#Prologue

[Ten-Li Demonic Fire Purgatory]

An absolute forbidden demonic art that burns the caster’s flesh and turns a ten-li radius into a scorching hell [焦熱地獄].

The raging inferno of purgatory invoked by the Ten-Li Demonic Fire does not extinguish for a hundred years, and all those trapped in the scorching hell will have their entire bodies burned by karmic flames.

The flaming vines of hell’s karmic fire, called Bundari, envelop the ten-li area, constricting, crushing, and reducing to ashes all who try to hide or escape.

The servant boys and girls who had followed her from the demonic sect and lived with her in the imperial palace bowed to the spirit.

The spirit slowly drew up demonic energy while sitting cross-legged.

Clouds began to cover the clear sky, and as an eerie energy started rising from somewhere, people all buttoned up their collars.

The emperor, who was enjoying a boat ride on the hexagonal pavilion’s pond while embracing his newly acquired young concubine, suddenly looked up at the sky.

The empress dowager, who had been showing off her power with her concubines at the Subangjae banquet, also frowned at the damp energy.

Thud−

For a moment, silence fell over every part of the imperial palace.

Then, with a deafening roar, the ground split open and torrents of karmic lava erupted violently from the cracks.

The beautiful halls and the trees surrounding them were instantly engulfed in flames.

The emperor’s boat capsized, and the concubine who fell into the water screamed for help.

The emperor, who had climbed to the edge of the pond alone holding onto stones, gasped in horror at the hellish scene and looked around.

Everything around was engulfed in dark red flames.

The stone tablets he had erected for his children born to his consorts were torn from bottom to top like paper being ripped.

He began to flee, breathing rough and hurried breaths.

The voice of the concubine crying for help was swallowed by the pond that had turned into burning muddy water.

The ground continued to shake terribly and split open.

He wanted to believe this was all just an ominous nightmare, but when he encountered a woman running out of Subangjae screaming with her body on fire, he froze in place.

“Mother…!”

The court ladies and eunuchs sprayed water, but the flames on her body only grew fiercer.

‘Your Majesty, Your Majesty, please save me.’ Though he heard the agonized cries, he could not reach out to his mother.

This place, where horrific screams burst forth, was a complete scene from the scorching hell.

“……”

Spirit.

My spirit.

Amidst fading consciousness, a man’s voice is heard.

Before the spirit, who had opened her eyelids like a burning lotus, stood a man crying out in anguish.

“Spirit, I cannot let you go like this.”

He leaned the burning spirit’s shoulder against himself.

Although the hellfire spread to his body, he paid no heed.

“Until now, I have only cherished you alone. Though I wished only for your happiness, if all that remains for you is bitter resentment and pain…”

A sorrowful voice seeped into her ears.

“Let us go to hell together.”

It burns.

Everything burns.

“If I meet you in the next life, then I will not hesitate to take your hand.”

#1. Awakening to Betrayal

“Your husband does not love you.”

In the lush garden of the duke’s mansion, two women stood.

The woman in the splendid red dress with a pale face was Duchess Esika Klaus.

Born into wealth, she had beautiful silver hair and blue eyes.

And the name of the woman standing upright before her was Yuri Anesis.

The daughter of the nanny who had raised Esika, and her only childhood friend.

Yuri’s lips moved slowly.

“The person he loves is…”

Yuri’s calm face was reflected in Esika’s blue eyes.

With brilliant golden hair and red eyes, Yuri spoke in a voice mixed with subtle regret, as if comforting:

“…me.”

The sound of leaves rustling in the wind was heard.

Esika’s blue eyes shook violently in shock.

“I think he has a woman. What should I do?”

It was only three months ago that she had said such things to Yuri.

Yuri, the nanny’s daughter, had followed Esika to the Klaus ducal house where she married and served her.

When Riona Klaus, her mother-in-law, found fault saying she was ‘the daughter of a family that bought their title with money’, when Duke Callian Klaus coldly neglected her with an impenetrable coldness…

Yuri was the only person Esika could trust in this hellish ducal house.

‘But that Yuri… betrayed me?’

She noticed Callian’s suspicious behavior after learning he had purchased an ‘Alet ring’ from a jewelry store.

