Nao-Zai didn't have a thing for the myths but he, at least, expected the Divine Place to be something that he'd never seen before and would never see again. Instead, a vast expanse of nothingness bled out of the expanse, making up the horizon, the immediate surroundings, and the sky. Everywhere he looked, only a sheet of black greeted him.

It's a miracle he could even see his body and Xin-Wei in this light. He craned his neck up to find a sheet of silver dots shimmering in the flat, unreachable dome. Xin-Wei mentioned they're inside the Divine Plane. Was that synonymous to heaven?

A flash of white whizzed in his periphery. He turned to find the Divine Beast trudging towards a mansion void of light. It stood just like the buildings back in the mortal realm, boasting the vastness of the Hanreikisan and the nature-laden landscape of Trahn-gwok-tan. The absence of sconces, lanterns, or anything that could be used for illumination was the only thing setting this mansion apart.

The tiger wasn't going to wait, so Nao-Zai picked up his pace and followed it towards the mansion. His soles brushed against the ankle-high grass carpeting the ground, the hems of his trousers rustling against the tallest ones. An-Ri stayed quiet, her eyes taking in everything as they came to a stop in front of the mansion's perch.

"Forgive the slight defects," Xin-Wei said, his steps thudding against the floorboards and his weight making them creak. "I came up with this arrangement right after we crossed. I am not used to guests."

Nao-Zai blinked. Reading between the divine beast's words, did this mansion rose from nothing a few seconds after his world stopped roiling? Wasn't that...just a few minutes ago? What was Xin-Wei apologizing for?

The ceilings were higher and the corridors were wider than of in Trahn-gwok-tan, probably to accomodate Xin-Wei's size. Nao-Zai pattered after the divine beast, taking care to stay a comfortable distance from its swishing tail. He wouldn't want to be thrown against a wall by accident. Even if it's made from malleable divine power, Nao-Zai didn't need to be a genius to know it'd hurt.

Everything else followed the traditional arrangement of the mansions he had grown up in, visited, and stayed at in the mortal real. From the paper panes, the sliding doors, the planks of polished wood making up the ceiling, it's as if Xin-Wei made this place out of all the existing mansions and mixed them up.

"You are free to repose in any room to your liking," Xin-Wei said. "This will not be here for eternity as it only serves our temporary respite in order to get you acquainted with the change of scenery."

The tiger huffed. "I will be off," it said. To do what, Nao-Zai wasn't sure. It didn't look like it's going to explain either, so he let it disappear into the nearest bend and leave him alone inside a dim and empty building.

Nao-Zai exchanged glances with An-Ri and shrugged. How long had it been since he branched off the Noryeong clan? Was it her meal time already? He tramped across the corridors and stuck his head into random rooms, eyes searching for some tools he needed in preparing a meal for a spirit. Kai-Se once explained An-Ri didn't really need to eat since her strength came from the korza of Shaoryeong and the mortal realm, but now that they're in neither worlds, how would she survive?

He spied a set of stairs to his left when he rounded a corridor. Having a kitchen anywhere on the higher floors was odd, but then again, this was the Divine Plane. At this point, Nao-Zai shouldn't be looking for things he was used to. Something in his gut told him it would only get weirder and weirder from here.

His footsteps made the stairs creak. He winced and quickened his pace in case the wood decided it was time to let him down with a hearty snap. The muscles in his shins only relaxed when his boots slapped the landing of the first corridor of the second story. He leaned in, assessing the overall state of this particular floor. Nothing leaped out to him, so dragging An-Ri with him, he gave it a quick tour. He didn't find the things he's searching for.

When he came back to where the stairs were, he craned his neck up. One last flight, judging from the interwoven planks preventing the roof from caving in. He tackled the steps, eliciting more creaks and threats of breaking. He couldn't have jumped off as quickly as he did when he reached the last rung.

Then, he tackled the hallways. Unlike the lower floors, this level wasn't as dim. Some kind of ethereal light flooded past the paper-thin panes of the windows and the doors shut to his face. He turned a corner and froze in his tracks. The wall had ebbed into a stop, giving Nao-Zai a brief view of a porch facing the outside world. He crept past the last influence of the hallway's wall and found Xin-Wei's towering mountain of fur there.

