Ja Yun paced back and forth around the house, wringing her tail nervously.

“Do you really have to go?”

Eunae sighed and smiled softly, stepping forward to gently cup Yun’s cheek.

“Of course I do. Unlike you, I am not a citizen of Jiaguo, and I still have a duty to my queen. Now stop fretting, I’m sure I’ll be back before you know it.”

She gave Yun a kiss on the forehead, making her blush adorably, but doing little to assuage her anxiety.

“But what if something happens? Tribulations are dangerous!”

“Yun, I’m returning home because tribulations are dangerous. I’m not as talented as Yan Yue, and while Jiaguo’s resources are significant, we still don’t have anything that compares to Goryeo’s Sky Hall.”

“Maybe I can go with you—you’ll need an escort, right?”

Eunae giggled and shook her head.

“Yun, I love you, but I think we can both agree that the military was not where you belonged. You’ve left the martial life behind, and you’re happier for it. Besides, you have more important duties here.”

Ja Yun reached up to hold Eunae’s hand against her cheek, nuzzling into it and pouting.

“Tae In-Su and Beishang can handle things on their own for a bit. I want to stay with you.”

“And what about Rika?”

Right on cue, Takeda Rika came in from the courtyard, her bronze skin still glistening from her daily exercises.

“Yeah, what about me? What are we talking about? Aww, are you two cuddling up without me?”

Ja Yun backed away and blushed like she’d been caught doing something inappropriate, but Eunae just chuckled.

“I was just telling our precious little lioness that I’d be going away for a while. She’s going to miss me, so I do hope you’ll take good care of her in my absence.”

Rika grinned and pulled both of them into a quick hug.

“I think I can manage that. But I’m going to miss you too, you know.”

Eunae cocked her head and cast a sidelong glance at Yun.

“Then I suppose you’ll both have to take care of each other, won’t you? Can I leave our girlfriend in your capable hands, Ja Yun?”

“Y-yes ma’am.”

“Good girl.”

She gave Yun a little pat on the head. Even after five years, that sort of condescension didn’t come naturally to her, but Ja Yun was a bit of a strange girl, and she liked being talked down to. It was cute, and Eunae enjoyed making her happy, even if that meant occasionally stepping slightly outside of her own comfort zone.

Rika chuckled, squeezing Yun a little tighter to her side.

“We’ll do our best to manage without you for a while, but I look forward to making up for lost time when you get back. Any idea how long it’s going to be?”

Eunae shook her head sadly.

“I’m afraid not. Ultimately, it depends on how long my breakthrough takes, and whether my aunt has plans for me afterwards. It could be weeks, or it could be years.”

Ja Yun’s face fell.

“Years?!”

Rika tousled her hair and smiled.

“It’s fine! You’ll stay in touch, right? Yoshika will be with you, so communication will be easy.”

Eunae giggled.

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to know that you’ve reduced her to a living speaking stone.”

“Pfft, you know what I mean. You’ll be away, but you won’t be gone. Our fearless leader is good at keeping people connected.”

“She is at that. Speaking of which, I’d better get going. Yoshika is attempting to hold a conference between the world leaders gathered in the city, and I need to make sure it’s not a disaster.”

Rika laughed and shook her head.

“Good luck with that! I’m going to go wash off—oh, and it looks like I accidentally got Yun all dirty with my sweat. I guess we’ll just have to go clean up together.”

Eunae couldn’t help but laugh at how obvious she was being.

“You two have fun with that.”

“Oh, we will!”

Yun couldn’t even respond, her face turning redder than her hair as Rika dragged her along to the bath. Eunae sighed as she watched them go. She put on a brave face, but the truth was that she was going to miss them just as much as they missed her.

----------------------------------------

Yoshika’s conference hadn’t even begun and it was already falling apart. Seong Misun and Ashikaga Sae obviously didn’t even want to be there, and the Qin princesses seemed to consider themselves as more of an audience to the spectacle, rather than active participants.

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It was a miracle that she’d even managed to get them all in one place, and she was determined not to waste the rare opportunity no matter how belligerent her audience may be. Thankfully, she was not alone. Yue, Eunae, and Lin Xiulan joined the table to lend their support, but it was going to be an uphill battle.

“Thank you all for coming. I’ve gathered you here to take the opportunity to discuss international relations, and the future of our continent. Our world stands on a dangerous precipice, and I fear that in our petty squabbles, we will lose sight of that and unwittingly hurl ourselves into the abyss.”

Seong Misun crossed her arms under her chest and scoffed.

“Jiaguo and Goryeo are already allies, and you have the Sovereign’s Tear. What more is there to discuss?”

“The danger we face didn’t pass when the divine artifact was recovered. The divine seal cutting us off from the heavens still threatens to eventually destroy our entire world, and the only person with any insight on how to break it was executed without my knowledge or consultation.”

Misun gripped her arms tightly and averted her eyes, clenching her teeth in frustration.

“It wasn’t my decision to make, Yoshika.”

Qin Xiang raised a hand for attention, but spoke without waiting to be called on.

“The seal was put in place by Sovereign Shen Yu and his fellow rulers of the Divine Realm because the Sovereign’s Tear was such a dangerous artifact. Rather than the seal itself, why not focus on destroying the artifact?”

Her sister nodded in agreement.

