Unknown
Gi Ho-cheol had said the Amryeonggeom was a weapon as powerful as the sword-qi of a true master. The boy had believed his blade could cut through the serpent's neck.
Clang!
But what rang out was the sound of steel striking down on raw iron. The serpent's upright scales deflected the Dark Spirit Blade away entirely.
"...!"
In the same instant, a dull, crushing impact slammed through Cheon Gyeol-woo's whole body. Still nothing more than a child, his light frame was flung through the air like a hurled stone and smashed against the wall.
"Ugh..."
Only after he came crashing down did the Crown Prince realize he had been struck by the giant serpent's tail.
His head, rebounding off the wall, spun in dizzy circles, and a hideous pain shot through the flank that had taken the direct hit. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
The blow was more than enough to kill an ordinary child on the spot. It was only because he was an Eodukseoni that he could endure this much.
"Hhk...!"
The moment he gasped at the pain, the stench of blood surged up through his nose. His vision shook, splitting into three or four overlapping layers.
I've inhaled its poison straight on.
Nausea surged and he vomited where he lay. Blackened, dead blood poured out in strings.
It hurts too much. I feel like I'm dying...
The boy barely managed to lift his swimming head. Through his mangled, warping vision, he saw the serpent yokai's head slipping free of the wall and advancing toward him.
...Is this really how I die?
He couldn't let that happen.
Cheon Gyeol-woo bit his lip until it bled. He forced his clouded eyes wide open and stared up at the tower-sized serpent head looming above him.
I don't want to die!
He fed the terror of death flooding through his entire body into the darkness, swelling it. Beneath the boy pinned bloodied against the wall, shadow began to spread.
I don't know if this darkness will work on a yokai too, but right now it's all I have...!
The shadow, spreading like ink dropped onto a painting of immortals, reached the serpent yokai's underside. The giant snake flinched, as though it had sensed something.
In an instant the darkness surged upward as if the shadow itself were rising to its feet, and it clamped onto the serpent's entire body. The yokai was far too massive to be covered completely, but the darkness clung to it like a spider's web and succeeded in crawling up its neck to blind its eyes.
The young Eodukseoni, dead black blood still streaming from his mouth, stared straight at the sight.
Be afraid!
As if the desperate plea he'd spat out like a command had been heard, something went wrong with the serpent yokai entangled in shadow.
"Kraaaaaagh!"
Letting out a shriek sharp enough to shake the roof, the serpent began to convulse. Its colossal body, big enough to fill half the wide corridor, twisted like an earthworm doused in salt and went mad with rage. Its wildly thrashing tail hammered into the walls on either side of the hallway like a battering ram.
Yes! It's working!
Cheon Gyeol-woo rejoiced—then quickly realized this was no time for celebration.
Because the tail of the blindly rampaging serpent yokai had just skimmed over the boy's head and smashed into the wall behind him.
"...!"
If he stayed here, he would be crushed to death beneath the fear-maddened snake.
The boy tried desperately to rise—and collapsed straight back down.
My arms and legs... won't move...
His hands and feet were tingling, going numb and paralyzed. It was likely from the poison he'd inhaled. The one small mercy was that as the numbness spread, the searing agony in his flank had dulled.
Cheon Gyeol-woo crawled forward, dragging himself along the floor. The dizziness and the urge to vomit kept welling up, threatening to steal his consciousness away.
No.
He bit his tongue, bit his lip, and forced himself awake, inching forward bit by bit. He had to get even a little farther from that frenzied snake.
Then, into the boy's raggedly gasping ears, a clear voice suddenly rang out.
"To the right!"
"...?"
"Roll right, Your Highness!"
A desperate voice. His wife's voice.
The boy threw every ounce of strength he had into rolling to the right. The next instant, the giant serpent's tail slammed down on the exact spot where he had lain, swept the floor in a violent arc to the left, and vanished.
Cheon Gyeol-woo felt his spine go cold as he watched the tail plow through the corridor and bury itself in the wall.
If I'd dodged left, I'd be dead.
But that voice he'd just heard...?
He turned his head in puzzlement, and a soft touch coiled around his body.
Silk?
A long length of jade-green fabric, shimmering, had wound itself around his arm and upper body. The fabric pulled taut and hauled him straight toward it. The Crown Prince, dragged along in bewilderment, followed it to its end.
In the shadow-drowned corridor, Seruhwa stood draped in a translucent jade cloth like an immortal's winged garment, gazing at him with a face on the verge of tears.
"Your Highness!"
I chewed at my lips anxiously.
Why won't this thing come out?
Contrary to all my preparation, the Lifespan Cord stubbornly refused to slip free.
Divine power was coursing through my body along the Lifespan Cord that connected me to the Heavens. The power inherited from Dad—King Yama—had made the Lifespan Cord within this body of Seruhwa's clearly visible to me.
I could see it perfectly. It just wouldn't budge.
Come to think of it, the Lifespan Cord... is coiled along the meridians where that dragon-force Gi Ho-cheol taught me flows.
Could that be connected to why a shaman like me couldn't build dragon-force in the first place?
Either way, the cord showed no intention of moving on its own, so I brought my hand up to the crown of my head, where the meridian called Baekhoe Point lay.
If the Lifespan Cord is stored in the meridians, shouldn't I be able to draw it out through them?
I'd heard that this was a dangerous point, one where a careless touch could kill, so my hand moved with all the caution it could muster.
Come on, be good. Just a little.
Imagining the cord sticking neatly to my fingertips, I slowly pulled away—and at last, Seruhwa's Lifespan Cord began to come loose, bit by bit.