The one that lovers give when pledging eternal love.

She was thrilled, wondering if it might be for her, but a month passed and Callian didn’t even speak a word to her.

And now, on Yuri’s left ring finger… sparkled an Alet ring of the exact same design she had heard Callian bought.

“…!”

The shock did not subside for a long time, and Esika finally raised her trembling hand.

And with that hand, she slapped Yuri’s cheek with all her might.

Whack−

The sound of the slap rang out so clearly it was almost cheerful.

“Yuri! How dare you…!”

Just as Esika was about to hurl insults while clutching her torn heart with her other hand,

“It seems you have no intention of fixing that bad habit.”

Callian’s voice was heard as he appeared, catching the staggering Yuri.

With his vivid brown hair and cold purple eyes, he was surrounded by a chill.

“…Callian…”

Esika’s eyes shook.

Duke Callian Klaus, one of only three dukes in the empire, was Esika’s husband.

Tall enough to feel imposing, with a solid build, and looks said to be among the top five in the empire.

When she first married him, she thought she had gained the whole world.

“The maids who have dedicated their entire lives to the ducal house are quitting every other day because of your tyranny. Now you even raise your hand against a friend who serves you.”

Callian, who had appeared, was supporting Yuri’s waist so she wouldn’t fall.

With the hand that had never held Esika’s even once since they married.

“How long must I turn a blind eye to this outrage?”

Esika could clearly feel from his cold gaze.

The fact that Callian despised her.

Callian, the heir of a ducal family descended from the founding contributors, and Esika, the daughter of the Brigitte baronial family who became nouveau riche through the jewelry business, were different from birth.

Everything from minor interests to habits was different, and just as Callian couldn’t understand Esika, Esika found it difficult to understand him, but…

Esika thought she could be a good wife to Callian.

After all, the handsome and prestigious Duke Klaus was the ideal type she had always dreamed of.

Despite three years of continued indifference, Esika thought Callian would one day look at her, and she constantly strived in her own way.

But to be repaid with such betrayal.

“…Callian! You have no right to say such things to me…”

“Don’t ever call my name again.”

Esika’s blue eyes shook at Callian’s cold voice cutting off her outcry.

The corners of Yuri’s red lips curved upwards.

As if mocking that all of Esika’s countless efforts had been in vain.

“Let’s go, Yuri.”

Callian whispered, placing his hand on Yuri’s shoulder.

Esika could no longer hold back.

She lunged forward, determined to grab and tear at Yuri’s hair.

For that was the only revenge she could exact on Callian and Yuri right now.

But Callian’s solid arm blocked her, and she couldn’t reach.

“Let go! Let me go! I’ll kill her!”

Esika flailed about, raising her eyebrows, and Callian’s cold voice flowed into her ear.

“You really are… terrible and tiresome.”

Then Callian forcefully pushed away Esika, who was lunging with all her might,

“Aah!”

Esika fell backwards and tumbled down.

A tremendous impact struck her head, and blood from Esika seeped into the grass.

She wished only to die like this.

**

She was ill for ten days and nights.

At first, Esika thought she was seeing things.

But it was neither a dream nor an illusion, but memories of her past life.

All that she had lost was vividly flowing in through her eyes, ears, and skin.

Her name in her past life was ‘Cheon Yeong-ryeong’, and the place she lived was the martial arts world of Central Plains.

She was the rogue daughter of the leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect, and she fell in love with the emperor of the empire.

Abandoning her free life in the martial arts world, she chose a new life in the imperial palace as one man’s woman.

“Brother Dokyoung, I… have a man I love.”

“An eagle can never be happy in a cage, Yeong-ryeong.”

All the people who protected her like family tried to dissuade her, but the world of women who leapt in for love was as cruel as the martial arts world and required meticulous conduct.

Yeong-ryeong stained her hands with blood countless times and survived the war of flowers.

At some point, the emperor’s concubines feared her and called her this behind her back:

‘Cheon Yeong-ryeong, the Most Wicked Woman Under Heaven’

What she sought to gain by giving up everything was only one man’s love.

But endless other women entered the harem, and the emperor who said he would even give his heart for her grew tired of her jealousy and no longer sought her out.

