Countless eerie blood-red eyes hung in the sky, forming such a bizarre scene that Kim Gyeong-joo, clutching a fruit knife, remained on high alert against her surroundings.
"Who!!!? What is this place!!?"
Her voice echoed endlessly through this strange space.
That previously heard voice came from above her head.
"Tell me, do you want to kill him and take revenge for yourself?"
Kim Gyeong-joo abruptly looked up.
Her vision expanded hundreds, then thousands of meters upward.
A colossal goddess cradled a throne against her chest's cleavage.
She saw upon that noble throne sat a man who resembled a deity.
Simply watching her quietly.
His gaze seemed capable of piercing straight through her soul, seeing her innermost thoughts, dispelling her fears.
Though his bearing was as unapproachable as a sacred mountain, his tone carried a warmth Kim Gyeong-joo had never before experienced.
"You... are you my divine lord......"
Her voice held yearning and reverence.
In recent years, Wei Gao had produced a drama popular worldwide about a compassionate god meeting 'her' with tragic circumstances.
What maiden doesn't harbor such fantasies?
Who hasn't dreamed of encountering a merciful deity in their ordinary life, saving them from worldly suffering?
Lu Ding disdained deceiving girls' emotions.
Thus, he naturally wouldn't claim such an unfounded identity.
"I am not your divine lord, but I will indeed save you. Tell me, do you want to kill him and take revenge for yourself?"
Kim Gyeong-joo's reply came almost without hesitation.
But then, her voice grew slightly despondent: "But that would break the law... I'd be arrested......"
"What if you possessed power like a god's? Humans cannot judge deities."
Kim Gyeong-joo could hardly believe it.
Such divine selection actually happening to her.
"Can I... really......"
"Of course you can. With a god's power, you could avenge not just yourself, but your mother too." Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on nοvelfire.net
Lu Ding's ordinary words seemed bewitching to the girl's ears.
Kim Gyeong-joo detected something amiss.
"Did my mother perhaps......"
"Indeed, your mother didn't die naturally. Think back carefully - in your childhood memories, your mother wasn't overworked nor diagnosed with illness."
"She simply grew inexplicably frail, eventually passing from melancholy. Don't you find that strange?"
Following Lu Ding's words, the girl realized it truly was as he said.
"So how did my mother... die?"
Lu Ding began recounting Kim Gyeong-joo's mother's story.
"In this world exists a type of person called Qi Refiners. They originate from ordinary people yet surpass them, wielding power like deities."
"Commanding heaven and earth's spiritual energy."
"Your mother was among them......"
Lu Ding's words birthed endless imaginings in the girl's heart.
These same words subconsciously established benchmarks for her identity.
"But where there are people, there is conflict. Though your mother was a Qi Refiner, she too came from ordinary folk."
"In Wei Gao exists a Qi Refiner sect called the Diancang Sect - your mother's former sect."
"Long ago, your mother and aunt lived together in the Diancang Sect, cultivating side by side until they met a man named Kim Nam-won."
"This man captured both sisters' affections. After intimate relations, he abandoned them."
"Leaving behind your mother and aunt."
"This began the rift between your mother and aunt."
"Regarding Kim Nam-won, your mother chose to pursue love while your aunt remained with the Diancang Sect......"
Simple words brought seismic shocks to Kim Gyeong-joo's heart.
She couldn't believe her mother - that sort of woman - would... would share a man with her never-met aunt...
She momentarily couldn't accept it.
"Later, perhaps moved by your mother's sincerity, or because Kim Nam-won had never experienced being actively pursued after a one-night stand, he reunited with her."
"After another encounter, you were conceived - but he disappeared again."
Hearing this, Kim Gyeong-joo - already disliking her absent father -
Now felt additional fury and resentment.
All these years... with a father, her mother wouldn't have pined away in melancholy, dying with regrets.
Never seeing him one last time.
With a father, she wouldn't envy other children.
With a father, she wouldn't be in this situation today......
"After discovering her pregnancy, your mother returned to the Diancang Sect, telling your aunt about reuniting with your father."
"Intending to share joy, she instead provoked your aunt's jealousy. Conspiring with the sect's current leader, they framed your mother, injuring her with life-shortening internal damage."
"Then expelled her from the sect."
"Afterward, your mother - pregnant with you - went to your childhood home, where she'd met your father that second time."
"There she waited for his return - through your birth, two years, three, five, ten... until longing became illness. At age ten, her old injuries erupted."
"Finally passing from sorrow. This is your mother's untold story."
"As for your father Kim Nam-won - he's current ruler of Wei Gao's mightiest Qi Refiner force: the Tianxing Group."
"He felt nothing for your mother or aunt - only desire. Their relations merely served to produce heir candidates for Tianxing Group."
"Many pitiful women like your mother exist. Your generation has over 200 such descendants."
"Your fated path was being retrieved by Tianxing Group upon adulthood for bloodline verification. Eventually, over 200 would compete for three heir positions."
Kim Gyeong-joo momentarily couldn't process her origins.
She felt injustice. Resentment.
She wanted to demand why her mother desperately awaited such a man.
Even in death, instilling that her absent father was outstanding, gentle, handsome.