Yoshika ran alongside Rika back towards her house. At the same time, she searched her way through the palace with Hyeong Aecha and Eunae, avoiding conflict as they made their way towards the throne room. It was an odd feeling to have her domain stretched out so thinly, but Yoshika wasn’t willing to give up her connection during such an emergency. The biggest downside was that her ability to clairvoyantly sense what was happening around her was diminished as more of her domain was committed to maintaining a corridor between her bodies.

Since Yoshika had to commit as much as she could spare to avoiding unnecessary battles in the palace, that left Eui’s body a tiny bit essence-blind, and unable to sense what was happening at the estate until it was within her line of sight. The pit of her stomach dropped as soon as it did. She could see the brilliant flames of Hattori’s phoenix locked in combat with a group of mages—the onmyouji himself being protected by his tortoise spirit. On the ground, Hayakawa Kaede fought viciously—flitting gracefully between mages and elementals before slamming into each of them with the weight of the earth behind her.

Rika cursed as the fighting came into view.

“Shit! That’s a lot of fighting—what do we do, back them up?”

Yoshika pursed her lips. They were in bad shape, but there was no choice.

“Let's hit them hard and fast. We need to make the most out of our element of surprise.”

Rika nodded, and the two of them charged forward. At the same time, Yoshika turned to Eunae with Jia’s body back in the palace.

“There’s mages attacking our house along with the elementals. They look like the same group that was assigned to guard the embassy. Can you take over scouting for a bit? We’re going to need as much of our domain as we can spare for the fight.”

Eunae covered her mouth and gasped in shock.

“What?! But why would—? What’s going on?”

“That’s what we’d like to know.”

Yoshika’s faces twisted in fury. How dare they threaten her family?! And what did they hope to gain? She would have to find out later—her first priority was to protect her family. As she approached the battle, her domain expanded out as much as she could manage over the enemy forces. Yoshika’s Corruption of the Fetid Bog technique brought most of the mages to their knees in an instant. She burned through her remaining essence in an instant and began to dig into the foundations of her cultivation for more.

Kaede took advantage of the distraction to focus her efforts on the elementals that resisted Yoshika’s technique while Rika and Hattori began to dispatch the incapacitated mages. Yoshika herself gave no quarter, cutting mages and elementals alike down with her sword—though she held back her destruction essence for the time being. The fight was over in moments, but Yoshika knew it wasn’t over yet.

“Where are they?!”

Kaede began to respond, but Yoshika was already scanning the house with her domain. When she spotted her family, she nearly flew into a rage.

“You let them get past?!”

Kaede shook her head, clutching her side where she’d taken a bad hit in the fighting.

“Not by choice. There were far too many for us to hold off on our own.”

Yoshika’s face darkened.

“What about Ja Yun?”

“Last I saw she was maintaining the barrier with Kim Yongsun. I went down—”

Yoshika was already moving. She didn’t have time to waste chatting with Kaede now that she’d already gotten the picture. Yoshika didn’t know what Kim Yongsun was doing here, but after hearing that he was enthralled by Eunae, she was fairly certain that he wasn’t a threat to her family. The warmages surrounding them, on the other hand...

Rika, Kaede, and Hattori hurried after her as she made a beeline for the central courtyard, where all of her training equipment and most of the defensive formations were kept. The formations had already long-since been dismantled, and Yoshika couldn’t shake the feeling that the mages were waiting for her. She was walking into a trap. She didn’t care—the lives of her family were on the line.

“Stop right there! Not another step!”

Yoshika froze as she rounded the corner. Sagong So was indeed waiting for her in the courtyard, along with Han Shin and a handful of warmages and elementals. Nothing she couldn’t handle, except for the part where they were holding her family hostage.

Huddled in the center of the courtyard, Yoshika’s family shook in fear. An Chunhei and Minjun, her parents, were trying their best to comfort her crying little sister, Narae. Jung, for her part, was lying on the floor, unconscious and breathing laboriously. Between them and the enemy, Ja Yun and Kim Yongsun stood in a defiant but futile last stand. Ja Yun’s eyes were dull and listless—only the mud elemental clutched tightly in her trembling arms indicating that she was even still awake—while Kim’s white and black striped fur was marred with muddy red and brown bloodstains. Both of them were totally spent—their auras as weak as mortals.

