By Zephyria 
「What in the world is that fellow’s Core Spirit!」
The Vengeful Spirits were aghast. Seoljuk could tell that every last shred of the human’s spirit and flesh had been corrupted, turning him into an Aberration. There were no outward changes. Aside from the pupils and canines shifting to resemble a beast’s, there was no difference from a human body.
And yet, he had changed. The martial prowess of an Aberration who, as a human, would have lived barely thirty years overwhelmed them. Them, who were the condensation of 1,300 years and 600 years of longing.
The Ten Thousand Waves Flute had been utterly indifferent to the outside world, but the Sealed Ones were not. He knew that those whose bodies were inhabited by the Essence of an Aberration were called Bearers, because some Sealed One from the past had once earnestly asked if such people could be purified. The end for a Bearer was always the same: either death or becoming an Aberration.
Over the last 400 years, they had seen and experienced countless Bearers who became Aberrations, but none had ever become such a powerful entity immediately upon corruption. From the very moment of its corrupted birth, it intimidated everything in its vicinity.
「What obsession drove you to corruption!」
When they swung spears, he broke them; when they fired arrows, he snapped them; when they slashed with swords, he shattered them; when they struck with axes, he crushed them. Even as the earth shook and the ground split from the collision of condensed, titanic strength, he did not retreat a single step, absorbing the blows and reflecting them back. They were the ones who had spread the contamination in this space, but it was no longer theirs.
The world was shrinking.
Driven mad by resentment toward the brothers who had tried to kill her by drowning her, impaling her on thornbushes, and burning her alive, the fox demon was dominated by a hunger that would never be satisfied. Even knowing that nothing but the raw livers of the brothers who died hundreds of years ago could fill it, she craved incessantly. To devour, devour, and devour.
Humans. Anomalies. Everything.
Whenever the contaminated space was torn and ripped apart by the grip of the Aberration who once bore the name Jeil Heon, it was drawn into him as if by suction. Like a beast that knew no satisfaction.
「How gluttonously you devour!」
They charged, stabbed, and slashed while hurling coarse insults, but the gluttony did not stop. He sucked in the contaminated space and swept away the grudge condensed over hundreds of years. This was less a clash between Aberrations and more like the collision between a predator and its prey.
Even while witnessing the scene firsthand, Jeong Ing-bar could not fathom what was happening. He was finally able to take a breath because the spreading contamination was being devoured by Jeil Heon, halting the creation of new Aberrations, but the taut tension did not slacken in the slightest. The contamination level on the Measuring Device had long since exceeded the maximum readable limit.
Looking through a visor with a Contaminant-Resistant Coating to prevent contamination, the situation in the clearing was not clearly perceived. Due to the coating, everything appeared blurred and smudged, like bleeding paint. Nevertheless, human instinct told him what it meant for the air to be torn by thunderous roars and the agonized wails of Vengeful Spirits.
“Is he really human…?”
A squad member beside him muttered blankly, then shut his mouth, realizing his slip of the tongue. His grip tightened on the handle of his Major Abnormal Weapon.
Jeil Heon is no longer human.
The speculation from his living days—that if he were to become an Aberration, he would be of Catastrophe Grade—had become meaningless. This Aberration, who overwhelmed and devoured the Ten Thousand Waves Flute, a weapon with enough danger to destroy an entire nation; this Aberration who could never satisfy his hunger—what would he aim for after finishing this momentary meal?
The ones who would have to face the non-human Jeil Heon were they.
They had no superiority in power, nor any way to stop the devouring. The contaminated world contracted. The titanic force that had sought to clash and trample gradually receded. Finally, even the turbidity born of the blind obsession that had bound them to the flute for hundreds of years was devoured, leaving only the original souls.
The indignation of the Vengeful Spirits, now stripped bare, soared.
「Since things have come to this, you alone shall sur—」
“Enough.”
A stern voice descended from the sky. The Aberration’s ruthless devouring, which had continued without a single groan of pain, stopped, and the Vengeful Spirits, who harbored only hatred and grudges, were struck with shock.
