Once upon a time, there was a nine-tailed fox and a young male that was born of the moon.

It was how most traditional fairy tales begin.

The moon spirit known as Dal Luna, placed a blessing upon a young couple one night. In the mysterious kingdom called Dal Wang-gug, a child full of moonlight was born. His name was Moon Shindal.

His surname "Moon" was reminiscent of the glowing white sphere in the night sky, a family name blessed by the moon's spirit. "Shin" meant "God" and "dal" meant "moon." He was quite literally: "God of the moon."

As Moon Shindal grew up and came of age to rule over the moon kingdom, he came to know right and wrong.

Dal Luna was proud of her child-gift and empowered him during battles. However, one day, the moon was taken over by a red-glow.

Something was off on this day.

Dal Luna and Moon Shindal knew it.

With the spirit of the moon distracted and trying to fix the issue, Moon Shindal felt an odd, enraging feeling swell up inside of him.

It was also the day that he was to meet his future queen in a suiting ceremony. When he met the girl, a young woman with long dark black hair and piercing dark eyes, the irritable feeling overwhelmed him.

He cursed out the young woman and called her a 'sly fox.'

Upon the insult, the red moon pulsed with a rippling shimmer and out of it dropped a small glowing blood-red bead that fell through a hole within the ceiling and was quickly inhaled by the woman.

Her name was Min Gyohan.

It roughly translated in full to "quick-minded or clever fox."

As soon as the bead was consumed by the young woman, nine tails sprouted from her backside. She let out a gut-wrenching yowl that was entirely animalistic and horrifying. She lunged at Shindal with inhuman speed.

When she hit Dal Wang-gug's prince, she was in the form of a giant, blood-thirsty and terrifying fox with nine tails.

Shindal spat at her. One word. "GUMIHO!"

Min Gyohan swung out a massive paw and slashed Shindal's cheek, leaving behind three ragged, bloody claw mark lines. Then, with one agonized, furious glare, she raced away, vanishing out of the palace. Out of Dal Wang-gug. Into the ominous forest of fog.

Gwisinsup. Home to trapped gwisin.

As she vanished from sight, the moon overhead once more became a glistening white.

Dal Luna reappeared to Shindal, finding him bleeding from the three claw marks. The prince, the odd feeling vanquished, tells the moon spirit all about the gumiho creature. Dal Luna says it is nothing to worry about and reaches up to touch his cheek and heal him.

But the marks do not heal.

They stay for years and years.

Three times each year, the moon would repeat its bizarre red tint appearance, distracting the moon spirit, enraging the prince and bringing forth the gumiho creature.

The blood moon would often follow a full moon, when the gumiho would come out to hunt for food. The moon's bead or the fox bead would command its master to hunger. And that required consuming a human's liver by the time that the blood moon would be at its fullest.

The human liver contained the energy of a human. It processed the food and gave the body the energy that it would need to survive, and thus, it contained the working force or life of a human.

But Min Gyohan wanted one specific liver.

So, over the various nights, she set a plan to drain the life of Moon Shindal. She'd digested a human liver under each blood moon that had spawned in the sky and then finally on the thirteenth, she entered Dal Wang-gug once more under disguise.

Dal Luna discovered her, seeing through her disguise and raced to warn the prince. Together, they concocted a poisonous potion that would entrap the gumiho and her spirit forever to Gwisinsup. She could feed on the ghosts within the fog if it came to it.

So Min Gyohan, thinking that her disguise was still working, was granted permission to enter the Dal Wang-gug palace and to a one-on-one meeting with the prince.

Shindal was enchanted by her disguised beauty at first and even thought that Dal Luna was jealous of this woman coming to meet with him.

Just as Min Gyohan was about to kiss Moon Shindal and use her fox bead to consume his liver, he shoved her away from him.

He then threw the potion that was made at her. She was immediately shaken from her disguise and thrust back into her ragged, ghostly appearance.

Gyohan, enraged, screamed, "What have you done? What did you do to me?!" She tried to take a step, but she felt an invisible force restricting her forward movement. Then all of a sudden, she screamed and vanished into a poof of gray smoke.

Shindal raced to the front doors of his palace, gazing out across the open courtyard and toward the drawbridge that led across to the small meadow. And beyond that, the thick foggy border of Gwisinsup.

Dal Luna appeared to the side of the prince and placed a pale hand on his shoulder. "The gumiho is gone. No longer will she attack the innocent. I know she did not ask for this, but she will not harm my precious moonchild."

Her hand cups his cheek and remains unmoving. Dal Luna's eyes are sparkling and her whole body is glowing with moonlight.

There is a pause as a chorus of snarls and howls echo from the forest's barely visible tree trunks.

"Min Gyohan is the first gumiho. But she is not the last."