Descent of the Demon Master

‘It’s… rupturing?!’

Chief Bak Gwang-Cheol's eyes opened wide until they nearly fell out of their sockets. His jaw dropped open so much that it almost fell to the floor.

He could see it. He could see the massive aquarium… rupturing!

The transparent acrylic wall quickly developed terrifying cracks before everything inside suddenly exploded outside.

This horrifying spectacle moved in slow motion like a scene from a movie.

‘What… What should I do now?!’

His mind refused to think. Even though he had thought up various countermeasures beforehand, his eyes witnessing the event emptied his mind to the point of it resembling a blank piece of paper.

However, Chief Bak shouldn't be blamed for this one. The spectacle was overwhelming and explosive, after all!

Inside that fish tank was nearly ten thousand tons of water, but all that liquid was gushing out at once now. The strengthened acrylic wall was over thirty centimeters thick, claimed to be strong enough to withstand a tank shell… Yet it helplessly got ripped apart like a piece of paper!

The way those cracks spread was reminiscent of a flower blooming. The only difference being… Instead of stamens and pistils, water was erupting from the opening!

Chief Bak just stood there like a man hypnotized by this spectacle, unaware that his own perception of time had slowed to a crawl.

Water gushed out from the massive fissure in the acrylic. Like powerful water sprouts several meters tall gushing out of a lake, the water ignored gravity and shot out of the crack like laser beams.

What if a person got swept up in that? That would be instant death! It'd be the same as a little fly buzzing around in the air before directly getting hit by a jet of water strong enough to injure humans!

Humans were ignorant of the terror of the water.

Water fired by a 15-ton water sprinkler truck was enough to kill a human being. A direct hit could easily shred flesh and break bones.

That was only fifteen tons, yet the main aquarium of this place held almost ten thousand tons of water. Of course, this and that weren't directly comparable, as the water from the aquarium didn't shoot out under high pressure like the water sprinkler truck. Even so, it didn't take a genius to realize which of the two boasted a higher water pressure overall.

‘E-everything… will collapse!’

Humans weren’t the only thing in danger. With such an explosion of water, even the solid walls should get destroyed! The worst possible scenario wasn’t people getting swept up and drowning, but the entire building collapsing and crushing everyone!

‘I, I gotta stop this…!’

He needed to stop this catastrophe, but how?

This disaster was already beyond the territory of human capabilities. No human could prop up a crumbling building. The best they could do was reinforce the structure before it could crumble. That was how far the territory of human capabilities extended.

Stopping the destruction after it had already started crumbling was a territory not yet granted to humanity by God! So, how was Chief Bak supposed to stop this disaster?

‘We… We are all gonna die!’

Without a doubt, everyone here would die. Not even one person would be spared. Those visitors who were some distance away from the main aquarium might get lucky and escape in time… As long as the building held itself together until then, that was!

However, what if that didn’t happen?

Then, it’d be death for everyone. Absolutely every single person in here!

Now caught in the grips of terror, despair, and resignation, Chief Bak could only stand there and blankly stare at the unfolding situation. If only… If only he had argued more strongly with the aquarium's president earlier and convinced him to evacuate this place! Unfortunately, regret always happened too late to be of any use.

If there really was the afterlife, Chief Bak thought he’d go straight to Hell. No, before going to Hell, he should worry about dealing with the resentment of everyone who’d die here today.

All these thoughts flitted in and out of Chief Bak's head in the literal blink of an eye. He suddenly became aware his perception of time had greatly slowed down. And he also remembered hearing from somewhere that people facing imminent death would experience a similar phenomenon.

Just as he was about to accept his own impending doom, Chief Bak noticed something rather odd.

‘Huh?’

Someone was… moving? Chief Bak could see someone leisurely moving about. However, wasn’t that strange?

A person moving around in itself was obviously not strange… Under any other, more "normal" circumstances, that was! That was why this development seemed so odd to him.

