Chapter 1
Prologue
The thousand-year war between the heavenly gods and the earthly gods ended in victory for the heavenly gods, led by Kuchiano, the war god of the heavens. The earthly gods were all locked away in the prison of the god of the underworld, and the title of “god of the earth,” which the heavenly gods had long awaited, went to Portamis, the goddess of abundance and oaths, whom Yulez, the chief god of the heavens, doted on without end. Lez, delighted by a change after so long, made plans to play with the earth, his spoils of war. First he divided the earth, which had been one, into four, and entrusted each continent to one of his beloved children to rule. The east continent went to Portamis, the goddess of the earth, the west continent to Tioan, Portamis’s twin and the god of learning and progress, and the south continent to Rusenne, the goddess of love and passion. The last remaining continent, the north, was to go to Kitan, the god of darkness and death. But just before Lez handed the continent to Kitan, Kuchiano came to his divine palace and begged for that place. Yulez doted more on Kuchiano, who had actively stepped forward and helped his victory in the great war of heaven and earth, than on Kitan, who had held himself back a step in that war, and since he had not given Kuchiano the north continent only out of concern for his exhaustion, he gladly draped over Kuchiano’s shoulders the red cloth of fate, the symbol of the right to rule the north continent.
For a thousand years after that, humans repeated a peaceful and quiet development under the rule of the gods. Gods and humans alike went on living very peaceful and rather boring lives, until a beautiful young man named Ignazio was born on the north continent.
Then came the moment the goddess Portamis spoke of when she said, “Sometimes life is decided in a single moment.” It was when Ignazio, a minor lord of the north continent, had come to the east continent to study agriculture and stopped at Portamis’s temple. Portamis gazed, as if spellbound, at Ignazio as he burned incense and offered a snack sacrifice. That was the moment Portamis, who stood highest among the second-generation gods, fell into ruin. Portamis loved Ignazio and was desperate to receive his love. But Ignazio did not love Portamis, and he refused her again and again, breaking her heart. Tall and beautiful, Ignazio enjoyed free-spirited romances with many young ladies, yet he never once looked back at Portamis.
And then the most famous event in mythology occurred, the “god’s suicide incident.”
The goddess Portamis killed herself. The chief god Yulez was furiously angry and threatened to erase from the divine register anyone who took up Portamis’s corpse. Unable to bear the sight of his younger sister’s corpse sprawled in the desolate temple, Tioan of the west continent wrapped Portamis’s corpse in the red cloth his father Yulez had given him as the symbol of the right to rule, and ran to the lava lands of the red sunset. There he melted his younger sister into the tomb of the gods who had honourably found eternal rest in the great war of heaven and earth, and in exchange he was erased from the divine register. Then Rusenne of the south continent, seeing the wretched fall of her siblings, poured a curse upon Ignazio’s descendants for generations to come. “The price of sin shall descend forever with the blood. Someone shall go blind, and someone shall lose their voice. No one can escape this curse, and all who hold even a single drop of that blood shall be cursed!” And as the price of that long and powerful curse, Rusenne too melted into the empty air and vanished, and in the end only the war god Kuchiano remained upon the earth.
It was Kuchiano whom Portamis last sought when she killed herself, Kuchiano whom Tioan met in the moment he melted Portamis, and Kuchiano who stood witness to Rusenne’s curse. Yulez asked Kuchiano what last words his three children had left, but Kuchiano answered that there had been no last words at all. Kuchiano took Portamis’s place as god of the earth and became the god of war, madness, and the earth, and the other gods took on the vacant posts as well. Lez, thoroughly sick of the human world, never looked back at the earth again, and the other heavenly gods were the same. Kuchiano, too, was a believer in leaving things alone, and he left the earth free. Then humans began to learn negative emotions, and those led to acts such as war.
The beautiful young man Ignazio, who had driven Portamis of the east continent to suicide and received an eternal curse from Rusenne of the south continent, pacified the north continent and unified it into a single kingdom. He named the country “Hesus,” and he was Ignazio I. The north continent, the only continent not abandoned by the gods, went on to unite all four continents on the strength of its powerful divine power. Watching this, the war god Kuchiano stole secretly to Yulez’s temple. It is said that Kuchiano wished for something as the price of his victory in the great war of heaven and earth, but what he wished for is not known. The one certain thing is only that he took his hand from the north continent, but did not perish. Because he took his hand from the north continent, the north continent’s divine power gradually weakened, but because he did not perish, the north continent’s divine power never disappeared either. However, as the divine power weakened, the other continents gradually slipped away from the north continent, and the east, west, south, and north continents went on to live their own lives. But unlike the east, west, and south continents, the north continent became the most powerful country among the four continents, as a single state system called “Hesus.”
* From ‘Easily Read Continental Mythology’
Could there be another girl so beautiful, so elegant, and so lovely?
When I first saw the Crown Princess, I was not the only one overwhelmed by her beauty and her bearing. Hair like ebony, eyes like obsidian, skin like fallen snow, lips fine and red as if drops of blood had fallen upon snow, a slender body, and a gentle voice besides. She was clearly a girl born to become queen consort. Among the eight girls kneeling for the Crown Princess qualification test, she stood out by far, and many people must have silently cheered her on.
A white porcelain bowl with a leaf floating on the water was set before the Crown Princess candidates. At the queen consort’s command to make the leaf float in midair, the candidates concentrated their divine power. Someone’s leaf shook violently from side to side, someone’s leaf rose only a little into the air and then fell, spent, and someone’s leaf did not stir at all. The Crown Princess gazed quietly down at her own bowl, then closed her eyes. And it was not the leaf but the porcelain bowl that rose into the air.
Had there ever been a case of a woman, not a man, showing divine power this strong while borrowing the divine power of the male god Kuchiano? What was more astonishing came next. The leaf began to rise above the porcelain bowl floating in midair. Everyone marvelled at the delicacy of her control. And the appointment as Crown Princess was decided unanimously. At that time she smiled shyly and rejoiced, and her beautiful appearance made many men’s hearts race. Probably everyone hoped her marriage would proceed swiftly, because only once she became a married woman could they seduce her.
When the sixteen-year-old Crown Princess turned twenty, she became queen consort. The men who tried to seduce her were as many as the stars in the sky, but she answered no temptation at all. When she turned twenty-three, she no longer had the innocent beauty she had at sixteen, but a desperate beauty.
An appearance on which sadness and pain were plainly written was more beautiful than she had been at sixteen. Many men seduced her, and some men pined for her alone, looking only at her. But she refused men to the very end, and then one day she threw herself from the tower of Hwagung inside the queen consort’s palace. It was an unprecedented case of a queen consort’s suicide. People began to call this incident “Portamis,” after the name of the goddess who had killed herself.
* From “Head Attendant Clark Sevier’s Record: The Ill-Fated Queen Marie Trijia”
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