"Enough!" the president jumped to his feet. "Immediately declare a state of emergency, mobilize all available forces, and eliminate the target at all costs!"
"If all else fails, then we should ask the international community for help. Doesn't the Vatican have a True God? Surely the Holy See won't just stand by and watch us suffer? Even if we have to use moral blackmail, we must get the Holy See to help us!"
"The economy..." the Minister wanted to say more.
"To hell with the economy!" The president finally snapped. "If this continues, South Korea will be finished!"
Seeking international assistance is clearly not a viable option, as all countries are deeply embroiled in the dangers of supernatural events and lack any effective, universally applicable solutions. Even if they did, they might not be willing to help South Korea.
The United Nations only offers a few nice words of support, but provides no real help whatsoever.
As for the Holy See Vatican?
We're too busy conquering Italy to bother with tiny South Korea.
The Charred Corpse corpses are spreading, and within the South Korea government, some are still calculating how to maximize their own interests in this disaster.
This supernatural event has been delayed indefinitely!
The sky over Seoul was covered by a layer of leaden-gray clouds, as if foreshadowing something ominous.
Soon, the Blue House convened another meeting, this time specifically inviting a newly established domestic research institution specializing in supernatural powers.
Kang Min-jeong sat at the end of the long table, her fingers unconsciously stroking the edge of the tablet computer, which displayed surveillance footage taken at the subway station at the time of the incident.
"According to existing data, the target is sensitive to sound and rapid movement," Colonel Choi of the South Korea Institute of Supernatural Studies pointed to the projection screen. "Decibel tests show that sounds exceeding 30 decibels will immediately trigger its attack behavior, and a human moving at a speed exceeding 1.5 meters per second will also trigger a reaction."
The pattern of this Fierce Ghost's killings is relatively simple and easily discernible.
A murmur rippled through the conference room, Kang Min-jeong noticed that the president, sitting in the head seat, was looking increasingly grim.
"So what do you suggest we do?" The president's voice held suppressed anger. "Turn all of Seoul into a silent library?"
Kang Min-jeong took a deep breath and raised her hand while the others hesitated, "I think we can establish an isolation zone."
Her voice was exceptionally clear in the quiet meeting room. "The target's current activity area is limited to the subway station and a 1000-meter radius around it. If we can evacuate the residents within this area and establish a soundproof zone, we can at least prevent the situation from escalating further."
The Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport scoffed. "Dr. Kang, do you know how many people live in that area? And it's so close to the business center. Do you know how much economic damage a lockdown would cause?"
"Is it greater than the loss of life every day?" Kang Min-jeong looked directly at the other person, her voice still calm, but her fingertips were already digging into her palm. "Do you know how high the death toll has already been? Every day that's delayed, that number will increase rapidly!"
Silence fell over the conference room. The president rubbed his temples. "Dr. Jiang, can you guarantee the effectiveness of this method?"
"We can't guarantee it, but based on the available data, this is the least risky option," Kang Min-jeong said, pulling up a set of charts. "We've tested it; in complete silence, the target enters a dormant state, and it seems to require external stimuli to react."
The meeting lasted six hours, and finally, at the president's behest, an emergency plan called "Silence Project" was approved. Kang Min-jeong was appointed as the deputy head of a special research team, responsible for analyzing the behavioral patterns of the Charred Corpses and finding a way to completely solve the problem.
When Kang Min-jeong walked out of the government building, it was already late at night. The neon lights of Seoul were still flashing, but there was an eerie darkness in one direction, where blackout measures had begun.
Her phone vibrated; it was a message from her mother. "Min-jung, there are new findings in your father's accident investigation report. Come home and talk about it."
Kang Min-jeong's finger hovered above the screen. Her father was also a Scholar who studied supernatural powers. Since the establishment of the Supernatural Research Institute in South Korea, her father had always been at the forefront and put forward many useful ideas.
Not long ago, her father suddenly died tragically in an accident. Others might not know, but Kang Min-jeong and her mother knew that her father seemed to have made a significant discovery about the supernatural in the period before his death.
The suspicious nature of her father's death immediately led Kang Min-jeong to suspect a conspiracy in South Korea!
