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“Oh no. I’ve been found out.”

Disguise only holds value when you remain undetected. Once exposed, a predator transforms into prey, and a patterned approach becomes a clue that invites a hunt.

In that sense, the fact that the Chinese Government’s ‘Yokai’ has been exposed was quite a painful matter.

To be caught before even getting started… what a bummer.

If the dominoes had fallen properly, it could have led to immense chaos, but getting caught now would likely just result in a tempest in a teacup.

No, it’s even questionable if it can be called a tempest in the teacup.

Can this really be counted as a tempest?

Looking at all those who had been harmed by Yokai until now, one might say they held ‘high positions,’ yet they were not irreplaceable entities. While it’s true that in Chinese society, a person is always replaceable, even so, they were merely ‘somewhat important components’ far removed from the core….

“Cough.”

Park Jinseong coughed up blood and let out a sigh of regret.

With a pain that felt like his lungs were being squeezed, the blood he expelled sprayed out like a mist, and small bits of flesh stuck to the wall before falling helplessly to the ground.

It wasn’t just blood; pieces of his intestines had come out too.

‘The recovery is slow.’

It felt like a small blade was swimming around inside his belly.

The sharp tip pierced his insides, and the wickedly edged blade felt like it was chopping his organs into bits. The solid hilt crushed the cut pieces of his insides, and the blade sent them back upwards, making him cough them out. At the same time, the movements twisted and released his innards in a cycle of bizarre pain….

It was pain on par with standard torture.

Yet Park Jinseong maintained a calm expression despite enduring such torment.

That this pain wasn’t extraordinary was not the point.

He was simply too accustomed to pain.

Compared to the torment he had experienced in his previous life, what he was going through now was nothing more than muscle soreness.

Of course, such pain existed only in Park Jinseong’s memories, and the flesh experiencing this ‘bizarre pain’ was screaming for release.

But this too would settle down.

Just like it did before.

‘Continuous damage to my insides is the cost…’

Moreover, he thought about whether he should waste time and money on going to the hospital given how fortunate his situation was.

‘The cost isn’t that bad. It seems that at this point, my magic isn’t discovered yet…’

The ‘Yokai Mimic’ magic, which was created by imitating ‘Yokai wearing human skin,’ demanded an enormous price to use. The issue arose from how many people were using the ‘Human Skin Yokai Mimic Creation Ritual.’

Yes.

Many people were using it.

Much more than one might imagine.

‘It seems I had found something that wasn’t destroyed during the Cultural Revolution… but it appears it hasn’t been discovered yet at this point.’

Before the rewind, China had actively utilized this magic.

They used it for beheading operations, to simply create chaos among enemies, for sabotage, and even executed terrorism using this ritual.

Were they not scared of the price?

Of course, they were scared.

But before the rewind, China rejected that common sense.

An enormous price?

After all, it was the caster who bore it. The one giving orders didn’t have to worry about it.

What if they follow the same path as North Korea, which perished after mishandling shamans?

In that case, they could just utilize someone who knew nothing about magic instead of a variable like a shaman.

What if someone who learned the ritual reversed the blade or committed acts of betrayal like defecting to an enemy state?

That’s simple; you just make sure to provide sufficient collars. Hold their family or loved ones hostage, plant bombs or poison capsules inside them, or offer unimaginable rewards as the price of the ritual; then most people would comply.

What if a shaman stepped in after seeing the aftermath?

Sure, that could definitely happen during peaceful times. They would probably have calculated the risk of shamans intervening due to the potential damage to their image from the misuse of magic. But the Chinese Government’s active use of this ritual happened while the entire world was engulfed in flames of war. The Communist Party of China assumed that no matter how legendary a shaman may be, they wouldn’t intervene in such a situation, and so they pushed this foolish plan forward.

Indeed.

This utterly ignorant and terrifying operation, which treated people as mere expendables, proceeded under such thoughts.

However, even then, China didn’t stop utilizing this simple-minded yet effective method.

As more rituals were performed, the maximum burden that had to be endured expanded progressively, eventually escalating the cost from merely ‘individual suffering’ to one that affected bloodlines, yet still, China continued to grind people down.

‘Before the rewind, using this ritual would open one’s belly, causing their intestines to leap out and dance, or skin would peel off as if the body was exposed to radiation and collapse… Hehehe.’

How cruelly one could torture a human, I wonder if wicked beings devised imaginative methods and demonstrated them. This merciless price ended up affecting the bloodline to the extent that the families of those who performed the ritual would end up afflicted with rare diseases.

And when it got to this point, the Communist Party of China ceased using this ritual.

There wasn’t any significant reason behind it.

The reason for stopping the abuse of this magic was simply because countermeasures for the ‘Human Skin Yokai Mimic Creation Ritual’ had spread widely.

It wasn’t that the costs became unbearable nor was it for humanitarian reasons to stop the expendable massacre… the utterly rational conclusion was just that ‘its efficiency had decreased.’

‘Conversely speaking, at this point, it also means that its efficiency is high.’

The reason Park Jinseong performed this ritual was precisely for that reason.

This ritual was one that had proven itself so effective that it was continuously utilized by the Communist Party of China, even at the cost of grinding people down.

In other words, it was a magic that has been validated as suitable for use as a low-cost high-efficiency asymmetrical weapon.

A thoroughly battle-tested weapon.

What other magic could one use besides this!

That’s why Park Jinseong willingly performed this ritual.

Even though there was a possibility that this magic had been excavated at the current moment and quite a lot of people might have tested it, and he was well aware that such a situation could lead to receiving an enormous random cost.

‘Hmm. To be found out already…’

His luck wasn’t too bad.

It ended with merely continuous damage to his insides, and things were progressing smoothly…

Yet, of all things, the domino had to break here.

As if someone had intervened artificially.

‘Who did it?’

What made it even more frustrating was that he couldn’t even tell who had intervened.

There were too many potential suspects.

Contractors using ‘powers’ that don’t adhere to common capabilities, summon creatures exhibiting unpredictable abilities, the surveillance network spread all over China, capable individuals who developed their powers through all sorts of unethical methods, sorcerers actively committing terrorism in China, and the crazed shamans…

‘Anael might need to be a suspect as well.’

…And then there was Anael, the AI capable of utilizing the surveillance network across China and the satellites launched by China to its fullest.

‘A den of demons it is.’

Park Jinseong slowly lifted his head.

He was merely in the basement of his building in Korea.

The damp air mixed with the smell of mildew came alive in his vision like colors dancing. Tiny lights amplified and split into countless fragments, creating a kaleidoscopic view.

His seemingly hollow gaze didn’t just remain limited by the boundaries of his eyes; it extended all the way to China as the extrasensory vision connected through shamanic means transformed insects into eyeballs for sharing perspectives.

He was gazing at China.

He disassembled part of the terminals sent to China, using the most useful among them as his own eyes to observe the landscapes of the streets. Blood tears dripped from his eyes as a price for the magic, and his eyes were completely bloodshot, yet still, Park Jinseong didn’t stop sharing the sight with the insects.

Then, as if he had seen all he needed, he closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the warm and tingling sensation flowing down his face, and severed the connection with the insects. His vision, once extending to China, became confined to the limits of his eyes again, and the senses that had reached China returned to the closed space of the dark and damp basement.

Yet even so, his concern still reached China.

Even without the senses, his thoughts didn’t halt, and he vividly envisioned what would soon happen in distant China.

“Indeed. Performing the ritual isn’t without meaning.”

What he saw was a military force.

The Chinese army was approaching the city.

“Eliminate the subversives.”

 

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