TGHD Ch 43

The place where Ryubeom saw sincerity in Yeohwi. Even if everything he saw in Yeohwi until now was a lie, that place must have been genuine. The time when he looked into Yeohwi’s grudges due to Imugi’s curse. Not the time he saw Yeohwi with the woman in the past, but after that…

Cheon Ryubeom had re-entered his memory to save him after being flung out. He found him trapped in a red sphere, choking on emotions. As he approached to save him, his neck was grabbed in return.

Yeohwi seemed to be losing his mind, venting his anger in all directions. But in hindsight, that attack… seemed to carry hatred towards tigers.

Questions swirled ceaselessly in Ryubeom’s mind. In the shattered pieces, the questions seeped through the cracks. If the woman he saw in the past was the former fox clan head, why did she die in a burning mansion? How could a fire occur in the space where the fox clan head resided?

And after the fire, when Yeohwi attacked the tiger family head…

Fwoosh!

At that moment, he heard something burning. Ryubeom flinched and turned. The remnants of dark energy in the hermitage were carried by the wind, setting the bushes behind on fire. The flames suddenly made his grandmother startle.

“No, not fire! Stop…”

She trembled, clutching her head, screaming for it to stop. It was a reaction close to a seizure, her face reflecting shock and guilt as if facing a massive fire.

As she started to collapse, Ryubeom caught and held her. However, she struggled wildly, trying to break free, screaming desperately.

Ryubeom couldn’t understand her sudden, strange behavior. He knew her mind was unstable, but why would a deity fear fire? He vaguely remembered her saying she disliked heat.

“I need to let that child know. We were to meet at the waterfall, but I… I opened the wrong door. I shouldn’t have opened that door… I shouldn’t have believed those words…”

She rambled incoherently, trying to move forward. As she almost stumbled to the ground, Ryubeom grabbed her arms. When their eyes met, Ryubeom couldn’t look away.

“That one must not cross over!”

Ah, he shouldn’t have made eye contact in moments like these.

As Baekyeong’s warning echoed in his mind from a few days ago, Ryubeom’s vision warped violently, splitting into multiple fragments. Hundreds, thousands of pieces began to form a different image from reality.

A waterfall appeared.

It was as if someone was running toward the waterfall. The view distorted and twisted in various angles, like looking through the rippling surface of the water. His head felt dizzy as he glimpsed the vision of a deity.

But Ryubeom couldn’t close his eyes. Whether it was voluntary or not was unclear. The waterfall grew closer until the scenery flipped. It was like crossing through a door into a completely new space.

It was identical to the scenery of the fox clan’s main house he saw in Yeohwi’s memory.

The river behind the mansion he saw before was now in front of Ryubeom. The river connected to the waterfall was unfamiliar. How did a deity get here? Even a tiger deity couldn’t freely enter the main house of the fox clan. Such powerful beings were treated even more exclusively.

So now, this means… someone had opened the door.

“The tiger deity was closer to other clans than the tiger clan. It’s really embarrassing. The tiger deity was closer to other animals than the tiger clan…”

He remembered what Cheon Hoyeon had said. The tiger deity wished to live in harmony with all life on earth. And how the fox clan had been the first to propose peace agreements and meetings among powerful clans in the past echoed in his mind.

Meanwhile, the vision continued to change. The deity was desperately running towards somewhere.

“No, no, no…”

“He said he wanted to reconcile, to apologize…”

“Then why, why did he put me to sleep and leave first? Why…”

“He said he wanted to have another meeting, to make a place to apologize, why…”

“He said he wanted to learn the child’s magic too…”

The muttered words overlapped, echoing in Ryubeom’s mind. Despite the excruciating pain in his head, he picked out words from the deity’s speech. Meeting, apology, reconciliation, magic…

A chilling anxiety rose within him. Was he feeling the deity’s emotions? The deity was anxious, trying to deny it, a denial tinged with a love resembling that for a child.

Fwoosh!

At that moment, the deity’s despair at seeing the flames engulfing the village was felt vividly. The shocking scene shattered the deity’s heart, breaking his spirit. Betrayed trust and trampled love made the deity’s vision lower.

Then, Cheon Ryubeom noticed a figure at the edge of his vision. The back of a man walking away in a deep red hanbok seemed ominously familiar. That ash-brown hair, and… those chilling silver eyes that looked back.

