The battlefield had become a living furnace with smoke curling thick and black from the spreading fires, the air heavy with the acrid bite of scorched grass and coppery blood.
Zane felt the weariness settle into his bones like cold lead, though he couldn't name its source. His shoulders sagged, his breath coming shallow and uneven. Rhian was speaking, something about killing, survival, but the words blurred at the edges as the world stuttered, glitched.
"What?" Zane asked, voice thin, blinking hard against the sudden haze fogging his thoughts.
"Killing," Rhian repeated, calm and unyielding. "You kill them before they kill you. That's the rule here."
Zane tried to anchor himself, but fragmented memories kept slipping through the cracks: blood on stone walls, the wet crunch of a blade meeting flesh, and screams that might have been his own or someone else's. He pressed a palm to his temple, fingers trembling.
[Memory recollection: 0.8% > 1.3%]
[Gained memories will be waiting to be reminisced]
A flash, three men dead at his feet, throats opened, comrades stepping over the bodies to advance. The memory tasted like iron and regret. "I… killed someone?" he whispered, the words tasting foreign on his tongue. It didn't make sense; why did it feel like his own brain was keeping information from him?
Rhian watched him, expression unreadable. "When?"
Before Zane could answer, another notification sliced through the haze.
<[Player, Rynn Adrastos has placed Obliterate card on you]>
<[Player, you have placed the Obliterate card on Rynn Adrastos]>
The vision came in a haze: two figures locked in a game of mutual destruction, blades poised, eyes daring the other to flinch first. No escape. Only death. Zane shook his head violently, trying to dislodge the image.
'The Church was corrupt,' the thought surfaced unbidden. 'I accused them. I was imprisoned for it… but what did I do? What did I become?'
"What did I do?" he breathed, throat tight.
"Hey—" Rhian reached out, fingers brushing Zane's shoulder.
Zane flinched, shoving the hand away. "Don't."
He glanced up at the crackling flames, the distant screams, and the wet thud of bodies hitting dirt. He felt exposed, as though a thousand unseen eyes were boring into him from every shadow.
"It's disorienting," he managed, voice cracking. More memories surged, jagged and overlapping. "Everyone has a life. And when someone kills—"
[Many
Zane's breath hitched. "—it's like ripping a thread from something bigger. Something that can't be mended."
Rhian's hand settled on his shoulder, uncaring that Zane didn't want it there. Zane didn't move away and instead felt himself exhale. Rhian looked out over the burning field, voice low and rough. "Quiet. Be selfish for once."
Zane's eyes narrowed, frustration flickering through the fog. "You sound numb, Rhian. When did you stop feeling it?"
Rhian's mouth curved in a small, tired smile. "Maybe I'm just tired of pretending I still do."
The words hung between them, heavy and honest. For a moment the battlefield faded—just the two of them, smoke curling around their ankles, the faint heat of nearby flames warming their skin. Zane's gaze dropped to Rhian's hand still resting on his shoulder, thumb brushing unconsciously against the fabric of his sleeve.
Zane exhaled shakily. "I don't know what's going on."
Rhian's fingers tightened, just slightly. "Then figure it out, Zane. That's your fight. No one else can do it for you."
Zane looked up. Their eyes met, and for a heartbeat something raw passed between them—grief, exhaustion, a flicker of understanding neither had words for. Rhian's thumb moved once more, a slow, almost absent circle against Zane's shoulder, before he let his hand fall.
A gentle golden glow bloomed in Zane's right hand as Ember materialized, its hilt warm against his palm. Without thinking, Zane raised the sword.
<"Injure to disable, not kill unless necessary. Sever a hand or finger to prevent escape, especially when questioning. Only works on experienced soldiers.">
The memory felt like someone else's advice, but Zane followed it instinctively. He lunged forward, blade flashing in a precise arc. The enemy soldier's hand came away clean at the wrist, the sword clattering uselessly to the scorched earth. The man collapsed with a strangled cry, clutching the stump as blood pulsed between his fingers.
