Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System! - Chapter 374

Chapter 374: When Heaven Fell to Earth
He lived the life of a teenage god — lowkey magic in his blood, fame nipping at his heels, school uniforms hanging in his closet like something out of a K-drama fever dream..He still had orders from the old man upstairs — “Live a normal life,” his father had said, that one rare time he’d broken through the mortal walls to whisper across the veil.

And damn if Hwanung didn’t try.

He attended high school. (Got detention once for “accidentally” short-circuiting a vending machine. Worth it.)

He learned how to take selfies without looking like he wanted to punch the camera.

He learned how to laugh when girls screamed his name, how to sign autographs without shaking his head at the absurdity of it all.

He learned how to live.

And somewhere deep down, a secret part of him knew this wasn’t just life.

It was a gift.

Slowly days turned into weeks.

And slowly, everything that had once been so alien to him—the blaring horns, the neon signs, the buzzing screens, the chaotic mess of a world humans had built—it stopped feeling foreign.

It became normal.

The life of a young god wasn’t etched in temples anymore. It was sweaty dance rooms, sold-out concerts, midnight ramen runs, fans screaming his name at airports. It was algebra homework he didn’t give a damn about because apparently attending school was part of “normal life” too. It was stage lights burning down on him while he smiled and sang and bowed—and meant it.

This life was his now.

And he took it all in with open arms.

Maybe it was mercy from the heavens. Maybe it was compensation for lifetimes of duty and war and loneliness.

Whatever it was…

Hwanung was finally living.

Not just existing.

Living.

And deep down, in the parts of him that still remembered the cold winds of Mount Baekdu and the silent halls of the Heavenly Realm, he knew:

This was only the beginning.

Only that life wasn’t just gonna be all fine and pretty like some perfect K-drama montage. Not even close. Hwanung learned that fast — because in just a handful of weeks, life slammed him with not one, not two, but three goddamn trials, and each one felt like the universe personally flipping him off.

He was sprawled across the stupidly luxurious couch in his penthouse apartment — one of those glittering towers slicing up the Seoul skyline, the kind of place where even breathing probably came with a tax.

His Z Fold lay half-open in his hand, the screen glowing, another dead call mocking him. For days now, he’d been trying to reach out to Jaehee — calls, texts, even stupid memes he wouldn’t admit to sending — all left on read, all ignored like he was nothing but another fanboy in her DMs. She was screening him like her life depended on it, and the most fucked-up part? It all started the moment he, Hwanung, son of the Lord of Heaven, brightest flame of the ancient realms, had decided to be a colossal idiot and confess.

Yeah. He confessed. Heart bare, no shields, no armor. It still didn’t make any goddamn sense when he thought about it — he, whose heart belonged by right and blood to Seoryeon, the only woman heaven itself had once decreed his match — had dared to fall for someone else.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. His heart wasn’t supposed to betray Seoryeon’s memory, and yet, it had.

Stupid, reckless, human longing had bloomed where there should have been only silence. And the real absurdity? The cruelest joke the gods could cook up? Jaehee turned him down. No hesitation. No drama. Just a simple, mortal rejection as if he were some random boy pulling a love confession behind the school gym. Imagine that — a mortal, a girl who once ran around picking up coffee orders for managers, turning down the most handsome young god South Korea had ever freaking produced. The same Hwanung who now broke records with his face alone, whose name could sell out arenas before he even confirmed a concert. And she said no. Just like that.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. Not by a long shot.

Because days later, he felt it — that old, aching throb through his soul, the pull he’d tried so hard to forget. Seoryeon. His Seoryeon. Alive again. Reincarnated.

But not into some simple human existence, no. She had been reborn straight into the Fate Pantheon — that exclusive breed of gods who slipped between realms, living among mortals without ever really being one of them.

She was here.

She knew.

She had to know.

And yet — not a word. Not a whisper.

