This was it.
The pattern that could cut off the mist-based false Yu i from her energy source.
She stared at the intricate diagram, her fingers twitching in anticipation.
................
Back to present.
Back in the ritual room, she slowly opened her eyes.
The circle under her hands wasn’t ordinary anymore.
It was a trap—and not just a physical one.
This ti, she would cut the tether between Yu i and her stolen vessel. Strip away the energy. And finally, bring her soul to justice.
"Let’s begin," Yu Holea whispered.
Qiao Jun knelt beside her, watching silently.
Yu i, still thrashing within the restraints, suddenly went still. Her eyes closed, and she fainted.
Sowhere Else.
A dimly lit room.
Moonlight slipped through the slats of wooden shutters, casting slivers of pale light across the floor. Fake Yu i sat on a grand four-poster bed, her back resting against silken cushions. Her dark eyes were narrowed, and her fingers twitched restlessly on her lap.
In the corner, her mother stood tall, cloaked, and unmoving. Her face hidden beneath layers of shadow and fabric.
Fake Yu i’s lips curled into a scowl. "She knows," she muttered.
Her voice was low, but sharp—like a blade being drawn. "Yu Holea has already figured out the soul exchange. She’s going to act again. I just don’t know when."
Her mother gave a dry, amused chuckle. It echoed around the room like the rattle of dry leaves. "Let her try," she said, voice muffled behind the thick cloak. "She’s destined to die the next ti you face her."
Fake Yu i rolled her eyes. "Still so confident..."
She looked away, staring at the flickering shadows on the far wall. Her fingers clenched around a small gemstone tied to her wrist.
"I honestly regret giving her that option," she said bitterly. "The real Yu i. I should’ve chosen a different body. Anyone else would’ve been smarter. Stronger. Not this pig-brained, soft-hearted idiot who thought she could negotiate her way out of fate."
The cloaked figure didn’t reply for a mont.
Then, with a sigh, she stepped forward. The sound of her boots echoed hollowly on the floor.
"If we hadn’t used the real Yu i, we would’ve never had the chance to draw Yu Holea out," she said, her voice colder now. "And without drawing her out... we’d never get close enough to destroy the Yu family."
Fake Yu i looked up slowly, her expression unreadable.
"I hate them," Her mother said softly. "Every single one of them. That cursed bloodline. Always playing righteous. Always pretending they’re above everyone. Arrogant. Blind."
She began pacing, her cloak swaying like smoke behind her.
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"I won’t stop until there’s nothing left of them. Not a single child. Not a single elder. I’ll wipe out their na from this world—generation to generation."
Fake Yu i tilted her head. "That much hate," she said, a half-smile on her lips. "Mother, why don’t you tell what happened to you?"
Her mother stopped walking and turned to her daughter.
"Don’t ask the things that you shouldn’t. This is our final ga, i’er," she said softly. "And we’re going to burn them down to ash."
Fake Yu i looked down at her hands. They trembled—not with fear, but with anticipation.
"I just hope she makes it interesting," she muttered. "Yu Holea... don’t disappoint ."
..............
The ritual circle pulsed beneath Yu Holea’s hands.
Lines of glowing magic curled like serpents around the edges, tightening, weaving, snapping into place with ancient, binding force.
She took a deep breath and whispered the final incantation. The air shifted. The room trembled slightly.
Far away—
Sowhere Else.
Fake Yu i flinched.
Her eyes widened as a sharp, invisible thread tugged at her soul. She looked down at her palm—light was faintly glowing through the skin. A connection. A call.
"...It’s starting," she said flatly, glancing at her mother.
The cloaked woman smiled beneath her hood, her voice cool and calm. "Then it’s ti."
She reached into her robes and pulled out a dark, tallic ring—simple, but etched with runes so faint they were almost invisible.
"Wear this," she said, handing it over. "It will be your trump card."
Fake Yu i raised an eyebrow, then took the ring and slid it onto her finger without hesitation.
"Don’t fail," her mother said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "You only get one shot."
Fake Yu i nodded. "I won’t."
