Some events strike like lightning, overturning one’s life without warning.

For Mokyeong, today was precisely such a day.

“You lunatics from the Demonic Cult!”

No, that was not quite right.

Those people had always been mad. The true lunatic here was her uncle—an elder of the orthodox faction who had joined hands with the Demonic Cult.

‘That bastard is worth less than a maggot writhing in a cesspit!’

Murderous intent flashed in Tang Mokyeong’s eyes as crimson poisonous energy seeped from beneath her green robes.

At once, the small body cradled in her arms stirred and erupted into a fit of coughing, still tainted by demonic energy.

“I-I’m sorry, Sister. Cough! B-Because of me, even your succession ceremony was ruined……”

“It’s fine. A succession ceremony is nothing important.”

Despite her indifferent words, the poisonous energy that Mokyeong used to suppress the demonic energy while holding her sister close was gentle and fragrant.

She was Tang Mokyeong, the deadly weapon cultivated by the Sichuan Tang Clan.

In the martial world, she was known as the Iron-Blooded Poison Witch, but to Tang Soye, she was someone entirely different.

She was a woman who had been forced to grow strong in order to survive, and who had become even more ruthless once she had someone to protect. She was Soye’s most admired sister.

Yet Soye had ruined her sister’s succession ceremony.

She destroyed the moment Mokyeong had earned after fifteen long years of struggling through poisonous soil.

Glancing down at her tearful little sister, Mokyeong sighed, lowering her voice.

“Don’t cry, Soye. This truly means nothing to me.”

Indeed.

Compared to everything she had endured to survive within the Tang Clan, a trial like this was nothing.

Not compared to those vicious years when even death had seemed sweet.

‘In truth, this entire farce was also the result of Uncle Tang’s madness.’

There was truly no one sane in the Sichuan Tang Clan except Soye.

Not even Tang Mokyeong herself.

Mokyeong pulled Soye close with a mocking smile and entered her grandmother’s secret cavern.

She knew it was undoubtedly a trap set by Tang Baekcheon, yet she made no attempt to avoid it.

Her absolute confidence that she could defeat Tang Baekcheon, regardless of whatever scheme he had devised, lay beneath that decision.

Tang Mokyeong, the Hyeonhwa Poison Empress.

A woman impervious to all poisons, she commanded every toxin known to exist.

The Queen of Poisons, whose beauty was dazzling enough to blind anyone who beheld her.

Had that arrogance ultimately brought about her downfall?

“Hoho…… You truly are devoted to that half-wit, Mokyeong! Then again, that must be why Tang Mokyeong, the Poison Witch herself, abandoned everything and rushed here to save her.”

With a deafening crash, the entrance to the secret cavern burst open. An unpleasant voice, like rusty wire scraping across vocal cords, echoed throughout the cave.

The moment Mokyeong recognized the man, a fiery, murderous intent surged from the depths of her dantian.

“Tang Baekcheon!”

“How impertinent, Mokyeong. How dare you address your uncle so carelessly by name?”

“It is laughable to hear a piece of filth like you insist on being called my uncle. How did you find this place?”

“I dipped the Formation Master’s nephew into a vat of poison a few times, and the old man willingly told me everything. Of course, by then, the boy’s body had already begun to dissolve, so I could not spare his life.”

Mokyeong’s expression hardened as a familiar face surfaced in her mind.

Tang Baekcheon burst into laughter so thunderous that the entire cavern seemed to tremble.

“Hahaha! But Mokyeong, do you truly think you are in any position to worry about your grandmother’s Formation Master right now?”

Just as Tang Baekcheon had warned, black demonic energy began surging rapidly from every direction.

‘Demonic arts!’

Mokyeong quickly used her internal energy to push it back, but the smoke split into countless strands which clung to her like malevolent spirits.

However, Tang Baekcheon was not even an elder of the Demonic Cult. The demonic energy wielded by someone like him could never harm her.

The same could not be said, though, for a young child who was already poisoned and suffering from internal injuries.

“Aaagh!”

“Soye!”

Black demonic energy poured into Soye’s untrained body like a raging waterfall.

The child’s mottled body turned pitch-black with demonic energy in an instant.

“S-Sister…… L-Leave me…… and run……”

Instead of begging for her life, the eight-year-old pushed against Mokyeong’s arm with all her might. Her desperate eyes pleaded with her sister to run away immediately.

She was Mokyeong’s only remaining family.

Everyone else had died long ago while protecting her, leaving only this small, precious child behind.

‘What foolishness. I will never leave you behind.’

Without answering, Mokyeong released her poisonous energy and carefully enveloped the child’s entire body.

She struggled to remain as calm as possible, but her fingertips began to tremble faintly.

“Hold on just a little longer, Soye.”

After confirming that the barrier formed from her poisonous energy was protecting the child from the demonic energy, Mokyeong carefully lowered her to the ground.

“Mokyeong, do you wish to save that girl?”

Grinning maliciously, Tang Baekcheon withdrew an ominous artifact from within his robes.

The black demonic energy was flowing from that very object.

“Then surrender your body without resistance!”

The dark power surging from the artefact ensnared Mokyeong.

The moment she felt her soul being forcibly ripped from her body, she recognized the demonic art.

The Heaven-Defying Soul Transference Art!

This technique exchanges two souls, allowing one to seize the other’s body. Somehow, this long-lost technique had fallen into the hands of Tang Baekcheon.

‘How did a bastard like him possibly obtain it……?’

