The fall of the Sindeok can be understood through two religious wars. The first is the Pure Realm rebellion, which has been described in much detail in the first volume of this story. It represented the churning of the classes and the shaking of the foundations of the Sindeok. The anger and injustice of the peasantry found their outlet in the Sage of the Pure Realm, who preached the time of the Red Sky — the end of sinning and devilry in the realm, and the coming of a new world of righteousness and virtue. In their fundamentals the Pure Realm was not so different from the Golden Path. Both preached the millenarian belief that the current world was coming to an end, and a better new world was about to come within the lifetimes of their believers. 

But the Golden Path, the second religious war in the twilight of the Sindeok, did not merely seek a new world. The Pure Realm was only the latest development of the teachings of Wonyung, which had been for centuries not a particularly violent strain of the Awakened faith, made unique only by the inflaming of the wrath of the peasantry. The Golden Path was unrelated to any other strain found in the temples of the north, controlled to some extent by the royal abbots. It was also called the ‘Fourth Way’, the last major division of the Awakened believers — the others were the legalist orthodox Ohnnyos, mystically-minded Ashuls, and worldly Gyeyuls. It was much distinct from all the other sects from its very beginnings: the three northern sects originated from doctrinal differences between the successors of the Awakened Master, which had caused a great deal of sectarian conflict throughout the history of the faith until King Yeonbul established the primacy of the Ohnnyo school in the Sindeok. 

In terms of beliefs the Golden Path was most similar to the Ashuls in their focus on the world to come instead of the world at present; yet at their core they were ontologically opposed. The Ashuls believed that only the descendants of the Awakened Master should be accepted as leaders of the faith, and only these descendants were allowed to interpret and comment on the Five Sacred Books. No other sacred texts written by later authors were recognised by them. On the other hand the Golden Path did not recognise any leaders other than those already ordained by the prophesier Gyogak two centuries ago. As part of his extensive lists of prophecies and auguries, Gyogak had foreseen who would be his successors as leaders of his new order of adherents, promised by him a Golden Path to Paradise through a red storm and steel rain. Each Golden Master would be preceded by a set of signs that Gyogak had seen by them; the coming of Heeyeon was known to the Auric Council by the silencing of all the poultry in Makam for seven days before her birth, and the appearance of two moons at the time she received her first saber. Such prophecies were held to be more sacred than all other tenets by followers of the Golden Path, and even more when they came true. For Heeyeon, not all the signs were fulfilled — a fatal drawback that severely reduced the support she could muster from the tribes. But Gyogak also said, “The seed of the twelfth Master shall sit the Ivory Throne, and drown in flame the mountains of man.” Thus it seemed, at least to the less worldly elders of the Auric Council, whether the 12th Master was the correct person mattered little, for the 13th would be the one to bring them to Paradise — if only it was the child of the 12th. 

Yujin’s birthplace was the little mountain-village of Yuela, in the Ungwi Frontier near the border with Heonan inhabited by the Diao peoples. It was the typical mountaineer settlement, a rock fortress rather than a village, honeycombed into the caves and slopes of Mount Zhuo’er. It was an almost-desolate, apocalyptic scene all around, punctuated only by a few orchards and cultivated pear trees; all the forests were generally at lower climes. Steep defiles revealed rivers one thousand meters below, raging over rocks. A never-ceasing wind groaned around the mountains; heavy clouds clung onto the sides of the mountains most of the year and shrouded their peaks with the dark and dangerous climate that was so particular to the Chwanjeou. 

It was this austere scene that cradled little Yujin. Heeyeon was descended from a sacred bloodline (less diluted than most others in Nanwian; most female nobles, descended from similar antediluvian bloodlines, possessed the same characteristics as her), so she was the father to Yujin; the mother is not known to history. As a child, Yujin was a silent little creature who seemed lost in a world of legends, inhabited by mythological peoples, demons, and animals, holding herself aloof from all of the other children of the village save for a special friend. This friend, Kim Minju, would come to be known as