Even before Mireuk went mad, he was a less-than-stellar father…To Seokga, at least. Mireuk didn’t hate him (at least at that point), but it was Hwanin that he really took under his wing, it was Hwanin that Mireuk showered in praise and affection while Seokga watched from the shadows, jealousy festering in his heart. As the second-born, Seokga was largely ignored. As the first-born, and crown prince to the throne, Hwanin was showered in anything and everything he could ever possibly want.

It was during Okhwang’s annual talent show that Seokga and Mireuk’s relationship really began to fester. Seokga was, by godly standards, only a teenager at the time: hungry for his father’s approval and appreciation, hungry for a modicum of the affection shown to his oh-so-perfect brother. For Seokga’s talent, he declared, he would challenge Mireuk to a flower-growing contest—a random, and largely useless, talent that Seokga inherited from his earth-goddess mother, Mago. As the crowd tittered, Mireuk reluctantly agreed.

The young trickster god had believed he’d succeed. He had been practicing, and had purposefully chosen this challenge as an acknowledgment to Mago—who loved him fiercely, even though he was only the second son. Confident he would win, young Seokga grinned at his mother, who grinned back.

But, as the competition commenced, his father quickly overtook Seokga’s progress. The impending humiliation beginning to flush his cheeks, he had glanced out into the audience, and Mago’s disappointed face had struck him like a slap. So Seokga did what has always been in his nature to do: He cheated. With one of the many sleights of hand he is so skilled at, Seokga ruined Mireuk’s flowers and unjustly won the contest.

His father was not fooled.

Never until then had Seokga seen the emperor so enraged. It was then, over something as simple as a flower-growing contest, that the beginnings of Mireuk’s madness began. Even now, there is a part of Seokga that whispers it’s all his fault—his father’s slipping grip on sanity, and what came close after. The creation god began to weave sufferings into existence, sending them down to torment the mortal world. The years that followed were heavy with grief and horror. Mireuk tortured Seokga every chance he got. The god’s pride and fragile ego had been dramatically (and even nonsensically) wounded over the talent show’s result, and he took a sadistic pleasure in cutting Seokga down whenever the chance arose. Okhwang became a place of terror, and Seokga began slipping off to Gamangnara to hide in the shadows and chaos.