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slylycurioustreasure · 24 days ago

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The Obsidian-Eyed Guardian

— Part 2.2

Summary: Heir to a cursed line of sorcerers, you carry on your shoulders the weight of an ancestral pact: to prevent the destruction of the world, you must unite with four men from clans once enemies of your own kind—a demon, a celestial, an immortal fox, and a human.

But nothing is simple when love, hate, desire, and betrayal intertwine. Torn between your curse and your feelings, protected by some, judged by others, you will have to face the truth about your blood... and what you are willing to sacrifice to survive.

What if it wasn't you, but them... who were trapped from the start?

Genre: Fantasy, Dark Romance, Drama, Action, Reverse Harem, Supernatural, Wuxia, Historical

Pairing : Park Sunghoon x reader

Word : 19k

⚠️ Warning: Blood, betrayal, jealousy, heartbreaking separations, desperate and all-consuming love, loneliness, magic, pain, deep introspection, ambiguous morality, binding and painful bonds, toxic loyalty, feelings of rejection, psychological violence.

Sexual content: vulgar and crude language, vaginal and oral sex, magic related to the sexual act, explicit and provocative dialogue, voluntary submission, intense rhythms alternating between violence and tenderness, body marks left by bites and scratches, sex in a forbidden place, blasphemy, domination, implicit BDSM practices, crude language and consensual sexual violence.

PREV PART— NEXT (PART 3) ✘ SERIES MASTERLIST ✘

Yànluò Kèzhàn Inn (焰落客栈) — The Inn of Falling Flames

The door had barely closed behind you when Sunghoon grabbed you—not roughly, but with that stifled anger you recognize in men who have struggled with themselves for too long. His arm circled your waist, the other slid across the back of your neck, and your back hit the icy wall softly, like a silent cleaver. Not a word. Just the shudder of his breath against your cheek, burning like white-hot metal, as he fought not to give in too quickly.

Sunghoon looks at you as if he's about to devour you. And maybe that's exactly what he's about to do.

His eyes, unfathomably black, stare into yours with the intensity of lost men. It's no longer desire. It's a fever. A damnation. A silent oath that only your body can exorcise. The silence around you is almost sacred, taut like a rope about to snap. Your breaths are short, out of tune, desperately hungry.

Outside, the first fireworks burst. Blood red. They illuminate your faces with a supernatural glow, bathe the room in a crimson glow, and make shadows dance on the walls like spirits summoned by your sins. The paper lanterns quiver and tremble, as if they were watching, complicit, a forbidden ceremony.

Sunghoon approaches. Slowly. Too slowly. His hand slides against your cheek, trembling, almost hesitant—but it's not gentleness, it's the storm before the rush. And when his lips reach the tip of your nose, he kisses you so gently it makes you gasp.

A farewell. Or a prelude to oblivion.

He moves down, his mouth brushing your cheek, your ear, your neck. Sunghoon doesn't kiss. He writes. He traces on your skin the silent verses of a desire so ancient it becomes sacred. Each kiss is a confession he can't express. Each touch is a war he's losing.

Then, Sunghoon reaches the corner of your mouth. He doesn't kiss yet. He lets your lips brush, search for each other, miss each other. You feel his breath brush yours, rough, feverish. The space between your lips is reduced to a thread, and yet he strives not to break it. He wants you to beg him. He wants your silence to implore his. And when you finally move forward to capture his mouth, he flees—his tongue brushes your cheek, trails down your neck, and you moan in frustration.

His mouth reaches the hollow of your throat. He stays there. For a long time. Too long. His lips close over your skin with agonizing slowness. He licks, he sucks, he tastes. He marks. And when he reaches the beat of your heart, he stops. His lips rest there like a blade on a still-raw wound.

“I want to drink until your last light…”

Your throat tightens. You don't know if you're gasping or sobbing. Your fingers stray into his hair, desperate, clutching at it like a prayer. Your legs buckle. Your breath hitches. And he continues. His voice, hoarse, seeps into you like poison:

“You will be my fate…”

Then Sunghoon attacks your hanfu. He doesn't undo the knots: he rips them out. The silk tears beneath his fingers, a sound both delicate and violent, and each layer falls away like a lie being exposed. Your skin is revealed, shivers in the icy air, tenses under his gaze. He steps back, contemplates you. As one contemplates a sacred object. As one gazes upon a curse.

“You are a work of art… And works of art are locked up. They are stolen. They are broken… Do you want to be one, my little judge?”

Sunghoon lifts you up, as if he's been carrying your weight for a thousand lifetimes. Your legs wrap around him, your forehead presses against his throat. You tremble. He lays you down with a heartbreaking gentleness, as if he fears losing you in the very act of possessing you. His fingers slide into your hair, remove your pin. Your hair collapses, like a sudden night. And outside, a firework explodes, flooding the room with a bloody red.

He freezes. His gaze is feverish, haunted.

"If you don't answer... You will be punished. Mistakes always have a sentence."

You smile. Slowly. You are a priestess offered to her executioner. You stretch out your throat. You expose your belly. You open your heart.

“Yes… Lock me up. Punish me. Devour me… As long as in the end, it’s you. Only you.”

You tug at his hanfu. Sunghoon gives in. He lets you do it. Your hand explores, bares, brushes against him. Beneath your fingers, his skin is burning. His muscles are hard, carved by war and rage. He is made of flames and ice. Of punishments and prayers. Of you.

It lies upon you like a sentence, a fall, a war that can no longer be stopped.

His body is warm, burning, as if emerging from a blaze. And when his hands rest on you, Sunghoon doesn't touch you: he examines you. He explores your skin like a mad calligrapher copying the verses of a forbidden sutra, his fingers trembling with rage, desire, hunger. He deciphers you. He reads you in a low voice, in a forgotten language, pagan and sacred. Every hollow becomes a sanctuary. Every fold, a trap. Every flaw, an offering.

His palm brushes your throat, and you feel the edge of the saber—not the caress. You feel like he could squeeze. Like he could open you, there, with a slow gesture. He moves down slowly, so slowly, toward your sternum, then traces the valley of your breasts as if following the scars of a past too heavy to bear. His breath becomes hoarse. His irises darken, the color of a storm, the color of a moonless night.

Sunghoon whispers, in a hollow, strangled voice:

“You are mine. Mine. Not the world’s. Not theirs. Not even yours.”

His words lacerate. They enter you like an ancient poison, a cursed pact you've already signed—with your blood, your soul, your will.

And Sunghoon's fingers slide along your skin like white-hot jade blades, first grazing, then tracing cruel lines across the contours of your breast. When they reach your nipple, he doesn't brush against it—he grasps it. Between two knuckles as precise as metal pliers, he pinches it with a methodical, almost searching slowness, as if searching for the exact point where pleasure turns to torture.

You inhale too deeply, too sharply. A cry escapes your throat, hoarse, wild, raw, as if a part of your soul had just been ripped from you. Your back arches violently against the dark silk mattress, taut as a bowstring about to snap, and your neck tilts, offering your bare throat like a sacrifice.

Sunghoon says nothing.

He doesn't need to speak.

For his mouth acts. It descends. Slowly. Terribly slowly. His lips are sweet poison and his breath is a bite of hot ashes on your trembling skin. When he encloses your other breast in the burning hollow of his mouth, it is no longer a kiss—it is a combustion. A sacrificial offering.

You're burning.

You're burning from the inside out. You feel the heat, that rising tide, swallowing your belly, consuming your loins, ravaging the secret sanctuary between your thighs. It's not just a shudder—it's a fracture. As if something is breaking deep inside you, a forgotten dam, an ancient seal, something dark and powerful that even your own power couldn't name.

And you scream. Again. But this time, it's a scream that has nothing human about it. It's not a complaint. It's a perverted prayer, a call from the depths of your body to this celestial being who crushes you, explores you, consumes you. It's the echo of a chasm he has awakened within you, a chasm that had never known light—only shadows. Primitive, violent impulses that had always slept beneath the calm surface of your mask.

Sunghoon's teeth graze your still-wet nipple, trapping it for a moment, then pull with cruel delicacy, a patience that borders on refined torture. You moan again, but this time, it's no longer pain. It's no longer fear.

It's abandonment.

You are his. You feel it. Not in a romantic sense. Not in a naive pact. You are his like a terrain conquered by war. Like a city set ablaze. Like a body caught in a forbidden ritual. He desecrates and sanctifies you in the same breath.

His gaze rises back up to you—black, unfathomable, merciless. And in his eyes, you see your own reflection: a broken, possessed being, magnificent in his ruin. Sunghoon releases your breast slowly, as if reluctantly returning your flesh, and his hand moves down to your stomach, his palm burning, possessive, marking your skin with an invisible but indelible imprint.

And your whole body, on fire, waits for what happens next. Not to flee. But to be annihilated.

And then… It happens.

Your link.

The mark tattooed on your shoulder blade glows, like an ember blown out after centuries of oblivion. Blood red. Sob red. Condemnation red. It throbs like a beast's heart. His, etched vividly on his wrist, pulses in echo, a furious, brutal, uncontrollable beat. Their glow seeks each other, seizes each other, devours each other. Your bodies attract like two magnets that hate each other, two chained gods who can only crush each other with each revolution.

Sunghoon descends, kneeling before you like a fallen king before the idol he is about to desecrate.

But there is nothing tender in his submission. Nothing sweet. This isn't a kiss he steals from you. It's a silent war, a sacrilege whispered between his cursed lips. You feel his breath brush the inside of your thighs—a damp, disordered, irrational heat. Like the wind from ancient tombs. Like the sigh of a celestial freed by breaking a forgotten seal.

Sunghoon no longer looks at you with human eyes. He devours you with the fever of a black priest. With the madness of an ascetic who has finally found the beating heart of his heresy.

His palms slide slowly over your hips, then part them, gently but firmly, like two blades opening onto a living heart. He cuts you open. Literally. He tears you away from yourself. Every millimeter of your skin he reveals becomes a dirge, an offering to chaos. You are no longer a woman. You are an invocation. You are the burning hearth of an unholy ritual.

And he—Sunghoon—is not a lover. He is the instrument of the pact.

When his mouth reaches your center, it's not a shudder that runs through your body, but a telluric jolt, a tremor of the soul. His tongue enters you with the grave slowness of a forbidden spell, with the unholy precision of a monk tattooing forbidden runes on flesh. This is not pleasure. This is not sweetness.

It's a power grab.

It is enslavement.

It's an incantation.

The first pressure tears a hoarse, inhuman cry from you, and you feel your muscles tense, your stomach hollow, your back arch as if your body were trying to flee—or hold it in. But Sunghoon is relentless. He drinks from your source like a cursed cup. Every movement of his tongue seems calculated to break something inside you: modesty, will, resistance.

Sunghoon moans against you. A hoarse, hungry, almost animal sound. And in that vibration, you lose your bearings. You moan, gasp, lose all sense of time. You convulse beneath his mouth like a woman possessed. You are nothing more than a black torch consumed by his breath. More than a sacrilegious fire.

Sunghoon adores you like one adores a demon:

With fanaticism.

With despair.

With violence.

His hands grip your thighs, pushing them further apart, not asking—not begging—but demanding. He opens you like an offering on the altar of a fallen god. You feel your magic escaping you with every strangled moan. You feel your essence abandon you and flow into him like a poison only he knows how to tame.

You are no longer a woman in his arms. You are an oracle in a trance. A living artifact.

You collapse, finally, under his tongue. You break. You scream. You cry. You plead. But he continues, tireless, until he makes you convulse again, until your cries break into hoarse sobs and your sighs become silent prayers.

And then… Sunghoon climbs back up. Gently. Slowly. Too slowly. Every inch of his ascent is torture. His mouth traces a trail of black fire across your wet skin, and you feel him marking you, imprinting something inside you, something eternal, unspeakable. Your fingers close around his shoulders as if you're afraid of falling—when you're already falling, inside.

When he finally reaches your face, Sunghoon is breathless, but his eyes… His eyes are no longer human. They shine with a mad glare. A feverish, almost painful glare. His pupils are dilated, as if he's tasted some divine drug. He's trembling. He's on the edge. You feel it—he's reeling, like a warrior drunk on slaughter, like a blade vibrating just before it cuts. All it takes is a word. A sigh. A breath.

And Sunghoon would dive.

He kisses you then, brutally. Tongue against tongue, taste against taste, you against him. And you understand, in this devouring kiss, that it's not over. That this was only the first door of the temple.

And as he is about to cross the second, he says:

“Tell me you love me… or I’ll lose myself.”

You grab him. Like holding a condemned man. You scream, sob, hiccup.

"I love you. I hate you. I want you."

And then suddenly... Sunghoon enters. Not gently. Not hesitantly. But all at once, all at once, like a sentence spoken in a low voice under a rain of ashes. He enters you brutally , without a word, without a warning, like a drawn saber, a deadly strike in the shadows.

The pain is raw. Total. A sharp fire, pure and raw, ripping you open. You scream—but it's not your voice. It's not that of the woman you were. It's the beast inside you. The witch. The creature the war left behind. A heartbreaking, inhuman scream, as if your very soul is split open, caught in magic older than you.

He growls against your skin, his teeth clenched, every muscle tense like a bow. He pushes deeper, slowly now, merciless, as if he wants to inhabit you . As if he wants to destroy you from the inside out. And you feel… Everything. Every inch of him. Every pulse of his desire, raging, blind, desperate.

Sunghoon doesn't make love. He takes revenge. He takes you like you cast an irreversible spell. Like you destroy what you can't have.

Your legs close around him—reflexively, out of need, or out of defiance. Your back arches. Your nails dig into his skin. You want to run away. You want to stay. You want to die and be reborn, all at once.

And Sunghoon... He accelerates. His movements become wild, rhythmic, inhuman. His thrusts are furious, uncontrolled waves, strikes of passion pent up for too many years, too many silences.

He grabs your hips, lifts you, pushes you against the silk sheets. Your back hits the headboard. Your forehead falls on his shoulder. You gasp. He turns you over, abruptly. Your stomach on the bed. He takes you again, without slowing down, harder. Deeper. And you lose yourself.

You lose track of up, down, time. The world becomes his breath against your neck. His hands around your throat. His name you moan like an oracle, like a poison you want to swallow to the end.

Sunghoon moaned back—hoarse, almost painful—as if taking you was ripping him apart too. As if your warmth were exorcising him.

And he whispers, panting, his breath breaking:

“You… You’re killing me…”

But Sunghoon doesn't stop. He pushes deeper, all the way to the bone. He rips moans, tears, and sobs out of your control. Your body vibrates, your legs tremble, your hands try to find a place to anchor themselves—in his hair, on his chest, in his blood.

You scratch him. You hurt him. He bites your shoulder, brutally, leaving a red, raw, hot mark.

And outside, the sky bursts.

The lanterns burn out. Fireworks tear silently through the night. But none of their bursts are as incandescent as what you are becoming . A demon and a witch. A judge and a criminal. Two hearts that have never learned to love except with violence.

Sunghoon slows down. His thrusts become slower. Deeper. Each thrust is an unspoken oath. An "I love you" choked in his throat. A goodbye whispered between moans.

His hand slides between your legs. He wants you to fall with him. To be lost, burned, erased. And you do. You come against him. Once. Twice. You lose count. Your body arches, shaken, seized by convulsions you can't hold back. He follows you. With a final cry. A low, hoarse, animal rattle.

Sunghoon empties himself into you. And for a few seconds, he stops breathing.

When he falls back on you, panting, trembling, it's as if he's collapsing against his own past. He stays there, anchored inside you, his breath hot on your neck, his skin covered in sweat, your blood, the shadow of a love he no longer knows how to refuse.

“I hate you,” he whispers in a dead voice. And then, in a whisper, “But I love you even more. And I’m… Lost.”

You don't answer. You cry. Silently. Your tears fall onto the bed, onto him, onto this night that engulfs you both.

Sunghoon kisses the back of your neck. Not tenderly. Desperately. As if he wants to keep you in his mouth forever. As if he'll spit you out tomorrow.

And he whispers, in a voice so low that only your heart hears it:

“You are mine. Forever. Even if I have to burn to keep you.”

Sunghoon never left you.

Or rather, he never really let go of you.

His shadow was everywhere around you, a silent weight, an icy breath on the back of your neck, a presence that insinuated itself into every corner of your body and mind. You no longer knew where your breath ended and his began.

Sunghoon was there, always there, like a dull ache in the hollow of your skin. Not a moment of respite, not a moment of freedom. His presence was an invisible chain, a bond of blood and curse that you shared. A mark that burned beneath your clothes, there, on your skin, pulsing like a cursed heart, beating in unison yet light years apart.

You sat on his lap, back straight, hands immersed in the cold inkstone, slowly grinding the black ink stick. The acrid smell of soot and pigment crept into your nostrils, bitter, lingering, like poison. The white paper before you was sacred territory, a battlefield where his brushes traced signs and destinies, while your hand slowly turned the black powder into a dark, hypnotic liquid.

His free hand, the one not holding the brush, slid over your stomach, slow and heavy, each caress like a threat, a promise, a half-whispered oath. His fingers traced burning circles, awakening buried pains and forbidden desires. You shivered, despite yourself, as he let his hot breath fan against your bare skin, his nose brushing against the nape of your neck, his lips a breath away from your ear.

"At this rate, my legs will end up numb before all this ink is even ready..." His voice, hoarse, broken by emotion held back for too long, betrayed bitter amusement and deep weariness.

You shrugged, a sad smile on your lips, staring at the black ink you were melting.

"If you didn't spend all your time distracting me... Maybe I'd be a better student." Your laughter was a breath, a fragile glimmer of humanity in this dark universe.

Sunghoon gently nuzzled your skin, and a shiver ran through you. His touch was both a caress and a torture, a tender bite that consumed your defenses.

"You're the one who distracts me from my duties," he murmured, his voice heavy with silent reproaches and unleashed desires.

His fingers slid slowly lower, brushing against the small of your back, teetering between restraint and surrender, making your heart race.

You wanted to get away, to escape this grip that was both suffocating and consuming you. Slowly, you slid off his lap, seeking refuge on the cold, hard floor, your back straight, the inkstone in front of you.

“I’ll continue here,” you breathed, your voice fragile, almost breaking. “So as not to be a distraction.”

You pretended to pout, puffing out your cheeks slightly, a desperate play to keep a distance you didn't know how to maintain.

But he didn't let you go.

With a sure, relentless gesture, Sunghoon pulled you towards him, placing you back on his lap, your chest crushed against his. His warmth enveloped you, a black flame that devoured what remained of your resistance.

He buried his face in your neck, like a shipwrecked man clinging to the last lifeline, whispering your name like a desperate prayer:

“Don't go away from me… Y/n.” His voice was broken, shaky, filled with a deep pain that reached your core.

You couldn't help the lump rising in your throat, that harsh, icy weight that stifled all hope. So you slowly stroked his hair, your fingers sliding gently along the back of his neck, trying to soothe the storm rumbling within him, to calm the black fire consuming him from within. The warmth of his skin beneath your palm, the slowness of his breath against yours, all of it formed a fragile bubble, suspended outside of time, far from the cries of the world and its storms. You felt beneath your hand that paradoxical mixture of tension and need, of restrained power and barely veiled vulnerability.

In this almost sacred silence, your heart beat to the rhythm of the caresses you offered it, in the hope of bringing back a semblance of peace to this chaos that it was.

But then, brutally, heartbreakingly, the silence was shattered.

The door exploded.

A wild crash echoed like thunder in the dark night. The wood splintered, sending splinters into the air, and an icy blast rushed in, carrying with it the warmth and tenderness you shared. The atmosphere froze, heavy with a dull, implacable threat. The next moment, you felt his body tense against yours, a bow ready to release its deadly arrow.

Sunghoon leaped upright, his muscles tense, his gaze turning cold, warlike, almost animal. The gentleness that enveloped you was fading beneath the icy bite of imminent danger. He was no longer the man who sought refuge in your arms, but the soldier, the sharp shadow that cut through the night.

Before you, a figure flickered, trembling, like a flame about to go out. Jang Wonyoung. The mortal. The woman for whom, once, his heart had burned with a tender and cruel fire, this flame that he had believed he could nourish, until fate came to crush his dreams under the weight of your shadow.

She lay there, collapsed, almost unreal, pale as death itself, panting, breathing with difficulty. Her once immaculate clothes were torn, soaked with a dark red that seemed to ooze from her invisible wounds. Her face bore the pallor of a ghost, her livid lips betraying an icy, unfathomable fear. She slowly opened her wild eyes, meeting Sunghoon's with a heartbreaking intensity: a storm of horror, relief, and a love shattered by time and silence.

Her body faltered, her legs gave way, and without strength, she collapsed, unconscious, on the cold floor.

Silence fell again, heavy, oppressive, like a sealed coffin. The air seemed saturated with pain, regret, unspoken words, and dead promises.

“Wonyoung…” Sunghoon breathed, his voice broken, trembling, a silent scream that tore through the icy night of his heart.

Without even meeting your gaze, without an ounce of hesitation, he abruptly pushed you away. You fell to your knees, breathless, your body bruised by the sudden rejection, abandoned like a broken toy, a shattered fragment tossed to the ground without remorse.

He rushed to her, lifted her up with a desperate, infinitely fragile, almost painful tenderness that you had never seen in him. His hands were trembling, betraying the depth of an emotion he always hid behind his impenetrable mask. Then, in a burst of cold, harsh light, they both disappeared, leaving you alone. Alone with the immense emptiness their absence had left in your chest.

The ink stick slowly slipped from your clenched fingers, shattering into hard, black shards that lacerated your palm without you feeling the slightest pain. Your skin felt numb, your mind filled with an icy cold. Your stomach tightened violently, as if an invisible force were strangling you from within. Your heart screamed silently, a dull, tortured cry that had no echo. No anger, no jealousy, none of it.

No.

You were beyond that.

You were the shadow, the curse incarnate. Cursed, condemned to bear the weight of an impossible love, sealed by a pact of shadows, blood, and suffering. You were a witch, a creature locked in an invisible cage, prisoner of a cruel destiny, of a dark and inescapable fate.

In this silence where the light was going out, where the world seemed to collapse around you, an icy certainty took hold: you would never be the one he saw. You would never be able to share a future. You would always be the open wound in his soul, the creeping shadow that gnawed at his light.

And maybe…

Not even in this life.

You stayed.

Even as every fiber of your being screamed to flee, to dissolve into darkness, to turn your back once and for all on this kingdom of ashes that your heart had become. To go far away, out of this night where your own silence echoed, to disappear into the folds of shadow where no one would call you, where the pain would perhaps dissipate into oblivion. As you had done so many times before, withdrawing from the battle of the world, fleeing the wounds that life kept planting in you. But this time, you had stayed. You had not shunned.

For what ?

Because love is an irremediable madness, a wound you carry like a brand, a poison from which you never truly heal. Because even when the fire consumed you to the bone, you still wanted to sink into its embers. Hoping, against all reason, that one day, perhaps, that very fire could be reborn, illuminate the ashes with a miracle. That something impossible would emerge from the nothingness to which it had relegated you.

You had chosen Sunghoon. Again and again. Despite the insurmountable distance that had grown between you, an icy, impenetrable wall, a chasm where your hands broke with every attempt. Despite the hard, cruel frost in his gaze, those steely eyes that had ceased to call to you except through the force of worn-out habit. Despite his silences, heavy with unsaid words sharper than a thousand blades, silences so deep they drowned every spark within you. Despite his absences, long, cold, deep, like so many chasms that swallowed every fragment of your life.

You had clung to what he had been. To the almost extinguished glow of an ancient tenderness, to the fragile silhouette of a past where Sunghoon had loved you. As if love could survive from these faded vestiges, these hollow echoes, these broken memories. As if that were enough to resurrect the light.

You had reached out. You had held out your heart, fragile, beating, offering, hoping for an answer—even if it was just a whisper, a breath, a flutter of an eyelid that would tell you there was still something left. But each time, your voice broke, shattered against the stone wall he had erected around himself. You had tried to pierce that fortress of ice, to touch the man beneath the cold shell, to brush against his frozen soul. But Sunghoon wouldn't give in. He wouldn't.

"I have more serious concerns." Those words struck your heart like a saber blow. Sharp, sharp, final. Sunghoon hadn't even looked at you. He had turned his face away from your despair. Those words were a sentence. A condemnation sealed with an iron seal, the final tombstone placed on your bond. A grave where you had thought hope would still blossom.

You had smiled. A broken, torn, desperate smile. You had believed those words because you wanted to believe. Because you clung, like a drowning woman to a piece of wood, to the idea that there remained a crack, a flaw through which the light could return. That he could remember you. That he could come back.

So you waited.

You had waited for him to come back, to look at you, to care, to love you. You had waited, mercilessly, in the invisible cage of your patience, that trap of suffering and mad hope, day after day, minute after minute, in the slow agony of an all-consuming wait.

Hands clasped, lips closed, heart offered like a sacrifice, beating dully, a funeral drum in your chest. You waited like a damned woman, condemned never to see salvation, prisoner of a love that would never be returned. Every day, you felt your life crumble, unravel into a thousand threads of pain woven into your bones, in the hollow of your chest. A dull, insidious agony, all-consuming, silently gnawing at the soul, invisible to those who don't know how to look.

But nothing came. Sunghoon did not return. Sunghoon wasn't looking at you anymore.

You were nothing more than a ghost in his world, a shadow he could barely bear. A wound he carried, but one he longed to see disappear, like a weight too heavy. Your love, that burning blaze, was no longer enough. You were no longer the light that lit his days, but the fleeting shadow his eyes avoided. And you could no longer deny that.

So your steps had led you, on that starless night, to the Hanging Garden of Perfumes. Xuánxiāng Yuán. A place of cruel beauty, a beauty so pure it tore at the heart. A forest of silence suspended in the shadows of sky lanterns.

Bleached wooden walkways, like ancestral bones, stretched over the deep, black waters, shimmering like open wounds to infinity. Serpentine bridges connected the jade-roofed pavilions, all enveloped in a silver mist that stretched like a breath of death. Everywhere, dormant lotuses, frozen in icy stillness, shone with a spectral light beneath the pale halo of hanging lanterns.

The wind itself seemed to have frozen. Time suspended. Absolute stillness. Not a breath, not a sigh, nothing but that oppressive, perfect silence, which held you in its icy embrace. And the only sound that broke that silence was the dull, heavy beating of your own heart—a drum of pain, a condemned man's hammer.

You had moved forward, each step echoing like a death knell on the cold flagstones, each echo reverberating like a dire omen. You were alone. But the weight of your grief made you a thousand times heavier. A thousand pains, a thousand regrets, a thousand disappointments crushed your fragile body.

At the edge of a black pool, water as still as the starless night, you leaned over. You wanted to see something other than your reflection—a fragment of light, a forgotten smile, a sliver of hope to be gathered from the night. But the mirror returned only your pale face. A bent silhouette, eyes hollowed by sleepless nights, dark circles hollowed like ravines of shadow, lips cracked by the overflow of silences and unspoken words.

You were kneeling.

And the weight of grief had broken you.

A heart-rending sob erupted from your chest, an invisible blade piercing you without warning. You collapsed, your body trembling on the icy stones, your arms wrapped around your own being, as if to keep your heart from falling apart, as if to hold back the tide of pain that threatened to engulf you, to swallow up what little light you had left.

You had cried.

But not the kind of furtive, almost timid tears that slide silently over the edge of your eyelids in the secrecy of a fading night. No. What you were shedding wasn't just clear water. It was a raging torrent, a furious river of pain, bitter and burning, that dug into your skin, cutting into your flesh and soul deeper than the sharpest blade.

Each tear, heavy and inflamed, was an invisible dagger planted in the hollow of your being, a corrosive venom insinuating itself into the smallest folds of your pain, tearing away what remained of your strength, tearing at the fragile bonds that bound you to life. Your whole body was shaking, vibrating with that dull, wild pain—as ferocious as a hunted, wounded tiger, ready to bite the earth with its bloody claws.

Muffled sobs, hoarse and primitive, escaped your tight throat, death rattles of agony and despair that seemed to come from a time before time, from the forgotten echo of a broken melody. They were the lamentations of your martyred heart, woven from buried regrets, silent humiliations, from all those hours stolen from hope, spent staring at a silent, impassive sky, as cruel as a merciless judge.

"Why... Why am I always the one who loves the most?" Your voice, a broken breath, a whisper broken by pain, faded into the icy air.

You were teetering on the edge of the abyss, fragile and trembling, a child broken under the weight of a world too hard, too cold. Around you, Xuánxiāng Yuán stretched, silent and motionless, a golden prison within an empty white palace. Its pale wooden galleries reflected the spectral glow of the suspended sky lanterns, frozen in a still, icy light, as if petrified in a frozen dream. The lotuses, heavy and motionless, drifted on black, lifeless water, prisoners of an eternal, merciless sleep. Like you. Frozen in a painful beauty. Captive of a winter that would never end.

You had no more strength. More willpower. So, with desperate rage, you hit the ground with all your might. Again. Again. Again. Your fists crashed against the icy stone, tearing your fragile skin, letting blood flow, hot and raw, splashing the immaculate whiteness of the cobblestones, a macabre painting, a silent cry of your suffering that no one would come to wipe away.

You wanted your pain to become visible, palpable, undeniable. You wanted to scream your misery to the whole world, to him, to this ghost who had left you wandering in the shadows.

But Sunghoon wasn't there. And he wouldn't come.

First, you whispered his name, a cursed breath thrown into the eternal night. "Park Sunghoon..."

Then, pain consumed you. And you screamed. Wildly. Desperately. A heart-rending, primal scream, shattering the frozen silence of the garden, a scream that carried the anger of a thousand shattered heavens.

“You destroyed me! You took me, consumed me, then abandoned me!” Your voice trembled, choked with rage and pain, a howl of agony that tore through the starless night. “You made me a ruin… An abandoned carcass! And you don’t even realize it!”

But the deepest, most intolerable wound was the one that burned silently, invisible.

You couldn't even hate him.

“But the worst part… I can’t even hate you…” Those words, whispered with the desperate weariness of a broken soul, were sharper than all the swords in the world.

They betrayed the cruellest truth: you were captive to an impossible love, chained by invisible bonds, torn promises, by the same pain you were trying to escape.

You let yourself fall onto your back, exposed and vulnerable on the cold stone. Your body trembled, naked, abandoned under the merciless light of the hanging lanterns, their soft, cruel glow illuminating your pale face, helpless before the abyss that was devouring you from within. Every breath was torture, a cruel reminder of his absence. Every beat of your bruised heart sounded the cadence of an abysmal emptiness, deeper than the darkest abyss.

You were nothing more than a living wound, a witch with a shattered heart, marked not by runes or pacts, but by a love torn from the flesh. A dull poison. A gaping wound that bled endlessly.

