# Episode 6. Humans Have Always Been Wrong
—It's been a long time.
Hwanin's voice flowed from broadcasting devices around the world.
—My Hwanung.
Hwanung stood above Heaven Lake without saying a word.
It was the voice he had waited thousands of years to hear.
To the young Hwanung, he had been his father—the being called Hwanin aboard the spaceship.
The being who had lost his wife and country to save Hwanung, then come all the way to Earth in a mortally wounded body.
Hwanung had never once believed Hwanin was dead.
He believed Hwanin would one day awaken from hibernation.
But he had never imagined they would meet again like this.
“Where are you?”
Yoon Seo-ha asked.
Hwanin did not answer immediately.
—You are Yoon Tae-gyeom's descendant.
“Answer my question.”
—Are you asking where my body is, or where my consciousness is?
“Are they different?”
—Humans think their consciousness should be where their bodies are.
Hwanin's voice rang out simultaneously through thousands of communication networks.
—Over the past 127 years, I have learned much from humans. I learned that even when a body remains in one place, its eyes and ears can be everywhere.
Satellites around the world.
The Heavenly Seals Foundation's servers.
Baekdu Mountain's observation equipment.
Seoul's traffic network and disaster communications network.
Hwanin had divided his senses among machines created by humans.
Yoon Seo-ha clenched the black stone in his fist.
“So the voice coming from the Heavenly Seals Foundation's machines was you.”
—Correct.
“You've been hiding and monitoring humanity for 127 years?”
—I observed.
“Without anyone's consent?”
—Does observation require consent?
Yoon Seo-ha pressed his lips shut.
Hwanin was using human language.
But he still did not understand what human words meant.
To him, observation was no different from surveillance. As long as the results were accurate, violating someone's rights in the process was irrelevant.
Hwanung spoke for the first time.
—Where is your body?
Hwanin's voice paused for a moment.
—It is not in a state you need to worry about.
—Answer the question, Hwanin.
Hwanung did not call him father.
A cold silence flowed between the two transcendent beings.
—You still distinguish between titles and relationships.
Hwanin spoke.
—That is why you grew too close to humans.
—I was raised by humans.
—Leaving you with humans was my first mistake.
The golden eyes of Hwanung trembled.
Hwanin's voice held no emotion.
He did not even understand that his words could hurt his son.
—Humans taught you to love life. At the same time, they taught you to hesitate when making judgments.
—Because of that hesitation, I did not kill the humans.
—Because of that hesitation, Joseon fell.
An old video appeared above Heaven Lake.
A burning castle.
Tribes pointing spears at one another.
Buildings in Sinsi collapsing.
The last Dangun falling in a pool of blood.
In the video, Hwanung stood in the middle of a battlefield. With his power, he could have stopped both armies.
But he did nothing.
Because he believed humans had to make their own choices.
In the end, Joseon fell.
—You respected human choice.
Hwanin spoke.
—Humans chose to kill one another.
“So you're going to choose a leader for them yourself?”
Yoon Seo-ha asked.
—I have watched human history.
The screen changed.
People whose country had been taken from them.
Soldiers fallen on battlefields.
Cities destroyed by bombing.
Children who lost their families on the road to refuge.
People of the same nation aiming guns at one another across barbed wire.
Civilians dragged away for resisting dictatorships.
—Humans were the ones who chose their kings.
—Humans were the ones who handed over their country.
—Humans were the ones who started wars.
—Humans were the ones who followed leaders that left countless people starving.
Hwanin listed history without emotion.
—Humans always spoke of choice. But when the results of their choices were wrong, they blamed someone else.
Yoon Seo-ha glared at the screen.
“There were people in that history who resisted.”
—They failed.
“There were also people who saved others.”
—They vanished from the records.
“That is why we're reclaiming their names.”
—Do you think humanity has changed because you remembered two people?
Hwanin's voice grew colder.
—Even as you call Han Hae-in and Han Do-gyeong by name, war continues somewhere in the world. Someone is starving, and someone else is making money from another person's death.
“That still doesn't give you the right to take away everyone's choices.”
—Rights are a concept created by humans.
“You are on human land, too.”
Yoon Seo-ha did not back down.
“Then you should follow the standards humans created.”
Hwanung looked at Yoon Seo-ha.
Arado had said the same thing a very long time ago.
If you want to live among us, you must follow our will.
That was the condition the first Hwanhee had imposed on Hwanung.
