Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System! - Chapter 373

Chapter 373: Hwanung The Son of Heaven’s Lord
There’s a story they don’t tell you in temples anymore.

Maybe because they forgot.

Or maybe because some fucker at the top decided humanity wasn’t ready to remember who first taught them how to walk without chains.

Before kings wore crowns, before gods started scribbling rules in stone, there was a sky—raw, endless, mean—and there was Hwanung.

Not some polite boy in white robes floating down on golden clouds, nah.

He was born from thunder that didn’t apologize, from light that didn’t ask permission.

The son of Hwanin, the Lord of the Heavens—a being older than mortal fear itself.

And Hwanung?

He didn’t want the sky.

Didn’t want the endless throne.

Didn’t even want the whole “obey me” crap that gods usually foamed at the mouth for.

He wanted the mess.

The dirt. The blood. The sweet, brutal humanity choking and fighting in the mud.

He wanted to live.

So one day, when the stars were still reckless teenagers themselves, Hwanung stood before Hwanin, shoulders squared like a soldier who’d already made up his damn mind.

> “Let me go,” he said, voice like stormwinds. “Let me go down there. I’ll build something worth bowing to.”

Hwanin stared at him a long time.

Maybe he thought about burning him to ash. Maybe he thought about locking him behind some cosmic gate forever.

But in the end?

He smiled—a slow, dangerous thing—and said:

> “Then go, my son. But know this:

What you build… they will destroy.

What you love… they will betray.

And what you teach… they will forget.”

And Hwanung just laughed, a low reckless sound, and he fucking jumped—down through the vaults of heaven, tearing open a thousand skies like a comet shot from the bones of the universe. He fell to Earth with three thousand loyal spirits riding the slipstream behind him, landing in the wild, furious cradle of Mount Taebaek.

And there, in a world of snarling beasts and screaming storms, Hwanung carved out a city from the ribs of the mountain itself.

A sacred place. A breathing testament to what could be when a god wasn’t just trying to rule—but trying to teach.

He didn’t just bless the crops.

He fucking invented agriculture.

He didn’t just preach about laws.

He built justice from the ground up, threw it at the feet of humans like a weapon, told them:

> “Wield this. Shape your own goddamn fate.”

And the humans, broken and savage and stupid and beautiful, loved him for it.

It was in those early days—when the world still smelled like fresh rain and uncut stone—that the Bear and the Tiger came.

Desperate. Hungry. Wanting more than what blood and fang had given them.

You know the story:

Garlic. Mugwort. A cave.

One beast stubborn enough, desperate enough, dreaming enough to endure. The Bear became a woman. And her son? Dangun Wanggeom—the first king of Korea. A bloodline soaked not in royal decree, but in fucking willpower.

But here’s the part they left out.

Hwanung didn’t stay.

He didn’t grow old and die like some fairy tale king. He watched the humans rise. Watched them start wars, crown idiots, forget their promises.

The world moved on like he was never there. Temples once carved in his name were melted into new shrines for louder gods. The children of the humans he loved forgot his voice. His laws, once sacred and clean, were twisted, corrupted, sold. People started preaching salvation like candy and licking gold off altars like it tasted holy.

And when the smell of greed drowned out the scent of rain—when the temples built for wisdom began auctioning truth—when the children of the children of the children couldn’t even remember his goddamn name—

He walked away.

He walked out of history.

Slipped between the cracks of memory, into a place where forgotten gods nursed their broken dreams like old battle wounds.

And maybe—just maybe—he’s still there.

Waiting for a human crazy enough, furious enough, alive enough…

to make him remember why the fuck he jumped in the first place which had led to the death of his physical body.

****

Weeks later after his arrival in Korea, Hwanung realized that adapting to this crazy, beautiful, chaotic world wasn’t just possible — it was inevitable.

At first, hell yeah, it had been rough. Like being dropped naked into a blizzard and being told to dance.