In the end, Yeong-ryeong, trapped in the cold palace by the concubines’ schemes, withered like a dried flower.

And her last memory was of pain as if her whole body was burning, and a man’s anguished cry mixed with bitter emotions.

She doesn’t remember the reason for her death.

“Yeong-ryeong. I…”

“…Huk… Huk…”

The blurry view of the room that entered Esika’s sight as she awoke in bed after ten days, sweating profusely, gradually became clearer.

“…Ugh…”

Esika covered her mouth and her body heaved greatly.

Her expression, with eyes wide open, was filled with shock.

She even felt nauseous in her weak body, but the vivid memories of her past life remained intact.

‘This place… is exactly the same as the book I saw in my past life.’

The fact that the withering Yeong-ryeong used to kill time by reading Western novels was something no one knew except for her servant boy from the demonic sect.

was a novel about events occurring in a fictional empire called the ‘Tureshian Empire’.

The protagonist was Resban Deon Lucein, the crown prince of the Tureshian Empire, and the Klaus ducal family was a force supporting the second prince and keeping the crown prince in check.

In the book, Esika Klaus was the wife of Callian Klaus, the only daughter of the nouveau riche Brigitte baronial family, who commits suicide right after being divorced in the fifth year of marriage due to her excessive extravagance and violent temperament.

The woman Callian took as his second wife immediately after divorcing Esika was…

‘Yuri Anesis’.

Esika Klaus’s childhood friend and a maid working in the Klaus ducal house.

Yeong-ryeong recalled the part where Esika cursed the Klaus ducal family until the moment of her death and murmured.

“This woman… is similar to me… Strange, it feels just like we’re sisters.”

A woman who grew up wanting for nothing, losing everything because of love.

There couldn’t be a more regrettable and cruel fate than this.

Yeong-ryeong found empathy and comfort in the Esika from the book.

Not smarter or more wicked than herself, and without the ability to subdue enemies, but in the end, her fate was the same as hers.

But now she had become that Esika from the book.

The one destined to have her husband stolen by her childhood friend, curse them after divorce, and take her own life.

And Callian… His face and aura resembled the man Yeong-ryeong had loved.

To the point of suspecting that just as she had become Esika, the emperor might have reincarnated as Callian.

Perhaps that’s why she clung to him even more.

‘The past was Yeong-ryeong, and the present is Esika. If both are me.’

Her previously slightly hunched posture had changed to be excessively straight.

‘I will never regret my second life.’

Above all, Esika’s gaze was no longer the previous dim and timid one.

In the dark room, only her blue eyes were gleaming brightly.

**

Cela, one of Esika’s maids, entered her room carrying dry bread and a glass of water.

It was on the orders of the Grand Duchess after news spread that the duchess had awakened.

“For the crime of causing discord in the household, bring her only withered bread and cold water.”

The room was utterly dark.

The Grand Duchess always disapproved of Esika, calling her the daughter of upstart nobility with no roots, and didn’t even provide lamp oil, so candles had to be used for light.

“What time is it that you’re still sleeping?”

Cela grumbled in a sharp voice, looking at the bulging blanket on the bed.

“How lazy.”

The Duchess Klaus was a pushover who did nothing but cry and complain.

When maids mocked her, she would tremble and get angry, but that only hurt herself.

All food and supplies in the ducal residence were under the Grand Duchess’s management.

If she turned the maids into enemies, life would only become difficult for the duchess.

By the Grand Duchess’s orders, whenever maids submitted resignation letters, they wrote the duchess’s name, so her reputation within the Klaus ducal house had long since hit rock bottom.

When she gets up from bed and sees this bread and water, the duchess’s blue eyes will probably fill with tears again.

She might even plead, ‘Cela… the dry bread is too hard… Please, can’t you bring me some warm food?’

‘Should I tell her to kneel and beg me? When would a noble ever beg before me? Pfft.’

Cela, with a raised corner of her mouth, bent down and grabbed Esika’s blanket, pulling it off with a whoosh.

Thinking that Esika would be curled up inside.

“…?”

But there was nothing in the bed. Just a bunched-up blanket.

And at that moment, Cela felt something cool touch her neck and was too surprised to even scream.