Chapter 81

“Where are you taking my Master?”

Lin’s voice pierced the air, freezing everything in place as if the very space around her had turned to ice. She floated above them, suspended by sorcery, looking down on the Hoyo clan with a divine wrath. The foxes who had been celebrating their newfound freedom halted in terror.

“H-Hwayeo?! H-How did you find us?”

The elder frantically checked the barrier, but it remained active. The confusion spells on the trees were still in place too.

He couldn’t comprehend how Lin had managed to locate them with her magic. Sensing his thoughts, Lin spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“I am my Master’s slave. Did you really think I wouldn’t know where he was?”

Whether by magic or sorcery, if someone had a certain level of control over the mystical arts, they could easily trace back the bond that linked them.

Above all, a soul chain, once forged, couldn’t be undone—not even by Mirabel. There was no way an elder fox’s low-grade sorcery could block it.

“Give me back my Master.”

Ever since she had nearly died at the hands of the Blood Wolves, Lin’s attachment to Karamir had only intensified.

The Hoyo clan had kidnapped him, a fact that only fueled her rage. A fox, understanding this better than anyone, pressed his claws against Karamir’s neck.

“D-Don’t move! One wrong move, and I’ll tear this human’s throat out!”

“……”

“Get out! Hwayeo!”

Keeping a wary eye on Lin, the fox began to retreat slowly, only to find his arm ensnared by something.

He glanced down to see a withered branch wrapped around his arm—a branch from a tree spirit, a Komokki. The dried branch twisted further, snapping his arm.

Crack.

“Aaagh!”

The fox shrieked and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. The Hoyo clan, now in utter disarray, realized they were surrounded by the yokai of Baekun Valley.

Yet none of the yokai threatened Lin. It was as if they were bowing to her will, submitting to her as their new leader.

The law of the jungle. The strong devour the weak.

Yokai were simple creatures. They obeyed those stronger than themselves. Having once served Ungwi, the most powerful being in the valley, they now turned to Lin, who had defeated him.

“W-Wait a minute?”

The Hoyo clan members finally grasped the gravity of their situation.

There would be no mercy. Lin began her ruthless assault.

Foxfire engulfed the foxes, while Komokki folded their bodies like origami, snapping their bones. A monstrous bird, the Gwaejo, swooped down from the sky, snatching two foxes in its talons and flying off with them.

It was absolute chaos.

“Please, save us! You’re the Master, right? Make her stop!”

One of the more astute foxes clung to Karamir, begging for mercy. Karamir gently pried her off with a smile.

“Lin, we need the elder alive. He’s the only one who knows the location of the shrine.”

“Got it. I’ll keep him alive.”

That simple exchange drained the color from the faces of the other foxes who overheard.

That day, new cries of despair echoed through Baekun Valley.

Back at the fox den. The three returned.

One was Lin. Though dust and a few stray hairs were out of place, she was largely as she’d been when she left.

Another was Karamir. Aside from the marks on his wrists where the vines had bound him, he was unscathed.

The last was the elder. He staggered, his walk unsteady. Where once there had been three tails, only one remained—the others had been ripped out and burned to ashes.

As a Sammiho, he could theoretically regrow his tails by absorbing more spiritual energy, but survival was more pressing than vanity. All the other Hoyo foxes had become yokai fodder. He was the sole survivor of the fox den’s inhabitants.

Though perhaps not for much longer.

The two of them led the limping elder to a secluded corner of the empty village. After reciting a spell, the ground trembled, revealing a hidden staircase that led underground.

The dark passage was so dim that it was impossible to see anything. Dust coated the air, thick with the musty scent of neglect. Lin lit a foxfire to guide their way.

The path was a maze, laced with spells at every turn. Without knowing the counter-spells, anyone who entered would be trapped in an illusion, condemned to rot in the darkness forever. Only the elder knew how to break the spells, which was the sole reason he was still alive.

