Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Chapter 19. A New Identity

On the office TV screen, the devastated area around Gwanaksan Mountain came into view.

Police lines had been strung up everywhere, making the chaos obvious at a glance.

At the center of it all, a neatly dressed announcer adjusted his microphone and spoke in a composed tone.

《At approximately 2 p.m. today, the Yi-class evil spirit ‘Geogugwi,’ which appeared near Gwanaksan Mountain, was finally destroyed after a fierce battle with the suppression force. The operation was conducted jointly by ‘Cheongwa,’ the national anti-evil-spirit suppression unit, and an alliance of civilian exorcists.》

The screen changed to show the horrific wreckage at the scene.

Smoke rose from torn-up trees and ground charred black.

It looked as though the area had been bombed.

《However, several agents were injured during the operation and rushed to a nearby hospital. Cheongwa declined to disclose the exact scale of the casualties, but Director Lee Seo-jin stated that they were ‘unavoidable sacrifices made to protect the safety of the people,’ and pledged to continue doing everything possible for national security.》

“Damn it.”

Inside the Director's office, Lee Seo-jin pressed the remote and shut off the TV.

As silence settled over the room, he clutched his head.

A throbbing pain ran through his temples.

Unlike the composed figure shown on television, his fingertips trembled faintly.

Taking down a single Yi-class evil spirit had cost the lives of three elite Bing- and Yi-class agents, while ten more had suffered crippling injuries.

Losses that would have been unimaginable if Kang Do-jun were still here.

‘Evil spirits are appearing more frequently. We can't afford to keep losing personnel like this.’

Roughly thirty months remained until the ‘Day of the Darkest Night’ foretold by countless shamans and prophecies.

They were training talent and gathering ritual artifacts from every corner of the country to prepare for the day the world would turn upside down... But at this rate, it was no different from pouring water into a bottomless jar.

Lee Seo-jin took a deep breath and opened a desk drawer.

When he pressed a groove at the bottom, a hidden compartment appeared, revealing a small safe. Seo-jin entered a nine-digit code and opened it.

The password was the date on which he had once suffered humiliation at the hands of a certain man.

Click! Beep-beep!

Inside was a magatama commonly used by Japanese onmyoji.

The unusual part was that this was no ordinary magatama—it was a horrific thing covered in human skin, flesh, bone, eyeballs, and other remains.

The moment he placed his hand on it.

Seo-jin's body trembled, goosebumps spreading across his entire body.

‘Right... If there's no other choice, I'll have to use ‘that method.’’

Just as his face twisted grotesquely.

BANG!

“D-Director!”

The door suddenly burst open, and his secretary hurried inside.

Seo-jin quickly shoved the drawer closed and spoke with murderous eyes.

“I believe I told you... to always knock before entering.”

“I'm sorry! There was something urgent I had to report...”

“Haaa, speak.”

“We've reached settlements with the bereaved families from the Gwanaksan incident, and all the injured have received spiritual medicine. And... the remains of Geogugwi were sent to Mokmyeoksan Workshop to commission ritual artifacts.”

“Fine. Anything else?”

“...Please take a look at this.”

Wiping away cold sweat, the secretary held out a document envelope.

The front bore the simple abbreviation ‘K-Investigation Report.’

Seo-jin's eyes narrowed. The K written there... referred to Kang Do-jun, once the central pillar of Cheongwa and South Korea's number-one exorcist.

He roughly snatched the documents and scanned their contents.

The secretary continued with a deeply tense expression.

“Based on our tracking, we believe there's a high probability that... he died somewhere around LA after being possessed by an evil spirit while deprived of spiritual power. We believe the unidentified Asian death attached there may have been Kang Do-jun.”

“So what you're telling me is... Kang Do-jun died alone in America?”

“Yes. That appears highly likely.”

“Don't make me laugh. There's no way...”

Seo-jin shook his head at the secretary, who was still spouting nonsense.