“Ah, you woke up early. It would’ve been better if you stayed asleep forever.”

It was the family head, Cheon Gun.

Wham! As soon as he recognized the figure, Ryubeom was roughly pulled back, rolling on the ground. Baekyeong had forcibly separated him from his grandmother’s gaze.

“I warned you not to look into her eyes directly!”

Peering too long into a deity’s memory could break one’s mind. Ordinary beings couldn’t even comprehend a deity’s vision. Baekyeong had sometimes glimpsed memories unintentionally, but without spiritual power, he couldn’t read anything clearly. Only the feeling of his head splitting with pain.

However, Cheon Ryubeom, looking as though he had encountered something horrific in the deity’s memory, was pale and gasping. His eyes shook wildly.

Confronted with the truth, Cheon Ryubeom was stunned.

“The family head set the fox clan’s house on fire.”

In the past, during a summit meeting for a peace agreement, Cheon Gun had stormed out, declaring humans inferior and mocking the need to listen to foxes. It was a tale he had only heard from the fox clan, not taught within his own family.

The tiger deity regretted this conflict. When Cheon Gun said he wanted to apologize to the fox clan head, the deity welcomed it with joy and arranged the meeting. Saying he wanted to personally visit the mansion to apologize, he asked Yeomyeong to open the door to the waterfall…

And Cheon Gun started a fire there.

Before going to the meeting place, the deity drank tea given by Cheon Gun, realizing too late that it was poisoned. Despite their constant disagreements, the deity trusted the one he loved like a son. Betrayed to the last moment, the deity shrank smaller and smaller.

Ryubeom realized what the ‘magic’ the tiger deity mentioned was. There had been clues in Yeohwi’s memory too. The familiar spell circle he saw in Yeomyeong’s room. It was the result of research allowing spiritual power to be easily shared through objects, and it was now in the tiger clan’s possession. Cheon Gun acted as if he had done the research himself, elevating the clan’s prestige.

Now he understood why Yeohwi had made that face when he saw the family’s treasure. Watching him proudly display it and praise the clan, he now knew why Yeohwi had that look.

But this was only part of the truth. There was something even more dreadful in the memory. Cheon Gun couldn’t have caused a great fire just because he succeeded in infiltrating the fox clan’s main house. He would have known this would alienate the deity, yet he still caused such a disaster because…

“…Actually, ―’s health isn’t good.”

A phrase Ryubeom heard in Yeohwi’s memory. Yeomyeong’s husband had suggested Yeohwi stay at the mansion, telling him about Yeomyeong’s condition, and Yeohwi had been angered by it.

As if he immediately understood the cause, he had angrily confronted Yeomyeong in her room. In the space painted completely black, Ryubeom couldn’t see Yeomyeong’s back. It was a space Yeohwi had desperately tried to hide from him.

“What’s so important that you’d risk your life?”

“When you have someone precious…”

“Is that cherishing? Isn’t it just foolishly clinging, unable to accept fate?”

Yeohwi was furious that Yeomyeong had done what he told her not to, and he was angry she foolishly risked her life, ultimately…

“Did you want to show me a dying body drained of spiritual power? Did you want me to feel pity and stay with you? In the end, you became such a―――.”

At that time, Cheon Ryubeom couldn’t fully understand Yeohwi’s words. The sounds were muffled, making it hard to discern. But now, Ryubeom could interpret Yeohwi’s lip movements from that moment.

“Ultimately, you became such a protector…”

The conversation from that day swirled chaotically in his mind. It mixed with the mention of the ‘baby’ his grandmother had confused him with a few days ago, worrying about the baby’s fever and asking if there was any improvement.

Cheon Ryubeom looked down at the floor with trembling eyes. The sketchbook his grandmother had dropped earlier. Finally, he noticed the small figure in the blanket Yeomyeong was holding so dearly. When he first saw the sketchbook, he had been too focused on Yeomyeong’s face to notice…

A baby.

And the last thing he saw in the deity’s vision was Cheon Gun holding a blanket.

The truth piecing together was horrifying. He finally understood why the fox clan head, Yeomyeong, couldn’t stop the flames engulfing the mansion.

Yeomyeong had transferred all her life force and spiritual power to the baby. And to prepare for her death, she had given ‘gifts’ to humans to foster close relations and elevate the clan’s status.

