The sky was covered with dark clouds, and a light drizzle began to fall.
The temperature is dropping, and the icy feeling makes one shiver involuntarily.
In South Korea, pedestrians hurry along the streets.
The Vatican's True God Descent Event has spread globally, South Korea, a country rife with cults, has been severely affected.
Originally, South Korea didn't have many supernatural events because powerful ghosts were all released into a large country by the mastermind Hu, and this tiny place was only fit to have a few minor ghosts thrown in at will.
However, since the existence of "supernatural beings" has been gradually made public, South Korea's crime rate has recently shown a surge, with the victims' deaths being particularly gruesome.
Some crimes are committed by imitating supernatural phenomena, while others involve human sacrifice...
At that moment, raindrops dripped down Li Shanji's bangs as she stood at the convenience store entrance, looking at her blurry reflection in the glass.
At thirty-two, her face already showed fine lines, and under her eyes were dark circles from long-term insomnia. Six months ago, she discovered those disgusting chat records on her husband's phone on a rainy day like this.
"Miss?" A gentle female voice came from behind.
Li Shanji turned around and saw a young woman wearing a beige trench coat, holding a transparent umbrella in her hand.
"Do you need an umbrella? I've seen you standing here for quite a while." The woman smiled, her eyes curving into crescents. "I'm Park Eunju, a member of the nearby New Dawn Church."
Li Shanji instinctively took a half-step back; ever since her divorce, she had become wary of any sudden acts of kindness.
But Park Eunju's eyes were so sincere that they reminded her of her close roommate from university.
"Thank you, but my house is just ahead." Li Shanji pointed to an apartment building not far away.
"Oh, so we're neighbors!" Park Eunju exclaimed with delight. "The church offers free lunch and psychological counseling services every Sunday. If you're interested..."
The word "psychological counseling" stung Li Shanji, whose psychologist had just advised her to increase her antidepressant dosage last week.
"I am a believer," she replied curtly.
Park Eunju didn't seem offended. Instead, she pulled a business card from her bag. "It's okay. We also have many non-believers who are just here to make friends. Did you know that research shows loneliness is as harmful to the body as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day?"
The rain intensified, Li Shanji, looking at the words "New Dawn Church - Bringing You the Dawn of the Soul" on the business card, inexplicably accepted it.
Two weeks later, on Sunday, Li Shanji stood at the entrance of the New Dawn Church, a renovated three-story villa with a soft cream-colored exterior and neatly arranged daisies in the flowerbeds at the entrance—completely different from the gloomy church she had imagined.
"You're here!" Park Eunju jogged out and warmly took her hand. "What a coincidence that it's the welcome party today!"
A long table was set up in the hall, laden with delicate pastries and fruits. About twenty people chatted in twos and threes, the atmosphere relaxed as if they were on vacation.
Li Shanji noticed a young man wearing glasses playing the piano in the corner; the melody was her favorite pop song from before her divorce.
"This is our spiritual mentor, Pastor Kim Jihoon." Park Eunju led her towards a man around sixty years old. He was wearing a light gray suit, and his silver hair was neatly combed, making him look more like a university professor than a clergyman.
When Kim Jihoon held Li Shanji's hand, she felt a strange warmth. "Welcome home, child," his voice was deep and strong. "Here, you don't need to pretend to be strong anymore."
For some reason, Li Shanji's eyes suddenly welled up with tears. This was the first time in six months that someone had told her to "go home."
In the days that followed, Li Shanji became a regular at the church. At the weekly group sharing sessions, she gradually became able to talk about her pain; in cooking classes, she rediscovered the joy of cooking; and even a month later, she began to reduce her dosage of antidepressants.
The people in the church affectionately called her "Sun-hee," as if she were a long-lost family member.
When they preached their doctrines to her, she always let it go in one ear and out the other. She didn't care which god the New Dawn Church believed in; she simply enjoyed the warm feeling.
She liked the church and thought she would continue to get along harmoniously and amicably with its members.
Until that rainy night.
