New Year's Special: The Requiem of the Old World
The Bureau was never silent, but tonight, the silence of the void was being torn apart by a sound that no Dokkaebi ever wanted to hear: the sound of reality stuttering.
The metaphysical headquarters of the Star Stream's management, the atmosphere was usually one of cold, bureaucratic efficiency.
Floating screens would display the rise and fall of incarnations across the universe, and the hum of [Probability] was the steady heartbeat of existence.
Toward a midnight that promised nothing but chaos, the office building was in a state of total, unmitigated pandemonium.
"Probability levels are peaking! Sector 4, Earth, and Asgard are showing 400% deviation!" a low-level Dokkaebi screamed, his small white fur standing on end as he frantically swiped at a flickering blue window.
"The Scenario Engine is lagging!" another wailed. "Main Scenario 81 isn't loading! The system is trying to pull data from a source that doesn't exist!"
Everywhere, the blue interface of the Star Stream was glitching.
The familiar, clean windows were being overlaid with jagged, violet-silver code that pulsed like a heartbeat.
It looked less like a malfunction and more like a virus—an invasive logic that was rewriting the very OS of the universe.
In the [Central Management Hub], a massive hall filled with the Semi-Advanced-grade dokkaebis, the situation was even worse.
A Great Dokkaebi named Baram stared at a massive holographic map of the multiverse.
He watched in horror as entire Nebulas began to "blur" on the screen. It was as if a giant hand was smudging the ink of the story.
"Sir! The [Dokkaebi Bag] is compromised!" a technical specialist reported, his voice shaking.
"Compromised? How? It's protected by the Bureau itself!" Baram barked.
"Look at the interface, sir!"
Baram opened the administrative view of the Bag. He navigated through the tabs: Weapons, Consumables, Skills... and then he stopped.
At the very end of the list, a new tab had appeared.
It wasn't written in the language of the Star Stream.
The letters were shifting, twisting into Eldritch runes before settling into a readable form.
[Beyonder Materials]
Baram clicked it. His eyes widened.
[LOCKED: REQUIRES HIGHER PERMISSION]
"What is this?" Baram whispered, his hand trembling as he hovered over an item called 'Mercury-colored Scales'. "These aren't Stories. They don't have Narrative weight. They have... Symbolism."
"We tried to delete the tab, sir, but the System recognizes it."
Suddenly, the entire building groaned.
A massive shockwave of Probability rippled through the floor, knocking half the Dokkaebis off their floating platforms. The screens throughout the hub turned blood-red.
[SYSTEM ERROR: #$!%— CONVERGENCE DETECTED]
[PROBABILITY IS BEING RE-ALLOCATED BY AN EXTERNAL WILL]
[SCENARIO LOGIC IS FAILING... INITIATING EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE]
"The King," Baram gasped, looking toward the highest spire of the Island. "The Dokkaebi King is summoning the Great Dokkaebis. All of them. Immediately."
At the very center of the universe's Narrative, a hall of white marble and starlight where time did not flow.
As the Great Dokkaebis—Baram, Halong, Bihyung, and others—materialized in the hall, they found the room already transformed.
The pillars of starlight were flickering with that same violet-silver hue.
The air tasted of ozone and ancient, forgotten incense.
At the end of the hall, sitting upon a throne made of the "First Story ever told," was the Dokkaebi King. He looked like a small, elderly Dokkaebi, but the horns on his head were made of pure, solidified Probability.
His eyes were closed, his hands resting on the armrests of his throne.
The Great Dokkaebi Halong. He was sweating, his tiny white robes disheveled.
Halong bowed low, his voice echoing in the vast chamber.
"We are experiencing a crisis of unprecedented proportions. The Star Stream's core logic is being overwritten by a foreign system. The Scenarios are lagging, and the Dokkaebi Bag is generating items that violate the laws of any Plausibility!"
The King remained silent, his eyes still closed.
Halong continued, his voice rising in desperation.
"We believe this is a temporary instability! The [Great War of Constellations and Demons]—Scenario 80—just concluded with a massive loss of Probability. The relocation of so many Stories at once must have created a 'Lag' in the System. We are working to fix the errors. We will purge the 'Beyonder' virus and return the Star Stream to its proper state within the next cycle! I promise you, Your Majesty, the maintenance will be successful!"
The other Great Dokkaebis nodded in agreement.
They were comforted by their own logic.
To them, this was just a technical glitch, a result of the 80th Main Scenario being too large for the servers to handle.
Then, a sound broke the silence.
It was a low, rhythmic sound.
It took the Great Dokkaebis a moment to realize what it was.
The Dokkaebi King was laughing.
He opened his eyes.
They weren't the usual glowing blue or red of their kind.
They were swirling vortexes of grey fog and starry voids.
"Fix it?" the King whispered, his voice sounding like the collision of two galaxies. "You wish to fix... the inevitable?"
He raised his right hand.
With a flash of light, a thin-stemmed glass filled with a deep, pulsating violet liquid appeared between his fingers. It wasn't wine; it was the essence of a dying nebula mixed with the blood of an Outer God.
"Halong," the King said, looking at the trembling administrator. "You speak of the 80th Scenario as if it were the end of the book. You are a fool who has forgotten that every book eventually runs out of pages... and then a new one must be written."
The King stood up, his small stature suddenly radiating a "Status" so immense that the Great Dokkaebis were forced to their knees.
The marble floor beneath them began to crack as the [World Will] and the [Star Stream] began to physically manifest within the room.
"The lag you see is not an error," the King said, raising his glass toward the fractured ceiling. "It is the sound of the borders being torn down. The 'Beyonder' tab you fear is the first chapter of a story you are not meant to understand. The logic of the Star Stream is being sacrificed to feed a much larger flame."
The Great Dokkaebis watched in terror as the King's throne began to dissolve into a gray, impenetrable fog. Outside the Throne Room, they could hear the screams of the Star Stream constellations and incarnations.
The Dokkaebi King looked at the time.
11:59:59 PM.
The King chuckled, a sound of pure, malicious delight.
"The era of Constellations and Incarnations, of Dokkaebis and Scenarios... it was a fine play. But the audience has grown bored."
The clock struck midnight.
A blinding flash of silver light erupted from the center of the Throne Room, spreading out across the entire universe.
It wasn't the light of a new year.
It was the light of a [Convergence].
"To the New Year," the Dokkaebi King said, his voice fading as he entered the fog. "Or better yet... to a New Epoch."
The glass of wine shattered against the floor.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[MAINTENANCE HAS BEGUN]
[THE 'STAR STREAM' IS NOW DOWN-LOADING: 'WAR OF CONVERGENCE']
[GOODBYE, OLD STORY.]
Back in the Bureau's management hub, the screens didn't turn back on.
The Dokkaebis stood in the darkness, watching as the office began to drift toward a massive, swirling vortex in the sky—a gateway to a Seoul they no longer recognized.
One Dokkaebi, shivering in the dark, looked at his own personal interface.
"Happy New Year," the Dokkaebi King whispered, before the violet-silver light swallowed him whole.