The altar was surrounded by candles, and at the center, Han, the white fox that had transformed after the ritual, was carefully laid down. The tips of his fur held a silver afterglow, and his breathing was thin and faintly trembling.

When Jae, who had been watching over Han, saw Taejun and Jian come in, he quickly walked over to them.

“Taejun.”

Jae grabbed Taejun’s hand. They were marked with each other, like the other heirs. As Jae’s body touched Taejun’s, he quickly felt his mind grow calm. The only being Jae could rely on, the one bound by a blood contract. But even with Taejun, he could not talk about Han. Jae silently gripped Taejun’s hand and could not lift his head, and Taejun smelled the scent of a lie from him. That was what it meant to be marked with each other. Even without speaking, the other person’s mood was sensed on its own.

Taejun’s heart grew suddenly uneasy at Jae’s state, but he also felt how desperately he wanted to hide it, so he held back his words. In the end, it was a subordinated body. He could not go against his will. It was the same even if it concerned his own child.

“Jian, transform.”

Taejun said quietly. Jian pressed his lips tightly together. It felt unpleasant. Being marked with the ancestral rebirth should have been an honor. But why did his body feel so heavy, and why did his heart feel so wrong?

“Young... is that child... okay right now.”

Without realizing it, Jian’s gaze flicked toward the direction of Young’s room. The altar was underground, so there was no way the annex could be seen. Instead, that child’s quiet eyes came to mind.

“Quickly.”

At Taejun’s urging, Jian steadied himself and transformed into a wolf. It was a fairly large wolf with gray mixed into its white fur.

“This way.”

The priestess approached Jian, who had become a wolf, and led him to Han beside the center of the altar. Jian quietly did as the priestess said and crouched down, lightly touching Han. He could feel Han’s body trembling faintly.

When the priestess raised her hand, the air flowing over the altar gradually changed. The candles swayed long, and the ancient patterns carved into the floor were dyed silver.

“I will begin the blood contract.”

The priestess’s voice was low and deep. Jian instinctively stiffened his body. Perhaps because he was in wolf form, his heart was beating far more violently than when he was human. An inexplicable unease filled his chest. For some reason, Young kept coming to mind. It felt as if something had been severed from him, and somewhere he could not tell hurt.

The priestess lifted the ritual silver needle and lightly cut Jian’s front paw. Blood fell. The pattern on the altar floor reacted as if swallowing that one drop, glowing red. Then she took Han’s front paw and carefully cut it diagonally. The white fox, whose ritual was still hazy, twitched its body with a small “kkiing.” When that blood also fell onto the pattern on the floor, red and blue energy surged at the same time. Over that energy, the priestess wrote something with a brush that had nothing on it. Then the thin threadlike “energy” between the two gradually took shape.

“Seal that connects souls, bond that binds each other with blood, open according to the natural order.”

The priestess’s chant echoed through the entire altar. Then the energy linking Han and Jian burst with light and sent out ripples. Jian instinctively closed his eyes. It felt as if that light was piercing deep into his heart.

But the light of the energy heading toward Han suddenly bounced back with a thud. The line of light twisted and gave off a cracking sound. The priestess cried out softly, as if flustered.

“It is rejecting. The energies are not fitting together!”

Han Seonsaeng’s eyes trembled slightly.

“As expected....”

It was a small murmur, but it was clearly heard by Jian, who had transformed into a wolf.

“As expected?”

Jian’s heart thudded heavily. He thought he understood what that meant. Suddenly, it felt as if he could not breathe.

But Jae did not back down. His heart had already collapsed under guilt, and he knew that if he retreated now, all of this would remain only as sin.

“Proceed with the marking.”

His voice was firm and did not waver. The priestess squeezed her eyes shut. Han Seonsaeng approached her side.

“We have to hold the energy. I will help.”

The priestess and Han Seonsaeng simultaneously reached out and forcibly pulled at the flow of the seal. It felt like forcibly sewing together two different hearts into one. The energy creaked like broken glass, and wherever it merged, light spread like blood.