Threatening them, Han Shin had a spell already activated. As close as she was, Yoshika could plainly see the essence of the spell within her domain. A mote of highly compressed air and fire that Han Shin could detonate with the barest thought, right in the middle of her mostly mortal family. The resulting explosion would surely kill all but Narae, and even then Yoshika’s little sister was new enough to cultivation that her survival wouldn’t be guaranteed. Worse, on closer inspection, Han Shin actually had to maintain concentration to prevent the spell from detonating. Even if she killed him before he could react, the spell would still go off unless he purposely dispelled it.

Han Shin grinned maliciously.

“You can see what this spell will do, right? Don’t try anything funny, or this entire courtyard goes up in flames.”

Yoshika scowled at the mage. He’d always had a chip on his shoulder, but she’d been mostly sympathetic to him before now. After all, his gripes were perfectly legitimate, albeit founded in ignorance. Yoshika being forgiven for her crimes because of her connections was ridiculous—but her crimes had been mostly born out of necessity in the first place. One failure of the system correcting another didn’t absolve that system of its failures, but Han Shin had a distressing tendency to misplace the blame.

All of that sympathy died the instant he had taken her family hostage. If Yoshika had an opportunity to kill Han Shin, she would take it without hesitation. Unfortunately, he was currently poised to take her family with him, and she had no choice but to wait patiently.

“Are you alright? Your expression is terrifying!”

Yoshika was almost startled by Eunae’s voice interrupting her thoughts. She’d been so focused on her family that she’d practically forgotten that she was still in the palace looking for Eunae’s.

“No. Sagong So and Han Shin have taken my family hostage.”

“What?! Why?”

Sagong So stepped forward and patted Han Shin on the shoulder, a disgusting fake smile plastered on his face.

“Now, now, soldier. No need for cruelty. We’re doing this out of necessity, not malice. Our orders, Consul An, are to keep you and the rest of the delegate subdued by any means necessary until things have settled down. The higher ups seem to value you and Magus Ambassador Lee more alive than dead, but the same doesn’t go for your family, understand?”

Yoshika frowned and crossed her arms.

“What higher ups? What’s going on?”

Sagong So shrugged.

“Just a bit of political restructuring. The nobles are poised to run this nation into the ground if nothing is done, so with the help of our new guests, we’re doing something. It doesn’t concern you. However, the elementals are unusually interested in you and the Magus Ambassador—speaking of which, where is Lee Jia?”

“Why would I tell you that?”

Yoshika felt Han Shin’s spell begin to lose stability.

“The palace! You fucking bastards—she’s in the palace!”

Han Shin chuckled darkly, but Sagong So smacked him in the back of his bald head.

“This is not a game, Lieutenant! If we lose our leverage because of you, I’ll see to your execution myself.”

With a muttered apology and a sloppy salute, Han Shin went back to focusing on his spell, and Yoshika sighed in relief. Sagong So returned his slimy smile to meet her gaze as he continued.

“My apologies, Consul An, for my subordinate’s indiscretion. If Lee Jia is in the palace, then we have nothing to worry about. We can simply wait here until everything is finished. Come, sit down, relax with your family. This will all be over soon.”

Eunae scowled, stomping her feet angrily as they made their way through a hidden passage normally reserved for royalty—supposedly it would take them to the main hall of the castle.

“A coup?! Now?! Ancestors damn their timing. And the elementals are behind it? I think it’s safe to say that they are definitely planning to use our nation’s resources to acquire the keys to the Sovereign’s Tomb. I doubt that idiot captain or his superiors even realize what they’ve done.”

Yoshika had, of course, relayed everything to Eunae. The princess’ brows furrowed intensely as she continued.

“This is too big. Those morons couldn’t have done this alone, even with the support of the elementals. Ancestors, the entire military couldn’t accomplish this. There are fail safes—the colleges...oh, ancestors! Did they get to the colleges somehow? That might explain the shield formation dropping...”

Yoshika shook her head helplessly.

“What do we do?”

Eunae hesitated, her face falling.

“We—I...I don’t know, Yoshika. Keep your family safe. We need to get to my aunt. She’s more powerful than anyone in the country realizes. If they think they can get away with this, they are definitely underestimating her. Try to keep the captain talking. The more information we can get the better.”

