Chapter 1 : The Lost Princess.

Ari wandered in the woods without knowing where she was going.

She had completely forgotten the passageway she used to arrive here.

Cold wind blew heavily almost cutting through her. The sound of the cold breeze sometimes sounded like a beast coming her way, causing a chill to run down her spine.

Her heart jumped uncontrollably, shadows of frightening objects increased her fears.

It was getting darker and darker and at the same time getting creepier. The darkness was too thick that it could be felt.

Ari was exhausted and scared, thus decided to lay on a trunk of a huge tree to rest.

Anyway, she had nowhere to go. If she continued walking, she might run into something hideous.

She had been warned several times of the creatures that roam in the woods at night.

Ari regretted her disobedient decision. If she had known, she would have complied and never sneaked out.

All of a sudden, she heard a creepy but somehow sorrowful whisper coming behind her. The hair on the back of her neck immediately stood up.

In the next second, Ari had already jumped away from the tree.

Staring at the tree, Ari shuddered. What she saw was so terrifying, she saw a ghoulish dark figure crawling down the tree.

The figure was about a half meter above where she lay down. She didn't see it clearly due to the darkness.

The thought of how close they were alone made her heart skip a beat.

'It was too close!' She was nervous.

Ari couldn't figure out what exactly was it, but what she knew was that it had ill intentions.

Thus, in the next instant, she broke into a run to a random direction without looking back while screaming faintly.

The creature followed closely behind her. Another strange thing was that, whether how hard she ran the creature remained closely behind her as her own shadow which meant that the creature ran faster than her, but it didn't make any footsteps sound.

Suddenly, Ari stepped on a rock causing her to lose her balance and was about to fall. At this moment the creature hurriedly caught her by the shoulders, preventing her from falling badly.

Then it whispered again into her ear.

"I need you in my life. I'm going to give you everything you have been dreaming. I just want you to be by my side."

Being touched and held by a terrifying creature caused Ari to pass out immediately.

* * * *

In a palace hall court, King Choi sat on his throne and other palace hall court members sat around the hall on their respective seats.

Some of these palace court members were Kim Sui the Queen of Jiuhon who was also Ari's mother, Three King's Advisors, palace official who was also a brother to the queen, the king's mother, General Park Dae-Seong and others.

They all had bizarre expressions on their faces.

Suddenly three men walked in, two were young men while the other was a middle-aged man.

These three men were palace guards.

The expressions on their faces were not fine either. Everyone expected none other than a bad piece of news from them.

The middle-aged man who seemed to be the leader stepped forward, bowed to the king and reported...

"Your highness, I'm sorry but we are unable to find her. We have searched everywhere possible but there is completely no trace of her."

He kept his gaze low and a trace of fear appeared on his face.

He was the leader of the group of palace guards tasked to find Ari's whereabouts.

"What do you mean by saying that? I told you to bring my precious daughter back not your nonsense.

I'm telling you if won't bring her back I'll ask for your heads instead!"

King Choi yelled at the man sternly. The king could not just agree that his precious has lost and given up.

Facing the king's harsh voice and threat the man immediately broke into a cold sweat.

Two young palace guards behind him trembled in fear.

They had searched her the whole night without resting but still did not find her.

This time they really had nowhere to look for her again.

Naturally, they could not tell the King about this, thus they had no choice but to agree with the king.

The man hesitated for a moment before saying...

"I'm sorry your highness, but rest assured we will try our best to bring her back home. Please be magnanimous."

"Yes, do it immediately otherwise don't blame me for being ruthless."

Only then did the three palace guards leave.

"These people are really careless, how could they let her sneak out?"

The beautiful woman beside the king finally spoke through gritted teeth.

She was the queen of Jiuhon and also Ari's mother.

"You're right and if they will end up bringing me a corpse, I won't be merciful and I'll kill all of them, they are all a bunch of useless bastards"

King Choi cursed. Killing intent appeared in his eyes.

"Your highness, you should not talk in that way my only precious daughter won't die, she will be back in one piece, safe and sound"

She treated Ari as a precious gem that she could not allow even a leaf to fall on her.

"We should leave it in hands of the gods. Logically speaking it is dangerous there in the woods, especially at night and the rumour has it that there are hideous creatures."

A man with grey hair muttered, he was one of the king's advisors.

The advisor's words struck a sour note within queen Kim Sui.

"You!"

She was enraged but she couldn't bring herself to scold him.

The advisors were highly valued and what he said was somehow true. Even if there were no dangerous and hideous creatures in the woods but at least everyone could tell that there were carnivorous wild animals such as wolves.

The King tensed up and fear appeared in his eyes.

Another thing that was troubling him was that he had promised to give Ari to his rival's son the Crown Prince Ha-joon of Huryo as his wife when she turned twenty.

His rival, King Suo of Huryo had already defeated Georsh one of the three kingdoms. Obviously, King Suo's next target was probably Jiuhon.

But King Suo's son Crown Prince Ha-joon had taken a liking to Ari, making her the only trump card of King Choi of Jiuhon.

In a nutshell, if Ari died, he would not only lose his precious daughter but also his kingdom.

King Choi took a deep breath and asked...

"Elder, are those rumours likely to be true? Do you know any incident related to those rumours?"

"Your highness, I'm not sure but there was an incident related to those rumours. Two boys went missing four years ago but starting from then we have never heard of any strange news."

The king was slightly relieved.

"That's better then. However, I'll still ask you General Park Dae-seong to send some soldiers and make sure its fully safe there."

In the past, he didn't pay attention to the rumours let alone send soldiers to make the woods safe.

But now he regretted it, and it was somehow too late.

King Choi said this while glancing at General Park Dae-seong.

"Alright, I'll follow your orders, Your highness"

General Park Dae-seong said while bending slightly.

* * * *