a steady, rhythmic cadence. As he blinked in a daze, a distinct sensation drifted through him—a handful of harmonization energy pooled beneath his solar plexus was being drawn out and drained away.

“Mmph…” Myeong-joo let out a muffled groan.

A shudder ran through him at that bizarre sensation of release. His nipples beaded taut, as if he had stepped into a drafty kitchen without a coat on a freezing winter night to swap out briquettes. A strange, ticklish sensation made him knit his brows and twist his body.

Even as it gripped Myeong-joo’s waist and plunged its long tongue into his mouth, the demonic fiend watched him with unblinking scrutiny. An untamed wildness still flared in its eyes, defying comprehension; yet strangely, it no longer struck him with paralyzing dread. The horrifying premonition that his liver would be devoured began to fade, replaced by an irrational, unfounded reassurance.

“Mm, nh…”

Before long, wet, squelching sounds seeped from Myeong-joo’s lips as his mouth was filled with the creature’s tongue. It was the friction of something slick plunging into and withdrawing from an equally wet, narrow crevice. Amidst the wet slide, an occasional suction resonated; when Myeong-joo realized the demonic fiend was lapping up and swallowing the saliva pooling in his mouth, sheer shock pierced him.

“Ngh, mm, hhh—!”

He resisted fiercely once more. Something was terribly wrong—no matter how one looked at it, this bore the unmistakable shape of a deep kiss. Though he had remained an aging bachelor past thirty before the time reversal, he was hardly innocent enough not to recognize a French kiss.

His face blazing crimson, Myeong-joo thrashed in frantic protest, prompting the demonic fiend to press him against the wall once again. Yet unlike before, no jarring impact slammed into the back of his head, nor was there any pain. Pinning him gently against the bricks, the demonic fiend merely trapped Myeong-joo between its massive frame and the wall, driving its tongue in once more to lap greedily at his saliva.

“Mmph, ah, hhh…!”

No matter how vehemently he struggled in refusal, it would not release him. Myeong-joo shook his head violently to dislodge the tongue filling his mouth, but the beast permitted no defiance. The moist tip of the creature’s snout grazed against his cheek and the bridge of his nose. That thick, rough, bizarrely textured tongue scraped persistently against the roof of his mouth.