I Saw a Giant (New Book, Please Vote with Monthly Tickets)

The voice was heavy and powerful, shouted in a rhythmic cadence, accompanied by heavy stomps that gave it a rustic, ancient feel.

It was like the Fishing Horn sung by fishermen heading out to sea from the harbor.

The Spell seemed to use the same language as his own, but it was far too ancient and had strange pronunciations, making it sound mysterious and bizarre.

Han Su listened and listened, then slowly opened his mouth and began to chant.

What he chanted was "Divine Decree," but because he was too focused and his thoughts were too intense, it seemed to faintly stir his mind—or perhaps his taut nerves—causing his tongue to knot slightly.

The instant those simple words left his mouth, they abruptly turned into a mysterious, indistinct language, unlike the one he was used to speaking. The syllables and cadence were even vaguely similar to those coming from the recorder.

It was incomparably smooth and utterly natural, nothing like the obscurity and difficulty Black Rose had described. With the slightest movement of thought, the Spell flowed completely from his tongue.

In his daze, as he chanted those Spells, he seemed to feel his body lose weight for an instant, as if some invisible force had suddenly wrapped around him and dragged him into another world.

Beyond layer upon layer of space, he saw countless towering, hazy shadows surrounding him. As the Spell sounded, they slowly opened their eyes.

Han Su felt their gazes. He raised his head, like an ant looking up at the sky, meeting some mysterious, unknown thing looking down upon him.

Eye to eye.

Han Su's heart suddenly became incomparably calm.

It was as if everything were drifting away, only for a vast ocean to appear in his mind the next moment.

It was difficult to describe the strange, mysterious feeling of that instant.

Han Su only felt that his thoughts and spirit had suddenly taken on a tangible form.

It was like a sea so clear that, because of its absolute clarity, one could barely see the existence of "water" at all and could see straight to the bottom.

Yet the Spell he had uttered stirred up waves, causing ripples to form in that invisible water and making it visible before his eyes instead.

He almost instinctively knew what it was.

It was spirit. His own Mental Power was everywhere and accompanied him at every moment, yet ordinarily it was difficult to perceive clearly—until his "spirit" began to move.

Once it moved, it needed an outlet.

Han Su did not know whether his Mental Power was stronger than other people's or whether it was something else entirely. He only felt his brain throbbing violently as that unrestrained ocean crashed back and forth inside his head, stirring up wave after wave of terrifying turbulence.

But whenever it was about to burst out of his skull, it was squeezed back in by "himself"—or rather, by his body.

Vaguely, Han Su seemed to understand why:

Spirit did not belong to reality, so it could affect reality, but it was not permitted to enter reality directly.

That was a rule.

Yet the restriction that rule imposed on spirit lasted only until that Mental Power reached his right eye. Then an agonizing pain suddenly rose from that right eye, which had long been dead and silent.

For an instant, Han Su even thought the place where his right eye had been had exploded.

The violent impact hurt even more than taking a full-force punch, except this punch was striking outward from inside his head.

Countless illusions appeared at that moment, like the stars flashing before one's eyes after being punched, or countless twisted images unfolding before Han Su's eyes.

He seemed to see a giant.

It looked exactly like the giant in the Ancient Castle, except it was far larger—so large that the naked eye could not take in its full form.

When it stood, it was nearly shoulder to shoulder with mountains, beyond what reality could contain. When it sat there, even the black, sunspot-covered sun was blocked behind it, and the shadow it cast seemed capable of covering an entire nation.

Countless raggedly dressed people knelt before it in worship.

Countless strange altars had been built for it, and countless poems and offerings had been designed around it.

A mysterious, crazed feeling surged wildly from those fragmented images and overwhelmed Han Su in an instant.

But the illusion flickered only a few times before vanishing as though the power had been cut.

The Mental Power that had surged into his right eye was once again forced back by the rule that "spirit was not permitted to manifest directly in reality."

For a time, Han Su's head felt as though it had been ground to pieces. All his spirit, memories, and thoughts lost control, rising and falling like a furious ocean.

He could only remain frozen there, utterly motionless, letting that ocean gradually subside on its own.

"I..."

He did not know how long it took before the intense dizziness finally faded. He blankly raised his head, slowly lowered the hand covering his right eye, and tried hard to open it.

"Still can't see?"

"But this Spell, this Spell..."

Han Su sat there quietly, yet his thoughts surged like a tide, and he could barely suppress his emotions.