Chief Bak's perception of time had been slowed down to a crawl. So much so that he could clearly see the movements of all the water gushing out from the crack. However, the person's movement toward that stream of vicious water seemed leisurely but never slow.

In the world of everything moving in slow motion, only that man was maintaining his usual speed. This disharmony was making a mess of Chief Bak’s head.

‘What… What am I seeing here?’

The person moving was someone Chief Bak recognized. It was none other than that young man saying crazy things while confronting the security officials a second ago. And also the same person who told Chief Bak to evacuate the visitors.

Only this young man was leisurely strolling toward the exploding water tank inside this slowed-down world as if nothing of note was happening here!

How was Chief Bak supposed to describe this scene? Fantastical? Bizarre? Whatever it was, it was definitely in the realm of extraordinary.

The young man walked without an issue toward the overwhelming stream of water and raised his hands. With his expression stiff, he reached out toward the water… Which created a truly unimaginable scene!

Paaah-aaaaaaah!

If the cassette tape containing the recording of loud noises was stretched unnaturally, would it produce a sound like that?

While producing a loud and imposing, but not that sharp and rather weird sound, the water stream crashed into the young man’s figure. The water splashed in practically every direction. That was when Chief Bak witnessed the power of the water.

The powerful stream of water crashed into the young man’s body and split into countless many smaller streams. And when those streams touched the ceiling… The material making up the ceiling immediately shattered into pieces and came crashing down to the floor. Meanwhile, the floor made of tough marble also shattered as if giant hammers came down on it, with splinters and shattered debris rising up dramatically in the air.

...All this, merely from the water pressure alone!

It was a truly gobsmacking sight to behold. Beyond Chief Bak’s ability to believe!

However, something else proved to be even more unbelievable.

“…!”

Chief Bak couldn’t even let out a gasp of shock.

‘Why… Why isn't he getting blown away?’

This already surreal spectacle became even more fantasy-like. And Chief Bak was acutely aware of the cause behind this shift in his perception.

The force from the water deflected once by an object was still enough to destroy the ceiling and floor. That proved the water pressure was unimaginably destructive. In that case, why was that young man not blown away?

Even cars would get pushed back after getting struck by the highly pressurized water. As a matter of fact, a direct blast from water pressurized to the point of ignoring gravity could even push back a tank!

But now… A person was withstanding that? Withstanding that force? That pressure?!

Chief Bak's head refused to think anymore from this scene. However, he was strictly an observer, an outsider, to the proceedings, to begin with, anyway. The only thing he could do was witness the spectacle he was forbidden from interfering with. In a way, it was similar to watching a movie from a different dimension altogether!

That young man continued to advance forward. All the while resisting and pushing back against the intense water pressure!

Now practically engulfed by the water, only the young man's legs were visible. And those legs continued to move forward, one step at a time. Although their movements seemed a little sluggish, a little strained, the young man's feet were never pushed back.

The intensity of the deflected water increased as the young man advanced forward. The material on the ceiling angrily crashed to the floor. Concrete blew apart and fell away to expose dark rebars hidden within.

The water had already filled the hall up to the knees and obscured the floor from Chief Bak’s view. Still, the level of its destruction should match the ceilings.

The spray of water now resembled an angry fountain. Sprays and streams of water splashed all over the main hall like a modern art installation. In the middle of this chaos, the young man continued to advance forward.

Eventually, he…

Grab, craaaaaack! Crunch!

The young man grabbed the torn, jutting bits of the acrylic wall, then began shoving them back inside the opening. It was as if he was carefully tugging at the torn piece of paper to recreate its original shape. With a leisurely movement, to boot!

‘No, wait. That’s not right.’

Considering how slow the time was moving in Chief Bak’s perception, that young man must’ve been moving at a scarcely believable speed. Regardless of what his true speed was, the young man continued to force the jutting bits of acrylic that resembled a twisted flower.