[Ember is slowly trusting you]
Rhian stepped in smoothly, her boot kicking the fallen weapon unreachable. He glanced at Zane, then back to the writhing man. His thoughts began clearing slowly, as though whatever momentary conflict had befallen him was receding away like the shoreline. He frowned. What had triggered it?
"Don't move," Rhian said suddenly.
Zane went still and felt Rhian's hand near his nape; when the older man's hand receded, it brought back a little needle. Rhian clicked his tongue.
"What is it?" Zane asked.
"It's a hallucinogen." Rhian dropped the needle into a pit of fire and looked up to meet Zane's eyes. "Psychological warfare."
[
[
[
Zane's throat worked. "Thank you…"
Rhian snorted, voice rough but softer than before. "Save it. It feels strange hearing you say that."
Zane managed a faint, crooked smile despite himself. Rhian turned around, Executioner flashing as he deflected a stray arrow mid-flight. "Just do what you have to. We need to find the helper."
"Right." Zane wiped sweat and soot from his brow, his grip tightening on Ember. "Any skills that might help?"
Rhian raised an eyebrow. "You're really counting on me now?"
Zane looked away, sheepish. "Celestial Talk?"
Rhian hesitated, tongue flicking across his lower lip. "I've never tried it in a fight like this."
Zane sensed movement behind him, spun, and thrust Ember into a Shu disciple's hip. The man gasped, staggering. Zane didn't finish him.
"Try it," he suggested.
Rhian muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "I might go bald," then reached up and sliced off another uneven strand of hair near his neck.
[
[Earned Skill, Celestial Talk lvl 1 is activated!]
His hazel eyes flared neon blue, pupils contracting to pinpricks. "Invenire Asteriscus," he intoned, voice low and resonant.
Zane blinked. Find the little star.
An arrow streaked toward them. Zane reacted on instinct, mana surging into Ember as he swung in a wide arc, causing the arrow to break into fragments.
[Your mana has fused with your sword!]
[5% mana in use!]
[Ember feels content]
[Ember's 1st attribute is blooming!]
[Ember Lacerate lvl 1 is activated!]
Zane continued to dislodge any incoming Shu members while Rhian's glowing gaze swept the field. Rhian's eyes were vacant, and his lips seemed to be moving as if he was truly listening to the echoes of the cosmos.
"Yi was right," he said quietly, his voice distant. "The Shu helper isn't among their own. They're hiding in plain sight, someone I'd never suspect."
His eyes locked on Huang Delan across the burning plain. The man's face was calm, almost serene, as he slit a Hua clan member's throat with casual precision and gestured behind them. There was blood on his once elegant stature, but Zane couldn't help but think the older man looked relatively sad.
Zane spun.
Madam Hua lay slumped against the trunk of a charred tree at the field's edge. Her elegant robes, once pristine white embroidered with silver phoenixes, were soaked crimson from chest to waist. Blood pooled beneath her in a slow, spreading stain, dark against the ashen grass. One hand rested limply in her lap; the other clutched a broken talisman that had barely protected her, fingers still curled protectively around it as though she'd tried to shield someone until the very end.
It would've worked, Zane thought belatedly. Had the attacker been someone other than a member of her own clan.
Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the smoke-choked sky. The faint, peaceful curve of her mouth suggested she had accepted the end with the same quiet dignity she'd carried through life.
[
[
[
Zane's heart seized. "Madam Hua…"
Rhian made a small, choked sound, almost inaudible beneath the roar of battle. Zane watched as Rhian triggered Hurtle Chase and appeared next to the woman in seconds. Zane watched as he closed his eyes and moved back, creating this small sheen that grew to form a gold-translucent bubble over the woman's body.
Mana barrier was the ideal name. It would preserve her body until someone was ready to free her soul. When Rhian didn't move after moments, Zane rushed over and struck Rhian's arm with Ember's hilt, hard enough to jolt him. "Snap out of it."
