After piecing together the fragments of Roanne Oult’s life, Mokyeong arrived at a scathing conclusion.

‘……What a foolish woman.’

The *buse inflicted by the stepfather who had abruptly entered House Oult one day.

Her elder brother’s sudden disappearance.

Her mother, who collapsed while searching for him, and even her younger brother, who entered a monastery without saying a word.

Burdened by all those misfortunes, the woman had been forced to shoulder her family alone at a young age. With her debts held over her head, she entered the imperial palace under the Empress’s orders.

Her mission was to harm the Third Prince, whom she had married at the Empress’s command…….

Yet unable to bring herself to harm him, she swallowed every poison the Empress sent instead.

She had been both painfully naive and tragically unfortunate.

Slowly opening her eyes after bringing the pain under control, Mokyeong furrowed her brow.

Something suddenly felt amiss.

‘It was not supposed to be today.’

In Roanne’s final memory, the teacup had contained poison.

But today was not one of the days when the Empress had sent poison.

In that case…….

Mokyeong’s gaze shifted toward the man lying on the floor.

‘Why on earth is this man unconscious?’

Mokyeong tried to search through Roanne’s final memories, but the most crucial part happened to be blurred, as though obscured by a pale mist.

Was it because her soul had not yet fully merged with this body?

Pressing a hand to her throbbing temple, Mokyeong approached Carden.

She grasped the man’s cheek with one hand and forced his mouth open, revealing white teeth between his rose-colored lips.

Without the slightest hesitation, Mokyeong thr*st a finger into his mouth.

There was still warmth inside his mouth. It was also damp from the tea he had not managed to swallow completely.

When she touched the saliva on her fingertip to her tongue, she tasted a faint sweetness followed by bitterness and a numbing sensation.

‘It is poison.’

But it was not deadly.

Rather than killing someone, a poison of this strength was more likely to send them into a deep sleep.

Mokyeong immediately checked Carden’s pulse.

It was slow and faint, but undeniably present.

‘As I thought…….’

He was not dead.

As long as the poison was properly contained, he would regain consciousness before long.

Acting on instinct, Mokyeong pressed one of his acupoints and tried to channel her internal energy into him. Then her hand abruptly froze.

“……D*mn it.”

She had no internal energy.

No, there was an even more serious problem.

All she was doing was holding the man by the back of his neck, yet she was so weak that her wrist trembled uncontrollably.

Her body was icy cold, her head continued to throb, and her fingers were so thin that every knuckle stood out starkly.

‘Good heavens. This body is not merely frail—it is practically rotting away.’

If she had been at the Tang Clan, they would have forbidden anyone in such a condition from even leaving their bed.

Mokyeong clicked her tongue and looked around for another means of detoxifying him.

Bang!

The door flew open without warning.

A man with pale hair rushed inside and looked back and forth between Carden, who lay collapsed on the floor, and Mokyeong, whose hand was still near his mouth.

Then, without even pausing to catch his breath, he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

“The Princess Consort has poisoned His Highness!”

“…….”

Mokyeong’s eyes narrowed.

It seemed matters had become horribly tangled from the very beginning.

***

Clang!

The moment the iron door opened, Mokyeong was hurled onto the cold stone floor.

“Do not cause any trouble.”

With that cold warning from the Captain of the Imperial Guard, the door slammed shut.

Mokyeong remained sprawled on the floor for some time without moving.

Throb.

A hollow laugh escaped her at the pain shooting through her shoulder.

Being thrown to the floor just once had been enough to dislocate it.

“Hah.”

This body was truly far too weak.

Crunch.

Gripping her shoulder with one hand, Mokyeong forced the dislocated joint back into place.

White light flashed before her eyes, but she did not let out a single groan.

Sitting with her back against the wall, she surveyed her surroundings.

“Is this…… the eastern tower?”

It was a place that existed within Roanne’s memories.

High-ranking nobles and members of the imperial family were imprisoned here when they committed serious crimes.

It seemed they had at least refrained from throwing her into an underground dungeon because she was a princess consort.

‘How exceedingly considerate of them.’

She had returned from the dead only to find herself accused of poisoning someone, and less than two hours after awakening, she was already imprisoned.

She had experienced all manner of things throughout her life, but this was certainly a first.

But she had no time to dwell on the absurdity of her situation.

Mokyeong sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor.

‘First, I need to sort everything out.’

She was Tang Mokyeong.

But this body belonged to Roanne Oult.

If so, what had become of Roanne, the original owner of this body? What had become of Soye’s soul, which Mokyeong had seized and pulled towards her at the last moment?

There was also no way of knowing what had happened to Tang Baekcheon.

Mokyeong closed her eyes.

While she was being dragged to the tower, her excruciating headache had subsided considerably. At the same time, Roanne’s jumbled memories gradually began to fall into place.

Most astonishing of all, this was not even the world in which she had lived.

Neither Sichuan, the Central Plains, nor the Martial Alliance existed within Roanne’s memories.

Instead, this world contained things Mokyeong had never heard of before: divine power, Aura Knights, and beings known as Inversios, the guardians of the continent.

‘Gods……? Is this truly a world where such things exist?’

Beings who personally bestowed power upon the humans who believed in them.

