Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

The influencer took a photo of her. "What's your Insta? Or do you only commune with spirits?"

Only one host didn't laugh. A younger man, eyes thoughtful, was scrolling something on his tablet—likely cross-referencing ancient Korean lore.

"So… Daegon," he said, voice uneven. "A dragon-titan guardian turned executioner, corrupted by unrequited love, who slew Hwanung beneath a blood-red moon. Quite the bedtime story."

The historian cleared his throat. "Remarkable. But… did you—er, did you get paid by Sophisticated Space? You know, Seoryeon's company? Or is this some viral marketing stunt for that new artist, 'Deagon'—spelled D‑E‑A‑G‑O‑N?"

A ripple of nervous laughter followed. The skeptic host leaned forward, tapping her pen against her notes. "Yes, I mean—how much did you charge for this performance? Because I'd hate to think we're all sitting here dissecting a K‑drama promo."

But the veiled woman's voice dropped like cold iron:

"You mock the mountain. You mock the name. But when the air turns still again—when snow falls in summer, when gold turns to ash in your hands—you will remember what laughed last."

"A Netflix original," one sneered.

"You forgot the part where BTS saves the day," another added.

"Is Daegon single?" a third smirked. "Asking for my ex-wife."

The shaman stood slowly.

Her voice didn't rise.

It dropped—like a stone in the throat of time.

"When the sky blackens again… when your blood turns to frost in your veins… remember this night. And pray your laughter is the last thing you remember."

The screen glitched. Just once. A flicker.

Some said it was a broadcast error.

The studio was bright and buzzing, designed to distract. Warm lights gleamed off glass panels, cameras drifted with ghostlike smoothness, and everything—from the manicured anchors to the glistening mugs on the desk—radiated calculated control.

The six panelists sat in a semi-circle like idols on trial, each in their custom-tailored confidence, bathed in corporate perfection.

The segment was already trending on social media under tags like #DarkWinterDebunked and #ShamanGate, and yet, beneath all the lights and rehearsed smiles, something else had begun to stir. The kind of tension no director queues. The kind that hums when a truth, long buried, dares to rise in a place built to suppress it.

One anchor leaned forward, Ji-hye's hands laced like a prayer wrapped in skepticism.

"So. We've all heard what the mountain shamans are claiming. Let's give our viewers some grounding, yes? Professor Jin?"

The man in question gave a tight, practiced nod. He adjusted his glasses as if the gesture itself validated everything he was about to say. "Gladly," he said, his voice the verbal equivalent of polished marble. "The real story—the one taught in schools, enshrined in every heritage museum, is simple."

A dramatic pause. The cameras zoomed slightly, drawing the nation in.

"Thousands of years ago, the heavens opened, and Hwanung, son of the Heavenly Lord, descended upon the land. He brought law. Agriculture. Medicine. Order. He civilized the beasts and guided mankind out of chaos. He formed the very bedrock of Korea. There were, of course, minor threats—primitive dragons, rogue spirits, and wild chaos—but Hwanung was mercy made flesh. He subdued them, some say he even spared them. The ancient scrolls record no defeat. Not once. When he left this world, it was not by blade or betrayal, but by transcendence. He outgrew the mortal coil."

He smirked faintly, eyes flicking toward the crimson-robed woman.

"But now, apparently, we're expected to believe the guardian we honor—the immortal who civilized an entire people—was slain. By a rejected fake titan dragon who threw a tantrum because his mountain crush loved someone else."

Laughter rose from the panelists like a school of sharks scenting blood in the water.

"Ah yes," another host chimed in. "Love triangle apocalypse. Classic mythology rewrite."

The others and ones in the studio laughed too—some genuinely, others out of habit, a few perhaps just afraid not to.

And then the woman in red spoke.

"That version," she said calmly, "was written to bury the truth."

Her voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. It cut through the air like a thread drawn across skin. Cold. Final.

Silence fell like frost. Even the sound technician hesitated on his slider.

All eyes turned to her.

She hadn't moved once during the show. Crimson robes pooled around her feet like still blood. Symbols older than the language etched themselves into her sleeves. Her face was veiled in white and silver, and yet her presence was overwhelming—something rooted in stone and storm. She wasn't a guest. She was a witness.

"The stories you believe were curated by those who couldn't defeat him," she said. "So, they erased him instead."

A panelist snorted. "Here we go again. The classic 'hidden history' conspiracy."

Another smirked. "Then go ahead. Tell us who he really was—this 'Daegon' of yours."

The shaman's voice shifted then. It deepened—not in volume, but in gravity. It sounded like it had crawled out of a mountain and brought the echo of forgotten centuries with it.

And she told them the story.

Not the one etched in tourist-friendly scrolls.

Not the sanitized fables recited at festivals.

But the one the world forgot on purpose. How Daegon came to be before the encounter with the son of the Heavenly Lord or before he met the woman who became the reason for his corruption.

And when the tale about the real Daegon, the guardian before the corruption ended—when the studio had echoed with storms, when the weight of valleys crumbling beneath Daegon's fury had settled like dust over the set—there was no laughter.

Only stillness.

A stillness so thick it made every breath feel disrespectful. The temperature seemed to drop, not in degrees but in spirit, and even the lights—designed never to flicker—seemed just a little dimmer. No one moved. No one blinked. It was as if the story had made them forget they were part of a show, and for one suspended moment, they remembered they were mortals sitting in a myth's shadow.

Then the laughter came.

Nervous. Uneven. Not from confidence this time, but from the edges of fear.

The main anchor chuckled, too loudly, like a man trying to wrestle back control.

"So, what you're saying," he said, voice strained with levity, "is that the guardian who was worshiped, the protector honored back then in folklore, actually turned in the killer. A corrupted executioner. A monster born of heartbreak?"