Bullet Saint Volume 3 — Chapter 3: Silent Conductor
They camped in the ruins of a collapsed bell tower that night, what was once a holy site now just brick and black moss. The needle relic lay between them on a makeshift cloth, still too warm to touch. Azari stared at it like it might blink.
Jung Min didn't sleep. He never really did anymore.
Instead, he cleaned his sidearm. Piece by piece.
Not because it needed it.
But because it reminded him that something in this world still made sense.
Azari broke the silence.
"You knew that wasn't just any Saint."
"Yeah," he muttered.
"You recognized the name?"
"No name," he said. "I recognized the silence."
She looked down.
"The Choir isn't trying to kill me," she said softly. "It's trying to finish me."
Jung Min finally looked up from his pistol. "That's not how you die."
"What do you mean?"
"You don't die when they shoot you. You die when you start agreeing with the hymn."
Morning came with gray snow.
They moved quickly, traveling northwest toward the broken sanctuary—the one sealed after the Saint Uprising five years ago. Every step brought the needle warmer, and every mile the shard pulsed louder, as if the air itself was humming in anticipation.
By midday, they arrived.
The sanctuary stood like a wound in the hills.
Collapsed archways. Charred murals.
A single staircase leading underground, its entrance marked by six crucifixes.
Only five had bodies.
The sixth was waiting.
Jung Min aimed immediately, but the figure didn't move.
A girl.
Thin. Wrapped in bandages.
Sitting on the sixth cross like it was a throne.
She had no eyes.
Only gold thread crisscrossed where they used to be.
Azari stepped forward.
"Are you part of the Choir?"
The girl didn't respond. Her mouth opened.
No sound.
Instead, the ground around her responded.
The glyphs carved into stone lit up like a heartbeat.
Jung Min narrowed his eyes.
"She's not singing," he muttered. "She's conducting."
The bandaged girl raised a single hand.
Suddenly, the sixth cross behind her erupted with movement.
A figure—head covered in wax, body stitched with scripture—tore itself free and leapt forward.
Jung Min fired twice—missed.
Azari dodged left. The shard in her hand lit up like fire.
They moved as one.
Jung Min drew both pistols, covering the approach.
Azari flanked wide, using the rubble as cover.
The stitched man lunged at Jung Min—claws like blades.
He ducked, rolled, shot three times into the chest—nothing.
Azari threw the shard.
It slammed into the figure's back—embedded—and sang.
Not a hymn.
A scream.
The stitched man staggered.
Jung Min aimed for the mouth—
Bang.
The bullet pierced through.
Light poured out.
It collapsed.
The girl on the cross stood slowly. The thread over her eyes peeled away.
Where her face should've been, only darkness remained.
She whispered.
They both heard it.
"The last verse is ready."
And then—she vanished.
Azari stood frozen. "We're too late, aren't we?"
Jung Min nodded slowly.
"They've found the Seventh Voice."