Soon after that, all the jutting bits were forced inside. Obviously, it was impossible to repair a ruptured acrylic wall to its original state, and what that young man did was the limit of what could be done. It was impossible to glue the hole close, after all!

However, that stop-gap measure was still enough to decrease the amount of water gushing out by an appreciable margin.

‘How is this possible?’

How could something like this be possible in reality? Maybe Chief Bak was already dead. He could have been swept up by the raging flood of water, became unconscious, and was gradually drowning. And this was all a dream his brain had cooked up in his final moments.

That explanation sounded so much more plausible than reality itself. After all, that spectacle should not be possible in reality. Rather than thinking that an unrealistic miracle happened in this place, accepting it as a figment of his imagination seemed so much… wiser to Chief Bak!

Just as Chief Bak tried to pinch his cheek…

“What are you doing, mister?”

The young man’s voice suddenly registered in Chief Bak’s hearing. And that forcibly summoned Chief Bak back to reality against his will.

“Uh? Huh?!”

Chief Bak’s legs gave way. After being thrown back into reality, the first thing Chief Bak did was plop on his butt.

Splash!

The cold, wet sensation of water touching his arse immediately sobered Chief Bak up.

‘Crazy son of a b*tch!’

It all happened for real? That he… He was back in reality?

His frozen sensations returned to him one by one. His hearing suddenly picked up the sharp noises akin to a massive spinning saw cutting through metal. Meanwhile, cold droplets of deflected water were pummeling him mercilessly.

Chief Bak fully returned to reality when he saw the falling concrete debris loudly smashing into the floor.

‘What the hell is up with this situation?!’

Chief Bak urgently shifted his gaze back to the aquarium. It… wasn’t a dream!

One man was plugging up the water coming out of the ruptured aquarium. Of course, it was impossible to stop all the water, but pushing in the acrylic bits still went a long way in substantially decreasing the amount. And the young man was using his torso to stop as much water as he could, too!

Fwhooooooooooochhh!

The sound of water smashing into the floor sent chills down Chief Bak’s spine.

“B-but… How…?”

How was the young man withstanding the water pressure? When highly pressurized water could even cut through a diamond! When powerful jets of water from a fire truck could destroy a building's wall!

When the water gushing out from the open gap of the aquarium should be incomparably more powerful than what was coming out of a fire truck hose!

A human flesh should turn into mangled bits of flesh in an instant from merely touching the water, yet that young man was standing there unscathed?

That was something only Superman could do, not regular humans. But it was happening for real right in front of his eyes!

In that case, there could only be one reason. That young man… wasn’t human! Definitely not a human being!

Chief Bak dazedly reached out toward the young man, but that was when…

“Can't you hear me? You need to pull yourself together, mister.”

The young man’s composed-sounding voice registered in Chief Bak’s hearing again. He reflexively nodded when he heard that unhurried voice.

The young man continued to speak. “I can’t block this for long. Evacuate these people, now. Hurry.”

“…”

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“A-ah, no! I heard you!”

Chief Bak definitely heard all that, although he wasn’t sure how as his hearing was half-deafened by all the ear-splitting noises rocking the main hall.

Now that he had sobered up, Chief Bak realized what he must do. Whether that young man was a human being or not…

Whether that young man was Jesus or Buddha, that didn't matter a jot right now to Chief Bak. Figuring the truth out wasn't his job! No, his job was to evacuate everyone here in the main hall…

‘No, that’s not it. I must evacuate everyone from this aquarium!’

Chief Bak urgently yelled at the people still inside the main hall. “What are you doing! Hurry up and get out of here! Now!”

“…?”

“Can’t you hear me?! Hurry and escape!”

The dazed faces of the visitors gradually paled as reality dawned on them. And that was when…!

“U-uwaaaaaahk! Aaaaahk!”

“Hiiiieeek!”

Screeching screams accompanied the visitors’ desperate scramble toward the narrow exit.