Not a sign that she even cared he was breathing the same damn air. Maybe she had seen everything — seen the way he had fallen, seen the humiliating confession he made to a human girl, seen the cracks splintering across the perfect image she once held of him. And instead of reaching out, instead of running back into his arms like some fate-bound fairy tale, she stayed silent. Cold. Distant. As if the thousand years they’d burned for each other had been nothing but smoke.

And just when he thought he could maybe, maybe stitch together the bleeding pieces of his pride, fate swung one last punch straight to his teeth.

Daegon. His oldest, bitterest enemy. Here. Breathing the same mortal air. Living the same borrowed dream. In this life, Daegon wasn’t just some exiled prince or fallen guardian— he was Korea’s top idol.

The reigning king of the charts. The unstoppable force who owned the damn entertainment industry like he’d carved it out of stone himself. And Hwanung? The “next big thing.” The “upcoming rival.” Every article, every headline, every breath from the media was painting him in Daegon’s shadow, setting up a war the mortals didn’t even realize was ancient. Rival agencies, rival reputations, fans foaming at the mouth for blood without understanding the real battle churning underneath.

And Daegon wasn’t walking this mortal world alone.

Behind him, hidden in the rot of the glimmering world stage, the Dark Pantheon was moving. Whispering. Plotting. Propping Daegon up like a golden idol, a weapon aimed straight at Hwanung’s chest and gods!

Something was going wrong in Korea. Deep wrong.

And Hwanung could feel it like a storm humming against his bones.

The past wasn’t dead. The gods weren’t sleeping. And no matter how much he tried to cling to this new life, to the laughter, the fans, the flashes of human joy he’d tasted like forbidden fruit — fate was coming for him.

It always was.

And this time, it wasn’t going to let him walk away clean.

Later that night, Hwanung stood on the rooftop of his tower, barefoot against the cold concrete, toes curling just barely over the edge like he was flirting with the idea of letting gravity take him. The wind howled high up here, wild and reckless, tangling his hair and tugging at his clothes like invisible hands trying to pull him down.

Seoul sprawled out beneath him, endless and bright, a living sea of neon and noise that didn’t give a single damn about the gods walking its streets.

The building he stood on — the NY Tower — loomed tall and brutal against the night, all sharp lines and mirrored glass, a monument to ambition carved out of steel. And standing proud across from it, less than a few city blocks away but feeling close enough to touch, was its rival — the Athenic Building, home base of Daegon’s agency, their banner flickering smugly under the night sky like it was laughing straight at him.

Even the buildings hated each other. Even the fucking architecture had sides.

Hwanung stared across the gap, heart pounding slow and ugly in his chest. It was supposed to be a dramatic moment, the kind that cracked you open, the kind where you stand there thinking about all the ways your story could end.

Only — fate wasn’t done toying with him yet. Because there, right on the opposite rooftop — lit up behind the massive floor-to-ceiling glass windows of a penthouse that probably cost more than a mortal soul — stood Daegon.

The bastard was shirtless, a lazy wine glass dangling from his fingers like he had all the time in the damn world, muscles flexing as he moved with that same effortless arrogance he had carried even back when they fought under bloody skies and broken heavens. Their eyes locked across the abyss — no mist, no blur, no doubt.

Hwanung could see every detail perfectly, the distance between them irrelevant when rage sharpened your vision to a blade.

Daegon lifted his glass in a slow, mocking toast, the kind of smirk pulling at his mouth that you only saw in villains who knew they were winning. As if the universe decided that dying wasn’t humiliating enough — no, he had to watch this shit, too.

And then, like a final nail hammered straight through his pride, a woman emerged from behind Daegon — tall, wicked, stunning in a way that didn’t feel entirely human — sliding her arms around Daegon’s bare waist and pressing her lips against the nape of his neck, lingering in a kiss that dragged slow and deliberate like a knife.

Hwanung’s jaw tightened the second he recognized her.

It wasn’t just any random girl.

It was someone he Hwanung knew very well, his knees weakened.