In that night of silver and ashes, you finally understood the bitter truth of the sorrow of loving a celestial. Of loving a divine being, too high, too distant, too perfect for this imperfect world. Of loving an inaccessible star. Of loving an elusive wind. An icy breath that eats away at you to the bone.

You loved the impossible.

And the stars, they never go down.

So you closed your eyes, engulfed in a sea of shadows and regrets, praying that the pain would consume you entirely, that the night would devour your last ember, that silence would swallow your sobs. Because anything was better than this half-dead survival, this slow sinking in an ocean of endless agony.

You were a faded flower in a hanging garden. A shadow without light. A broken soul, lost between two worlds. And no one, ever, would come to save you.

Night was not falling : it was descending.

Like a funeral cloak, like a living shroud spread across the rooftops of the celestial palace, it bore neither star, nor moon, nor respite. The sky seemed to ooze a black, almost liquid substance, as if darkness itself were bleeding from the firmament. Even the sacred lanterns arranged around the medical pavilion had gone out one by one, in an almost religious silence. The air was heavy, laden with a strange, metallic scent, which had nothing to do with the medicinal roots hanging from the ceiling. It was the smell of a world turning upside down.

And at the heart of this chaos, Sunghoon. Frozen. On his knees. Mute.

Her fingers, once so sure, trembled above Wonyoung's inanimate body. The light that bathed them, usually a pure and restorative white, had taken on a sickly hue. Filaments of ink snaked beneath the celestial brightness, like veins of shadow infecting divine magic itself. Healing became contamination. The sacred, a curse.

And yet, Sunghoon didn't stop. Because if he stopped, he knew what he'd see. The mark. And it was just waiting to wake up. A pulse. Slow. Dull. Then another, stronger one. It struck his flesh like an ominous bell, like a call to pain etched into his bones. And finally the third—an invisible hammer blow, driven into his nerves.

The mark opened. Literally. Like a mouth. Like a scream. It cracked, expanded, stretched until his skin gave way. Blood flowed, thick, black, incandescent. It gushed from his wrist as if from a foreign heart, from another living being grafted onto his soul.

Sunghoon stifled a groan. His knees hit the floor. A spasm ran through him.

« No… »

But it was already too late. Pain seeped into his body like acid. It rose through his veins, burned his lungs, and tightened his throat until it choked him. His breathing became erratic, ragged, as if he were drowning in an invisible liquid.

And in the depths of this torture, a name. Your name.

Y/n.

His jaw tightened. Sunghoon bit his own tongue, hard, very hard, until the bite made blood run down his throat.

Why? Why was it your name that kept coming back? Why your face? Why this silhouette—yours—cloaked in the mist of his memory, both desired and cursed?

Sunghoon wanted to forget you. He was supposed to forget you. But he felt you. There. Somewhere. Far away, yet so close. And you were crying. You were in pain. He didn't have proof, but he knew it the way we know the rain is coming from the trembling of the leaves.

The pain you felt screamed through the mark like a sob from the depths of time. Like an unholy prayer. A plea addressed to no one. To him. His magic became unstable, his celestial energy decaying, tearing apart under the force of this cursed resonance. Sunghoon was going to get up. Join you. Cross the mountains, the forbidden places, the celestial chains. Even if it meant losing everything.

But then... A voice. A barely audible breath. Like an echo from the other side of life.

« Sunghoon… Is that you? »

He froze. His heart skipped a beat. His hands fell dead to his sides. His gaze, devoid of light, slowly rose to the source of the voice.

Wonyoung.

She was awake. Her lips were trembling. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her body, so frail, seemed carried by a silk thread, ready to break at the slightest movement. But she was breathing. She was alive.

And suddenly, everything inside Sunghoon flickered.

The bond. The mark. Your name. Your suffering.

Everything was thrown into a sea of confusion. Everything that had been tearing him apart a few seconds earlier was pushed into the background, because she was alive, and he had thought her lost.

Sunghoon approached her slowly, like a man crossing a field of ruins. He took her in his arms. She was already sobbing against his chest, her breath ragged, her body burning. He wanted to speak, but the words caught in his throat.

“Wonyoung… What happened?”

She coughed, spitting up a little blood. He handed her a bowl of water, which she frantically drained. Then she looked up, and he read something in her eyes he'd never seen before. An ancient fear.

“The village… Nothing remains of it.” His voice was hoarse, raw. “A mist. Black. Dense. Living. It arrived without warning. It covered everything. Then… there was fire. The smell of blood. Screams. Howls…”

She collapsed against him. Tears were streaming from her wide-open eyes, as if she didn't dare close them anymore, afraid of seeing what she had experienced again.

“They're all dead, Sunghoon… All of them. Even the children. Even the old people. It was just me.” She screamed silently, her fists clenching on her tunic. Her whole body was shaking.

And Sunghoon… He felt anger rising. It rose. Dully. First like a burning in his stomach. Then it unfolded, vast, violent, unbearable. He closed his eyes. The mark pulsed again. And he knew. He knew what his heart refused to admit.

It was you. Y/n. It was your magic. This mist. This darkness. This chaos. This blood.

Maybe you did it unintentionally. Maybe you were just an unwitting weapon. But that didn't change the outcome. You had killed. Again. And Sunghoon… He loved you. Sunghoon had opened his home to you. Sunghoon had kissed you. Sunghoon had seen you cry in the shadows and believed that his love would be enough to heal your wounds.

What a fool. What a blind man. He saw your face, the one from a few nights ago. Your fingers on his skin. That whisper against his mouth. Your ragged breath, that shiver he thought he shared. Sunghoon had seen you as fragile. He had thought you were human. But you were a curse. And he was only a man, too weak to stop.

He gritted his teeth until he heard the bone crack in his jaw. His magic bucked, out of control. He pushed Wonyoung away with fierce tenderness and laid her back down, gently. She was already asleep, exhausted from the confession.

Sunghoon stood up. And his gaze was no longer the same. Something inside him had died. A fire. A faith. A light.

The next time he laid eyes on you… It wouldn't be to love you anymore. It would be to judge you. And this time, he wouldn't tremble.

Hēi Lián Gé (黑莲阁) — Black Lotus Pavilion

You've been back at the Black Lotus Pavilion for five whole days, but that return has only added shadows to the chasm gnawing at your soul. Every step on this familiar ground is a slap to your will to breathe, a bite of icy steel to your already bruised chest. Here, you thought you'd find refuge—a secret enclave outside of time, far from the poisonous venom of the White Wheel Palace. But peace would not rest its wings on your heart.

This place, this dark wooden dwelling with walls tattooed with dancing shadows, exudes a scent of memory and regret. The walls, imbued with the whispers of those who have gone before you, seem to weigh on your shoulders like an invisible weight. You have banished the name of the celestial—Park Sunghoon—from your mind, but it returns with every beat of your heart, like a blade too deeply planted to be extracted without pain.

You lay down on the old, varnished wooden deckchair, the one that creaks under the slightest movement, as if even the material refuses to accept your weight. Your bare skin, sunburned and drenched in cold sweat, clashes with the roughness of the wood, each roughness reminding you of your own vulnerability—a fragile balance between bruised flesh and bleeding soul. Your breath hitches and freezes, both heavy and shaky, on the verge of a muffled scream you barely hold back.

The wind, that traitor, plays with your untidy hair, its strands falling across your face like invisible chains. It caresses your skin like an icy hand, carrying the memories of sleepless nights, of lightless days. Its breath is a deadly cold that snakes through your bones, as if it wanted to finish you off or freeze you alive, imprisoned in this infinite silence.

Before you, the forest stretches out, a sea of darkness where ancient trees, standing as silent sentinels, observe and judge. They are the motionless witnesses of a pain no one dares to name. Each dead leaf that flutters, fragile and uncertain, dances like a soul condemned to wander endlessly, prisoner of a past it cannot escape. The sky above this black sea is an ocean of lead, heavy, suffocating, like an open coffin ready to swallow you up.

You feel the bite of the moment—the wood beneath your body, the bland, acrid taste of chrysanthemum tea slowly fading on your tongue, the icy bite of the wind on the back of your neck, the sly caress that lights a black flame in your gut. Your fan, once a symbol of your mastery and grace, trembles in your hand, victim of an uncontrollable nervous tic, an absurd, chaotic dance without rhythm or end.

Your eyelids close with infinite heaviness, you seek refuge in oblivion, in the fragile illusion that is silence. But you know, deep down, that this calm is a lie. A cruel and fatal trap. This lie has a name, a face, a breath that resonates in your blood: Park Sunghoon.

You don't move as he approaches. You don't need to open your eyes to feel his presence freezing the air around you, tightening it into a steel cage. He's there, his rigid, cutting aura falling on you like a silent condemnation. He is that icicle of the heavens, motionless, perfect, uncompromising. The very breath of divine justice, a crystal sword suspended above your head.

And yet... You know. You've glimpsed the other side of the mask, the crack no one else sees. A secret, ancient pain, a deep wound that tears him apart from within, though he refuses to show it. Sunghoon carries his grief like a weapon, cold and sharp, hidden behind his stony gaze. He doesn't cry. He doesn't speak. But he bleeds. You never forget those who bleed.

The wind suddenly stops, as if terrified, and the world becomes heavier, more stifling.

You slowly open your eyes. Your eyelids flutter open to reveal this motionless figure. Your gaze meets his, hard, clear, burning with a cold flame. He stands there, erect, dignified, a living statue carved from crystal. His white hanfu with gold trim seems to float around him, but even perfection has its flaws—his sleeves are wrinkled, his forehead is beaded with sweat that the wind struggles to dry, his strands of black hair escape and caress his face like rebellious snakes.

“The icicle of heaven deigns to honor me with its presence…” you breathe, sarcasm dripping from each syllable. “What a beautiful day to die.”

Your smile is a cold blade, a sharp irony, a veil of pain and resentment. You slowly place your fan on the wooden table, the dull sound like a death knell, and raise your cup of tea to your lips. You drink slowly, silently, as if this moment weren't his, as if you were standing somewhere else, far from him, far from his coldness.

But you should have known. Sunghoon won't stop there. His voice falls, heavy and sharp, an implacable axe:

“Unclean woman… What have you done to the village of Qinglin?”

There is no nuance, no gentleness, only the dry and final condemnation.

Sunghoon's hand hits the table with a sharp thud. Your cup flies, topples, spilling its hot liquid like blood onto the dusty floor, the red pool spreading, sinister and silent, a macabre reflection of the unspoken truth. You stare at him, and in that gaze, a shard of you cracks and shatters. A dull ache crushes your insides, invisible, unbearable, a dead weight that makes you stagger.

"You're tiring me out, ice block," you whisper through gritted teeth, your voice trembling with an icy anger that refuses to die down. "Why is any of this any of your business?"

A sob twists your throat, but you swallow the weakness. Not in front of him. He dared to cross the line of silence, to violate your fragile peace, to judge you as always, to accuse you as always, to crush you as always. This injustice is a blade that slashes at your heart, even if it beats only weakly beneath the black ashes of your despair.

You raise your head, your burning gaze piercing his steel eyes, and launch a poisoned arrow:

“Don't tell me you're worried about your lovely girlfriend… Or should I say, your ex-girlfriend?” A broken, raspy laugh, laden with pain and disdain, escapes your throat. The laugh is a silent scream, a breath of fire amidst the ice. You see it flicker, if only for a moment.

Sunghoon doesn't respond. His jaw tightens, his hand trembles imperceptibly.

And you, deep in your chest, a pain you refuse to name spreads. Jealousy? Sadness? Despair? You refuse to give it that power. You're not jealous. You're the one he betrayed before he even knew he loved you. You are the one he wanted to save, but chose to condemn.

The wind rushes in again, violent, laden with dust and ash. Beneath this dying sky, the air seems to tear itself apart. The pain within you ignites into a black blaze, a fire that threatens to consume everything.

Your fingers dig into the lacquered wood of your fan, tense, white with tension. Your deep black hanfu floats around you like a veil of mourning.

Park Sunghoon stands there, majestic and terrifying, an ivory statue frozen in the storm. His eyes reflect a silent war: a dull anger, a deep melancholy, a fierce struggle between duty and desire, order and passion.

Without a word, he summons his sword, a blade of cold, sharp light. It is an extension of his unyielding will, a divine judgment hanging over you. With a quick movement, he brings the sharp point to your throat. The pressure is light, almost a caress of icy metal, but suffocating. An icy shudder runs through your skin, a slight burn. A trickle of bright red blood escapes, slowly, drop by drop, a scarlet trail in the gloom.

"I will not let a sinner like you bring calamity to this world," he snarls, his voice thick with suppressed anger, a silent threat of storm.

You stand still, silent defiance burning in your eyes, ablaze with icy hatred. With a firm hand, you grasp the blade, ignoring the burn in your palm. Blood flows, hot drops on the cold metal, falling as an offering to this grim silence.

“You claim to want to save this world,” you whisper, your voice low, vibrating with pain and bitterness, “but you are unable to reach out to the one bleeding before you.” Each word is a blade, a blow against the wall of ice around his heart.

“Hypocrite. Coward. You hide behind these celestial laws, this justice you brandish like a mask, but what you're running from is yourself. You're running from this marriage, from what you could have been, from this love that silently consumes you.” A harsh, bitter laugh escapes you, the pain in your chest burning like a black fire, but you refuse to bend, to cry. Not in front of him.

“Then do it. Kill me. If it will assuage your shame, your fear, your hatred. Kill me, and be free.”

Your fingers, frozen by visceral fear and abysmal exhaustion, finally release the blade of the sword that Sunghoon holds with terrible rigor, its cold steel resting on the delicate skin of your neck. This contact is a blast of icy wind that freezes your entire being, your spine stiffens as if it were trying to break, while a shudder of agony electrifies you from head to toe.

Your muscles contract in a painful dance, but it is your mind, that fragile, cracked temple, that reels most violently, buffeted by the inner storm that rumbles dully.

Your short, uneven breaths beat against your ribs like hungry claws. The silence that envelops you, heavy and suffocating, is broken only by the high-pitched murmur of your sobs. They have not yet flowed, but burn beneath your skin like an invisible poison, torrents of liquid pain, secret, forcing their way into the shadows of your flesh.

Then, in that abyss of darkness and silent screams, you see—just for a moment, but that brief flash pierces you—a crack in the impassive mask he wears. The cold mask of the man you loved, or at least thought you loved. This crack is tiny, fragile, but it reveals all his pain: the dull regret that grips him deep inside, the invisible, incessant struggle against his own demons, a pain so ancient that it seems to have dug into his soul like a sharpened blade.

Sunghoon looks up at you. His pupils are black wells drowning in pent-up anger, resentment, and a silent pain that crushes you as much as it tears him apart. His fists clench, white with extreme tension, as if every nerve in his body is straining toward an explosion he's barely holding back. He's chained to this inner war, this fight he refuses to wage out loud, a prisoner of his own shadows and his heartbreaking pride.

Then, suddenly, the sword disappears, swallowed by a burst of cold light, as fleeting as life itself. A breath escapes your tight throat—a broken, trembling sob—as you collapse, broken, to the cold ground. And it's there, in the depths of this silent chaos, that your gaze falls on the burning mark on his arm. It pulses with the force of a burning heart, burning flesh and blood. The black fire emanating from it slowly eats away at his skin, a living wound that bleeds in dark streaks onto the cold ground.

A moan, low and plaintive, almost human, escapes his throat. A strangled wail, barely a breath, that tears your heart into a thousand pieces. You wanted him broken. You wanted him to know what suffering was, to know the icy bite of despair, the bitter taste of the pain that has always eaten away at you. You wanted to see his ashes. But deep down, hidden beneath thick layers of anger and hatred, you know you love him. Too much. Too much to let him sink without reaching out to him. Too much not to buckle under the cruel weight of this poisonous bond.

You stand up, a frail figure caught in a freezing wind, trembling but determined. Your fan falls to the ground with a sharp clap that tears through the silence like a clap of thunder on a stormy night. Your hands seek his; this contact is your anchor in the storm. You grasp his hand, cold and weak, and with a clumsy gesture but filled with all the desperate tenderness you can muster, you roll up the sleeve of his hanfu.

The mark is there, black and split, bleeding, like a cruel mirror of your own silently bleeding heart. The metallic smell of blood, the burn of burning flesh, the palpable pain that unites you in a single invisible torture.

Sunghoon instinctively recoils, trying to flee this presence that tears him apart, to escape from your gaze that sees him, that illuminates him, that makes him vulnerable. He is a coward, yes. It is in this cowardice that he finds refuge, a fragile shelter where he cannot face the truth. He doesn't want you to see his face broken by the tears he refuses to shed, nor the anger that boils quietly, ready to consume everything.

But he can't run away. Not this time. He stands there, motionless, his eyes fixed on yours. Your pupils, clouded with tears this time, no longer carry the anger of before but an infinite sadness, heavy as the starless night, a sadness that only love can inflict, that bittersweet pain that tears without healing.

His heart stops, suspended in this eternal silence.

"Is it... Is it my fault?" Your voice breaks, cracking, fragile like a branch under the snow. You stare at his bleeding arm, then at his drawn features, trapped in an invisible struggle between the man he is and the man he wants to be.

Sunghoon wants to reassure you, protect you, tell you that you're not responsible, that you're innocent. But no words leave his lips; his silence is a chasm more terrible than any accusation. In this void, you understand everything.

“I’m sorry…” you whisper, your throat tight with old, genuine grief.

Sunghoon doesn't know why you're apologizing. Yet when you pull him close, when you embrace him with the fragile strength of your broken love, a spark flickers in his eyes. A faint, wild glimmer of hope that whispers that one day, perhaps, you could be happy. That you could grow old together, silent, united, like those simple, mortal couples.

But Sunghoon knows it's just wishful thinking, a fragile illusion.

“Y/n…” His voice becomes hoarse, torn.

“If you must condemn me… Do it. But listen to me.” Your voice is a trembling breath as you release your grip, but don't step back, staying within reach of his hesitations. Your gazes lock, heavy with pain and unspoken words.

“I'm innocent. I know you don't believe me, that you don't trust me. But I, too, have the right to the presumption of innocence.” Your voice wavers. You look down, nervously biting your lip. Then, slowly, you raise your head, ready to reveal the truth you've hidden for so long. “I've done my research. You won't like what I'm about to tell you. But Wonyoung… She's not a mere mortal. She's chaos incarnate.”

And then, you reach out your hand. But it's not a gesture. It's a farewell. A summons. A pact with darkness. Your lips move, slowly, and what you speak is no longer a human language. It's a forgotten breath from ancient kingdoms. A song that shouldn't exist. Grave. Fractured. Flayed. As if the world itself were choking under the weight of your truth.

The magic obeys. First, it's a wind. Slow. Frozen. Sharp like a blade of black jade. Then comes the mist. It creeps along the ground like a wounded beast. Thick. Heavy. Oozing. It rises, it surrounds your bodies, it erases the trees, the ground, the skies. You no longer breathe the air of the world. You breathe oblivion. And then, the mirror rises. Not a mirror. But a wound. A nightmare eye. A gaping rift between dimensions, between reality and what we would have preferred never to see again. It throbs. It pulses. It bleeds a dark, almost carnal light. And then it opens—not like a door, but like a deep wound in the flesh of time.

And the memories come flooding back. Not like a story. But like a scream. Qinglin. The village. Or what's left of it. Impure red flames lick the collapsed roofs. The sky is inky, split by purple lightning. The ground is blackened by blood. Not red. Not scarlet. Black. Burnt. Stained by magic. It runs underground like a rabid beast. It oozes between the paving stones. It makes the walls tremble.

And in this nightmare theater—the bodies. Small. Frail. Children. Eyes open. Frozen in terror. Their hands outstretched. Their charred limbs. Women clinging to their corpses. Men crucified in the air, suspended by chains of screaming spells.

And in the center—Wonyoung. Or rather… What's left of her. A being consumed by shadow. Disfigured by dark magic. Her eyes are empty, hollowed out like two graves. Her smile is cracked to the temples. She laughs. A hollow, mechanical, morbid sound. And suddenly—she opens her stomach. Slowly. Deliberately. She traces symbols into her flesh. She mutilates herself before your eyes.

And in the mirror—in this perverse illusion—it's you holding the dagger. It's you she's imitating. You she's accusing. You she's sullying. And all of this… To keep Sunghoon away from you. To steal his gaze. His love. His soul.

The mirror closes. With a rattle. As if reality itself had just died. And silence, then, is no longer silence. It is drowning. It is the exact moment when the heart stops beating before it starts again—or never starts again. It is nothingness breathing.

Sunghoon doesn't speak. Doesn't back away. Doesn't moan. But his body betrays him. His shoulders slump. His breath becomes short. Ragged. As if he's suddenly carrying the weight of a thousand deaths. His fists clench. His chin trembles. And his eyes—my god, his eyes—slowly close, with that desperate slowness warriors have when they finally accept their fate.

You want to say something. You want to catch up with him. Touch him. But he beats you to it. His voice, when it falls, is not a word. It's dizzying. A bottomless pit where one falls endlessly. It's a strangled wail, woven of blood and dust, slicing through the air like a black thread suspended between the jaws of a collapsing world. It doesn't strike your eardrums. It wraps around your heart and squeezes. Again. Again. Until you stop breathing.

And you understand. Because deep down... you were waiting for this question. Or rather: you were afraid it would come too late.

“Why… did you run away?”

But that's not a question. Not really. It's an echo. A barely articulated plea. A fracture that speaks through the voice of a broken man, too proud to implore, too empty to pretend. It's not a blade. It's what remains after the blade. That silence that still bleeds, even when the wound seems closed.

And before you, it is not the Heavenly Judge. Not the sword of Heaven. Not the son of the Law, nor the living weapon of a world devoured by order. It’s Sunghoon. Just Sunghoon. The man. The one you loved until you lost sleep, speech, and even your name. The one you could have hated if only you had loved him a little less. The one you fled not out of weakness... But because staying was slowly killing you.

And in his eyes—there is no rage, no pride, no justice. There is only fear. Raw. Unhealthy. Twisted. The fear of never having been enough. The fear that your love was a dream stolen from a life that didn't belong to him. The fear that if he lost you, it was because he unwittingly killed you. And worse… the fear that you never really loved him. Or that you stopped loving him when he became who he is.

But you know. You've always known. And now that the blood is pounding in your temples like a war drum, you can no longer remain silent. Even if your throat is tight. Even if your soul is crumbling.

You breathe in.

You're bleeding inside.

And you speak.

“I didn’t run away…” Your voice isn’t a voice. It’s a rattle. A rattle of agony. Your knees are shaking. Your mouth is dry. Your hands are cold as death. “I left.”

And you see him collapse. Not physically. Not yet. But his gaze. His gaze becomes empty. Like a fortress crumbling in the rain. A thousand-year-old stone wall eaten away by salt and shame. He doesn't even blink. He takes it in. He absorbs it. And you feel each word sink into Sunghoon like an arrow.

You should keep quiet. But if there's one thing you've learned from loving him... It's that silence kills.

"I didn't leave because I didn't love you." Sunghoon flexes. Barely. But you see it. His shoulders, usually so straight, tilt a millimeter. And then you tell the truth. Whole. Dirty. Heartbreaking. “I left… because I loved you too much.” You don't have time to breathe in. You're not allowed to cry. Because you have to keep going. “You weren't looking at me anymore. You were sleeping by my side, but your mind… It was elsewhere. With her. With Wonyoung. Even your silences, they no longer belonged to me.”

You're shaking.

“And I… I was there. Motionless. On my knees before your absence. Screaming silently. Consuming myself in anticipation.” Your voice breaks. “I was jealous. Jealous of what I couldn’t be. Of what she represented. And I was ashamed. Ashamed of being human. Ashamed of needing you more than you needed me. Ashamed of loving a man who no longer had room for me.”

And there you see it. That quiver in his lower lip. That dark glow growing in his pupils. You take a step back.

“You no longer made room for me in your life, Sunghoon. And I understood… That I was becoming a burden. A speck of dust. A weakness. And I loved you too much to become a weakness for you.”

The silence that falls after your words is so thick it could kill.

But it's not Sunghoon who moves first. It's you who staggers when he falls to his knees. His knees hit the ground. Brutally. Like a verdict. Sunghoon. The man with hands covered in sentence. The chosen one of heaven. The weapon of the world. On his knees before you. Not to beg. Not to be forgiven. But because his legs no longer carry him. Because your absence has cut him down more violently than a thousand wars.

His hands cling to your dress like a prayer. His forehead rests against your stomach. And then, in a whisper that comes from the abyss:

“You don’t need to be jealous, my little judge…” Her voice clears her throat. It’s hoarse, destroyed, drenched in ash and pain. “You are my universe. My chaos. My breath. Even when I lost myself, it was you I was looking for.” Sunghoon finally looks up at you. And in his gaze—those aren't tears. They're storms. Years of unspoken words. Sustained torments. And that tenderness. Immense. All-consuming. “During those five days, I died. Not once. Hundreds of times. Every time I woke up. Because in my dreams… I saw you. You laughed. You were there. But when I woke up… All that remained was the smell of your absence. The emptiness of your warmth. And I thought… That I wouldn't survive.”

You hiccup.

Sunghoon continues, his voice breaking:

“I dreamed of you. Pregnant with my children. In a place without war, without oaths. I dreamed of a world where I could touch you without having to punish myself. Where I could love you without having to judge you.” And then—her voice falters. Her eyes moisten again. “I love you, Y/n. I love you like a curse. I love you enough to tear my heart open to the bone. I love you enough to extinguish me so that you can shine. And I beg you… Don’t leave me in this shadow. I can change. I want to change. For you.”

He's there, prostrate. Offered. Sacrificed. Then you fall in turn. Your body no longer belongs to you. You kneel. Your hands frame his face. And there, you force him to look at you.

"I don't want you to change." Sunghoon blinks, lost. You breathe, "I want you. Not a perfect husband. Not a repentant god. You, with your silences. You, with your darkness. You, with your pride, your violence, your sick love. You... With your heart that still beats for me."

And then you kiss him. But it's not a kiss. It's a rush. An affront. A scream. A shipwreck. Your mouth collides with his like blades meet blades atop a battlefield—not to seduce, but to survive. You don't kiss him like you'd find a lover. You kiss him like you'd catch a condemned man you love too much to let die.

Your teeth catch his lip. Your tongue invades him. You bite him. You drink him. You tear him apart. And Sunghoon answers.

Gods… He answers.

His hands, initially frozen by shock, roughly grab you by the waist. Not gently. With the urgency of a man who has lost too much, waited too long, dreamed too much. He presses you against him, so hard your ribs protest, your breath hitches, your body struggles to keep pace with a heart beating on the verge of bursting.

It's not a kiss of love. It's a kiss of instinct. Of agony. Of obsession.

Your fingers dig into the nape of his neck, into his black hair soaked with sweat, fever, and nightmares. And you pull him closer. As if you wanted to drown him inside you. As if his salvation could only come in your mouth, in your blood, in your ravaged devotion.

Sunghoon moaned—A hoarse, almost painful sound. Not of pleasure. But of need. The raw, brutal need to never be alone again. To have you, here, all of you. Flesh, soul, abyss included. His mouth opens beneath yours, but Sunghoon doesn't lead. You're the one who dominates. You're the one who ravages. You're the one who demands accountability from the hollow of his tongue. You kiss him like someone screams. Like someone hits. Like someone cries.

And Sunghoon offers himself. His back arches. His knees tighten beneath you, pressed into the damp earth. His hands, large and trembling, slide down your back, as if he wanted to carve his nails, his imprint, his last prayer. It's not erotic. It's animal. It's spiritual. It's too much. Far too much. And yet, not enough. Sunghoon wants more. He wants your throat. Your breath. Your sighs. Your pain. He wants the child you never carried. The future he ruined. The forgiveness he doesn't deserve.

Sunghoon wants everything you deny this world—and he wants you to give it to him, right here, right now, in the hollow of your mouth, in the blaze of your rage. And you give it to him. You give him your anger. You give him your abandonment. You give him your grief, your love, your broken silence. You don't need words. You don't want them.

This kiss is a testament. An oath without promise. A hand-to-hand combat between two ruined souls.

And Sunghoon… He capsizes. He falls into you, against you, for you. His arms embrace you like a last refuge, as if he wanted to lock you away against his skin, in his breath, beneath his bones. And his lips—those lips that have judged you so much, ignored you so much, burned you so much—finally become yours again. Supple. Fierce. Painful.

You feel his hand slide down the back of your neck, trembling, almost feverish. He's not guiding you. Sunghoon isn't imposing anything on you. He's begging you. And you understand. That it's not your kiss he's receiving. It's your newfound faith. It's your flame. It's your choice. So Sunghoon cries into your mouth. Not visible tears. But by the tension of his jaw. By the heaves of his stomach. By the way he presses his forehead against yours between gasps, like a man out of breath, out of life, out of love.

“Y/n…” Sunghoon moans your name between kisses, like a prayer. Like a condemnation. Like a sacred fire. And you fold your legs around his waist, both kneeling in this black earth, this field of ruins turned altar. You cling to Sunghoon like a ship in a storm. And you continue to kiss him. For a long time. Fiercely. Tirelessly. Until the night itself seems to close in around you.

Until all you hear is his breath, hoarse and broken, mingling with yours. Until his fingers slip under the fabric of your neck, searching for warmth, for life, for reality—You.

And in that kiss, you finally feel it. The silent cry he never dared to utter. The pain he kept silent for too long. The love he locked away in the folds of a heart too proud. And you know. That Sunghoon never forgot you. Not for a second. Not for a breath. Not for a night. That he punished himself for your absence. That he hated himself for having been loved by you. That he dreamed of dying… But only after seeing you one last time.

So you open your eyes. And you look at him, there, a few inches away. His face flushed, his lips swollen, his pupils dilated by withdrawal, by ecstasy, by fear. And you whisper, your mouth still glued to his, your tears mingled with his:

“If you lose me again… I won’t come back.”

Sunghoon grabs you. His breath catches. And with one last kiss, almost gentle this time—a touch, a whisper of lips—he answers:

"Then I won't let you go. Even if heaven punishes me. Even if I have to sell my soul."

And in this silent oath, your united brows, your bruised lips, your hearts finally freed from silence - the world, at last, falls silent. There's no more pact. No more war. No more Wonyoung. No more blood. No more revenge. Only you. Two souls in tatters. Two hearts on fire. Two lost beings, who have stopped running.

And in the night, in this ravaged embrace, a love is born stronger than the gods themselves.

Juébié Tái (诀别台) — The Terrace of the Final Separation

The horizon, once a clear line between heaven and earth, was now nothing but a deep quagmire, an ocean of blood mixed with ash. A red, visceral, almost living abyss—as if the earth itself were bleeding, sliced by a wound no hand could close. This was no simple sunset, nor a natural end, but the last gasp of a torn world, a burning farewell hurled in the face of deaf gods. The sky seemed to vomit up its own heart, saturated with a dull anger, an ancient despair, a visceral resentment that only war can breed.

