Chapter 152
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Chapter 152
My mother's health deteriorated gradually until she eventually left my side.
The thought that Jeok Soya might abandon me just as my mother had filled me with sudden dread.
Despite her reassurances, I insisted on having her see the Physician.
Yet the Physician found nothing amiss with her body.
Unable to find peace of mind, I lingered near her residence and discovered traces of sorcery—and through my investigation, I learned what the Imperial Family had done to her.
The Imperial Family had attempted to absorb her spiritual core through dark magic.
My father, the Emperor, orchestrated it all.
Once I learned the truth, my mind consumed itself with a single thought: I had to save Jeok Soya.
I sent letters countless times seeking aid from the Jujak Family, but each one vanished before reaching them.
As long as I remained within my father the Emperor's sphere of influence, further attempts would only end in failure.
The Imperial Palace had become far too dangerous for her.
With that realization, I persuaded Jeok Soya to flee the Imperial Palace with me.
But her body had grown so frail that we could not travel far, and the Emperor's soldiers who pursued us ultimately tore her from my grasp.
I was beaten by the Emperor's soldiers and abandoned in the desolate Northern Lands, teeming with demonic beasts.
Perhaps it was always impossible for mere children in their early teens to escape the Imperial Family.
After an eternity had passed, I—having survived the desolate Northern Lands—managed to infiltrate the Imperial Palace once more.
Yet sometimes, the human world is visited by tragedies beyond bearing.
Cruelties so vicious and terrifying that even the purest and brightest of souls shatters and crumbles.
"Grrr... grrr..."
The Jeok Soya I found again had been transformed into something monstrous, her spiritual core twisted and corrupted.
"Jeok Soya, it's... it's me..."
"Grrr... ugh..."
"It's me, Jeok Soya. I've come..."
"Grrrrr..."
"I've come to take you away... I... *sob*, *sob*, I've come to take you away..."
"Grrr... ugh... ah... ahhh..."
"..."
"It... hurts... so... much..."
"..."
Before her suffering—her very soul corrupted by sorcery—I wailed in anguish.
As if she had been waiting for me all this time, Jeok Soya, pleading in agony, slowly surrendered to death in my embrace.
"I was too late."
My tears fell upon her darkened, twisted form.
"I was late, and you died."
Those whose souls are corrupted find no peace even in death.
Only eternal torment awaits her beyond the end of life.
As I lay prostrate on the ground, tears streaming endlessly, I suddenly recalled a forbidden power of the Yellow Dragon that I had once read about in the Imperial Library.
If abilities awakened the spiritual cores that individuals possessed by nature, then powers were inherited through rank and station.
For instance, the patriarch of the Black Tortoise wielded the power to command black waters, distinct from any ability.
And among the Yellow Dragon's powers was the ability to manipulate 'time'.
'If I could turn back time....'
As this thought reached Tae Irim, his eyes deepened with intensity.
Of course, even if time were reversed, a soul already corrupted would have to perish and could not return with him.
But there was one method, and only one.
The Yellow Dragon's orb, said to contain mystical life force.
With that, her soul too could return to the past alongside him.
From that moment onward, there was not the slightest hesitation in his actions.
Tae Irim killed his father, who had committed atrocities within the Imperial Palace, and slew the brothers who had enabled him, becoming the Yellow Dragon himself.
With the Yellow Dragon's orb thus obtained, he offered it before her lifeless body.
[On the night the crimson moon rises, the Yellow Dragon's bride shall awaken the sleeping Divine Beast and sweep away the darkness scattered across this land, bringing peace.]
The oracle was ambiguous.
Thus, opinions varied on what the Yellow Dragon's bride mentioned in the oracle truly was.
Some said it referred to the Empress, the Emperor's consort; others claimed it meant the direct female descendants who inherited the blood of the Divine Beasts; still others believed it referred to the woman who received the Yellow Dragon's greatest love.
But they were all wrong.
The true 'Yellow Dragon's bride' was the dragon's companion who held the orb, and simultaneously, the one and only inverse scale.
To birth the Yellow Dragon's bride, one must offer the orb to the bride before the Yellow Dragon Altar.
It was not merely a matter of handing over a jewel.
Through the ritual, the orb would seep into the bride's body to become a new soul core, while her existing soul core would transform into golden scales, becoming the Yellow Dragon's inverse scale.
My father, ignorant of this, only harmed innocent people needlessly—a truly foolish and abhorrent deed.
"Controller of the Divine Beasts that guard the Central Region, foremost among the five divine dragons, you who connect heaven and earth and rule over the mortal realm."