Rhian's eyes flickered, wet and furious, before he gave a sharp nod. "Right."
Zane didn't want Rhian to not grieve, but it was that they were running out of time.
[
Zane's eyes widened at that information. He knew Celestial Talk was no regular skill, but it belonged to the
Rhian was only nine when the first crack appeared in the fragile thing his family called home.
The daughter of his father's third wife, though the name now felt like a bruise he pressed on in secret, had been sent to earn her sword at the Sun Akhara trials. She never came back. The official word was "failure"; the whispered truth was that she had died alone on the mountain, body never recovered, blade unclaimed. No funeral pyre. Just a space at the long table where her laughter left a faint echo.
Hua Huiliang had three wives, a fact the servants and lesser disciples never let anyone forget. The Hua estate was large enough to swallow sound, but not rumor. It was well known that those who rose to positions like that of the Sect Leader, were not necessarily monogamous, let it be a man or a woman.
"It was the previous Leader's doing. Too many wives, too little heart."
"The Sect Leader only truly loves one. The rest are decorations."
"I feel sorry for the children…"
"Honestly? Not so much."
Rhian heard every word. They drifted through paper walls like smoke, settling in his lungs until breathing hurt.
But the truth, if truth could be found in such a fractured house, was more complicated. Hua Huiliang never raised his voice to Rhian or Lady Esmeray Val who belonged to the nation of Vaelrun, his birth mother. On quiet evenings he would sit with them in the small arbor by the lotus pond, listening to Rhian practice forms with a wooden sword too big for his hands.
Sometimes Hua Yi and Hua Anhe's mother joined, bringing tea and soft stories. Sometimes the third woman came, her laughter brittle but genuine. Rhian never resented the sharing. He simply learned early that affection, like the estate's gardens, had to be divided among many roots.
Still, the embraces were awkward. The words "he is your father" always arrived half-hearted, delivered like a duty rather than a truth. Rhian learned to stand straighter, to smile when eyes lingered too long, and to believe—fiercely and childishly—that the family was whole even when it visibly wasn't.
When the third wife's son died two years later, in the 23rd temple within the Xue Sect's jurisdiction, the mothers did not gather. No one shared tears. No comforting arms around each other. Grief stayed private, locked behind sliding doors. And just like that, when Rhian was sent to retrieve the dead boys' mother for supper, he had walked in on her dead body hanging from the roof of the bungalow.
The word 'suicide' had gotten out effortlessly, and Hua Huiliang disappeared into the memorial shrine for days at a time or drowned himself in scrolls and strategy meetings. Rhian saw him less and less until they only met eyes during council meetings.
One afternoon, Rhian sat alone on the veranda behind the training hall. His practice sword had slipped during a downward cut; the edge, dull but still sharp when angled correctly, had bitten into his palm. Blood welled in a thin red line. He stared at it, numb, watching the crimson bead grow fat and finally fall onto the wood with a soft pat.
"Hey, kid."
Rhian startled, shoving the injured hand behind his back.
A young man approached, with short white hair tied in a neat traditional bun, a single lavender flower pin holding back his bangs. He looked nervous, like someone who had wandered into the wrong garden.
"Do I know you, mister?" Rhian asked, voice small.
"No." The man straightened, offering a sheepish smile. "I'm new to scouting. Lady Val sent me to check on the bungalow."
Rhian tilted his head, uncertain at the mention of his mother, who had been away on scouting for the past two weeks. "Have you finished your examinations?" he asked.
The man nodded.
Rhian's eyes brightened despite the sting in his palm. "You're a swordsman?"
"Well… sort of." A small laugh. "I specialize in mapping and horse riding."
"But you can wield a sword?"
"Of course."
"Teach me," Rhian said, the words bursting out before he could stop them.
"Tell me your name first, kid."
"I'm not a kid."
"Until you grow this tall," the man teased, holding his hand well above Rhian's head.