The heavy, low clouds, black as the entrails of a dead dragon, poured their acrid smoke over the landscape, weaving a web of doom. Each ray of light tore the scarlet horizon into bursts of fire and soot, like glaring scars on the skin of a dying giant. That deep, thick red pulsed in the air—a hue of farewell, of broken promises, of consumed souls.

A gloomy wind blew through the ruins of the Juébié Tái temple, once a sanctuary of peace and light, now a silent tomb of dead illusions. The wind carried with it the stifled sighs of the dead—invisible ghosts slipping between the cracked stones, carrying with them faded dreams and torn oaths. Dead leaves swirled in a dance of death, scattering across the cracked paving stones like a shower of dying ashes, witnesses to an end come too soon.

In the heart of this desolate landscape, a figure stood, motionless like a statue carved in the night. Sunghoon. He stood there, frozen, like a warrior worn to the bone, marked by the weight of years of internal struggles far crueler than those waged outside. Every tense muscle, every held breath, vibrated with a dull tension ready to explode. The silence around him was not absence, but an oppressive cage filled with suppressed anger, buried pain.

His shadow, long and menacing, stretched across the shattered stones of the temple, drawn by the last rays of a glowing, dying sun. This sun refused to illuminate his face, as if afraid to reveal the invisible scars, the deep wounds etched in his soul. His steely gaze, icy and unfathomable, was a restless sea of shadows and secrets, a night where even the moon would have hesitated to land.

The sword strapped to his back seemed to pulse in unison with his pent-up rage, vibrating beneath his dark tunic with a cruel glow, ready to spring forth like a venomous snake, to spill a torrent of pain and blood. The blade, cold as death, caught the faint light and sent it back in menacing flashes.

Sunghoon didn't move, but his very stillness was a statement—a silent warning that beneath that apparent stone lurked a raging storm, ready to sweep everything away. Then, slowly, his winter eyes rose. They tore themselves from an abyss of solitude and scanned the gloom before him with icy intensity, until at last they encountered a flickering figure.

She was there. Wonyoung. Fragile. Broken. And yet, painfully beautiful in its desolation. Her hanfu, once bright and silky, was torn to shreds like a funeral shroud, stained with dust, dried blood, and silent tears that time would not wash away. Every step she took seemed torture, a struggle against an invisible weight that chained her, shackled her, pulled her toward the depths of this waking nightmare.

Her hands trembled, carrying the burden of the world, her lips quivered under the weight of an oppressive silence, heavy with secrets and repressed pain. She wanted to scream, to tear the sky apart with her cries, to shatter the night with her despair, but she no longer found the strength to beg, even in silence. His breath, short and panting, was a broken prayer, a whisper of life in this theater of death.

The world around them seemed to hold its breath, suspended on the fragile thread of their encounter.

« Sunghoon… »

The simple word, barely more than a breath, escaped her lips like a hoarse whisper, a fragile tremor on the verge of extinction. It was both a plea and a condemnation, a flickering flame in an eternal winter wind. The name carried all the pent-up pain of so many years, the weight of a love twisted by betrayal and blood. It was a glowing ember, an open wound that time had failed to heal.

Her gaze, tired and dull, finally met Sunghoon's. But this gaze was no longer that of a man she had known. It was a frozen chasm, a black abyss in which all the shards of humanity had drowned, a desert of ice where no flowers grew. In his eyes, the fire had gone out, replaced by an implacable coldness, an armor of steel tempered in resentment and despair. Sunghoon didn't answer. He couldn't. His silence was an impenetrable wall, a silent refusal, the death of all tenderness.

Then, slowly, terribly slowly, like a tightrope walker walking the sharp edge of fate, Sunghoon took a step back. This movement seemed sealed by a grim destiny, a sentence carved in stone. Every millimeter of retreat was a wound inflicted on Wonyoung's heart, an even deeper fracture. Sunghoon was moving away from her not only physically, but from his entire life, from everything they had ever been.

Sunghoon's voice finally broke through the silence, icy, sharp, honed like a blade that cuts flesh with precision. It cleaved the frozen air, shattering the fragile ephemeral of their shared memories, tearing at the fragile fabric that had united them.

"Don't come any closer."

It wasn't a request, nor advice, but a guillotine, a final decision. The simple order resonated in Wonyoung's chest like an iron hammer hitting an anvil. The weight of the words crashed down on her, crushing what life remained in her veins. Her heart exploded silently, a firework of sharp shards that embedded themselves in her flesh and soul. The pain was no longer physical; it was visceral, burning, heartbreaking. It consumed everything, gnawed at the last fibers of her being, lacerating the fragile veil she still wore.

The air around them suddenly became thin, as if the universe itself had decided to abandon them, suspending their breaths, suspending time. Emptiness seeped in everywhere, icy, voracious, ready to swallow them up.

“This situation… Disgusts me,” Sunghoon breathed, his voice choked with deep hatred, a silent venom that had been eating away at his insides for years. “I didn’t expect this. Not from you.” A dry, hoarse, bitter laugh slipped through his lips—the broken laugh of a man forged in the depths of silence and pain. A laugh that was both a plea and a farewell. “Years, Wonyoung… Years.” Sunghoon swallowed his rage like a deadly poison, like a bitter medicine he had to absorb to survive. “And because I respect those years, I’m going to let you go. Without consequences. Today.”

Sunghoon took a heavy step forward, laden with faded promises and open wounds. But it was Wonyoung who stepped back this time, her legs trembling, fragile, about to buckle under the weight of a past too heavy. She felt anchored to a cold, dead earth, unable to escape this unbearable pain. Her breath broke, shattering into a thousand shards in her throat, an echo of despair that seemed like it could consume her entirely.

"But listen to me carefully..." Sunghoon's voice, when it finally broke the silence, was hoarse, as if torn by years of silence and hurt. "If you ever cross that line. If you ever come close again to what I swore to protect..." The words crashed down between them, heavy as invisible blades, sharp as a grim promise. Sunghoon's eyes darkened, hardened, becoming that hardened metal that cannot be bent, a sword raised in the dark, ready to strike. “I will not turn away my eyes. I will not tremble. I will raise my sword against you, and I will not fail.”

The wind moaned in the ruins, a low sob that seemed to carry the voices of the dead, a dirge suspended in time, a final farewell to what might have been. Wonyoung felt that weight crash down on her heart, an icy storm that froze her insides. She wasn't crying yet, but in her wide-open eyes shone a light worse than fear—the agony of betrayal, the suffocating weight of incomprehension.

Her legs buckled, wobbled, but she took another step, trapped in a nightmare that refused to go away.

“A… relationship…” she whispered, her voice cracking, shattered into a thousand pieces. “You mean… our relationship.” Every breath was a dagger in the pit of his chest, every breath a torture that his body rejected but could not escape. “The one you destroyed with your own hands. For her. For that cursed witch to whom you offered what you promised me. Your heart.”

She staggered, her fingers seeking his, not in anger, nor in gentleness, but with that empty embrace of a hope that no longer existed, a painful pressure, a last breath of life in a still-warm corpse.

“You swore to me… You promised me that you would never forget me. That despite the chaos, despite the war, our souls would remain linked. That your gaze would never change.”

But Sunghoon didn't answer. His steely gaze, cold and distant, scrutinized her like one observing a ghost, an illusion one would want to banish.

She felt the abyss opening beneath her feet. The tearing, the black hollow that swallowed everything.

“You lied to me, Sunghoon. You betrayed me like a blade in your back. You left me. Abandoned me. Forgotten me. And you dare speak of justice? Of morality?” Wonyoung’s voice rose, heartbreaking, a burning howl that tore through the night and into his own heart. It was fire and ashes, anger and despair mingled in one incandescent scream.

“Don't tell me you cared about me. Don't tell me you suffered. Because I… I waited for you. In silence. In the shadows. In blood. I sacrificed everything. And you?” She laughed, a dry, bitter, stillborn laugh, a broken shard, a shard lost in the emptiness of a shattered soul. “You ran away. You watched my collapse without lifting a finger.”

Sunghoon looked at her again, implacable, merciless, his eyes cold, like frozen glass. Not an ounce of trembling, not a sign of pity.

"No. I never loved you." The words were like a sword cut, slicing through flesh, tearing through flesh, leaving a gaping void where a heart still beat. "I was nothing to you, Wonyoung. And you were nothing to me." Sunghoon took a step back, moving away from her like a bad dream you want to shake off. “You were just a reflection. A shadow of what I could have become if I had embraced the darkness.”

The silence stretched between them, thick, crushing, laden with the echo of a pain too raw. Then Sunghoon slowly turned his back, abandoning this last bond that united them.

"Find someone who can look at you without throwing up at the thought of the dead people you're dragging around. I can't. I won't. I'll never forgive you." The wind grew stronger, howling through the ruins, carrying his words away like a cursed oath suspended in nothingness. “Atoned… That’s all you have left. Until your last night, until your last breath. Pray that the heavens have mercy, for I have none left.”

His departure was a blast of icy wind, an implacable end.

Wonyoung fell. His knees hit the cold stone, his back bent, fragile and broken like a broken bow. His face was lost in his trembling hands, in that infinite solitude. A dull, silent, nameless cry burst from the depths of her being, forged in the dust, ashes and pain of a world she had just lost forever.

The last glimmer of a murdered love.

And, in a breath, a murmur of agony:

"If she hadn't existed... Maybe... Just maybe... You would have loved me, too."

But there was only silence. Such night. Such void.

Bai Lun Yan (白轮殿) — The Palace of the White Wheel

The Wheel Room was bathed in a murky gloom, broken only by the flickering glow of a few red lanterns suspended from rusty chains. The air was heavy, saturated with old sweat, musk, dried blood, and datura. Each breath seemed to collide with the oozing walls of forgotten desires. It was like entering a womb—living, warm, obscene.

And you, you were offered.

Pressed against the Wheel like a condemned woman, like a virgin ready to be sacrificed to a god she herself had summoned. The black wood, engraved with ancient glyphs and dead curses, bit into your bare skin. Your arms were raised, tense, your muscles trembling, your fingers clenched in the grooves of the thousand-year-old wheel. Your hanfu, torn in places, slid slowly from your shoulders, revealing your taut stomach, your heaving chest, and lower still—your pussy, naked, swollen, glistening with anticipation. Open like an offering. Vibrant like a living scar.

And he—Sunghoon—was there. On my knees before you. Not as a lover. Not as a servant. But as a devoted executioner, ready to implode you, piece by piece.

Sunghoon looked down at you, his eyelids half-closed, his breathing already erratic, as if he were holding himself back from devouring you too quickly. And then, he dove. His tongue found your clitoris in one swift stroke—like a saber cut. You arched your back so hard the pain took your breath away, but the pleasure swept it away immediately. He licked like a thirsty man, as if your pleasure were the only elixir capable of saving him. His tongue swirled, slid, felt, searching every millimeter of flesh inside you. And he didn't just lick: he sucked, growled against your sex, nibbled just enough to make your body arch even more.

You were dirty. You were sublime. You were broken.

Strings of drool stretched from your parted lips to your chin. You gasped. You cried unintentionally. Your legs trembled, twitched, your stomach contracted in an uncontrollable spasm. And Sunghoon… He moved his hands up your thighs. Slowly. Exasperatingly slowly. His fingers dug violently into your flesh, leaving painful, red marks. Then he yanked your legs apart. Your foot found itself on his shoulder, spread-eagled before him like a captured slave.

And then he bit you. Right there. On your already swollen clitoris. A precise, sadistic bite. You are screaming. And Sunghoon whispered against your soaked skin:

“You want me to break you here, on this Wheel? You want me to ruin you?”

Then he slid a finger inside you. Slowly. Rough, hot, merciless. He didn't let you adjust—he pushed in all the way to his palm, then he moved. Slowly. Then harder. Then faster. Your inner wall sucked in that finger like a living sinkhole. You were on fire. Sunghoon added a second finger, sharply. And you cried out again, your head slamming against the wheel. Your body bucked—and he held you, tight, too tight. His fingers were now moving at an animal pace. And then a third. Inside you. Entirely. He was fucking you with his hand, fucking you to the core.

And meanwhile—his tongue never stopped. Sunghoon let his chin rub against you, let his saliva mix with your juices. And you were dripping. You were a river. A tide. A tidal wave of desire. The sound of his fingers sliding in and out of you was indecent. A wet, sticky, extremely erotic sound. The floor was becoming slippery. The stone beneath you was stained. And Sunghoon was growling between your thighs like a rutting beast.

"You have a pussy made to be devoured. You stink of sex. You're crying so I can open you up even more."

And you were crying, yes. With pleasure. With shame. With desire. Your eyes watered, your thighs trembling. You didn't even know if you wanted to run away or be killed right there.

Then, abruptly, Sunghoon pushed his fingers deeper, curved them—and you exploded. The orgasm pierced you like a poisoned blade. You screamed. You began to squirt, to ejaculate like a fury. Powerful, uncontrollable jets, spurting against his mouth, on his face, on his neck. He barely pulled back, grabbed your pussy with both hands, and leaned down to drink. To drink it all. He swallowed, he gulped loudly, moans rising from his throat as if he were choking on your pleasure.

And Sunghoon continued. He was still licking. He lapped at your soaking wet pussy, cleaning it with horrible tenderness, the patience of a monster. He kissed you. He sucked on your intimate lips. He pushed his tongue inside you to collect every last drop.

Then he finally stopped. Slowly. Very slowly.

And stood up.

His chest was heaving. His chin was shiny. His neck was dripping. His mouth—covered with you. And in his eyes, there was nothing human anymore.

"You taste divine, my little judge..." he said, his voice hoarse like a death rattle.

Sunghoon lifted two fingers covered in your juices and brought them to your mouth. You opened your lips wide. You sucked them slowly. One by one. Then both together. You pushed them all the way into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks, rolling your tongue like a learned whore. He moaned. A low, painful whimper.

"Are you hungry?" he said. He leaned down, his chest brushing against your burning stomach. "Me too."

And then he grabbed you roughly by the back of the neck and kissed you. A wild kiss. A brutal kiss. His tongue invaded your mouth. He tasted your pleasure on your tongue. He rubbed himself against it like a wild animal. His hand slid to his belt, which he undid with a brutal gesture. The hanfu opened.

You placed your hands on his bare, taut, veiny torso. And lower down—you saw his cock. Erect. Long. Wide. Throbbing. Slightly curved. A droplet beaded from its tip, and you saw it slide slowly down his shaft.

Sunghoon was ready.

And you couldn't take it anymore.

Your hand slid, slow and trembling, like a snake exploring offered flesh, first brushing against the smooth skin of his belly, that cold, hard surface sculpted by years of combat and discipline. The coldness of the polished stone beneath your palm contrasted with the dull, menacing heat rising within you, a latent fire flowing beneath your skin like magma ready to overflow. Your finger descended, almost groping, to the hard, taut bulge throbbing against your palm, a promise of destruction and ecstasy, a sharpened weapon that already made you tremble.

Sunghoon's breath was raspy, laden with suppressed impatience, and the thick silence of the night seemed to hold its breath as well. The tension hanging in the air was palpable, a rope stretched to its limit, ready to snap like an executioner's whip.

But before you could fully surrender, your hand slid lower, eager, his wrist closing roughly around yours. His grip was firm, commanding, undeniably powerful, yet within that raw strength, there was a strange sweetness, a silent oath that only your bodies could understand. No need for words. No need for promises. Just the certainty that this battle was not just a war of flesh, but a war of torn souls, chained in a cruel fate.

Sunghoon lifted you then, seemingly effortlessly, as if you were mist, a feather abandoned to the wind. Your legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, your arms clinging to his strong shoulders, as he carried you to the Wheel—that black, icy circle that seemed to absorb all light. He set you down with surgical precision, your bare skin hitting the cold surface. The contact lasted a split second, enough to take your breath away. A hoarse, muffled cry escaped your throat, a mixture of astonishment, fear, and burning desire.

Your heart pounded, a war drum in your chest, as the weight of his body crushed you against the Wheel, locking your body in an embrace as cruel as an oath. This weight was both threat and promise—a prison and a sanctuary.

Suddenly, Sunghoon's hand lit up with a vibrant, unearthly white glow. A cold flame burst from his fingers, filling the space with a spectral light that made your mind flicker. Your eyes blurred, went out, engulfed in a night blacker than the deepest ink, an absolute void, an absolute nothingness. Celestial magic had just stolen your vision, condemning you to total darkness.

You were blind.

But you felt it. Oh yes, you felt it.

His hot breath brushing the back of your neck, his fingers digging into your flesh, scratching with a ferocious gentleness. His pelvis pressing, forcing its hardness against your vulnerable stomach, the burning line of his cock rising against your skin like a burning blade. His desire consumed you, unleashed, wild, unstoppable.

A dark smile split your lips, carnivorous, a flash of provocation in the silence of the night.

“Block of ice…” you whispered, your voice trembling, saturated with desire and defiance. “You’re playing a dangerous game, you know… Fucking your blind wife, hanging from that cursed wheel, which could turn at any moment… Aren’t you afraid she’ll end up crushed?” Your tone was sweet venom, a slow poison that flowed between you, a challenge thrown into the gloom. But beneath that provocation slid a fierce expectation, a visceral need.

Your hand moved then, exploring his torso like a lover eager to discover every secret. You brushed against every tense muscle, every invisible scar, tracing furrows of fire beneath his skin. Then, with a cruel gesture, you let your nails sink into his flesh, scratching, marking, drawing red lines, thin but deep. A hoarse, almost bestial rattle rose from his throat—the awakening of a wounded, excited, hungry beast.

You bit your lip, biting and wild, happy with this answer.

“You’re a bad husband,” you breathed, a hot breath that brushed against his lips, sliding down his tense jaw. “So… bad.”

Your fingers found the back of his neck, digging in like hooks, and you pulled gently, eliciting a deep moan. His body crushed against you, every muscle tense, his hard, demanding cock pressed against your stomach, demanding, hungry. Your head was spinning, your soul was burning, and the fever was rising inside you like a black tide.

Then, his voice hoarse, low, almost a growl:

"I should have gagged you..."

Without warning, Sunghoon skewered you brutally, with a sharp, deep, merciless thrust. A wild cry escaped your throat—a mixture of astonishment, delicious pain, and obscene pleasure. Your body arched violently, oscillating between heartbreak and ecstasy; his cock was a sword tearing you apart from the inside, a burning blade that marked your flesh forever.

Sunghoon gave you no respite. No time to adjust. His all-consuming urgency, his insatiable hunger, pulverized you. Every thrust of his hips promised destruction and rebirth. The erratic rhythm of his movements tore through the air saturated with sweat and incense, fever and cum. The Wheel vibrated beneath your bound bodies, each impact resonating like a war drum.

You wanted to flee, but your body, furious and revolted, rose up with every movement, seeking to receive it, to provoke it, to demand it. You wanted to scream at the heavens, to break the silence, but only hoarse moans, sighs of delicious pain and adoration escaped your mouth. You were both submissive and queen, prisoner and sovereign.

Your hands skidded across his broad back, clinging to it, clawing at the skin with a savage rage. You dug and dug again, until blood gushed forth, hot and salty. He groaned, not a gasp of pain, but a primal cry of pleasure, a bestial explosion. Sunghoon loved this savagery. This struggle. He loved dominating you, crushing you, losing you.

You responded to every movement with ferocious jerks, pelvic undulations that shattered what little restraint he had left. You were nothing but fire, burning flesh, madness incarnate.

You were his hell, his heaven, his downfall.

Then Sunghoon gripped your hips with beastly strength, his fingers digging in like talons, pulling you closer, deeper, more violently. You felt every inch of him penetrate you, tear you apart, melt you. An explosive cry, a heart-rending rattle, escaped your throat—a wild, black orgasm, an infinite fall into an abyss of pleasure and pain. Your body tensed, convulsed; the Wheel may have been turning, but you saw nothing. You felt only Sunghoon.

But it wasn't over. No. There would never be an end.

"You're dripping..." Sunghoon spat between wild thrusts, his voice raspy, saturated with a brutal thirst, an unbridled desire that seemed to want to reduce you to incandescent ashes. Each word was a blade, sharp, ferocious, a promise of mingled pain and pleasure, a silent pact sealed in the fire of your intertwined bodies. "You scream like a fucking, sacrificial virgin, trembling, offered up, burning to the core. Do you want me to ruin you, to smash you against this Wheel until it turns again and again, so that your screams become the dirge of your flesh?"

Your breath crashed against your throat—short, raspy, ragged—like a tumultuous torrent drowned in a boiling sea of ecstasy and pain. You nodded, mute, unable to formulate anything but raw, wild, almost bestial gasps, wordless cries, silent pleas of fire and surrender.

Without warning, Sunghoon grabbed your hips with an iron grip, his fingers digging into your damp skin, biting into the flesh with the controlled violence of a hunting beast. Every tense muscle beneath his palm vibrated with a savage, precise power. He lifted you slightly, holding you in a position where you were entirely open, vulnerable, offered like a flower torn by the storm of steel roaring within him.

His cock, hard as a sharp saber blade, penetrated your tender flesh with calculated, merciless cruelty. The angle was perfect, incisive, each thrust a cruel explosion in your burning flesh, an exquisite tear that tore a primal, brutal, heart-rending scream from you, echoing against the cold, damp walls of the room. This cry mingled with Sunghoon's guttural growls, like a furious warrior on the rampage, a savage symphony of destruction and creation.

The rhythm he imposed was frantic, wild, a sensual carnage where your bodies collided with an almost sacrificial violence. The ancient wood of the Wheel vibrated beneath you, each impact drumming out the secret war tearing at your skin, each thrust sculpting your pain into pleasure, your suffering into ecstasy. Sweat slid in burning rivulets down your entwined skin, carrying with it the last vestiges of all restraint, all fear.

Then, suddenly, everything slows down. His strokes grew heavier, deeper, slower, each thrust a painful promise, a silent oath of domination and devour. The fire consuming your body still burned, but dull, insidious, an exquisite torture fevering your insides, a slow fire that trickled beneath your skin. His hands slid down, exploring your sweaty, panting skin, his fingers brushing, caressing, until they reached that burning spot, that incandescent focus: your clitoris, feverish, swollen, so painfully sensitive that it made you teeter on the edge of madness and ecstasy.

Then Sunghoon's fingers fell upon this offered flesh with the methodical cruelty of a mad craftsman. They rubbed, pinched, and mistreated this source of your pleasure with an almost sadistic insistence, a slow, delicious torture that made you scream without restraint, a wild, wrenching cry escaping from your entrails like a raging torrent. The Wheel vibrated beneath the scream, capturing it, echoing it, a dark, haunting litany in the vast silence of the room. Your blood pounded in your temples, your heart hammered against your ribcage like a war drum, and yet it was your body betraying you, burning in that forbidden fire.

“Come,” Sunghoon breathed, his voice raspy, low, a command charged with dominance and dark passion, a hot whisper in your ear. “Cry out for me. Squirt, my Queen. Show me your burning fire, let the night tremble beneath your tear.”

You then gave in, to Sunghoon, to yourself, to this maelstrom of pain and pleasure. Your body exploded suddenly, devastated by an orgasm of raw intensity, an incandescent flash that struck you from the inside out, sweeping every fiber of your being away in a burst of merciless spasms. Your muscles contracted so violently that you felt as if you were tearing yourself apart, tearing yourself away, disintegrating, only to be reborn with that wild scream.

Your hot, burning juice splashed his stiff cock, trickled down his powerful hips, stained the icy surface of the Wheel, blending your bodies in a wild, sacred, chaotic union, a hellish dance of flesh and blood. You could feel the consuming hunger in his dark eyes, the insatiable fire in his throat that swallowed your come like a hungry, voracious, inhuman beast.

Then, in a slow, almost possessive movement, he brought his burning face closer, licking with cruel slowness the burning hollow between your breasts, where the thin, fragile skin burned beneath his rough tongue. The contrast between velvety softness and fiery bite sent a wild shiver down your spine, a shiver that tore you apart, crushed you, set you ablaze. Without warning, Sunghoon bit your neck with restrained, controlled violence, a flash of pain and pleasure that set a new fire exploding in every nerve. A sharp, delicious pain that sharpened your pleasure, chained you to his bites, to his hot breath, to his relentless domination, to this wild force that tore you apart slowly, surely, until the ultimate ecstasy.

You were nothing but at his mercy, a willing prisoner of the burning fire he lit within you, until you were nothing more than a broken breath, an incandescent body, a painful and proud promise of what was yet to come.

But he wasn't finished.

He possessed you with a sovereign brutality, tearing every inch of you apart with every thrust, every blow, like a warrior wielding his blade in a battle of shadow and blood. His hips pulsed, crushing your body, breaking your will, sculpting your pain into pleasure, your suffering into ecstasy.

Your body arched, writhed beneath the relentless force of his assaults, every cry, every moan, every short breath becoming a savage offering to this silent duel between domination and surrender. The Wheel vibrated beneath your bestial union, your blood mingled with your sweat, the heavy, acrid odors of primal desire filling the saturated air. Each spasm tore you deeper, until you were nothing more than a trembling, submissive shadow—but triumphant, sovereign in this secret war of flesh and blood, bearing the burning scars of this carnal battle with a fierce and desperate pride.

The cold wind blew around you, carrying away your wild cries, mingling them with the darkness, the mystery, the endless night of your forbidden pact.

And you couldn't take it anymore. Your breath, short and ragged, burned your chest with a black, dull, and merciless fire. Every tense muscle, every fiber of your being vibrated under the brutal and merciless rhythm that Sunghoon imposed on your body, like a master shaping a weapon of flesh. You felt your will waver, swept away in this whirlwind of ecstasy and fatigue, but he showed no sign of weakness. On the contrary, his blows accelerated, feverish, almost desperate, as if he were seeking to engrave this moment in eternity, to mark you forever with his essence.

“Sunghoon…” Your moan broke between pain and desire, tiredness and longing, “I’m exhausted…”

But his eyes, dark as a moonless night, yielded nothing. Sunghoon growled, a deep, wild sound filled with possession: "I won't stop until I've put a child inside you."

His hand grew rougher, digging into your hips, his fingers leaving new burning marks on your skin. His thumb slid down to your clit, which he rubbed relentlessly, a cruel, methodical movement, as if he wanted to draw every spark of fire from your bruised body. Each caress triggered electric shocks within you, a delectable pain that made you teeter on the edge.

The pace suddenly slowed, but each thrust was deeper, more violent, slowly tearing at your flesh, tearing you from your senses. You felt his thick member insinuate itself deep inside you, consuming you from the inside out. Sunghoon brought his lips to yours, his hot breaths crashing against your skin, damp with sweat and desire. His lips swallowed you in a voracious kiss, a collision of storms and sweetness, a silent promise of domination and eternity.

Your tongue was captured, swept into a wild dance, his harsh breath playing with yours, nibbling, teasing, exploring every corner of your mouth. His body kept grinding into you, penetrating you with an almost inhuman intensity, and you felt the pain mix with the pleasure in a chaotic whirlwind, driving you mad.

Then, suddenly, Sunghoon exploded inside you. His burning seed flowed deep into your flesh, marking your womanhood like an indelible seal. You let out a cry, a wild, vibrant cry, mixed with ecstasy and pain, as your fingers clung to his shoulders, trying not to sink into the surge.

Your moans intertwined, a bestial, heartbreaking melody, as Sunghoon curled his tongue around yours, nibbling gently and cruelly at the intimate connection. When he finally pulled away, a trickle of drool still connected your lips, a clear sign of the hurricane you had just experienced.

Sunghoon then placed his hand on your face, brushing back the strands of hair stuck to your forehead by sweat, caressing your burning skin with a tenderness that was almost incongruous in the midst of this passionate chaos. Your eyes fluttered open, surprised to regain your sight, faced with this unexpected softness in the midst of the storm. You looked at him, a tired and sincere smile illuminating your bruised face, as if the simple fact of having survived this ordeal was enough to justify your reason for being.

“That really would have been the best way to die, you know…” you whispered, your voice shaky, almost breaking, a breath mixed with a fragile laugh as you felt your pussy instinctively tighten around his still-tense member inside you.

Sunghoon responded with a raspy growl, holding you tighter, his possessiveness turning into a protective hug. "Stop talking nonsense." His voice, low and vibrant, was a silent declaration of power and love. Without letting go, he lifted you into his arms, carrying you like a precious conquest to his room, his kingdom.

You moan with every touch, the constant pressure of his manhood against you waking every dormant nerve, leaving you vulnerable, captive, drunk on Sunghoon.

"And help me make a child with my wife," he whispered in your ear, stealing a burning kiss, a carnivorous smile stretching his lips. Sunghoon sensed your nascent protest, smothering it with a deeper, more demanding kiss, where desire and promise intertwined, inseparable.

So you lay, night after night, day after day, enveloped in the thick darkness of that room where every breath, every shiver, every bead of sweat was offered to the black fire that consumed your bodies. The supposed excuse of conception was only a fragile veil masking the raw truth: Sunghoon wanted your body, your soul, your essence, without restraint or hindrance, and you let yourself be devoured, because nothing else could bring you such intensity, such release.

Your hands traced invisible marks on his warm skin, your fingers running over every curve, every hollow, every scar, while his mercilessly explored your exposed flesh. Your bodies spoke a silent language, a wild and sensual dance where domination and submission intertwined endlessly, melting into a gentle and absolute violence.

And in this carnal chaos, this storm of shadow and light, you found a strange peace—being both broken and whole, devastated and uplifted, alive beyond anything you had ever known.

Taglist : @weepingsweep @immelissaaa

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slylycurioustreasure · 25 days ago

Text

The Obsidian-Eyed Guardian — Part 2.1

What if it wasn't you, but them... who were trapped from the start?

Genre: Fantasy, Dark Romance, Drama, Action, Reverse Harem, Supernatural, Wuxia, Historical

Pairing : Park Sunghoon x reader

Word : 18k

I had to split the story into two because Tumblr hates me 😅📱. Enjoy the read! 📖✨

PREV PART— NEXT (PART 2.2) ✘ SERIES MASTERLIST ✘

Bai Lun Yan (白轮殿) — The Palace of the White Wheel

Perched atop a celestial ridge forgotten by the breath of men, where the sky tears into shades of livid white and the air seems so rare, so pure, that it bites the flesh with every breath, stands Bái Lún Yǎn —the Palace of the White Wheel. This place is not simply a sanctuary, nor a mere palace: it is a scar in the very fabric of the cosmos, a remnant of a time when the gods themselves wove the web of destinies with threads of fire and ice. Suspended above nothingness, where the stars seem to consume themselves in obsidian silence, Bái Lún Yǎn floats, carried by an ancestral, dark magic, made of ancient broken oaths and eternal judgments.

