My Ultimate Ambition

The woman dressed like them, the natives of Shu, but wasn't really one of them as she possessed the knowledge of the future. Yoona found herself listening attentively as she revealed the Kigals would definitely win the war but at the expense of the world. She scoffed at the old woman, how could she know this? As a proof that what she said was true, she took out her staff made of pure light; a kind of technology far too advanced to be anything but futuristic, and planted it swiftly into the ground.

"Come Hwanghu. See the destruction Kigals would bring to the world, starting from this very land we stand"

Yoona felt a compelling power which forced her to look into her eyes as both Iris of theirs turned grey; like one blind. Her eyes closed as she felt some transformative power hissing around her and some transportation feeling of movement.

When her eyes opened, the first thing she felt was a cold sand beneath her back, she could hear the waves crashing, the seagulls cawing and the sound of a deep voice as someone lifted her head from the ground. After sometime, maybe hours, maybe seconds, her eyes finally met those of the man who had apparently rescued her__from what she was unsure as her memory was weak. But his eyes were mysteriously familiar sending cold down her spine, then a name materialized in her mind, a question from the deepest agony of her soul.

"Where's Daejong?" She asked but felt his eyes move uncomfortably.

"You're still hurt, my dear. Worry not about others."

Weakly, she held his hands as her faint whisper of a voice came out raspy. "Did he survive?"

"I'm not sure." He finally answered. "He was mortally wounded when he handed you over to me."

Then the memories came crashing down, tugging and ripping at her soul; Daejong racing down the capital gates to whisk her away, the arrows combating fiercely and her fallen soldiers.

Bright red spatters on the floors and white tiles of the crumbling palace served as a backdrop for the deadly battle. Thousand of men had already fallen, an ivory flag of surrender already waved in the sky and yet the enemy refused to back down. She cried out in utter anguish as she blamed herself; if she hadn't taken the lead, the battle wouldn't have continued! If she hadn't ordered for reinforcement and had just surrendered at the onset, millions of innocent people wouldn't have died.

She wiped her tears as she hurried to the middle of the training ring as her horse thrashed against an enemy; the cry of her steed forcing her legs to move faster than she thought she was capable of. She had found the wild horse only days prior and it was clear his training wasn't yet successful as he was as wild as he was found or maybe, it was scared of all the noises. She arrived by his side and thrashed down the enemy, this seemed to calm him down as he allowed her stroke his gleaming mane. 

"Sol, are you ready to fight alongside me for the first and last time?" And he whinned noisily like he understood her properly. She climbed over him and heard a cannon blow.

With great determination, the jet black stallion raced to the palace gates at top speed, breaking down his stable door. When they arrived at the palace gate, she saw Daejong, his armour glistening under the sun with white cape floating in the air, racing in with his horse and army. Her great fear was instantly replaced with relief at the moment he jumped down from the horse and she hugged him briefly to her ċhėst .

"How did you make it here in two days? Weren't you on your way to Kigali?" She asked in quick succession.

"It was all a strategy to divide the enemy power force and buy us time, and for your first question, we found an old long tunnel leading directly to the capital city. It was made by our ancient emperors to wade off attacks like this__like they knew this day would come." He wiped her tears as he enveloped her back into a hug to calm her trembling body.

"We would have been a day earlier but thick cobwebs, thick vines and animal inhabitants of the tunnel made it almost impossible as it had never been used by humans"

Yoona disengaged herself as she unsheathed her sword. "Let's wipe out this treacherous leachers from our land!" But arrows came unprepared, thrashing them down as Daejong pinned her down to shield her. The army retaliated fiercely and watched the enemies fall until a large cannon was disengaged on them, sending them apart.

In the thick of the smoke, swift apparitions enveloped them all as they could only hear men cry out in pain. Daejong staggeringly reached out to Yoona as her tingling ears rang her into disillusion.

The men in mask soon became visible with the dissipated smoke as they too fought against the enemy. One man, the one who seemed to be the leader raced to raise Yoona up from the ground; her cough incessantly weak with a little blood trickling from her nose.

"Save her and send her faraway from this battle!" He begged the stranger.

"I solemnly love you, my dear Yoona!" Then kissed her hand. .

Daejong gasped for air in trepidation as he slipped his ring into her palms then, joined in the battle.

