“It’s him” Seohyun thought with a smile. Her smile became brighter as she felt those familiar arms wrapping around her waist and the familiar voice which whispered: “Happy Birthday, my dearest Goddess Seo~”

“Thanks, Yong~” Seohyun whispered back. “And thanks to the three of you! Let’s have some cake before the training. Of course I will not go easy on you three just because you guys got me a birthday cake” Seohyun added on. Sungmin, Jo Kwon and Onew could only groan in despair.

After they finished the cake and Yonghwa left…

“Let’s go! Death Training Arena… Arise!!!” Seohyun exclaimed.

“Aunt Seohyun, are you going fight us without your weapons?” Jo Kwon enquired as he saw that Yuri and Yoona were no where in sight.

“I don’t need those two to crush the weak souls of the three of you.” Seohyun replied in a menacing tone, her lips curled into an evil smirk before she whispered the words: “Blood Sword” As she said that, she pulled a sword, made up completely of her blood, out of her arm. The boys were stunned and slightly disgusted at the sight of the sword which seemed to pulsate and flow with the rhythm of Seohyun’s heartbeat.

“Mmm… Tasty!” Seohyun muttered as she her sword and turned to look at the boys with an evil glint in her eye. “Can’t wait to taste yours.” Seohyun added on and swung her sword in a sweeping arc, horizontally. Some of her blood flew off the blade of her sword, hardened in spikes and straight towards the boys, who were still rooted in shock.

Thankfully for the three boys, Jo Kwon regained his senses just in the nick of time and controlled the winds to blow his brothers out of the trajectory of blood spikes. He managed to propel himself into midair to avoid the spike that was coming for him, as well. Unfortunately, the blood spikes could be controlled by Seohyun, who simply raised her sword and the blood spikes turned around and flew straight for their original targets again.

This time, the three of them were more prepared and with their weapons ready they waited for the opportune moment to strike. Onew simply blasted the incoming blood spike with a cannonball of pure energy with his cannon hand and the blood spike vaporized immediately, leaving him unscathed. Sungmin, on the other hand, tried to slice the spike with his scythe arm and upon contact with the blade, the blood spike turned back into liquid, splattering his face with Seohyun’s blood but otherwise leaving him seemingly fine.

Jo Kwon, however, decided to blow the spike away from him, but sadly for him, the spike’s aerodynamic shape meant that it could fly straight through strong crosswinds and right through Jo Kwon’s chest. With a startled scream, he fell to the ground and laid motionless, eyes still wide open in shock. Seeing this, Seohyun sniggered and said: “My oh my, looks like someone didn’t pay attention during physics class! Looks like that’s one down and two to go~”

“Sungmin hyung! We must not let Jo Kwon die in vain!” Onew shouted to Sungmin, but when he turned towards Sungmin, he realised that Sungmin’s eyes had turned blood red and he had a rune on his neck. Onew did not know how to read runes but he was a hundred percent sure that rune meant: ‘blood puppet’. “How?” Onew asked, wondering when Seohyun’s blood entered Sungmin.

“When my blood splattered on his face, it seeped through his skin~” Seohyun replied with her usual sweet tone. Without giving Onew anytime to react, she sent her sword flying straight towards him and whispered the words: “Blood Dragon” Immediately, her sword transformed into a dragon, which roared loudly before spitting gallons of black blood at Onew. “Careful Onew, that blood is poisonous! It’ll kill you upon contact with your skin!” Seohyun playfully warned Onew.

(A/N: The dragon is a Chinese one, not a western one.)

Upon hearing Seohyun's warning, Onew immediately leapt away from the incoming barrage. Sadly for him, he leapt right into the path of Sungmin's blade arm and it pierced him right through his abdomen. "This can't be real... It must be illusion!!!" Onew shouted with his dying breath and true to his words, the illusion was dispelled the moment he stopped believing in it.

However, Onew broke out of the illusion to see his brothers charging at him with their weapons drawn. Just in the nick of time he managed to shout: "SNAP OUT OF IT!!! I'm Onew!!!" Doing so made Jo Kwon and Sungmin stopped in the tracks and snap out of the illusion. Following, Jo Kwon isolated the three of them from the rest of the arena using his air bubble in a vacuum layer method.

In the air bubble, the boys started to discuss their next step, while Seohyun seemed to be just smiling at them and letting them discuss. Being the oldest, Sungmin decided to start the discussion and said: "I am pretty sure Seohyun has us trapped in at least a few layers of illusions or else she won't be just standing there and smiling at us."

"Speaking of which I think I can faintly detect that we are in another illusion... Let me see if I can break it." Onew replied and the other two just nodded in agreement. The sight that greeted after the illusion was removed, was far from ideal. Jo Kwon and Onew were unconscious in the vacuum layer, while Seohyun was in the air bubble with Sungmin.