She looked up at the darkness in the distance, a strange emotion flashing in her eyes.
Three days later, the fastest large-scale evacuation in history was completed within a one-kilometer radius of the subway station where the Charred Corpse was located.
Citing a "toxic gas leak," the South Korea government mobilized the military and police to evacuate local residents within 48 hours. Special engineering units worked through the night to establish three thick isolation barriers around the cordoned-off area.
Wearing protective clothing, Kang Min-jeong stood observing from the innermost layer of the isolation wall. Through the specially made soundproof glass, she could clearly see the charred figure on the street near the subway station. It stood there, motionless, like a charred sculpture.
"All monitoring equipment has been replaced with infrared and laser sensing systems, producing zero noise," the technician reported in a low voice. "The drones are also equipped with silent propellers and can conduct Observations at an altitude of 300 meters."
Kang Min-jeong nodded, her gaze never leaving the figure. "Is its temperature reading still abnormal?"
"It remained at the same temperature as the environment and showed no signs of life, completely violating common biological sense," the technician said, his voice filled with confusion and fear.
Kang Min-jeong nodded. The observations over the past 72 hours confirmed that the Charred Corpse did indeed follow a certain pattern: sound and rapid movement would activate it, while in an absolutely quiet environment, it would remain still.
But disturbingly, its sensing range appears to be slowly expanding.
"Dr. Jiang, you should take a look at this." Another researcher handed her a report, "The New Dawn Church has five survivors, but we only found four of them. During their medical examinations, we discovered the same marks on their bodies."
Kang Min-jeong quickly scanned the documents. "Everyone has a black handprint on their body. What does that mean? Is it marking their prey?"
"Uncertain. But what's even stranger..." the researcher whispered, "According to the surveillance footage, when the first victim died at the subway station, the Charred Corpse wasn't even at the scene. It... appeared suddenly."
Kang Min-jeong felt a chill creep up her spine. If Charred Corpses could suddenly appear regardless of physical space, then the purpose of the isolation zone would be greatly diminished.
Just as she was about to ask for more details, the alarm system suddenly emitted a silent, flashing warning—a silent alarm specially designed for the quarantine zone.
On the monitor screen, the Charred Corpse's head slowly turned; although it had no eyes, everyone felt it was "looking" in a certain direction.
Kang Min-jeong followed its gaze and saw the location of a temporary resettlement point outside the isolation wall.
"What happened there?" she typed urgently to the technician. Everyone in the quarantine area was forbidden to speak; they could only communicate via text and avoid any sound.
Technicians pulled up external surveillance footage, which showed a group of protesters gathering outside the resettlement site, holding up signs that read "The government is hiding the truth."
Although the distance was over 500 meters, their shouts and shoving clearly created a significant commotion.
"Immediately notify the police to evacuate the crowd!" Kang Min-jeong immediately and angrily gave the order, a string of curses already escaping her lips.
Are all these people idiots?
The government used the excuse of a toxic gas leak, but in reality, a supernatural event had occurred. Whether it was a toxic gas leak or a supernatural event, both are extremely dangerous. Why would these people approach such danger?
Kang Min-jeong failed to consider the emotions of the deceased's family, as well as the social underclass who, under immense pressure to survive, were eager to cause chaos.
It was all too late.
The Charred Corpse suddenly vanished, and the next second, screams erupted from the center of the protesting crowd outside the resettlement site.
The screams came through an external microphone and then stopped abruptly, revealing dozens of gruesome corpses on the ground.
Kang Min-jeong's blood instantly congealed; the Charred Corpse could indeed break through spatial limitations. This discovery plunged the entire research team into panic.
That evening, Kang Min-jeong returned to her temporary dormitory, wearily opened her laptop, and saw the attachment to the last email her father had sent her—a research note about "limiting supernatural powers."
The data in the notebook was very messy, with a lot of garbled characters, but Kang Min-jeong believed that her father would not send her an incorrect file for no reason, especially something sent before his death.
She suspects the document may be "encrypted" in some form, and she has been trying to crack it recently.
Outside the window, another commotion came from the direction of the quarantine zone, followed by sirens and more screams.
