Alchemy of Souls 2: Episodes 9-10 (Final)
by alathe
Finally, our heroes face each other without pretense. However, there are complications: when you’re a hero who battles soul-shifters, it’s hard to justify falling in love with one. One thing’s for sure — this finale will be as emotional as it is intense.
You are viewing: Who Died In Alchemy Of Souls Season 2 Episode 9
EPISODES 9-10 WEECAP
Wook and Naksu face one another knowingly for the first time. What, Naksu asks, will Wook do now? The answer is, pull her near on instinct, hiding her telltale eyes. After all, they both still agree: only Wook is allowed to get this close.
It’s important, because Wook’s brought company — the crown prince! My unwavering faith in his skeptical eyebrows was not misplaced! The truth is delightful: Won’s been moonlighting as a double agent for Songrim. It seems Naksu’s not the only one allowed to get close to Wook — Won’s spent days sidling up to his touchy ally, making overtures of not-quite-unrequited broship. (Brovertures?) It’s like one of those feel-good news stories where a laborador cuddles up to a tiger. What triggered this dramatic shift in loyalties? Mu was nasty to Won’s turtle. Now, prince and turtle joyously reunite.
There’s time for a stolen conversation, as Won reminisces about Naksu — to Naksu herself. Once, he yearned to possess her. He’s ashamed of that. Smiling, the woman he knows as Bu-yeon tells him that Naksu would be content to hear it. Still, she wouldn’t want him to be in pain for long.
Afterwards, Wook and Naksu are alone. Wook begins. He’s facing a battle: an archetypal clash between good and evil. He knows exactly where he ought to aim his sword. But — what if he did absolutely nothing at all? What if, instead, he stayed here with her? Naksu, ever resolute, hardly hesitates. Whatever the justification, however deeply they might long for one another — such a course of action would be wrong.
How did Won and Wook infiltrate Gwido in the first place? They have Jin Bu-yeon to thank — the real one. As Master Lee reminds Ho-gyeong, Bu-yeon’s infant life was saved by the ice stone, an artifact originally created to save Jin Seol-ran. It’s as he suspected. Bu-yeon is Seol-ran, returned from the dead to protect the ice stone.
Back in Daeho, Mu gives a smirky speech before his soul-shifting cult. Suddenly, several things happen at once. Won tells him that championing the powerless is not weak. Not at all. Yul comes crashing into Cheonbugwan, troops at his shoulder. Wook strides out of a fiery portal. And Mu’s followers vanish as if into oblivion. Alone and trembling, Mu faces Wook — who reveals he is using the ice stone to battle 78 soul-shifters across dimensions. Multi-tasking at its coolest! Wook makes no bones about it: Mu’s a jerk of epic proportions. However, he’s not here for revenge.
He’s here to calmly gesture for Mu to walk away — straight into the path of someone whose revenge has been a long time coming. The woman Mu recognizes as Bu-yeon gestures towards what resembles an ice stone. Take it, she says. I’ll make it yours. All greed and no questions, Mu seizes the stone, allowing her to bind it to his body. Then, he twitches. Stumbles. The ice stone is empty — and, like a soul-shifter gone wild, it’ll devour his energy whole. Naksu watches, calm. She intends to waste away here too.
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But an ex-assassin’s repentance is nothing in the face of a very determined turtle. As Naksu sits by the shore, her crafty, four-legged friend sends one last gift: the Jinyowon plaque. It seems her path lies in Daeho after all.
At Jeongjingak, Wook reverts to an old pattern. He sits. He drinks. He mourns. All the while, wraiths swarm. Yul, however, is determined to avert this melancholy end. Too much has been withheld from Wook and Naksu by those insistent on making choices for them. He’s decided to break the cycle and share some hard truths. To Naksu, he reveals that Mu was behind her rampage three years ago — it was not her will. To Wook, he warns that Naksu’s soul is destined to fade. But our heroes are insistent: this changes nothing. Naksu can’t let herself admit she has the right to live. Wook can’t bring himself to believe he deserves to be happy.
The Unanimous Assembly gathers for our heroine’s announcement. She has returned, she declares, from Gwido with proof of her spiritual prowess. The Assembly are thrilled — like Mu, they see in her the perfect murder weapon. Bu-yeon, they decide, must use her powers to rip the ice stone from Wook’s body. However, when it’s Wook’s turn to stand before the Assembly, he’s beautifully indifferent to this. All he cares about is what Naksu said next. According to her, Wook has committed a grave crime. Last night, he spared a soul-shifter by feigning ignorance. This can’t stand. He must confirm the shifter’s existence — and watch it wither away. And so Wook, alive with sudden hope, turns his back on the Assembly to seek the only person whose commands he ever saw reason to follow.