The tiger looked serene, sitting on its haunches. Its hind legs were folded together, its tail still on the ground like a striped snake. Nao-Zai stepped forward. The floorboards betrayed him by whining against his movement and his weight. Xin-Wei didn't move. Didn't even flinch. Instead, the tiger swiveled towards him in the laziest pivot.

"I believe I have told you to get some rest," Xin-Wei said. Disappointment was absent in his words, as if it had expected as much. "It's a long trek due east."

Nao-Zai noted how the beast didn't refer to any quantifiers of time. Was it difficult in this place? "I was looking for something to cook with," he said. "An-Ri needs to eat."

If Xin-Wei had a face like that of mortals, it would have raised an eyebrow. But, because it didn't, the tiger just blinked and licked its snout with its padded tongue. Would it start cleaning itself like how the stray cats in Izeryeo towns did?

"The Immortal Fox will be fine," the Divine Beast answered. "She feeds off the energy of the universe and the Divine Plane is the root of all. In fact, she will grow to be stronger after this visit."

Nao-Zai stuck his lip out and stepped down the porch to join Xin-Wei in the veranda. What was the tiger looking at in this view? "What about me?" he dared to ask. "If this was the Divine Realm, is it the same as equating it with the heavens?"

Xin-Wei watched him sink to his crossed legs, resting An-Ri on his lap and letting her play with his sleeves and the insignia hanging in knots and threads from his sword. Giving a blade to child might seem like an irresponsible thing to do, but An-Ri was no ordinary child. Besides, she could hurt herself and others more without it. She's known to set fire to things if she's bored.

"This is the highest plane any mortal can reach," the tiger answered. "I suppose you are free to associate it with your concept of firmament."

"Am I dead, then?" Nao-Zai asked.

Xin-Wei opened its maw in a toothy yawn. "That remains to be seen," was all he said.

Not that Nao-Zai was looking for any more words about his inevitable fate. When he turned away from the Divine Beast, the view spread out before him. It was still the same empty expanse, but the silver specks were brighter. They're almost like stars. The mansion also seemed to be standing on an isolate chunk of land floating in the void, giving Nao-Zai a sense of isolation he had never felt before. Even then, sitting here and staring into the heart of the void, an inexplicable layer of calm settled on him.

Because all their short lives, mortals spent a long time running away from the darkness, from the abyss. But now that he's looking at it, he figured it wasn't so bad. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the void wasn't something mortals should fear.

Because the nothingness, the darkness turning Xin-Wei's stark white fur into a fine sheet of gray, the silver-laden expanse of black—it's beautiful.

"Are you going to sleep?" Nao-Zai asked, having nothing better to talk about.

Xin-Wei's snout scrunched up. "I have not slept in a thousand years," it replied. "I won't start now."

Oh. He ran his tongue over his teeth. "How have you survived all these years?" he asked. "Aren't mythical beings reliant on the mortals' beliefs?"

"In case the truth still has not settled on you, young mortal," the tiger shifted, its paws kneading against the woven mats as it went from its haunches to letting its stomach drape over the floor. Its huge paws tucked under its chest. "We will not run out of korza as long as the balance is kept. We do not need the faith of mere mortals to exist. I blame it on your kind's tendency to think of yourselves as important—that is why this errant confidence is still prevalent in your generation."

"I see," Nao-Zai contributed intellectually.

Xin-Wei let its tail twitch and slap lightly against the mats. "As long as our beads do not run out of light, most beings born out of the pure energy of the universe will survive," it said.

Nao-Zai knitted his eyebrows. "Beads?"

The tiger's paw emerged from underneath it. Claws jutted from between the gaps hidden beneath all the fur as its tongue and fangs nipped at its padded paw. "All the Divine Beasts and some higher-form spirits have it," it said. "It's the summary of our power and existence. You can say it is all we are. I suppose the little one has it too."

He glanced at An-Ri at Xin-Wei's reference. The spirit had stopped playing with the hilt of his sword and has collapsed to his side. Her eyes were closed and her chest rose in fitful breaths. She fell asleep. A small smile crept out of Nao-Zai's lips. Gently, he cradled An-Ri, letting her head rest on his shoulder. Her ears fell flat, almost melding with her silky, white hair.

