In the wake of the Yeong clan’s chastisement, none of the other high nobles were willing to oppose Eunae as the new queen. The Kim were already allies, and Yi Gong had to tread carefully now that Yue had revealed how much they knew about his corruption. On the Seok clan’s side, Sun Jaehwa argued fervently in favor of Yoshika.

It was a little strange to see. Eui had made her peace with Jaehwa a long time ago, but she was still terrified that Yoshika would come after her for revenge. Perhaps that was what Jaehwa would have done in her place, and so she couldn’t understand the clemency that Eui had given her. Either way, she made her arguments in earnest, and it reminded Eui that Jaehwa could be quite charismatic and charming when she wanted to be.

A shame she was so rotten on the inside.

In the end, both Eunae’s leadership and the subsequent merger with the Jiaguo empire were unanimously accepted by the council. Yi Gong was at least bold enough to request assurance that the high lords would still be free to manage their own lands, and Yue was more than happy to lie to him with a smile on her face as she granted that assurance.

Once the meeting was adjourned and the lords escorted back to their preferred accommodations, Seong Min rushed back to confer with Yoshika, looking harrowed by the experience.

“Your Majesty, are you certain that we’ve done enough to curtail Yi Gong’s ambitions?”

Eunae exchanged a glance with Yue who nodded.

“For now. Dismantling the corruption within the houses is a high priority, but it’s difficult to split hairs when our world is still on the brink of destruction.”

Min furrowed her brows.

“You’re certain of that?”

Eunae shrugged.

“We will be soon. Our next order of business is to confirm everything Misun learned from Do Hye’s remnant.”

She fidgeted with the ring between her fingers—the artifact in which Misun had sealed a critical portion of Do Hye’s soul. Yue shook her head and sighed.

“Let us worry about that part, Seong Min. Yoshika may be our ruling empress, but when it comes to actual administration, it’s up to you and I to represent her will in our respective nations.”

“Do you mean to imply that I am the ruler of Goryeo?”

“Not at all. Yoshika is no figurehead, but neither is she an expert in all things. We turn to her for matters of ideology and broad direction, but it’s our duty to translate that will into practice. To wit, while we’ve gotten things started for you, the task of taking down Yi Gong and the other noble houses falls to you.”

Min grimaced, running a hand through her hair.

“That’s not supposed to be my role as prime minister. My duty is to represent the people’s interests—a liaison to the crown, not a mouthpiece for it.”

Eunae sighed.

“And that’s exactly what I want from you, Min. But can you honestly say that allowing the high houses to use and abuse the impoverished people who gather outside the city walls for shelter is what’s best for the people of Goryeo? That a girl’s life should be ruined and her family destroyed for the crime of daring to defend herself from a noble’s abuse of privilege?”

Min averted her eyes, frowning.

“It’s not my place to decide.”

“It is mine. If you take objection to my course, then say so—I won’t hold it against you. If you are confident that you can defend the current establishment, then I will listen in earnest. Otherwise, I ask you to grant me your expertise to turn our land into one that we can be proud of.”

Eunae’s cousin gave her a long look, then bowed.

“As you will it, Your Majesty.”

Yue chuckled.

“You won’t have to do it entirely alone. I’ll be returning to my own duties soon, but I’ll hand over everything we know about Yi Gong and the plot that led to the elemental coup.”

Min frowned as Yue produced the documents from within her ring and handed them over.

“How did you discover all of this anyway?”

“We didn’t. You did.”

The princess blinked.

“What do you mean?”

Yue sighed.

“I collected this information through interviews with Hyeong Daesung, Hyeong Aecha, Ishihara Naomi, and Ja Yun. However, they learned of these things while they were under the employ of Goryeo, and they delivered their original reports through the appropriate chain of command at the time.”

“Then how come I never heard about any of this?”

Eunae scowled.

“I suppose you’d have to ask my mother. I’m not in the mood to talk to her right now, but as far as I can tell our mothers decided between themselves that Yi Gong’s treason was not a concern.”

“Maybe I will confer with Aunt Minhee, then. I can’t imagine why she’d withhold this, but I respect her enough to hear her out.”

“I suppose someone has to. In the meantime, I expect I’m going to have my hands full interrogating Misun.”

Seong Min winced.

“I thought you’d be more upset with your sister than your mother.”

“I’m furious with both of them, but to Misun’s credit, she has at least taken the threat to our world seriously. As for mother, her transgressions were to nobody’s benefit but her own.”

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“I see.”

Her cousin looked away, clearly disagreeing, but not willing to press the point. Maybe she was being unfair, but Eunae wasn’t feeling very charitable after putting up with decades of abuse. Perhaps she’d feel differently once she’d had time to cool down and think things over, but until then Jung, Narae, and Haeun were all the sisters she needed.

Eunae and Yue parted ways with Min to make their way to Misun’s laboratory, where Eui and Heian were already waiting, having gone on ahead after the high council meeting.

Misun sat at her desk in the corner of the lab, arms crossed and scowling miserably as Eui and Heian meticulously went through every last detail of her work, demanding explanations.

“I’ve already told you a million times, nothing here has any connection to Do Hye other than the grand formation.”

Eui shrugged carelessly, a smirk on her face as she made a game of bothering Misun.

“We’ve got to make sure you haven’t been compromised. We’re not taking any risks after the late queen.”

“Tsk, you just enjoy tormenting me.”

“I mean, that too, yeah.”

Misun rolled her eyes, then sighed with relief as Yue and Eunae arrived.

“Oh thank the ancestors. Done putting the cranky old men in their places?”

Eunae nodded.

“We are, yes. And as much as Eui seems to enjoy taking my anger out on you, I’d rather get this over with as soon as possible. Explain to me again how this ring works.”

