The Little Baby Snake of the Vermilion Bird Family - Chapter 55

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 55
At Hwaryeong’s urgent cry, Ju Jeokseo instinctively grasped that something terrible had happened.
Hwaryeong stammered out the words, his face drained of color.
“Baeksa’s been taken! Some kind of unknown monster—it took Baeksa… hack, ah—”
Hwaryeong’s already pale complexion went even whiter.
“Elder brother and Doeui, ah—they chased after it—”
A strangled sound erupted from Hwaryeong’s throat.
Ju Jeokseo’s eyes widened as he caught hold of the boy’s body.
‘He can’t breathe!’
The sudden flight and the shock of the situation had thrown his breathing into chaos.
He spoke calmly, running his palm down Hwaryeong’s chest. “Hwaryeong, calm yourself. Can you see Father’s face? Breathe slowly—in through your nose.”
“Baeksa… Baeksa…”
“Slowly now. Just breathe.”
Ah… ah…
Beneath his father’s steady touch, Hwaryeong’s breathing gradually steadied. Ju Jeokseo let out a breath of his own.
The servant girls hurried off to fetch the Physician, their feet quick on the stone.
But there was no time to wait here. He lifted Hwaryeong into his arms and strode toward the nearest chamber.
He laid the boy on the bedding.
“No! I want to come! Let me come with you!”
But Hwaryeong shook his head frantically.
“I have to find Baeksa! I have to!”
“In the state you’re in? You’ll stay here. Your father will return soon enough.”
“No! What if something happens—”
“Your elder brother and Doeui are following. All will be well. I swear to you I’ll bring her back without a scratch.”
“…”
“Did you see what sort of creature took her?”
“I didn’t get a clear look, but it was long and coiled like a dragon. Except it wasn’t a dragon exactly—more like a ghost, if I had to say…”
“A ghost dragon?”
Ju Jeokseo’s face went ashen at Hwaryeong’s words.
“Father?”
“It’s nothing. I’ll fetch her at once. You rest here and don’t move.”
He turned to the servant girls. “Keep him from moving. His spirit is badly shaken. Any more strain and it could be dangerous.”
“Yes, Family Head!”
He strode from the room, his pace quickening with each step.
By the time he left the chamber, he was nearly running. His face had gone as pale as Hwaryeong’s.
Ju Jeokseo moved so quickly he was barely walking, muttering under his breath.
‘Please… it can’t be. It just can’t be.’
His teeth clenched. The moment he heard Hwaryeong’s description, only one thing had filled his mind.
A creature of legend—the Ghost Dragon.
It was said that long ago, a dragon had gathered the spirits of dead dragons and forged them into a monster, something that could be commanded only by dragon blood.
The Ghost Dragon could go anywhere. It could do anything.
It was, in essence, a weapon of pure malice in the hands of whoever wielded it.
‘But the Ghost Dragon vanished from records long ago.’
Because it was made from dragon spirits, the very dragon who commanded it risked being consumed by it.
Moreover, the thing itself—an entity created from the souls of the dead—went against the will of Heaven, and so it lived only in legend.
Yet the heads of each family knew the truth.
‘The Ghost Dragon is sealed beneath the Imperial Palace.’
If Baeksa had truly been taken by the Ghost Dragon…
‘But why?’
Ju Jeokseo’s mind churned with confusion.
It was the Emperor who had abandoned Baeksa in the first place.
He’d left his own daughter in Namto to die.
He had deliberately provoked Namto, wanting to see his own blood refuse to acknowledge her, to watch her perish.
So why, after all that chaos, would he send the Ghost Dragon to take her now?
He shook his head, trying to order his thoughts.
‘It can’t be.’
It couldn’t be the Ghost Dragon. The Emperor would never unseal such a thing.
Hwaryeong must have simply misunderstood what he saw.
“Which direction did Hwaryeong come from?” Ju Jeokseo asked urgently.
Jo Yeong answered at once. “The east!”
“Then we go east. Hwanya is pursuing them—we follow the trail of his fire!”
“At once!”
Before Ju Jeokseo’s final word had left his lips, the soldiers of the Vermilion Bird Family sprouted wings and transformed, rising into the air as birds.
Dozens of wings beat in unison as the flock launched skyward. Ju Jeokseo shed his crimson overcoat.
Whoooosh!
Flame erupted from his back, and a pair of great wings unfurled.
Wings grew. A tail sprouted. Fire consumed his form, and from within that inferno, an enormous Vermilion Bird spread its wings wide.
The wings were vast—incomparably larger than Hwanya’s.
Without hesitation, the transformed Ju Jeokseo launched himself eastward.
In his vision, scattered traces of Hwanya’s flame-trail marked the way.
‘Please—let her be safe. All of you, please be safe!’
The desperate plea caught in his burning throat.
***
When Baeksa activated her Supernatural Ability, space twisted violently around her.
The twisted space convulsed, and an incomprehensible force began to seep into her body.
“Ah!”
The girl’s eyes went wide.
Her palms, pressed against the ground, burned as if branded with fire. With each surge of force flowing through her hands, her entire body screamed with the sensation of countless needles.
‘This… this is wrong!’
She had absorbed countless things before, but none of them had ever brought such agony.
Yet now, Baeksa’s hands were ablaze and her head felt as if it might split open.
What was this?
What was this force?
Her palms trembled violently against the earth. Cold sweat poured down her face. It was a pain beyond anything she had ever imagined.
An agony too great for a seven-year-old child to bear.
One part of her screamed to let go. Another—sharper, more desperate—insisted that if she did, she would never escape.
Yet no matter how remarkable Baeksa was, she could not master the wave of pain crashing over her.
Her body twisted. The small bird of light hovering in the air turned to look at her.
The bird spread both wings wide, and for a moment, the pain Baeksa felt lessened by half.
But it did not disappear entirely. And no matter how much she absorbed, the force showed no sign of diminishing.
‘What is this…?’
Just as confusion seized her, something else began to happen.
Memories not her own flooded into her mind.
‘No… please… Your Majesty, no!’
‘And you thought you’d walk away unscathed? After what you’ve made me?’
They were the memories of a dragon.
The moment of its death.
All of them were dragons she had never seen before. Faces utterly foreign.
And all wore robes slightly different from one another.
One dragon. Two. Three… The memories of countless dragons began pouring into Baeksa’s mind in torrents.
Baeksa’s Bead flickered unstably.
But once the memories had begun flowing, there was no stopping them.
Just as her power had never bent entirely to her will before, so now the memories came regardless of what she wanted.
Baeksa clamped her eyes shut.
As the flood of memory continued, the pain lessened.
But.
“What… what is all of this…?”
The endless crushing pain from moments before was almost preferable to this.
The memories came in fragments, like shards—and each one was the horrific death of a dragon.
Betrayal and death. Death without reason.
Hatred so deep that a thousand lifetimes would not be enough to curse it into oblivion.
The deepest, most primal moments of that hatred came flooding through.
Baeksa’s fingertips trembled.
“How… how can this be…?”
She opened her eyes slowly. Her pupils shook, uncontrolled.
Through the flood of memories, she understood.
The thing that had consumed her was not simply a single dragon.
Countless dragons’ hatred now engulfed Baeksa. Memories sharp as thorns pricked at her skin.
Flash!
The most intense memory pierced through her mind.
And in the next instant, the Rear Garden of the Imperial Palace unfolded before her eyes.
In the center of that beautiful garden, drenched in blood, lay a young dragon.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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