The light that bathes this place is not a living, warm, benevolent light. It is cold, merciless, a translucent alabaster white, similar to the moonlight but devoid of any softness. It pierces the soul like a sharp blade, exposing the smallest cracks, the wounds hidden behind every gaze. Time seems suspended in a perpetual dawn, where the dust of the dead hours floats motionless, immaculate, between columns of jade as cold as the souls it once enclosed.

Around the palace, the air is frozen, sharp, laden with an almost palpable heaviness. No breeze blows, no birdsong rises: the silence here is not soothing, it is a weight, a sentence, a punishment inflicted on any life that would dare disturb this stony peace.

Every step resonates like a funereal echo, an offense to the icy majesty of this place of immutable justice. And this silence, this rigid muteness, is haunted by moving shadows, ethereal silhouettes whose voices have been reduced to murmurs of regret and resentment.

At the heart of this sanctuary sits the Wheel Room, a circular chamber devoid of windows and tangible walls, a perfect circle of impassive light. At its center, a massive wheel spins relentlessly—a sacred and fearsome mechanism, etched with ancient, glittering runes, bound into four interlocking circles: Truth, Justice, Destiny, Atonement. This wheel never ceases its inexorable movement, carrying with it the course of a thousand lives, condemning and sanctifying, reminding all that none can escape the judgment written in their blood.

But beyond the palace's icy majesty, beyond its immortal stones and frozen judgments, lives a broken man: Sunghoon, the celestial, warrior of a realm where light has become a grudge, where silence has become an impenetrable wall. His body sits there, motionless, on the highest terrace, where the wind rises like a funereal whisper, carrying betrayed oaths and broken vows. But his spirit is trapped in unfathomable torment, chained to this white wheel, to this palace that is his prison and his tribunal.

The icy wind seeps beneath his dark garments, making them flap like flags of exile. His eyes, deep black, are fixed on the misty, silent plains below, but within them burns an inner storm: a storm of bitterness, dull rage, and a pain sharper than any physical wound. Every breath is a struggle between hatred and desire, between revenge and a love from which he will not and cannot free himself.

Around him, his servants are blindfolded ghosts, once-condemned souls he holds captive in endless servitude. They glide like shadows between the columns, their voices whispers of regret, of silent suffering. They are the silent witnesses of a man on the brink, a warrior who has become judge, executioner, and victim all at once.

And then there's you.

Your appearance in this white and icy universe is like a tear in the motionless fabric of destiny. You are the shadow that disturbs the silence, the black flame that consumes the ice. You are the one who, against all odds, stole the heart of Sunghoon, that lonely star locked in a desert of snow and stone.

Your presence is a raw wound in his pristine palace. You are both his poison and his cure, the scar that makes him bleed but also the only thing keeping him alive. In this sanctuary of judgment where every gesture is weighed and every silence analyzed, you represent the chaos, the raw emotion, the storm his soul has suppressed for centuries.

In the dead of night, when the wheel turns slowly, he feels your breath on his skin like a burning wind, your gaze like a sword tearing at invisible chains. His heart, so long frozen under the weight of oaths and duties, breaks and rebuilds in exquisite, heartbreaking pain. He wants to push you away, to hate you for the betrayal you embody—you are the enemy of his world, the one who stole his empire of silence—but at the same time, he is irremediably drawn to you, like a moth to the flame, ready to consume itself for this spark of life.

The nights in the palace are a theater of shadows and unspoken tensions. The walls, silent witnesses to this inner struggle, vibrate under the weight of your silences, heavy with threats and impossible promises. The spectral wind that rises on the terrace sometimes carries a murmur, a barely audible breath, a complaint from the soul, a shiver of the forbidden.

And in this cruel ballet, the wheel continues to turn, implacable, indifferent to your torments.

In this place where every light burns and every shadow devours, the line between love and hate fades, leaving an abyss where only the most broken souls dare to venture.

Bái Lún Yǎn has become the tomb of your pains and the crucible of your forbidden passion.

And in this silent fight, no one knows if the white wheel will condemn you to oblivion... Or to eternity.

It had been exactly three days, ten hours, fifty-five minutes, and thirty seconds since you had crossed the threshold of Park Sunghoon's celestial residence. But you had stopped counting, somewhere between the first night and the second dawn that wasn't really a dawn—because here, the day doesn't rise. It hovers. Suspended in an unreal whiteness, as if light itself had forgotten how to warm.

Heavenly residence is not a place where one lives. It is a place where one endures.

A vast sanctuary built on a promontory of silence, with walls of jade so pure it seems translucent, as if carved from the ice of the first eras. The columns rise, infinite, splitting the sky until they are lost in the ether. Walkways connect the pavilions like the threads of a divine spider's web. And you, you are a prisoner in this suspended labyrinth, a stranger in a golden cage too white not to blind, too perfect not to wound.

Here, everything is symmetry and restraint. The pools don't reflect the sky—they reflect the soul. Your footsteps leave black ripples, as if your shadow were contaminating the harmony of this place.

You don't belong. You know it. You feel it in every averted glance. In every silence. In every bowl of cold rice left on your doorstep, without a word.

And him, Park Sunghoon… He watches over you. Not over you. Not really. He watches over you like you watch over a wounded animal that you don't know if it will beg or bite. He avoids you, but never completely. He ignores you, but with too much precision to be sincere. He doesn't speak. But his silence screams.

You can't run away from him. You live under his roof, in the former chamber of a priestess who died centuries ago, among incense that no longer burns and silks discolored by grief. The bed is too big. The sheets too clean. Every night, you curl up in it, like a mistake that refuses to go away.

You hardly sleep.

The nights here are traps. Too quiet. Too long. And in that silence, memories come flooding back. The betrayal. The blood. The pact. The price. You don't forget. You can't. Because your body remembers for you.

The mark on your shoulder blade glows in the darkness. A pale, blue glow, pulsing like a heart beating backward. Sometimes it burns. Sometimes it bleeds. And sometimes it doesn't do anything… Which is worse. Because then you find yourself hoping it'll do it again. So you can feel something.

And outside, behind the cedar doors, he's there. You feel him. He passes. He stops. A breath. A presence. A tension. He never knocks. He doesn't speak. He moves away. But you remain frozen, tense like a rope about to snap.

You want to hate him. But how can you hate a man who, every night, collapses alone in the Wheel Room to pray to a dead god he no longer believes can even hear him?

You surprised her once. One evening when you were wandering, haggard, lost in the corridors. You approached the heart of the sanctuary. You had no right. But you trampled on the right long ago.

And you saw him. Kneeling on the cold marble. His hands clenched. His head bowed. His shoulders heavy with a weight no mortal should bear. He wasn't praying. He was whispering your name. Not as a plea. Not as a curse. As a confession.

You ran away. Silently. Heart pounding. Eyes wet.

Since then, you haven't been back there.

Sunghoon doesn't tell you anything. He doesn't ask you anything. But he knows. He sees. And what he sees, every day, is a slow agony.

First, there was the loss of brightness in your eyes. Almost imperceptible. Like a star that flickers for a single night before fading forever. Then, your step grew heavier, as if each marble slab were sucking you deeper into the bowels of a world that wasn't yours. You glided through the halls of the celestial palace like a nameless soul, a whisper from a dead dream. And he, Sunghoon, watched you without looking at you. He looked away, but every beat of your heart echoed in his veins like a silent slap.

You didn't speak. You didn't ask anything.

But your body was screaming.

You were losing weight. Not like a woman who forgets herself, no. Like a caged beast refusing an enemy's food. He could see it in the way your dress, once fitted, now hung loosely around you like an oversized shroud. You kept one hand pressed against your stomach, tense, almost painful—as if you wanted to hold back something broken, precious, too intimate to be shown.

Sunghoon saw. He felt.

Your scent had faded. That of dark fields and dried blood. Now you smelled only of rain, cold stone, and that acrid odor that fatigue leaves when it becomes chronic. Your dark circles had sunk so deep they seemed carved from bone. Your complexion, once pulsing with color, had become that of burnt paper. And despite all this, despite every sign of collapse… You stood straight. With that strange, ridiculous, desperately fragile dignity. A cheap dignity, yes. But dignity nonetheless.

And he did nothing. Not out of cruelty. Not out of indifference. Not out of revenge. But out of fear. Because he knew: if he laid a hand on you, even a single finger, the dam would break.

It's not compassion that would kill him. It's what comes after. What smolders. What burns. This terrible, impossible, filthy need to keep you. You. The woman he should hate.

Sunghoon had clung to his anger like a drowning man to a broken plank. But even that, you had gnawed away, gently, methodically, with your mere presence. You hadn't tried to defend yourself. You hadn't begged. You hadn't justified anything. You were living. You were surviving. Like a silent condemned woman awaiting execution in a temple that had never known mercy.

And that's what broke him.

For the man he was… Should have judged you. The ancient Sunghoon, the incorruptible celestial, the sword of Destiny, would not have hesitated to slit your throat for what you had done to his master. He would have recited the celestial verses. He would have invoked the law. He would have turned a blind eye to your blood. He would even have offered it to the heavens as proof of his purity.

But today... He listens to you cry through the walls. And he doesn't move.

Sunghoon hears your footsteps wandering the corridors as night closes in on the palace. He senses your stifled sobs, your ragged breathing, your breath struggling against a pain he no longer dares to name. And sometimes, in this silence, he feels the mark on his arm burning—not as a reminder of revenge, but as a cry for help he refuses to hear.

And it's killing him. Because he no longer knows what he hates more: your past... Or his own heart.

So Sunghoon flees. He locks himself in the Wheel Room. For hours on end, he remains kneeling before this cosmic disc, his forehead resting on the icy ground, hoping that the Light will wash him away, that Justice will blind him. But the wheel turns. And it no longer speaks. Or perhaps it no longer answers him.

Because it is already defiled.

Sunghoon prays. He recites the laws. He invokes the memory of his master. He tears at his soul, wanting to become who he was again. But deep down, he knows: it's not the law that trembles. It's him.

Because he feels. And what he feels… Has nothing to do with Justice. It's not love. He doesn't want it. That would be too sweet, too clear. It's not hate. She died with your tears. It's something else. A need. A flaw. A tear in the soul.

Sunghoon wants to save you. Not because you deserve it. Not because he loves you. But because your unhappiness calls to him. Like an ancient chant. Like a reverse prayer. And he hates himself for it. So he stops at your door. Every night. He reaches out. Just a little.

Then he steps back.

Because he knows that if he opens the door... He won't let you go. And you, inside, feel his presence. You feel he's there. You feel him wavering. But you don't move. You stay lying there. Eyes open. Waiting for the pain to pass. Or for the silence to finally become... Eternal.

And in this suspended night, barely punctuated by the breath of the celestial wind, two hearts beat out of time. Connected by a curse, by a mark, by an ancient crime. And perhaps... By something worse.

A bond that no forgiveness can repair. A love that refuses to be born. But that is already dying, every second, in the darkness.

It had been five days.

Five days since you stopped counting, like one gives up measuring the extent of a bottomless pit, where each step forward feels like a deeper descent. The days stretched, merging into a dark molasses, and time itself seemed to have stopped, suspended between agony and oblivion. Each morning no longer bore its name, each hour slipped away in the shadow of a frayed time, fragile as a torn silk canvas. You were no longer captive to a calendar—but captive to a dull weight nestled in your bones, a silent pain that gnawed at your flesh and bones.

Your body, this broken temple, bore the bitter memory of wounds that neither wind nor rain could erase. Those invisible scars, so deep they seemed etched into your very skin, fiercer than the sharpest blade. He remembered the dull burn of silences, the chilling echo of absences, the icy bite of a fleeing gaze, of a breath suspended on the edge of the abyss. The fatigue, the exhaustion, the loneliness—all of it still weighed heavily, like an armor of shadows you wore despite yourself.

And yet… You were breathing.

But it wasn't the easy, light, and fluid breathing of a free soul. It was the air that crept in reluctantly, a breath torn from death, a flickering flame that trembled in the heart of an abyss too deep. You were no longer the woman you had been, nor the one you would have wanted to become. You were only a shadow, fragile and trembling, oscillating between survival and life, suspended between the icy cold of night and the burning flame of hope. A fallen creature groping forward, defying the darkness.

Your once-trembling hands had regained some of their strength. A fleeting flash in the renewed precision of that almost ritualistic, mechanical gesture: bringing a black sesame cake to your mouth. This simple act, so innocuous in the eyes of the world, became for you a silent oath, a silent revolt. A declaration to the world that, despite everything, you were resisting. That you were not dead.

That evening, in the great hall where hanging lanterns cast a dim, flickering light, where shadows danced between walls adorned with ancient calligraphy, you sat on a cushion embroidered with gold and silver thread, a silent witness to forgotten prayers and lost souls. The room seemed to hold its breath, frozen in dull anticipation.

Before you, the immaculate coffee table, where the warm cakes rested. Their bittersweet scent, acrid and sweet, hung in the air like a silent confession, a secret whispered by the wind. The bitterness of the past mingled with the deceptive sweetness of the present moment, each bite a bite of memory.

You devoured them with unfeigned pleasure, each flavor on your tongue seeming to pull you out of the abyss, extract you from oblivion. The sugar caressed your taste buds, while the bitterness dug a furrow in your chest, a brutal reminder that light is never reborn without shadow.

Facing you, motionless, Sunghoon. More than a man, a statue of ice shaped by the winds of an eternal winter. His straight, impeccable, unwavering figure, defying time and hardship. His black hair, knotted with surgical precision, each strand held back as if to imprison a part of his soul. His sleeves, always folded to perfection, like a sacred code engraved in silk. He ate. Slowly. Methodically. Each grain of rice he brought to his lips seemed to weigh more than the last.

Sunghoon didn't look up at you. He didn't speak. Yet, in his every gesture, in the barely contained tension of his fingers around the chopsticks, in the subtle quivering of his muscles beneath his skin, you felt his gaze weighing on you. An invisible, heavy gaze, sharper than any sword.

You knew he was watching you, even if he refused to show it. Sunghoon watched you like you would a poisoned flower, both fascinated and terrified by the poison it gave off.

You knew he didn't understand. How could he have understood? How could he grasp that dull pain, that icy melancholy that had crept into you like a slow, inexorable venom, poisoning you from the inside out?

You bit into that sesame cake again, that paradoxical blend of sweetness and bitterness that reminded you too much of your own existence. How could you love that taste that betrayed your mouth, that was the very reflection of your life—sweet on the surface, eaten away by bitterness deep down?

This troubled him deeply.

Everything about you, these last few days, worried him, unsettled him. He saw that fragile light reborn in you, and it awakened in him desires and fears he couldn't name. A tension between hope and fate, between tenderness and contained violence.

The silence stretched, dense, almost palpable, like a veil of black mist suffocating everything around you. Each suspended second was a weight, an invisible ordeal, slow and cruel. But this silence wasn't just an absence of sound—it had texture, breath, intention.

It was a beast lurking in the room. It didn't stretch: it watched. Invisible, but massive, it held its claws back, suspended between you like a sword on a thread, ready to strike at the slightest shiver of your soul, at the slightest word spoken too soon.

Outside, the rain fell in icy blades, cold and silent, hatching the windows as if the sky itself were trying to slit its veins. The air smelled of damp, old ash, and something sweet—a dark, almost rancid sugar that the sesame cakes on the table couldn't mask.

The light from the lanterns hanging from the ceiling flickered slightly, casting a hesitant brightness into the room. Their flames flickered as if they doubted their right to exist within these walls, between the two of you. Shadows lengthened, distorted, and danced across the jade walls. Each glint, each movement of light, seemed to reflect a fragment of what you weren't saying.

You sat upright, but your back seemed to carry an entire empire of fatigue. Your right hand held a small plate. Your left absently caressed the edge of the table. Your gestures were calm, measured—but each movement betrayed an ancient tension, as if your body were a rope stretched between life and something colder, larger, calling to you from within.

Facing you, Sunghoon. Upright. Still. Silent.

For him, eating wasn't a necessity. It was a ritual. A silent ceremony, poised between control and self-denial. Every movement of his chopsticks was surgically precise, almost unreal, as if he were dissecting the world one grain of rice at a time.

But his eyes—his eyes never left your bowl. He didn't look at you. And yet, he saw you. He saw you with that merciless clarity possessed only by those who have already condemned you once, internally. He saw you as one observes a wound that refuses to heal, like a memory one tries to forget but returns to haunt sleepless nights.

You were, to him, a crime. A crime he tried not to utter aloud. A sacrilege he continued to tolerate, by a whim of the heavens or by a flaw in his own faith. And in that way of not looking up, in that stubborn refusal to meet your gaze, there was something sharper than a thousand judgments. A silent sentence, made of control, pride… And fear.

And maybe that's why you spoke. Not so he'd understand. But because he already did. And the silence had become a poison you could no longer swallow.

You didn't move your head. You didn't look up. Your voice escaped your lips, hoarse and low, like a confession whispered at the tomb of a dead god. "Last night... I dreamed you killed me." A mere whisper. But in that whisper, there was the mark of a cross, of a sentence, of a farewell.

Sunghoon didn't move. But his chopsticks stilled. Neat. As if the wood itself understood that this moment must not be broken.

You continued. Slowly. Painfully. "You said nothing." Each word cost you. "You just placed two fingers on my throat..." And, as if in spite of yourself, your hand brushed your collarbone. It was no longer a memory. It was an imprint. A memory that your skin itself had never forgotten. Two fingers. Enough to take a life. And in your dream, you had welcomed them. "...And I disappeared."

The silence that followed was brutal. It tore through the space between you like a blade. The lanterns flickered more. One, in a corner, went out for no reason.

You continued, even lower:

"I was relieved."

It was like a blow to the naked eye. There was no cry. No flinch. But you saw it. Sunghoon's wrist, tense as if holding an invisible blade. The tendons in his fingers, white with the strain. His shoulders, once straight and noble, slumped slightly—as if your confession had carved a furrow into his chest.

You had just named something he had locked away. A dream he should never have had. And yet he had dreamed it over, over and over again, until he lost sleep over it. Sunghoon had seen you. In his dreams. Always the same scene. You, in that soft light, your eyes calm, your neck offered like an offering to an unjust god. Two fingers placed there. And your breath fading.

But in his dreams, you smiled. And that smile… That smile, he couldn't stand it. Because it spoke of peace. Because it spoke of acceptance. Because it spoke of love. And he, he was made to kill. Not to love.

So he kept quiet.

But you continued. Like an arrow piercing broken armor. You took another bite of your cake. Slowly. As if tasting something final. Then, gently:

"What if..." Your voice became light, almost unreal, like a dream that didn't dare to be born. "What if we were in a world without war? A world without gods. Without pacts. Without revenge."

Sunghoon was no longer breathing.

“I would be an apothecary.” Your smile was that of a broken child. “And you, a wounded traveler. You would have entered my shop, tired, silent. I would have healed you. You would have thanked me. And you would have left. Nothing more.” You smiled. Your eyes were wet, but you refused to cry. “No mark. No blood. No oath.”

A silence.

Then :

“Just a look. Like now.” And you looked up. And you stared at him. There was a sweetness in your gaze that tore at the chest. A tenderness he had never believed possible. And as if to finish him off, you gave him a wink. Simple. Innocent. Wildly daring.

And he choked. Really. He stepped back abruptly, coughed, almost dropped his bowl. And you… You laughed. A real laugh. Rich. Golden. Filling the room like a summer fire. A laugh that had no place in this world, but you offered it anyway. Because it was your way of surviving.

Sunghoon looked away, his face flushed, his heart in knots. He tried to compose himself, but he was nothing more than a helpless man facing something he didn't know how to fight.

You.

“You… You’re unbearable!” He finally growled, but his voice was broken, almost trembling. “How can a woman have such thoughts… Insane? Indecent?”

You stepped closer. Your smile was more dangerous than poison. "You're right, ice block. I'll give you more lines next time." You tilted your head. Your lips brushed your cake. "After all... You are my husband."

The word hit like a slap.

And Sunghoon stood up. Abruptly. A storm in his eyes. "YOU...!" He pointed at you, but his hand was shaking. With fear. With desire. With that ancient fear you feel when faced with what you cannot possess without losing yourself.

“Yes, me?” you breathed, sweet and provocative, your lips glossy with black sugar.

He looked away. Not out of anger. Out of flight. Because what he saw in your eyes… was a light he didn't deserve. And he whispered. In a cold, brittle, almost inhuman voice:

"Sinner."

And then… Sunghoon disappeared. Not a sound. Just that blinding, divine white light that engulfed him. And you, you stayed there. Alone. Surrounded by flickering lanterns. By cakes you wouldn't finish.

And in the silence he left, something remained. Something invisible. Something burning. You placed a hand on your mark. It throbbed.

And in that beat, you understood:

It wasn't him you wanted to hold on to. It was what he'd taken with him when he left. And what you already missed.

Jì Láng (寂廊) — The Corridor of Silence

You had started to lose yourself there again. Not by accident. No. It was a choice, a voluntary exile. Like a silent offering to nothingness. Whenever the suffocation became too great, whenever the pain overflowed the confines of your flesh and threatened to turn into a scream, this was where you came. Far from view, far even from your own breath. You weren't looking for peace. You were looking for disappearance.

The Jì Láng was not a mere corridor. It was an open wound in the very foundations of the heavenly palace. Long, narrow, like a stone tunnel carved from the bones of the world. It wound between the sacred wings like a shadow serpent, and no one, ever, stayed there long. Those who crossed it quickened their pace. Even the immortals.

Because here, there was no sound.

Not your steps. Not your breathing. Not the brush of your sleeves against your body. Everything faded, swallowed up in a magical, ancient, almost sacred void. The silence of the Jì Láng wasn't the absence of sound—it was an entity, a palpable force, a cold hand closed around your throat. It swallowed everything. Even the light.

But it was the walls that were the cruelest.

Panels of polished jade, embedded in the stone like a thousand closed eyes. Merciless mirrors. Their deep green surface seemed to smooth reality, distort it, shatter it. Each reflection of you was different. And all were true. You saw the child kneeling in the mud, palms bleeding, gazing up at a dull sky. You saw the young witch, her dress torn, her arms stained scarlet, her heart frozen. You saw the murderer, impassive, her eyes empty, surrounded by corpses. You saw the captive, that silent, naked version of yourself, deprived of pride, of hatred, of a name.

And sometimes, more rarely, you saw the person you could have become. The one who didn't kill. The one who was loved. The one who fled.

You walked between them as if between a thousand funerals of yourself.

Your reflection followed you every step of the way—splintered, broken, misshapen, as if the jade reflected not your body, but your soul. In some places, your face was stretched into a silent grimace of pain; in others, your eyes shone with a false joy that made you want to vomit. The mirrors reflected back to you everything you had tried to forget—every choice, every crime, every weakness. And you stayed there, every day, longer. Because here, you had no need to hide.

Because here, you no longer had a mask. And it was there, always there, in this labyrinth of polished silence, of white stone and broken reflections, that you encountered him.

Park Sunghoon.

He never burst into view with a bang. He appeared like ghosts do—noisily, but always at the exact moment you thought you were finally breathing. Not a coincidence. No. Nothing was with him. He was there because he wanted to be. Because he had guessed where you would be. Because he knew you would come back.

Sunghoon had become your shadow—or perhaps you had become his.

You recognized his presence before you even saw him. The air was changing. The atmosphere was becoming denser, as if every particle of oxygen began to vibrate under the weight of his silence. Even the light was changing: it folded around him, fragmenting on the edges of his celestial mantle like a sharp blade.

This coat… Sunghoon had never taken it off. Impeccably white, embroidered with silver thread, stiff as armor. It was no longer a garment. It was a straitjacket. A cage. Every fold seemed to scream: I control myself. I hold back. I am a judge, not a man. And yet…

There was no more dignity in his gait. Only a cold, mechanical one. A steady, perfect, almost inhuman step. He never wavered. He never slowed down. But you saw it—yes, you saw it—that tiny tremor at the base of his neck, that irregular throbbing of his temples. As if his own body were screaming what his mouth refused to say: that he couldn't take it anymore.

And you? You stopped dead in your tracks.

You were becoming a statue. Prisoner of a gaze he never looked at you directly. Because no, Sunghoon wasn't looking at you. Not straight on. Not like a man looks at a woman. That would have been too easy. Too human. No, Sunghoon looked at you in mirrors. Through reflections. As if facing the reality of your face was a suffering he couldn't afford.

But in the mirrors, you crossed paths. And in those moments, fleeting, cursed, eternal—there was no longer a mask.

You saw everything.

You saw the storm in his pupils. You saw his rage—immense, burning, barely contained. You saw his grief, knotted in the hollow of his throat, making it hard to breathe when Sunghoon met your reflection. Above all, you saw that shame, insidious, cruel, eating away at his insides.

He judged you, yes. But not like a celestial judges a witch. He judged you like a man who had failed.

In his eyes, you weren't just a monster. You weren't just the one who killed. You were the one he should have saved. The one he could have understood, if he had listened. If he hadn't looked away. If he had loved you a little sooner, a little better.

And him? He was becoming someone else in the mirror. He was no longer the perfect judge, the blameless celestial. He was a broken man. Tired. A survivor who hadn't seen the fire consume those he wanted to protect. And now he stood in the ashes, unable to reach out.

Sometimes his gaze screamed that he wanted to punish you. Other times, you read in it a desire so fierce it was cruel. But Sunghoon did nothing. He said nothing. He kept it all inside.

And you, you were dying of silence.

You would have preferred him to hate you. You would have preferred him to insult you, to accuse you, to spit out your name like a curse. You would have preferred him to raise his hand. To be done with it. You would have begged him. Kill me, and free me from this waiting. But he remained frozen. He looked at you—and that was worse than death.

That night you stayed longer.

Maybe you were waiting for him. Maybe you wanted to hurt yourself. You turned the glass galleries, slowly, each step like torture. And suddenly, you saw him appear. Around a corner. Sunghoon was advancing—straight, precise, his hands clasped behind his back.

Your footsteps stopped simultaneously. A few meters apart. And the space between you cracked.

Not a word.

Not a move.

But the void between you became more real than the walls. An abyss filled with everything you had never been able to say. Everything you had lost. Everything you continued to desire.

You weren't looking at yourself. But in the mirror on the left, your reflections met. And it was a saber thrust to the heart.

You saw the fatigue in his eyes. An old, irreversible fatigue. You saw the love he denied himself. The forgiveness he refused to grant you—not because you didn't deserve it, but because he couldn't forgive himself. You saw the trembling of his lips. The twitching of his fingers.

Sunghoon wanted to talk to you. He wanted to scream. He wanted to break you—or hug you. He wanted a thousand things, and he did nothing.

And you? You wanted to fall to your knees. You wanted to ask him why. Why he had abandoned you. Why he hadn't recognized you. Why he kept pretending you were nothing. But your voice remained dead in your throat.

So you looked down. Like a traitor. Like a rejected lover. Like a child abandoned by her god.

You turned around. Your footsteps were silent, but your heart was beating so hard it seemed to scream between your ribs.

And in the mirror, you saw it.

Sunghoon didn't move. He stood there, straight, frozen, like a statue poised in grief. But his fists... They were shaking. His eyes... They were blinking too fast. And his reflection... He was nothing more than a scar.

A living scar. Buried in your back.

Yu Xuān (雨轩)—literally, “The Rain Pavilion”—a name that, in itself, resonates like ancestral melancholy, a poem of solitude and shadows. This forgotten corner of the palace, hidden behind thick walls and winding corridors, was a sanctuary suspended between two worlds. A small terrace of sober architecture, fragile in appearance, but built to defy time. The roof of ancient tiles, worn by centuries of downpours, cast a cold and unchanging shadow, a veil of soft darkness even under the merciless glare of the sun.

There, always, rain fell—but not ordinary rain. Invisible. Spectral. A murmur of water without source or end, a rain that never wet the skin, but seemed to penetrate the very soul. That delicate, regular hiss hammered the roof with the constancy of a heart beating to the rhythm of a secret no one could break. As if the sky had chosen to weep silently for this place, for the pain and heartbreak it kept locked away.

This pavilion was not an open refuge. It was forbidden to intruders, to the profane, to the impure of heart. The guards did not set foot there, the servants avoided it like a tomb. Yet, for you, this place had always had a strange, almost familiar presence. Sunghoon had never pronounced a clear prohibition. Sunghoon had never said to you, "Don't enter." Nor, "You must not come here." Simply, a heavy silence, an absence of words, like a breath suspended between refusal and permission. A silent fracture in his rigid discipline, where his love and his mistrust intertwined in a slow, cruel dance.

This lack of an explicit barrier had led you to believe that you could venture there. Once. Only once.

That night, you're no longer quite sure why your feet led you there. Perhaps because the weight of days, sleepless nights, nightmares, and regrets had broken you beyond all resistance. Perhaps because you were looking for a whisper, a secret voice, a place where your heartbeat could match the rhythm of a silent rain.

You entered silently, slipping into the shadows, your breath short, your chest oppressed by an inner storm. The air was thick, saturated with humidity, charged with an electricity you felt in your bones. The invisible rain fell, elusive, penetrating. It caressed your skin without moistening it, seeped into your hair, seeped into your clothes like a spectral breath.

You sat in the center of the terrace, leaning against an ancient wooden pillar. The wood was cold beneath your palm, smooth as the skin of a corpse, marked by time and secrets. There, in this otherworldly sanctuary, you closed your eyes, letting the whisper of the rain envelop you.

Your mind, a heartbreaking chaos of past pain, buried fears, memories as sharp as blades, began to calm. Each invisible drop seemed to carry away a little of your suffering, each imperceptible sound cradled the dull anger and blind sadness within you. You gave yourself over to sleep, fragile and precarious, like a weary moth caught in the web of an endless night.

In that hazy dream, you saw a different world. A world where someone would have reached out to you without fear, without judgment, where you would have been protected, loved in your entirety and fragility. A pale light at the end of a cold tunnel, a breath of hope in the stifling darkness of your existence. But this light was distant, almost painful to contemplate, because you knew it wasn't for you, or at least not yet.

Then the presence came.

Without a sound, without a breath to announce its approach. Just that icy chill that crept up the back of your neck, gripping your heart like an invisible iron fist. You felt the air tense, charged with a dark, heavy energy, like a silk thread stretched to the brink of breaking.

Sunghoon.

He stood there in the shadows of the pavilion, frozen like a living statue, an imposing shadow draped in his immaculate celestial robe, rigid and merciless. His features, in the gloom, were hard, marked by the struggle between anger and pain. His eyes, those inky depths, did not dare meet yours, fleeing your gaze with the fear of drowning in it, or of hurting you further.