The secretary hurriedly added.

“W-We also... attached every incident that might possibly be connected to him.”

An enormous list containing hundreds of cases.

As Seo-jin read through it, several entries caught his eye.

【B-rank Evil Spirit Annabelle Doll Missing】

【Mass Disappearance of High-Ranking Vampires in Brooklyn】

【Mysterious Death of Chaebol Heir and Occult Artifact Collector】

Each looked like an ordinary accidental death or disappearance, but all shared one common trait.

‘The stories have been cut off without any context. As if something overwhelmingly powerful simply swept through and erased everything in its path.’

Lee Seo-jin knew very well.

In this industry... incidents on this scale never happened by coincidence.

That was when it happened.

A sharp voice scraped against his ears.

《From here... I can hear him. That arrogant, noisy bastard.》

Beside Seo-jin appeared a Prince Ghost, half its face rotten and the other half resembling an infant, whispering into his ear in a voice like metal scraping against metal.

It had only ever reacted like this to one person.

‘You can hear Kang Do-jun?’

《I'm not certain.》

His eyes trembled faintly.

Seo-jin quickly grabbed a red pen, marked several incidents on the list, and handed it back to the secretary.

“Dig deeper into every case I've marked.”

“What? But the local police and Association already seem ready to close them as ordinary cases, so there isn't any more information...”

“No. Order the ‘Inrang’ to investigate them directly.”

The secretary's face filled with shock.

“You mean the Inrang?”

Inrang, the Human Mantises.

The name referred to black agents deployed overseas from the anti-anomaly units under the National Intelligence Service.

Human weapons who would carry out any dirty work without hesitation if it served the country.

Every one of them was at least Bing-class, with even Jia-class exorcists occasionally said to be among their ranks.

Requesting their deployment meant Lee Seo-jin considered this matter extremely serious.

“Yeah. Tell them it's connected to Kang Do-jun... They'll come running with their eyes turned inside out. Those bastards always had a massive inferiority complex toward him. I'll contact them personally. You handle everything afterward. And make sure none of this leaks outside.”

“U-Understood.”

The secretary nodded and left the room...

“Go ahead and hide, Kang Do-jun. I'll make sure... you never escape my shadow for as long as you live.”

Lee Seo-jin's lips split into a grin like an evil spirit's.

***

Inside Kang Do-jun's hideout on the top floor of an abandoned building in Brooklyn.

Seolhwi, the White Tiger Spirit, lay curled up like a cat on the bed in the form of a tiger as large as a house, grooming his fur.

Perhaps because he had once crossed the threshold of death, the spiritual energy flowing over his silver-white fur felt far clearer and sharper than before.

Suddenly, Seolhwi stopped moving and his yellow eyes flashed.

Blue-white lightning crackled between his bristling fur.

《So those Joseon bastards... dared to betray you?》

“Yeah. Well, that's what happened.”

Sitting cross-legged on the floor and steadily moving his brush, Do-jun merely nodded in response.

Red cinnabar ink spread across the yellow talisman paper in strange patterns.

《Let's go back to Joseon right now! I won't feel better until I twist every last one of their necks off myself!》

Seolhwi sprang from the bed and began pacing around the living room.

With his back arched like an angry cat and a growl rumbling from his throat, he looked ready to cross the Pacific and charge straight into Korea.

《After everything you've done for them! How dare those rat bastards stand in your way! I'll go there myself and turn this Cheongwa or whatever it's called into a sea of blood!》

“Forget it.”

Do-jun gathered the finished talismans into a neat stack and wrapped a rubber band around them.

His hands didn't waver in the slightest as he placed them aside.

“Even if we go back now, I can't take on an organization that huge by myself. It'll only cause trouble. Besides, your power is pathetically weak right now, Spirit.”

《Urk! P-Pathetically weak?!》

Seolhwi recoiled a step as though struck where it hurt.

