Chapter 326 - Blood To Blood-I

Jung Hwa was thrown forcefully, denting the wall, causing his back's outline to carved on the wall. His body ached from the pain, blood seeping from the corner of his lips as he felt a few of his bones had been broken as he wasn't able to tone down the damage with the sudden attack.

His sight blurred as he tries to regain back his vision, only gaining a faint shadow of Seoyeon and the fortuneteller as the crumbling dust was starting to settle.

"Let me go!" Seoyeon pulled her wrist and as she expected though all of a sudden the fortuneteller had gotten stronger, she still held less about of muscle than her. One tug rouse with more power and Seoyeon was able to release her hand. 

She pushed herself from the chair she sat on, tumbling it as she dash to make her way toward Jung Hwa only for an invisible force pulled her neck and her other four limbs. 

"I cannot let you destruct more lives, Seoyeon," the fortuneteller said, slowly twisting her hand on the air which cause Seoyeon's body to twist and her eyes met the latter's empty ones.

Seoyeon tried to pull her arms and legs but whatever the fortuneteller had done, she can only lift her finger, "I can control it. Haneul was able to and the answer is in the past. If I can grasp how she did it, I can put this power under a better control and use it for better purposes."

Seoyeon could see the fortuneteller wasn't her enemy. Although the woman wanted to kill Haneul and seal her memories for good, she could see that it was desperation that flashed on the woman's face and not hatred. 

There was a choice for the fortuneteller to kill her yet the woman choose to seal her memories and that lone choice spoke volume to Seoyeon.

The fortuneteller shook her head, a faint laughter which bore nothing but a scoff sounds bitter, "Many of the vessels spoke the way you did. They promised me they would be bale to put their power under control; that they are different. Sadly all of them had turned to the ground becoming skeleton."

"Because they killed themselves," Seoyeon saw the woman's hands on the air suspended on the air, "Please understand that though my words my sound like an empty promises similar to what the other vessels had said, I can truly control this power."

"At the cost of what?" The fortuneteller sighed, "I never hold anything against the vessels of the catalyst. They are the most pitiful people dragged and danced by fate forced to repeat tragic future and events before eventually taking their own life as they were unable to keep up with the pain of sacrificing lives of the people they love which is caused by their own power."

"I know now," Seoyeon struggled to dip her chin to meet the woman's face. 

"What do you know?"

"You are also trying to protect me," Seoyeon said that had the fortuneteller to lower her guard briefly. "Thank you but I do not need anyone to protect me. It is enough to have one person. I get you reason but not all. I can tell you are fearing something...someone but what are you scared of? It is not Haneul isn't it?"

Facing Seoyeon's question, the fortuneteller suddenly feel the memory of her past pulling her back in, trying to submerge her into the mirage-like memories.

It was the first ever memory she ever recalled from her first life. The fortuneteller remembered herself on the ground. An eerie toll of a bell rang near her but she could not hear anything as her senses were numbed by the shock she received.

'No...no...' she whispered over and over again. Reaching out her bloodied hands, she tried to pull the body of her dearest one that had been sliced halves, where the leg of the man and his torso was separated.

'Haneul...' she the whispered on a presence of someone.

Haneul's flowy light blue dress had transformed color when she felt someone had pulled the hem of her dress. Her eyes slowly meet the fortuneteller's.

'Stop this madness... please,' she whispered, hoping Haneul would hear her words but gradually the light on Haneul's eyes begin to dim before it soon disappear.

'I lost it all. She was right, how ironic,' Haneul showed the fortuneteller a smile that at once disappear as she raised her hand which was holding a sword and slashed across the fortuneteller's eyes.

A sharp scream rang on the fortuneteller. From the past and now, that memory was a deep trauma, followed by her few others memories after her first life where she befriended the vessels only to repeat the tragedy again and again. 

Fate was always mocking her and she quickly learned that no matter how hard she struggle to change the vessel's futures so it won't goes the same path as the former vessel, her action only poured more coal to the blazing fire, worsening the cataclysm the vessel faced. 

The fortuneteller couldn't see Seoyeon's face or the expression that she had but she doubted it would be as different as the expression that passed by the previous vessels— filled with determination as if they could truly outwit fate and the cruel cycle of the catalyst's power.

"I am not scared of anything," said the fortuneteller. "Gradually after watching your predecessors dying, I just learned that this is the only way. Bear with it if you do not want to suffer."

"I don't think I will ever allow that," came Jun Hwa's voice and the fortuneteller twisted her head when she felt Jung Hwa's voice coming from her left shoulder. However, before the fortuneteller could move a hair on her body, Jung Hwa had raised his leg and gave a good kick that sent the woman across the floor, making another dent on the wooden house until the wall breaks and the fortuneteller was thrown outside, across the front yard of the house which was covered by pebble stones.

Jung Hwa made sure Seoyeon was released by the invisible grips and she nodded at him when he came near her.

"I will finish this soon."

Seoyeon wanted to tell him not to kill the fortuneteller but she didn't know if she could say that in this situation, "Let me talk to her," Seoyeon said. 

Jung Hwa knit brows unbind slowly and he nodded, "She might lost some limbs but if it the talks that you need the mouth is enough isn't it?"

Seoyeon didn't have word to counter, "Be careful," she warned, "Whatever power she has, it is powerful."

"Haven't you seen how powerful I am too?" Jung Hwa cracked his confident smile before he tipped his chin, gesturing the corner of the room, "It will take some space, stand in the corner, would you?" 

Knowing she would only get in the way, Seoyeon stood outside the clash between Hwa and the fortuneteller.

Jung Hwa slid his body from the hole on the wall, walking outside and took an elegant jump on the stone-paved ground. He began to stretched his shoulders, enclasping his fingers of both hands together and cracked them across his chest.

"Based on our words and action I can tell you are used to the fight," Jung Hwa said.

"Scared?" Taunted the fortuneteller.

"In fact I am glad you have some knowledge to fight in you or else I would look like a psychopath son of a bitch who would attack woman one-sidedly," Jung Hwa pulled a smile where his eyes darkened. 

"How gentle but save the word for later," the fortuneteller reached out her hand for Jung Hwa to feel his cheeks grazed by some kind of a transparent object, blood aisled from his cheeks. "If you can still stand and speak that is," the fortuneteller showed a much more confident smile despite having the disadvantage of being blind.

"We'll see," Jung Hwa's words turn to whisper as he dashed like lightning, appearing beside the fortuneteller.