At the summit meeting, the tiger family head, Cheon Gun, realized Yeomyeong was dying. The power of a clan head was said to be akin to that of a divine beast. So, to completely break free from the deity enforcing harmony and become the strongest being on earth…

Cheon Gun stole the baby imbued with Yeomyeong’s spiritual power, claiming that power for himself.

“Ah…”

A strangled gasp escaped Ryubeom’s lips. The story he had so desperately wanted to know about Yeohwi took this shape.

Now, Cheon Ryubeom understood the cold glint he sometimes saw in Yeohwi’s eyes. When he had leaned on Yeohwi’s hand to sleep, when he had reached out to touch his face like ‘that woman,’ his face had turned cold, but he had quickly masked it with a picturesque smile, making Ryubeom dismiss it as a misunderstanding. Now, that gaze pierced Ryubeom’s heart clearly.

Yeohwi had been harboring hatred for the tiger clan every moment.

But he couldn’t just feel sorrow for that. He had blindly tried to touch Yeohwi, not knowing what that woman meant to him, and even envied the long-worn hanbok she had mentioned. He had never felt so ashamed.

The agony of being deceived and used by Yeohwi, and the torment of finally understanding the entire past, strangled Ryubeom from different directions.

He had tried to comfort Yeohwi in the past, knowing nothing.

“This isn’t all Yeohwi’s fault…”

How absurd those words must have seemed to Yeohwi, coming from a member of the clan that had committed the wrongs. How much of a deceit it must have felt like. Could he truly claim innocence just because he hadn’t been taught by his clan?

“Hrk, ugh…”

Cheon Ryubeom gagged, pressing his head to the floor. It felt like all the time he had built up was being trampled and shattered, the shards piercing his core. His pride in his clan, his feelings for Yeohwi—none of it could be looked at without pain.

Then, suddenly, Ryubeom’s eyes widened.

“…!”

He sprang to his feet. Even amidst the storm of emotions, he felt it clearly. His senses sharpened, focusing intensely.

He sensed Yeohwi’s presence nearby.

* * *

Ryubeom immediately ran towards the source. He barely registered Cheon Hoyeon calling out to him as she arrived at the hermitage. His mind was consumed solely by that presence.

He sprinted wildly along the mountain path. Instinct guided him to Yeohwi’s location. Moments earlier, his head had been pounding from the complex truths he had confronted, but now his focus was entirely on Yeohwi.

He needed to see him.

Ryubeom didn’t know what to say or how to say it, but he ran with all his might.

Finally, near the ruins of the Red Dan family’s mansion, he spotted Yeohwi. The black hem of Yeohwi’s robe fluttered in the wind, blending into the darkening sky.

Yeohwi stood at the cliff’s edge, accompanied by the Red Dan guardian spirit.

“Do as you please. Go to Jeon Seunghyeok first and kill him, torture him, whatever you wish.”

Yeohwi muttered, sounding bored. The spirit hadn’t emerged from the jar at the hermitage, so he had brought it to the ruins of the Red Dan mansion, where it finally reacted. He seemed weary from the long struggle, shaking his head.

“But after that, you must go to ‘that place.'”

[Groan, ugh…]

“Is it because it has a strong will? It’s quite stubborn…”

The spirit nodded, and Yeohwi enveloped it in a red aura. A vivid anger and hostility. It was a spell to enhance the spirit’s power.

As the spirit flew off into the distance, Yeohwi sensed someone approaching from behind. The presence was unmistakable, not even trying to hide.

“…Yeohwi.”

Cheon Ryubeom called out, not even catching his breath. His shaky voice sounded uncertain. The name felt foreign on his lips despite having called it countless times before. It had never felt this distant.

Slowly, Yeohwi turned his head.

His gaze was cold. He always smiled when their eyes met, but now he was simply cold. His dark red eyes held no warmth, and his face was expressionless. It was like looking at a perfectly crafted doll.

If there was any emotion to read, it was perhaps irritation.

“Did you… really turn the guardian spirits into demons? Why…?”

It felt so strange that Ryubeom started with something else. He didn’t know what to do, like someone lost in an unfamiliar place. Even knowing Yeohwi’s true identity, he couldn’t bring himself to speak of it. He tried to take a roundabout way, even knowing the confrontation was inevitable.

The ground was littered with the shattered fragments of the jar that had contained the Red Dan guardian spirit. Ryubeom alternated glances between it and Yeohwi.