Underneath the tree in Danhyanggok, our heroes reunite. Here, Wook finally greets Naksu by her rightful title: my merciless master. I’m not your master anymore, insists Naksu. I let you go. And yet — as ever, the only thing Wook does is move closer. He wraps her into a desperate hug. Slowly, she hugs him back, and soon, all is reverence and tenderness. Later, by candlelight, he kisses her eyelids, then her lips — and, heartbreakingly fervent, she kisses him back.
But in Gwido, tensions are boiling. The queen, accompanied by the relentlessly slimy Yoon-oh, break into the prison to prise the location of the last soul ejector out of Mu. Little do they know, it’s in the queen’s own body. Plunging his hand between the queen’s ribs, Mu grasps the key to his continued survival. He smashes the soul ejector on the ground. Later, Yoon-oh emerges from Gwido: hair plastered into a very familiar style, lips curled into an even more familiar smirk. Mu is in a new body — and very much alive.
Meanwhile, our heroes try to cram as much happiness as possible into the hours remaining. At Naksu’s demand, Wook carries her bridal style over a stream — correcting the deep trauma of not being carried on her wedding night. They pick chestnuts for dinner. They fondly reminisce about that one time Naksu threw a knife at Wook. It’s only when they return to the Danhyanggok hut — the same hut of Wook’s bathtub-centric cottagecore fantasies all those episodes ago! — that Naksu reveals she didn’t return alone. After two seasons of the most chaotic decisions imaginable, Master Lee’s moral compass has finally swung in our protagonists’ favor. He’s not here to part them. He’s here to marry them.
Our hero and heroine kneel — the latter resplendent in a flower crown I choose to believe she ordered Wook to weave for her. Naksu has gone by many names. Today, she chooses the one her parents gave her — the one by which I will be referring to her from now on — Cho Yeong. Wook and Yeong. Light and shadow. Perhaps their marriage was fate. With solemn certainty, Wook drinks his last suspicious beverage of the series. No, not chastity tea. A wedding drink. Later, the two finally ascend the Danhyanggok tree. When her last memory returns and she begins to fade, Yeong tells Wook she will warn him: fingers interlaced with his, like a promise. Her last love letter.
Disaster strikes sooner, not later. Wook wakes to find Yeong inside a magical barrier — or rather, Bu-yeon. She reveals a vision of an intractable future. The fire bird awakened. Daeho aflame. When Yeong comes back to herself, she knows it is for the last time. She hands Wook her jade charm, lacing their fingers together. Perhaps fate was against them after all. Still, says Wook, they recognized each other at first sight. They chose to love each other. And now, there is only one reply that Yeong can breathe, before she vanishes completely. I love you.
In Daeho’s throne room, Mu rallies his newfound allies: the Unanimous Assembly and the king. All are sworn to the cause of awakening the fire bird, founding a new, immortal elite on the backs of the bodies they’ll steal. Things very rapidly spiral out of control. Won is imprisoned, his royal plaque confiscated. Mu and his allies march on Jinyowon. Catching Ho-gyeong by the throat, Mu forces Cho-yeon to open the vault, tearing the fire bird’s egg from its confines. Ho-gyeong, collapsing, orders her daughter to run. She urges Do-joo, who was caught up in the catastrophe, to hoist her into Jinyowon, where she’ll strive to restrain the escaping relics.
Jin arrives in time to see his nightmare scenario come to life: Jinyowon gaping open like a chasm, with the love of his life trapped inside. However, it is he who hesitates — and Do-joo, tears streaming down her face, who orders him to close the door. In utter despair, he does what must be done.
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Mu extends a sneering hand. Join the Unanimous Assembly, he says. Save your wife. Jin’s face falls flat as Daeho’s supposed great and good pledge to drown the world in flames. He unsheathes his sword. Ferocious, he plunges into battle, cutting down mages on all sides — but it’s not enough. He stops short as Mu plunges a sword into his back. Fallen and bleeding, Jin uses the last of his strength to place Do-joo’s wedding ring on his finger.
