“YOU CAN’T ESCAPE!”
The roar shook the corridor.
A huge black shadow burst from the vortex and lunged at Yu Jin.
Its twisted claws tore through the darkness, reaching for her just as she was about to disappear into the light.
Yu Jin’s pupils shrank.
She had no time to dodge.
Before the claws could touch her, a golden light fell from above.
It wrapped around her in an instant and pulled her away.
The next moment, everything went quiet.
The roar was gone.
So was the vortex, along with the collapsing corridor and the darkness behind it.
Yu Jin found herself falling through a vast expanse of white.
There was no sound around her and nothing beneath her feet.
She couldn’t tell which way was up or down, or whether she was even falling at all.
Then something golden appeared above her.
Wings.
One pair after another unfolded through the white light, their feathers glowing faintly as they descended toward her.
They gathered beneath her and slowed her fall until the weightlessness gradually faded.
Yu Jin opened her eyes.
Her vision was blurred at first.
When it finally cleared, she realized that someone was holding her.
The man had long golden hair that fell loosely over his shoulders, the ends drifting in the light around them.
Behind him were three pairs of golden wings.
Six wings in total.
The feathers gave off a soft glow, but there was nothing warm about the man himself.
His expression was calm, almost cold, and his dark eyes showed little emotion.
Yu Jin stared at him for a moment.
He was strikingly handsome, but that wasn’t what held her attention.
There was something strange about him.
A faint golden light seemed to move deep within his eyes, disappearing whenever she tried to focus on it.
His presence was quiet, yet it carried a pressure that made her instinctively hold her breath.
He looked down at her without saying anything.
Yu Jin didn’t speak either.
Her mind hadn’t caught up with what had just happened.
Only moments ago, she had been running for her life through that corridor.
The doors had been exploding behind her, the black vortex had opened, and something had nearly caught her.
Now she was lying in the arms of a six-winged man in a place filled with nothing but white light.
The change had happened so quickly that she wasn’t even sure which part she was supposed to deal with first.
Before she could make sense of any of it, a voice sounded directly in her mind.
“Are you ready?”
Yu Jin stiffened.
Ready?
Ready for what?
She hadn’t even figured out where she was.
Before she could react, a sudden heat spread between her brows.
Yu Jin sucked in a breath.
Golden-red flames appeared on her forehead.
The fire gathered slowly, and within it, the outline of a phoenix took shape.
The moment the mark appeared, the white space before her disappeared.
Fire filled her vision.
She saw herself being born in the flames.
Then came ashes.
She lay among them, surrounded by the remains of everything that had burned away.
A moment later, she rose from the ashes.
Wings spread behind her as she soared into the sky.
Flames swept across the valley below, spreading farther and farther until almost everything she could see was covered in fire.
Yu Jin watched without moving.
The scenes were unfamiliar, yet the feeling they gave her wasn’t.
That was what disturbed her most.
They didn’t feel like something she was seeing for the first time.
They felt like memories.
Memories that had been buried somewhere inside her for so long that she had forgotten they existed.
Before she could think any further, another figure appeared in the flames.
A man in white walked toward her.
His long black hair fell behind him, untouched by the fire around him.
The flames passed over the hem of his robes without leaving so much as a scorch mark.
He stopped in front of her.
Yu Jin met his eyes.
He didn’t speak.
There was no obvious emotion on his face, but the way he looked at her gave her the strange impression that he had been waiting for a very long time.
She opened her mouth.
Who are you?
Where is this?
What does any of this have to do with me?
Not a single word came out.
Yu Jin paused.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
Her throat wasn’t painful, nor did she feel unable to breathe.
She simply couldn’t make a sound.
Her expression slowly changed.
First confusion, then disbelief, and finally irritation.
What exactly was going on?
A moment ago, she had nearly been dragged into some black vortex by a monster.
Then she had been pulled into this strange place without warning, caught by a man with six wings, shown a phoenix mark she knew nothing about, and forced to watch a series of memories that might not even belong to her.
And after all that, the only thing anyone had bothered to ask her was—
Are you ready?
Ready for what?
Could someone at least explain something first?
She couldn’t even ask a question.
Yu Jin’s brows drew together.
The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became.
Apparently, whether she understood what was happening didn’t matter at all.
Just as her patience was running out, the space around them trembled.
Yu Jin turned.
A third man had appeared nearby.
He wore a long silver-white robe, and a thin lightning-shaped mark rested between his brows.
Unlike the other two, he didn’t look at Yu Jin when he appeared.
He simply raised one hand.
“Return.”
Then he struck out with his palm.
A sharp crack rang through the space.
Yu Jin looked up.
Cracks had appeared in the air.
They spread quickly, branching outward like fractures across glass.
A second later, the entire space shattered.
The light around her twisted.
The flames broke apart.
Even the figures in front of her began to blur.
Yu Jin felt herself being pulled backward.
Everything rushed toward the same point—the golden light, the flames, the broken space, even the images she had just seen.
Before she could understand what was happening, a sharp pain tore through her head.
Countless fragments flooded into her mind at once.
Images.
Voices.
Feelings she couldn’t recognize.
They came too quickly for her to separate one from another.
Yu Jin tried to stay conscious, but her thoughts were already slipping away.
Her vision darkened.
Then everything disappeared.
For a while, there was nothing.
But even as her consciousness faded, one last thought remained stubbornly clear.
Bastards.
Every single one of them just does whatever they want.
Couldn’t anyone explain what the hell is going on first?