2: 2

2

The Land Warden sighed, over and over. "So be it. Since your mind is made up, I'll pass what remains of my divine power to you."

Following the Land Warden's lead, the other water folk of the Rivers did the same, one after another.

Feeling the steady stream of spirit-power flow into my body, I looked at them all with gratitude.

"For a kindness this great, thanks are not enough."

Cloud gathered beneath my feet and carried me up. They waved after me, reluctant to let me go.

"Larkin, this is all we can do. You have to see your vengeance through, and come back safe."

I reached the Ninefold Heaven, masked my breath, chose my moment, and struck.

But the War God was, in the end, the War God.

In no more than thirty moves he had beaten the blood from my mouth, and every layer of my disguise shattered, baring my true face.

"Larkin?"

When he saw it was me, a flicker of surprise crossed Norman's face, then his expression went cold again.

"Back for revenge already? Are your wounds even healed?"

He gripped my chin, looking down at me from above.

"Didn't I tell you? Go home to the Rivers and stay there. Stop coming here to shame yourself."

I was covered in blood, and every small movement set me shaking hard.

Still I lifted my eyes, cold.

"Norman, don't forget I still haven't found where my father, my mother, and my sister are!"

"Even if it kills me, I will never give up my revenge."

This blood feud that could not share the same sky under it, I would carry to my death.

Norman gave a short, scornful laugh and let me go, careless. "You really are stubborn to the bone."

He seemed to feel my blood had dirtied his hand. He drew out a handkerchief, wiped it clean, then threw the cloth onto my face in disgust.

"Larkin, for the sake of what once was between us, I won't hurt you."

"But if you keep on like this, refusing to know what's good for you,"

"then don't blame me if I take your inner core too, to nourish Moira Sullivan."

Norman dropped the words coldly and turned to leave.

I watched that blood-stained handkerchief drift to the ground, and it had even gathered a trace of demonic air about it.

The year we pledged our love, I had embroidered it myself and given it to him.

Now an embroidered pouch made by Moira's own hands hung at his waist, and this handkerchief no longer meant a thing to him.

My heart clenched all at once. I closed my eyes, and with everything I had, I caught hold of the hem of Norman's robe.

"Please. Tell me where my father, my mother, and my sister are."

Norman stopped abruptly and turned back, frowning.

"Larkin, your parents are of a cultivator clan."

"Even without their inner cores, ruined, it doesn't matter."

"Given time, if fortune finds them, they can cultivate their way back to immortality. If you truly went looking, you might even find them."

"Moira said she spared their lives and cast them down to the mortal realm."

But we are bound by blood, and I felt it clearly. It was not that simple.

They were telling me to go to the mortal realm and search for my reborn parents and sister.

But I had long since sensed it. They were no longer in this world at all.

Even if they had been reduced to mortals, or fallen all the way to the Underworld,

so long as a single breath of life remained in them,

I could never be as I was now, unable to feel them at all.

"Norman, that's a lie!"

I stared hard at the War God Norman. "Look me in the eyes and tell me. Where are my father, my mother, and my sister now?"

"You call me your betrothed at every turn. You're the War God. Have you ever once protected the people standing behind you?"

Norman's face went pale, anger stirring at the bottom of his eyes. "Larkin, how dare you. You dare insult this War God!"

I spat at him, cold.

"Norman, you hold your post and do nothing, you conspire with the demon clan. You disgrace the name of War God!"

"Silence!"

Norman lost his temper and grabbed me by the collar.

"Larkin, do you really think this War God dotes on you, cherishes you, and won't dare do a thing to you?"

Dotes on me. Cherishes me. Well.

Enough to take the very lives of my father, my mother, and my sister, and then do everything in his power to stop me from avenging them.

"Oh? Norman, a guest again?"

Moira's coy voice came from behind me.

Dressed all in pink, she came toward us with slow, mincing steps.

"Moira, didn't I tell you to stay at the Jade Pool? Why have you come?"

At the sight of her, Norman shoved me away and his tone turned gentle as he went forward to meet her.

