Page 99 of King Foretold
“Oops.” The dark mudang scoots back with sadistic glee.
Every time I crawl an agonizing inch toward him, he retreats a tiny step. He’s taking away my hard-won ground but staying close enough to give me hope. The asshole is toying with me. Still, in my pain-ridden, destitute state, I’m devastated by every inch I lose.
I’ll never reach him.But you have to try.
I growl, tears streaking muddy lines down my face, but I keep inching toward him. The rocky ground cuts my stomach through my tank top and scrapes the soft skin under my arms raw.
My healing power flares and flares against my wrecked spine, but it’s not a simple stab wound it can easily mend. Sweat soaks my hair and face, and blood drips into my eyes from a head wound I hadn’t noticed.
I can barely make Daeseong out in front of me. The unbearable pain saps me of my strength, but I don’t stop moving. I don’t give up. My stubbornness is my strongest superpower.
I could really use my bloodlust right now—where I feel no pain, only the strength of violence—but the arcane word of power is ... gone. I can’t sense it anymore. Something happened when I went through the Gray Void.
But Icanfeel my Yeoiju inside me. Its song is faint but there. Too bad I can only manifest a small ball of light with it.
“This is getting rather tedious, no?” the dark mudang says around a long yawn. “So muchcrawling. It is not as entertaining when you do the same thing over and over again, you know. It’s like staring at a wiggling worm.”
I crawl another inch forward, propelled purely by my desire to annoy him. I do itover and over again, grinning despite my agony.
His smug smile droops bit by bit until anger twists his face. “Enough.”
Hehe.
Regrettably, I don’t get to savor my tiny win for long. Because one second, he is a mere yard ahead of me, but the next second, he is floating above the rooftop of Akrotiri.
“No.” My mouth moves to shape the word, but no sound comes out.
“Give me the Yeoiju.” He raises his arms, mimicking the iconic pose ofChrist the Redeemer. The mudang is taking his god complex to a whole new level. “Give it to me. Or every human beneath this roof will cease to exist.”
Ah, it was all for me.
Daeseong tricked the Jaenanpa into kidnapping a thousand humans so he could threaten me with their lives. To force me to make the choice between giving him the Yeoiju and sacrificing a thousand lives to hold onto a power I don’t even understand.
The fog of pain clears away as helpless fury burns inside me. I know why he lured me here. The dark mudang needs the Yeoiju to release the Amheuk. My Yeoiju is somehow key to both stopping the darkness and unleashing it.
But I won’t be able to figure out the why or how in my sorry state. One thing at a time. I need to figure out how to keep the humans in the buried city safewithoutgiving up the Yeoiju.
Think, Cadet Cho.
“Do you need time to think?” Daeseong asks, as though he heard Captain Seo too. “Do go on. I can keep myself occupied while I wait.”
He telekinetically raises an unconscious woman from the ground—one of the humans I’d carried out on my shoulders—until she stands drunkenly on her feet. What is he ...? I reach a trembling hand toward her.Please no.Then with another yawn, he snaps her neck and lets her lifeless body crumple to the ground.
“No,” I rasp in a weedy whisper even though I’m screaming in my head.
“Don’t mind me.” He raises the next human. I hear another sickening crunch, then the thump of a dead body dropping to the ground. “Take your time. I have plenty of humans to go through, conveniently in front of me. But once I run out of these toys, I think I shall tire of playing. Every human under this roof will die rather quickly.”
Baring my bloody teeth, I drag myself toward the humans lying on the ground. A sharp cry rips out of me when the dark mudang raises a boy—he can’t be more than five—onto his little feet.
“Stop,” I cry and scrabble toward the child, my nails ripping and bleeding. “No, please.”
“Very interesting.” Daeseong cocks his head to the side and watches me in fascination. “You value a child more than an adult? I wonder why. While I hope we do not meet this way again, if there is a next time, I will have my underlings collect only the children.”
“I ... I’ll give it to you.” I plead with one hand outstretched. “Just ... don’t hurt the boy.”
“Now that wasn’t too hard, was it?” the dark mudang coos but doesn’t release the child.
“Put him down. Look.” I summon the orb of white light onto my palm. “I will give it to you.”
