Page 199 of Light Leech

Crucible

“See, I told you he would make it!” Don slapped me on the back as I followed the escort to take my seat at the ring table. The room looked like the previous council room, only larger. It reminded me of the research room I had just been in with the pyramid, though this one had a circular table like the first one. The ring table was much wider and looked down onto a pit with a prism twice as large as the other.

“Sit,” Kim commanded, not acknowledging Don’s comment.

I sat and looked at the equipment inside the room. Multiple metal cubes and rectangular prisms with light lines and screens all over their faces bordered the room. Light lines connected them to the central prism. Dokkaebi drifted inside, watching me as I sat. His image was much clearer, no longer looking like a projection, but an actual creature inside of the glass prism. I knew it was still incorporeal, but wondered what difference Kim’s final touch would make.

“Is that everyone?” a woman asked as she stood.

Everyone looked around, nodded, then focused on Kim as he spoke. “Thank you for your cooperation. Everything has been uncannily smooth thus far and I can only hope that it will conclude in a similar manner.”

“Transfer it over already,” Dokkaebi said.

Kim cleared his throat and smiled, though it was not as confident a look as he usually had. “Y-yes. Of course. As I was saying, this final addition to Dokkaebi should push everything back into order here and connect us to all the intelligence we need to proceed with the next step in pushing the tide for Gong’s rebirth.”

“I fail to see what this creature can do for us,” a man complained.

“What about the financial implications?” a woman asked.

“I am also concerned with the cost of feeding this—“

“Then you don’t understand the purpose of the Correction!” Kim shouted.

The complaints continued.

“What’s with the presentation? Just get it over with already.”

“What about Deleon’s other former servants?”

“Do we even know if there has been measured fetal growth in the last year?”

“What will this do to you, Dear Leader?”

He slammed his fist on the table. “I don’t know what it will do to me! But what is the difference between you and me? I–I don’t let these petty concerns h-hold me back!“ He took a deep breath and stomped over to a seat that looked like an electrocution chair with thick violet light lines tying it to the peak of Dokkaebi’s prism.

His hands shook and he winced as the center of his chest opened with a hiss of pressure. His outer arms then connected a series of probes to the homunculus within. The chest closed after he finished, leaving only a slight crack in the middle for the probes to stick out.

“Initiate it already, Light damn it!” he demanded to anyone who would respond.

A woman in a tight pantsuit under her robe paced towards the prism beside him, her heels knocking against the tile and echoing throughout the room.

“Are you ready, sir?” she asked after tapping one of the prism’s panels a few times.

He sighed. “You see what this is? Unbridled passion for the tide. If losing the Light Leech that guides me takes my life as it did with a few of the others, so be it. None of you should be concerned about my life, but–”

“Mine and our true Dear Leader,“ Dokkaebi said. “I’ll be delicate with you, Kim, don’t worry. Initiate it now, ma’am.”

The woman nodded and tapped the panel.

The machine projected a diagram on the wall. A triangle was on the left with six icons shaped like Dokkaebi’s head. To the right was a rectangle with a single Dokkaebi icon in its center. A light line connected the two, then with a flash, every light line in the room glowed bright and began to pulse. The pulsations began like a slow heartbeat, then gradually increased as light moved through their circuit, into the machine holding Kim, then into the prism.

“I’m already feeling more restored,” Dokkaebi sighed.

The pulsations reached a rapid rhythm, then reverted to a slower pace.

“What is happening?” Kim asked.

The woman stepped back from the machine. “I-I–”