"I heard someone had come to assassinate you. I was so curious I wanted to see for myself."

"I never expected another old acquaintance."

Moira looked down at me from above.

"So you're Norman's betrothed, Nerissa's little sister, Larkin?"

I turned my face away in humiliation.

She smiled, all provocation, even sticking her tongue out at me, then leaned in close and sniffed hard, letting out a satisfied sigh.

"Mm. So fragrant."

"Get away from me, you demon witch!"

I snatched up the thousand-year divine sword from the ground, but before I could bring it down on Moira, Norman had his foot on my wrist bone.

He bore down with all his weight, and the bone ground with a cracking, grinding sound.

But I clenched my teeth and refused, utterly, to let out a single cry of pain.

3: 3

3

"Larkin, it was high time someone made you suffer a little."

Norman sighed, and with strained patience he explained.

"Larkin, you all misjudge the demon clan. Not every one of them is wicked. Moira is kind-hearted, kinder and sweeter than a great many of the fairies."

"Once you spend more time together, you'll come to understand her—"

I couldn't stop myself from laughing coldly.

He'd been bewitched clean out of his wits. Norman was truly beyond saving.

"Norman, don't be so harsh with little Larkin."

Moira leaned in close, amused, and tipped my chin up.

"You've got nerve, I'll give you that. Failed once, and still you came back to try to kill me a second time."

There was a trace of admiration and interest in the way she looked at me.

"If you were among the demon clan, a little thing like you, I'd fight to have you for my own."

"Pity you're too fiery as you are now. That temper still needs grinding down."

She said that one day, when I'd come to my senses, she would take me on as a serving maid.

To cultivate at her side.

Norman only knit his brows a little, and agreed.

"Take her away. Down to the water dungeon. Torment her thoroughly, and grind that temper out of her."

From that day on, I became a condemned deity of the Ninefold Heaven.

No home to return to, a blood debt I couldn't repay, and on top of it all, their torment and humiliation.

Worse still, Moira seemed to make a game of tormenting me.

Whenever there was a palace banquet in the Ninefold Heaven, she had me brought out to watch.

To watch how she reigned above every deity, how she trod the War God's own betrothed beneath her heel, how she basked in a glory unmatched.

I endured it, numb and humiliated, one thought alone in my head. Stay alive.

Only if I lived could I have my revenge!

Then, at one banquet, Moira grew merry from all the flattery and drank two cups, and I saw two ram's horns break through the top of her head!

Only for an instant, and then everything was as it had been.

But beneath the hem of her skirt, those dainty bound feet had become a ram's hooves!

Back in the water dungeon, I used the puppet-substitution technique my parents had quietly taught me, and made my way to the phoenix clan.

The moment they saw me, their mouths fell open in shock. "You, you, you—" they stammered on and on.

"You... you're actually the young heir of our phoenix clan!"

"The young heir has returned..."

"Quiet! Don't breathe a word of this."

It was also five years ago, when I returned from my mortal trials, that the phoenix clan discovered my existence by chance.

The Phoenix Sovereign came to see me herself, and only then did they learn I was the very phoenix egg she had carelessly lost five hundred years ago.

But if my true identity were made known, both the Rivers water clan and the phoenix clan would be thrown into upheaval.

All I wanted now was to avenge my parents and my sister. I had no wish to return to the phoenix clan, so I would say what I'd come to say and be quick about it.

"I've heard the phoenix clan holds a Wordless Celestial Scroll that can unravel every mystery under heaven. I'd like to borrow it."

Before this, I had asked friends among the beast clans to look into Moira's origins.

But they searched and searched and turned up nothing.

It wasn't until I came to the phoenix clan and opened the Wordless Celestial Scroll that I found my answer.

"You said... her name is Moira?"

"Yes."

"Moira. It means a woman of the ram."

The little figure the Wordless Celestial Scroll conjured told me this with perfect gravity.

"She is no ordinary ram spirit."