After the ritual concluded, a colossal Yellow Dragon bearing golden scales descended at his summons.
―Young Yellow Dragon who carries my blood.
The Yellow Dragon, having pierced through Tae Irim's very essence, warned in a solemn voice.
―To move time is to touch the world's greatest taboo. There shall surely be a terrible price to pay.
But Tae Irim did not care.
As long as Jeok Soya could be saved, nothing else mattered.
"It does not matter. Whatever price I must bear."
And so he moved time.
That was his first life.
The problem was that Jeok Soya, reborn carrying the Yellow Dragon's orb in that second life, awakened the Phoenix.
Her soul core, not yet fully matured, sealed her direct bloodline in shock, and as a result, Jeok Soya had to forfeit the characteristics of the Phoenix.
The beginning of a new tragedy.
"...Thus all your misfortune has stemmed from me, so how can I ever approach you, I who have committed such a grave sin against you."
Recalling that distant first life, now so remote it seemed like ancient history, Tae Irim murmured in anguish.
And if there was one more lamentable truth, it was that Tae Irim in his second life could not remember that first time.
Tae Irim met Jeok Soya again in the Imperial Palace without any memory of his first life.
It was not long after he had experienced his mother's death.
To him, drowning in sorrow, she came as a ray of light—a pure white girl. That was Jeok Soya.
* * *
The flames gradually subsided.
Sayeon immediately caught Jeok Soya's swaying small frame and steadied her.
"Father, I..."
Leaning against Sayeon's chest, Jeok Soya looked up at him and spoke in a strained voice.
"I used so much power that I feel a bit dizzy."
"It's all over now, my little one. Let's go back and get some rest."
"Yes, Father."
At those words, Jeok Soya smiled brightly before her eyes gradually closed.
Soft, rhythmic breathing emanated from the sleeping child.
Sayeon lifted the sleeping child into his arms and began to move.
A hand suddenly grasped his shoulder.
Someone had seized him from behind.
It was Jeok Ahyun.
"Just now, that was..."
With a pallor so severe he seemed ready to vanish at any moment, he stammered out his words.
"Just now, what I just saw was..."
"Be grateful that my child didn't hear the words you spoke to me."
Toward Jeok Ahyun, whose lips trembled as though he had forgotten how to finish his sentence, Sayeon fixed him with a cold gaze and spoke sharply.
"Had my child heard those words, I would have killed you on the spot. Even if I were imprisoned for that crime and never saw light again, I would have killed you without hesitation."
The eyes of Sayeon as he spoke held the gaze of a father protecting his child.
Jeok Ahyun faltered, searching his memory.
Just moments ago, what had I said...
[In an instant, I learned my daughter wasn't of my blood! That pristine white down felt utterly repulsive!]
As the memory belatedly surfaced, all remaining color drained from his already pallid face.
"Tell me just one thing. Is Jeok Soya truly my biological daughter?"
Ahyun clung to Sayeon as though grasping a lifeline, his voice desperate.
"Since when has that mattered? What was important to you all was only the color of this child's feathers, wasn't it?"
"You...! What do you know!"
Ahyun's voice cracked harshly as he pressed further.
[Repulsive? When you don't even know how that small child came to possess that pristine white down. What? Repulsive?]
Ahyun was certain. This man knew everything.
Whether Jeok Soya was truly his biological daughter or not...
How that child came to possess white down...
"Please, tell me. Is Jeok Soya truly my biological daughter? If so, then why... how could that child..."
Unable to continue, Ahyun trailed off and bit his lower lip roughly.
"Ask the magnificent Phoenix."
Sayeon cast a contemptuous glance at him, shielding Jeok Soya's face from his view with the generous sleeve of his robe, and passed by.
Seol Yo followed Sayeon and glared at Jeok Ahyun fearfully before hurrying after him.
A shadow fell across Jeok Ahyun, left behind with an expression as though he might collapse at any moment.
"Our young lady awakened the Divine Beast when she was but a newborn, before her spirit core had even awakened, I'm told."
It was a red fox humanoid who served as Baek Sayeon's aide.
"The young soul core, which had been dormant, was startled by a power far too great to handle, and thus sealed the Phoenix bloodline to protect itself."
"...."
Jeok Ahyun stared at the figure before him, his mouth hanging open in a daze.
"I was curious about something."
The red fox humanoid smiled knowingly, a faint smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
"What could possibly have driven our young lady to awaken a Divine Beast at such a tender age, when she could barely open her eyes?"
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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