They walked through the corridor for what felt like half an hour. Karamir hummed a tune with his hands behind his back, while Lin’s pupils dilated ever so slightly as they delved deeper.

Something at the end of the path pulled at her like a magnet.

Eventually, they arrived at their destination. Lin’s foxfire illuminated the lanterns, dispelling the darkness.

What they saw was a small shrine.

A stone altar. A statue of a fox.

Behind the altar was a large mural of a fox with nine flowing tails, linking heaven and earth with its majesty.

But what drew Lin’s attention more than anything else was a golden fox bead resting on the altar. In a shrine coated in dust, it shimmered with the brilliance of the sun.

The elder spoke.

“This is the holy ground of our fox clan. A shrine built by the ancestors who were once trapped in Baekun Valley.”

There was a time when the Gumiho was revered as a god by their kin, not just a monster. This shrine was built by the Hoyo clan to honor that god.

The orange-hued fox bead held a fragment of the Gumiho’s sealed power. It was why yokai hadn’t dared to invade the fox den, even with the Gumiho’s history erased over time.

Curious, Karamir reached out and touched the fox bead.

Whoosh!

“Damn it.”

Flames erupted from the bead, causing Karamir to jerk his hand back.

“Best not to touch it carelessly. Only a Gumiho can approach it.”

“Then how did you move it here?”

“That… is not recorded.”

Did they blow it over with collective breath? Or perhaps they used some sort of contraption?

The elder thought seriously for a moment before snapping back to attention.

“That doesn’t matter. If the Gumiho takes this bead, it’ll start a full-scale effort to suppress her.”@@novelbin@@

“Lin, you heard that? All we need to do is take it.”

“Yes. I heard it clearly.”

“What?! I never said that! You won’t be left unscathed! It’s better to be content and hide—”

“That’s not what I want. As her Master, I want my slave to be completely liberated.”

To do that, she needed to claim the fox bead and inherit the power of the Gumiho.

“You can’t just take it. If you fail the Gumiho’s trial, you’ll be devoured.”

“If I were going to back down now, I wouldn’t have come in the first place. Lin?”

“Yes.”

Lin stepped forward, taking a deep breath as she approached the fox bead. Feeling as though destiny itself was calling her, she carefully placed her hand on the bead.

At that moment—

Fwoosh!

Intense flames engulfed Lin, enveloping her entirely. Her body remained in the shrine, but her consciousness drifted as if carried by a flowing stream.

When she came to, she found herself in pitch darkness.

She looked down, touching her body. She could feel herself, but the sensation was ambiguous, as if she were standing on the border between reality and illusion.

‘What am I supposed to do here?’

There was nothing but darkness. What trial could there be in such a void?

As she furrowed her brow in confusion, the darkness began to take shape. She recognized it immediately as the fox den, familiar but… wrong.

The Hoyo clan members she had killed were alive, walking around as if nothing had happened.

Lin scowled and sent out a burst of foxfire, but it vanished without a trace, as if it had no effect here—as though it wasn’t reality.

Could it be a trap? Did that crooked elder trick her? Yet the power of the fox bead had felt genuine.

Looking closer, Lin realized the den was subtly different from her memory. The layout of the buildings, the behavior of the foxes—it all felt unsettlingly familiar yet wrong.

As the discomfort grew, she heard voices.

“Kids, didn’t I tell you not to play with Hwayeo?”

A mother fox led her children away, pulling them back as though separating them from something.

That “something” was herself.

Or rather, a version of herself from the past. She was ragged, wearing nothing but rags, her body covered in bruises, with only one tail. That was her as a child.

No, it had only been a few months since she’d grown this much, but that version of her was from far longer ago, from a time when she had only one tail.

As she realized this, a needle of pain pricked her mind, making it clear—this was a glimpse into her past, into an older version of the fox den.

She could guess the trial’s meaning: Liberation from her past. That was the trial set by the Gumiho.