Rhian swallowed, pride warring with longing. "I'm Hua Xiaoshi," he said quietly. "But call me Rhian when I become a player."
"Alright, Rhian." The man adjusted his robes. "I'm Huang Delan. You can call me Gēgē."
Rhian lifted his Dao with his good hand and nodded solemnly. "Gēgē… please teach me."
Huang Delan's gaze dropped to Rhian's hidden hand. "You'll infect that wound, Xiaoshi."
"Whatever," Rhian muttered, shaking the hand once. Fresh pain flared up his arm.
Huang Delan smiled. "Don't be stubborn, kid."
"I'm not a kid!" Rhian snapped, turning away into a pouty walk. "Old man."
"Hey!" Huang Delan called after him, laughing despite himself. "Fine. I'll patch you up."
"You won't tell A'Niang?"
Huang Delan crouched low, glancing around like a conspirator. "No. I've been in enough trouble myself."
Four years passed like seasons Rhian barely noticed. He was fourteen now, taller but still hollowed out by the quiet neglect that had become normal.
His father had thrown himself into leading raids and completing any trials that threatened the wellbeing of his people in the area, and his mother was busy scouting the border between Xiaoluo and Vaelrun given the recent tensions over the cemetary islands had risen. The cuts on his palms were no longer accidents.
"Show me your palm," Huang Delan said one dusk, voice gentle.
Rhian hesitated, then placed his hand with a fresh wound still weeping in the older man's. The touch was warm when Huang Delan turned the hand slowly, examining the slice with a frown. "Rhian," he whispered after a long silence, "this isn't accidental. Not an old wound, either."
Rhian's lip trembled. He looked away. "It's none of your business. Just patch it up."
Huang Delan chuckled, although it sounded sad. "I'm your friend now. So make one small promise."
"What?"
"Don't hurt yourself on purpose."
The words landed like a stone in still water and something inside Rhian cracked open given that he didn't expect anyone to particularly care. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking.
Huang Delan smiled. "Don't apologize to me. Apologize to this hand."
He lifted Rhian's palm until it hovered before his own face. Rhian stared at the cut, at the slow well of blood, at the trembling fingers that had made it. "…I'm sorry," he murmured to his own skin. It felt childish, but he always thought he'd never grow past being eleven, ever since he'd seen that dead body.
Huang Delan clapped once, lightly and encouragingly. "Now promise your hand that it won't happen again."
Rhian frowned but extended his arm. "Please patch it."
"Fine." Huang Delan nodded, already reaching for a salve.
Though Huang Delan was never a master swordsman, he taught Rhian the basics in stolen hours—grip, stance, and the rhythm of breath before a strike. More importantly, he taught Rhian that hands could be gentle without being weak. However, while the rumors continued, Rhian managed to master Huang Delan's method of using the mana core. And although he hadn't unlocked his yet, it was his senior's way of helping him get used to it once he did obtain it.
At sixteen, Rhian stood in the siheyuan with Hua Huiliang and Li Feng, heart hammering.
"He can enter…" Hua Huiliang said after a treacherously long moment. Rhian hadn't been allowed by his father to join the other disciples in opening their mana for reasons the boy couldn't decipher. But he'd finished all of his other education, and now just the physical training remained.
Huang Delan's hand settled on Rhian's shoulder, steady and warm. Rhian turned; they bumped fists. Rhian had finally reached Huang Delan's shoulder height. Close enough. "Good job, Rhian," Huang Delan said quietly.
"Mhm."
Hua Huiliang watched them with something almost tender in his eyes. "Xiaoshi… would you join me for a walk this evening?"
Huang Delan answered before Rhian could. "It's still afternoon. You can celebrate with me now, then go."
"I don't mind," Rhian replied to Huang Delan, ignoring his father.
"Very well," Hua Huiliang said, hands clasped behind his back, a faint smile touching his lips.
"Gēgē, did you go to Sun Akhara too?" Rhian asked.
"No." Huang Delan shook his head. "I studied at the Zenin Recesses."
