Chapter 104
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 104
“Are you alright?”
So-ya approached the woman’s spirit and asked tentatively.
The spirit looked down at her own body for a moment before lifting her head to meet So-ya’s gaze.
“It was you who purified me. How did you manage it?”
“I’m So-ya. You are the Shield Guardian who protects the Divine Object of the Black Tortoise… aren’t you?”
“Me? Ah. Yes. I suppose I was, once. It is a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
Her voice carried a strangely sorrowful ring.
“Then this place… is the Hyeon-to Underground Palace. In that case, it must have been Hyeon Ra-baek who brought me here,” the woman murmured bitterly, surveying the cave.
So-ya clenched her fists as she stared at the woman who had once been the Shield Guardian of the Black Tortoise.
To awaken a Divine Beast, three conditions had to be met.
One of them was the blood of the direct lineage.
Because Hyeon Ra-baek had severed all other direct lines of the Black Tortoise long ago, he was thought to be the only one left with that blood.
But if this woman truly was the Shield Guardian who protected the Divine Object—if she was one of the seven tribal chiefs of the North—then things were different.
She also possesses the blood of the direct lineage. I can awaken the Black Tortoise without taking the risk of seeking out Hyeon Ra-baek.
With that realization, So-ya spoke with desperate urgency.
“Please, help me. Hyeon Ra-baek has awakened an ancient evil and is threatening everyone. We must wake the Black Tortoise to stop him.”
“What…?”
The woman flinched, her eyes narrowing as she studied So-ya. Soon, a look of realization dawned on her face.
“…I see. I wondered how you were able to wake me.”
The woman leaned down toward So-ya. She reached out a hand with a tender expression and gently stroked the teal hair ribbon tied in So-ya’s hair.
“…?”
So-ya looked at her with a puzzled expression, unsure of what the woman was doing.
“I cannot help you. I am sorry, young Bride of the Yellow Dragon.”
“But why…!”
“My body has already reached the end of its life. I cannot wake a Divine Beast in this state.”
“Ah…”
So-ya looked toward the coffin the woman was pointing at.
Having finally been purified, the woman’s corpse was succumbing to the natural flow of time, slowly turning to dust. It wasn’t just her body; the woman’s spirit was also becoming increasingly transparent. The soul of the deceased, once bound to the earthly realm, was finally preparing to depart for the world of the dead.
“Was it Hyeon Ra-baek who corrupted your spirit core?”
So-ya knew all too well the agonizing pain of a corrupted spirit core. Her heart ached as she thought of this woman, who had been forced to live half-transformed into a demonic beast through that suffering.
“It was not him who corrupted my core.”
“Then who could have possibly…?”
“…”
The woman did not answer, offering only a faint, fleeting smile.
“Hyeon Ra-baek… Because of the wrong choices he made, you have had to walk a path of thorns for a very long time. As one who was once a chief of the seven tribes of the Black Tortoise, I apologize to you on his behalf.”
The woman’s eyes curved in a melancholy arc.
“I must leave now, so I cannot stop him myself. I beg of you, young Bride of the Yellow Dragon. Please, stop him in my stead.”
“…”
“And, perhaps, that thing you possess…”
The woman tried to say more, but her lips only moved soundlessly.
“Oh dear. The Veil of Time is preventing my final wishes from reaching you.”
Realizing this, the woman stood up with a lonely smile.
“The Veil of Time…?” So-ya asked, but the woman gave no answer.
Instead, she offered one last piece of advice.
“Young Bride of the Yellow Dragon, you possess a soul clearer than anyone else’s. You are far too pure to harbor a Heart of Destruction.”
“…”
“But evil can never triumph over good. Therefore, please protect this land with your goodness.”
With those final words, both the woman’s body and spirit vanished.
As So-ya stared blankly at the spot where the spirit had disappeared—
Clang!
The chains binding the shield shattered, their seal finally broken.
The seal is gone!
Snapping back to her senses, So-ya rushed toward the black shield and placed her hand on it. A chilling, freezing energy surged through her skin, making her fingertips recoil instinctively. It was an energy diametrically opposed to what she had felt when touching the Blue Dragon Painted Halberd.
So this is it… the power that swallows all living things.
Just then, Seol-yo shouted to So-ya.
“Someone is coming!”
The black water covering the cave floor rippled slightly, the sound of splashing footsteps echoing through the chamber.
Splash.
Splash.
Splash.
So-ya looked toward the cave entrance, her face tight with tension.
Eventually, a man with long black hair reaching down to his ankles slowly emerged from the shadows.
“How did a visitor to the Underground Palace manage to find their way all the way here…”
He was muttering in a chilling voice when he suddenly froze, spotting the empty coffin.
“Si-yeon…?”
In an instant, his eyes shook violently, and his expression twisted into a mask of fury.
