Eunae led Eui back to her spacious carriage so that they could speak in private. Seong Haeun, the royal clan’s youngest princess, and her maid Hyeong Aecha awaited them within. Haeun bowed politely in greeting as they entered.

“Welcome, Lady Yoshika. It’s good to see you well.”

Eui frowned at the stiffly formal greeting.

“I hope you’re not planning on greeting Narae like that, she’s going to be excited to meet you again and it’ll break her heart if you act like a stranger.”

Haeun blushed slightly, but straightened her back and raised her chin.

“I’m no longer a child. It is unbefitting for a princess of Goryeo to lose her composure.”

“First of all, you’re what, ten? You are absolutely still a child. Second, now that we’re the head of a nation, Narae’s basically a princess of Jiaguo herself.”

The little princess’ eyes lit up and she leaned forward, her five tails swishing excitedly behind her.

“Really?! I-I mean—”

She sat back and put her hands in her lap, averting her eyes and forcing her tails to be still.

“That is well.”

Eunae sighed and smiled apologetically as she took a seat next to her sister.

“Sorry about that. Aecha’s been in charge of Haeun’s etiquette training, and ever since discovering that Aecha is Dae’s sister, she’s been taking it very seriously.”

Aecha frowned slightly, adjusting her glasses.

“I’d like to think that the Little Mistress has been engaging with the subject on its own merits.”

Eunae gestured helplessly towards her.

“Quite a pair, aren’t they? I almost regret leaving Haeun in her care.”

Eui chuckled.

“It’s fine. Haeun’s as cute as ever, and is that another tail I see? Keeping up with your big sister, huh?”

Haeun shook her head.

“The elder sisters may consider it a cheap trick, but I can feel the power they emanate. Eunae’s spiritual tails are as real as her physical ones—she should rightfully be the clan mother now that she’s surpassed Mother Eunhee.”

Eunae shook her head and waved her hands urgently.

“Don’t say that! If anybody heard you...!”

It took Eui a moment to process what Haeun was saying. The Seong clan had a strange approach to family dynamics, and she wasn’t used to people acknowledging them as anything more than a formality.

‘Elder Sisters’ would refer to the other women in the Seong clan, including Haeun’s own mother and cousins. All of them were considered princesses, ‘daughters’ of the clan mother—Haeun’s aunt, Seong Eunhee.

Rather than being a hereditary position, the clan mother was determined by the ‘purity’ with which they represented their spiritual ancestor Kumiho, the nine-tailed fox. The Kumiho was an ancient great spirit, and each daughter of the Seong clan carried a fragment of her within them. The stronger that fragment, the more tails they developed.

Only one person had ever come close to manifesting all nine, and that was Seong Heiran—a tyrannical madwoman who had died over a century ago, and also the only other member of the clan to share Eunae’s bewitching gaze.

“Haeun, you need to consider things more carefully.”

Eui’s words drew the attention of all three girls, and she chose her next words very carefully.

“Eunae’s spiritual tails may be real, but they haven’t fully manifested yet, have they? Your clan sisters probably recognized this. She has the potential, but she’s not ready to be the clan mother just yet. Isn’t that right, Eunae?”

Eunae gave her a silent thanks with her eyes and nodded.

“That’s right! And since your power is developing so quickly, you might still get there before me! That’s why Aunt Eunhee agreed to allow you to attend Jiaguo’s Grand Academy, so that you could learn to harness your power as I did.”

The little princess crossed her arms and pouted, forgetting all about the facade of decorum she’d been maintaining.

“I still don’t think it’s fair. Everyone is mean to you for no reason, even though you work so hard...”

“Not everyone. I can always count on my precious little sister for support.”

Haeun blushed and looked away. It was a heartwarming sight, but Eui had to get them back on track.

“That’s adorable and all, but when you brought me here for a private chat, I wasn’t expecting that to mean more people.”

Eunae sighed.

“Haeun, for better or worse, has been fully apprised as part of the clan’s ongoing efforts to groom her as the next queen, while Aecha was present for the interrogation because Hwang Sung has apparently forgotten the meaning of the word ‘ethical.’”

Eui frowned, not sure what to make of that. Aecha adjusted her glasses and offered a clarification.

“I was unwittingly used as a pawn to manipulate Do Hye, due to my connection with Magus Hyeong Daesung. I do not mind—the answers were enlightening, and I am happy to have served.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“I see. And what exactly were those answers?”

Eunae frowned.

“As you can probably imagine, even the more straightforward answers from Do Hye are cryptic and difficult to verify. The gist, from what we’ve been able to piece together from his statement, and the corroboration of the elementals, is this—

“Once, when the world was much younger, our realm had a small pantheon of lesser gods, most of whom had only recently ascended. When The Bloody Sovereign built the entrance to his tomb here, none of them even knew about it save for one—Do Hye. He was young, then—the first and only human to reach godhood in his time—and he had designs to become our world’s sovereign.

“But it was not to be. When the powers of heaven learned of Chou’s plot, they insisted on sealing this realm away, and delivered the gods an ultimatum—leave this realm or perish alongside it.

“Many left, but a few gave up their power and returned to the world as the beings we called great spirits. Our entire race is likely descended from those former deities, but I’ll get back to that.

“Do Hye was different. For the spirits who remained, it was as simple as just releasing their celestial bodies and returning to their original forms as pure essence. Most spirits are such singular beings that doing so barely constitutes a change in their natures. Not so for a human.

“For Do Hye, it wasn’t enough to preserve his nature—he wanted to maintain his sense of self, his memories, his ambitions. To that end, he perverted the cycle of reincarnation, destroying his divine spark but allowing his soul to be reborn into a new body with its own spark of potential—a process he called a soul jar technique.