"Never heard of it."
"It's more secluded."
Rhian nodded.
"By the way," Huang Delan ruffled his hair, grinning. "When we reach town, you're treating me to food; I'll treat you to the rest."
"You and food."
"What else can your pitiful allowance by, kid?"
"That's not what I meant, Gēgē."
"Whatever," Huang Delan shrugged, already walking. "Let's go."
When they'd returned, the afternoon had already bled into evening, the sky bruised with streaks of violet and fading gold. The air in the garden carried the faint sweetness of night-blooming jasmine and the heavier scent of damp earth after a brief rain.
Rhian paused behind a low hedge of bamboo, peering through the slender leaves.
"Sect Leader?" His voice came out smaller than he intended.
Hua Huiliang glanced over, the lines of his face softening into something almost gentle. "Good evening, Xiaoshi."
"Good evening."
Hua Huiliang cradled a single purple bell-like flower in his palm, its petals translucent and impossibly still. He prodded one gently with the tip of his finger.
"It's been this way all day…" he murmured, almost to himself.
Rhian shifted his weight, robes rustling against the leaves. "Isn't that good? It's not wilting."
Hua Huiliang's gaze slid sideways. "That's not the point."
Rhian licked his suddenly dry lower lip. "Then what matters? The flower is beautiful."
Hua Huiliang smiled small and eerily tired before he lowered himself onto the stone bench beside the path. He twirled the stem between thumb and forefinger. "There is a cycle… an algorithm. Everything is bound to die." He lifted the flower higher, letting the dying light catch its edges. "I found it on a bench at dusk. Yet it hasn't decayed."
Rhian's hands settled on his thighs, fingers digging into the silk until the fabric creased. Anxiety crawled under his skin like ants.
"Xiaoshi," Hua Huiliang said carefully, "hold the flower."
Rhian reached out. The petals felt cool, almost waxy. Within seconds they began to droop—color leaching away, edges curling inward like burning paper. "What…?"
"That isn't your fault," Hua Huiliang said quietly. "The flower follows the algorithm."
Rhian exhaled sharply and set it down on the bench between them. Nearby, bamboo swayed in uneven rhythm; orchids and lavender bloomed in careless patches, indifferent to the conversation.
"But look," Hua Huiliang continued. He cupped the wilted flower between both hands. His palms glowed a soft molten gold and when he opened them again, the petals had unfurled, color restored, as though time itself had been reversed.
Rhian's breath caught. "Wait—Father, no—" The words tore out of him before he could stop them. "If you can do this to plants… you can do it with people, too, can you not?"
Hua Huiliang met his gaze and somehow that answered the question more than words. It was almost as though he had suspected this reaction from Rhian.
Perhaps the 'neglect' Rhian had faced had always been instigated by him, given that it was Rhian's choice to shut himself off after he'd seen the corpse of a woman he'd seen as another mother figure. Or it was his doing when he had refused to beleive he was traumatized in any sense.
Rhian's voice cracked as he realized the obvious reason of his father's refusal to let him open his mana core. "Then why didn't you?"
Hua Huiliang rose slowly, hands folding over his stomach as though bracing for a blow he had long expected. "This is the power of a mana core."
"Y—"
"Even if I tried, Xiaoshi, resurrection isn't simple." His tone had grown distant. "This flower's cycle is straightforward. Humans… with their tangled emotions, their morals, their attachments… it's impossible."
Rhian's eyes burned. He blinked hard, refusing to let the tears fall. "You could have saved her…"
"I could have tried," Hua Huiliang corrected gently. "But that is the truth."
His shoulders sagged and Rhian moved without thinking, catching his father's arm to steady him as he sat again.
"When you unlock your mana core, you'll understand," Hua Huiliang said. "The negativity you carry will turn on you. Do not detest me, child, I have tried to shelter you from what I know would cause you pain. You've always been hurting, Xiaoshi."
Rhian bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper.
"You're allowed to cry, Xiaoshi."