Li Shanji missed her evening meditation class because she had to work overtime. When she arrived at the church, it was already 11 p. m. Most of the villa was dark, except for one window on the top floor. As she hesitated whether to ring the doorbell, she suddenly heard suppressed sobbing coming from the back alley.
Curiosity led her to the back of the building. Next to the trash can, she saw Park Eunju squatting on the ground, holding a pale-faced girl in her arms. The girl's wrist was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage, and her eyes were unfocused.
"Who is it this time?" Park Eunju's voice was completely different from her usual sweetness, cold and unfamiliar.
"Choi Minji from Group 3... She... she tried to call her family..." the girl said, trembling.
Li Shanji held her breath and accidentally kicked a soda can as she backed away. Park Eunju looked up sharply, but before she could see who it was, Li Shanji had already disappeared into the shadows.
That night, Li Shanji, who had rushed home in a panic, tossed and turned, unable to sleep. She kept replaying the scene she had witnessed, and a vague sense of unease crept into her mind.
There are far too many cults in this country.
At 3 a. m., she turned on her computer and searched for "New Dawn Church". The first few pages of the webpage were the church's official website and positive reports, but on the seventeenth page, she found a blog that had been shut down. The cached page showed that not long ago, a girl claimed that her sister had disappeared after joining the church, and the police investigation had yielded no results.
Li Shanji's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately had a bad feeling.
The next day, when she went to the religious gathering, Li Shanji pretended that nothing had happened, but her eyes were secretly and carefully observing her surroundings.
She noticed that some of the "success stories" photos that used to hang on the wall had been taken down; when she tried to borrow the church's computer, the administrator immediately switched the screen.
The strangest thing was Kim Jihoon's office. During a chance visit, she saw a strange portrait hanging on the wall—a three-eyed human face surrounded by twisted snakes.
When she asked, Kim Jihoon laughed and said it was a religious totem, but that night Li Shanji searched and found that it seemed to be a mark used by some kind of cult.
Once doubt arises, it spreads rapidly, like ink dropped into clear water.
The more Li Shanji observed, the more she felt there was something wrong with the religion she had unintentionally joined. She began secretly recording the unusual occurrences within the church:
The basement is always locked; a "special ceremony" is held every month on the night of the full moon, which ordinary members are not allowed to attend; more and more believers are selling their property and donating it to the church; a young man named Choi Jeongmin suddenly "went abroad to practice Buddhism" last week, but his guardian lamp is still in his dormitory drawer...
The decisive discovery came one Thursday afternoon when Li Shanji excused herself from meditation class early, claiming to have a stomachache, and actually sneaked into the cleaner's storage room.
Behind a pile of mops, she found a small door disguised as an electrical distribution box. The door was unlocked, and inside was a staircase leading to the basement.
The basement was more spacious than expected, divided into several rooms. The first room contained dozens of storage boxes, each labeled with a name—including Choi Jeongmin, who had "gone overseas." Li Shanji opened the nearest box; inside were wallets, cell phones, ID cards... all her personal belongings were there, except for her passport.
The discovery in the second room almost made her scream. The walls were covered with photos, all snapshots of young men and women in various states of pain: bound, crying, covered in wounds... In the photo in the very center, Kim Jihoon looked extremely ferocious and evil, holding a bloodstained dagger.
The last room was locked, but the smell wafting from under the door said it all—the stench of rotting meat.
It smelled like a corpse.
Li Shanji suppressed the urge to vomit, and upon hearing footsteps upstairs, hurriedly fled.
Back in her apartment, she immediately packed her bags, trembling, deciding to leave the next day and go far away.
To be honest, the New Dawn Church did give her a lot of care and helped her get out of the shadow of her divorce, and she also craved this false warmth.
If the church was simply trying to scam money, she might have pretended not to know it was a cult. But now that someone has died, she can't continue to deceive herself and risk her life for a little false warmth.
She dared not call the police because she feared that the New Dawn Church had powerful figures backing it, and she couldn't afford to offend them.
So she had to run away.
Unfortunately, fate did not give her this opportunity. At 10 p. m. that night, Park Eunju appeared at her doorstep with three male church members.
