"If you could save only one…"
"Why did you choose the world?"
The question did not echo loudly.
It did not need to.
It entered Yao Chen's chest like a blade and remained there, cold and unmoving.
The battlefield around him was gray and endless. Broken weapons covered the ground. Above him, the sky remained split open, and the collapsing heavenly gate hung there like a memory refusing to disappear.
He could still see the young figure reaching toward him.
Still hear that final question.
Was I also worth saving?
Yao Chen lowered his gaze to his hands.
They were trembling.
He wanted to answer.
Because the world mattered more.
But the moment that thought appeared, his heart rejected it.
What kind of answer was that?
To the one who had reached out?
To the one who had trusted him?
To the one who had called him Senior Brother even while knowing he would not be chosen?
He wanted to say he had no choice.
But that answer felt even weaker.
A person who said he had no choice was often only trying to escape the weight of the choice he had already made.
Yao Chen opened his mouth.
No sound came out.
The battlefield became colder.
The mist around him stirred.
The gate's voice returned.
"Silence…"
A pause.
"…is also an answer."
The ash-gray earth beneath him trembled.
Then something fell from the broken sky.
A spear.
It descended without warning and struck the ground in front of Yao Chen.
The impact split the battlefield open, sending cracks racing across the soil. Ancient dust rose, carrying with it the scent of iron, rain, and old blood.
Yao Chen raised his eyes.
Behind the spear stood an old woman.
Her hair was white, tied loosely behind her head. Her armor was broken in many places, and half of it looked as though it had once melted beneath terrible heat. Her body was translucent, but not weak. She was a remnant, yet she stood with the bearing of someone who had once commanded armies.
Her eyes were the sharpest part of her.
They were old.
Not old because of age.
Old because they had seen too many endings.
For a long moment, she simply looked at Yao Chen.
Then she smiled.
The smile was faint.
Tired.
But not unkind.
"You still cannot answer that question."
Yao Chen slowly rose to his feet.
The old woman leaned one hand on her spear.
"Good."
Yao Chen's brows tightened slightly.
"Good?"
"A man who answers too easily," she said, "has never truly chosen."
The battlefield quieted.
Yao Chen looked at her carefully.
"Who are you?"
The old woman did not answer immediately.
Her gaze moved past him.
Not to his body.
To something deeper.
Within Yao Chen's Soul Sea, Sai Ka and Si Ka trembled.
It was slight.
Almost nothing.
But Yao Chen felt it.
The old woman's eyes softened.
"So they are truly here."
Her voice became quieter.
"Sai Ka."
"Si Ka."
The two swords remained silent.
The old woman's expression did not change.
It was as if she had expected no greeting.
Or perhaps she believed she did not deserve one.
Yao Chen's voice lowered.
"You know them."
"I knew the man who carried them."
Those words caused the battlefield to ripple.
Yao Chen did not speak.
The old woman looked back at him.
"A dead woman who once followed the man who carried those swords."
She studied his face, then slowly shook her head.
"You are not him."
The words should have relieved something in Yao Chen.
They did not.
"But the mark is there," she continued. "And the swords remain with you."
Her gaze sharpened.
"That means they have chosen again."
Yao Chen remained calm on the surface, but his mind moved quickly.
She did not recognize him.
Not as the former master of the swords.
The seal, his changed existence, and the Yao Clan mark had hidden the truth even from a spirit who once knew that person.
The old woman seemed to see his thoughts.
"Do not look at me like that. The dead do not know everything. We only remember what killed us."
She lifted her spear slightly.
"And sometimes, what we hated."
The battlefield changed.
Yao Chen saw a white-haired figure standing beneath a burning sky, twin swords in hand. Countless people knelt behind him. Some wept in gratitude. Some screamed his name in worship.
Others cursed.
Their curses were not weak.
They were not the curses of enemies defeated in battle.
They were the curses of survivors.
Those who had lived because of him.
And hated him for the price.
The old woman spoke.
"Those blades do not choose kind men."
Yao Chen listened silently.
"They choose those who can bear being hated after saving the world."
The words entered him slowly.
"They once followed a man who saved more lives than the stars above this valley. He sealed disasters. He cut open paths for the dying. He dragged worlds back from collapse."
Her voice turned cold.
"And he left many hands reaching into empty air."
Yao Chen's fingers curled.
The old woman looked toward the broken sky.
"Some built temples for him."
"Some carved his name into stone."
"Some called him savior."
A faint laugh escaped her.
"But the dead called him other things."
The battlefield darkened.
Yao Chen saw flashes.
A mother holding a child who would never wake.
A soldier laughing while blood filled his mouth.
A young disciple kneeling before a sealed gate, pounding on it until his hands broke.
A city saved from destruction, but half its people trapped beyond a barrier that could not be opened.
The white-haired figure stood at the center of all of it.
Unmoving.
Unforgiven.
"The world remembers victory," the old woman said.
"The dead remember the price."
Yao Chen's voice was low.
"Was he wrong?"
The old woman turned to him.
For the first time, something like anger passed through her eyes.
Not anger at him.
At the question.
"Wrong?"
She laughed.
"Right?"
The laugh faded quickly.
"Those words are for people who never stood where he stood."
Yao Chen said nothing.
The old woman gripped her spear.
"He was necessary."
A pause.
"And necessity is often uglier than evil."
The words struck harder than accusation.
Yao Chen thought of the warrior spirit from before.