"That's not it."
Hua Huiliang looked at him for a long moment. "There are algorithms best left untouched."
The words landed like a door closing.
Rhian stared at the wilted flower on the bench. It looked obscene now, grey and dead. He stood abruptly, robes catching on thorns as he backed away and then left.
Hua Huiliang did not call after him.
Later, curled on the low divan in Huang Delan's spacious quarters, Rhian pressed his forehead to his knees.
"'…the Sect Leader said that?'" Huang Delan sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, voice careful.
Rhian's shoulders hunched tighter. "What do you think?"
"Xiaoshi," Huang Delan said softly, "you can't blame him."
Rhian's head snapped up. "I don't know."
"You lost two siblings. He lost two children and his wife. He even tried some foolish stunt to prove a point. He may be human, but he's the Sect Leader as well. Do you know what they call people who resurrect the dead? Necromancers, bastards of nature who don't know when to let the soul rest." Huang Delan's expression did not change. "He's grieving too."
Rhian's breath came out ragged. "You're taking his side."
"I'm not taking anyone's side. I'm saying he's carrying more than you can see."
Rhian's hands clenched into fists. "He could have brought her back. He chose not to. He chose the 'algorithm' over his own children."
Huang Delan reached out slowly, palm up. "And you think hatred will bring them back? You think he's allowed to be selfish when he has to carry the sect on his own back?"
Rhian stared at the offered hand. His vision blurred.
"I hate him," he whispered. "I hate him for making me understand why he didn't even try." Rhian's shoulders began to shake.
He did not take the hand.
He curled tighter into himself, forehead pressed so hard to his knees that it hurt.
Rhian rarely saw Huang Delan or Hua Huiliang after that.
Even surrounded by disciples, even after unlocking his mana core in a flare of gold light that left scorch marks on the training yard stones, the hollow place inside him only grew wider.
On his twentieth birthday he skipped training with Madam Hua's reprimand echoed behind him as he walked away.
The village that led to Luohe City lay quiet under a soft, pearlescent dawn. Mist clung to the rooftops and drifted between the trees as he walked through them alone.
He wandered into the infinite forest, following faint mana trails that twisted and vanished like half-remembered dreams. The trees grew taller here, trunks dark and old, branches knitting together overhead until the sky was only slivers of silver.
He walked until the path disappeared entirely.
Which was how he found himself staring endlessly in the city, moving where his legs took him.
Then, from deeper from a crowd full of civillians, a voice called out. "Come here! Tarot reading for just a hundred species!"
Rhian's head lifted slowly.
[The time period for the consequence is over!]
"Rhian!"
The shout cut through the haze that had become Rhian's mind. A firm hand clamped around Rhian's wrist and yanked, pulling him back from the edge of the memory that had nearly swallowed him whole.
Rhian stumbled forward a step, boots skidding on scorched earth. The world snapped back into focus, smoke, distant screams, and the metallic stink of blood and burning grass.
"You bastard! Think straight!" Zane's voice cracked with raw, furious worry. His green eyes blazed, pupils blown wide. "You nearly got yourself killed staring into nothing like that."
Rhian's lips twitched, half a smile, half a grimace. "It's nothing."
Zane released his wrist but didn't step back. He stared—as though trying to see straight through to whatever fracture had just opened inside Rhian's skull. Finally Zane exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction. "We've identified Huang Delan as the helper," he said quietly. "Killing him clears the auxiliary."
The words landed like ice water down Rhian's spine and it didn't help that Celestial Talk had rekindle that memory. "Apparently," he answered, voice flat, stripped of inflection.
Zane sighed again, almost in resignation, and dragged a hand through soot-streaked hair. "I don't kill," he muttered, jabbing a thumb at his own chest, then pointing at Rhian. "You can't kill either—not without fumbling and risking us both." He bit his lower lip, thinking hard. "But anyone else will be salivating at this opportunity."
Rhian nodded. "There's no one who hates him more than my sister."