Chapter 175
“Eunseong!”
Yoo Siwoon, who shouted sharply, subdued Eunseong in one go. He snatched away the scissors and threw them far away, gripped his wrist forcefully and twisted his arm behind his back. Pushed by the force, both Eunseong and Yoo Siwoon’s bodies fell onto the bed tThe Unbelievers 174ogether.
“Ugh, let go! Let go! Because of me, because I was born like this! Mom too, dad too… ahjussi too… everything got messed up! So I’m going to get rid of it! I’ll get rid of it! Everything will be fine if I just disappear!”
“Eunseong, please… Eunseong.”
Pressing down on the struggling, excited Eunseong, Yoo Siwoon desperately whispered for him to please calm down.
I was wrong… I was completely wrong.
The intermittent, seizure-like struggling while shouting subsided. He felt warm moisture on the nape of his neck. The bedding was tangled in a mess, and the bodies and hearts of the two people layered on top of it were disheveled in a similar state.
The gasping breath that wouldn’t easily calm down was the only noise in the quiet room. Eunseong’s breath, which had been struggling frantically, gradually became lighter, and Yoo Siwoon’s grip strength, which had been holding his fingers as if to break them, trembled violently.
“…I was wrong. Eunseong, please.”
Burying his face in Eunseong’s nape, Yoo Siwoon pleaded with his breath. Hot moisture flowed down Eunseong’s shoulder.
“Don’t do this to yourself. Do it to me instead… to me.”
“Because The Great Crevice can’t get hurt?”
“…”
A weighted powerlessness seemed to press down on Yoo Siwoon’s body. He raised his head. Eunseong, who had been knocked down on the bed by him, turned his body while staggering. He lay on his back and raised his gaze toward Yoo Siwoon, who was looking down at him blankly. There were traces of tears around Yoo Siwoon’s eyes.
“The kid you’ve been watching since birth getting hurt… scares you?”
“…”
“Do you like me, ahjussi? Or do you like the kid from the prophecy?”
“…”
Staring intently at Yoo Siwoon, who couldn’t answer, Eunseong sat up. His body also rose accordingly, and they faced each other.
His pupils seemed confused about that fact, making Eunseong feel like his heart was collapsing. If he kept facing him like that, it seemed like he would burst into the tears he had hidden inside, so Eunseong hurriedly got up and fled the room as if escaping.
It was the time when evening faded and the surroundings were engulfed in darkness.
Yoo Siwoon tossed the Yongse Pacheon Church-related materials he had kept at home into the flames on the pile of firewood stacked in a corner of the garden. Sitting in a camping folding chair, he placed another piece of dry firewood on top. The flames spread from the firewood to the paper, heating his face red.
He had ordered everything at Chairman Yoo’s residence and at Yoo Oseon’s and some council member’s house to be incinerated, and now the copy of the scriptures he had was the last remaining.
He opened the scriptures he had hidden deep in his bookshelf.
“Darkness and chaos are the same, and the darkness of infinite emptiness envelops the world, like a pit waiting with its mouth open in the void. The appearance of the prepared one is more brilliant than the light of heaven, and riding on an ecstatic wind, all who see will lose their souls and bow down, but that beauty is not complete, and like the shadow of sunlight, it will cover those who prostrate and slowly corrupt them.
Those who wait will be horrified and ask each other: What is this, what has been prepared? The prophet will fall to the ground, wail, and cry to heaven: Behold, this is the birth of the prophesied womb. When the great crevice opens, only those with spiritual sight will see the door, and there lies the destiny that the descendants of the chosen people will face.
Those in anguish in the depths prostrate and plead: Give us a god, give us a god in our image, and they continue to plead, so heaven answers: A knight on a blue-yellow horse descends above the clouds with thunder, saying he has heard your longing, he has heard your lamentations, and he will strike them with death, but they are deceived and do not understand. This is not the inheritance of brightness but the source of darkness, this is not the seed of salvation but the root of destruction, this is not the promise of life but the beginning of annihilation.
When the time is fulfilled, the womb of the great crevice opens and he is born from the abyss of night, his breath brings pestilence, his steps shake the earth’s axis, his voice brings down confusion and sings songs of ruin.
Mark the knight’s seal on foreheads and hands. Those who do not plead cannot see his light and darkness, so the blind will sigh and fear, ringing bells and blowing trumpets, marching with the horseman, but they do not know the end is near and they sing.”