Jian could not endure the pain and clenched his teeth hard. The wolf’s body scratched at the floor and trembled. Han was in pain at the same time. The white fox’s body jerked slightly and let out a deep groan.

The light of the pattern floating on the floor blazed red, and at the final moment when the seal was forcibly stamped between the two children’s chests. Crack. The sound of an explosion shook the altar. Light flashed, and it surged back into both sides. Jian’s body lurched violently and rolled onto the floor, and Han also collapsed on the altar and fainted as he was.

The altar was instantly swallowed by silence.

A moment later, the priestess said in a trembling voice.

“It has been... completed, but....”

“Good work.”

At Jae’s words, the priestess could not continue. She could not let the words come out that this was an incomplete marking that went against the natural order.

Jian was breathing hard and trembling. He was still in wolf form, but his consciousness had already been cut off halfway. The sound of candles burning grew distant in his ears, and the cold energy on the altar floor faded into the darkness. And then. Somewhere, someone faintly called to him.

“Jian....”

At first, he thought it was an auditory hallucination. But that voice was clear. A very quiet, thin voice, as if swallowing breath.

It was not Han. Not the priestess. Not someone in this place, outside this room, far away. It was that child’s voice.

“Young.”

Jian’s consciousness wavered as if caught by that one name. In darkness all around, in a fog where he could not see a single step ahead, a small, trembling black shadow appeared. It was Young. In the form of a small black fox. Its fur was dark and damp like dawn light, and its small body trembled endlessly. The fox slowly lifted its head toward Jian. Its left eye, which had originally been green, was turning into a cloudy gray. As if it had been plucked out by someone.

“Don’t go.”

An unheard voice. But Jian clearly understood. That Young had said those words.

At that moment, Jian’s heart beat abnormally. He could not tell whether it was a dream or a hallucination, but Young’s presence was so vivid that Jian tried anxiously to look around, and then the entire field of vision changed with a crack and collapsed. And completely, his consciousness went out.

At the same time, inside the room in the annex. In the small, dark room, blood was splattered here and there like shards of glass just broken.

Originally Young had been curled up and lying low as if hiding, but now he was sprawled on the floor, his whole body convulsing sharply. The black fox’s fur was damp and lacked luster, and red foam spread around his mouth.

“Young master! Young master, please!”

The wet nurse, choking back tears, held onto Young’s body. But Young’s body kept twisting. The small chest of the black fox with its eyes closed was distorting as if being sucked somewhere.

The backlash of the forced imprint. The price of defying Young’s energy was being poured 그대로 onto this child. This was not simple pain. The “power that had originally been Young’s place” had been forcibly torn away, and the body left without that place was now unable to hold on and was collapsing.

“Doctor! Doctor! The blood again...! There’s blood again!”

The wet nurse hurriedly called for the doctor who had briefly stepped out. Young’s blood stained the wet nurse’s hand. It was warm, but faint. Young did not open his eyes, as if unconscious. But from the small mouth, something slipped out, small, very small.

“Jian...”

The wet nurse did not understand that name. But from Young’s mouth, along with the scent of blood, a tiny breath kept flowing out, calling someone.

“Jian... don’t go...”

Young’s body convulsed once more, violently. The tail struck the floor with a “thud,” and the sound rang through the room. The wet nurse embraced the fox with a face full of despair.

But Young’s chest grew thinner and thinner, and the breath trembled as if it would break off. Because the pain of the imprint forcibly twisted at the altar was connected to Young as well. Because Young was the original owner. Because Young was the one who had been taken.

Soon the doctor hurried into the room and examined Young, who was being held in the wet nurse’s arms. But he had nothing else he could do. It was the first time he had seen such a case. He had never heard or seen a reaction like this in a fox to whom ancestral rebirth had come. Only the wet nurse and the doctor did not know that Han was instead calling down the energy of the progenitor and proceeding with the imprint with Jian.

Even though a long time had already passed since contact had been made with the main building, in this small annex where no one came, Young was still bound to the energy of blood and dying alone.

Moon Cries, Volume 1