Chapter 51. A Deal of Hatred and Sorrow (1)
Pasa, the city of the Hae family, shone beneath the blazing sun.
Powerful winds swept across the land, breaking the sand dunes into clouds of golden dust. Only the towering sacred rock mountain served as a landmark for visitors.
Head Hae Mora had dismissed her attendants and guards and was leisurely walking through a courtyard deep inside the estate.
She wore the typical clothes of a noblewoman of the Hae family.
A tightly fitted crimson silk dress covered her body, while black ornaments decorated her hair, wrists, and chest.
Red makeup, the mark of black magic, had been painted in the center of her forehead and on her lips, making her already seductive face even more striking.
“Who do flowers bloom for... and for whom do they fall?”
A long spring dream seemed to scatter over her silk skirt.
A deep voice from the past echoed in her mind.
[I need you.]
The man had a tall nose and pitch-black eyes that left a powerful impression.
Nampyeong possessed a cruel nature that made him look at every living creature in the world as if it were an insect.
Yet to the young Mora, even that cruelty had seemed dangerously attractive.
By using the overwhelming power of hell, she could easily solve the problems of reality.
The elders could no longer raise their voices at her.
She could free herself from the terrible customs of her family.
It had felt thrilling.
Liberating.
Mora had once believed that feeling was love for Nampyeong.
But all those memories had eventually become stained with fear.
Her hand trembled.
Mora looked around with cold eyes.
Under her gaze, every flower blooming in the courtyard suddenly withered at once, as if all the warmth and life had been drained from them.
“Ugh!”
A sudden wave of pain struck Mora.
She staggered and wrapped both arms around herself.
It felt as real and violent as being burned alive.
Ever since the Heavenly Maiden of Beopsindang visited Pasa, Mora’s suffering had grown worse.
The sacrifices once trapped in the spiderwebs of the rock mountain cave had escaped.
Because of that, Mora could no longer use them to deceive fate and transfer the consequences of her own sins onto others.
Now...
Mora herself was the one caught in the web.
“There isn’t much time left.”
She could sense her own death approaching.
Like the previous heads of the Hae family, even her soul would probably disappear completely.
Her final destination would be absolute loneliness.
Even so...
It could not be helped.
Even if she were reborn countless times, Mora knew she would still reach for forbidden power.
If opening the Ghost Path caused the entire world to collapse, so what?
To her, the world of the living and the world of the dead were both equally hell.
Mora began humming an old song backward to distract herself from the pain.
It was a song passed down among the women of the Hae family for generations.
[No one in the darkness will ever find you.]
Then another voice naturally continued the song from the bushes.
[The power of darkness will set you free.]
Someone stepped out.
At first glance, the two women looked surprisingly similar.
There was something alike in the atmosphere surrounding them.
Standing together, their deep beauty seemed even more striking.
“So it was you.”
Mora swallowed her pain and forced herself to smile with dignity.
But her face was pale.
Her twisted smile was enough to make the other woman flinch.
“Head Mora. It has been a long time.”
Eunseong spoke carefully.
She believed Mora must resent her.
“I came to ask for punishment.”
Eunseong had acted on her own and freed the people hanging in the spiderwebs as sacrifices.
Black magic had undoubtedly harmed countless people.
But it was also true that it had brought prosperity to the Hae family.
In the end, Eunseong’s actions had interfered with Mora’s great plan.
Worse, after Eunseong revived Gusa, the ancient divine beast, she began receiving new attention.
The Six Elders immediately became extremely wary of her.
They constantly tried to drive a wedge between Mora and Eunseong.
They even began supporting Geumdo, the illegitimate child, as the next leader.
Eunseong bit her lip.
She had known changing the family would require determination.
But the road ahead still seemed painfully long.
Mora’s response, however, was unexpected.
“Do you think I’m going to eat you?”
Her voice was cold.
“If people are already discussing you as the next head of the family, then do not do anything you cannot stand proudly behind.”
It sounded strangely more like encouragement than criticism.
Hae Mora was known as the Blood Lady.
For her to leave someone unpunished after they had harmed the family’s interests was extremely unusual.
Part of the reason was the special bond between Mora and Eunseong.
Both women had suffered unhappy childhoods as mediums of the rock mountain.
Every day, they abandoned themselves and prayed to the gods.
They performed rituals that invited evil spirits into their bodies.
Women’s bodies were often unable to endure such powerful ghostly energy.
They would cough up blood and collapse.
The endings of the women who served as rock mountain mediums throughout the generations were tragic.
Their bodies and souls were torn apart in horrible agony before disappearing completely.
Inside the red shrine in the rock mountain cave hung portraits of previous mediums.
Ceramic jars containing their bones sat beneath them.
They had predicted the futures of countless people.
They had helped release countless grudges.
Yet they had been unable to change their own fate.
The price for revealing the secrets of heaven was that cruel.
“I hear you’ve recently fallen out of favor with the Six Elders.”
Mora suddenly laughed loudly.
Her red lips stretched unnaturally toward her ears.
The laughter came out in strange choking sounds.
“Why aren’t you laughing?”
She grinned.
“Those toothless old men are making their final desperate struggle. Isn’t it funny enough to make you cry?”
Eunseong stood tensely.
She had no idea what Mora might say next.
Just hearing the words Six Elders made her shoulders instinctively shrink.
The terrible memories of childhood were still deeply buried inside her.
When more and more girls from the Hae family began trying to escape their cruel fate, the elders introduced extreme measures.
They called it discipline.
In reality, it was torture and abuse.
They locked girls inside pits filled with snakes.
They burned hidden parts of their bodies with heated iron.