You didn't move. You didn't dare. You were suspended in that fragile moment, between desire and resentment, between fear and the silent wait for an answer that never came.

The silence between you was an ocean of unspoken words, of stifled cries, of love and hate mingled. A funeral music played by two souls who loved each other too much to say it, and who tore each other apart in this unbearable unspoken word.

You felt his fists clench, as if beneath his skin, a war was raging. Sunghoon was fighting against himself, against his demons, against the irrepressible urge to come closer, to protect you, to take you in his arms and erase all your wounds. But he remained there, imprisoned in his own silence, motionless and distant, like a cold and lonely mountain.

In that dark night, beneath the rain that wouldn't fall, a raw, clumsy, painful tenderness vibrated in the air. A tenderness that chilled you as much as it soothed you. A silent promise, an invisible caress that you shared in this absence of words.

You wanted to tell him that you didn't need to be saved, only to be loved, despite everything. That you didn't want to run away anymore, but to abandon yourself to him, even if it meant suffering again. That you wanted him to be your refuge and your storm at the same time.

But the weight of fatigue and fear held you captive, mute, fragile, under the sacred roof of Yu Xuān.

When you finally opened your eyes, he was gone. Just a deep, cold emptiness, a painful echo of his absence, a naked wound that silence couldn't soothe.

And the rain, always the rain, fell, invisible and eternal, on this pavilion where solitude and tenderness intertwined in a sad and infinite ballet.

Jiù Shěn Táng (旧审堂) — The Old Tribunal Hall

The Old Courtroom. A name that sounds like a death knell, like a sentence no one has ever dared to break. An ancient ruin, frozen in the silence of a bygone era, crushed under the weight of its own shadows. Where once judgments rose in a solemn breath, now only muffled whispers remain, memories eaten away by the wear and tear of time. A tomb for the living, a mausoleum for condemned souls.

You push the door open, and a dull creak reverberates through the void, as if the room itself were holding its breath, ready to swallow you up. Your footsteps echo, quiet, hesitant, on the cold stone floor. The air is heavy, laden with humidity and dust, pricked by the acrid smell of abandonment. Each breath you take seems to tear through a veil of silence, like a silent plea.

You move slowly, each movement imbued with a strange gravity. Time here has frozen, imprisoned by the echoes of past sentences, muffled cries, shattered hopes. The high ceiling is dotted with cobwebs, while shafts of pale light filter through the tall, bare windows, barely striking the blackened remains of the wooden pillars, cracked, marked by the years and forgotten flames.

At the center of this devastation sits a majestic seat, carved from pale jade, once brilliant, now dull and covered in a film of dust, like a discarded sacred relic. It is the throne of the heavenly judge—the master you slew. The one man who held your life in his hands, and who brutally snatched it away.

You don't sit down. You can't. Not yet.

You wander like a shadow, a ghost searching for one last breath, one last vestige of humanity in this stone temple. Your hand brushes the blackened wood of the pillars, your fingers glide over the rough stone, but there is nothing to grasp, nothing that is not already dead. You search for the echo of a voice, the trace of a glance, a pronounced judgment… But all that responds is silence.

Finally, you fall to your knees, the weight of your guilt crushing your weary bones. There, facing the empty throne, you feel the emptiness growing within you—an insatiable chasm where shame and despair intertwine. There is no one to forgive you. No incense, no offerings, no redemption.

You breathe in slowly, deeply. The silence is so dense it penetrates your skin, seeps into your bones, until every nerve screams with dull pain. Your heart, heavy as a rock, beats slowly, each pulse a hammer blow in your chest.

Then, a noise. A breath, a rustle of fabric. Soft footsteps.

You don't need to look back. You know. It's him. Park Sunghoon. Your judge. Your executioner and your refuge.

His silhouette stands out in the shadows, motionless, frozen in the gloom, like an obsidian statue at the edge of the threshold. He doesn't cross the threshold. He can't. It's as if he fears desecrate this altar laden with cursed memories.

You turn your head, slowly. Not to run away, not to beg, but to confront.

Sunghoon is there. Standing there like a broken warrior, his body stiff, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turn white. His jaw is clenched, tense, every muscle taut like a bowstring ready to snap.

But it's his eyes that haunt you. They don't look at you. They stare into that void—that abandoned throne, that symbol of justice turned grave. His eyes are drowned in a sea of pain and absence. A dull anger mingled with an unfathomable sadness. And in that torn gaze, you read the full depth of a grief that refuses to die.

You stand there, facing him, and your own heart clenches—not under the weight of his hatred, but under the even more cruel weight of his silence.

You break the silence in a low, broken voice, almost a whisper. "I didn't want this..." You're not crying, not yet, but your voice trembles, frail, like a twig in a storm. You're not saying this to defend yourself, nor to seek his pity. You're only looking for some truth, some light in this abyss. "You know that, don't you?"

It's a trap set in the air, an invisible choice thrown into the void between you.

Sunghoon doesn't answer. His silence is a weight that weighs on you, but you accept this weight. You lower your head. You close your eyes. You breathe in. And the memories overwhelm you.

When you open your eyes again, Sunghoon is looking at you. Not at your skin or your face, but at your insides. He trembles, imperceptibly, like a fragile fire fighting the wind.

Your breathing softens. You smile. Not to challenge. But to soothe.

"You know what it's like to lose someone. So do I." And in that whisper unfolds a rare, fragile thrill of humanity, a silent confession between two broken souls.

Sunghoon's steel mask wavers. His shoulders relax, his body cracks. His eyelids lower for a moment, as if to hold back an inner torrent.

You stand up. Not to run away. To offer him a respite, a moment stolen from the war that consumes you.

“If you’re expecting an apology… I can’t give it to you.” You speak gently, like placing a flower on a fresh grave. “Because I think it’s right.” Your gaze is clear, without remorse, but without defiance either. “And I don’t regret surviving.”

You slowly turn your back. You don't see the silent tears sliding down his cheeks—pearls of pure pain. You don't hear his breath hitch. You don't know that, despite the years, Sunghoon still carries the incense of that fateful night.

But you feel it. The burning mark on your shoulder blade quivers, like a tear of fire on your back.

You walk away slowly, your heart heavy.

In this silence laden with unspoken confessions, you leave behind a broken man—his grief, his slowly consuming hatred, and this wounded heart that still beats, despite everything, for the one he can no longer condemn.

The night stretches on, thick, heavy, like black ink spilled over the world, impervious to all light. Every breath you take is an effort, a struggle against the emptiness that swallows you up. The corridor you've already walked down several times this evening seems to stretch to infinity, its cold stone walls exuding a sinister dampness, mingled with the acrid smell of burnt resin, old forgotten incense, dried blood. Everything here is frozen, dead, and yet vibrant with a dull presence, ready to burst.

Your steps are heavy, measured, yet betray an inner tremor—it is not fear that guides you, nor doubt, but that painful fire that consumes your entire being: that bitter mixture of shattered hope, suppressed hatred, unbearable desire. Your heart, beating with demented regularity, hammers your chest like a dull storm. You know that in the shadow looming at the end of the corridor, it is there. And that simple fact, laden with a terrible weight, exhausts you.

Then this sudden noise, like a clap of thunder in this abysmal silence: a body collapsing heavily against the stone floor. The crash resonates within you like a wound. You accelerate, hurtling down the last few steps, your hands gripping the cold handle of the forbidden door. Your ragged breathing mingles with the furious beating of your heart, a primal, almost animal rhythm.

You open the door, and the world comes into focus in a frozen moment, where everything you feel crashes brutally against reality.

Sunghoon lies there, sprawled on the floor, his body frail and broken, his figure shattered by the weight of an invisible yet palpable pain. The pallor of his skin contrasts sharply with the night, his features drawn, his eyes half-closed, drowned in a mixture of alcohol, fatigue, and an abysmal sadness. A silent tear slides down his cheek, like a shard of fragility that no one was meant to see.

His breath is raspy, each exhalation seeming to wring a little more strength from his weary limbs. An empty, crumpled flask lies nearby—a fragile talisman against the inner demons that gnaw at him.

Your body slowly kneels beside him, each gesture imbued with sacred caution. You don't want to upset this fragile balance, this tension stretched like a silk thread between you. Your hand, hesitant at first, brushes against his trembling arm, then gently ventures out to take the gourd from him, which smells of pain and resignation.

His gaze, clouded, avoids yours, like an ashamed child, and yet you can feel the storm brewing beneath that shattered facade. He is both close and distant, both vulnerable and trapped by his demons. His body shudders with every breath, a silent battle between his heavenly duty and his feelings for you, the dark shadow of his own pain intertwining with the desire you arouse.

“How could I hate you, Y/n…” His voice, hoarse and broken, twisted by silent pain, slips out like a barely audible breath. “How could I blame you, when every tear you shed lacerates my heart?” His eyelids flutter shut, a shudder of shame and helplessness shaking him. The weight of his responsibilities, his rank, the world’s hatred for you, all crashes down on Sunghoon. “Yet I should. Celestial that I am, I should reject the witch, the sinner… You.”

You place a finger, soft and trembling, on his pale lips, to silence the flood of judgments and pain that devours him. "Sunghoon..." Your voice softens, becomes almost a caress. "Here, in this night, nothing matters but us. Forget the labels, the weights, the chains. Listen to the truth that beats in your chest, not the lies of the world."

Your hands search for each other, hesitant, then intertwine. You gently guide his so that it finds refuge on your chest, where your heart beats with a wild, untamed force. Then you place it on his, so that he too can feel the pulsing life, beyond the shadows and doubts.

A sacred silence falls. His breathing calms, becomes slow, deep. His eyes, misty, plunge into yours, searching for a shore, an anchor in this emotional chaos. A sad but sincere smile stretches your lips—a fragile balm on invisible wounds.

"Listen to your heart, Sunghoon. It will always guide you." You release his hand, but he abruptly holds it back, a strength both brutal and fragile, as if he were afraid of losing you, of collapsing into this void without you.

"What if this heart, this hungry monster, told me to kiss you... To lock you in a forgotten tower, far from this crazy world, never to lose you again..." His voice, a hoarse, almost pleading whisper, drifts into the night. "Will you allow me?"

Your magical marks, etched into your flesh, glow softly, pink and vivid, pulsing to the violent rhythm of your beating hearts. The dull pain they cause fades, swept away by the power of this suspended, almost sacred moment.

His gaze is a raging ocean, deep, mysterious, a rough sea where desire, fear, and suffering mingle. Slowly, like a silent oath, his forehead brushes against yours, a burning, intimate, almost religious touch.

“One word, Y/n… Just one. Say it, and I will surrender myself, body and soul, to you, to this heart that consumes me.”

The warmth of his breath brushes yours, mingling with your short, shaky breaths. Your body shudders, every fiber of your being stretched toward him, open, vulnerable. A wave of shivers, both painful and delicious, rises up your spine.

“Do it.” Your breath is a broken, fragile whisper, charged with an intensity that crushes you.

Sunghoon doesn't wait for you. In a movement both brutal and infinitely gentle, he pulls you against him. His hand presses against your waist, firm, burning, anchoring, while his lips seek yours with exquisite, almost ceremonial slowness.

This first touch is a whispered promise, an oath woven into the silence of the night. The kiss unfolds, stretches, stretches again—each second a suspended fragment, charged with an almost unbearable electric tension.

Her lips are a burning caress, eager and delicate, a mixture of sweetness and possession. Each beat, each movement is a silent dialogue, a sensual dance where tenderness and fire, fear and need mingle.

You feel his hands explore your spine, each caress awakening an ancient, painful, powerful fire within you. His mouth opens slowly, his tongue brushing against your lower lip with an almost sacred hesitation, seeking silent permission, which you grant by slightly parting your lips.

Sunghoon then plunges into your mouth, tasting every nuance, every sigh. Your breaths mingle, tangle, in a silent and wild symphony. Your bodies press against each other, your hearts beat in unison in this forbidden choreography where pain and pleasure intertwine and merge.

Muffled, almost sacred moans rise in the darkness, enveloping your souls in a burning veil. The world fades away, leaving only the two of you, drowning in an ocean of sensations, broken promises, fragile abandonment.

Your hands cling to his face, caress his jaw with restrained urgency, tangle in his dark hair, while his other arm embraces you protectively, like a bulwark against the darkness lurking outside.

In this kiss, there is more than the simple ardor of desire. There is the invisible struggle against the shadows of the past, against fear and guilt, against the invisible chains of fate. There is the fragile redemption of tormented souls, the silent confession of a forbidden and wild love.

Your marks still glow, pulsing like a secret heart, silent guardians of this moment stolen from eternity. Here, pain transforms into promise, solitude into fiery fusion.

This kiss is a silent oath, a pact of souls, a cry of hope and struggle, a fragile intertwining of light and darkness. The night envelops you, your mingled breaths echoing like a silent prayer.

Nothing will ever be the same again.

Since that kiss, the balance had been broken. Everything had changed, and yet... Nothing was said. Not a word. Not a sigh. There was this void between you. A void that was too full.

The meal had been served as every day, in the ceremonial silence of the celestial residence. The servant's gestures had become discreet, almost effaced, as if he sensed that one more word, one noise too many, would cause something invisible to collapse. The door closed, and you found yourselves alone. Sitting face to face. Trapped in a motionless scene.

A low table of blackened wood—perhaps ancestral sandalwood—raised its rough surface between you like a sacred boundary. It had seen generations of scholars, judges, and warriors pass through it. But tonight, it was almost trembling. For never had it witnessed such a silent war.

Your porcelain bowls are still steaming. The scent of pickled vegetables, fragrant rice, and herbal soups fills the room. But no scent reaches you. The world around you seems veiled. As if a thick fog has slipped between your senses and reality.

You're not eating. Neither is Sunghoon.

You bring the food to your mouths like automatons, disjointed puppets trying to reproduce the semblance of a routine. But your gestures betray your minds. Your hand barely trembles. His chopstick glides without catching anything. You pretend to be present, but the moment is a ghost.

This is not silence.

It's a tension.

Overwhelming.

A spectral weight suspended between you. Dense as the acid mist of the cursed fields, where souls fallen in war still weep. It is an ancient pain, nameless. Something that lurks in the recesses of the heart, between desire and prohibition. Something only those who have lost too much can understand.

You want to talk. But what to say? That that kiss ravaged you? That his lips left you bloodless? That his hand on your back was as soft as an oath, but you felt his hesitation, his refusal, his weight of guilt?

Sunghoon doesn’t look at you. But you know he sees you. He sees your rigid posture, your downcast eyes, your pursed lips. And you feel his gaze even when he's elsewhere. It weighs on the back of your neck like an invisible hand. Each beat of your heart deafens you a little more. And when, sometimes, your eyes meet—for a beat, a paused breath—it's as if the universe were reversing. As if the war were starting again.

Sunghoon is impenetrable. But you read him anyway. Not in his words—there aren't any. Not in his gestures—they are rare. But in that contained stiffness, in that way he breathes like a condemned man. His fingers betray him. They brush the rim of his bowl, smooth the wood, stop. They hesitate, leave, come back. And that hesitation, that tiny movement, says everything he refuses to admit to you.

You want him to kiss you again. You want him to hate you. You want him to spit out your name in a mixture of pain and desire. You want him to leave you, to tear you away from him. You want him to save you.

And in this burning chaos, in this inner spiral where everything collides - you reach out. A simple gesture. For bread. Nothing could be more ordinary. Nothing could be more harmless. But he makes the same gesture. At exactly the same moment. Your fingers brush. Then touch. And the world turns upside down.

The heat is immediate. Unbearable. Like a thread of fire slipping under the skin. An electric shock that runs up your arm, through your shoulder, and into your throat. You hold your breath. So does he. Your hands are there, one against the other, above this black wooden board, like two oaths made by mistake.

You don't move. Unable to break contact. Because it's not just a contact. It's a scar opening. An old wound no one dares to name. This brush plunges you back into the forbidden, into that kiss you pretend to have forgotten, but which still burns. Your gaze falls together on your hands bound by chance—but it's no accident.

You know it. So does Sunghoon.

The air is tearing.

You hear your own heart pounding in your chest, beat after beat, like a war drum. You feel his fingers—cold, hard, trembling—against yours. He doesn't withdraw them. He stays there. Absent. Frozen. Prisoner. And in his eyes, a crack. A crack as deep as a moonless night. He looks at you. No. He goes right through you.

Sunghoon seems to see something in you he wants to run away from. Something he can't fight.

So you break the spell. You're the one who pulls your hand back, gently, slowly, like pulling a dagger out of your own skin. You take the piece of bread. You avoid his gaze. You swallow your fear. And you pretend to keep eating.

But Sunghoon…He's not coming back. His mind is elsewhere. Far away. Lost between the suspended beats of this contact. He watches you without really seeing you, his eyes bleary, his mouth half-open as if he wanted to speak—but couldn't.

And then finally... His voice rises. A whisper. Almost a rattle. "In three days... There will be the Lantern Festival in Dōng Liánchéng."

You blink. You look up, surprised. Sunghoon doesn't explain. He doesn't justify anything. He doesn't even look at you. He speaks into the void, into a dead center, as if each word tears something from him.

“If you want to go… Get ready.”

And you understand. Sunghoon wants to run away from you… But he doesn't want you to leave. He wants to punish you… But he can't bear the thought of you moving away. He wants to forget you… But he has just, unwittingly, invited you into one of the most intimate memories of his life. The Lantern Festival. A moment of light. Of beauty. Of suspended wishes.

You look at him. He's motionless. Frozen in a shadow of himself. A smile gently tugs at your lips. A sad smile. A cruel smile. A tender smile. It's poison. It's an invisible kiss. And you see it, in his eyes, that start—that moment when Sunghoon loses his footing, when his heart skips a beat.

You simply whisper:

"All right. We'll go."

And you start eating again. Not out of hunger. Not even to keep yourself occupied. You chew like you're casting a spell, like you're warding off an overly violent emotion. To delay the moment. To mask the storm. But deep down, you know. This isn't the party you're waiting for. It's not the lanterns hanging in the wind, nor the secret wishes people hang on flowering branches. This is Sunghoon. And this is how he'll eventually break you.

The days tick slowly through the calcified veins of Bai Lu Yan, like the coagulated blood of an empire too ancient to remember its own birth. The white city is now nothing more than a living mausoleum, each marbled jade pavement containing the echoes of ancient forgotten oaths, betrayed conquests, pacts sealed in the blood of the chosen. In this sanctuary where immortals hide behind masks of gold and virtue, the wind carries a scent of ancient rain mingled with the more muted scent of black incense burned in the corridors to ward off bad omens.

In this peace too perfect, too dead to be true, a man is at war.

Sunghoon doesn't move. He stands there, motionless, a silhouette cut out in the flickering shadow of a black stone pillar with gold veins. The afternoon light, filtered through the oiled paper panels, dies against his back, hemming his body with a spectral clarity. His arms are crossed, but his fingers clench at times, as if searching for an invisible weapon, or perhaps a truth. His gaze is fixed. He is fixed on the screen separating you from him, and he doesn't blink, as if by looking at you, even without seeing you, he is trying to ward off something. A spell. A curse. A version of himself he fears more than death.

You're on the other side. And you're getting ready. Slowly. Surely. With almost painful attention. And every noise you make resonates in Sunghoon like an incantation. The soft rustle of silk against your skin. The muffled creak of wood beneath your bare feet. The brief clink of a stray bracelet on the marble floor. And that breath… That tiny variation in the air, almost imperceptible, yet he senses it as a rumble in his chest. Because it's yours. And for some time now, he's been hearing your silence louder than the voice of the ancient gods.

He closes his eyes for a second. One second too long. And he sees. Sunghoon sees you as no one should see an enemy. With that heartbreaking clarity possessed by those who love before they even understand what they're looking at. With that primal fear, the one you feel in front of fire, or in front of the ocean when it decides to take everything back.

When you finally step through the screen, Sunghoon forgets to breathe. You step into the dim light of the room, and to him, you've never been so real. So dangerous.

You wear a dark red, almost black silk dress, like a promise of agony hidden beneath a festive garment. The fabric hugs your body with feigned modesty—every movement reveals something, every step erases an illusion. You didn't try to seduce, but you've just condemned it. Your hair is up, carefully tied in tight twists and strands, as if you'd taken the time to conceal an army in its folds. And in that high bun, a red pin. Simple. Ancient. And yet… Fatal.

It tinkles softly with each of your gestures, and the sound seeps into the silence like blood beading on a polished blade. This sound, light, crystalline, haunts him immediately. He has the strange impression of having heard it once. In a dream. Or in another life. He no longer knows. But he feels he should have fled as soon as he recognized it.

Sunghoon says nothing. But his gaze becomes an abyss. He stares at you like a starving man stares at a poisoned offering. He examines you shamelessly, defenselessly. He doesn't undress you—he skins you. He wants to understand what you are, what you're hiding. And what you're going to steal from him.

You're not a witch anymore. Not tonight. Tonight you are a woman. And this simple reality is enough to destroy all the walls he had built for himself.

You're a woman. And Sunghoon doesn't understand you.

You are a woman. And Sunghoon would like to understand you.

You're a woman. And Sunghoon wants you.

It's not a light, burning, immediate desire. It's not a longing born in the blood. No. What he feels is slower. More terrible. A spiral, a sweet poison that slips into his veins and settles behind his ribs, like a sleeping beast.

And this beast opens its eyes the moment it sees your neck. The back of your neck. Delicate. Perfect. A senseless offering in this place of death and oaths. Sunghoon sees the beat of your heart, there, just beneath the skin. He can almost feel the warmth of your breath in the hollow of his throat, even though you haven't even spoken. And a thought strikes him with the violence of a blade: He wants to put his lips there. Not to make you shudder. But so that you understand. That he is already on his knees.

You adjust a fold in your sleeve. The pin still clinks. And it's that sound, that small, almost insignificant sound, that breaks his last resistance. He senses it: it's too late. He's already on the other side. On your side. On the side of those who love, even if it's a trap. Even if it's a betrayal.

You look up at Sunghoon. And you look at him. You really look at him. That look—that single look—is a spell. Sunghoon feels it closing around him, slowly, inexorably. He doesn't know what you put into it. Pity? Distrust? Tenderness? But what he does know is that you've just stolen something from him. Something he can never take back.

Sunghoon looks down. For a moment. Just a moment. And in that moment, he understands. He's going to lose you. He's going to want you too badly. He will hate you for what you awaken in him. And he'll love you for the same reason. So he takes a step back. But he stays. Like a man standing before a storm, knowing it will crush him, but unable to turn away. Because there's no way out now.

There is you.

And there is him.

And the war has already begun.

Dong Liancheng (东连城) — Eastern City of Chains

Night falls on Dōng Liánchéng like an ancient breath. It doesn't descend from the sky; it seeps through the cracks. It creeps into the interstices of the stones, creeps along the worm-eaten beams, slips through the fingers of children still playing in the dust. It doesn't just blot out the light: it suffocates. It buries. It absorbs. This isn't a dusk. It's an extinction. A slow, silent, implacable eclipse.

Dong Liancheng, the ancient and inviolable city, the one they name in hushed tones in the monasteries of the north and the brothels of the south, the one whose cobblestones have drunk more blood than a battlefield, the one that was the capital of a forgotten empire and the prison of a mad emperor, becomes something else. It is no longer a city. It is an invocation.

And that night, it all begins with a first flame. A lantern. A red dot. Tiny. Suspended in the dark. Then a second. A third. Ten. One hundred. A thousand.

Soon, the air seems to vibrate under the weight of the lights, but it's not a soft brightness. It's a burning. The lanterns don't shine: they consume. Their flickering glow doesn't illuminate: it dissects. Each flame is an open eye. A revived memory. A scar that has refused to heal.

The cobblestones, polished by centuries of processions and executions, reflect the deep red light—carmine red, poppy red, placenta red, torture red—until entire streets resemble rivers of congealed blood. And beneath the crowds' feet, this blood seems to stir.

The passersby, however, don't speak. They glide. Draped in silk, masked, scented with mourning incense, they advance as if in a trance, guided by an invisible choreography. A memory that is not their own. Each of them seems to carry a burden that the eye cannot grasp. Something heavy, twisted, irremediable. The mourning of a loved one. The betrayal of an oath. The fear of a return. Or perhaps simply... the certainty of having already sinned too much to be saved.

The children are silent. Too silent. They hold their mothers' hands, but they don't cry, they don't laugh. Their eyes shine with a fixed, animal, almost supernatural glow. As if they knew. As if they remembered a previous life where they were something other than children.

Above, the lanterns rise, ever rising, in a slow, almost funereal ballet. Some are lotus-shaped—a symbol of rebirth, they say. Others take the form of dragons, foxes, broken wings, pierced hearts. Many are simply black spheres, shining like jet pearls, with no apparent pattern. These are the oldest. The most feared. They are said to contain names. Names no one is allowed to speak.

And heaven does not welcome them. It tolerates them. For on this night, heaven is not a blessing. It is a judge. A witness. A tomb.

The mist descends little by little from the mountain heights. It curls around the rooftops, creeps through the alleys, clings to limbs, hair, eyelids. It smells of damp wood, burnt hemp, and something else, older—a smell of cold sweat and dead flesh, imperceptible but persistent. This mist doesn't come from the natural world. It comes from what came before it.

The temples are at the center of everything. Massive, tortured, magnificent, and menacing like sleeping monsters. Their steeples are twisted by time, their pillars tattooed with faded inscriptions. They are said to have been built on ossuaries, and sometimes the earth groans beneath their foundations. On this night, they open to pilgrims, the damned, lovers, and the mad. They offer open arms. But they never close their embrace.

Incense is burned there by the armful. But it's no longer incense. It's a sacred poison. It blackens the lungs, slows the blood, dilates the pupils. It makes pain clearer, and hope... crueler. Those who pray don't pray to be saved. They pray to be chosen. It doesn't matter if it's by the living or the dead.

Masks are mandatory.

They're not worn for fun. Not out of tradition. It's an unwritten law, more imperative than any celestial edict. On this night, no one may show their true face. For if the dead recognize you... they might take you away. The masks are sewn with silver thread, hand-painted, adorned with raven feathers or tears frozen in glass. Some weep. Others smile too much. Some have neither mouths nor eyes. Some even whisper—but it's unclear if they really do, or if it's the wearers who are finally hearing what they should never have heard.

The celestial soldiers, for their part, patrol silently. Dressed in white, draped in fabrics that seem to float without wind, they march like specters. Their weapons are sealed, but it is said that they vibrate as tormented souls pass by. And tonight, they vibrate ceaselessly.

We fear them. But we don't hate them. Because they are the only bulwark between the city… and what lies beneath it.

The lanterns are still rising. Some explode in the sky in slow-burning bursts of fire. Others fade abruptly, as if crushed by an invisible hand. But all carry a wish. Or a regret. Or a curse. And sometimes, they come back.

Because what we send to the heavens does not always rise. Sometimes it goes back down.

And that evening, in the dead of night, when the moon becomes blurred under the veil of mist, when the musicians stop playing, when the beggars start laughing for no reason... something opens. A crack in the distance. As if the earth, tired of containing what it shelters, had let out a breath. A sigh.

And then, in the shadows, some fall to their knees. Not out of devotion. Out of terror. For they have seen. They have heard. They know. And in their eyes, there is no more room for light. Only waiting.

And this certainty, creeping, icy, irremediable:

Tonight, Dong Liancheng is not celebrating. She is calling. And no one knows who will be called. Nor who, in the morning, will be missing.

You walked, hands clasped behind your back, head tilted slightly back, eyes wide open to the sky drenched in light. Lanterns rose above the city like silent prayers, incandescent souls torn from bodies. They rose slowly, quivering in the wind, like moths of fire—and as they gained height, their glow softened, dissolving into the darkness like the last words of a dying man.

You looked at them with the fervor of a broken heart pleading with the heavens, as if each of them carried a fragment of your story, a regret you had never confided to anyone. Your face was bathed in that flickering light, and there was a strange, unreal beauty in your eyes: a candor stained with blood, an innocence snatched too soon, but stubbornly surviving despite everything.

Beside you, Sunghoon walked in silence. Always at the same distance. Always at your pace. The man who judged others without appeal, who weighed souls and cut the bonds of life like a blade cuts stone, slowed down tonight. For you.

He said nothing. But sometimes his eyes would rest furtively on you—not like a man looking at a woman, but like a condemned man looking at a star through the bars of his cell. There was an almost religious despair in his stolen glances. As if he knew that what he desired, he would never have the right to touch. Or to keep.

Dong Liancheng, behind its illuminated facades, barely concealed the weariness of its walls. Beneath the laughter, beneath the scents of sugar and incense, one could smell the dust of war, the barely concealed grief. The masked faces were not all joyful. Some laughed too loudly. Others stopped laughing altogether.

And in that wounded city, you shone with a light he didn't know how to name.

Your steps stopped. Your gaze suddenly brightened. And in a gesture you probably hadn't premeditated, you gently tugged at Sunghoon's sleeve. It was almost nothing—a brush. But for Sunghoon, it was a shock. A silent jolt. His body stiffened, as if he'd forgotten what the touch of another skin on his meant.

He turned his head toward you, slowly. His gaze was neither cold nor distant this time. It was empty… And at the same time too full. With a silence charged with what he didn't dare say. With a confusion that hadn't yet found the words.

"What if we try this little shop?" you say, your voice lively, carefree, almost guilty for still being capable of enthusiasm.

You pointed to a red stall, bathed in orange lanterns. It seemed timeless. Sweets were piled high in obscene offerings: mooncakes with skin as black as night, ruby-red fruits dipped in sugar, soft, fat rice pearls, sweets rolled in burnt sesame seeds. The air was thick, saturated with sugar, oil, and promises of comfort.

And Sunghoon, despite himself, headed there.

You stood there, frozen. Watching him take a few steps away. He hadn't answered you. He didn't need to. You understood from his tense back, his abrupt but precise gestures, his way of pointing at the sweets like a soldier choosing his weapons, that he was giving in. To you. To that moment. To something he had sworn never to go near again.

You see him even before you reach him.

Sunghoon didn't move. Standing at the edge of an alley, slightly set back from the sea of people, he seemed to belong to a world that only his body had left—never his soul. His tall, straight silhouette stood out like a blade in the flickering light of the lanterns. Everything about him screamed self-imposed exile. He looked at no one, searched for nothing. And yet, he had sensed you.

You didn't need him to see you to know that. You felt it in the tiny tension in his shoulders, in the imperceptible movement of his neck. It wasn't a start. It was worse. A sort of suppressed refusal. As if he were refusing to admit you and, at the same time, refusing to flee. His fingers, until then relaxed, had tightened. Slowly. Cruelly. Around the oiled paper of a sachet. A crinkled, tenuous sound, like a whisper of silk under the blade.