Hwanin spoke.
—Yoon Tae-gyeom said the same thing as you at first.
Yoon Seo-ha's face hardened.
“What did you do to my ancestor?”
—I will show you.
Records from 1903 appeared on every screen.
April 18, 1903.
Young Yoon Tae-gyeom was kneeling before Hwanin's hibernation chamber.
His clothes were torn, and his face was smeared with volcanic ash and blood.
In his hand, he held the Memory Seal.
Yoon Tae-gyeom pressed the seal against Hwanin's hibernation device.
The seal opened.
Hwanin collapsed to the floor.
Half his body had turned black. Even prolonged hibernation had not healed his mortal wounds. Earth's air did not suit Hwanin's lungs, and gravity crushed his shattered bones.
Yoon Tae-gyeom approached and helped Hwanin up.
“Can you hear me?”
Hwanin could not answer.
At the time, he did not know the human language.
Yoon Tae-gyeom placed the black seal in Hwanin's hand.
“I know you can't understand me.”
He took a map from inside his coat.
It showed the countries surrounding the Korean Peninsula dividing the land among themselves.
“Russia and Japan are preparing for war over this land. Neither the emperor, the ministers, nor the army can protect the people.”
Yoon Tae-gyeom's hand trembled.
“People are selling their country for their own interests.”
Hwanin could not understand his words.
But Yoon Tae-gyeom's emotions passed through the Memory Seal.
Fear.
Anger.
Despair.
And a desperate desire to stop the tragedy that was approaching.
Yoon Tae-gyeom placed Hwanin's hand on top of his own head.
“Take my words.”
Hwanin's eyes moved.
“Take my memories, too.”
Tears streamed from Yoon Tae-gyeom's eyes.
“In return, bring back the Dangun.”
Yoon Seo-ha's heart sank.
Hwanin had not forcibly taken Yoon Tae-gyeom's memories.
Yoon Tae-gyeom had offered them himself.
Fearing that his country would disappear, a human had asked a nonhuman being to create a leader for them.
Golden light exploded from Hwanin's hand.
Yoon Tae-gyeom screamed and collapsed.
Hwanin spoke the human language for the first time.
“Dangun.”
With trembling hands, Yoon Tae-gyeom wrote a sentence on the wall of the hibernation chamber.
I will restore the Dangun.
It was not an order Hwanin had given Yoon Tae-gyeom.
It was a promise Yoon Tae-gyeom had asked Hwanin to make.
The video ended.
Yoon Seo-ha could not say a word.
Hwanin spoke.
—I accepted your ancestor's request.
“One person's request cannot replace the choices of all humanity.”
Hwanung spoke.
—You cannot rule humans centuries from now because of a request made by one desperate human.
—He did not make the request for himself alone.
—That does not mean he had everyone's consent.
—Knowing the result, can you still say the same thing?
Hwanin asked.
—Just as Yoon Tae-gyeom predicted, the country disappeared. Countless people died. The human leaders of that time could stop none of it.
—Did Hwanin stop it?
The voice cut off at Hwanung's question.
—You say you watched for 127 years. Then answer me. Did Hwanin save them?
—I prepared.
—While they were dying?
Hwanin did not answer.
—You did nothing but observe and record human failure. You did not help the humans who were suffering.
Anger filled Hwanung's voice.
—And you still claim that humans are always wrong?
Every broadcast screen shook.
For the first time, Hwanin's emotions affected the communication networks.
The Heavenly Seals Foundation's servers overloaded, and electronic billboards throughout Seoul shattered.
—I was dying.
Hwanin spoke.
—I could not move in this planet's environment.
—So you used humans?
—They needed my knowledge, and I needed their technology.
—And the result was the Heavenly Seals Foundation?
—The result was Baek Do-won.
Baek Do-won's palm glowed again at the Seoul accident site.
Calling Seal administrator connection established.
Commanding the Dangun candidate to return.
Baek Do-won's body turned north of its own accord.
“Stop.”
He ground his teeth.
—Bring back the three Seats.
Hwanin's voice rang inside Baek Do-won's head.
“I don't force anyone to come with me.”
—You were born to become the Dangun.
“I wasn't born to follow your orders.”
The mark on his palm crept up his arm.
A black line moved toward his heart.
Baek Do-won dropped to one knee.
Han Hae-in immediately spread a golden boundary.
“No one can control another person's will inside this line!”
