In Anju all was quiet and restful. The royal palace was dark; all its inhabitants were sleeping soundly. There was no indication of unrest or disquiet, for all slept knowing that the Jangseong still held strong; as long as the great wall was standing, Anju could not fall. 

But there was one who could not pass into sleep, and indeed had been struggling with rest for days even though his bones ached and his thoughts became muddled with confusion. That person was King Seonggu, who, after learning of the march of the legions of Wu Yifan towards Silsa, had locked himself up in his quarters together with his infinite dismay. Sorrow, fear, and affliction rushed upon him again, and he was like a corpse on a battlefield being assailed by flocks of carrion. In his mind his General of the Armies was dead, for no 5,000 men could withstand the hordes marauding across Sakju and Ansu. And that also meant that the Governor of Ansu was as good as lost too; all of northwestern Nanwian from Gunju Castle on the Jangseong to Chopyong had broken away from the Sindeok, and would only return if it was conquered back. 

In the northeast only Lee Taemin remained, guarding his territory from the rebels and rooting them out wherever he found them, but Seonggu did not believe for one second that Taemin, now having tasted the honey of absolute power as the supreme lord of Gyeonggu, would ever submit to the Sindeok meekly as he once did for Mundeok. In the southwest, where the disparate Lang, Xing, Bai, and other native peoples, as well as the warrior jayumins of Sinae origin lived, the lord of Suchimdong Im Nayeon battled the traitor Oh Sehun. It had always been difficult to rule Nanchwan and the Ungwi frontier, but never more so in this time of crisis. Petitions were already being sent to the royal court to demand that Im Nayeon be appointed Protector of the Chwanjeou, and Seonggu could tell in the tone of these petitions that their writers cared not for his answer; she would become Protector of the Chwanjeou no matter what he said. In the south, where populous Cheonhak, Bonghwa, Gongju, and Heonan were located, chaos reigned, for the populace there, which still clung on to the vestiges of the Sinae castes, waged total war on itself: peasants fought jayumins, the jayumins fought the Asadal nobles, the nobles fought the clergy, and the clergy fought the peasants. Reports came back to Anju, each contradicting the other and continually lied, obfuscated, and deceived him as to the true state of events in those prosperous and violent provinces. The local governments had taken matters into their own hands, jayumin warlords carved up their own territories, mercenaries from the Taihei Islands were burning and pillaging rebel and loyalist lands alike, and the clergy were preaching the End Times and elevating Ahn Yujin, a leader of the resistant Chwanjeou tribes, and daughter of the twelfth Master of the Golden Path, to the custodianship of the Golden Temple in Inje. The only commonality between them all was that they all refused to take orders from Anju. Without the strength to force their compliance, Seonggu could only helplessly watch as disobedience, heresy, and rebellion overtook the south, and let the governors and jayumins administer their feudatory states autonomously with little prospect of seeing them returned. 

The world, like a house in an earthquake, was falling apart violently and irreparably. Things had advanced to such a point that the Sindeok could not be rebuilt again to its former state. The peasantry was rising up in arms; the nobles and governors were styling themselves as kings and princes; heresy was spreading in the north, and would soon become an outbreak in the south once Ahn Yujin assumed the leadership of the Golden Path — if she had not already. Should the Datars unite once more and ride south, that would be a quick end to the Sindeok. 

“Thus my dynasty passes into history with me,” thought Seonggu in despair. He cursed all and one; everyone had wronged him; everyone had committed grave crimes against the state and Heaven; everyone was responsible for the impending doom of the world. His subjects were turning against him; the land was becoming poisoned and barren; even Heaven itself was abandoning him. No salvation could be found. Even faith had failed him, and therefore in his desperation for any consolation from his despair he turned to the oldest and easiest means of comfort: alcohol. Unfortunately, Seonggu possessed a great liver, being famed among the elites of Anju for his legendary tolerance for alcohol, with which he could continue drinking when all others were already off the precipice of destruction. Alcohol was not forthcoming in the palace at such short notice, and all he got from drinking was an even worse headache and depression. 

“Your Majesty, there is a nun wishing to see you,” said one of the attendants outside his room this night. 

“Tell him she can save the wagging of her tongue. I do not wish to hear any scripture now.”

“Your Majesty, it’s Sister Dara.”

Seonggu was jolted awake as if he had been in a deep sleep. The name made the sun shine through the clouds again. 

“Then let her in at once! And leave us alone.”

The nun Dara entered the room of the King, and after bowing to him immediately gestured for him to kneel, so that she could hear his confession. Seonggu, who was the patron of her temple since his youth as Prince of Anju, obeyed readily, for aside from his mother only Dara could command respect and deference from he who was lofty above all others. After hearing