He loves me more than anything. He will find a way to kill me. I bring my hand down to cover my mouth.
My poor Ethan.
I drop my hand and drag air into my constricted lungs. I can only take one step at a time. I have to focus on the harrowing step ahead of me.
“Where is she?” I growl at Hwanin.
“She will come for us,” he says with absolute certainty. “She was created to inflict suffering. Tocraveyour blood, your pain, your screams.”
I raise my head and pierce Hwanin with my enraged gaze. “Youdeserve to suffer.”
“Yes.” He turns and resumes walking.
I trail after him, deeper into the darkness. My white orb only lights a few steps ahead of us, and I trip over a long, pale bone—a femur. My stomach heaves.
Every faltering step reveals more bones and skulls—the remains of the suhoshin cadets who died at the monster’s hands. Soon the bones cover every surface of the floor, and we have to march atop the mass grave.
Hwanin shoots out a hand, and I bump into his outstretched arm before I come to a stop. “She is here.”
Then I hear it.
A low, feral growl that tapers into a manic clicking. The beat of silence as the monster inhales. Then another clicking growl. Goose bumps spread across my arms, and the hair on the back of my neck rises to a stand.
“I will distract her.” Hwanin meets my eyes. “You must absorb the four life forces inside her, like you absorbed Yongwang’s. Let your Yeoiju take what it needs.”
I almost lost control after I absorbed the treacherous god of Water’s gi. I forgot in the chaotic aftermath, but if it wasn’t for Ethan, I don’t know what would’ve happened. Without him as my anchor, I don’t know if I can do this.
What if I lose control?
“Ungnyeo,” Hwanin booms, stepping out of the halo of the white light. “It is I, Hwanin. Take your vengeance. Be free of your han.”
The growling and clicking grow louder as heavy, limping steps approach us. I don’t want to see what stands across from him, but I expand the light of the Yeoiju.
“Oh gods.” I gag and vomit on the floor.
The Donggul Monster stands three stories tall, and ... I scrunch my eyes shut against the grotesque sight. But I force them back open.
The monster is nearly torn up beyond recognition, but the faintest hint of a bear remains in it. Half of its skull is missing, along with one ear, and its brain pulses in its exposed head. One of its eyeballs dangles from its socket, hanging on by a single strand of muscle. And a long, black tongue flicks restlessly inside a mangled snout, jagged teeth flashing in the maw.
Its arms hang down its sides at gruesome, broken angles—one with patches of fur and skin missing, the other almost chewed down to thebone.Oh gods... its stomach ... I gag, but there is nothing left to throw up. Its stomach is ripped to shreds, and its intestines dangle from the open wounds. And its legs and feet are almost burned to stubs. I don’t know how it stands and walks.
I shrink away from the thought that a speck of my grandmother remains in the monster—that someone so good has been rendered to this.
“Ungnyeo.” Hwanin pounds his chest. “I am here, the one who trapped you in this hell. Come at me, you hideous monster. I am the one responsible for your suffering.”
“Hwan ...” Its malformed mouth moves, a guttural voice emerging. “Hwan ... in?”
Before a shudder finishes running through me, the monster launches itself at Hwanin with an earsplitting howl.
“Now, child,” he yells at me before he hits the ground. “Now.”
I watch paralyzed. The Donggul Monster works almost delicately, piercing one of his eyes, then ripping off one of his ears. Hwanin’s screams sound inhuman. I hear the snap of bones as it breaks his arm. It pauses as if to listen to his tortured cries, then tears off the useless arm. Then it bites off the side of his head.
The monster is inflicting on Hwanin the same injuries it endured.
“No,” I say without sound. When the monster draws a jagged nail down Hwanin’s torso, opening up his stomach, I finally find my voice. “Stop it.”
“N ... no,” Hwanin wheezes. “Do ... it. P-please. Save us both.”