But... just as Kang Do-jun had said, Seolhwi's current power was nowhere near his prime, leaving him with no argument.

《Then borrow the power of that brute Wakan Tanka! That old man could probably swallow those traitors in one bite!》

“He's a god of this land. And if I'm going to keep my promise to the mediums who once served him, I need to remain here anyway.”

《A p-promise... can be finished after we visit Joseon! It's our homeland...》

“And Spirit, if we're going to take proper revenge, we need to use our heads. Charging in blindly is the worst possible move.”

Seolhwi snorted angrily.

《Then what the hell are you planning to do in this land of rootless long-noses?!》

“This country of long-noses has hundreds of times more opportunities than Joseon ever did. The amount of money and glory you can enjoy if you succeed is on an entirely different scale. This time, I'm going to build an organization of my own without belonging to anyone.”

Do-jun pulled out his vape and put it between his lips.

Thick vapor filled the room.

“It won't be too late to return to Joseon for revenge afterward. More importantly, I need to build my strength like this if I want to prepare for the ‘Day of the Darkest Night.’ For Joseon... and for myself.”

《Ghhh... You're not wrong.》

At the mention of those words, Seolhwi's expression visibly hardened before he lowered his head in reluctant agreement.

No further explanation was needed. The two shared the same fear and sense of duty regarding the approaching day.

Just as the mood grew heavy, someone knocked on the hideout door.

Knock, knock-knock.

Do-jun immediately put on his mask and grabbed the Seven Star Sword leaning against the wall.

After carefully checking the energy seeping through the crack, he opened the door to find a familiar masked man... Clock Rabbit.

Noticing the wariness in Do-jun's eyes, Michael lightly raised both hands.

“I came because the matter you requested has been taken care of.”

Do-jun lowered his sword and let him inside.

“That was fast. You must've had a mountain of work cleaning up the club and handling the aftermath.”

It had only been three days since the bloody battle with Smithers.

Michael answered with a sharp smile beneath his mask.

“You saved our lives. Naturally, this was my highest priority. My capable subordinates are handling our own affairs just fine. By next week... we'll reopen both the Underworld Board and the club.”

“Good.”

Do-jun nodded.

‘As expected... these guys are pretty competent.’

The members of Club Alice might not amount to much in combat, but when it came to information warfare and underworld administration, they were frighteningly efficient.

They were pieces that would remain useful for a long time.

And the reason they were being so accommodating was undoubtedly because they didn't want to lose the enormous shield known as Do-jun.

They needed each other.

A mutually beneficial relationship.

“Here.”

Michael pulled a thick document envelope from inside his coat and handed it over.

When Do-jun opened it, he found identification papers and several other documents inside.

“From now on, this is your identity. Your name is ‘Terry Kang.’ We set you up as a third-generation Korean American. Read the documents and memorize the remaining details.”

“Terry Kang...”

“You don't like it?”

“No. I like that it's ordinary.”

Whether by coincidence or design, it shared his original surname, making it easy enough to remember.

Along with the identification papers, the envelope contained an application for an exorcist license examination.

“The licensing exam is held at 123 William Street in Manhattan's Financial District. It's an official license issued by the New York State Department of State. With it, you'll be able to legally take almost any job in New York except for certain special cases. Is there... anything else you need?”

“This should be enough.”

Now it was time for a spectacular new beginning.

The Catastrophe-Class Exorcist Is Too Strong in America

Author

: Gisigami

Production Date

: September 15, 2026

Publisher

: ACES Media Co., Ltd.

Editor

: ACES Media Editorial Team

Address

: 12F, Urban Bench Building, 325 Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Email

: acesmedia9@gmail.com

※ This work was published by ACES Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder,

and its contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and the author.

This e-book is a copyrighted work protected by copyright law, and unauthorized reproduction or redistribution may result in legal liability.

UCI

: G720:N+A129-20260914068