“What… what did you do to her?!”
*
There was an ancient oracle that had been passed down since time immemorial.
[On the night the Red Moon rises, the Bride of the Yellow Dragon shall awaken the sleeping Four Divine Beasts to sweep away the darkness scattered across this land and bring forth peace.]
The Bride of the Yellow Dragon—a being meant to encompass all Four Divine Beasts and seek harmony to prevent the Yellow Dragon’s immense power from being misused.
For a long time, the people waited for the day the true Bride of the Yellow Dragon of the oracle would appear.
However, the Imperial Family did not want the birth of a being whose power might surpass that of the Son of Heaven, the Yellow Dragon. If someone were to awaken the Four Divine Beasts, they believed it should rightfully be the task of the Emperor who ruled the world.
Thus, the former Emperor dabbled in evil arts to absorb the power of the Empress’s spirit core.
But the ritual failed.
The Empress’s spirit core began to turn pitch black with corruption, and her body grew progressively weaker. Eventually, even her son, the Prince, was forbidden from seeing his mother.
The palace attendants turned visitors away under the pretext that the Empress was unwell, but in reality, her spirit core had become so corrupted by then that she had taken on the form of a demonic beast.
Even so, the Emperor could not give up on that power. He locked the Empress in her bedchamber and continued his attempts at the evil arts.
Then, twelve years ago, on the night the ‘Red Moon’ of the oracle rose—
The Empress died.
To be precise, she was murdered. Seeing the Red Moon rising in the dark sky, the Emperor was struck by a sudden terror that she might awaken the Divine Beasts and take her revenge, so he killed her.
Hyeon Ra-baek, the leader of the Black Tortoise tribe, attended the Empress’s funeral as a representative of his people. Unable to believe she was truly gone, he wept before her coffin, only to notice something strange.
Tracing the faint remnants of the evil arts, he eventually uncovered the hideous atrocities the Imperial Family had committed against her. He was consumed by rage.
Hyeon Ra-baek stole her body and returned to the Northern Land, where he wailed in grief for days on end. Because even her soul had been corrupted, she wasn't even allowed the peace of leaving this world.
The Empress had originally been the chief of the Silk Snake Tribe, one of the seven tribes of the North, and the Shield Guardian of the Northern Divine Object, the Black Tortoise Iron Shield.
She was also Hyeon Ra-baek’s former lover, to whom he had promised eternal devotion.
But their love was cut short when the Emperor chose her as his consort. Hyeon Ra-baek had begged her to run away with him, but she had refused, citing her duty as a member of the direct lineage.
And so, he had been forced to let her go.
And yet…
To think they had done such horrific things to his woman after taking her away!
What was so special about the Bride of the Yellow Dragon? What did the power of the Divine Beasts matter?
If only he had cast aside the duty of the direct lineage back then and persuaded her to flee with him at any cost…
Would a different ending have been waiting for them?
Those thoughts tormented him endlessly. And through the cracks in his mind, an ancient evil began to shake his resolve with a cunning voice.
—Isn’t it horrific? The duty of the direct lineage that forced you to let your lover go, and the Bride of the Yellow Dragon who drove her to her death.
—Join hands with me. I will take revenge on everyone for you. Wake me and accept me. You shall become the true evil of this world.
The mission originally assigned to the Black Tortoise tribe was to guard the seal so that the evil bound in the Northern Land would never wake.
However, his weakened mind was gradually eaten away by the whispers of the evil…
Yes. This wretched world deserves a fitting punishment.
If I can destroy this world, then I…
Driven to madness, Hyeon Ra-baek finally broke the taboo and awakened the ancient evil.
The moment he accepted the evil, a searing pain erupted in his spirit core. But this pain was nothing compared to the agony she must have suffered in the Imperial Palace.
With the desire to become evil itself and destroy the world, he endured the pain and took the evil into his spirit core.
He hated the Bride of the Yellow Dragon, and he hated the duty of the direct lineage.
He wanted only one thing.
To destroy the Imperial Family that had driven his old lover to a gruesome death, and the land of the Divine Beasts that had burdened her with the duty of the direct lineage.
The greatest obstacles to his goal were none other than the Four Great Clans that protected the Empire.
Thus, he began by annihilating his own people, the Black Tortoise tribe. Everyone—including the wife from the Black Imoogi Tribe he had married in an unwanted union, and even his young children.
However, he could not bring himself to destroy the Divine Object that his lover, the former Shield Guardian, had protected. He sealed it away with her coffin and kept it deep within this cave.
When he learned that intruders had sneaked into the Underground Palace and were heading for this cave—
Hyeon Ra-baek, who had been indifferent to everything since her passing, felt his emotions stir for the first time in a very long time.
And when he found her coffin empty—
“What… what did you do to her?!”
His soaring rage was directed entirely at the small girl standing before him.