“So he’s lived for millennia, occasionally repeating the process whenever he’s in need of a new identity or his power grows beyond what the divine seal will tolerate. He’s lived as humans, fiends, and most recently a half-spirit. He even claims to be one of the architects of the great schism that led our ancestors to break off from Qin over ten thousand years ago, binding our people to the fragmented great spirits in the process.”

Eui whistled appreciatively.

“That’s a pretty big story.”

“It’s not even the half of it, but I did my best to abbreviate what is essentially the entire history of our world. He had a lot more to say, but among the most important—and the real reason I wanted to speak to you so urgently—is that you are a nascent sovereign positioning yourself to become the ultimate god of this realm.”

Yoshika’s eyes widened—that was a secret that she had only shared with a very select group within her inner circle. She’d planned on telling Eunae about it eventually, but it was something she’d been very careful about.

She chose her words carefully.

“Right now our biggest concern is developing Jiaguo into a country that can stand proudly among the giants surrounding it.”

“I’m sure, and I argued as much to my family, but is it true that you intend to incorporate the entire world into your domain?”

Yoshika closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.

“That’s where our path is taking us, yes. Moreover, I believe that it’s the best future for us. The descended deities have been quiet lately, but I can’t imagine a world where they simply leave us be after everything that’s happened. Even if the divine seal is destroyed, I want us to remain independent from the heavens.”

Eunae frowned.

“I see. Then you should know that you aren’t alone—you have competition.”

“I do?”

“Do Hye described three others with similar designs. Himself—though in his words, he’s been dropped from the race—Emperor Qin, and the Kumiho.”

Eui blinked.

“Qin I’m not surprised by—I’d actually wondered about it myself—but Kumiho?! She’s not even alive anymore.”

Eunae pursed her lips.

“It was, apparently, my ancestor’s ultimate goal when she and the other great spirits created our race. Her fragments drive their hosts to seek power and control, supposedly in service to her ultimate reincarnation as a fully fledged deity once more.”

Eui grimaced. All spirits sought embodiment—a natural desire to become divine representations of their domains. But in half-spirits, that was almost entirely absent after centuries of increased fragmentation—with each parent passing on a piece of the spirit fragment within them.

“Hold on, though—your Kumiho fragment isn’t like that! Or, I mean, I guess it is a little—it did try to force us to help you learn to control your power, but it’s not like that now.”

“No, it’s not. But that’s because I’ve been able to commune with her directly and fully integrate her as a part of my own soul. Most of my clan experiences the Kumiho’s influence more subtly—as a sort of silent compulsion towards certain types of behavior, bolstered by centuries of tradition. It’s likely the reason we’ve stayed in power for so long.”

“And how did your family take that news?”

She sighed and shook her head.

“Ignored it, mostly. They think it’s nonsense, and even if it isn’t, a fully manifested reincarnation of our ancestor as a divine being ruling over the world isn’t exactly an undesirable outcome to them.”

“I take it you disagree?”

“Of course! I know what the true Kumiho is capable of. I may have ‘tamed’ my fragment, so to speak, but the closest anyone’s come to fully manifesting our ancestor was Seong Heiran. Misun and I both agree that a complete reincarnation of our ancestor would be a calamity.”

Eui’s jaw dropped.

“You and Misun agreed on something? And you didn’t have to blackmail or threaten her? Are you sure the calamity hasn’t already happened?”

Eunae rolled her eyes.

“Misun’s hatred of me stems from precisely the thing we agreed on—it wasn’t that hard to get her on board. Besides, we both know who the host of such a manifestation would be, and if there’s one thing my older sister and I have always had in common, it’s that we would do anything to protect our youngest sister.”

Haeun preened happily at Eunae’s mention of her before remembering herself and schooling her expression. Eui couldn’t help but grin at the adorable little brat’s antics.

“So despite all that, your family is still willing to work with me? Even to the point of sending Haeun here, under the care of their supposed rival? Not that I’d ever do anything to harm her.”

Eunae shrugged.

“Misun and I are taking Do Hye’s claims seriously, but arrogance runs in my family. Politically speaking, Jiaguo makes a good buffer between Goryeo and the other nations, and your advancements in cultivation techniques can’t be ignored. My aunt is also well aware of our friendship, and more than happy to take full advantage of it.”

“Right. So as long as we continue to be useful, pliable, and not a threat, they aren’t worried about how our grand designs may or may not intersect with theirs.”

“Precisely. My family wants you to teach Haeun the techniques that allowed me to overcome my limitations, in the hopes that it will raise her already considerable potential even higher and lead to the reincarnation of our spirit ancestor. Misun and I want you to teach her to control and contain her Kumiho fragment, as you did for me.”

Eui crossed her arms and scowled.

“Those are both the same thing, though. There’s a fine line between growing more in tune with her inner spirit and increasing its influence over her.”

“I know how much I’m asking, but you’re the only person—people, I can entrust with this. Will you take Haeun on as a personal disciple?”

Yoshika glanced between Eunae’s pleading look, and Haeun’s poorly masked face of hopeful anticipation. Who needed a bewitching gaze with expressions like those?

“Gah, fine! I can’t say no to that look. But Haeun, we don’t make special exceptions even for our own little sister. You’re going to have to earn your place if you want to keep it, understood?”

Haeun nodded seriously.

“I promise to be a worthy student, Master Yoshika.”

Yoshika smiled at the stiff little princess. Narae was going to lose her mind when she found out.