Kai-Se's hands wouldn't stop shaking. The moment Nao-Zai stepped out of the tent, he not only felt bad for trampling over the soldier that way, but a different kind of fear gnawed in his gut. The dream he had earlier was simply too real for him to dismiss it. It's appearing not just in his sleep, but was taking over his waking hours too. And it seemed to favor the times when he was just about to die.

Two more things swirled somewhere in his tight insides—guilt and shame. Guilt, because he had once again been a burden for the people around him. Had he been able to break free from the dream on his own, Nao-Zai wouldn't need to go back for him and get hurt. Had he not offered to stay back and claimed to deal with their pursuers, he wouldn't have gotten himself into a danger he wouldn't be able to stop. Shame, because in the dream of towering bamboo stalks, he hadn't hesitated to follow that crane. Over time, he had equated the bird to a respite, an escape. It was only in those dreams had he felt ridiculously safe. And when that crane began running, Kai-Se didn't feel anything when he made to follow, to go wherever the bird called home. Because it meant freedom.

It meant leaving behind everything and everyone he failed and starting anew.

But—he had to remind himself over and over—those were just dreams. Nothing more. This was reality. This was the world he should be focusing on, one where people could die if he as much as made the wrong decision. If he showed a small hint of vulnerability, like what his intrusive daydreams were capable of doing, who knew what else was he bound to lose?

That's why he had to get to the bottom of this. The crane had transformed into a man once. If it's as coherent as the rest of the instances he'd had them, then that crane could talk. And if it could talk and reason like a normal person, he could get something from it.

So, the moment the tent flap fell back into place and drowned the space in the colors of dusk and twilight, Kai-Se straightened and braced the pole holding the canvas up. "Okay, dream," he breathed, calming the rage of his thoughts and heart to no avail. He squeezed his eyes shut, tightening his grip around the splintering wood. "If you want to talk that much, let's talk."

A breath escaped his lips loud enough to dampen all of the sounds of the forest. When he opened his eyes, a flat, mellow expanse laid out before him. The same silhouette of imposing mountains surrounded the horizon, covered by thin layers of clouds. Bright pink and yellow petals dotted the floor, complementing the deep green of the waist-high, drooping blades of grass. And standing a few feet away was the same blond man who had transformed from a crane.

"Let's start with the reason why you're hijacking me and my life," Kai-Se said. His own voice sounded so...foreign in his ears, like he was here and, at the same time, not.

The man turned to him, yellow strands falling from his shoulders and down to his waist even when it's tied up his head. "I went through a great deal trying to find you," he said. When he spoke, it felt like he was right next to Kai-Se even when the distance between them was considerable. "You made the chase quite...thrilling. Don't worry, I enjoyed every bit of it."

Kai-Se knitted his eyebrows. "What are you talking about? Why are you looking for me?" he asked. Was this man deranged? He might be, but he was also a powerful magician to be able to manipulate dreams to this degree. "What have I done?"

At that, the man threw his head back and laughed—open and carefree, like he had no concern in his life. His eyes flashed against the muted sunlight in this dreamscape. "You continue to amuse me, after all this time," his gaze softened, but it didn't lose the calculating malice in them. "Come with me."

Kai-Se scoffed. "No," he said. "What do you want from me? I don't even know you. Just..."

He blew a breath and leveled his gaze at the man who never took his eyes off him. "Just let me go," he said. "Please."

The man's expression hardened into a passive stare. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he said. "You owe me, remember?"

What was this doofus talking about? Kai-Se hasn't even met his corn-head until a few weeks ago, when he invaded his dreams. "I don't, frankly," he said. "You're just that forgettable."

The man's eye twitched, but his lips widened into a smile. "I suppose I'll let that slide," he folded his arms in front of him, giving Kai-Se a good look at how low the folds of his fenhai cut across his chest. "Closing gates is no big deal."

Something clicked in Kai-Se's memory. The voice. Are you willing to pay the price demanded of you?

He had answered—A thousand times more, if need be.

Then, bend my magic and use it to destroy.

And Kai-Se did. He had used that foreign energy to shut the growing vortex between the mortal realm and Shaoryeong. Back then, he hadn't really thought of whatever price was going to be exacted upon him. He just wanted to close the damned gate. He didn't really have the time to negotiate. But now...

He should have read the contract before affixing his seal on it.

"In Dansarun..." Kai-Se started. The memories from that place and that time sounded so far away, like another realm he would never visit the second time. "That's you?"

The man grinned, showing rows of perfect teeth. None of them were fangs. "The one and only," he answered.

"Who are you?" Kai-Se prodded.

"I am a man of many things," he replied, inclining his head to one side. "Listing them now here would take some time. Have you got it?"

Kai-Se narrowed his eyes. "No, I don't," he said. "Why not just tell me your name? What do you want from me?"