"She is what the ancient records name a four-legged, man-eating beast, shaped like a ram yet no ram at all. She is called Tulou."

Creatures like the Tulou had existed for no one knew how many thousands, tens of thousands of years.

Everyone had believed them sealed away and extinct long ago.

Yet they had gone on shedding their skins, even wearing painted hides to hide their true forms.

Behind it all they carried out every kind of vile scheme, raising their own power through every manner of dark cultivation.

Having told me all this, the Wordless Celestial Scroll looked at me with pity.

"Larkin, your enemy is a Tulou. Such a monster is craftier and more troublesome than the rest of the demon clan."

"A thousand years ago they devoured people without end. Raw human flesh."

"But now their ambition grows ever larger. They mean to devour the god clans too, and rise in a single step to godhood."

"And from what you say, she has the War God Norman to shield her. If you mean to take your revenge, I'm afraid it will be harder still. I can only wish you luck."

My heart sank to the bottom, and I very nearly ground my teeth to dust.

Devouring humans, and now wanting to devour the god clans...

Then my parents and my sister had never had their inner cores torn out by her at all!

No wonder I could catch not a breath of their presence...

I left the phoenix clan and, in a daze, set out to return to the water dungeon of the Ninefold Heaven.

But I had barely passed the Southern Heaven Gate when I heard the palace servants, bright with joy, hurrying to spread the word.

"Have you heard? That Moira woman the War God brought back is with child!"

4: 4

4

“What? Wasn't she a woman of the demon clan?”

“Then what's being born, a god or a demon?”

“Who can say? I heard the unborn child in her belly is prized above everything. Even the Celestial Emperor came down in person to pay his respects.”

The whole Ninefold Heaven was celebrating together.

There were even wilder rumors going around.

That the child of Moira and the War God would be the heaven-chosen one, the divine emperor to come.

Norman was beside himself with joy, and Moira basked in honor that not even the goddesses of the Ninefold Heaven had ever known.

And I knew this was all Moira's doing.

A head-on fight for revenge was no longer possible now.

So I could only shift my strategy fast, pretend to give up on vengeance, and show my submission.

“My father, my mother, and my sister are all dead. The dead don't come back.”

“Since Moira is already carrying your child, I have no choice but to accept it.”

“Cross the mother of the future divine emperor, and death is the only road left to me.”

Norman finally let out a breath, his face soft with relief.

“Larkin, you should have come to your senses long ago. I always knew you were good and sensible, that you'd see how wonderful Moira is.”

Moira looked at me too, thoroughly satisfied.

Her eyes were bright with another kind of surging hunger.

“Larkin, since you're willing to submit to me, I certainly won't treat you badly.”

The War God's former betrothed, now Moira's serving maid.

In less than half a day the news had spread across the three realms.

I made a trip back to the Rivers, where the Land Warden and a crowd of the Rivers water clan watched me with worried eyes.

“Larkin, we heard you've become that demon woman's serving maid. Have you given up your revenge?”

I pressed my lips tight. “Land Warden, if I want revenge, the ordinary road won't get me there.”

“Believe me. I'm still the Larkin who would rather die than forget her hatred. There are reasons I'm doing this, hard ones.”

This trip back, I had come to take the Rivers' greatest treasure and offer it to Moira.

“You can't catch the wolf if you're not willing to lose the shoe.”

“If my mother and father knew, they would understand what I have to do.”

On the way back, a nine-tailed fox, her whole body white as snow, stepped out and stopped me.

“Larkin, our Verdant Hill fox clan has heard about what happened to your parents and Nerissa.”

“The War God colluding with the demon clan has enraged gods and mortals alike. If you mean to take revenge, our Verdant Hill will lend you our strength.”

I was deeply grateful, and struck by how perfectly this help had come.

“Nine-Tailed Fox, could you do me a favor?”

“The Wordless Celestial Scroll told me Moira is a ram woman, a Tulou. Could you go down to the mortal realm and look into where this kind of beast comes from, and what can kill it?”

“Of course. Leave it to me!”

