In the quiet folds of the mountains beyond Seoul, the spirit shrines sat like stitches in the land—each one a tether to the old balance, holding unseen forces in harmony. Few remembered why they were built. Fewer still could read the glyphs carved into their beams. But they were not abandoned.
Not to the spirits.
And not to the Severed.
Jin moved like someone who belonged everywhere and nowhere.
She walked the temple grounds barefoot, whispering the names of forgotten kami as she passed the lanterns. The silk threads woven into her robes shimmered faintly in the dusk, reacting to each guardian spirit she acknowledged.
In the mornings, she brewed tea from herbs only she could find—moonroot, whisperbark, and foxglove orchid. At night, she sat at the edge of the koi pond, tracing sigils in the dirt with her finger, lost in conversation with things no one else could hear.
Ahri watched her from the veranda, fingers tapping the golden thread around her wrist.
"You talk to spirits," she said.
Jin didn't turn around. "Sometimes they answer."
Ahri stepped beside her. The pond shimmered in the moonlight, koi drifting like memories.
"Do they ever lie?"
Jin looked up, eyes solemn. "Only when they want to protect you."
That evening, the Elder called them to the star hall—a circular room open to the sky, where the constellations could be read in real time.
He knelt before the central basin, where threads of light formed a living map of the spirit realm. Thousands of glowing lines intersected—some as thick as ropes, others as faint as whispers.
"Fate is an ecosystem," he said. "We are its gardeners. It's Watchmen. But something is poisoning the roots."
He turned the basin slightly. One of the glowing threads had turned black.
"Incheon's shrine is dead. And two more are dimming."
Ahri felt the cold tug in her chest again. The golden thread on her wrist trembled like it could sense the rupture too.
"What are the shrines exactly?" she asked.
The Elder placed a small charm on the basin's edge. It was shaped like a closed eye.
"The world isn't kept stable by chance," he said. "Every shrine holds an 'anchor spirit'—a being bound by sacred thread to watch over that region's balance. Wind, memory, fire, dreams—every element has its guardian. The Severed don't just kill them. They unweave them."
"Why?" Jin asked.
"Because when there are no watchers," the Elder said quietly, "there are no rules."
The southern shrine lay hidden in pine-draped ridges, three hours outside the city, where the spirit paths grew thin and tangled. The old maps marked it as Yongcheon-no-mi: "The Eye Beneath the Water."
It was said to house a Muksa, a spirit of dreaming tides—one that guided souls as they crossed into death or sleep.
But when they arrived, the shrine door was open.
No chants. No incense. No signs of the Muksa.
Just a silence that pressed against the skin like wet cloth.
"This is wrong," Jin whispered. "The guardian's thread should resonate from here."
Ahri stepped inside—and felt the sting.
The golden thread on her wrist went taut, burning faintly against her skin.
The floor was a sprawl of red-black thread, spilled like veins from the shadows.
At the back of the shrine, something moved.
It rose from the darkness—too tall, too thin, bones out of place. A woman, face hidden behind a cracked fox mask, with robes that looked soaked in ash and blood. Threads oozed from her sleeves like ink in water.
Jin gasped. "You—"
"You know what I am," the masked woman said. Her voice was soft. But underneath it… something else was speaking. A second voice, older. Animalistic. Hungry.
Ahri's pulse quickened. The figure's presence twisted the threads in the air—bending them unnaturally, like gravity had broken.
"You were spiritweavers once," the woman said, head tilting. "Children with scissors, pretending you're gods."
"Who are you?" Ahri demanded.
The figure's eyes behind the mask flickered—red and black, like smoldering embers.
"A memory."
Then she raised one hand, and the threads lashed out.
Ahri reacted. She threw her hand forward, the golden thread flaring. For a moment, the threads clashed—light against shadow, force against force. Jin cried out a word, her talisman igniting midair and slamming into the figure's shoulder.
The masked woman recoiled.
"You don't know what you carry, Threadseer," she hissed toward Ahri. "But he does. The fox behind your eyes."
Ahri froze.
The woman grinned beneath the mask. "He watches. Always."
Then she vanished, her form unraveling into red-black thread that crawled back into the wood like rot.
Silence returned.
On the floor was a broken charm: a weathered fox mask, smaller than the woman's. Child-sized. Stained with age.
Ahri picked it up slowly. It pulsed—once.
Back at the temple, the Elder stared at the mask with visible unease.
"These marks," he said. "This style is old. Pre-unification. This wasn't made by the Severed."
"Then who?" Ahri asked.
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he set the mask down, walked to the old scroll shelf, and pulled one free.
He unrolled it.
It showed a fox spirit—nine-tailed, standing atop a burning tree. Around it were threads—some gold, some violet.
"This is the Kumiho," he said. "Not all fox spirits are monsters. But some… some are tricksters bound to fate itself. When fate gets too heavy, they come."
Ahri stared at the image. "I saw this tree. In my vision."
The Elder met her gaze. "Then the fox is choosing you."
Jin stepped beside her. "Why now?"
"Because the tapestry is fraying," the Elder said. "And when stories begin to die, the fox spirits wake up."
Ahri felt the weight of the golden thread again, heavier than before.
"Then we find Miran," she said. "And we stop her."
The Elder's voice was quiet.
"Or," he said, "we learn why she's doing this."