Yes! Now I just need to touch this, very lightly, to my own cord...
I swallowed dryly and moved my hand with care.
I gently brought Seruhwa's Lifespan Cord toward my own, the one stretching up toward the Heavens.
Gently. Gently now.
The way you'd dip a gourd into a rushing waterfall to scoop out just a little water before pulling it back.
If I pushed it in too deep, the fierce current would shatter the gourd. So I had to let only the very tip dip in, then draw it out again.
The moment roughly a single mouthful's worth of divine power flowed in from Seruhwa's cord, I hastily detached it.
...There! Done!
A mouthful it may have been called, but since it came from my own vast divine power, both its quantity and quality were extraordinary.
It worked!
I quickly tucked Seruhwa's Lifespan Cord back where it belonged.
Divine power welled up inside the body, swaying and shimmering there.
It was unmistakably distinct from the divine power that flowed in and out along my own Lifespan Cord—this was power borrowed.
It was exactly the amount suited to this body's vessel. Which meant that now, without worrying about the body, I could finally use my divine power freely!
There were so many things I wanted to try, but this was no time for experimenting.
How long did that take? It didn't feel like all that long. The little Crown Prince—he's not already in danger, is he?
Wiping the cold sweat soaked across my forehead, I strode quickly toward the corridor where the Geuseundae had disappeared.
I'll maintain the possession-state until we're out of this mansion. My identity won't be exposed by something like this anyway.
Even Seok-ran, a Maegu fox a thousand years old, had only figured out who I was after studying how the phoenix treated me, the scent of heavenly peaches, and my very eyes.
Unless I revealed it myself, yokai generally wouldn't be able to tell.
It's far easier to believe that a young shaman is channeling Princess Cheonmyeong than that the Princess herself has come down to the mortal world in a human body from the innermost palace of the Heavens.
Channeling like this did put my true body at risk, the way it had in the early days after my possession. But as long as I didn't use the channeled divine power, I'd be fine.
And even unused, the mere fact that a Princess's divine power flowed through this body was a help in itself.
Like this.
Revealing the majesty of Princess Cheonmyeong, I set my foot down in the corridor packed full of shadow.
The darknesses, thick with yoa-qi, came swarming to swallow me—then recoiled in terror at the profound divine power radiating from my body, ebbing away like a retreating tide.
That's right. Scum like this ought to clear off on its own.
Just as the Crown Prince had once shaken off the darknesses he couldn't yet control, I brushed away the shadows that lunged at me as I walked deeper into the corridor.
Before long, a tremendous crash rang out, echoing down the entire hallway.
What was that? What's that sound?
Worried, I ran forward. Parting the shadows like mist as I sprinted, I soon came upon the sight of a serpent yokai so enormous it all but filled the corridor.
Jet-black scales, studded with blood-red gems like droplets of blood. I knew what it was at a glance.
A Maninsa—the Ten-Thousand-Man Serpent!
A yokai that had devoured more than ten thousand humans and, as a result, come to harbor within its body a naedan known as the Maninhyeolseok—the Ten-Thousand-Blood Stone, a mass of accumulated qi condensed from the lives it consumed.
It's every bit as strong as the Geuseundae! Why is something like that inside its shadow?
I looked over the creature in alarm and realized something was wrong with its state.
It looks like it's rampaging in terror... terrified?
Could it be?
I hurriedly scanned the area around the Maninsa—and there he was, a boy soaked in blood.
The familiar hem of a robe.
The little Crown Prince!
Why is he lying there like that! Who dared—!
Who else? It has to be that Maninsa!
Rage surged up and my head was going white when I saw it: the tail that had been writhing through the Maninsa's whole body came smashing down toward the Crown Prince.
In that instant, time seemed to slow.
Even if the boy was an Eodukseoni, if that pillar-thick tail came down on him dead-on, he would die.
Die? Him, before me—before someone with a countdown on her life?
That made no sense.
Unacceptable.
But did I have any way to stop it?
I was a powerless divine being who couldn't even use my divine power.
No—I can use it now.
A drop in the ocean compared to the power of my true body, perhaps.
But now I had divine power I could safely use, shimmering within the vessel of Seruhwa's body.
How could I use it to save that child?
There was no time to think deeply. The tail was already falling.
How? How? What did I have to do?
My sharpened qi-sense swept over the Maninsa's tail. The divine power filling my vessel rose up and pooled in my eyes.
How?
And then I saw it.
The flow of qi. The way that yokai was about to move.
It was a sense verging on prophecy.
I shouted immediately.
"To the right!"
"...?"
"Roll right, Your Highness!"
Even as I cried out, I was thinking:
Dodging was only a stopgap. To truly save that child, I needed something more.
How was I supposed to use this tiny sliver of divine power? What could I do to get him out alive?
Moving my own body to carry the power would be far too small and slow to do any good.
In a moment like this, how should divine power be used?
Naturally, the scene I had witnessed most often came to mind—the immortal maidens of Sangra Palace wielding their divine power.
The maidens possessed far less divine power than true gods. And the method those beings relied on above all was—
The Nalgae-ot. The Winged Garment!
Running toward the Crown Prince, I surged the divine power up from the vessel within my body and sent it flowing out beyond my skin. The jade-tinted energy took tangible form, stretching long and draping itself around me in soft, fluttering ribbons.
An immortal's winged garment.
I stretched my hand out toward the fallen, blood-soaked Crown Prince. The Nalgae-ot lengthened with my movement and reached him.
"Your Highness!"