In his arms he carried a profusion of sweets, so incongruous in his hands that one might have thought they were a dream: skewers of sugar-glazed red fruits, rice flowers dipped in dark honey, pieces of crystallized ginger, so clean they seemed sliced with a scalpel. An unreal offering. Bright, vivid, almost indecent colors.

And Sunghoon… In the middle of this sugary theater… Dressed in black. A black so deep that it seemed to drink in the light around it. His loose sleeves swallowed the reflections. His wrists—white, knobbly, severe—formed a barrier. As if he were holding back the world. Or you.

The contrast was visually violent. And you couldn't help but find it magnificent.

You stopped a breath away from him. Not a word. Not a gesture. But his eyes, when Sunghoon finally turned his head towards you, swallowed you whole. It wasn't a look. It was a silence that devoured. His pupils caught the lanterns like daggers. A cold, sharp mist, barely contained by the rigidity of his jaw. And yet, deep down, something burned. A fire. Slow. Black. Not seeking the light, but the secret. Your secret. Your flaw. The one you tried so hard to hide—even from yourself.

Sunghoon handed you a skewer. Simply. Like when you hand over a disguised weapon. You looked down. You looked up. And at that precise moment, you felt your entire body fall into an invisible fault.

The sugar shone under the lantern light, smooth, golden, almost too perfect. You saw yourself in its surface. A tiny, fragile, distorted silhouette. And within you, an ancient pain rose up. Silent. Dull. A shame sewn into your stomach for years. A voice strangled by words spat out too young, too loudly, too often. A memory. Of looks. Of hands. Of humiliations whispered between two hypocritical smiles.

You swallowed hard.

"How do you expect me to eat all this?" Your voice was meant to be light. But it failed. The last word tore like worn fabric.

You gestured theatrically to your stomach. A mockery. A display. But your eyes betrayed something else. A hesitation. A fragility. Then you looked at his face. His mouth. His jawline, almost cruelly pure.

And that was when your mask cracked.

"Do you think I'm too greedy... Or too fat?" Your voice was calm. But poison oozed beneath the words. Not a poison directed at him. No. An older poison. More intimate. The one you'd breathed in since childhood, until it ate away at your insides. You projected it onto him. On his strictness. His silence. His gaze that dissected without ever commenting.

Sunghoon didn't move. But he looked at you. For a long time. And in that silence... There was something unbearable. It wasn't judgment. Nor pity. It was... An echo. Sunghoon saw you. Not your face. Not your body. But the abyss. The place inside you where you screamed silently. Where you hungered to be accepted. Loved. Justified.

And his voice, when it finally rose, was no longer that of the judge. It was that of a torn man. Deep. Dark. Trembling. "I want it too."

Three words. But they made your world shake. Because Sunghoon… He, this rock, this being carved from law and asceticism… Confessed a desire. And that desire—it wasn't sugar. It was you.

You.

Your fire. Your rage. Your excess. Your hunger for life. Your appetites too great for convention. Too feminine for purity. Too real for its dead rules.

Your stomach tightened. A warmth nestled there, dull, heavy, almost painful. You felt your heart beating out of time. An ancient drum. Of war. Of sex. Of truth.

You took a step. Just one. But enough. So he can feel you. Your breath. Your scent. A mixture of skin, overripe flowers, and ashes too. A fragrance of intimate apocalypse.

You reached out your hand. And you whispered, like a pact:

“Then let me feed you.”

It wasn't an invitation. It was a provocation. A trap. An offering. You didn't know anymore. And you didn't care. Your hand brushed his. The contact was brief. But it burned you. You felt his breath freeze. His body didn't move. But his eyes… They screamed.

You raised the skewer. Slowly. Deliberately. Like a priestess before a sacrifice. You held it out to his lips. Sunghoon didn't move. But you saw the tension. The inner struggle. The hunger. He wasn't looking at the strawberry. He was looking at your mouth. Like a lost man looks at the last thing he's willing to betray to survive.

And you knew.

You tilted your head. Slowly. Your smile formed. Sweet. Ironic. Devastating.

"You don't want it?"

Your voice was that of a child playing. A witch charming. A lover waiting to be taken. And he saw you. Not as a culprit. But as a temptation. A devourer. His hand trembled. Tiny. But you saw him.

And you whispered. Softer than the wind:

"I knew you were just a coward..."

But your voice... It was soft. Almost tender. Like a caress on the edge of the abyss. And then, Sunghoon gave in. Slowly. His lips parted. The strawberry entered them. A crack. Obscene. The sugar burst. A red trickle—blood or fruit?—slid down his mouth.

And you died a little.

Sunghoon chewed. Without taking his eyes off you. For a long time. Then he smiled. And that smile… It wasn't a man's smile. It was a wolf's. Wild. Burning. Irrecoverable. You understood that you had just awakened a part of him that he had buried.

And he said:

"You should try." His voice was low. A hell of a breath.

You took the skewer. You bit. And the world turned upside down. The sugar was fire. The fruit, poison. And his eyes… His eyes swallowed you. You stopped chewing. You were burning up.

"Smart guy..." you finally whispered. Your voice trembled with a dangerous sweetness.

Sunghoon didn't answer. But he had heard. And at that precise moment, something snapped. Or anchored itself. You didn't know it. But for Sunghoon, you were no longer the witch to be judged. You were the forbidden fruit. The one he wanted to bite into sin. Oblivion. And he… He was no longer the judge. He was the man ready to burn. For you. For your taste. For your damnation.

You first glimpsed this shop at the turn of a narrow, winding alley, almost hidden by the thick veil of autumn fog and the flickering lanterns that cast shifting shadows on the damp cobblestones. The air was heavy with an acrid mixture of burnt resin, damp wood, and buried promises. This window, almost invisible, seemed to contain another reality, a door to faces forgotten or yet to come.

Your gaze, both attracted and suspicious, fell upon these masks, exposed like so many fragments of broken souls. They had this strange, cold, almost morbid beauty, as if they carried secrets too heavy to reveal. You approached, your heart beating a dull rhythm, a storm rumbling in your chest, an electric shiver running through your skin.

Your fingers had first brushed against a red mask, shaped like a fox. The sharp features, the enigmatic smile that seemed to maliciously challenge the world. The irony of this choice had tightened your throat, because this symbol of cunning and duplicity seemed to laugh at your own inner pain, at your silent storms. Yet you chose it, like a challenge, like a silent declaration. This red mask became armor—or a warning.

Then you searched again, for something invisible. For him. For Sunghoon. Your gaze slid over each mask, until it settled on one of immaculate whiteness, of icy purity. Its surface was smooth, perfect, without the slightest crack, but this perfection carried within it a tacit cruelty, a biting coldness like the frost of the cruelest winter. It seemed made to mask an ancient pain, a heavy silence, a suppressed anger. This mask, you felt, carried the very essence of this impenetrable man.

You took it with an almost sacred reverence, feeling the coldness of the material beneath your fingers, like an echo of his distant presence, as if you held in your hands a fragment of his veiled soul. You wanted to show him this silent bond between you, to share this secret, and slowly you turned away, your heart vibrating with hope.

But he was no longer there.

Absence gripped you brutally, an icy blade driven into your chest. You had thought, for a moment, that he was walking beside you, that his discreet footsteps mingled with yours in the tumult of the crowd. But the cruel emptiness brought you back to the truth: he had left you alone, swallowed up by the anonymous mass.

And then, in that oppressive silence, the mark on your shoulder blade awoke with a sharp, stabbing pain. A dull, violent pulse, like the furious beating of a heart locked in invisible chains. The burn spread, setting your nerves ablaze, awakening a storm of emotions you couldn't name—visceral fear, burning anger, abysmal sadness, a heartbreaking, confusing whirlwind. Your instinct, as sharp as a jade blade, pushed you toward him, toward Sunghoon. There was only him.

You searched the crowd, scrutinizing every shadow, every face, desperately seeking his deep, dark gaze. But around you, only the city buzzed, indifferent, impassive. Panic rose within you, a wild beast that wanted to break free, and yet you couldn't scream, couldn't help but buy those masks, your trembling hands clutching them like fragile talismans.

You set out on this quest, your steps heavy with despair, your head filled with his silences. The minutes stretched, like burning hours, time distorted by obsession. And then, suddenly, you saw him.

There, in the shifting crowd, his wild gaze caught you like a fire trap. His eyes were a pit of pain, of suppressed anger, and yet they sought refuge. When he finally saw you, it was as if an immense weight had lifted from his shoulders, as if he could breathe again.

Sunghoon wanted to run towards you, to devour the distance, to break through the bodies that stood in his way. But the mass of humanity was an impassable wall. He hesitated, trapped by his frustration, by his burning desire.

The temptation of teleportation, that power forbidden to mortals, crossed his mind—but the consequences were too great, too cruel. So he chose brute force. With a thrust of his shoulder, he slammed into the crowd, jostling, causing the human barriers to collapse one by one.

When he finally reached you, Sunghoon placed his large, cold, and trembling hands on your face, as if he wanted to make sure you were really there, tangible, real. His fingers gripped you with an almost painful intensity, as he looked deep into your eyes.

In those pupils you thought impenetrable, you discovered a storm of emotions—panic fear, heartbreaking relief, feverish tenderness. It was as if he had carried this burden alone, in silence, until this encounter broke its invisible chains.

"Who allowed you to disappear?" His voice was hoarse, vibrating with a dull despair, each word a stabbing wound. His heart was pounding, uneven, panting like a wounded animal, unable to contain the storm brewing within him. His brows furrowed, drawing a silent pain on his face you'd never seen.

You looked down, your throat tight with shame, your voice cracked with fear of having wreaked such havoc on him.

“I… I just wanted to get some masks.”

Sunghoon looked away from you, down at the masks you held, clutched like a final, fragile bond between you. Then his eyes slowly returned to you, capturing the flickering light in your wet eyes, where your vulnerability showed without a mask.

A shaky breath escaped his lips, soon followed by a hoarse, broken laugh, almost mad. This heart-rending laugh was the outlet for all the pent-up tension, a wave crashing against the fragile dike of his control.

“For… Masks?” he repeated incredulously, his shoulders barely relaxing. You, too, could hardly believe that this man—this cold, distant, almost impassive-looking celestial—was here, in front of you, vibrating with an emotion so raw it was almost terrifying. “I’ll buy you thousands of them, if that’s what it takes to make sure you never disappear again. But please… Don’t ever run away from me like that again. My heart… It wouldn’t survive another absence.”

Sunghoon then placed his forehead against yours, slowly, as if to anchor this promise in the flesh, in the very air that surrounded you. His breath, short, hot, mingled with yours in a fragile and heartbreaking dance, suspended outside of time.

“I'm sorry…” you whispered, your voice so soft, so broken, it could have shaken mountains. Your lips barely brushed his with each movement, each breath—a fragile, almost unreal touch, but charged with all the force of a silent, profound promise.

You embraced him then, your arms squeezing his shoulders with fierce intensity, as if to tell him, wordlessly, that you were there, entirely his, that nothing could ever separate you again. He responded to your embrace with a low hum, a broken song, fragile but full of hope—a secret oath only you could hear, woven in the darkness of a burning night.

The night wind, cold as a breath of death, slid ominously through the narrow, cobbled streets of Dong Liancheng, leaving an icy caress on the skin that bit into the soul as much as the body. The entire city seemed held in a suspended breath, a fragile bubble of trembling light. Red lanterns, hanging from the invisible threads of fate, flickered in slow swings, casting uncertain shadows on the black stone walls, silent witnesses to countless stories of blood and betrayal.

At your side, his hand grasped yours, firm and burning—a fragile yet incandescent bond, charged with an invisible yet heavy tension, palpable, like a steel wire stretched beyond its limits. Your red mask, blazing like a raging inferno, consumed the night with a cruel glare, while his mask, white as the foam of an icy sea, revealed only an icy emptiness, an absence of emotion that reinforced the enigmatic and tortured aura that enveloped him.

A laugh escaped your throat, light, almost childish, but with a hint of audacity that stood out in this oppressive setting.

“You know… That mask really flatters you, ice block.”

His head swiveled slowly toward you, as slowly as a hawk sizing up its prey. Your masked gazes met, the fiery red of your mask clashing with the immaculate coldness of his, two opposing forces ready to tear each other apart or burst into flames. The silence between you suddenly thickened, laden with unspoken words and burning expectations.

"I know." His voice was raspy, low, almost a whisper carrying muffled threats. Sunghoon adjusted your mask with a hand that was almost shaking, such a simple gesture yet it made you falter. Your breath came in short bursts, your heart beating with the violence of a war drum in your chest, each breath seeming to burn you from the inside out.

"You should have complimented me, too." Your voice, barely more than a whisper, came out with a cruel mix of defiance and hidden hurt. You slowly pursed your lips behind your mask, the bitter smile there a mask itself—a flimsy veil to hide what you refused to show.

“I look like an idiot,” you whispered, your voice cracking, almost breaking, “with a heavenly husband with a frozen heart, who never melts, even under the hottest flames.”

Time seemed to freeze abruptly around you. An invisible, implacable halt. Sunghoon's steady, steady step stopped abruptly. You felt a heavy presence, a dark gravity sucking in every breath of air, stealing all the breath and movement from the night. The lanterns above your heads flickered, bowing as if in silent reverence to the suspended moment. The night wind ceased its murmur, and a stifling silence gripped the city. The shadows lengthened, creeping, slow, like black fingers weaving an embrace around you.

Sunghoon—the name echoed in your mind, laden with shadows and dead light—appeared like an obsidian statue in the pale moonlight. His muscles, tense beneath his cold skin, seemed to be fighting an invisible storm rumbling within him. His jaw clenched, his fists barely clenched, he held back a firework of conflicting emotions. His gaze, black and deep, shone with a heartbreaking brilliance, like a blaze hidden beneath a layer of thick ice.

You stopped in turn, your heart pounding, turning slowly to face him. Your gaze locked with his, oscillating between defiance and a silent pain you dared not admit. The night, complicit, enclosed this moment in an almost tangible darkness, saturated with that electric tension, that dull, threatening energy that made you shiver to the bone.

"Why the sudden stop?" Your voice was soft, almost pleading, but a flame of questioning burned within it.

But beyond the words, it was the silence itself that weighed heavily, charged with a magnetic force that sucked in every breath, compressing the air around you into an invisible cage. Your blood pounded in your temples, and your entire being vibrated with a strange, unsettling, almost dangerous alchemy.

Sunghoon's gaze pierced through the immaculate mask he wore, his eyes seeming to penetrate the darkness of the night and the depths of your soul. There, beneath that veil of coldness, lurked a raging storm: rage, pain, forbidden desires, broken promises, and a devastating passion ready to crash over you like a tsunami.

The silence was no longer a mere lack of noise, but a living, heavy, dense entity, weaving around you a thick shroud of shadows and stifled sighs. It fell like an endless night, crushing all certainty, distorting time into a slow, suspended agony. Around you, the world had frozen—the stars had stopped twinkling, the breeze had lost its voice, and even the moon seemed to hold its breath, trapped in an inky sky that absorbed all light.

You stood there, motionless, two silhouettes in the darkness, like two damned souls condemned to a proximity both excruciating and necessary. The thin distance that separated you was not only physical, but a chasm laden with unspoken words, with a history too heavy to be borne bare. This silence, thick and suffocating, was an invisible cage, its bars made of broken emotions and buried desires.

The air was icy, biting, a sharp blade that seeped beneath the dark layers of your clothing, biting into your flesh with silent cruelty. The wind whistled around you like a phantom whisper, infiltrating the folds of the night, and yet no shiver, no movement betrayed the anguish that beat dully in your hearts. You were frozen, trapped in a precarious balance, like two stars in forced orbit, attracted and repelled by contradictory forces.

Then, into the silence that threatened to implode, Sunghoon's voice finally rose. A rough voice, broken by the weight of years, trembling with a long-stifled vulnerability. Each word was a blade, dipped in both the biting frost and the burning ember of desire.

“Because…” Sunghoon trailed off, trapped by his own demons, by the tortured past that haunted him like a dark shadow. His throat tightened, yet he continued, his breath hoarse and filled with heartbreaking sincerity. “…You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

The words fell upon you like a stab, both icy and burning. A shiver ran through your body, starting from the invisible skin of your mask and sinking deep into your soul, tearing at the veils you had patiently woven around yourself. The world around you shrank, until it was nothing more than a burning circle where only your suffering and your desires burned.

Her confession, brutal and vulnerable, echoed in the silence with the force of a stifled scream: “…The thing I never thought I could possess.”

Your heart raced, a furious drum hammering your chest, each beat a painful tear, a cold fire consuming your last certainties. Your gaze sought his, that unfathomable chasm where the devouring flame of desire and the icy bite of fear intertwined. That gaze, both refuge and torture, slowly undressed you, burning away every facade you had erected.

“Words…” Sunghoon trailed off, crushed by the emotional charge, his voice hoarse, as if broken under the weight of silence. “…will never be strong enough or accurate enough to describe what you are.”

One step. Slow. Inexorable. Rushing. That step that further reduced this space, this fragile rampart of flesh and shadow that separated you. Sunghoon advanced towards you, a silhouette of shadow and light, predator and prey bound by the same insane need.

Your breath came in short, gasping gasps, every fiber of your being tense, ready to tear or burst into flames. His breath, hot and burning, mingled with the icy air, weaving a paradoxical alchemy around you—an icy fire that consumed you while freezing your senses.

"If you want me to be more considerate..." His voice rose, firm, solemn, like an oath etched in blood and pain. "...I will."

His finger trembled as he brushed against your hand. The touch was a fragile and terrible caress, an invisible chain forged in vulnerability and the urgency of desire. The shudder that ran through you was wild, deep, cracking the armor you had built against the world.

“If you want me to be more demonstrative…” His whisper turned hot, a promise suspended between shadow and light. “…I will.”

The warmth of his palm against your skin unleashed a silent fire, consuming all your last resistance. Every moment became a blaze.

“And if you want me to adore you more than my heart could ever bear…” The spot where his lips should be, behind his mask, brushed against the lips of your mask, and you felt like you could feel his harsh breath depositing flames on your icy skin. “…I will too. Because that’s how much you mean to me.”

Sunghoon stopped, so close you seemed to feel his hot breath against your bare skin, the mad rhythm of his heart pounding against your chest like a war drum ready to burst.

The world around you disappeared, swallowed by this incandescent void, this gaping chasm dug between desire and fear, light and darkness.

You no longer thought. You breathed only those short, panting breaths, timed to the wild beating of his heart. The silence became unbearable, a thread ready to snap under the weight of the unspoken, the buried promises.

Then, suddenly, the sky tore open. A firework burst with a wild crash, tearing the darkness apart in a mad shower of light and embers. The brutal din seemed to etch your moment into the ephemeral, as if the universe itself wanted to forever mark this moment stolen from eternity.

Your breath caught, your throat tightened. Your hand trembled, carried by an invisible force, and rose slowly, almost reverently, to brush against the icy surface of his mask.

Your fingers lingered, hesitant, trembling under the weight of ancient pains and silent promises. You slowly untied the icy prison, revealing its face, both familiar and unfamiliar.

It was the face of a broken man, forged from the steel of invisible battles, marked by the violence of a past he alone carried. A wild, savage, and tragic beauty was evident in his harsh features, but it was his gaze that swallowed you up—a dark ocean of anguish, fear, and fierce love, as if his very existence depended on this fragile, indestructible bond.

“I don’t want you to change for me…” Your voice was a breath, fragile, almost broken, a confession offered in secret. “I just want you to love me… Unconditionally. Infinitely.”

The silence that followed was heavier than stone, saturated with wounds, repressed desires, unspeakable fears.

Then Sunghoon's voice, deep and firm, rose, sealing this pact in the depths of the shadows. "I will."

The silence around you had grown heavy, charged with an almost palpable electricity. The air itself seemed suspended, as if awaiting a storm. Your eyes had met, had consumed each other with the force of a raging inferno, and in that single instant, the outside world no longer existed. Nothing mattered but this burning tension, this incandescent desire that threatened to devour you whole.

There was a shiver, both fragile and unbearable, that ran through your skin as his fingers, trembling but determined, came to grip your waist. His hands were no longer hands, but steel chains, irresistible and gentle at the same time. The caress of his palm against your bare skin beneath the light fabric seemed both tender and hungry, full of a lust suppressed for too long.

Sunghoon's warm breath slid against the back of your neck, enveloping you like a soft, deadly mist. The force behind it made you sway, but you didn't back down. On the contrary, you surrendered to this vertigo, this cruel vertigo that mixed desire and fear, trust and pain.

Sunghoon dropped your mask, and with that gesture, your face was free in the dim light of the lanterns. Your fingers found his chin, tracing a line of taut flesh, exploring the contours of his clenched jaw. You felt beneath your palms the effort of self-control he exerted over himself, like a tiger ready to pounce, held by an invisible thread.

Then his lips crashed against yours, and it was as if the entire night had exploded. The shock of that first mouth against yours was a devastating fire, a blade of embers that pierced you to the very soul. His tongue, demanding and wild, sought yours in a hungry dance, full of forbidden promises and ancient pains. Each caress, each movement seemed at once gentle and ferocious, violent and tender, a sublime contradiction that made you lose your footing.

Your hands clung to his shoulders, to his hair, as if to anchor you to this moment suspended between ecstasy and heartbreak. His kiss was a storm, a hurricane of emotions where raw lust and ardent love intertwined. There was in his mouth the sweetness of a whisper, and the violence of a secret war. Sunghoon swallowed you, devoured you, all the while placing burning, hungry kisses on your skin.

The wind had picked up, carrying with it the distant crackle of fireworks. Suddenly, the night sky burst into a bouquet of gold, purple, and ruby, tearing through the dark vault of the universe in a dazzling symphony. These flashes of light exploded like so many heartbeats, synchronized in a wild, violent, magnificent cadence.

Beneath that shower of celestial flames, his arms embraced you, holding you against him with the force of a thousand contained storms. You felt every tense muscle of his body against yours, every hot breath, every sigh laden with that heartbreaking mixture of passion and fear. Your fingers dug into his hair, pulling gently, expressing all that your words could not contain: abandonment, conquest, pleasure, devotion.

Sunghoon's mouth descended on your throat, placing a trail of burning kisses there, leaving imprints of fire and lust on your skin. His hands roamed your back, discovering every inch of your fragile skin, making you shiver under the precise, ardent caress.

You felt his power surge, wild and uncontrollable, mixed with an almost painful tenderness. It was the meeting of warrior and lover, demon and angel, fire and ice. You were two souls on fire, broken but alive, defying the night, defying the pain.

The explosions in the sky redoubled, as if to seal this silent pact, this perfect fusion between the violence of desire and the sweetness of a love that burns without ever consuming. Each spark above your heads seemed to mark your union with a cruel and sublime blessing.

Time expanded, stretched into an eternity where your bodies spoke a secret language, where every caress was a confession, every kiss a promise, every sigh an oath of eternity.

You no longer knew where your being ended and his began. You were a raging fire, a storm of flesh and soul, a burning mystery in the heart of the night.

And beneath the incandescent glow of fireworks, amidst the tumult of shadows and flames, you loved each other with the gentle violence of dying stars, with the sacred lust of warriors from a forgotten world, with the intensity of a doomed yet inextinguishable love.

Taglist : @weepingsweep @immelissaaa

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slylycurioustreasure · 25 days ago

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JAKE: desire concept cinema

#Oh Jake’s like a sly little fox 🦊 I just want him to bite me #tie me up #and make me bleed 🩸

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slylycurioustreasure · 25 days ago

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The Bleeding Sky

What if it wasn't you, but them... who were trapped from the start?

Genre: Fantasy, Dark Romance, Drama, Action, Reverse Harem, Supernatural, Wuxia, Historical

Pairing : Enha hyung Line x reader

Warning: Death, pain, blood, injury, hatred, loneliness, despair, psychological suffering, fear, anguish, black magic, ritual, sacrifice, intense emotions, fatality, forced marriage.

word : 15k

NEXT (PART 2) ✘ SERIES MASTERLIST ✘

Long ago—so long that even immortals have forgotten the taste of memory—there existed a clan whose name was erased. Erased from the royal chronicles. Strictly erased from the celestial tablets. Defiled and then buried beneath centuries of silence and fear.

A clan that should never have existed. A clan born from a crime against the laws of creation.

It is said that when the world was young, before the mountains rose, before the stars aligned, a fragment of chaotic essence wandered freely at the edge of the worlds.

Neither life nor death. Neither order nor destruction.

An ancient, formless spirit, hungry for form. His name was Wu Hei, the Nameless Shadow. And one day, in his drift, he met a woman who had fallen from the sky. A banished celestial, whose wings had been burned for loving a mortal. Her name was Yun Qiao, the Bearer of the Red Star.

He possessed her. Or she accepted him. No one knows.

From this blasphemous union was born a lineage the heavens had not foreseen. Neither human. Nor demons. Nor celestial. Something else. Something too ancient to be named. They were called sorcerers. But that word, in itself, was a betrayal.

Their bodies were of shadow and flesh. Their veins carried a black fire—not a fire that illuminates, but a fire that consumes, slowly, silently, until nothing remains but ashes of soul. Their gazes troubled mirrors. Their voices disrupted the seasons. They were born with screams, and died in silence.

They lived for a long time on the fringes of the world, slipping into the invisible faults—where maps end, where laws lose their power. They built cities from the roots of ancient trees, dug palaces beneath acidic lakes, carved temples from the skulls of dead beasts.

They didn't pray. They remembered.

They were cursed at birth. Not by a god or a demon, but by the very nature of their blood. For their magic was unchanneled: it burned unhindered, transforming them, devouring them little by little. Each spell cast cost them a part of their being. But they had no choice. It was that or disappear. And then they became powerful. Too powerful.

The world noticed them.

Men, jealous of what they did not understand, decided they were heretics. Demons, intrigued by their raw magic, wanted to capture and domesticate them. The celestials, frightened by what they perceived as a threat to the balance of cosmic laws, condemned them without trial.

And then the purge began.

Sorcerers were hunted like beasts. Shrines were ransacked. Children were torn from their mothers' arms to be purified in flames. Sages were executed, their tongues torn out and nailed to the doors of celestial temples. Pregnant women were disemboweled under the red moons, so that their lineage would not survive. The rivers where they had washed were rendered unfit for life. Even the demons eventually retreated. Too unstable, too dangerous. Too human, too inhuman. And in the final hour of their fall, a single name was whispered among the ashes: Wu Zhen.

Wu Zhen was the last of the Negative Fire masters. He had been trained in the depths of a forgotten sanctuary, beneath the Heiyan Sea of Mist, where the sky was no longer reflected. He knew the 49 languages of pain. He could make a blade cry, or a corpse sing.

But he never wanted war. The world imposed it on him.

They took his sister—hung her naked on celestial chains, her womb cut open, her eyes burned with divine light. They took his son—a three-year-old child with diaphanous skin, whose heart was offered to the gods to sanctify a harvest.

They took his name, his clan, his history.

And then Wu Zhen, the last, the tombless, lost his mind. But it wasn't a madness of screams and blood. It was a madness of order. A madness of silence. A madness of purpose.

He carved a forbidden incantation into his own body, right into his bones. A curse so ancient that even immortals feared it. He shattered the barriers between worlds, reversed the flow of rivers, disrupted the cycle of the seasons. He opened gates even demons barely dared to touch.

And into that gaping chasm between existence and nothingness, he cried out a single wish: “Let all perish.”

It wasn't revenge.

It was an end.

Not a war. A sentence.

The three great clans, panicked, forgot their ancestral hatred.

Humans—weak but cunning.

The celestials—pure but cruel.

The demons—powerful but divided.

Together they forged a pact. A new curse, born of fear.

They could not kill Wu Zhen. But they sealed his work. And they swore that never again would such power be born. So they turned the curse on his own line. The sons were erased. But the daughters… The daughters still carried the seed of chaos.

Every generation, a witch would be reborn. And to control her, to prevent her from opening the gates again, she would be bound—body and soul—to four representatives of the enemy clans.

A demon, to contain his violence.

A celestial, to watch over her.

A human, to humanize him.

A fox, to disturb her.

This wasn't a marriage. It was a cage. A punishment. A living seal. Each bond devoured the witch a little more. Each oath bound her essence to enemy souls. She wasn't allowed to love. Nor to choose. She had to obey, survive, bleed, and then die. Her heart was a tomb. Her body, a key.

And as long as the key remained in the hands of fate, peace, fragile and corrupt, could be maintained.

But with each generation, the same tragedy began again. The witch suffered. Her husbands fell, slowly, consumed by the curse. And despite everything, despite the fear, despite the pain—they fell. Into her eyes. Into her distress. Into her cursed light. And the circle began again. One girl. Four men. A cracked world. And love, like a double-edged sword—beautiful, fatal, and always bloody.

500 Years Later — Guangyin Si (光殒祠) – The Temple of Falling Light

In the forgotten languages of the ancient Celestials, the name Guangyin Si is broken down as follows: Guangyin , the light that no longer shines, the clarity that falls, fades, slowly collapses into the abyss without a cry—and Si , a funerary word, a term of sacred exile, which does not designate prayer, but mourning. Not that of the living, but that which the dead impose on the survivors. A complaint that even the gods no longer console.

Guangyin Si is not a temple. It is a scar.

A fracture in the celestial order. A chasm in the memory of the immortals. A remnant of an act of betrayal so pure, so absolute, that no tongue yet dares to name it.

It rests—or rather, hangs—on the edge of reality. Where the celestial realm frays into mists of frost. Where the sky ceases to be a shelter and becomes a precipice. The temple hangs over an infinite abyss, like a black fruit plucked from the world tree, held together only by ancient chains of fossilized light, stretched across the last pillars of a vanished era.

They creak sometimes. Not in the wind, because here, the wind is dead. But under the weight of centuries and captive souls.

It is said that Guangyin Si was sealed, not built.

The Immortals themselves speak of it only in hushed tones, as if they feared being overheard by the shadows that still sleep there.

The temple is carved from celestial obsidian so dense, so pure, that it absorbs light. The walls are black, but shot through with dull reflections, dead glows—memories of collapsed constellations.

Each slab is engraved. Not mere characters, no—but psalms of eternal penance, calligraphed in the funerary script of the High Immortals, a language only the fallen can read without losing their minds. They are forbidden to be spoken. Some have. Their bodies froze. Their mouths vanished. And their names were blotted from the sky.

The sanctuary rises like a vertical tomb. Its columns, twisted with runic chains, bear the weight of ancient, petrified celestial guardians—mutilated statues with bandaged eye sockets, severed wings, unearthed hearts. Each blind gaze seems to cry out for a punishment they did not choose. Their hands implore the heavens. The sky remains silent.

The wind doesn't blow here. It moans.