Someone desperately searched for him and was possibly made of a stronger kind of magic. He hadn't heard of that before. His memory proved him wrong, though. A distant snippet flashed in his mind. Amatesu, screaming like a spoiled brat, said she had a benefactor who provided her the power to defeat all of the other spirits. And they only asked for one thing—for the Spirit Empress to give Kai-Se to them.

Which meant...

"You..." Kai-Se pointed an accusatory finger at the man. "You're Amatesu's benefactor?"

The man's grin widened. He lowered his arms and moved to stalk closer. Kai-Se stepped backwards out of instinct. "Juggled your memory?" he said. "Yes, that's me."

Kai-Se exhaled. His breath came out shaky. "Why would you give her the means to do that to the spirit realm?" he said. "Have you no conscience?"

He continued approaching Kai-Se, making him increase his steps on the opposite direction. "Conscience is a fickle thing, with no way to leash it. A construct—that's all it was," he tapped his temple with a finger. There were no claws either. "Life exists for us to live it, don't you agree? Doing all of those things is me doing exactly that. What's so wrong with that?"

"You enabled someone to kill countless spirits and hurt a lot of people who don't deserve it," Kai-Se hissed. "That's what's wrong with it."

The man chuckled. "And yet the spirits found a way to survive. The gods did too. You found a way to live through all that," he said. "Shouldn't that be enough?"

Kai-Se couldn't believe he was even having this conversation. He waved a hand in the air. "I'm not here to argue about morality," he raised his head and met the man's gaze for as long as he dared without his resolve crumbling to dust. "Whatever it is you want me, I won't give it to you. And get out of my head. Get out of my dreams."

He narrowed his eyes and made sure his tone dripped with as much acid as he could muster. "Get out of my life."

"Oh, let's hear you say that when I tell you why I searched for you all these years," the man said. "I have prepared a paradise or you, where you will no longer feel any sadness, loneliness, or whatever pathetic emotions you mortals feel. In there, you won't have any problems or hardships. And in there..."

The man paused. Kai-Se didn't even notice he had already closed the distance between them so that the man stood just a few inches from him. "In there, you will have me. And only you will have all of me," the man whispered. "So, what do you say? Will you go to paradise with me?"

Kai-Se opened his mouth, but no words came out. He stared up at the man who stood a whole head taller. Those eyes were intimidating yet when they settled on him, they were the gentlest things on earth. His sneer could have sent the bravest soldier running with swords between their legs, but when the man looked at Kai-Se, it was with the most tender gaze that he couldn't look away from.

And if it's paradise, then...

Fabric rustled and Kai-Se looked down to find the man's hand laid out in front of him, waiting only for him to take it. Kai-Se whirled behind him, expecting someone from the mortal realm to come and drag him back, yelling about what he must do because of what he was. But, he was alone. There was no one in this dreamscape aside from this man.

And this was a dream, he reminded himself. In his deepest of thoughts, in the last recesses of his wishes at the back of his mind, what was it that he wished for the most?

Rest. Real, unbothered rest. Away from the noise of the world, the endless striving to be happy through obtainind power, wealth, and prestige, the senseless chasing of things that weren't eternal, of things that break when handled with the most fiery flame. To not fight for one's life, to live freely without worrying about tomorrow or the end of days.

That's what he wished for. Hungered for.

Slowly, his hand rose from his side, traveling towards the man's waiting hand. If it's paradise, then he'd gladly have a taste of it while he could.

His fingertips almost touched the man's palms when his world blinked out of existence. A hazy mixture of brightly-colored blobs and blinding light replaced all of the somber shades of the dreamscape. A blurred face replaced the man's sharp features.

"Kai-Se, are you awake now?" it asked. Was it bad if Kai-Se didn't know how to answer? Nao-Zai's worried tone bled into his ears, chasing away part of the fog that occupied the front of his brain.

A groan escaped his lips as he peeled from the wall he had been leaning against. His fingers brushed a rough surface, making him frown in confusion. As his vision slowly cleared, he realized it was a trunk. He had just spent spirits-knew how long leaning against a lichen-covered bark. Where were they?

"What happened?" Kai-Se made a show of looking around. The Noryeong clan sat around in huge chunks of rock and aerial roots, a dark cloud oppressing their faces. He spotted his mother down the farthest line, running a hand down a woman's back. Was the woman...crying? "What are we doing outside camp?"

A pained look passed across Nao-Zai's face. "The Wang mercenaries found us," he said. "We had to pack up and flee. And when you were missing, I had to look for you and..."

His voice died down but he cleared his throat and continued. His next words sounded like he was physically grating his mouth just to force them out. "When I found you, you were wandering around in some sort of trance. It was the same as back in Dangrao and the most recent one in Chaebeon," he said. "And by the time I met with the main group, the mercenaries had caught up."

"We did the best we could in holding them back or at least buy some time to escape," Nao-Zai exhaled through his nose. "We lost some good people, Kai-Se."