Kang Min-jeong was startled, guessing that the quarantine measures were probably failing.
As expected, the South Korea government convened an emergency meeting overnight.
The situation was worse than Kang Min-jeong had guessed.
The protesters' voices triggered the Charred Corpse's killing rules, and after committing the murder, the Charred Corpse disappeared without a trace!
The Charred Corpse was trapped in the quarantine zone. Although we didn't know what to do with it, at least its movement was restricted.
Its disappearance has only fueled greater panic, as no one knows where it might reappear and resume its killing spree.
On the projected map in the conference room, the red circles that originally represented the Charred Corpse's activity area had disappeared, replaced by a red question mark that kept flashing across the entire map of Seoul.
"Where did it go?" The president slammed his fist on the conference table, the teacup rattling loudly. Everyone involuntarily tensed up.
Fine beads of sweat appeared on the Minister's forehead. "None of the sensors detected any movement; it's like... like it vanished into thin air."
"Disappeared into thin air?" The president's voice suddenly rose, "Your military promised the quarantine zone would be foolproof! Now tell me a monster that can kill people instantly is roaming freely on the streets of Seoul?"
Kang Min-jeong discreetly observed the expressions of everyone present. The Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport kept wiping his glasses with a tissue; the Director of the Intelligence Bureau unconsciously tapped his fingers on the tablet; and the Presidential Envoy was expressionless, but the veins on his neck betrayed his true level of tension.
"Three hundred special forces soldiers, forty thermal imaging drones, and a satellite surveillance system provided by the US..." The Minister slammed his fist on the table in frustration, the coffee cup vibrating and making a jarring sound. "And we couldn't even keep an eye on a single corpse?"
No one answered in the meeting room.
"Where will it go?" the president's voice was hoarse, unlike his own. "Seoul, or the whole country?"
"Dr. Kang," the president suddenly turned to Kang Min-jeong, "What discoveries has your research team made?"
Kang Min-jeong took a deep breath and pulled up a set of data charts. "Based on our previous observations, the Charred Corpse's activities seem to follow a certain pattern, but as its killings increase, the pattern is changing in its favor, meaning that the restrictions it faces when killing are becoming smaller and smaller..."
Kang Min-jeong tried to maintain a professional tone, "This means its range of activities and capabilities could be significantly enhanced."
The conference room fell into a deathly silence. Suddenly, the president asked a chilling question, "Could it appear at the Blue House?"
This question exploded like a bomb in the room. The Minister Land, Infrastructure and Transport jumped to his feet. "The presidential palace must be evacuated immediately!"
"Calm down!" the Minister shouted sternly, "A large-scale evacuation will only cause greater panic. If the Charred Corpse is indeed sensitive to sound and movement, as Dr. Jiang claims, then a large-scale evacuation might actually attract it."
The president's gaze swept across everyone's faces. "A suggested solution?"
"A national state of emergency has been declared." The Minister immediately responded, "Special forces have been secretly mobilized, equipped with thermal imaging and infrasound detectors, to be eliminated immediately with silenced weapons upon detection."
Kang Min-jeong couldn't help but interject. "We don't yet know if physical attacks will be effective; acting rashly might backfire..."
"What insightful opinion does Dr. Jiang have?" the Minister coldly interrupted her. "Continue with 'observation and research'? Delaying will only cause more casualties!"
"That's precisely why we need to understand its essence!" Kang Min-jeong raised her voice, then realized her lapse and quickly lowered it, "Sorry... But according to the existing data, the Charred Corpse exhibits obvious supernatural characteristics, and conventional military methods are likely ineffective."
The Minister frowned and sighed deeply. He had heard of similar incidents in other countries, where such events were notoriously difficult to handle.
Previously, South Korea had only experienced a few minor supernatural incidents, which did not spread and could be resolved simply by sealing off the scene.
Now, such a powerful supernatural event has occurred without any apparent cause, leaving them utterly helpless.
Major powers don't publicly share their experience in handling supernatural events. Thinking of this, the Minister's voice sounded like it was being squeezed out from between his teeth, "Right now, we can only resort to the most primitive methods: a city-wide curfew, closure of all entertainment venues, school closures, speed limits on public transportation..."