“Shen Yu has the direct support of our father, as well. I sympathize with your concerns, but it is a matter for the gods. Our father, God-Emperor, acts on behalf of our world.”

Lin Xiulan gave the twins an arch look.

“Oh, and you just believe that, do you? Tell me, when has your father ever acted on anyone’s behalf other than his own?”

Qin Xiang waved her off dismissively.

“I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here, Lin Xiulan. What nonsense have you been whispering in her ear, hm? It wasn’t enough to reject our invitation, start a war that you lost, then drag your so-called ‘husband’ down from grace with you?”

“Oh please! Empress Yoshika didn’t need any help from me to unravel the God-Emperor’s web of lies and oppression. Shen Yu and your father work together because they are the same—fragile old men who seek only to increase their power at any cost.”

Yoshika slammed her hands on the table to interrupt.

“Stop! Please! I know we all have our differences, but we don’t need to fight. I know that we can work together, just as we did to repel the demons who took over this land after the descent of the gods.”

Qin Xiang scoffed.

“A coalition effort which ultimately benefited only you, Lady Yoshika.”

Qin Ling frowned and shook her head.

“Putting that aside for the moment, even if we agreed in principle, what sort of cooperation do you have in mind?”

Yoshika took a quick breath to steady herself. Finally, things were back on track.

“I’m glad you asked. With the death of Do Hye, there’s only one being in the world with any understanding of the divine seal—Sovereign Shen. I believe that if we work together, we can find a solution that benefits all of us.”

The princess of Qin sighed.

“Even if we wanted to help you, Sovereign Shen acts on his own authority, and the sects are granted the freedom to contribute to the empire in whatever manner they see fit. At best, we could forward your offer to him.”

Qin Xiang scowled.

“And that’s if we want to help you. What proof do we have that these apocalyptic claims of yours are even true, aside from the word of a world-renowned con-artist?”

Seong Misun drummed her fingers on the table and furrowed her brows.

“Not just The Snake’s word. My research confirms it—whether it’s spirits, lost souls, or just loose mana, all essence gradually seeps through the fabric of reality.”

“And how does that prove anything?”

“My research was primarily focused on the mechanisms by which essence shifts between realms. Our physical reality is sandwiched between two mirror planes—elemental and spiritual, but it’s not a clean border. There’s overlap—a fuzzy sort of in-between area that’s almost a realm unto itself.”

Yoshika already knew most of this, as Heian’s Shadowflame had been the impetus for inspiring Seong Misun’s interest in the subject in the first place, after she’d opened a portal to that very in-between area she was describing. They’d dubbed it the shadow realm.

“This shadow realm is currently the closest thing our world has to an afterlife. Lost souls wander aimlessly there, attracted to strong sources of life, or those close to death. Eventually those shades dissipate and their essence seeps away, but where do you suppose it goes?”

Qin Xiang shrugged.

“I’m sure you’ll tell us.”

Misun gave her a predatory grin.

“Not too long ago, I wouldn’t have been able to. It doesn’t come back to the physical realm, but it doesn’t leak out into the spiritual or elemental realms, either. I had to develop a spell that lets me travel freely between realms to find the answer.”

“Good for you. Are you ever going to get to the point?”

“I’ll skip to the end for you—there is a realm beyond the physical, spiritual, and elemental realms, but there shouldn’t be. Our world should be surrounded by nothingness—a nearly eternal void through which we must find our way to ascend to the heavens. Instead we have the opposite—an ocean of overwhelming abundance. A place where the mana is so dense and chaotic that even viewing it from afar nearly killed me.”

Yoshika frowned.

“Do Hye suggested that the essence from the Sovereign’s Tear is slowly spreading out through the entire world, gradually increasing in pressure until it will eventually overwhelm the divine seal in a catastrophic explosion.”

“He was wrong. It’s pooling against the seal. I can’t tell you what that means, but I do know that Do Hye’s models all assumed that the increase in mana density he’d been observing was something that had been happening at a slow, but steady rate for eons.”

It took a moment for Misun’s words to sink in, then Yoshika’s heart dropped.

“You mean that it hasn’t?”

The princess shook her head.

“I don’t have Do Hye’s data, but my hypothesis is that the changes started happening more recently—within the last thousand years or so—and they’re accelerating.”

Eunae gave her sister a wide-eyed look.

“When were you planning on telling people about this?”

“When it seemed appropriate to do so. The only things I can verify is that the divine seal is real and that the world is accumulating essence. I can’t be certain of the rest.”

“And if your hypothesis is correct, then what?”

Misun shrugged.

“Then Do Hye’s timelines were off. By a lot. Orders of magnitude.”

Yoshika felt the blood draining from her face.

“How many? He said we had thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years before the effects even became noticeable.”

“They might have already become noticeable. There was a huge spike in mana density around twenty five years ago. The colleges were never able to figure out why and wrote it off as an anomaly, but—and I have to stress, this is just conjecture—that may have been the first crack forming.”

Ashikaga, who’d been content to mope sullenly through the entire meeting, leaned forward and frowned.

“Forget all the fancy magic talk—how long do we have?”

Misun huffed.

“I don’t know! I could be wrong, and we do have tens of thousands of years to prepare. But if I’m not, and my adjustments to Do Hye’s models are accurate—which is a very big if—then...it’s closer to ten.”