Wook returns, heavy with grief, to a threefold funeral. Incredibly — he brings hope. Jin, Do-joo and Ho-gyeong still live; the awakened Bu-yeon used her powers to transport them to safety. Now, it’s down to those who remain to save the world from burning. Luckily, he’s got a plan — and it’s classic Wook. Why waste energy delaying the inevitable? Don’t work hard — work smart! If the fire bird’s release is destined, then they’d best set about releasing it — and mitigate the damage.
Cho-yeon will oversee the destruction of all bird statues in Lake Gyeongcheondaeho. Dang-gu will fight. And Won will seize control of Cheongbugwan’s army. How? Using Wook’s royal plaque. After all, the limit of Wook’s ambitions was always climbing the peak of the world with Yeong. Daeho needs a king who — well, actually cares. And so Won enters the throne room, backed to the hilt by troops. It’s a gorgeous moment when he faces his father. He doesn’t order him to step down. He kindly suggests it.
The Unanimous Assembly gather, preparing for the fire bird to stir — only to reel back as it explodes into flame. Behind them is Wook. With a gesture, the entire courtyard sets alight. Wook regards his enemies calmly. This, he says, is the world they wanted: where the strong wield even greater power. The Unanimous Assembly die screaming — but Mu, in his last moment, laughs. Either way, all leave nothing but charred corpses.
In the constellation room at Cheonbugwan, a newly-blindfolded Bu-yeon stands. Before her is Wook’s constellation plate. Wook waits on the ice of Lake Gyeongcheondaeho, where Naksu once fought Jin. With a tremendous burst of power, Bu-yeon calls forth the fire bird. It shrieks across the sky, setting tracts of land aflame. Wook jumps to meet it, and in a blaze of CGI wondrousness, slashes it backwards into a pillar of ice. With one last magical arrow, it bursts into nothing.
Bu-yeon looks on, satisfied — and collapses. Within her, Yeong hangs suspended, eyes opening. Bu-yeon smiles. The light who saved the world needs his shadow.
One year later, Do-joo and Jin are happy in their country house, cradling twins. Nope, not theirs… and not our heroes’ either… Cho-yeon and Dang-gu’s! Still, with Do-joo’s unexpected queasiness, perhaps it’s only a matter of time. Yul, meanwhile, has returned to his first love: study. He’s running Jeongjingak on strictly meritocratic principles: anyone with magical aptitude may apply. As for Won, King of Daeho? He’s on a strict training regimen, courtesy of his teacher, Master Lee. No, it doesn’t involve chastity tea. Stop asking. He plans to marry soon, don’t you know!
But the most satisfying ending of all is that of our leads. With all the time in the world to squabble, flirt, and defy death together, they’ve become the stuff of folk tales. With her vast spiritual powers, Yeong has no intention of taking up the sword. After all, she has a hero of legend at her command. The two have embarked on a quest to chase down the lost relics of Jinyowon: Yeong tracks them, with Wook as her sword. Today, she’s found him a cat to rescue. An elephant-sized cat. Wook unsheathes his sword. Yeong’s eyes flash. And folks? That’s a wrap.
In case it wasn’t obvious, I adore the glimpse we’re given of Wook and Yeong’s final dynamic: sword and strategist, an inseparable pair. I know there’ll be debate about whether we should have seen Yeong pick up a sword. To my mind? That’s just not who she is anymore. She isn’t a fighter; she’s a general. She plots, finds clever solutions, and dreams up ways to challenge Wook. It’s no coincidence that her powers involve vision — seeing the unexpected has always been her strength. I do wish she’d been more active pre-epilogue — not necessarily fighting, but making choices. Still, I love how Wook never cared about becoming a leader, or even a hero; it was a case of choosing action over inaction for Yeong’s sake.
As for the series as a whole? It was special in so many ways. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop thinking about Wook and Yeong; they’ll be a yardstick for any future romantic drama I see. Daeho and its characters are so vivid, and the world so vast — it makes me smile to think of our heroes exploring it together in the epilogue. And honestly? I’ll take any more content. Spin-off about Won’s epic quest to recover his lost turtle? Sign me up. Prequel exploring the doomed love between Jin Seol-ran and Seo Gyeong? I’m in. Sequel about the weird hinted romance between Yul and Yun-ok seemingly, for some reason? I… might give that one a miss. Let’s be real, though, I’m probably on board. It’s been such a beautiful journey, recapping this glorious, madcap, all-consuming series, and right now all I want to do is watch it all again.
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