‘The appearance of the prepared one is more brilliant than the light of heaven…
All who see will lose their souls and bow down, but that beauty is not complete.
Like the shadow of sunlight, it will cover those who prostrate and slowly corrupt them.’
“…It doesn’t seem to be that extreme.”
Though he is pretty.
Yoo Siwoon tossed the scriptures into the flames with no lingering attachment. The roaring flames engulfed the old book and soon began to burn black.
He had threatened the doctor who examined Eunseong to spread rumors that Eunseong was fake and fabricated. Considerable backlash arose within the Yongse Pacheon Church and Seongha Group. Some of those disappointed in the false Great Crevice took their actual doctrines and went off to create new sects. Yoo Siwoon didn’t care whether any new heresies emerged.
As he quietly watched the scriptures and flames dying down to embers like that, he felt eyes on him and turned his head, making eye contact with Eunseong who was looking at him from beyond the window.
He straightened his slouched sitting posture. Even after making eye contact with him, Eunseong showed no sign of avoiding his gaze. He was just staring blankly.
The appearance of the prepared one is more brilliant than the light of heaven…
All who see will lose their souls and bow down
The destiny that the descendants of the chosen people will face is corruption…
His gaunt, pale eyes blinked slowly, fixed on Yoo Siwoon and the scriptures burning behind his shoulder.
“Maybe not… or maybe it’s right.”
He muttered stupidly while looking at Eunseong.
Had he been more attracted because Eunseong wasn’t Eunseong but The Great Crevice?
Had he come to love him naturally as if it were obvious, like the descendants of the chosen people, because he was a being worthy of losing one’s soul and worshipping?
Had he inevitably become corrupted like this? Into an unwanted, detested form?
“Do you like me, ahjussi? Or do you like the kid from the prophecy?”
Yoo Siwoon couldn’t answer. He couldn’t be certain whether he liked Eunseong because he was Eunseong, or whether the resistant emotions of needing to consciously distance himself and not approach closely had ultimately made Yoo Siwoon uncontrollable when it came to Eunseong.
The bonfire would take more time to burn completely. Yoo Siwoon unfolded another folding chair beside him. While doing so, he looked back at Eunseong and repeatedly adjusted the chair as if telling him to come out and watch.
Eunseong stared at Yoo Siwoon, looked at the flames behind his shoulder, then suddenly turned around and soon disappeared from his view.
“…Sigh.”
Yoo Siwoon let out a deep sigh filled with self-loathing. Several days had passed since bringing Eunseong home, but his wariness and rejection remained the same, and was gradually escalating.
Unable to hide his troubled mind, he repeatedly rubbed his face with both hands as if washing his face dry.
Director Nam seemed to have cleared up the worst misunderstandings about him. He no longer made terrible remarks or aggressive accusations like calling him a seed-bearer or saying he approached him to use him, as he had when first learning all these facts.
When Eunseong’s birth parents had their accident, Yoo Siwoon was also young and didn’t know what to suspect, what to believe, or what was happening around him. Through his father’s teachings, he only knew about the weekly worship and rituals they held, and that he shouldn’t listen to what they said. His growth involved understanding the true nature of the group he belonged to and developing critical awareness.
As he was staring blankly at the dying bonfire, he heard footsteps and hurriedly turned his head, then became acutely disappointed.
“Were you incinerating documents?”
“…”
It was Director Nam. Although he was burning scriptures, he didn’t want to appeal to him, who wasn’t cooperative when it came to Eunseong, about how he was working hard to eliminate this cult.
Director Nam sat naturally in the chair that had been set up for Eunseong. Tossing a piece of dry firewood into the fire, he said:
“For next week’s Mulsan president inauguration ceremony, I’ve instructed the secretariat to prepare it simply. Everyone will know it’s essentially the successor’s inauguration ceremony.”
“…”
“Won’t you need an inauguration speech presenting a new vision? A press conference would be too grand, so I’m thinking of holding a meeting instead. What do you think?”
“…What, break away from the cult fanatic group, come to our senses and be reborn as a top global company, something about living in reality?”
Yoo Siwoon spoke self-deprecatingly, but Director Nam responded seriously.
“Yes, something like that. A completely new, reborn Seongha Group.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
