Chapter 9
Everyone waited to hear what Sa-yeol would say next.
But instead of speaking, she smiled so widely it looked like her lips might tear.
“To break a vessel completely… wouldn’t that mean snapping its fingers, destroying its ability to speak, and making sure it will never hold anything ever again?”
Her calm, elegant voice poured out horrifying words as she giggled.
Sa-yeol slowly stood from her seat and pointed at each person in the room with a single finger.
“Now tell me—who here is a proper vessel?”
“What insolence…!”
The Grand Elder slammed the table and stood.
He was an old man close to the end of his years, long retired from active duties—
But he was still a martial expert.
“Elder, sit down,” the Head of House, Hyeon-won, said.
“Head! Have you lost your mind?! Didn’t you hear what that girl just said? She is clearly possessed! No sane person speaks such wicked things!”
“That’s exactly why we need to confirm it.”
The elder froze.
“I will send Sa-yeol to the Namgung Academy.”
“The Academy…?”
“Yes. To Yeon-jong.”
Namgung Wonjong.
Hyeon-won’s younger brother.
He had renounced his right to succeed the clan and instead became the Director of the Academy. He wasn’t an outstanding martial artist, but he was brilliant—especially in one area.
“Other than Father, he is the one who knows the most about ghosts and how to distinguish them.”
Martial artists of the highest peak could sense spirits directly.
But those below that realm needed special formations to detect whether a ghost had possessed a body.
And for the past 100 years—during which no one had seen a ghost—
No one had studied them as thoroughly as Namgung Wonjong.
The Grand Elder slowly sat down, cooling his anger.
Sa-yeol watched him with silent contempt.
A man so weak he couldn’t even achieve rebirth sits as Grand Elder?
Unthinkable 100 years ago. Tsk.
“Namgung Sa-yeol.”
Hyeon-won called to her in a voice barely alive.
Sa-yeol smiled prettily and looked at him.
The smile was wrong—like a doll whose lips had been pulled upward by force.
“You will be sent there. If you are truly possessed by something evil or have tampered with forbidden things, then your punishment will be—”
Suddenly Sa-yeol let out a strange sound.
“Heuuuh…!”
It sounded like crying.
People thought perhaps the young girl had finally become frightened.
But the moment her face was exposed from behind her hands—
Everyone felt goosebumps explode across their arms.
For she was smiling brightly like a ghost while making sobbing sounds.
“Whatever happens to me… I am so curious…”
She lowered her hands demurely.
“Father.”
But her voice carried the weight of a threat.
Hyeon-won swallowed hard.
“…I will leave the matter to Wonjong. Prepare your things and leave for the Academy immediately.”
He had run away—into the safety of a “small vessel.”
Sa-yeol smiled faintly.
He had extended his short life just a little longer.
“Yes, Father. I will disappear from your sight at once.”
And so, Sa-yeol’s departure for the Academy was decided.
***
Meanwhile—Deep Below Stone Mountains
A great palace made of redwood stood hidden within the stone mountain, sealed away for a century.
A place smelling faintly of blood, as if made from living trees.
This was the Blood Palace—
the birthplace of ghosts,
a land standing between the living world and the underworld,
home of the demonic sect known as Sama Oedo.
Its doors had been closed since the Heavenly Demon vanished 100 years ago.
Now, after a century of silence, something stirred inside.
Behind the blood-soaked wooden doors, deep within the palace,
lay a room draped in scarlet silk.
On the scarlet bed lay a man with long white hair.
His shut eyelids trembled.
His features were beautiful and delicate, like something sculpted from white sand.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
“You’re awake, Palace Lord.”
“Ah…”
His voice was surprisingly low and rough despite his refined appearance.
He stared at the red silk above him, stretching his stiff limbs.
His body creaked like a puppet.
Yet he grinned as he pushed himself upright.
“She has returned.”
Excitement flashed in his black eyes.
“She’s back.”
He slid off the bed, falling nearly face-first, and an attendant hurried to support him.
His wooden, puppet-like legs wobbled, but he forced himself to move.
Masked attendants rushed to help him.
He stumbled toward the main hall and pushed open the massive doors.
Unexpectedly, a faint beam of light entered from outside the stone mountain.
The dim light brushed over his snow-white hair and pitch-black eyes.
Without a word, he snatched an attendant’s cloak and wrapped it around himself.
“Come. Let’s go welcome her. Hurry!”
Thump, thump, thump—
He stomped forward like a madman, then suddenly stopped.
His joyful expression vanished.
He bared his teeth at the ceiling, snarling.
“So that means he must be awake as well.”
His red eyes flickered violently.
“That bastard better not try anything this time. That damned Sect Leader.”
He spat the insult—
calling the Heavenly Demon by the degrading title “sect leader.”
Then he resumed his heavy footsteps.
There was much to prepare before he could meet her.
“Meong-ah!”
“Yes, Palace Lord.”
“Take down these curtains! Why is it so gloomy in here?!”
“At once.”
It was the day the Blood Palace’s master—
Ma Wolhu—
awakened.
Beneath the palace, the puppet servants that had slept for a hundred years were rising.
The stench of long-dried blood began to stir again.
Creatures that had rotted in darkness
slowly awakened to follow him.
Wolhu bit his lip, tasting blood, and laughed viciously.
He had spent so long trying to retrieve her soul.
And now she has returned.
The “Sect Leader” must have done something.
Wolhu resented that—but her return mattered more.
He descended deeper underground, selecting several “servants” stored there.
“Ptui.”
He spat out blood.
The blobs of flesh he spat onto the ground twisted into human-like shapes, moving like puppets made of mud.
“Rise. We have work to do.”
The first task was not to meet her face-to-face.
If he appeared now, she would respond with pure hatred.
But his goal was not to die by her hands—
Far from it.
So instead, he would send a messenger.
A ghost.
Something that had slept underground for 100 years.
“‘That’ will do nicely.”
A messenger to announce—
that he was alive.
