Return of the Mythic Bloodline

Content Warning: This chapter contains intense gore descriptions, so it might not be suitable for all readers.

"After the former Head died, I became the only person who knew about this scripture. Even when I passed the Head position to my son, I kept the text to myself.

More than half of my life was spent searching for clues about the goddess. I decreed that every child born in the fox clan must be brought to receive the Ancestor's blessing within a day. Yet, not a single clue about her ever appeared, and I even began to doubt the words of the first Head.

Just as I was about to lose all hope, I heard that Aruma had been blessed with a daughter of unique features — faded red hair and eyes."

The old man circled even faster as he spoke in a louder voice,

"I waited and waited for him to bring his daughter for the blessing, but he never came. When I sent him the letter, he arrogantly replied that the Guardian of the clan cannot be ordered unless it's a matter of the clan's protection."

"Such arrogance!" He shouted at the top of his lungs; his pupils shrank and veins bulged on his head with anger. He raised the stick and struck Gumiho's stomach with a thunderous snap. Blood gushed from Gumiho's mouth. She groaned in agony; her body trembled with the sting as a purple mark was printed on her tender skin. And yet, the more she moved, the more she was wounded due to the nails that held her to the stone.

"You monstrous bastard. Don't you have an ounce of mercy inside you?" I screamed, my heart aching as I looked at the pitiful face of Gumiho.

"Oh...I'm...I'm so sorry, my dear. I couldn't hold back my anger," he stammered, throwing away the stick and brushing Gumiho's belly where he had struck her.

"But it's not my mistake. It's because your father was too arrogant. I wanted to kill him then and there, but it would've caused a civil war.

So I secretly went to the territory of humans and ate the livers of their promising children. It caused the five-year truce between humans and beasts to be broken within a single night. I summoned Aruma and threw him into the forefront of the battlefield.

And the first thing I did after that was to spy on you. After a trivial struggle of five years because of your mother, I finally laid my eyes on you.

But I was utterly disappointed when I saw that your features didn't match the description in the scriptures. You had faded red hair and eyes, but they weren't of the same intensity as mentioned in the text. You didn't have the ethereal vertical-slit pupils, and most importantly, there was only one tail behind you."

His hand, which had been lightly brushing Gumiho's belly, began gripping her skin tightly. His expression darkened as he spoke further,

"I was so furious that Aruma had wasted so much of my time over a deformed brat. So, to take my revenge, I leaked the information about his family to humans. I even provided them with the strategy on how to kill him, and yet those useless imbeciles only managed to sever one of his arms."

Gumiho's brimming eyes sharpened, her eyebrows twitched, and her scared expression turned into a frightening one. Her vertical-slit eyes glowed, and the stone on which she was laid began shaking.

"Oh, my dear Ume, are you angry? No, it can't be. You must be commanding me to take more blood from you," the Ancestor smirked with a wide smile, drawing a sharp knife from his pocket.

For the next half an hour, the room vibrated with the wet tearing shriek, the splashing of blood, and the groans of Gumiho.

My very soul shook as I witnessed this horrifying abomination. Even Satan would falter at the mere sight of this monstrosity.

The torture finally ended when Gumiho fell unconscious, and the vision before me darkened.

After a moment, the stone door opened again with a sliding sound.

"Have you awakened, Ume?" the old bastard asked as he walked inside the room with a sack of cloth. This time, he didn't carry the stick, and his hunched back had straightened.

"The goddess' body is really mysterious. I drew more than eighty percent of your blood, and look, you are already healed within a week."

Gumiho's body was covered with countless marks, but all her wounds had gone except where the nails had pierced her.

"Your blood is also as precious as you, my Ume. I gained more than twenty years of lifespan by drinking a single container of your blood."

He lay on the stone slab beside Gumiho, placed the sack on her stomach, and spoke in an eerie tone,

"Should we continue our conversation from last week? Where were we? Oh, right, I was telling you how devastated I was when I found you were just a normal child.

I had only half a year's worth of life left in me. So I decided to let go of this dream and pass the scripture to my son, who was fighting the war along with Aruma, which I had ignited.

But the heavens were really in my favor. They were against you becoming a true god, just as they had been against Gumiho in the past. So they sent Riku as their messenger, who told me everything that happened at the waterfall. His description of you matched the one in the scriptures. My whole world shook the moment he called you a two-tailed demon. To be sure, I called the midwife who helped in your birth. But that old hag kept muttering that you were born with no abnormalities. She only confessed when I skinned her grandchild in front of her eyes. She begged for mercy and forgiveness and even agreed to help me frame you as a demon. I was amused by the idea, but I hated that she was the one who came up with it."

An amused expression covered his face as he began blurting,

"So I massacred her entire family and forced her to watch before beheading her as well."

He snatched the sack from her stomach, and from inside it, the severed head of the midwife emerged, placed directly on Gumiho's stomach.