All this Yoona remembered as it was the last scene Daejong appeared in. Her eyes stung but she refused to let the salty tears fall down her face for fear of disrespecting all the lives lost in protecting her while she was safely tucked away from the war.

War is hard for everyone; the men fighting in the battlefield, the innocents who perish, families of those who died too soon and her, the empress whose emperor was gone and was left to pick up the ruins of the kingdom and try to put them back together.

Multiple days later, Jae Joon found out about the tower safely hidden away from the city and which was a safe haven for them. He explained in detail the destruction the country had faced in her absence but no description was enough to prepare her for what she saw when she arrived the palace. To put it simply, her lavish, grand palace had crumbled as if it were made of sand instead of stone. When she walked into the ruins of what used to be the throne room, she was surprised to see that amidst the broken structure, the golden dragon throne seemed untouched and exactly as she had seen it last, the only thing missing was the dragon who owned the seat as he was gone; gone for good.

Her utter cry of despair resonated within the ruins as she echoed, "Why destroy a beautiful city if you had no intention of inhabition?"

Jae Joon quietly replied, "Destruction was the ultimate goal, riches and wealth was never the intention!"

The alpha man who stood without his mask quietly added, "Information has it they're off to another country, to destroy and maim!"

Yoona clutched her ċhėst as she screamed to be taken away as she had seen enough and felt herself light-headed. Exhausted from the ordeal, she peered up from the ground to observe the old lady breathing rapidly, probably an exhaustion on her own path as she saw everything Yoona did, reliving the horror she felt when she was first shown this future.

"Do you believe me now, Hwanghu?" The old lady asked as her grey pupil returned back to black.

"How do we stop this? " She rasped as she exhaled sharply. She can't imagine a world bereft of her beloved, how would she survive? How could her husband's country crumble into such rumble?

"We'll sojourn back in time to nip the bud at the tip" was her quiet reply. "This journey depends on your will and capabilities or the reality of the vision would manifest in the nearest future!"

"Just tell me what to do, old one, and stop beating around the bush!" She impatiently growled.

"First, I'll transfer my conduit powers to you as my frail body may not carry us through!" She removed her implanted staff from the ground as she sat cross-legged on the same ground.

Yoona stared down at her in contemplation as she sat as she did. "Begin then, but I must warn you, if you try any foul play I would severe your head from your neck."

"Easy now, empress. We'll have to conserve every strength we've got!" Then she lifted her staff on Yoona's forehead to transmit the said powers to her. 

Yoona could feel the transformation as she felt light-headed and watched her hands glow. Next, the old lady transfered the instructions telepathically into her mind as they were running out of time.

"What is our aim of transmigrating into this dimension of yours, sorceress? Can't you go alone ?" Yoona found some loose loops around some thoughts of hers.

"We need to nip out their black magic from the root, right before the knowledge was made known and my strength alone can't carry me. I'm after all, an old weak woman." She paused as she found Yoona's face filled with incomprehensibility thoughts. "We'll destroy the future from the past by destroying the secrets of the magical powers and anything related to today's events."

Yoona finally grasped her point and nodded her approval to proceed. From the old lady's dirty bag, she brought out a hard leather bound book with some strange signs engraved on it.

She began chanting some incomprehensible chatters and held her breath after chanting the final words of the spell. After a moment, the pages of the open book before them began to glow. They shone brighter and brighter, nearly blinding them until they jerked forward and was suċkėd into the pages. Surrounded by swirls of black ink, all she could think about was her brave, handsome and charismatic husband who might probably forget her if she's lost in this magical ink.

"Focus Hwanghu! Your abstract thoughts may destroy the arrays and send us to another dimension!" The old woman admonished.

"But I can't help it!" She screamed over the swirling noise. "What happens if we're taken to another dimension?" She queried inquisitively as there weren't much time for clarifications earlier on.

"By the time we break out, a century might have gone us by! " She paused as she focused her gaze on the young woman, "Your Daejong would already be history and long gone and you would return to a whole new generation!"

Yoona blinked back a tear looking for an escape from her lacrimal gland as she closed her mind to anything not related to their mission.. Her heart beat faster as the ink made an opening scene, then they materialized out of the midnight black ink, safely before a stunning scenery.