Something shattered. Kai-Se's heart, maybe. He wasn't sure anymore. "Why did you leave them?" he asked, his own voice sounding distraught and strained in his ears. "Why?"

Conflict danced in Nao-Zai's eyes, like he's deliberating which answer to give to afford him the least punishment. He still thought this was a mission and that he's standing before a court that could behead him if he breathed the wrong word or paused at the wrong instance. "I had to get you," he said. "There's no way we'd leave you."

Kai-Se pushed himself off the trunk and staggered up. What the man did while they were together in that dream left his legs feeling like fruit preserves. He forced his gaze to meet Nao-Zai's. Mere black pools stared back at him. "How many?" he asked.

"Three," came Nao-Zai's quiet answer.

Kai-Se wanted to plop back down. Three might not been a huge number for the mercenaries—there's still more than a hundred or the Noryeong clan left—but for Kai-Se, it was a multitude. These people had their lives ahead of them, and being snuffed in such an inhumane way...it's unfair.

So unfair.

"Here's another news," Nao-Zai continued. "We've captured some of them."

Kai-Se glanced at his mother whose head had perked up at the commotion he's starting. He turned back to Nao-Zai. "Let me talk to them."

A look of disagreement rearranged Nao-Zai's features. Kai-Se leveled his gaze at the soldier to show he's serious. "Please."

Left without a choice, Nao-Zai trudged towards the center of the hazy camp they have set up in some clearing. A trunk of average thickness sprouted among them and around it were two men bound by frayed twine. If they have the brains and stength to prove, they would have snapped it with a bit more force and escaped unscathed.

Instead, they sat on their haunches, heads lolling and pained groans rumbling in their throats. Kai-Se's shadow loomed over them, mixing with the dark pools watering the tree's roots. He hoped the tree liked blood as nourishment. It didn't take long to know Nao-Zai had done his job on them. From the carefuly-inflicted wounds on their knees and fingers, they wouldn't be able to run and wield a sword as well as before.

"Who sent you?" Kai-Se asked. One of the men raised his head at the sound of his voice. A dark bruise started on the side of his face. "How did you find us?"

"A voice," the mercenary drawled. His hair stuck in errant thorns from the tight top knot he wore. "A voice kept telling us to chase nomads across the forest."

Kai-Se frowned. A voice. It was too much of a coincidence for him to ignore this. "Does this voice have a name?" he asked.

"W-we are not allowed to speak their name," the man said. His companion adhered to it with a lazy nod of his head. Both of them wore tattered fenhais overlaid with thick leather plates. If they were mercenaries from the Wang clan, those crafty arms dealers, they wouldn't be wearing these rags. "We will be meeting eternal punishment if we did."

A man who could threaten mortals with eternal punishment and mean it—this wasn't an ordinary being. And it couldn't have been any different than the man meddling with his dreams. "What is his name?" Kai-Se repeated. His voice dropped into a deadly edge. He had never heard this tone come out of his own mouth before. "I won't repeat myself again."

Visible fear washed over the mercenaries' faces. "We can't—"

Kai-Se cursed and summoned the korza from the air. His hand slapped against the mercenary's forehead, his fingers clawing at the matted hair. "You will tell me what the voice's name is," he said, an ethereal energy wrapping around his voice. Behind him, a faint sound of someone coughing and collapsing to his knees resounded. But it's the least of his concern now that he's so close to finding out who's been causing him a cartload of problems.

"Tell me their name," Kai-Se commanded.

No one could disobey when korza called.

"H-Han-Xi," the mercenary coughed out. "His name is Han-Xi."

It settled in Kai-Se's bones like some sort of smothering blanket. So right yet somehow still so wrong. The moment he withdrew his hand, an roaring fire rose from the ground and swallowed the mercenaries. Their screams filled the dark night, earning gasps, both silent and loud, from the Noryeong clan. By the time the noise quietened, the only things left were a pile of ashes and a spindly remnant of the trunk, charred and lifeless.

Silence.

Kai-Se stumbled back, his chest heaving at what he had just done and what had happened after. He looked down at his hands, the ones he swore to never see more bloodshed if he could help it. They're...

They're hideous.

But Kai-Se got what he wanted, in the time when he needed it the most. Conscience is a fickle thing, he told himself. It's nothing but a construct.

Han-Xi. That's the man's name. Joke's on him for trying to hold it back. The truth would always reveal itself. Even if Kai-Se gripped destiny in its proverbial top knot and pulled.

Kai-Se turned away from the impromptu bonfire, keeping his shaking hands to himself, and let his gaze rest on Nao-Zai. A thin trail of blood ran down the soldier's lips, which he immediately covered with the back of his hand. Well, too late. Despite his efforts, Kai-Se already saw it.

And while the guilt started occupying his brain and his stomach in droves, he exhaled through his nose and steadied his nerves. Conscience was a fickle thing.

Conscience was a fickle thing.

It's nothing but a construct.