"Is that why Kai-Se was able to revive the spirits back in Shaoryeong?" Nao-Zai asked. The nothingness outside didn't change. If it did, he'd be more surprised. "Was it because their beads was somehow inside him all along?"

"I sensed them inside the Worldwalker when he entered the Divine Plane," Xin-Wei said. "They are all present."

Nao-Zai glanced at An-Ri whose arms wrapped around his neck. If she decided to strangle him in her dreams, she might just succeed doing it in real life. "How many are there?" he blurted. He didn't know if he wanted to hear the answer, but at the same time, it might be helpful to be prepared.

"You will be busy for a while," the Divine Beast answered. And that's it.

Well, it really was something Nao-Zai didn't want to hear. "If Han-Xi have Kai-Se now, what happens to all the spirit beads?" he asked.

The tiger stretched, its curved claws scratching the mats. It would have torn it to shreds. "All the more reason to hurry and rescind this nonsense," it said. "I have a plan to stop the Amber Dragon, but it requires the rest of the Divine Beasts."

"What does Han-Xi want with Kai-Se anyway?" Nao-Zai said. "Are they after the spirit beads like Amatesu was?"

Xin-Wei rested its head against its front legs, squashing its mane in the process. "When Han-Xi entered a deal with Amatesu, they reached a compromise. She would get all of the remnants of the ancestral spirits and destroy them, Han-Xi would get the Worldwalker all to himself."

That still didn't answer what this whole thing was about. It seemed now that Han-Xi went through every trial by fire just to make sure they ended up with Kai-Se in their grasp. And now, they're upsetting the balance of the universe to keep things that way. What was the driving force behind all that?

"Unlike the beads we have, you mortals have a more brittle version—the soul," the Divine beast explained. Its eyes snapped close but the voice contained no trace of boredom or languor. "But, in the same manner as the beads exist forever, souls do as well. Even when life has passed its energy back to the natural flow of the world, it will eventually find its way back."

Nao-Zai blinked. "You're talking about past lives. Reincarnations," he said. "I thought it's something the scholars just thought up."

"If you still maintain that belief even after exchanging pleasantries with a Divine Beast and stepping into the Divine Plane, I will conclude there is something amiss in your intellect," Xin-Wei said.

"Sorry," he coughed into his fist and ran a hand down An-Ri's back absently. "How does that connect with Kai-Se and Han-Xi?"

The tiger huffed. "Recall I said that the fates of mortals and Divine Beasts do not get tangled," it said. "But in Han-Xi's case, he chose to go down that path. And he only ever cherished one soul."

A stone of dread dropped in his gut. "Don't tell me..."

"The current iteration of the same soul was the Worldwalker."

Nao-Zai frowned. "What happened between them?"

At that, Xin-Wei averted its head from Nao-Zai. He didn't get the tinge of sadness that crept into its tone, as if it was still fresh in the tiger's memory. "Tragedy," it answered in a solemn tone.

"It had been Han-Xi's goal since then to create a world of his own," Xin-Wei said. "A world where fate cannot reach him. A world where he can be with his beloved."

Nao-Zai's heart twinged. Of course, what was happening was hurting more than one person, but he couldn't blame Han-Xi. People would do anything for love. Now, he realized it wasn't just just for mortals. No matter how powerful or mythical a being might be, love still held the higher ground. Spirits, if Nao-Zai was put in the same position, if he stood to lose Kai-Se no matter what he did, he would have thrown his life and done the same as Han-Xi.

The only difference was that he wasn't a Divine Being and would probably stand nowhere near Fate's pinky finger. But with enough magic, with enough strength to rival a cosmic force, who's to stop a wounded heart from making sure it healed?

"I apologize for getting you and Kai-Se involved in all this," Xin-Wei said, its voice light and breezy. "We should have been able to stop the Amber Dragon before he has crossed the line, but we failed."

Nao-Zai sensed there was something more following that thread but decided not to push it. "Perhaps, this was fate as well," he said. "Who knows, right?"

If a tiger could chuckle, that's probably what Nao-Zai would attribute to the low rumble that gurgled out of Xin-Wei's throat. "You amuse me, young mortal," it said. "Please continue to do so for our journey beyond the Western Quadrant will be nothing short of easy."

He could only stare at the beast, trying to see if it was joking. It wasn't. So, he bobbed his head. "I'll try my best."