Misun sighed heavily and rose to her feet, conjuring up an illusory diagram with three overlapping circles. The two circles on the periphery were labeled ‘mind’ and ‘soul’ respectively, and overlapped with the central ‘body’ circle, but not each other.

“This is a grossly oversimplified representation of a living person. For humans, we’re generally balanced like this, while elementals, beasts, and spirits have one circle grossly exaggerated at the expense of the other two. Spirits need physical vessels to manifest, and anything that ascends should try to at least mimic this model.”

She waved her hand, and the ‘mind’ circle expanded to envelop the other two.

“This is essentially what xiantian mages like myself do. Body and soul aren’t discarded, so to speak, but they are reduced to component parts of the mind—or perhaps more accurately, the aura. As long as our bodies aren’t completely destroyed, we’re safe, but magical attacks are more hazardous.”

The circles changed again, this time with ‘soul’ enveloping the other two.

“Despite what the god-emperor claims about cleansing the body and mind, unless he literally became a loose spirit, existing only within the spirit realm, it should be the same for spiritualists.”

She did the same thing with the middle ‘body’ circle, but this time it only pushed the mind and soul circles further away from each other.

“I don’t know why it doesn’t work for martial artists. Excessive enhancement of only the body seems to drive mind and soul apart, eventually leading to a sort of spiritual collapse. But there are exceptions...”

Misun adjusted the image, adding a fourth circle in the middle that each of the other three connected to independently, labeled ‘core.’

“Some beings develop cores, which seem to take over for the body as the bridge between mind and soul, allowing one to develop any of the three with impunity. For fiends, that will be the body, for demons it’s typically the soul, and for elementals, their aura. In theory, however, any being with a core could focus on any or even all aspects in whatever way they wish. The tradeoff, naturally, is that they cannot live without that core.”

She cast aside the fourth circle, returning to only three, but this time, she arranged them such that all three overlapped with each of the other two, including a point in the middle where all three intersected.

“Finally, we have this. Do you know what this is?”

Eunae furrowed her brows at the image, puzzling over it for a moment.

“Is this the ideal form? One where each aspect works together in harmony?”

“Tsk, you would put it that way, wouldn’t you? It’s so strange how you’re still you, but you’re also her. I don’t think I really got it until you scooped up someone I actually knew.”

“Misun, please.”

She sighed and shook her head.

“Right. Well, this is you. All unified cultivators—at least the xiantian ones. Though, I suppose that list is small enough to fit entirely within this room, at the moment.”

“Not exactly. Yue, Heian, and I may be the only ones native to this world, but I suspect that Shen Yu, the Dragon Lord, and possibly the God-Emperor are all unified cultivators as well.”

“Lovely. Well in any case, I believe that ascension to godhood occurs through the expansion of this part here—”

She indicated the overlapping middle section, which began to expand, bringing the three circles closer and closer together.

“Until all three perfectly overlap into a single ultimate being.”

The three circles joined into one with a flash, becoming a softly glowing halo. Eui stared flatly at the illusion and crossed her arms.

“That was interesting and all, but we asked how the ring works.”

“And I’m preparing you with the context necessary to understand it. Now, if we take a little step back...”

The illusion returned to the image of the three overlapping circles, representing Yoshika’s current state.

“Don’t try to ask me how he did it, because I don’t know, but I was able to work out that Do Hye’s reincarnation technique works by preserving this portion right here—”

The section where mind and soul overlapped lit up brightly.

“When his body dies, the rest is released as a shade as it would with anyone else.”

By way of demonstration, Misun tossed aside the ‘body’ circle, and everything apart from the lit-up section dissolved away.

“Then this part finds its way into the natural flow of mana where it is either attracted to one of the Snake’s prepared vessels, his so-called ‘soul jars,’ or it drifts aimlessly until it happens to land in some unlucky developing soul. Either way, it latches on and grows like a parasite into a new person. Not the same person he was, but not an entirely different person either.”

Misun pointed at the ring in Eunae’s hand.

“That’s what I’ve trapped inside that ring. The construct within is an interface. Something for it to latch on to without being able to grow. Through that interface, you can access the knowledge it implants into its host without actually becoming its host.”

Yoshika stared down at the artifact in her hand with abject horror.

“That’s awful, Misun. Not to mention dangerous! What would you have done if it didn’t work, and you ended up as the new host for Do Hye’s soul-seed?”

Misun shrugged.

“Died, I suppose. Or become someone that’s not quite Do Hye, and not quite Seong Misun—I think you of all people ought to understand that.”

“We’re not some parasitic growth infecting each other’s souls. Our union is one of mutual consent.”

“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, but I was willing to take the risk in order to preserve Do Hye’s knowledge and prevent him from latching on to some poor unsuspecting sap and coming back when we least expect it.”

It was hard to argue with that. Trapping a fragment of his soul in an artifact for their perusal felt like an unspeakable violation, but so did allowing his reincarnation to proceed as intended. It still made Yoshika uncomfortable, and while she was internally debating whether or not to make use of the twisted enchantment, Heian snuck up and snatched it out of her hand.

“Hey! Heian, what are you doing?”

“I wasn’t listening to Auntie Misun’s boring lecture—”

Misun’s face flushed red.

“A-auntie?! And what do you mean boring?!”

Heian ignored her.

“But basically there’s a person in here who’s not alive, and not dead, right? I can sense a familiarity from it. A similar existence to mine—but lesser. Can I have this?”

“Wha—?! No, you can’t have it! Do you have any idea how difficult that was to—?”

Eunae held up a hand to cut Misun off.

“Heian, why do you want the ring?”

“You want to talk to the person inside, right? I think I can do that for you.”