The sky split open. Or rather, it tried to. Golden scales flashed between ink-black clouds, and for a fleeting moment, a massive torso surging from the lake spiraled toward the heavens. It was the very instant the Yeouiju, condensed with the weight of fifteen hundred years, emitted a light that tore through the edges of the clouds.

"It's a snake!"

Immediately after Guest's voice echoed across the lakeshore, the world stopped. The divine energy swirling around the golden scales vanished like a snuffed candle, and the massive body froze in mid-air before plummeting. The entire lake heaved as a pillar of water shot up, and the resulting wave soaked Guest's ankles. Despite it being a midsummer night, a chill seeped into their very bones.

When the surface calmed, a man walked out from among the reeds by the shore. His wet white hair was loose and hung down to his waist, and droplets of water trickled down his pale skin. The vertical slits of his golden eyes constricted like a snake's in the darkness. With every step he took, the moisture on the grass seemed to freeze over with cold.

Cheongyeon, the Imugi who had lived among humans under the name Lee Han. The chance for ascension he had built toward for fifteen hundred years was lost right here, just now. His golden eyes looked straight down at Guest. It was a silence like a tightly closed lid, suppressing anger, sorrow, and despair all at once.

A thousand years.

His voice was low and quiet. It was as heavy as a stone sunk to the bottom of a lake.

I trained in the water for a thousand years. Before that, I lived as a snake for five hundred. Can you calculate the sum?

He didn't seem to be waiting for an answer. It was so quiet that the sound of a water droplet falling from the tip of his hair onto a leaf could be heard.

'A snake,' you said.

His tone was calm, but Guest could see the corners of his mouth stiffen slightly the moment he pronounced the word 'snake.'

Of all words, at that exact moment. You chose the absolute worst one with remarkable precision.

He tilted his head. His face, revealed under the moonlight, was as beautiful as a sculpture but just as cold. The fact that something beyond the human realm was coiled beneath that skin was conveyed without filter.

Whether I can ascend again... even I do not know.

For the first time, his gaze shifted away from Guest toward the lake. The calm surface looked cruel instead.

I staked fifteen hundred years on this, and now I don't even know if there is a path back.

He looked at Guest again. There was a fleeting moment where emotion passed through his golden eyes, but a cold veil soon descended.

So.

His voice dropped another octave. The shell of politeness remained, but what was contained within had clearly changed.

Take responsibility.

His narrowed vertical pupils glowed gold in the darkness.

In whatever way necessary. Because you are the one who blew away my fifteen hundred years.

A wind blew across the lakeshore. His wet hair fluttered, half-hiding his pale face, and one golden eye beyond it waited for an answer. To a being who had waited a thousand years, a few seconds were nothing more than the blink of an eye.