Soso was in a room she had never seen before.
The dark room contained no notable furniture, save for a single bed with long, trailing curtains.
Soso stood there as if frozen.
‘Where am I?’
The bizarre situation, something she had never experienced before, left her trembling with fear.
However, she desperately tried to collect her wits and assess her surroundings.
Soon, she realized one fact.
‘There is no wind.’
It was a major piece of evidence that this was not reality.
“Never trust illusions.”
If this was all an illusion, just as Young Master Eon-u had said, there was no need to be afraid.
At that moment, a bright light flashed from the bed.
It was a brilliant golden glow, one that felt strangely familiar.
Relieved of her fear, Soso began to approach the bed. She pulled back the curtains slightly and stepped inside.
The scene before her was astonishing.
Golden energy was surging intensely from the palms of a woman sitting at the head of the bed.
“The Golden… Divine Healer?”
Soso covered her mouth, having spoken without realizing it.
But the woman showed no reaction, as if she could not hear her. She was simply focused entirely on the treatment.
It seemed this was all a phantom image.
Soso let out a sigh of relief and observed the situation further.
The woman’s face was obscured by a veil, and only then did Soso notice a man lying on the bed.
The man’s body was in a horrific state. There was not a single spot on him that wasn't injured.
He was groaning, as if the pain of his wounds was unbearable.
It would not have been strange if he had died on the spot, yet the person sitting beside him was none other than the Golden Divine Healer.
Wherever the golden energy emitted by the Golden Divine Healer passed, the horrific wounds vanished as if by magic, leaving the skin smooth and clean.
Soso watched the Golden Divine Healer treat the man with intense focus.
Unlike herself, the woman did not shed tears; she controlled the golden energy with precision.
‘She is skilled.’
Soso had only known how to let the light grow.
But this woman could adjust the size and intensity of the golden energy.
She used a denser golden energy for deep wounds and a faint, thin energy for shallow ones.
Soso observed every detail.
She made up her mind that if the day ever came when she had to use her abilities again, she would try to do the same.
Before long, the woman’s treatment ended.
The man’s body had recovered to a startling degree. Vitality began to return to his pale, bloodless face.
Only then did Soso examine the man’s face.
He was a man of such striking beauty that he would not pale in comparison to Jegal Haesu or Namgung Jin.
His straight, high-bridged nose, which seemed to reach for the heavens, was particularly noticeable.
“Haa….”
The woman, perhaps exhausted from the treatment, wiped her brow.
“……Ugh.”
The man, who had only been groaning, felt his eyelids flutter. Before long, his eyes half-opened.
To her surprise, his irises were a deep, blood-red.
The man looked up at the woman with those eerie eyes. His bloodless lips parted to speak her name.
“Hang… a.”
Hanga.
The man had clearly called her that.
A chill ran down Soso’s spine. She had heard stories related to ‘Hanga’ just a short while ago.
Hanga was the younger sister of the Bewitching Healer of the Moonlit Night.
The one who had supposedly become the Healer Immortal after consuming an Immortal Elixir.
Could she truly be the Golden Divine Healer?
If so, then this man with the blood-red eyes was…….
That was the moment.
The gazes of both the man and the woman suddenly turned toward Soso.
*Click.*
Their eyes, narrowed sharply, were nothing but ferocious.
“……!”
Soso nearly fell backward in shock. She felt her hair stand on end.
How… did they notice my presence?
They stared at her without even blinking.
The fear she had barely shaken off seemed to come rushing back. It felt as if she had made eye contact with things that should never be looked at.
I have to run.
Soso tried to turn back.
But at that moment, the man who had been lying down sprang up and blocked her path.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The man’s voice was grotesque. It sounded like fingernails scraping against something hard.
It felt as if Soso’s ears were being torn apart.
“I, I…”
“You may have entered as you pleased, but you won’t be leaving the same way.”
When Soso tried to take a step back, the man’s hand lashed out.
He grabbed the veil Soso was wearing and tore it away violently.
“You will not be able to hide your true identity forever.”
I’m scared.
Soso’s knees gave way under the weight of her terror.
Just as she was about to collapse, the voice of Young Master Eon-u echoed in her mind once more.
“Never trust illusions.”
That’s right, this is a phantom; it cannot harm me.
Therefore, there was no need to take the threats of this illusion to heart.
If she let herself be swayed by the phantom, she would be truly trapped in this strange vision.
Soso took a deep breath.
‘Young Master Eon-u, please give me the courage to escape this place.’
She thought of Young Master Eon-u, and then of the companions waiting for her at the inn.
Thinking of the kind people who had shown her affection made her heart feel much lighter.
Soso was now able to look up at the man with eyes as sharp as an axe.
Then, she summoned her courage and pushed hard against the man who was looking down at her like a doll devoid of emotion.
Though he was very tall and his body felt solid, as if he would never be moved…
To her surprise, the man’s body didn't just fall; it shattered on the spot.
Before she could even be more shocked, the space began to distort once again.
The man, the Golden Divine Healer, and the dark room vanished in an instant.
With a single blink, the surroundings turned pitch black. It seemed she had returned to where she started.
‘Thank goodness.’
Soso wiped away her cold sweat and sat down on the spot. The tension in her heart began to melt away like snow.
As she fumbled with her hands where she sat, she felt something soft.
What is this?
Looking down, she saw a cute, fluffy creature.
“A tiger!”
The tiger cub she hadn't seen for a moment.
“Hey, did you drag me into this space?”
—Kyaaaa!
The tiger let out a cry as if answering her, then began to run somewhere.
Soso decided to follow it.
She figured that following the tiger was far more worthwhile than just sitting still in a dark, featureless void.
As it turned out, her intuition was correct.
From a certain point on, lanterns began to flicker on one by one beneath her feet.
The lanterns soon became the boundaries of a path.
Beneath the lanterns, a dark pond rippled, reflecting Soso’s face.
The tiger ran forward without hesitation until the very end of the path.
At the end of the path stood a pavilion. It was a strange pavilion situated atop a dark lake.
A man was sitting in the pavilion.
The man, who appeared to have a noble bearing, had white hair cascading down to his waist.
He looked like an old man from his hair alone, but his face was smooth, without a single wrinkle. He was a mysterious man whose age could not be guessed.
The tiger, having leaped onto the pavilion, circled near the man’s legs and let out a soft, “Kakang.”
Soso instinctively guessed the man’s identity.
‘The Bewitching Healer of the Moonlit Night…….’
A round, full moon hung above the pavilion where the man stood.
Soso could not take her eyes off the man’s face, illuminated by the moonlight.
That was why she was slow to register the man’s voice.
“What did you see, young lady?”
Ah, thank goodness. This time, it was a human voice.
Soso did not want to hear the man’s voice, which had been sharp enough to tear her eardrums, ever again.
“Young lady, answer me.”
The man urged her again. Soso slowly opened her mouth.
“I saw a dying man and a woman treating him.”
“…….”
At Soso’s answer, a crack appeared on the man’s near-expressionless face.
Soon, he furrowed his brows slightly and shook his head, as if something were displeasing.
“By any chance… did golden energy surge from that woman’s hands?”
Soso nodded.
“Yes.”
She couldn't bring herself to say, ‘She was a woman with abilities similar to mine.’
There were too many things that couldn't be explained.
The fortunate thing amidst all this was that she felt no Demonic Energy from the man.
The man groaned, his face lost in thought. His deeply sunken eyes were wet with sorrow.
He spoke slowly, in fragments, as if trying to hide his grief.
“Young lady… you resemble Hanga a great deal.”
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