Nothing felt right — the sounds, the smells, the constant low buzz of smartphones and neon dreams, the obsession with appearances, the stupid way people cared about clicks and views like it was some kind of divine currency. He’d stumbled a lot those first days, not because he was weak — please — but because this world spun too damn fast even for someone born from the marrow of heaven.

At first, Hwanung hated it.

He hated the chaos, the noise, the way trainee life at NY Agency felt less like training and more like surviving a full-blown warzone.

Waking up before dawn, running drills until his muscles screamed for mercy, vocal lessons that tore his throat raw, dance practices that left puddles of sweat on the floor—and if you even thought about complaining, someone would remind you a hundred trainees were waiting to take your spot.

The mortal world was brutal.

And fame? Fame wasn’t handed out like blessings. It was clawed, fought, earned through blood and exhaustion and an iron will not to collapse.

At first, he slipped.

He missed a cue here. Lagged a beat there. Got barked at by trainers who had no idea they were yelling at a literal son of heaven. Sometimes he’d stand there, panting, dripping sweat not because he was tired but thinking, What the fuck am I doing here?

But pride, that damn celestial pride, stitched him back together every time.

But that was the thing about being the son of the Lord of Heaven. Adaptation wasn’t just a survival trait. It was in his veins. Carved into his bones. Baked into the golden core of his spirit. He wasn’t just smart — he was dangerous smart. One of a kind. And when push came to shove, he bent. He twisted. He learned.

He was Hwanung.

Not a boy. Not a mortal. A being who once ruled the winds themselves. Adaptation wasn’t just in his blood — it was his blood.

And slowly, painfully, he carved himself into this new world.

He mastered the routines, picked up the rhythms, adjusted his breathing like the beat of the universe itself.

His teachers stopped barking at him. His fellow trainees started whispering about him. His performances began to shine—not the practiced shine of mortals, but something deeper, something that slipped under your skin and made you look, and look again, and feel like maybe you’d missed something important if you looked away.

He adapted because he had to.

Because surviving wasn’t enough.

He had to win.

And maybe it wasn’t just his looks—or just his voice—or just that unnerving charisma that seemed woven straight into the fabric of his being. Maybe it was all of it, knotted together in the inescapable reality that he was born from the bloodline of gods. Even hidden in mortal skin, his presence was like a gravitational pull, dragging fate toward him one fan at a time.

The agency caught on fast.

The NY Agency — whatever the hell NY even stood for, no one actually knew and the higher-ups weren’t telling — wasn’t half-bad, either.

Not the nightmare factory he’d half-expected from all the human horror stories he overheard about agencies chewing people up and spitting them out like gum on hot pavement. They treated him good. Respected his space. Let him figure things out without micromanaging every breath he took. It was almost like… they knew he wasn’t the usual kid walking in off the street.

(And if they didn’t know, well, their instincts were damn good.)

And Jaehee… gods bless her stubborn, fiery, ridiculous mortal heart. She stuck to him like a lifeline. Pushed him when he faltered. Defended him when the industry vultures circled. When he rose, she rose with him—his manager, his shield, his first real friend on this crazy Earth.

Jaehee had been his anchor in all of it.

She didn’t just help him — she hauled him out of the quicksand with her bare hands.

Like she’d promised that day.

She stuck around through the awkward voice lessons where he accidentally hit notes that made dogs bark.

She clapped like a goddamn lunatic during his first pathetic dance practices where he almost broke his own ankle trying to moonwalk.

She even showed up with greasy convenience store food on nights he was too exhausted to spell his own name.

It didn’t surprise anyone when, not long after his first hit song blew up and his accidental guest role in a drama turned him into that guy everyone’s little sister was obsessing over, NY officially made Jaehee his manager.

Honestly, it felt more like destiny than paperwork.

Life started making sense again.

The awkwardness, the off-ness, the whole alien sensation of being a god trapped inside a mortal rhythm — it faded, like static dissolving into real music.

Now, Hwanung woke up every day in a world that fit. Like slipping into a skin he hadn’t even known was waiting for him.

But was life that peaceful with dark forces in background?