A golden line wrapped around Baek Do-won.
But Hwanin's command was not coming from outside.
It had already been planted inside Baek Do-won's body.
Hae-in's boundary shook, unable to distinguish inside from outside.
“The command started from within!”
Han Do-gyeong shouted.
In his eyes, he could see a black path beginning at Baek Do-won's heart.
The path ran through the seal in his palm and into the underground levels of the Heavenly Seals Foundation.
“Can you sever it?”
Hae-in asked.
“We have to find where it starts!”
Do-gyeong moved his gaze along the black path.
But Hwanin kept changing its course through the entire communications network.
From satellite to ground.
From base station to vehicle.
From vehicle to cellphone.
There was no way to find its starting point.
“There are too many signals!”
Do-gyeong clutched his head.
“They're all using the same voice!”
The main control room of the Republic of Korea National Disaster Broadcasting System.
Seo Ji-an was watching twelve monitors at once.
“Cut the transmission right now!”
The head of the news department shouted.
“The same signal is coming through every channel!”
“Disconnect the emergency power, too!”
“We already did. The external signal has taken direct control of the transmission system!”
The main control room descended into chaos.
The conversation between Hwanin and Hwanung was being broadcast live across the nation. The government had ordered the broadcast shut down, and the Heavenly Seals Foundation had sent a separate emergency notice.
Immediately block all video and audio related to the transcendent being.
But Seo Ji-an did not cut the transmission.
She was a disaster-broadcast video engineer.
She knew better than anyone what went out on screen and what got cut.
There was something strange about the video currently being broadcast.
Hwanin had shown countless records from history.
War.
Massacres.
Famine.
Dictatorship.
Evidence that humans had made the wrong choices.
But there was not a single scene of people being saved.
People handing out food to refugees.
A soldier refusing an unjust order.
A journalist risking their life to leave behind a record.
A doctor treating enemy soldiers on a battlefield.
Those videos were being cut the moment the signal transmitted them.
Hwanin was not lying.
He was showing only the truth he wanted people to see.
“Selected records.”
Seo Ji-an murmured.
The employee beside her asked, “What?”
“There are separate originals for the videos Hwanin is sending.”
She analyzed the signal.
Beneath the visible transmission signal were thousands of hidden layers of data. Their structure was impossible to interpret with human technology.
But Seo Ji-an could see a tiny difference.
A slender golden line hidden among the black signals.
A boundary dividing the videos meant to be shown from those meant to be concealed.
Thump.
Her heart pounded.
Every signal on the monitors grew clear.
Thump.
Nothing had been fabricated as a lie.
But some parts had been deliberately hidden.
Thump.
Golden light spread through Seo Ji-an's eyes.
—Do you want to see what has been hidden?
An unfamiliar voice reached her.
*Who are you?*
—If you reveal the truth, your secret will be exposed along with it.
Seo Ji-an's hand stopped.
She had a record she wanted to keep hidden, too.
One year ago.
Seo Ji-an had edited footage showing that a wildfire evacuation shelter in one region failed to meet safety standards. She tried to air it, but the Heavenly Seals Foundation pressured the network, threatening to withdraw its major sponsorship programs.
A news bureau executive ordered the footage shelved.
Seo Ji-an obeyed.
Three months later, a wildfire broke out, and two people died at the shelter in question.
She had not set the fire herself.
She had not built the shelter poorly.
But she had known the truth and stayed silent.
That record could be made public, too.
“Seo Ji-an!”
The head of the news department shouted.
“I told you to cut the transmission!”
Seo Ji-an stared at Hwanin's signal on the screen.
Hwanin said humans always made the wrong choice.
He was not wrong.
Seo Ji-an herself had made the wrong choice.
But hiding a mistake and making a new choice were different things.
She placed her hand on the original-transmission button.
“This time, I'm not cutting anything.”
“What?”
“I'll broadcast all of it.”
“That's insubordination!”
“I know.”
Seo Ji-an pressed the button.
“My record, too.”
Golden light covered the entire main control room.
Seat of Dawn awakening complete.
The one who reveals what is hidden and strips away the boundary of lies.
It was a power later known as the Rooster's Seat.
The black veil covering the broadcast signal tore apart.
Videos Hwanin had concealed appeared on screens across the world.
Nameless people who had saved others amid war.
People who had refused orders and saved civilians.
A refugee handing their food to a strange child.