The Spell worked.

But why had nothing appeared in his eye?

By Song Chushi's logic, if it could truly awaken some mysterious power, wouldn't that be enough to prove the existence of monsters to others?

Yet things seemed different from what he had imagined. Outwardly, nothing had changed at all, but internally, in his own perception, his head—or rather, his brain—had already suffered a brutal torment.

The ocean-like Mental Power in his mind was restricted by the rules and could not enter reality. His right eye seemed to be a gap, but that gap had not opened...

Would it work if it opened?

Should he try again?

The thought was so strong, but then he remembered the intense pain and dizziness from his previous attempt and forced himself to stop.

To put that pain vividly, it was like being struck hard with an eighty-pound sledgehammer.

The kind of blow that burst outward from the inside.

Or rather, it was like some extremely brutal method was tearing open the scar over his right eye, which had healed for ten years.

"I'm still a little afraid of pain..."

Han Su admitted that he was not tough enough. "So at the very least, I need to bite down on a towel before trying again."

He stood up and fetched a towel from the bathroom. Glancing casually at the mirror, he saw that although his scar-covered right eye was still closed, it seemed to be faintly seeping blood.

Han Su stared at it for a while, then suddenly grinned. His mood unexpectedly soared with delight.

"My eye is bleeding. That's a good thing."

"What blind eye that's been dead for ten years would start bleeding for no reason?"

"This proves even more that the Spell works. Because I chanted it, this eye changed."

"..."

With the towel clenched between his teeth, Han Su sat on the stool and touched his eye. Nearly unable to wait, he was like a masochist preparing to begin a second attempt.

"Hm?"

But at that instant, a cold, eerie gust suddenly blew in through the window behind him.

Han Su froze slightly and looked toward the window, a feeling of surprise rising in his heart.

"I think I closed the window just now?"

But now the window was wide open. Cold wind passed through it, gently lifting the curtain by the window before letting it slowly fall again.

Han Su stared blankly at the window for a long, long time. Then goosebumps suddenly rose all over his body.

He did not know how to describe the feeling. From where he stood, the pitch-black Night Sky outside held only distant household lights and strange neon signs.

Yet it felt as though something had suddenly fixed its gaze on him, filling him with a hair-raising dread. He immediately stood up.

The feeling was almost identical to the one he had felt when those monsters in the Ancient Castle stared at him.

He knew this feeling.

But he was in reality now, in the present...

"No, I celebrated too early..."

After standing there in a daze for a moment, he suddenly remembered what Black Rose had warned him about.

If the Spell was fake, that was not frightening.

What was frightening was if it was real. Whether it could activate anything remained uncertain, but the first person to chant the Spell would definitely encounter some kind of change.

Perhaps a crisis born from having one's life forcibly twisted.

Or perhaps the attention of some unknown entity?

"Damn..."

The night grew deeper, and the surroundings grew quieter. Han Su sat silently, staring out the window.

The prickling dread in his heart grew stronger and stronger, as if some monster were crouching outside the window, ready to crawl in at any moment.

In the Ancient Castle, those monsters had been visible. Once Han Su saw them, he could at least think rationally—whether to run or hide. But this time, he was in reality, encountering such things in the "present."

Han Su could not see them, but he could feel that something was approaching, that something was taking effect. He knew it, yet could not see it. The tension made his body stiffen.

"Ring-ring-ring!"

Just as he was tensely on guard, the phone beside him suddenly rang. In the deathly silent environment, it gave Han Su quite a fright.

The prickling dread in his heart was instantly startled away. In his daze, he even wondered whether it had all been an illusion.

Looking down, he saw it was Xu Ji.

"Old Han, Old Han?"

The moment he answered, a shout rang from the receiver. "Help..."

Hearing Xu Ji's cry, Han Su jolted and sprang to his feet. "What happened?"

Xu Ji's voice immediately came through the phone. "There are too many pretty girls here. I can't handle them. Come help me take two off my hands..."

"?"

Han Su stood there for several seconds before realizing what had happened. He nearly hurled the phone away.

Gritting his teeth, he said, "You idiot!!"

"..."

But then Xu Ji's voice suddenly came through the phone again. "Haha, I'm kidding. I'm downstairs at your place. Come down already..."

"Fine!"

Han Su went to the window and glanced down, then coldly warned him, "Stay right there. I'm getting a knife first!"