A deep, slow rattle that seems to come from within the walls. As if the stone were sighing under the sins it contains.

At the exact center of the temple rests the Altar of Lost Tears. A translucent, almost living monolith. It doesn't always shine. It doesn't vibrate with prayers. It waits. And when a soul collapses, when a being swears without believing, when a heart opens to mourn what it can never have... Then the Altar lights up. With a soft glow. Tragic. Deadly.

Guangyin Si does not welcome crowds.

It opens its doors only to those whom destiny has marked with a sacred seal:

The witches, descendants of the cursed blood. And the husbands, those who will be bound to them by the Pact. But this is not a marriage. It is a divine judgment. An offering. An execution.

The Celestial designated for this bond is never a weak being. He is chosen for his righteousness, his faith, his ability to obey without question. But when he enters Guangyin Si, he understands. He understands that he will not be a protector. That he will not be a lover. He will be the chain. He will take an oath not out of duty, but out of condemnation.

The ritual is long. Slow. Cruel.

He is temporarily stripped of his wings. To remind him that he is not a god here. He is made to kneel before the Altar. His hands plunge into the crystal. He then feels the memories of others, the fragments of those who came before him.

Their screams.

Their doubts.

Their useless love.

Their fall.

The bond is woven not with flesh, but with essence. An invisible vein opens between him and the witch. She doesn't see it, not yet. But she feels it. A burning deep in her heart. A trace of ash in her bones. From that moment on, she is his—not like a wife, but like a sacrificed key. And he is condemned to love her without ever being loved.

It is said that some Celestials tried to flee. Others begged. Some tried to break the pact at the final moment, facing the Altar. The Altar does not judge. It absorbs. We can still see their traces. Luminous silhouettes, half-melted into the walls, like star specters.

They don't scream. They no longer have a voice.

But if you listen carefully, if you listen for a long time, you will hear... Their regret.

You were only twelve years old.

Twelve silent winters spent growing up within the hushed, treacherous walls of the Black Lotus Pavilion. There, nothing was truly alive. Everything was only forms and appearances. You were fed bitter herbs and carefully measured poisons, twisted truths and dire premonitions. You were spoken to softly, like a precious doll... but every step, every word, was watched like a sin in the making.

You were neither a child nor a student. You were a warning. The cursed descendant of a blood the immortals had tried to erase, a living echo of a time the books no longer dared to mention. A shard of chaos embodied in a body too young, too thin, too still trembling to bear such fatality.

So you ran away.

Not forever.

Just… for a few hours.

You wanted something other than the acrid smell of black incense, something other than the long processions of mute sorcerers, the lessons delivered with voices of stone, the stares that weighed like blades balanced on your neck. You wanted to see something other than the dried blood in ritual cups, the tattoos seared with hot irons on the arms of the elders, the sacred ashes that served only to hide fear.

You had run barefoot, unprotected, unguided, through withered groves, hills where twisted trees seemed to weep. You had crossed the remains of ancient battles, fields of ashes where souls never truly rested. The wind carried whispers there that no one listened to.

And then you saw it.

A temple. Broken.

Half collapsed, half engulfed under thick brambles, roots bleeding black sap.

A forgotten, or perhaps hidden, shrine. Something in its silence had called your blood.

You should never have come in.

This was not an abandoned shrine, nor a lost ruin. This was Guangyin Si. Where even immortals dared not set foot. Where oaths were bound by blood and silence. Where the living were sealed like upright coffins.

The ground beneath your feet was icy. You felt the stone vibrate—not like matter, but like memory. Each slab seemed to weep. There was a strange heaviness in the air. No smell. No light. Nothing but emptiness. A palpable chasm opening inside you, as if this place already knew who you were. What you carried. You reached out toward a worn relief, a sculpture eaten away by the centuries, half angel, half beast. Your fingers barely trembled—and that's when it appeared.

Not a sound.

Not an alert.

Just… the pain.

A hand, large and cruel, had fallen upon you without warning, seizing you by the hair with animal brutality. You felt your neck twist. Your feet leave the ground. Your breath catch. The grip was that of an executioner: assured, disgusted, sure of his right.

You had screamed.

But the sound had crashed into the walls, absorbed by the stones. No echo. No response. Even the shadows had turned away. Your tears had flowed at once. No shame, no fear—just a flood of naked pain. You felt them slide down your twisted jaw, mingling with your blood. Whole strands of your hair had fallen to the ground, some clinging to your scalp, tinged a dark red, almost black. Your stomach twisted. Your vision rippled.

And he spoke.

"What's a little witch doing here?" His voice was a low whisper, laden with suppressed anger, but also with a kind of cold disgust. Not like an outraged man. But like an insulted god.

As if your presence desecrated not only this place, but also its essence.

You wanted to speak. Scream. Spit out your rage. You wanted to bite him. Scream your name. Throw your curse in his face. But your body no longer responded. So you struggled. Your hands, too thin, too fragile, reached out toward his face. You scratched, struck, screamed silently. Like a cornered animal.

But with each attempt, the light pushed you back. A barrier. Thin. Invisible, but burning hot. You felt your skin melting. Your palms sizzled from the impact, marked with red, painful blisters.

You'd never touched anything so pure. So... unattainable.

It wasn't a spell.

It was him.

A Celestial.

Not a simple guard. Not a priest.

One of their own. An immortal.

One of those who think that their gaze is enough to judge, that their silence is a sentence.

He watched you, suspended in midair, like an anomaly he needed to crush. But he wasn't crushing you. He was waiting. He was sizing you up, like a scientist with a rare insect. Maybe he hoped you'd cry more. Beg. Break down like the others.

But you didn't.

You were in pain. The world was spinning. Blood pounded in your temples like funeral drums.

But you growled. A hoarse sound, coming from deeper than your throat. A scream that wasn't human. A howl of bloodline, of curse. Something that came from the shadow of your clan. Something that wouldn't die.

The Celestial sneers. A shrill, broken sound, like a bone being bent until it cracks. There is no mercy in this laughter. No hesitation. Just a cruel, tiny joy that pierces beneath his voice, as if what he is about to do is not only a duty... but a forbidden pleasure.

Then comes the shock. Brutal. You don't see it coming.

Your body is thrown to the ground with such brutal force that the air suddenly leaves your lungs. You hit the stone with your lower back, your legs, your arms. A sinister crack mixes with the impact: your shoulder, perhaps. Or your hope.

The pain is immediate. Acute. You want to scream, but only a hoarse breath escapes your throat. Your face contorts, not from fear, but from this unbearable, pure, white suffering. Your legs refuse to move. Your back screams.

You stand there for a moment, face down, listening to the irregular beating of your own heart. The echo of the Celestial's sneer floats above you like a mocking specter.

And then you crawl. You have no more strength, but you crawl.

Your fingers, covered in burns from his barrier of light, are already bleeding. But the stones here aren't mere pebbles. They're engraved with ancient runes, ancient celestial oaths as sharp as blades, encrusted with obsidian crystals and purifying salt. Every movement tears at your skin. Every step forward tears the flesh of your hands a little more, opening deep cracks that are instantly blackened by blood.

You swallow your screams. You refuse to give him that.

Tears fall, heavy, hot, silent. You feel them slide down your cheeks, mix with the sacred dust of the ground, form a sticky red mud beneath you.

Behind, his footsteps still echo.

One. Two. Three. Slow. Measured. As if counting the beats of your heart before the final silence.

“You think you can run away?” His voice is low, calm, almost gentle. And it’s that gentleness that chills the blood. “You think you can escape what you are? Little scum of the world… Your kind should have been eradicated generations ago. You are a mistake. A blasphemy.”

He doesn't scream. He just observes. As if your existence violates some fundamental law of the universe.

You keep crawling, a little, just enough to get away from his shadow. You're out of breath. Out of strength. Your body is a field of pain.

So you stop.

You close your eyes. You breathe in. Slowly. Once. Twice. Your hands are shaking, covered in blood and tears. But you place them flat on the floor. You clench your jaw. And you straighten up. Painfully. Trembling. Like a flame that refuses to go out.

Facing him.

He watches you. His eyes are pale, shot through with a hard glow, as if forged in the glare of divine judgment. But you don't lower your eyes.

“We didn't do anything…” you say. Your voice is raspy, barely above a whisper. But it's there. Alive. “Nothing… to deserve this. We didn't choose. The universe rejected us. But… You chose to hate us.”

You swallow. Blood rises to your mouth. You wipe it with the back of your hand, stained, soiled, and continue:

“If living is a crime… if being born a witch is a fault… then kill me. Now. But look at me well, and tell me if your oath gives you the right to treat me as less than a beast.”

You challenge him. Your eyes shine—not with light, but with that shadow so ancient it predates even the laws of the gods. It is a spark of chaos. A promise of destruction. And he sees it. He frowns, a breath hesitates on his lips. Doubt? Fear? Perhaps. Or perhaps a simple shudder. Then he raises his hand. A sword materializes in a shower of golden shards. Its light is almost unbearable. It sings. A crystalline music, pure, sharp. A blade fashioned to kill beings like you—living curses.

He points it at you.

“I'm going to kill you, for the good of this world. For peace. So that my people can sleep without nightmares.” He smiled. Cold. Empty. “Don't take this the wrong way, little one. I have no choice.”

But you see it. You feel it. He's lying. He loves this scene. He enjoys this terror. And he chooses, every day, to hate what he doesn't understand.

And in the silence that follows, as the blade lights with the will of the gods, something within you awakens. Something older than your name. Deeper than your blood. Older than the temple itself.

At first you feel a dull tension gnawing at your being, like a poison slowly seeping in, then a hot ember igniting in the hollow of your chest. This ember becomes a cruel fire, a voracious fire that consumes your veins, devours your flesh, consumes your will.

Your breath quickens, gasps, becomes hoarse, like a trapped animal. Your hands tremble, your whole body screams silently.

Then this fire explodes.

A storm of white light erupts from your heart, violent, blinding, torn with deep-black shadows, as if the sky and the night themselves had been unleashed within you. The blast surges forth in furious waves, devastating everything around. The ground trembles, the temple walls vibrate with the force of your power.

A pungent smell of blood mixed with that of dark magic fills the air. The very air seems to be cracking.

The celestial, until now frozen in a deceptive calm, is swept away by this storm. His body flies backward, crashes against the thousand-year-old stone of the sanctuary wall with a dull, dry thud, his skull hitting the stone with a sinister crack.

A shudder of pain twists his face. He collapses to his knees, gasping for breath, overcome by the violence of your power. Blackish blood seeps from his temple, slowly sliding like a river of darkness across his pale skin. The thick liquid seeps into his hair, stains his face, and falls in silent drops onto the temple's engraved flagstones. He half-closes one eye, his gaze clouded with pain and surprise, but refuses to sink. His saber, planted in the ground, is his last anchor.

And you, at the center of this chaos, no longer resemble the child you once were. You are no longer the vulnerable girl who sought light amidst the darkness.

Something ancient, dark, unfathomable, has taken possession of your soul.

In your palm rises a sword. It is forged in your own blood, mingled with swirling black smoke, as alive as you are. The blade is deep black, veined with incandescent red, smoking like the maw of a sleeping dragon. It throbs, a cursed heart beating within the steel.

You take it without hesitation. It's heavy, but it feels like a natural extension of yourself. It's cold, yet it burns your skin like frost and fire combined.

You advance, slowly, inexorably. Your bare footsteps hammer the sacred ground, leaving crimson prints, bloody traces that seem to dance beneath the grim glow of the torches.

Your gaze is a blade. Empty. Icy. Merciless. Your heart no longer beats for yourself, but for one thing: revenge, survival.

"You won't blame me..." your voice rises, foreign, broken, woven with a veil of shadow. It is no longer that of a child, but that of a being who has seen too much, suffered too much, lost too much. "...for killing you to save my clan. To save me."

The celestial lifts his head, barely conscious, panting, a vein pulsing in his forehead. His eyes, half-lidded, are a mixture of pain, disbelief, and a final spark of defiance. He knows that this gaze is no longer that of a child, but of a demon inhabited by a curse. He knows the battle is lost.

"I don't have a choice either." You say the words with a cruel smile, a grimace distorted by pain and determination, which is anything but childish.

You suddenly disappear in a swirl of thick black smoke. Then you reappear before him, a specter of vengeance and despair. Your saber raised, but too slow, too weak.

Your blade pierces his chest. The black metal pierces flesh, splits bone, pierces a heart that still beats, but weakly. A deep, muffled rattle escapes his throat. It's not a scream, but a final breath laden with pain, regret, and silent forgiveness.

His eyes open wide, filled with indescribable grief, a silent goodbye. His fingers weakly grip your wrist, searching for one last connection, one reason, one forgiveness. His breath comes short, uneven. His body trembles, slumps, like a wilted flower in a black rain.

He dies.

You slowly back away.

The sword in your hand is still warm, steaming, saturated with its essence, its ripped life. Heavenly blood trickles from the wound, falling in heavy drops onto the sacred ground. You watch it crumble, motionless, slowly absorbed by stone and shadow.

You don't look away. You smile. A broken, torn, heartbreaking smile, somewhere between the bitter jubilation of having survived and the visceral horror of having killed.

And in this silence, you don't see.

The child.

Thirteen years old.

He stands there, in the shadows, like a frozen ghost. He still wears the uniform of the celestial novices, clumsy, too big for him. His face is pale, his eyes too light, frozen in a mixture of fear, pain, and despair.

He saw everything.

Your unleashed power. The death of his master, the one who had taken him in, raised him, loved him like a father. Your smile, that of a witch lost in her own night. His lips tremble, his hands clench the hilt of a saber he has never wielded.

Then he screams. A heart-rending, shrill cry, a sound that pierces the silence like a blade.

He throws himself at you.

You no longer have time to think, nor to flee. A sharp pain explodes in your shoulder. The blade is thin, clumsy, but it penetrates, brutal, cruel. Your cry of pain tears through the sanctuary, awakening echoes of the past. Your magic breaks free, uncontrollable. A new explosion of dark and luminous energy propels him backward. The boy is thrown against a column, collapses, half-conscious, gasping for breath.

You stagger, breathless, your body bruised. You tear the blade from your flesh with a scream of agony. Blood flows, a red river on the cold stone. You tremble. And in this absolute pain, you see it.

He is not a warrior.

Not a celestial.

Just a child.

A boy with a face still round, his eyes full of tears. And you have just stolen his world. He looks at you one last time. A look full of sadness, fear, hatred.

Then it sinks. And you... You run away. You become mist again. Silence. Shadow. A nightmare we prefer to forget.

That day, Sunghoon didn't just see his master die. He saw a demon born. And this demon had the eyes of a girl. Eyes that, one day, he knew, would find him again.

16 Years Later — Shīhún Qiáo — The Bridge of Lost Souls

You've always been told legends. Tales to lull children to sleep, or to nurture the bravery of young soldiers. You've been told that true warriors don't bleed. That their skin is as smooth, immaculate, and fragile as a newborn's, protected by an invisible, impenetrable force. That their flesh refuses injury, like a mystical shield insulating them from pain. That their bones, tempered in fire and iron, are as strong as the immortal blade they wield. You've been told repeatedly that they never fall, that their bodies are living fortresses, invincible, eternal.

They lied to you.

For at this precise moment, on this bridge suspended over the sacred river—this thick, black stream, whispered by the ancients as the incandescent border between the realm of the living and that of the dead—there is a body. Or what remains of it.

The wood of the bridge groans beneath your cautious steps, slippery, soaked by the recent rain, drowned in a thick winter mist. The worn ropes hang like vines covered in mold and, above all, stained with blood. Ancient blood. Blood mingled with lost souls.

The air is icy, laden with an almost palpable humidity that clings to your skin like a shroud, heavy and suffocating.

Amidst the blackened, war-scarred planks, you see a collapsed figure, clinging to the worn wood, like the last castaway on a worm-eaten raft.

A man. No. A soldier. A survivor. Or rather, a dying man.

He is slumped, overwhelmed, on his knees, but his legs seem to have broken themselves, or perhaps they have betrayed him. He can no longer support them, he no longer feels them. His body is curled up, folded in on itself, as if the pain, as unbearable as death, were trying to suffocate him. His chest heaves painfully, each breath a hoarse, wheezing rattle, each inspiration a struggle against the approaching nothingness.

Behind him, a trail of blood stretches across the wood, long, thick, and winding, like a funereal mark carved into the bridge. In places, the bright red color has darkened, coagulated into thick, almost solid black stains. In others, the carmine liquid still drips, warm, fresh, vibrant with the life slowly escaping from his body. Every step you take splatters this bloody ground; you walk on the remains of a battle, on the vestiges of a broken army.

You step forward, your muscles trembling with emotion, your breath caught, and what you discover draws a stifled cry from you. His armor, once gleaming black and gold, bears the scars of hell. It is cracked, torn, twisted. The protective plates, once solid, now hang in shreds of bruised metal, some melted, cracked, as if burned by magic too devastating to be human.

His flesh appears, torn, burned, shredded. Blood flows in invisible, sticky streams between the plates, trickling down his pale skin, splashing the wood of the bridge in a macabre fresco. On his left side, a gaping wound spreads like an open carnivorous mouth, revealing the red and black pulp of his entrails, which throb painfully with every breath.

And yet, despite this devastation, he is still alive.

His fingers, stiff and tense, desperately grip the hilt of his sword. A long, cracked blade, eaten away by rust and fire, its metal blackened by the infernal heat of spilled blood and raging flames. This once-proud sword now bears the scars of a war that poets would sing of as an epic tragedy. But this blade is twisted, worn, tired. Like its master.

His forehead rests against the cold, icy pommel, covered in dried blood. You might think he's praying, finding some final comfort in this contact. But his lips barely move. These aren't prayers. They're names.

« Jiang… Lu'an… Fei… »

You crouch down beside him and scrutinize his face, hidden by soaked locks of hair, stuck to his pale skin. He's young. Far too young. Maybe not even twenty. He could have been handsome. He could have laughed. But today, that face is broken. Fractured. Fragile like porcelain abandoned in torrential rain. His gaze, red and glassy, expresses an indescribable pain. An immense fatigue. A pain of the soul. And suddenly, you hear. It's not just the wind that slips between the ropes.

These are voices. Barely audible whispers. Forgotten breaths. Gaunt sighs. Smothered cries that tear at each other. Moans distorted by eternity. These are the spirits of the dead. The black souls floating on the river. Those who sank into its waters, believing they would find rest there. Those whom the soldier himself perhaps sent to the other bank.

They circle him like invisible vultures, carried by the wind. Drawn by the smell of blood, of despair, of the end. You reach out hesitantly to touch his shoulder. He groans, a heart-rending rattle, and your heart clenches painfully. He looks at you. And in his eyes, there is neither fear nor anger. It is a consuming, infinite shame. The shame of having survived. Of having seen his brothers fall one by one. The shame of not having died with them.

“They… told me to run away… I… I left. I left everything…” His voice is a hoarse breath, a painful rattle, a whisper of death. Each word seems to cost him his life. And yet, he speaks. Because there is nothing left but the words. The memories. The ghosts.

You see his tears. But they don't run down his cheeks. They mix with the blood. They slide from the corners of his eyes, mix with the grime, and fall silently onto the sticky wood of the bridge. He grits his teeth, but his body trembles, shaken by fever and pain.

You look at his wounds again. Not all of them are visible. Some go far deeper than flesh, to the very heart of the soul. Wounds that neither magic, nor time, nor tears can heal.

You tear off a piece of your garment, soaked with moisture and blood, and press it against his gaping wound. The fabric immediately soaks, bright red, bursting like a cry of despair, red with death, red with stolen life.

You feel the heat escaping from his body, the end near, the flickering light. And as you try, with all the strength you have left, to right him, he collapses, sliding against you. His forehead rests on your shoulder, his weak but firm hand grips your wrist like a desperate anchor.

“Tell them… we didn’t run away. Tell them… we fought. To the last man.” Her voice fades little by little, like a flame blown out by the wind. But her grip, fragile and trembling, remains. Almost stronger than her breath.

The wind howls through the bridge ropes, carrying with it the funeral melody of wandering souls. The river roars, black and untamed, engulfing the dead and their secrets in its waters. And you stand there. Frozen. Holding this brother of blood and pain against you. The sky is a thick gray shroud, laden with ash and despair. The world seems reduced to dust. And you... you finally understand.

Heroes are not immortal.

They are bleeding.

They cry.

They die.

And sometimes they howl into the night, alone in the cold, on a bridge between two worlds.

You hadn't thought. You hadn't had time. Your instinct had screamed louder than reason. Your heart, drowned in a storm of invisible tears, had screamed louder than your magic itself.

And in the blink of an eye, you had left that bridge. You had left the world suspended between life and death, this theater of blood and shadows, to appear within the Black Lotus Pavilion—this forbidden, ancient sanctuary, which even the most powerful hardly dared to name.

A black mist engulfed you before spat you back into your room, its walls draped in dusty silk and the faded scent of forgotten incense. The man's inert body hung in your arms, heavy, icy, wet with the blood of former comrades, enemies, or perhaps both.

He'd slipped from your grasp once as you staggered to your feet. You'd screamed unintentionally, in pain or rage, or perhaps both. But you'd finally hoisted him onto the black brocade bed, the sheets of which immediately became soaked with the blood that kept flowing, slowly, mercilessly, like the grains of an hourglass whose fall you could no longer stop.

His breath was almost imperceptible. A weak, broken whimper, somewhere between life and agony. You placed your hand on his chest. Cold. So cold. And then you understood. He was dying. And you were going to have to save him. But he wasn't an immortal. He wasn't a celestial, a demon, or a spirit beast. He was just a man. A wounded, broken, shattered man.

You knew what it would cost.

This wasn't a simple healing. It wasn't a stitching of flesh or a bandage of light. What you were about to do… was about to tap into an ancient magic. A dark magic. Forbidden. A magic that drew on your life force. Your blood. Your memory. Your essence.

And you knew that by triggering it, you would never be the same again.

Every ounce of power used to save him would be ripped from your own soul. Once given, it would never return.

You looked at him one last time. He looked so young… almost peaceful, in that moment. Like a child exhausted by war. Like a brother you never had. A king without a throne. A soldier without a war.

You made your decision.

Your fingers began to dance in the air, despite their trembling. You formed the first mudras, the first sacred gestures, precise, sharp as blades. Each one made your bones creak, as if your flesh refused to obey this forbidden invocation.

Then your mouth opened. And the spell flowed from your lips like a river of curses. A deep, guttural, ancient whisper. Words in a language no one spoke anymore. The walls of the pavilion seemed to shudder at their sound. The room began to shake slowly, then more violently, in time with your voice.

The wind rose in the closed room. Yet there were no open windows, no half-open doors. But magic called for a storm. The candles flickered. One by one, they went out, swallowed by an invisible breath. The shadows fell. And suddenly, your body began to burn. Your blood turned to fire. You felt a pressure burst in your chest, your veins twisting like angry snakes, your breath caught.

You leaned forward, gasping for air, and vomited blood onto the floor. Red. Thick. Hot. You didn't stop. You couldn't stop. You continued the actions. The words. The sacrifices. You lost track of time. Hours. Or maybe seconds. Your body was on fire, and your soul was bleeding, but suddenly you felt a jolt in the air. A pulse.

The soldier's body rose slowly above the bed. He floated, his arms dangling, his head hanging. Around him, a black aura, like liquid ash, formed. Black flames—no, spiritual burns—rose from his torso, his arms, his wounds. They devoured the pain. They stitched the flesh together, slowly, brutally, like incandescent needles. His bones cracked. Snapped back into place with an unbearable noise.

And yet, he didn't scream. Because he was unconscious. But you felt every wound as if it were tearing at you. You screamed silently. You felt your power melting, your essence burning away, your heart beating like a war drum ready to explode.

Then, like a dying wave, the spell fell. The body fell back onto the bed with a shudder, its wounds healed, its breathing more regular. Still weak. But alive.

You collapsed. You fell to your knees, your hands pressed against the ground, in a pool of blood—your blood. You were shaking. Your breath was nothing but a rattle, a painful hiss. You raised your head. A tear fell. Then another. You tried to speak. Nothing came out. You coughed up more blood. It was darker this time. Almost black.

You placed your hand on the wall to keep from falling. Your eyes burned. You couldn't see anything anymore. You were empty. And in that almost total silence, broken only by your broken breath, you understood. You had saved a man. And you had just sacrificed a part of yourself that you would never get back.

You closed your eyes. You were no longer whole. But he… he was alive.

A few days had passed, but they had brought no relief. The echo of the forbidden spell still screamed through your bruised flesh, reverberating through every vein like a blade that was both cold and burning. Your body, once a proud and solid sanctuary, was now nothing more than a cracked receptacle, tainted by the dark, corrupted magic you had summoned. Forbidden, unholy magic, an open wound in the very fabric of your soul.

Every night, you lay on the frozen floor of the Black Lotus Pavilion, your wide eyes fixed on the ceiling of shifting shadows, frozen between life and death, like a motionless offering in an abandoned temple. Your breaths came in short, ragged gasps, a hoarse rattle that seemed to come from the depths of an abyss. Your blood, that vital liquid, had become a burning poison, distilling pain and fatigue with every pulse. You had given everything, sacrificed everything. And something inside you, that day, had ceased to exist.

Time no longer had any contours. The hours ticked by in a thick fog, slipping like black sand between your icy fingers. The nights coiled around your throat like poisonous, endless snakes, strangling you in a silence echoing with the howls of the past war. Nothing made sense anymore, except this dull, tenacious pain, this gloomy wait, and the silent figure lying a few feet away from you, this fragile body that you had torn from the grim reaper, without it ever knowing.

Sitting cross-legged, arms clasped around your bruised stomach, you meditated in the icy silence. You tried to reconstitute that sacred IQ, that mutilated vital energy, torn apart by your forbidden act. But the gaping rift remained, hungry, insatiable. It was a bottomless pit, a void that nothing could fill. Your body was still bleeding, despite the magic. Streams of thick, black blood, weighed down by the curse, escaped from your nostrils, ran down your palms, sometimes even from your eyes. The metallic smell of iron, of rust, of misfortune had permeated you, sticking to your skin like a second flesh, an invisible gangrene.

And yet, despite this ignoble agony, you knew you had to make him leave. He must never know. Never discover that you had slashed your own heart to snatch his from the clutches of death. He must not see you as you were—the damned witch, the outcast of heaven, the guardian of a silent and monstrous sacrifice. You refused to let him bind you to this desecrated magic, to this horror that even the heavens refused to bless.

So you got up.

Your body reeled, heavy and broken. Your legs suddenly buckled in a wild spasm, as if refusing to bear such a heavy burden. You clutched desperately at the rough stone wall, your fingers trembling, your flesh bruised, to keep from collapsing into a pile of ash. A sharp pain, as sharp as a rusty blade, pierced your spine. You bit the inside of your cheek until it bled, to keep from letting out a scream of agony.

But you walked.

Your bare feet slid across the cold, damp, black-moss-covered flagstones, each step echoing in the icy silence like a funeral drumbeat heralding the end. You walked through the stagnant mists of the cave, where the air seemed laden with ancient deaths, oozing from the walls like a promise of despair. The smell of decay and blood permeated your matted hair, and your breath came in short, harsh gasps. Even the wind, once free and alive, seemed frozen here, trapped in an invisible tomb.

You finally reached the bedroom.

And then… your eyes find him.

He was sleeping.

You stopped, panting, unable to go any further. Your breath caught in your tight throat. The name of this man, this mutilated soldier, echoed in your head like a profane incantation you had never dared to utter aloud: Lee Heeseung.

This stranger, this fragment of humanity torn from the demons of war, this broken body that you had saved, at the cost of your own sacrifice.

He lay on the black wooden bed, unconscious but alive. His chest rose and fell gently, almost timidly. His skin had become a little lighter, his wounds healed, cleansed of clotted blood, but the scars remained—etched into the flesh like so many silent witnesses to the carnage. His gaze, even closed, seemed to bear the weight of an unfathomable abyss, a void as black as night. You had felt his last breath slip through your fingers, and you had refused it, clinging to him by a thread of forbidden magic.

You approached slowly, your hands trembling, hesitant, as if haunted by the fear of profaning this fragile miracle. You wanted to hide them in the sleeves of your worn robe, but they slipped away, nervous, uncontrollable. You leaned over him, observing the rebellious locks falling on his forehead, still damp from the cold rain of the resurrection spell. He wore a black hanfu, woven in a secret whisper by your trembling hands—a robe of shadow, made of silence, ashes, and oblivion, the garment of a fallen king.

You looked at him for a long time, too long, as if you were looking for an answer, a release. Then, slowly, with infinite delicacy, you placed two fingers on his chest, where his heart beat weakly—that slow, hesitant drum, fragile like a last breath.

The black mist rose around you, dense and heavy, enveloping you in a veil of oblivion. And with a breath, you disappeared with it.

When you reappeared, it was in front of the Lee Residence. It was a shadow of its former self.

The stone bore the scars of a recent battle: arrow shards embedded in the walls, gaping breaches like open wounds, the ground stained with fresh, damp blood, filling the air with a metallic smell of iron and death. Distant screams rose muffled, drowned out by smoke that rose in thick curls toward a low, gray sky. The war was over here, leaving behind a silence of ashes.

You moved slowly, each step heavy, almost solemn. The lanterns hanging from the branches of the surrounding trees trembled, half-melted, casting flickering lights on the faces carved in the stone—dead heroes, forgotten ancestors, frozen in a time that would no longer pass.

You gently placed Lee Heeseung at the foot of the rough wall, his legs bent like those of an exhausted man, his back pressed against the cold stone. His head tilted limply to one side, exposing a pale, vulnerable throat, bare to the world. You knelt before him, and for the first time, truly, you looked at him.

He didn't look like a survivor.

He looked like a sacrificed king.

To a forgotten martyr.

To a bloody offering.

You reached out your hand. A black lock of hair fell on his cheek, which you pushed back with a gesture of infinite gentleness. Your fingers brushed against his burning skin, slid slowly across his forehead, beaded with cold sweat. You felt the warmth of his life flickering, that fragile beat in the night.

And there, in that tiny touch, your heart nearly broke. No love. No pity. Something ancient, crueler, more voracious. A savage need, a burning desire. A hunger born of blood and war.

You jerked back, gasping for air.

His brows furrowed in an almost imperceptible spasm. He was about to wake up. You shouldn't have been there. You were only the shadow, the silent sacrifice. Then, without a word, without a goodbye, you withdrew. You were dissolved into the mist, erased by the night.

When Heeseung opened his eyes, it was like a blade slashing through the black mist of unconsciousness. At first, it was a pale, harsh, unbearable light—as if his soul, snatched from the clutches of death, was not yet ready to return to life. Then, slowly, the outlines of a silent world appeared around him, blurred, twisted, bathed in an almost supernatural calm.