But Tang Baekcheon was not the only one with a hidden trump card.

The small daggers concealed throughout the folds of Mokyeong’s robes rose into the air in a violent whirlwind.

Like tiny flower petals caught in a raging storm, the sight was almost beautiful.

It was the pinnacle of the Tang Clan’s hidden-weapon arts—the Rain of Flowers Filling the Sky.

“T-The Rain of Flowers Filling the Sky?”

Tang Baekcheon’s confidence faltered when he saw Mokyeong unleash the technique said to be learnable only by the head of the Tang Clan.

For the briefest instant, the black power clinging to Mokyeong like a ravenous demon and tearing at her soul weakened.

‘I cannot let this opportunity slip away.’

The moment she unleashed her secret technique, Mokyeong drew the Myriad-Flower Needle Whip from her sleeve.

As if responding to her will, the whip moved with extraordinary flexibility. In an instant, it tore Tang Baekcheon away from her and pulled Soye, who was rolling across the ground, back towards her.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

Tang Baekcheon, flung outside the secret cavern, reached desperately towards Mokyeong. Mokyeong swatted his hand away and embraced Soye, who was still protected within the energy barrier.

Dark crimson lightning flashed through the storm of demonic energy surging back like black clouds.

The moment the darkness engulfed the three of them, Mokyeong drew on the purest energy accumulated in her dantian and twisted her meridians.

Immediately, the soul of Tang Baekcheon, which had been trying to possess Mokyeong’s body, began to waver.

“No! Nooo! That body belongs to me!”

‘Tang Baekcheon, rather than surrender it to the likes of you……’

The moment her spiritual eyes opened, Mokyeong twisted her lips into a smile. Seizing the slender thread of light leaving Soye’s body, she pulled it toward herself and whispered.

‘I will give it to you, Soye.’

**

When she was a child, Tang Mokyeong was surrounded by people trying to protect her.

These people included her mother, who had become the second wife of the Tang Clan; her uncle, who had always supported her; and Lady Cho, her nanny and cook.

It was only when the First Madam took them away from her one by one and reduced her status to nothing that she realized her greatest weakness was her lack of power.

And so, she cultivated her strength.

She became so powerful that not even the leader of the Martial Alliance dared to treat her lightly.

She repaid her countless enemies who had tried to entrap her by giving them their just deserts and showing no mercy to the members of the Demonic Cult.

Thus, she earned the fearsome names of Tang Mokyeong, the Poison Witch, and the Hyeonhwa Poison Shaman.

This reputation became her standing and her strength, granting her an authority that no one dared to underestimate.

She believed that she would never lose anyone again.

“S-Sister…… L-Leave me…… and run……”

I still have such a long way to go.

Even my martial arts are still not enough to protect someone.

Grit.

Her teeth ground together.

She could not die like this.

Not this way. Not like this……!

I will not die!

“Gasp!”

Mokyeong’s eyes flew open as she gasped desperately, like someone breaking through the surface of the water.

Her vision was clouded, as though shrouded in fog. She frowned sharply and shook her head, and her surroundings gradually came into focus.

‘What is this?’

Everything before her was unfamiliar.

An enormous building made of marble. Luxurious silk embroidered with patterns she had never seen before……

The strangely high ceiling and the bizarrely designed furniture were also entirely foreign to her.

And then—

“……A foreigner?”

A man with golden hair lay collapsed on the floor.

Mokyeong’s brow furrowed.

Wondering whether this was yet another of Tang Baekcheon’s traps, she tried to rise.

“Urgh!”

Agony split through her head, and memories she did not recognize poured into her mind like a waterfall.

‘Roanne Oult. In exchange for clearing your family’s debts, you will become the Imperial Prince’s consort.’

‘Sister, because of me…… I’m sorry……’

‘A body resistant to poison? How interesting. Perhaps you could become a useful weapon.’

‘Princess Consort. I know that you are the Empress’s spy. But remember this: the Empress is not the only one capable of holding your life in her hands.’

Mokyeong slowly looked down at her hands.

They were so thin that the bones stood out sharply.

No matter how she looked at them, this was not Tang Mokyeong’s body.

Oult—a land known as a breeding ground for poison and demonic beasts, as well as the Graveyard of the East.

And the young head of that land, Roanne Oult.

Her consciousness was unmistakably that of Tang Mokyeong, yet her body belonged to Roanne Oult.

It was as though only her soul had entered another person’s body.

“……!”

A sudden possibility flashed through Mokyeong’s mind: the Heaven-Defying Soul Transference Art.

Could this be its doing?

It was said to be a demonic technique that defied the heavens and exchanged souls.

It was a sinister martial art with such a terrifying reputation that even the orthodox factions had sought to eradicate it by any means necessary.

It made no sense that Tang Baekcheon had been capable of performing the Heaven-Defying Soul Transference Art in the first place. Yet somehow, he had succeeded.

“Ha……”

Mokyeong let out an incredulous sigh.

Had she simply died, she would never have encountered anything so absurd. Yet she had survived and found herself in the body of Roanne Oult, a woman who had no connection whatsoever to her.

However, her confusion did not last long.

Slap!

Mokyeong struck both cheeks sharply with her hands.

“Get a hold of yourself, Tang Mokyeong.”

She could not afford to stand there in a daze, wondering whether this was a dream or reality and whether she was dead or alive.

The man lying unconscious before her was Roanne Oult’s husband, the sworn enemy of the Empress who was desperate to see him dead.

He was the Third Imperial Prince, Carden Rubert.