Then, with a snap of her fingers—crack—the air around her shimred, folded, and tore like paper.
She vanished.
Elsewhere—A Sealed Room.
Dimly lit and silent.
A single chair sat at the center, and in it, the real Yu i—eyes closed, lips pale, her body slumped forward, bound tightly by glowing chains.
Suddenly, the air twisted.
A pulse of dark magic snapped through the room, and with a flicker of light, Fake Yu i appeared, stepping smoothly into the space.
She didn’t move toward the girl in the chair.
She only stood there, smiling slightly.
Then she chuckled.
"Yu Holea," she called out, her voice echoing into the shadows. "I know you’re here. Co out already."
Silence.
No footsteps. No reply.
But Fake Yu i only smiled wider, arms crossed. "I’m serious. I won’t take a step—won’t even breathe too loud—unless you show yourself."
In the darkness, a soft breath answered her.
Then a voice.
"Why?" Yu Holea’s voice floated from the shadows, low and steady. "Why are you doing this?"
Still no movent. Only her voice.
"What did I ever do to you?" she asked. "I don’t even know who you are. I’ve never hurt you. I’ve never hurt anyone in your family."
Her voice sharpened, just slightly. "It wasn’t who started the body swaps. It was your mother, wasn’t it?"
Silence again.
Fake Yu i tilted her head, amused. "So, you do know," she said softly.
She stepped to the side, not toward Yu i, but toward the darkness where she felt the presence waiting.
"Look," she said, voice playful, "I’ll tell you everything. The whole story. All the ugly parts as long as you co out."
In an instant, the lights will turn on.
Yu Holea stood in the far corner, hand half-raised, still cloaked in shadows even as the room brightened. Her eyes narrowed.
Fake Yu i smiled wider.
"There you are," she said warmly, as if greeting an old friend. "Now... let tell you a little story."
"There was once a witch... a powerful one, but cursed. She could only take form at night, like mist under moonlight. And each night, she would do one thing, only one thing—she would pour all her mystic energy, her life force, into her baby."
She paused, head tilted, watching Yu Holea for reaction.
"The child was no older than two months. Weak. Nearly formless. But the witch kept going. Night after night, she whispered spells and songs and bled herself dry with hope. She wanted her baby to live."
Yu Holea didn’t speak, but her brows creased slightly.
"And finally," Fake Yu i continued, "after months of sacrifice, she did it. The baby grew. It beca nine months old. It even... gained a soul. Not just spirit, but awareness. Identity."
A shadow of sothing flickered across Fake Yu i’s face. "But it didn’t last."
Her voice dropped.
"On the ninth moon... the child died. Just like that. No warning. No cry. Its little body went still, and its soul—her soul—floated helplessly in the dark."
Yu Holea swallowed once. "And then?"
Fake Yu i’s smile returned, but it was colder now.
"The witch broke. She was devastated. Desperate. She couldn’t let it go. That soul—her daughter—had co so far. So she made a choice. A terrible, irreversible choice."
She stepped closer to the still-bound real Yu i but didn’t touch her. Instead, she continued speaking calmly.
"She took children. From her own village. Only the ones that were nine months old. Only the ones who would be... closest in age, in size, in possibility.
She would take them while they slept, inject her daughter’s soul inside, and wait to see if the body could hold it."
Yu Holea’s breath caught.
Fake Yu i laughed softly. "It worked... at first. The girl—her daughter—grew. Slowly. Ten years passed. Body after body, vessel after vessel. So lasted weeks. So months. But they all failed eventually."
"And then?" Yu Holea asked, her voice barely above a whisper now.
Fake Yu i’s eyes glead.
"Then sothing unexpected happened. When the soul reached ten years old, it started rejecting all human vessels. They couldn’t hold her anymore. Not even the strongest ones."
She turned to Yu Holea fully now.
"Until one day... by pure chance... a girl passed by the old woods. She had Yu blood. A strange kind of purity and power. It just happened that the Yu child was the witch’s enemy. So without hesitation, she started to find a different thod.
A thod that could permanently help her own daughter acquire the Yu child’s body forever. You know who that witch’s child was?"
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