Yeohwi, who had been observing his actions dryly, finally spoke.

“Have you ever thought that trying to memorialize the guardian spirits is hypocritical?”

“…What?”

“You felt sorry for the spirits trapped in the underground jars, but didn’t you ignore their desire for revenge and trap them in another jar at the hermitage? Did they even ask for comfort?”

As if pointing out the contradiction, Yeohwi rested his hand on his chin. He mentioned that the spirits, far from seeking comfort, had leapt out of the jars with just a little encouragement. Ryubeom noticed the absence of the prayer beads that had always been on Yeohwi’s wrist.

“You couldn’t even have a proper conversation with the spirits, yet you made one-sided judgments. You pitied them, thinking they’d die in vain if they sought revenge, so you decided to comfort them and send them off. It’s a patronizing and hypocritical thought.”

“…”

“Some comfort can only be found in revenge.”

The soft-spoken words carried a hint of mockery. His eyes, set against the monochrome sky, looked faded and murky.

Ryubeom couldn’t respond to Yeohwi’s words. Whether he couldn’t refute the points made or was simply struck speechless by the final projection, opening his mouth felt impossible.

He had run all the way here to see Yeohwi, but now that they were face-to-face, his thoughts came to a halt. Paralyzed, Ryubeom stood rooted to the spot, unable to move. Even that felt difficult, as if he might collapse at any moment.

Yeohwi stood at the cliff’s edge, quietly watching Ryubeom. The distance between them remained unbridgeable. Ryubeom couldn’t step forward, and Yeohwi didn’t approach.

“Judging by your expression, it seems you know who I am now…”

Yeohwi tilted his head, as if he couldn’t understand. His black hair, devoid of any light, shifted slightly.

“Why did you come here, knowing you were foolishly used?”

Ryubeom felt cut by the cold, sharp gaze. The blunt criticism was unfamiliar. He finally managed to speak.

“I…”

“Our young master was quite naive.”

But Yeohwi cut him off after just one word, mocking him as if he didn’t want to hear what Ryubeom had to say.

“You seemed to have a severe lack of affection. It made you easy to handle, but you were so clingy.”

Yeohwi scoffed, saying that after their first meeting, Ryubeom had called him a benefactor and quickly let down his guard, sharing all the internal affairs of his family. Using children to close the distance had been easy.

Ryubeom watched in a daze as Yeohwi shattered their past piece by piece. There was no hesitation in his actions.

The truth that their first meeting was a deception and that their growing closeness was all orchestrated pierced Ryubeom. Even though he had realized Yeohwi’s true identity, hearing the truth from Yeohwi himself was brutal.

He was just used, and their time together was all a lie.

“How foolish do you have to be to swallow such poison without question? Not knowing you’d die when your body exploded in Daehogwan…”

The word ‘poison’ left Ryubeom feeling faint. There was only one thing he had ever taken from Yeohwi. The reason Yeohwi had taught him mental spells was not out of kindness but to poison him.

Because he was a benefactor, a friend. These were all just convenient excuses.

“…So what I was taking all this time was really poison.”

Even though he had suspected it, it felt strange. The plan was to secretly place a curse in the mansion’s spiritual core, which only those with Cheon family blood could enter, to break the protective barrier from within. It was easier to destroy the barrier from the inside than from the outside, creating a path for the fox clan head to enter.

Ryubeom muttered bitterly, touching his neck. For a moment, Yeohwi’s gaze fell on the scarred spot where Ryubeom had scratched earlier. It was an unconscious movement.

Yeohwi turned his head away sharply.

“All that effort, and it became useless because things went awry. Did you really think you could escape with that brand? Instead of entering Daehogwan, you’ll end up like your parents outside.”

“…”

“At least you’re useful in this way.”

The guardian spirits harbored anger towards the tiger clan. Though they couldn’t match the elders’ power alone, Yeohwi’s added energy made them formidable weapons. They could also destroy businesses associated with the tiger clan.

The spirits were especially useful in breaking the mansion’s barrier. The barrier not only protected but also reflected attacking energy back at the assailant. But spirits consumed by rage wouldn’t care. They would sacrifice themselves for revenge.

Swoosh…

A heavy wind swept through the space, chilling it. Ryubeom could only drop fragmented words like a broken person.