"Sister Sun-hee," Park Eunju's smile is as sweet as ever, "Pastor Kim invites you to tonight's full moon ceremony. You've been chosen... This is a great honor."
Li Shanji's heart tightened; she knew she might have been discovered. But she dared not openly confront Park Eunju. Maintaining a facade of harmony was enough to keep things going, but if things really broke down, she would be the one who suffered!
She forced a smile and said, "I'm honored."
"In that case, let's go," Park Eunju said, giving Li Shanji no chance to escape, and had her taken to the church.
The church's top floor hall had been transformed into a ritual space, all the windows were covered with black cloth, and the walls were covered with those eerie three-eyed totems.
More than twenty core members of the church formed a circle around a stone altar, on which was tied the girl that Li Shanji had seen in the back alley.
The girl appeared to have been injected with drugs; her eyes were vacant, and deep cuts were made on her wrists and ankles, with blood dripping into the silver bowl below.
Kim Jihoon, dressed in a scarlet robe and holding a strangely shaped staff, said, "Tonight, we will offer sacrifices to the gods!" His voice trembled with excitement. "By offering pure sacrifices to please the gods, they will bless us!"
As soon as she finished speaking, the believers began chanting incantations that Li Shanji couldn't understand. As the rhythm quickened, the candlelight on the altar turned eerily green.
Seeing this, the believers chanted even louder, seemingly regarding the change in the color of the flames as some kind of miracle.
"Isn't this just the flame test we learned in high school chemistry?!" Li Shanji stood at the edge of the crowd, complaining and pretending to pray while secretly observing the escape routes.
But just then, she suddenly noticed that the statue behind the stone altar—a ferocious statue with three eyes and many hands—seemed to blink.
Is it just an illusion?
No, it's not an illusion.
The stone surface of the statue was cracking, as if something was moving inside, and an eerie aura that made people feel uneasy seeped out from the cracks.
This scene wasn't only witnessed by Li Shanji; others saw it too.
The believers burst into ecstatic cheers. "It must be God! God is pleased with our offerings; He is watching over us!"
The fanatical believer, completely swayed by the hype, shouted and yelled without regard for anything else, while Kim Jihoon stared in disbelief, his face as pale as paper, cold sweat pouring down his forehead.
Does this religion actually have a God? How could he not know?
He founded the New Dawn Church partly to amass wealth, and partly to satisfy his hidden bloodlust.
The statue seems to be responding to him now, what should he do?
Everything was out of control. Looking at the fanatical believers below, Kim Jihoon could only force a smile, pretending to be happy and excited, and grit his teeth and continue acting.
He knelt on the ground, raised his staff high, and solemnly proclaimed. "Great God, the devout believer sincerely praises you..."
His prayer was cut short halfway through when the statue shattered, and a withered arm emerged from it, piercing his chest in an instant.
The staff clattered to the ground. Kim Jihoon stared in disbelief at the bloody hole in his chest, then slowly collapsed, dying with his eyes wide open.
The scene fell into a deathly silence.
Immediately afterwards, the statue shattered completely, revealing what was inside—a charred corpse.
Strangely, the corpse could move, and its appearance instinctively made everyone present uneasy.
"This isn't... this isn't God..." Park Eunju collapsed to the ground, her pants soaked. "This... this is... a demon!"
The Charred Corpse arm of the demon swept across, and Park Eunju's head flew to the other end of the room. Blood gushed from her neck like a fountain, splattering on the horrified faces of the surrounding believers.
"Ah--!"
The terrified believers screamed in terror.
Li Shanji covered her mouth tightly, not daring to utter a sound. Park Eunju and Kim Jihoon, who had just made a sound, were both dead.
What followed was pure slaughter; the Charred Corpses moved with incredible speed, each strike precisely killing one person.
Some tried to escape, but the door wouldn't budge; some knelt and prayed, only to die even faster; a middle-aged man picked up a chair in resistance, and his head was severed the next second.
Li Shanji huddled in the corner, terrified but not losing her composure. Through observation, she discovered a strange pattern: the Charred Corpse would pause for about ten seconds after each kill, and it always prioritized attacking targets that made noise or moved.