Mokyeong had lived her entire life believing that strength could only be attained through one’s own training and perseverance. To her, the very concept was utterly bizarre.

‘As for my internal energy…… It is regrettable, but I can rebuild it slowly. Restoring my physical strength comes first.’

As she drew a long breath and focused her mind, what had happened during Roanne’s final moments became even clearer.

Mokyeong’s eyes suddenly flew open.

“I see…….”

It was the poisoned tea that she had drunk with Carden.

That had been the final catalyst.

The poison itself certainly hadn’t been lethal.

However, Roanne’s body was already full of hundreds of different poisons.

She might have been able to endure each one individually, but they had built up layer by layer over many years, never being properly purified.

Her body was like a cracked piece of porcelain that had barely retained its shape, ready to shatter at the slightest impact.

‘So she died after drinking that poison.’

Mokyeong’s expression darkened for a moment.

Driven solely by her sense of responsibility, Roanne had taken charge of a barren territory, entered the imperial palace for the sake of her family, and swallowed the poison intended for her husband. In the end, she had died somewhere no one would ever know about.

‘……Poor woman.’

At the same time, Mokyeong found this deeply regrettable.

This was not a bad body.

In fact, it had the kind of constitution that the Tang Clan would have fiercely coveted.

Pressing her fingers against an acupoint on her wrist, Mokyeong slowly examined the poisonous energy flowing through her body.

There were dozens — no, hundreds — of different poisons.

Yet, despite having endured so many, her meridians had not been completely destroyed.

Although her body had grown extremely frail, its resistance to poison remained astonishingly strong.

‘Complete immunity to all poisons may have been impossible, but with proper training, she could easily have become impervious to a thousand poisons.’

Had she been born into the Sichuan Tang Clan, this body would have made quite a name for itself.

As Mokyeong entertained that thought, she sensed an unfamiliar energy deep within her dantian.

“Hmm?”

It was the complete opposite of poisonous energy. Clear and pure, it had an immaculate quality.

While it felt similar to an inner core, it was not entirely the same.

As Mokyeong steadied her breathing and slowly embraced the energy, a fragment of Roanne’s memories suddenly resurfaced.

Every dawn, the young Roanne would bathe, change into neat clothing, and kneel before a small chapel.

After spending an hour in prayer and meditation, she would walk alone around the castle grounds, gradually quietening her mind.

‘O God, our family is not a family of demons.’

For generations, the Oult territory had been known as the ‘Demon’s Land’.

Its mountains were full of poisonous plants and dangerous creatures, and those who ventured in without caution often returned as corpses.

Over time, the territory itself came to be viewed in the same way, and House Oult, which had guarded the land for hundreds of years, was condemned as the descendants of demons.

It seemed that Roanne, the young heiress, wanted to eradicate the world’s prejudice against her family.

She wanted to live more devoutly than anyone else in order to prove that she and her family were not connected to demons.

‘A Sacred Core.’

Through that memory, Mokyeong learned the name of the energy within her dantian.

It was a source of pure energy said to form only within the rare few who had led devout lives for many years.

‘She did not even realize she had something like this inside her.’

Mokyeong clicked her tongue.

It was only then that she understood why Roanne’s body had deteriorated in such a peculiar way.

Her unique ability to absorb poison was constantly clashing with the pure Sacred Core, which was trying relentlessly to expel it.

Given that the Empress had continued to force poison into such a body, it was inevitable that Roanne’s health would deteriorate.

Mokyeong immediately changed her breathing pattern. Although this body possessed no internal energy, Mokyeong had been taught the methods of cultivating it through a breathing technique.

As she carefully drew out the pure energy within the Sacred Core and circulated it through her meridians, the poisonous energy scattered throughout her body began to seethe in resistance.

‘Do not even think about it.’

Mokyeong concentrated more deeply.

Rather than expelling the poison forcibly, she separated each toxin according to its properties. Then, she guided their flow, allowing them to settle within her body without damaging her meridians.

How much time had passed?

When she opened her eyes again, the sky beyond the window was completely dark.

“Phew…….”

She was drenched in sweat from head to toe.

It was only natural. Although she had an inner core of sorts, she had forced it to circulate energy without contributing any of her own.

Nevertheless, the effects were undeniable.

Her throbbing headache had cleared, and her racing thoughts had become much more organized.

Only then could Mokyeong understand her situation completely.

‘If I cannot clear my name within a week, I will die.’

The minimum punishment for attempting to assassinate a member of the imperial family was flogging. At worst, three generations of the offender’s family could be killed.

As the prince was still alive, it was unlikely that three generations of House Oult would be executed, but she would still be flogged.

Although it was simply called flogging, given this body’s current condition, it would be akin to being beaten to death.

Mokyeong raised her arm and gazed down at her slender wrist.

Roanne’s frail body would never withstand such a beating, meaning Mokyeong might suffer a miserable death all over again as soon as she returned to life.

In that case, she would first have to clear her name.

‘But how?’

At that moment, the iron door opened, revealing the echoing sound of arrogant footsteps along the corridor.

Mokyeong slowly lifted her gaze from the floor.

A moment later, the door to her cell opened to reveal the most exalted — and most vile — person in the empire.

The woman who had placed Roanne Oult in the position of Princess Consort… the Empress.