“I, I mean…”

What did he want to say to Yeohwi? Did he want to confront him about the betrayal, or lament the cruelty of his words? He didn’t know. He had run here, sensing Yeohwi’s presence, but now that he faced him, he couldn’t say anything. He just couldn’t.

In the past, Cheon Ryubeom once felt that Yeohwi resembled a ruin—a desolate place, barely maintaining form after being abandoned for a long time. He seemed like someone who had endured in a lonely place for ages…

Now, understanding why he had that impression of Yeohwi, Ryubeom could only listen quietly. Despite knowing he had been deceived and fed terrible poison, he stood silently.

Yeohwi’s gaze sank even lower at Ryubeom’s reaction.

“…Seems like you found out something unnecessary.”

Yeohwi muttered softly. Considering the presence of ‘that being’ at the hermitage, it was likely Ryubeom had learned about the past. Moreover, Ryubeom had seen part of the memory in Jeju.

Struggling, Ryubeom nodded and moved forward, extending a hand toward Yeohwi. He wanted to hold onto Yeohwi, who seemed like he would disappear forever, to talk to him. Having just learned the whole truth, he felt confused and wanted to plead for a bit more time, thinking he might find the words if given a chance.

But as Yeohwi glanced at Ryubeom’s approaching face, he turned his head away again.

“Enough. I don’t need you anymore.”

As if there was nothing left to see, Yeohwi took a step back. He moved towards the cliff without hesitation.

Ryubeom, startled, rushed forward, only to see a white silhouette fading into the distance. The nine tails dissipating in the air quickly moved away. Ryubeom stared blankly.

The emotions he experienced for the first time were excruciating. Negative emotions had been close companions for the past decade, but knowing Yeohwi was entangled in those feelings made everything feel unbearably heavy and sharp.

“Cheon Ryubeom!”

A desperate shout pierced Ryubeom’s ears as he looked down at the cliff below.

It was Cheon Hoyeon. She had wanted to follow Ryubeom immediately but had to deal with the chaos at the hermitage first. On her way to find Ryubeom, she sensed the fox clan head’s presence.

Cheon Hoyeon checked Ryubeom’s condition with a pale face. Thankfully, he wasn’t injured, but he looked dazed as if deeply hurt.

She had many questions for him. Had he just met the fox clan head? Who had he been with outside all this time? Judging by the malicious energy she felt from Cheon Ryubeom’s body, it was clear he hadn’t consumed poison only once.

But in the end, Cheon Hoyeon swallowed her questions. She sensed that asking anything now would yield no answers. More importantly, there was something urgent to address.

“We need to escape quickly. No one can know you’ve been associated with the fox clan head.”

The tiger family head would soon realize that the demons attacking the event and the mansion were guardian spirits. And he would easily discern that those spirits were created by the elders. Cheon Gun had always suspected the elders’ actions to some extent, but he hadn’t paid attention as long as it didn’t harm the family’s prestige.

Cheon Gun would surely wonder how the fox clan head had obtained the spirits created by the elders. He would first suspect the elders, but they would reveal everything to prove their innocence. Admitting to the illicit dealings with humans and the creation of spirits, even confessing that they had caused the death of the family head’s youngest daughter, was preferable to being seen as conspiring with the fox clan head. Otherwise, they would face execution.

While theorizing other reasons, there was a fear that Ryubeom might be exposed. The elders didn’t know about the brand on Cheon Ryubeom, but they knew he had visited Kyung Jaehwan.

Cheon Hoyeon had also been educated to see the fox clan as enemies. But after years of searching for the fox clan head alongside Cheon Gun, she found his hatred for the fox clan head unsettling.

And even if she still saw the fox clan as enemies, she couldn’t let Ryubeom be taken away. So instead of pressing him, she grasped his shoulders again and spoke firmly.

“You must hide until all this is over. You mustn’t be discovered.”

Cheon Gun would likely summon all clan members, but she could cover for Cheon Ryubeom by saying he was severely injured while searching Sagwido. With the fox clan head’s sudden attack, there would be no time to worry about one absence.

Though it was regrettable that the guardian spirits had all turned into demons, the remaining ones’ safety was paramount now. The hermitage’s barrier had been completely broken by the spirits, so they needed to go far away. Cheon Hoyeon, having restructured her plan, firmly led Ryubeom away.

Even as he was being led, Ryubeom couldn’t take his eyes off the cliff.