「Elder…」
「General!」
Not in a royal robe and crown, but dressed in worn armor and a gallant demeanor as if he were charging across the battlefield with them, a divine spirit gazed complexly at his old subordinates.
“Now that the obsession that bound you to the flute has vanished, we are finally able to meet. It has been truly long.”
「We were simply aggrieved. Was the life you spent your whole existence building not denied!」
“I know. Even if the whole world blames you for being lawless, I alone shall not. Are you not the only comrades who drank my bitterness as if it were your own? However, as one who shared life, death, joy, and sorrow with you, I ask: let go now.”
Like the days when they rode side-by-side across the wilderness and shared cups of wine hundreds of years ago, Yi Seong-gye reminisced candidly.
“Before I died, Bangwon told me through tears. He said that while the great sin of pointing a blade at his father could not be redeemed even by death, that even if he were to return to that time, he would still kill Bang-seok, just as he had killed Poeun and Sambong. He said it was the only way to solidify the foundation of the royal enterprise of this newly opened nation.”
「Are those not words dressed up to hide ambition!」
“Yes. It would be a lie to say I had no lust for power, no desire to sit upon the throne. But if that was wrong, then I, who slaughtered the Wang clan and founded a new dynasty, must also have been wrong…”
Yi Seong-gye looked up with a gaze full of remorse.
“The Buddhist faith taught not to be hit by the second arrow, which is resentment. As I cast away the feelings of hatred one by one over the long years, things began to look new. They say it is easy to found a nation but difficult to maintain it; I was a monarch of foundation, but I failed to be a monarch of maintenance.”
「General…」
“But what grudge should I hold for failing to be a monarch of maintenance? I always won every battle with you, and at the end of those victories, I founded a nation that lasted 500 years. Is that not enough for our glorious history?”
The Aberration once called Jeil Heon listened to Yi Seong-gye, barely suppressing a savage hunger that sought to bare its fangs even at the divine spirit. Whether the Vengeful Spirits were convinced was something he could not know.
But because he had also been human, he understood the hatred of those who were once human. Perhaps the only thing driving them wasn’t just the goal of resolving Yi Seong-gye’s resentment. Perhaps they were also enraged that the pride of the Special Guard Unit, which had been shamefully disbanded and labeled the cause of civil war, had been trampled.
Thus, when he had an audience with the divine spirit a few days ago, he had made a request to their master.
〈Thank you for telling me what kind of people the Special Guard Unit were. I know what I must do. However, only Your Highness can truly resolve their lingering regrets.〉
That speculation was correct. Only after a long time did their master affirm them. The distinct murderous aura, formed from extreme longing, which had not been devoured by the Aberration, faded as the grudges that had composed them until the end vanished.
It would have been possible to tear them apart and eat them through devouring. But he did not choose that lawless method. It was partly out of respect for the ancients who had carved out a place in history, and partly because that method would not have been a true solution. He could not leave even a sliver of a possibility that the corrupted Aberration, having devoured the Vengeful Spirits’ grudges, would turn that resentment back toward the Sealed One, Yoo Jiha.
Before Yi Seong-gye, who had gathered his loyal vassals who had not wavered even in death, only a small spirit remained. A tiny light, flickering faintly, so white and fragile that its form could not be discerned.
Like a veteran of a hundred battles whose face had been stained with the thick scent of blood for most of his life, the stern countenance softened.
“Child, your soul was bound to the flute, but your spirit—your baek—is elsewhere. Let your time conclude slowly and return to your father.”
The spirit emitting the slender light vanished as if fading away. The divine spirit, who tried to say something while looking back at the Aberration, sighed.
“…It will be better for you if I depart quickly. Someday, come visit the Royal Ancestral Shrine.”
Until the moment the divine spirit vanished, the Aberration remained hunched over with his hands on his knees, breaking into a cold sweat. The moment he stopped the vicious devouring, a hunger that allowed not a single moment’s respite hacked away at his entire body.
The suppressed instincts of the Aberration surged.