"Oh god... With Jo Kwon in the vacuum layer, no one can remove the vacuum layer and if this is yet another illusion, Onew isn't conscious to break it... What should I do?" Sungmin thought, as he took stock of his situation. He did not have much time to decide as Seohyun was spewing black blood out of and right at Sungmin. To Seohyun surprise, Sungmin did not dodge and he even smiled as he took the barrage head on. As he stared at Seohyun in the eye Sungmin whispered the words: "Entwined Destinies."

As the black blood hit Sungmin and the life out of him, while dissolving his body into a pile of gooey liquid, Sungmin saw Seohyun fall to the ground and heave her last breath at the same time he did. Just before he was completely dissolved, he saw the lifeless body of Seohyun turn into that of Onew's. He could hear Seohyun laughing behind him and he knew they had lost. Or so he thought...

Sungmin opened his eyes to see that Onew had managed to break the illusion even while being unconscious. Sungmin was amazed by the maknae's ability and made a mental note to praise Onew later on. This time, Onew decided to fight fire with fire and tried to place Seohyun in an illusion. As expected, however, Seohyun easily broke out of the illusion, but before she could, Sungmin decided to charge straight at Seohyun, his scythe arm glowing with his Soul Aligned state power active.

As he was about to slice Seohyun's head off, Seohyun turned into Sunny, which caused Sungmin to hesitate for a second. That was all Seohyun needed to finish Sungmin off with a solid karate chop to his head that split Sungmin's skull clean in half. As that happened, Onew had managed to lock onto Seohyun with his cannon arm and charged up a huge ball of energy.

As Onew was about to fire off the homing shot, Seohyun turned herself into Jessica, which caused Onew to panic and cancel the shot. Seohyun followed up instantly by transforming back and ordering her blood dragon to swallow Onew whole. Jo Kwon, even with his fast reflexes, was no match for the lightning fast reflexes of the dragon, and he was unable to do anything but watch it swallow his brother.

Witnessing the deaths of his two brothers in quick succession greatly unnerved Jo Kwon, but he knew that it would be up to him to either find a way to break out of the illusion, if there was one, or defeat Seohyun in order to win for his brothers. With this in mind, he took a deep breath and unleashed Revenge of the Dead. Seeing this, Seohyun just shook her head and ordered her dragon to spew more black blood onto the skeletons Jo Kwon summoned.

Expecting this, Jo Kwon immediately summoned a huge gust of wind to blow the black blood right at Seohyun. Following, Jo Kwon pumped his fist in the air with joy as he saw that his plan had worked and Seohyun was reduced to a gooey blob on the floor. The arena then disappeared and Jo Kwon shared the piece of good news with his brothers.

Seohyun smiled at the three overjoyed boys who were celebrating their win over Seohyun and when she judged that the time was right, she cleared to get their attention. "So you guys thought that you won me? Are you sure you three are not still trapped in an illusion? Remember what Z said... A blissful illusion for eternity or the tragic reality? What is real? What is fake? What do you think?" Seohyun told the three boys.

To Onew, she gave one more piece of advice: "Follow your heart, it will tell you what is the truth and what is the illusion." And with that she ended the training and skipped happily away, whistling a joyous tune.

"We won right?" Jo Kwon asked cautiously. Sungmin shrugged his shoulder in response, while Onew closed his eyes and let his heart tell him the truth like what Seohyun told him to. When he opened his eyes, they were brought back to reality. The reality was a harsh wake up call for the truth was that Jo Kwon was tricked into blowing the black blood onto his brothers and himself and that they had lost after all...

This time, the arena disappeared for real and their heads hung low, disappointed that they lost. "It's not a disgrace to lose to a goddess you know? Goddesses are meant to be the most powerful beings around." Seohyun told them.

"But we managed to beat Aunt Tiffany..." Jo Kwon replied sulkily.

"That shows that you three have the potential! So wipe off those frowns and start practising harder until you guys can surpass all of us! I believe in you guys and you guys must believe in yourselves. The outcome of the training sessions aren't important, what's important is the lessons you can learn from the sessions. These lessons will make you stronger and able to defeat those hooded figures." Seohyun said encouragingly.

Hearing Seohyun's words, the boys straightened the backs and with their faces set with a determined look, they thanked Seohyun for her advice and stayed back in the training room to continue practising. "They will go far." Seohyun thought to herself as she walked out of the room.

Back at the goddesses throne room...

"It's time again." Sooyoung said.

"Do you think they're ready?" Tiffany enquired.

"They better be." Seohyun replied.