At a glance, it sounded like a self-mocking rebuke.
Eun Seok-won was dead. Seoul was burning. Instinctively, Jioh calculated priorities.
Mom, the youngest, friends…
She cleared away human greed first.
Of course your own people matter more than strangers you’ve never met, but when “person” becomes “people,” the story changes again.
Even a tyrant must protect a kingdom and its subjects.
So she stripped away personal feelings and tallied what was most urgent and necessary.
〈Silver Lion〉 must not fall.
If so, the choice that had to be made right now was…
That was why “Jio” came to the Silver Lion estate first of all.
“Knew this shit was coming.”
Jioh strode deeper in. With every step, shadows like black, viscous ichor surged like waves and lapped at her toes.
Shards of a broken covenant. Held fast by force, they screamed.
She shoved aside whatever she could get her hands on, patched what she could, and walked on.
“See? Would’ve been nice if you’d renewed the pact earlier. Uselessly stubborn for nothing.”
…Hoo—
A breath of razor-blue baleful aura clung to her face.
Gray eyes studded with golden flecks like constellations; a tiger whose body was shaped from an…