He no longer felt pain. And that alone should have alarmed him. For before… there had been only pain. Fire, blood, screams, swords slicing through flesh. The chaos of a battlefield that even the heavens had denied.

But all of this… seemed to belong to another life. A life he had left behind.

A veil covered his memory, not like natural forgetting, but like a curse. Thick, sticky, oozing with that dark, ancient magic that men should never touch. A painful absence, a hollow in his mind where something should still have burned. Someone. But there was nothing.

Not even a trace.

Not even an emotion.

As if the memory of someone he had unknowingly loved had been torn from him. When he looked down, it was to meet the gaze of a woman kneeling before him.

A celestial one.

Her immaculate dress floated in the still air as if it obeyed no laws of this world. Her skin was unblemished, her face marked by serene compassion. In her open palm, a soft light pulsed, like a heart ready to offer a second life. She looked at him gently, like a goddess descended from the heavens. And he… he believed her. He believed this illusion.

Because he needed to believe it.

Because a man returned from the dead, covered in healed wounds and clotted blood, no longer had the strength to doubt. His soul was too damaged, too weary, too broken to question what fate offered him. So he accepted. He accepted this lie. And in this choice—or this non-choice—was the most terrible cruelty. For it was not she who had saved him. It was not this woman of light.

It was you.

You, the shadow, the forbidden one, the witch with the torn heart. The one who had vomited blood to give him life again. The one who had sacrificed years of existence, burned away his power, lost part of her soul. The one who had carried him, inert and covered in wounds, to your home to snatch him from death.

You, of whom nothing remained.

Not a trace in his memories.

Not a hint of warmth in his gaze.

Heaven, in its cruel justice, had erased your name from its destiny. It had made you invisible. And while the celestial placed a benevolent hand on its brow, you were nothing more than a faded memory, a phantom presence that even the wind refused to name.

But your blood was still there. It stained the stones in front of the Lee house. It seeped into the roots. It called your name silently.

And if Heeseung had paid a little more attention... if he had listened a little more to his heart, he might have heard that silent cry, that tiny dissonance in the false harmony that was being held out to him.

But he didn't. He accepted the lie. He accepted his "savior." And you, somewhere in the mists, watched. Heart broken, body hollow. Knees in the mud, fingers covered in ash, eyes wide open in the night. You were the one who had loved him enough to disappear from his memory. The one who had saved him... so that he could live without you.

And in a world torn apart by war, in a time when life was sold for pieces of soul, there was perhaps nothing more tragic...

…than having given everything to be forgotten.

20 Years Later — Yǒng míng huī diàn (永冥灰殿) — The Shrine of the Ashes of the Eternal Shadow

It is said that the sanctuary of Yǒng Míng Huī Diàn stands on a desolate plateau, swept by icy, howling winds, atop a barren mountain, torn by centuries of storms and battles. Where life once tried to cling, today only black stones, split and splintered, remain, mutilated remnants of a world consumed by the fury of flames and the wrath of the gods.

The ground is dry and cracked, crevassed like the skin of a dying man, and the few tufts of grass that dare venture there are quickly scorched by a burning dust laden with ash and dried blood.

The temple itself is a grim colossus, rising like a scar on the devastated landscape. Its dark stone walls appear to have been eaten away by fire and time, covered in thick, still-damp ash, as if war had just been raging within them once more.

Massive columns, as black as the purest ebony, soar into an inky sky, heavy with clouds that stretch as far as the eye can see, threatening to engulf this place in an endless abyss. Each stone bears the scars of ancient battles, engraved with forbidden and cursed runes, engravings that glow faintly with an ashen, malevolent light, as if the temple's tormented soul itself manages the boundary between this world and the underworld.

The air is so thick with dark magic that it constricts the chest and tightens the throat, each breath becoming a painful struggle for breath, as if the shadows themselves were trying to penetrate your being. The wind, laden with dust and ash, never ceases to moan, carrying with it strange whispers, sighs of lost souls and the muffled laments of vanished soldiers. These voices haunt the temple, echoing through the empty corridors, mingling with the distant creaking of walls cracking under the weight of centuries and curses.

With every step, the ground becomes more menacing. It is littered with shards of broken bones, fragments of shattered weapons—swords, spears, axes—silent witnesses to a forgotten massacre, buried beneath layers of dried blood that blacken the earth. In places, dark, sticky pools, remnants of unspeakable carnage, betray the violence of the fighting that robbed this place of every ounce of life. The blood has mingled with the dust, creating a dark, viscous paste that oozes between the stones, like the indelible memory of a suffering that even time cannot erase.

Once sacred altars lie shattered, their mystical symbols half-erased by flames and the passage of time, but still imbued with a sinister energy. Reddish traces—a mingling of blood and ash—still stain their surfaces, evidence of ancient, bloody, perhaps forbidden rituals that resonate in the bleak silence of the sanctuary like an echo of immemorial horror.

The temple seems alive, breathing a dark, almost palpable melancholy. It echoes with a dull, incessant murmur—a spectral chorus of forgotten chants, muffled cries, and distant laments that twist the soul. The wind carries these sounds like a morbid lullaby, a funereal symphony mingling pain, anger, and despair.

In some places, a thick black magic spreads in the air, undulating like a black and toxic mist, capable of plunging the heart into an icy night, of weighing down each beat, of constricting the lungs to the point of suffocation.

It is said that this sanctuary is not simply a place of contemplation or prayer, but a living tomb, a crossroads where tortured souls and vengeful spirits intertwine. Here, the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead is fragile, and the shadows of fallen warriors wander in a dance of death, trapped in an endless cycle of suffering and blood.

This place embodies the end of all things—absolute destruction, inexorable fall—but also the terrible power of that which refuses to die: the eternal shadow, the black flame, the incandescent ashes of war.

A marriage sealed in this place does not celebrate the sacred union of two souls, but a fatal pact, a fragile and unstable alliance between the unleashed forces of destruction and the resurgent forces of pain. It is marked by suffering, by the cruelty of fate, by the bloody violence of an oath forged in fire and blood. It is not an oath of love, but a commitment to bear the cross of a fragile balance between life and death, between light and darkness, sealed forever by sacrifice, pain, and the memory of torn souls.

You wore a blood-red hanfu, as bright as an open wound. It slid across your skin like a stream of fire, its long sleeves trailing behind you like the funeral ribbons of an offering. Motifs of bridled phoenixes, with folded wings and dull eyes, snaked along the fabric. They weren't sewn to fly. They were there to remind you of sacrificed nobility, aborted rebirth, the chains that even mythical creatures could not break.

The bottom of the hanfu was so dark it looked as if it had been dipped in ashes, blackened by the flames of a sacred pyre—that of your freedom.

And you, silent, you walked.

On your head rested a phoenix crown, forged from gold too heavy, engraved with imperial motifs and encrusted with ancient jade and pearly beads. With every step, it pulled you toward the ground, weighing like the sky itself. Every pin stuck in your hair seemed to pierce your skull to reach your mind, and the gold chains that hung from it vibrated gently, tinkling like funeral bells. They didn't celebrate a union. They mourned an execution in disguise.

You were dressed like an empress...

But you felt like a prisoner being led to sacrifice.

Your face was hidden beneath a veil of red silk, embroidered with gold threads that outlined ancient characters—perhaps prayers, or perhaps curses. No one dared read them. This veil was the last bulwark between you and the world, between dignity and collapse.

Around your neck, stiff, tight collars hampered your breathing. On your arms, dark metal bracelets, engraved with pact seals, bound you to the four clans that had shared your fate.

You moved slowly, each step painful. You felt the muscles in your legs protesting under the weight of the fabric, the metal, and the memory. The shoes were thin but stiff, and small patches of blood were already appearing at the tips of your toes—your body was reminding you that it refused to get used to this pain.

Since childhood, you had been trained. Yes, trained.

Uneducated. Untrained.

Trained as one forms a weapon, a tool, a bond.

Each ceremony, each ritual, had distanced you a little further from your humanity, making you the living heart of a fragile peace pact, the final barrier between war and the end of the world. And yet, today, atop this bare mountain, you understood that it was not peace you carried, but war frozen in a silk coffin.

The path to the Yǒng Míng Huī Diàn shrine was steep, lined with sharp stones and broken bones half-buried beneath the black dust. With every step, the mountain seemed to whisper, speaking to you in a language made of biting wind, scorched sand, and dried blood. The wind slapped you, sometimes lifting your veil, reminding you that you were only a body offered to the ancient gods.

When you finally reached the summit, a wave of dizziness washed over you. Before you, the temple stood its black silhouette against an inky sky, its walls cracked by war, its columns covered with forgotten symbols. There were no wedding decorations. No ribbons, no flowers, no music.

Only silence.

The cold.

And the ruins.

It was right. It wasn't a marriage. It wasn't a union. It was a ritual of mutual submission, an offering of flesh and soul to delay the inevitable—the next conflict, the next fall.

You saw the representatives of the four clans, posted at a good distance. Each of them wore mourning in their eyes, or in suppressed hatred. None of them really looked at you. You were not a woman. You were not a wife.

You were the knot in the rope, the one that bound them all in this senseless trap.

Your heart was beating.

No fear.

No hope.

Of rage. Silent. Burning. Ancient.

Because no one had asked your opinion. No one had looked at you as you bled. No one had mourned the dead you left behind. And today, you were alone, terribly alone, surrounded by men, legends, pacts, and ruins. Your name, your past, your future had been torn from you. And now they wanted your body, bound by blood and the chains of an ancient oath.

And you walked towards the altar.

The chains of your jewels rattled like funeral gongs.

Your veil fluttered like a shroud.

And beneath your feet, the mountain was still bleeding.

You walked slowly toward the altar, each step echoing off the icy stone of the shrine. Your blood-red hanfu, weighed down by the gold, silk, and chains that snaked around your body like so many silent oaths, trailed behind you like a living shroud. The black phoenix embroidery seemed to stir in time with the howling winds, as if they too rebelled against your fate. The golden crown on your head seemed to dig into your skull, each pin like a sharp claw. It was not an ornament, but a cage—a sentence.

Your veil obstructed your view, but you didn't need to see to know where you were going. You felt the presence of others. Their gazes. Their judgments. Their silence. You kept your head down, not out of submission, but out of necessity. To avoid looking at them. To avoid giving them the satisfaction of gazing at your broken face.

Because you didn't want them to see. Your pain. Your anger. Your fear.

You arrived before the altar, frozen like a statue. The wind rushed into the open nave of the temple, carrying flakes of ash, the smell of iron, ashes... and blood. The entire mountain seemed to contract around you, as if the earth itself were rejecting this marriage of ashes and chains.

You had been prepared for this moment since childhood, conditioned to obey, to endure. But none of the forced prayers, none of the cruel training, none of the mock ceremonies had prepared you for this real horror.

Five bowls were placed before you.

Then a knife.

You grabbed the weapon, the cold metal biting into your palm before you could even move. Your hands were barely shaking, yet you felt your heart pounding against your ribs, like a captive beast.

Without a word, you cut into your flesh. The pain was sharp, acute, almost clean at first. Then it became deeper, duller, settling into your bones, your nerves, your stomach.

You poured your blood into the first bowl. But it wasn't enough. So you started again.

Again.

And again.

Each time, the blade cut more slowly, as if resisting, sinking more painfully into your already tortured flesh. Your blood was hot, viscous, almost black red in the funereal glow of the temple. It flowed slowly into the stone bowls, sliding down your wrist, dripping onto the sacred ground. You heard the pearls of your ornaments clash against your hanfu, and the shudder of the metal echo against the oppressive silence.

You weren't allowed to cry. Not now. Not here.

Because you knew you were already in chains.

You were just afraid of breaking yourself even more.

When the five bowls were finally filled with your blood, you put down the knife, your purple-covered fingers trembling slightly, but you straightened up, back straight, eyes still hidden.

Then came the others.

The celestial. The cold embodiment of divine law. He poured his blood into two bowls, one for him, one for you. His expression was fixed, solemn, almost inhuman. He wasn't afraid. Perhaps he felt nothing. Or perhaps, like you, he had learned to hide everything.

Then came the demon, the fox, the general. Each offered their blood. Each wove a scarlet thread between you.

One by one, you mixed your essences.

The mixture was thick, almost black. The blood pulsed in the bowls as if it were still alive. You could hear murmurs rising, ancient, guttural, as if the temple itself were awakening, hungry.

So you lifted your veil. The silk slid slowly off, revealing your pale, frozen face, bursting forth like a poisoned flower in this funereal setting.

You grab the bowl.

And you drank.

The first sip was lukewarm, metallic, disgusting.

The second, a test.

You wanted to vomit, to spit out this abject agreement, this carnal pact, but you didn't. You swallowed every drop, your gaze empty, your hands clenched. And as the black liquid went down your throat, you felt something tear inside you—a last innocence.

Then the pain came.

Not normal pain. Holy agony.

As if a burning blade were slowly inscribing itself between your shoulder blades, carving an eternal seal into your flesh. You fell to your knees, your breath caught, the cry frozen in your throat. You heard ancient chants, muffled cries, the crash of armies, the suffering of the dead, fire and ice mingling.

And on your skin, the mark took shape.

A black and red swirl, like a cursed galaxy.

At the center, the demon's devouring spiral, blood red, pulsing like a heart. A vivid, barbaric energy that seemed to want to engulf you.

Around them, the stylized wings of the celestial—elegant, but burned, tarnished, broken. Justice corrupted. Duty sacrificed.

On the right, the dancing flames of the fox—graceful, undulating, deceptive, dangerous. The cruel charm of the manipulator.

On the left, sharp fragments of armor—the general. Fallen honor. War in the flesh. The weight of responsibility on broken shoulders.

And you, at the center, receptacle of their power, prisoner of their war.

It wasn't a wedding.

It was a curse.

An eternal condemnation.

And in the silence of the temple, while your blood still steamed at the bottom of the bowls, you understood that nothing would ever be the same again.

You would never be free again.

The marks of the pact were not mere symbols.

They weren't painted or tattooed. They had been burned into their flesh like a hot iron, but this fire wasn't made of ordinary flames. It came from another world. From an ancient magic, closer to a curse than a blessing.

On Sunghoon, it had formed on his right wrist—not on the palm, nor on the arm, but right there, between the fineness of the tendons and the pulsing of the artery. Where the blood beats regularly. Where chains, in other times, would have been attached.

At first, it was only a shudder. Then the pain came, sharp, dull, as if a needle of pure light were piercing every nerve. The mark had carved itself, slowly, in silent agony, like an invisible hand tracing an ancient incantation on his skin, indecipherable to mortals.

It depicted a broken circle, surrounded by vines of lightning and celestial runes half-erased by the centuries. Each line seemed to breathe. Sometimes the mark would pulse with a dull red light, whenever he came close to you—or whenever his heart wavered between duty and anger.

He no longer dared raise his arm without feeling the mark burn. As if it reminded him with every gesture that his hand was no longer his. That it belonged to the pact. Yours.

For Jay, it was a more intimate torture. The demon's mark opened in the center of his left palm—the hand he extended when he made deals, killed, or caressed.

It appeared as a crack in the middle of his skin, as if a lightning bolt had split it from within. A breath of shadow escaped from this mystical wound during the ritual, almost as if something living were screaming silently. It wasn't just a wound, it was a door. A rift into the dark. Into everything he had repressed, locked away.

Black filaments, like dead veins, extended from the mark, running up his forearm like snakes ready to burst beneath the skin. It burned him whenever he used his magic. Whenever he thought of you. Whenever he wanted to run away from what he had become.

Sometimes he would slam it shut, his fist trembling, as if to stifle a voice that only he could hear.

But the voice came back.

And she whispered your name.

In Jake's case, the mark was more insidious, almost elegant in its cruelty.

It had drawn itself behind his right ear, where the whispers of yesteryear slip in, where promises are made in hushed tones. An intimate place. Fragile. That no one can see... unless they get closer. And few were those he let approach.

The mark was shaped like an inverted crescent moon, surrounded by thin claws, like a forgotten bite. On its surface, ancient symbols appeared and disappeared like illusions. They glowed with a murky purple radiance, a reflection of moody and unstable magic.

When his thoughts became too vivid, too painful, the mark would come to life, pulsing against his skin like a stray heartbeat. Sometimes he would scratch it until it bled, but it remained there, unalterable.

A secret.

A curse.

A subtle and cruel chain that he wore in silence, with the lying smile of those who prefer to hide their pain behind laughter.

For Heeseung, the mark had taken root on his left collarbone, where the heart beats strongest, where the burden of command weighs like invisible armor. It had burst from his skin like a blade's shard: brutal, sharp, silent.

It looked like a gash in the shape of an inverted cross, lined with black fragments like pieces of shattered armor. The surrounding skin was purple, as if bruised by fire. Through the lines, screaming faces could be seen, silhouettes in flames, memories of ancient battlefields.

When he breathed deeply, the mark spread. As if it were soaking up every breath, every thought. Once, he lay alone, shirtless, in the freezing rain, hoping the water would wash away the seal.

But nothing worked.

The brand remained. Alive. Red. Living.

Like you.

And at the center of each of their bodies… The mark sometimes throbbed in unison. A silent, barely perceptible shudder, like the breath of a memory thought forgotten, but which never quite dies. An ancient echo, buried in the flesh, engraved in the bones. A cursed pulse that responded to the most visceral emotions, as if each heartbeat was no longer entirely theirs. As if a part of you lived through their pain.

When one of them thought of you—not with tenderness, but with that confused burning between hatred, regret, and desire—the mark would awaken. Red. Dark. Cold, at first, like the shiver of a warning. Then hot, burning, devouring. It vibrated beneath the skin, as if something inside them wanted to come out, scream, flee… or come back to you.

And when you suffered—when you wept alone, under the weight of the pact, when your knees touched the stone floor and your blood flowed again to assuage the curse—their marks would flare for no apparent reason. They would awaken in the middle of the night, in the midst of battle, or in the silence of a deserted palace. They pulsed like a reminder. A bond. A shared pain, foreign yet intimate, as if your grief screamed through the bones of the world.

And when one of them used the magic of the pact... When the forces sealed in their flesh were activated, when they invoked forbidden techniques born of common blood, then the five marks would light up together, even from leagues apart.

They answered each other, clashed. They screamed. Not an audible scream, no. But a scream from the soul. A scream that only those who suffer understand.

A red light—dense, almost black—emerged from those open cracks in the skin, those scars that never healed. It shone for a moment, like an eye opening. An ancient eye. Witness to the horror. And then… the pain returned. Not the pain of an injury. Not the pain of a torn muscle or a broken bone.

No.

That of a heart forced to beat for a cause it didn't choose. That of a love buried alive, beneath duty, war, and black magic. The demon shuddered, growled, his fangs clenched, his palm branded with fire beneath his chains. The celestial, for his part, closed his eyes, trying not to show anything, but his wrist trembled, and his breath broke in the prayer he never finished. The fox, still smiling, held his hand behind his ear as if it were nothing—but his eyes lost their sparkle, and his laughter became empty, hollow, broken. And the general... He placed his hand on his left collarbone. He said nothing. But his silence bled more than all the screams.

And you. You, at the center. Voluntarily imprisoned by a destiny that no longer allows you the right to love or hate freely. You who drink their pain like one drinks poison that never ends.

Your own seal, lodged between your shoulder blades, pulses every time they think of you. You never know which one. But you feel it. You feel their rage. Their confusion. Their sadness. And sometimes, that burning in your back becomes unbearable. A silent agony, a fire beneath your skin, as if each of them is calling you, claiming you, cursing you… or loving you, all in the same breath.

And you, what can you do but stand upright, veiled in red and silence, your back burning, your hands bloody, and your heart poisoned by four souls who can neither love you... nor forget you?

It wasn't a bond. It was a chain. A blood oath, twisted, impure, sacred. Impossible to break. Impossible to escape.

A mutilated love.

An exiled love.

A love that bleeds and lives, against the will of the gods.

Yè Mó Gǔchéng – Ancient City of the Night Demon

You find yourself in Yè Mó Gǔchéng — the Ancient City of the Night Demon.

Suspended in the heights of a cursed valley where dawn never breaks, it is a relic of a forgotten age, a chasm of shadows frozen in stone. As you advance, the wind crashes against the fractured walls like an ancient sigh, carrying with it a thick, reddish, almost living mist. It seeps between the collapsed arches, winds between the mutilated columns, and coils around your ankles like bloody chains.

The cobblestones creak beneath your feet. Not because of the cold, but because the ground is made of crushed bones and memories frozen in stone—fragments of war, betrayed oaths. They say every wall in Yè Mó Gǔchéng is a tomb, every roof an open coffin, every tower an unfinished prayer. And you hear them, those whispers of pain—muffled, tiny, like tears that even death could not silence.

The Demon King's palace sits in the center, like a black heart wrapped in obsidian chains. It has no stained-glass windows or light. It offers no shelter, only the weight of its silence. It is said that this palace still beats like a wounded beast curled into itself, infected with forbidden magic, growling with every sigh of the wind.

This is where you must spend your wedding night.

You were not led to him with tenderness or music. There was no procession or flowers. You walked alone, draped in red, the veil falling over your eyelashes, escorted only by the ghosts of the virgins who had died before you. You were the offering. The pact. The blood sealed in a cup of agony.

The bridal chamber does not resemble a love bed, but an execution cell.

The bed, immense, is made of a blackened wood that even flames refuse to consume. The sheets are heavy, red silk woven with tarnished gold threads, embroidered with scenes of war and ancient pacts. From the ceiling, a mobile of hanging bones creaks with every movement of air, emitting a macabre music of dry clicking. Chains hang from the walls, unused but present, like a silent threat. The room is saturated with overly thick perfumes, burning black jasmine candles, and immortality incense—an aroma too sweet, almost sickening, like the taste of something too beautiful in a mouth full of blood.

You are here.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, straight as a marble statue, frozen in a dignity that crumbles with every second. Hours pass and your gaze wanders to the floor, then to the wall, then to the moving shadow cast by the dying flame of a lantern. You say nothing. You hardly breathe. Waiting is a blade against your throat.

You are hungry. But hunger is a suffering you know how to contain.

For it wasn't your stomach that groaned the loudest—it was your heart. Your heart, which, despite the pain, despite the betrayal, had held onto a shred of hope. A shred of humanity. You had thought, maybe… maybe he would come. Not for you. But at least for the honor of the pact. For the blood you had shed. For the pain that had scarred you forever.

But he doesn't come.

Not a step. Not a vibration in the air.

Just silence. And cold. And shame.

When the door finally creaks, it's not him.

She's a young maid, pale-faced, arms outstretched, trembling like a candle in the rain. She doesn't speak right away, as if your anger will strike her before it even takes shape.

You don't even turn your head. You no longer have the strength. Your eyes stare into space, the moving shadows of the red veil hanging over the wedding bed, that bed where no oath was ever consummated, that bed where your heart emptied itself in silence.

"He won't come... will he?" Your voice rises, weak at first, then colder, sharper than a blade drawn in the dark. It's not a question. It's a sentence. The kind you carve on a stele, funereal, irrevocable.

The maid jumps as if she's been struck. She lowers her head so low that her forehead almost touches the black stone floor. Her fingers tremble on the coarse fabric of her dress, as if she's trying to sink into it, disappear.

"I... I apologize, madam... the lord... he is overwhelmed this evening."

"Overwhelmed"... The word resonates, bitter. Like a poison distilled in a low voice. You stand slowly. You don't leap—you rise. Like the rising red tide, unstoppable. Your robe, a vast hanfu of scarlet silk embroidered with dead phoenixes, spreads around you, heavily, like spilled blood that never dries.

Your hair, tied back in a crown and studded with golden thorns and precious chains, quivers under the weight of silence. Your eyes, shining with a pain you refuse to let flow, stare at the maid who barely dares to breathe.

“Get out. I no longer require your services.” Your voice is calm. Too calm. A chilling calm, where you can sense entire worlds crumbling beneath the surface. “And tell him this: if the king of hell thinks his throne is too heavy to honor a pact sealed by blood and pain… let him know that some things never forgive forgetting.” You don’t scream. You don’t cry. Feelings are an offering you refuse to make to those who trample them.

You reach out. The black mist envelops you. A mist born of the pact itself, a cursed magic, contracted in blood, worn like a chain around your soul. It devours you and carries you away. In a breath, you are gone.

And you reappear at the Black Lotus Pavilion.

A sanctuary. A refuge. No… not anymore.

The lanterns are out. The silence is so dense it crushes you. The walls, painted gold and jade, seem narrower than ever. As if this room has become a tomb. Your tomb.

And then you collapse.

You let out a scream. A howl. Not of pain. Not yet. A scream of rage, of shame, of loneliness. You tear down the draperies, you smash the precious objects you were given, you toss the censers, the vases, the instruments. Everything that reminds you that you were an offering. A bride. A thing to be consumed and forgotten.

The mirror shatters against the floor. It reflects your own face back at you, shattered into a thousand shards. A thousand versions of you. All lost. All hated.

You fall to your knees, your palms bleeding against the shards. You gasp, your lungs burning. And your eyes… your eyes, they still refuse to cry.

Until you see her.

The pin.

Just one, slipped into the storm. A thin golden stem, adorned with a black pearl and a drop-shaped ruby. It was your mother's. One of the few memories not taken from you. A promise, long ago. That you would never be alone.

And you grab it. Your fingers tremble. You press it against your palm. Hard. Hard enough to feel the bite. Hard enough to make the blood flow again.

“I'm an idiot… an idiot…” Your voice breaks. Each word is a fragment of soul you spit out like shards of glass. “I should have known… Hope… hope is poison… And love… love is a curse.”

You curl into yourself, your dress crumpled, your body twisted. You lie down on the cold wood. Your cheek against the ground. Your hands close around the void. You shiver. With grief. With shame. With anger.

And the tears come.

Not human tears. Ancient tears. Tears that carry within them all the sacrifices you've had to make, all the sleepless nights, all the sacrifices imposed on you.

You cry.

Until your eyelids close against your will. Until sleep tears you from the pain. A dark, haunted sleep. A dreamless sleep. Or perhaps populated by just one: that of a man with red eyes... who will never come.

And in the icy silence of the Lotus Pavilion, the shadows close in on you.

Some cry with you.

Others… laugh softly in the darkness.

And that night…

As your body lay on the floor of the Black Lotus Pavilion—this place now a tomb, this sanctuary now empty—an ancient breath rose in the air, imperceptible, but laden with a forgotten memory.

A thrill.

A whisper in the spine of the world.

A call.

And beneath your skin, just between your shoulder blades, where the flesh had been marked by the pact, a glow ignited. Faintly at first. Like an ember thought to be extinguished. Then the light grew brighter. A pale blue. But it wasn't the blue of the morning sky, nor that of a distant dream.

It was a spectral blue.

The blue of the abyss.

The blue of goodbyes.

It rose from you like a silent complaint, a wave crossing heaven and earth, striking, without pity, the hearts linked to yours.

And with that light… came pain. Not for you. No. Not this time. It hit them.

One by one.

Slowly.

Irremediably.

At the top of the world, where the air is too pure for mortals, the celestial Sunghoon meditated, seated on a pale silk cushion, in the silence of a temple suspended in the void. Circles of ancient ink floated around him, chains of celestial prayers, all intended to purify his soul, to sever the bonds of the lower world.

But no seal, no prayer, no divine law could stop what happened.

Without warning, he tensed.

His right palm began to burn.

Not on the surface, but deep within the flesh. The blue light seeped into his veins, sinuous, painful, as if a river of ice and fire were flowing against the current of his blood.

His breath caught.

He leaned forward, his hand pressed against his wrist, where the mark pulsed like a second heart. A scream rose in his throat… but it didn't come out. He didn't scream. He closed his eyes.

And in that inner darkness, he saw you.

Collapsed.

Extinct.

Something tore inside him. Not his pride, nor his celestial dignity. No. Something older. More primitive.

A link. An oath he had sworn to hate… but which survived the hatred.

He didn't think. His body acted on its own. And his steps, free from all logic, began to move.

Towards you.

In the bowels of a cursed temple, beneath blood-soaked stones, the demon king Park Jongseong uttered the final words of a forbidden spell, his forehead covered in black sweat, his body surrounded by ancient glyphs.

But even the dark magic stopped, as if terrified.

A blue flash split the shadow.

His left palm burst into flames, and he howled—a guttural, primal sound, a wounded beast in the darkness.

He fell to his knees. His heart skipped a beat.

The tattoos along his arm activated, pulsing, as if your name were etched into them in letters of fire. He spat out blood. And in that blood, a fragment of your grief.

He slowly straightened up, his eyes wild.

“You again… what did you do to me…?”

But it wasn't anger that drove him. It was something else. Even more terrible.

A dull fear.

A worry he never wanted to feel.

In the heart of a pleasure house hidden beneath red lanterns, the fox Sim Jake played the lute, his laughter hanging on his lips, his charm diffused like sweet poison.

He seduced. He played. He forgot.

Until the pain hit him. Just behind his ear, where his mark, so subtle it might have seemed inexistent, began to glow an electric blue.

He dropped his instrument. The lute shattered on the ground.

He staggered, one hand on his temple, his eyes wide. He stood up, unsteady, his legs weak. He leaned against a wall painted with flowers, which now looked faded.

"You really are... incorrigible," he murmured, his throat tight.

He wished he didn't feel anything. But that fire in him was yours. That pain was your heart screaming into the void.

And even in his cowardice, he could not escape it.

On a training ground abandoned since the war, General Lee Heeseung tirelessly repeated the same movements. A blade. A step. A breath. The saber dance in silence.

But on the fourth move, his sword slipped from his grasp.

His left collarbone flared up.

He fell to his knees, his hand clutched at his chest. His mark glowed like a firebrand, blue cracks spreading across his skin like frozen lightning.

And suddenly… he knew.

He saw you. Not with his eyes, but with that part of him you had locked away in the pact.

He felt your shame, your loneliness, your silent rage. He felt your cold body against the floor. Your muffled sobs. And he bowed his head. Without a word. He wouldn't come. But he didn't forget you.

And in the silence, a tear traced a bitter furrow on his cheek.

Four places.

Four pains.

Only one link.

The mark throbbed on their skin, a single beat. An invisible chain.

You, forgotten witch, rejected, abandoned in the room where no lover came... you made them suffer. Not out of revenge. But because you bled.

And they bled with you.

Not because they wanted to.

But because the pact does not forget.

You crawled slowly towards the bed, your gaze drowned in absence, your hands pressed against your stomach as if you could contain your pain, and you whispered, to no one:

“Hope is poison… Love… damnation.”

And the shadows around you wept too. Or cursed you. But it didn't matter. Because that night, you were all bound together.

Not by desire.

But by blood.

And blood… never lies.

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