Yoshika joined her family with Eui’s body, taking a moment to kneel down next to her crying sister and give her a hug.

“Shh, it’s okay honey, I’m here.”

Narae returned the hug with a vice-like grip, speaking through hiccuping sobs.

“Wh-where’s—hic—big sis?”

Yoshika lowered her voice to the barest whisper, relying on their proximity and Narae’s enhanced senses as a martial artist to pick it up.

“I’m right here, sweetie. We’re both with you. Everything’s going to be alright. What’s wrong with Jung?”

“M-mommy got sick again while you were gone. She was—hic—okay before, but moving was too hard.”

Yoshika stroked Narae’s hair soothingly, pressing her forehead against her little sister’s.

“Your mom’s going to be just fine. She was strong enough to raise us, after all, right? You take care of her for now, okay?”

Narae nodded and took a deep breath to calm herself before wiping her tears with a sleeve and kneeling next to Jung’s unconscious form. Yoshika stood up, only to be ambushed by a hug from her mother.

“Eui! Where have you been? What is all this?”

She returned her mother’s embrace.

“Sorry, mom. This is some...uh, really high up cultivation stuff that I don’t know how to explain right now. I’ll tell you and dad all about it after we get through this.”

Chunhei gave Yoshika a stern frown, but released her after one last quick squeeze.

“You’d better.”

Yoshika’s father just gave her a stern nod, indicating a trust in his daughter that she currently didn’t have in herself. Nevertheless, she appreciated the tacit support. With a deep breath, she straightened herself out to her full height—such as it was—and turned to face her captor.

“Why are you doing all this?”

Sagong So shook his head ruefully.

“I should think that’s obvious, Miss An. For too long, this nation has been suffering under the tyrannical thumb of the nobility—and more importantly, the Seong clan. Don’t you think it’s strange that ever since Seong Heiran’s bloody rampage so long ago that they’ve always been in power? Almost as if the noble houses were manipulated or controlled in some way, don’t you think?

“The nobility don’t serve this country anymore. They only serve the Seong clan, and that wretched queen. Only centuries of monumental effort on the part of Grand Magus Do Hye’s have been enough to destabilize their seat of power. Then suddenly he’s branded a traitor, replaced by a Seong clan representative as Prime Minister, and the forgotten princess returns from exile. Mighty convenient, that.

“We’re not going to sit back and wait for the Seong to create another monster to bring us to heel. We are not usurping the throne, we’re taking the nation back from those who’ve already done so! Once we give the elementals what they want, they will leave us with everything we need to establish a new order.”

Eunae scoffed derisively.

“Does he really believe that? Granted, the elementals are strange enough that they just might hold up their end of the bargain and cede power—assuming there’s a nation left when they’ve finished with whatever designs they have to go after the keys—but then what? Who rules? The military? They might be able to keep mortals in line, but there’s a reason they’ve never done something like this before. The mage colleges? Don’t even get me started.

“No, they’d be right back where they started. With new clans of nobility defined by whoever was strongest. Or, more likely, they’d be overrun and annexed by Qin after weakening the nation with their idiotic purge. They’re not saving Goryeo, they are dooming us.”

Yoshika felt silly acting as an intermediate between Eunae and Sagong So. She didn’t really agree with either of them. The current system was obviously broken and in need of a change, but she wasn’t sure that Sagong So’s way was it—especially since the elementals were definitely just using him and their other collaborators as pawns. Besides, she had bigger problems to worry about than the people in charge.

Her thoughts were interrupted as they entered the main hall before the throne room. The doors to the throne room were wide open, but the barrier was still intact. Though it was silent, the throne room was in complete pandemonium. Yoshika recognized the Ice and Magma elementals locked into intense battles with Seong Min and Eunae’s mother, Seong Minhee. Deep in the corner, Seong Misun desperately maintained a barrier to keep herself safe, behind which little Haeun was cowering in abject terror.

All of that was peripheral to the real battle. In the center of the room, Queen Seong Eunhee was engaged in some sort of combat with the inscrutable void elemental. Yoshika didn’t know what to make of what she saw. Rather than attacking each other directly, the two of them were vying against each other for control of the space, in which some sort of unbelievably complex formation was being drawn. It was far, far beyond Yoshika’s comprehension, and yet no matter how she looked, she couldn’t help but feel as if the queen was losing.