Seokga rolls his eyes, but shakes the death god’s hand anyway. It’s as cold as ice. With a sarcastic smile, Yeomra disappears in a flash of dark smoke that leaves Seokga choking. When the smoke clears, both the CEO and Soo-min are gone. Unfortunately, the captain’s body still remains. “Fucking cadaver,” Seokga hisses, realizing Yeomra left him to clean up.

“Give me the child,” Samsin Halmoni shrilly demands as Seokga grits his teeth and shoves his way through the still-panicking throngs of guests. Various crew members are attempting to calm the masses, but the gwisin are apparently not able to grasp the concept that they are already dead, and therefore not about to be brutally murdered. The goddess of childbirth, mothers, babies, and general annoyances waddles next to him, her hands folded over her swollen stomach. She’s just appeared, the only hint of her impending teleportation having been the faint scent of floral perfume and baby powder. “Our heavenly emperor will be safest in my hands. Do you even know how to care for a baby, young man?”

He inhales a sharp breath of anger, stopping mid-stride to glower at the goddess. Samsin Halmoni blinks innocently back at him, the portrait of a kind, warm mother. But he knows she has the heart of a snake. “Thirty-three years,” Seokga breathes over the general bedlam and panic, jostled by frightened guests as he stands still. Anyone who knows Seokga would recognize the deadly calm before the storm, the way his features are almost terrifyingly blank save for the roiling hints of thunderous rage beneath that escape in flashes like white-hot lightning. “You knew who she was, where she was, and you never told me. Why is that, Samsin Halmoni?”

No sign of remorse, or surprise, dashes across her face. “Because you are your father’s son, boy. And I believed that Yoo Kisa deserved better than Mireuk’s spawn.”

The words carve something out of him, as if they are a honed blade. If there was no ring of truth to them, Seokga would have ignored them, firing back one of the scathing retorts he is so known for. Yet they hit true. Desperately, he attempts to keep his mask up, but the other deity sees through the cracks. He is like Mireuk.

“There was also your little pyramid scheme prank.” Samsin Halmoni’s smile is unkind, and he reassesses his opponent. She has a marksman’s instinct of where, and how hard, to strike. “So I’m only counting down the moments until you storm into Okhwang’s throne room and order us all to bow to your will.”

“I’m…reformed.” Seokga frowns uncomprehendingly at her words, which seem both strangely expectant and defeated at once.