The Nine-Tailed Fox thumped her chest in promise, saying she'd go down to the mortal realm to find out.

When she came back, her face was full of anger as she told me.

“Larkin, you have no idea how monstrous Moira's kind really are!”

“From ancient times to now they've done the same vile, filthy thing. They swallow people whole to feed themselves and take on their shape.”

“They're the worst demons of all!”

So it turned out this kind of beast had long been talked about across the mortal realm, shunned like a viper.

She had eaten people without end and shaped herself into human form.

Now, with a little cultivation, she had taken the shape of a demon-clan woman, and even so she still wasn't satisfied.

She actually wanted to devour the god clans and become ruler of the three realms.

She feared fire.

She loved to eat raw meat and drink ice water.

And even in pregnancy she bore a whole litter.

My heart lurched. Yesterday Moira had already given birth without trouble, a whole litter of young, five females and one male.

I quickly grabbed the Nine-Tailed Fox. “Then what can kill her?”

The Nine-Tailed Fox glanced warily around, then crooked a finger at me. “Lean in close.”

And so, at another banquet.

I mixed some fresh blood into the wine I handed to Moira.

She took a sip and praised me, thoroughly pleased.

“Larkin, you really do have a clever heart. You understand us of the demon clan. But……this blood tastes a little strange. Whose blood is it?”

I lifted my eyes coldly. “Ram's blood.”

Moira's face changed in an instant, and the cup in her hand shattered on the floor.

“You know my true identity?”

She gave a wicked smile and leaned in toward me, taunting.

“Then do you also know that I already ate your father, your mother, and your sister?”

My fists clenched.

Moira licked her tongue, and that boastful voice went right on.

“But those two old bones of your parents were no good. The meat was stringy and tough, not tasty at all.”

“Your sister Nerissa had the finest flavor of all.”

“Before I met you, I thought Nerissa was the most delicious thing there was. But it turns out you smell even sweeter……”

“Larkin, you're just an ordinary member of the Rivers water clan. So what if you know who I am? What can you possibly do to me?”

The breath-masking pill was still working on me.

Everyone believed I was only an ordinary water-clan girl. No one could see the phoenix bloodline within me.

I lifted my eyes coldly. “Moira, today is the day you die!”

Moira laughed out loud, as if she'd heard a joke.

“On the strength of you, a defeated little wretch?”

“Larkin, have you forgotten you bowed and called yourself my servant not long ago? And my newborn child is the divine emperor to come……”

“I spit on that! Moira, you're nothing but a ram woman.”

The Nine-Tailed Fox could take it no longer and rushed out, shouting. “Future divine emperor? Anything a crawling worm like you gives birth to will only be a monster!”

Moira tilted her head and smiled. “A crawling worm? Aren't you just a fox spirit yourself?”

“Don't drag us down into your filth. We nine-tailed foxes are of the god clans, nothing like vermin monsters such as you!”

The Nine-Tailed Fox had a quick temper and went straight for the killing blows, provoking Moira to fury in a few strokes.

“Fox demon, you're the one who started this!”

Moira meant to kill the Nine-Tailed Fox, and nearly severed several of her tails. Every time I saw the fox losing ground, I struck from behind to help her.

After a few rounds Moira grew desperate and turned to me, her face full of hatred.

“Larkin, I underestimated you!”

“I never imagined you'd been lying in wait at my side all this time. Today I'll make you a dish on my plate, the same end as your sister!”

“Is that so? I'm afraid you won't get to enjoy that meal.”

I lifted my eyes coldly and swept my hand back.

The Grand Sage's alchemy furnace appeared before us in an instant.

Moira's face changed. “What is this?”

It seemed the Nine-Tailed Fox had been right. The Tulou feared fire, above all the Grand Sage's sacred alchemy flames.

“Moira, didn't you say I was no match for you?”

I flew to her side, my gaze fierce, and though my skin split open and I was covered in blood, I held Moira fast.

And dragged her with me into the Grand Sage's alchemy furnace.

“Then let's die together!”