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Chapter 09
When I tried to listen quietly to what she was attempting to say, watching her lips, Sayeol’s mouth split into a wide smile.
“Breaking a vessel means making sure it will never hold anything again—such as snapping its fingers and rendering it unable even to speak, does it not?”
In a refined voice, she began to utter horrifying words while giggling. Sayeol slowly rose from her seat and began pointing at the people around her one by one.
“Who here do you think possesses a proper vessel?”
“What nonsense…!”
The man seated in the position of the Supreme Elder shot to his feet with a roar. Though he was an old man who had withdrawn from his place in the world and lived only to await death, he too had reached the level of a master.
“Elder, please sit.”
“Patriarch! Have you lost your senses? Did you not hear what that girl just spouted? She must surely be possessed by something! To speak such wicked nonsense…!”
“That is precisely why we must verify it.”
At those words, the Supreme Elder abruptly fell silent.
“But since Father cannot move at present, I will send Sayeol to the Namgung Academy.”
“The Namgung Academy…?”
“Yes. Where Wonjong resides.”
Namgung Wonjong.
He was Hyunwon’s younger brother, who long ago severed all ties with succession and settled into his position as head scholar of the academy. His martial skills were not outstanding, but he was highly intelligent in that field and acknowledged for his ability. In particular—
“Other than Father, he is the only one knowledgeable enough to identify such spirits.”
True masters who have reached the pinnacle can distinguish spirits that have possessed others, but those below them must rely on special formations. And the one most capable of doing so was Namgung Wonjong—who had studied such things far more than this household, which hadn’t seen a single ghost in a hundred years.
The Supreme Elder, who had risen in agitation, cooled his head and sat down again. Sayeol quietly gazed at him. A man without skill, who could not even undergo rebirth, sitting as Supreme Elder?
Unthinkable a hundred years ago. Tsk, tsk.
“Namgung Sayeol.”
Hyunwon called her name in a near-death voice. Sayeol looked at him with a bright smile—though it seemed less a smile made from joy and more like the forced upturn of a puppet’s lips. It sent chills down the spine.
“You will be sent there. If you truly are possessed by something wicked, or have touched something related to it, then your punishment will be…”
At those words, Sayeol suddenly burst out with a sound.
“Euh-heuk…!”
It sounded like crying, and people wondered if the young girl had finally become frightened. But when her face—momentarily obscured—appeared again, goosebumps rose from their arms to their shoulders. For she was smiling like a ghost while making euh-heuk, euh-heuk sobbing sounds.
“How all of this will end is simply…”
She lowered her hands modestly.
“…so very interesting. Father.”
It was, in truth, her final ultimatum. Hyunwon swallowed a dry gulp.
“…I leave the matter entirely to Wonjong. Prepare your belongings at once and depart for the academy.”
Hyunwon fled into the smallest refuge, and Sayeol smiled faintly. So he had extended his short life a little.
“Yes, Father. I shall disappear from your sight at once.”
And thus, Sayeol’s departure to the academy was decided.
It was a vast palace built from red wood. Deep within a stone mountain, blocked off on all sides as if standing at the entrance to hell, the palace exuded a strange scent from its blood-red timber.
Between the underworld and the living world—known as the birthplace of ghosts—the homeland of the demonic outcasts, the Blood Palace (Hyeolgung). A faint sign of life began to stir deep inside the palace, which had been sealed ever since the Heavenly Demon vanished a hundred years ago.
A place frozen in time for a century began to sense something and move. Passing through the blood-soaked red wooden doors and deeper inside, in the chamber of the Blood Palace Lord, crimson silk hung over the bed. And upon that blood-red bedding lay a man with hair turned completely white.
His shaggy bangs fell across his forehead, and the black lashes beneath them trembled faintly. The man had features so delicate they seemed sculpted from white sand as he slowly opened his eyes.
“You have awakened, my lord.”
“Ah…”
In contrast to his handsome appearance, a low, rough voice sounded. He slowly opened his eyes, stared at the red silk above him, and tried to move his stiffened body.
His body creaked like that of a crafted doll, yet he grinned as he gripped the bedding and forced himself to sit up.
“She has come.”
A thrill flickered in his pitch-black eyes.
“She has returned.”
When the man tumbled off the bed, the doll-like attendant beside him rushed to support him. He staggered forward on creaking, puppet-like legs.
Masked attendants assisted him, and with strength from who-knew-where, he flung open the massive hall doors. In the dark stone mountain—where one would think no light could reach—a faint beam of light seeped in.
The pale light brushed over the old man’s white hair and contrastingly black pupils. The dark eyes, glowing faintly with transmitted light, snatched a robe from a nearby attendant and draped it over himself.
“Come, let us go greet her. Hurry, hurry.”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
As he walked across the large hall, he abruptly halted. The childlike excitement vanished from his face, replaced by a snarl as he bared his teeth and glared at the ceiling.
“Come to think of it… that brat must have awakened as well.”
He clenched his sharp teeth and sneered, recalling the detestable man with crimson eyes he had once seen.
“If he dares again this time, I will not forgive him. That so-called cult leader.”
Calling the man some referred to as the Heavenly Demon by a belittling title, he stomped onward. There was much to prepare before welcoming her.
“Myeong-ah!”
“Yes, Palace Lord.”
“Strip all this silk away! What is this gloomy mess!?”
“As you command.”
It was the day the Blood Palace Lord, Ma Wolhu, awakened.
The puppets sleeping underground arose, and the fakes that moved solely for the palace lord opened their eyes. Where the scent of old blood had pooled, blood would begin to flow once more.
Those filled with malice and demonic qi—stagnant and rotting—would rise again and let the stench from their decayed bodies spread freely.
Feeling his underlings stir and awaken, the Blood Palace Lord Wolhu bit at his lips and smiled savagely. How long had he struggled to capture her soul?
‘If she has returned like this…’
Then the “cult leader” had surely done something. His pride should have been wounded, yet what mattered more was that she had come back. He left the grand hall and descended underground, selecting several “attendants” that had been stacked and stored away.
“Ptui.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, spitting out blood. The faceless lumps began taking human form like clay molds and started moving.
“Now, get up and start your tasks.”
The first thing he would do was not meet her. To stand before her now would only earn him her fierce hatred—and his wish was not to have his neck cut by her.
Instead, he took the revived servants and went deeper underground—to the pitch-black place where ghosts had slept for over a hundred years.
“For now… that one should do.”
A messenger, to let her know of his existence.
