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He sat down in a lotus position, a satisfied smile on his face. He focused on the movement he felt within his stomach.

“ॐ-”

He concentrated his energy, wrapping it around his index finger, and brought it to the skin of his stomach, beginning to draw a pattern.

Dull lines were sketched, creating vertical and horizontal stripes, forming a shape resembling a circle, resulting in a square that looked like a mouth (口) in ancient script.

But Jinseong didn’t stop there; he inserted his finger into the square and drew another smaller square inside. Thus, a pattern emerged—a circle within a circle, a square within a square—radiating a bluish light, resembling the character for “return” (回).

The mouth within a mouth.

The fence within the fence.

It was a labyrinth inscribed in characters, symbolizing endless continuity.

The pattern began to glow blue and seep into his stomach.

The stomach became a prison, and the mountain gathered within it boiled fiercely, climbing the walls in defiance of reason. The gastric juice transformed into a sphere made of acid, and the snake’s flesh that flowed into the stomach couldn’t withstand the acid, starting to dissolve. And within that dissolving flesh, something small melted away, becoming one with the energy that seeped into the stomach, forming a meaning.

“I’ve gathered one.”

Starting with the snake he had eaten, Jinseong began to dart around. With his eyes closed, he navigated the void, gathering various creatures, some disgusting caterpillars, others half-grown mushrooms. He roughly prepared his collection and stuffed it in his mouth, eventually arriving at a small valley deep in the mountain.

“ॐ.”

As soon as he reached the valley, he removed his shoes and stepped into the water, grasping at the air.

Splash!

With each grasp at the air, fish and crayfish hiding in the rocks were drawn out, and Jinseong grabbed only their necks, tossing them unceremoniously into his mouth.

Crack! Crack!

The shells of the crayfish were mercilessly crushed by Jinseong’s teeth, and the sharply broken fragments didn’t harm his mouth but melted into his stomach. As for the fish, everything went inside except for the heads, and as soon as they entered, they melted away by the gastric acid that transformed into slime.

Jinseong repeated this process several times, and only when he had caught most of the fish and crayfish in the valley did he pause and murmur.

“One, two, and three.”

He assumed a lotus position on the rock and burned incense. The incense seemed to rise normally but then swirled towards Jinseong as if blown by the wind, creating a wall of smoke around him that seemed to be blocked by something.

“One.”

Within the smoky wall, Jinseong concentrated, erasing the pattern of return he had drawn on his stomach and began to draw another. It was similar to the previous one but with a different appearance. If the earlier one resembled a square like a circle, now he was drawing a circle resembling a square.

It was just a shape that had yet to become a meaning.

“A snake within a snake, one yet many.”

The drawn circle stimulated the skin, causing veins to protrude, revealing their form. It was as if only the part where the pattern was drawn became bright red and blue, discoloring into purple, almost like a bruise. At first glance, it appeared to be an ordinary shape, but it seemed as if a snake were crawling through the veins, drawing its shape, reminding one of some primal, smaller creature.

Swish!

The veins writhed as if alive, bulging as though something was trying to emerge from within. The intensity of the movement was so strong it almost sparked the illusion that the snake he had consumed was being reborn and moving inside him. But Jinseong calmly moved his finger to the back of his neck.

He drew a single vertical line along his spine.

This time, the place where his finger had glided turned gray. It was as if the flesh were rotting or something unclean had stuck to his skin, transforming that single area into a gray reminiscent of a corpse. This grayish color tainted with something other than merely dead skin flaked off, and as if to dispel the illusion, the particles quickly melted back into the smooth skin.

“Three.”

Jinseong muttered one last time and brought his finger back to his stomach.

His finger traced a triangle traveling through the lungs, liver, and intestines, ultimately returning to the lungs, forming a triangle. The areas his finger touched appeared concave as if the flesh had disappeared, but it quickly began to fill back up, returning to its original form. However, the traces remained, visibly showing that a keen observer would notice the skin had lost significant elasticity.

“From one to two, from two to three. All numbers unite to make six. What began has found balance, so it would be no surprise if wings sprouted from it.”

As Jinseong’s invocation echoed, the traces etched upon his body began to fade.

The emerging circle vanished, the gray from the back of his neck dissipated like smoke, and life began to return to his once-dulled skin.

Only when the last of the incense burned away and its ashes inhaled back into him did Jinseong finally open his eyes and smile.

“The foundation has been laid.”

“Ugh—”

Jinseong, making a sound like an old man, stood up and used teleportation.

Creeeak!

With the sound of the air twisting, Jinseong instantly returned to the mansion.

“Strange.”

“Yeah, strange.”

In a room nestled in a corner of the mansion, the sisters whispered quietly to each other.

Iserin fluttered her crow-patterned pajamas as she spoke.

“Lately, big brother’s been too strange.”

His usually gloomy appearance, thanks perhaps to the animal pajamas, now looked sleepy and tired, and as a result, his flapping arms seemed less like a witch performing some suspicious ritual and more like a crow, exhausted from struggling in water, joyfully scrambling to get ashore.

“It is strange. He was always a bit odd from the start though.”

Iarin, sitting across from her with her hair undone and decorations removed, seemed ordinary, yet her yellow pajamas bore a resemblance to a lioness.

“Remember that time he brought home a ton of creepy crawlers, declaring he’d become the master of curse magic?”

“Yeah.”

“That time, there were cockroaches among them, and it caused a huge commotion. You remember that?”

“I wish I could forget…. ”

The two animals sat comfortably on the fluffy bed, talking away. However, when the topic turned to something disgusting, Iserin’s expression soured.

[ Hahaha, the little one’s audacity was indeed adorable. It was quite the childish sight, spouting about curse magic while bringing creatures he could hardly control. ]

“Ugh.”

“What did you even do to those bugs? Just thinking about it gives me chills. I mean, a cockroach that resisted medicine and could withstand an electric fly swatter? They say if he’d left it as is, it could’ve been in a horror movie. What was it again? My friend said there are all these weird horror movies about cockroaches.”

[ Cats sometimes miss their prey while showing off, you know? It was exactly that kind of picture. So audacious yet undeniably cute, especially since he often brought in things like bugs; he truly was just like a cat. ]

Especially when the demon that had made a contract with her mentioned other insects, Iserin couldn’t help but recall the countless bugs Jinseong had brought. She grimaced further at the horrifying images of the creatures with too many legs or, even worse, those without any legs at all.

Iarin’s following memories vividly contributed to that ghastly imagery, making it all the more horrific.

“And there were other bugs that were gross too, but that’s not what I meant. I mean, big brother’s really acting weird lately, you know? Right?”

“I know….”

You might even know better than I do.

Iserin barely managed to swallow the words she wanted to say to her twin sister. But while she could hold back the words, she couldn’t conceal the complex expression creeping across her face, prompting Iarin’s look to shift oddly.

[ Contractor, my contractor. You must have seen it. That utterly subpar ritual of magic that lacked any refinement or dignity. ]

Iserin sighed at the whisper of the demon she had made a contract with.

‘Yeah, I saw it….’

 

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