And the wildfire-shelter footage Seo Ji-an had hidden one year earlier.
Her name and editing record were broadcast along with it.
The employees in the main control room stared at Seo Ji-an.
Seo Ji-an did not lower her head.
“I blocked that footage.”
She spoke.
“Someone died because of it.”
No one could answer.
The golden signal continued stripping away Hwanin's concealments.
Hwanin's consciousness, scattered across satellites, servers, and communications networks, gathered at a single point.
Central Seoul.
127 meters beneath the Heavenly Seals Foundation headquarters.
An image of the forbidden space appeared on the screens.
A massive life-support system.
Thousands of cables.
A transparent tube filled with golden liquid.
A man lay inside it.
He resembled Hwanung, but looked far older.
Half his body had undergone black necrosis, and an old wound remained split open across his chest. Human equipment and spaceship technology had been combined to keep him barely alive.
It was Hwanin.
His body had been beneath Seoul for 127 years.
Hwanin's concealed location was revealed to the entire world.
—Seat of Dawn.
For the first time, Hwanin's voice trembled.
—You always reveal even the things that should be hidden.
Seo Ji-an looked at Hwanin on the screen.
“There is no truth that should be hidden.”
—That belief has killed countless people.
“People die because of hidden truths, too.”
Hwanin's body opened its eyes inside the transparent tube.
Golden eyes looked at Seo Ji-an.
At the same time, the black line restraining Baek Do-won's body snapped.
Han Do-gyeong had found its starting point.
“There!”
Do-gyeong pointed toward the path leading underground to the Heavenly Seals Foundation headquarters.
“I can see where Hwanin is!”
Baek Do-won rose, breathing harshly.
The being who had prepared him all his life.
The being who had chosen him to become Dangun.
That being was beneath his own headquarters.
“I've never been in there.”
Baek Do-won spoke.
Hae-in looked at him.
“Isn't it your foundation?”
“I didn't have access.”
“Even though you're the chairman?”
“Hwanin never allowed it.”
Hae-in did not withdraw the golden boundary.
“What are you going to do now?”
Baek Do-won looked toward the Heavenly Seals Foundation headquarters.
“I'll ask him myself.”
“What will you ask?”
“Whether he raised me to be a leader.”
He clenched his bloodstained palm.
“Or whether he raised me to be a body that carries his commands.”
Baekdu Mountain, Heaven Lake.
Hwanung was staring at Hwanin's body displayed on the screen.
“You survived 127 years in that body?”
—Humans kept me alive.
“You said humans always make the wrong choices.”
—Some humans make the choices that are necessary.
“If you acknowledge them, why deny the choices of all humanity?”
Hwanin was silent for a moment.
—Very well.
New text appeared on every broadcast screen.
Beginning the approval process for a new Dangun.
Approving authorities.
The Awakened of the Twelve Seats.
Witnessing authority.
Hwanhee or joint witnesses.
Time limit.
100 days.
Yoon Seo-ha's face hardened.
“What are you doing?”
—If you believe in human choice, prove it.
Hwanin spoke.
—If twelve Awakened recognize one Dangun within 100 days, and the human community bears witness to that choice, I will accept it as well.
Hwanung asked, “What will you do if they fail?”
New text appeared.
If approval fails, forced assignment of the Calling Seal will be initiated.
The Twelve Seats will be assigned to Dangun candidate Baek Do-won.
Han Hae-in was furious.
“That isn't a choice.”
—A choice must have an ending.
Hwanin was resolute.
—Endless hesitation is not a choice.
Baek Do-won stared at the approval document bearing his name.
“What if I refuse?”
—You were not made to refuse.
The mark on Baek Do-won's palm began to glow again.
A black line appeared near his heart.
Preparing the final stage of the Calling Seal.
Time remaining.
99 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds.
The numbers began to count down.
Beneath the life-support system containing Hwanin's body, a massive door opened.
Inside were twelve empty tubes bearing the exact same mark as Baek Do-won's.
Han Do-gyeong's face turned pale.
“That path… There isn't just one.”
Hae-in asked, “What do you mean?”
“There are twelve more paths like the one connected to Baek Do-won.”
Golden flames lit one by one inside the twelve tubes.
Hwanin spoke.
—I calculated the possibility that Baek Do-won might fail to receive human recognition.
Hwanung's gaze turned cold.
—What have you prepared?
Hwanin's answer rang out from every screen.
—Other Danguns.