The Nine-Petal Soul Lantern Grass.
The man who had begged not to be healed.
The woman who had died thirty steps away.
There, healing had meant revealing the truth.
Here, truth was not so gentle.
Here, truth had a body count.
The old woman walked slowly past him.
Her footsteps made no sound.
"Do you know why many hated him?"
Yao Chen looked at her.
"Because he failed to save them?"
"No."
She stopped.
"Because he saved them, and they still lost everything."
The battlefield shifted again.
This time Yao Chen saw a woman standing among ruins. She was younger then, spear in hand, armor cracked. Around her, a city still stood.
But everyone inside it was gone.
The white-haired figure had saved the city from complete erasure.
But the people had already been consumed before he arrived.
The young woman looked at him with hatred.
The old woman watched the scene in silence.
"That was me."
Yao Chen's eyes changed.
The old woman continued.
"He saved the land beneath my feet."
"But not the people who had laughed there."
"He saved the sky above my head."
"But not the voices beneath it."
"He saved my life."
Her expression twisted faintly.
"And for many years, I cursed him for it."
Yao Chen's chest felt heavy.
"What changed?"
The old woman did not answer for a while.
Then she said, "I lived long enough to understand that hatred is often grief with no place to kneel."
The battlefield became quiet.
"When I died, I still hated him."
She looked toward Sai Ka and Si Ka's unseen presence.
"But when my soul remained, I saw more. I saw what stood behind him. I saw what he held back. I saw what would have happened if he had chosen differently."
Her eyes lowered.
"Then I hated him less."
A pause.
"But I never thanked him."
Yao Chen looked at her.
The old woman smiled faintly.
"That is also one kind of regret."
The mist around them thickened.
The gate's question still hung in the air.
The old woman faced him fully.
"If the same choice comes again…"
"Will you save the one?"
"Or the world?"
The battlefield waited.
Yao Chen did not rush to answer.
He thought of Xuner sleeping in the Soul Sea.
Of Xue Lian walking beside him.
Of Qing Lin and Feng holding Radha's hands.
Of Lin Xiao laughing to hide fear.
Of Huo Yuan carrying flames that had once burned too much.
He thought of worlds he did not remember saving.
And the one he had failed to save.
Finally, he spoke.
"I will not promise an answer before seeing the wound."
The old woman's eyes narrowed.
Then slowly, she smiled.
This smile was different.
Less tired.
"Good."
Yao Chen looked at her.
"That satisfies you?"
"No."
She turned away.
"But it is better than a beautiful lie."
Her body began to fade.
The spear in her hand dissolved first, its fragments rising like fireflies.
"Then perhaps the swords did not choose wrongly."
Yao Chen stepped forward.
"Wait."
The old woman paused.
"The one I saw…"
His voice lowered.
"The one who called me Senior Brother…"
The old woman's expression changed.
Just slightly.
Enough.
Yao Chen noticed.
"Who was it?"
The old woman looked at him for a long time.
Then she said, "A wound still sealed is not healed by tearing it open."
"That is not an answer."
"No."
Her body faded further.
"It is mercy."
Before she vanished completely, she pointed deeper into the battlefield.
"The one he failed to save…"
Her voice became faint.
"…did not die cleanly."
Yao Chen's pupils narrowed.
The old woman's last words drifted into the gray world.
"Be careful when the night comes."
Then she disappeared.
The battlefield shattered.
Yao Chen opened his eyes.
He was back in Soul Burial Valley.
The ancient gate stood behind him, silent and closed, as if nothing had happened.
But everyone around him had changed.
Lin Xiao woke first.
He was sitting on the ground, one hand gripping his saber, sweat covering his forehead.
He opened his mouth.
Probably to make a joke.
But nothing came out.
After a few breaths, he forced a crooked smile.
"I hate gates."
His voice was too hoarse to sound casual.
Huo Yuan woke next.
The flames around his hands were smaller than before.
Quieter.
Not weaker.
More controlled.
He looked at his palms for a long moment, then slowly closed his fists.
Xue Lian opened her eyes and immediately looked for Yao Chen.
When she saw him standing, the frost along her sleeve melted slightly.
She did not ask what he had seen.
He did not ask what she had seen.
Their eyes met.
That was enough.
Qing Lin and Feng woke in Radha's arms.
Qing Lin was crying silently. Feng's eyes were red, but he forced himself not to cry.
Radha held them both.
Her expression was gentle, but deep in her eyes there was something no ordinary young woman should have possessed.
A kind of sorrow older than the valley itself.
Krishna sat nearby with his spear across his knees.
He rubbed the back of his neck as though exhausted.
"That was unpleasant."
Radha looked at him.
"For you?"
Krishna smiled faintly.
"For the gate."
Lin Xiao blinked.
"What does that mean?"
Krishna's smile widened into something lazy again.
"It means ancient ruins have terrible manners."
Lin Xiao stared at him.
"Brother Krishna, sometimes I feel like you are either very wise or completely insane."
Krishna nodded thoughtfully.
"Both are respectable paths."
No one laughed loudly.
But the tension eased by a hair.
Only Yao Chen noticed that Radha and Krishna had awakened too cleanly.
Too calmly.
Whatever the gate had shown them, it had not touched their true selves.
Or perhaps it had tried and failed.
Before he could think further, the mist at the edge of the basin stirred.
Footsteps approached.
The first group wore Yu Academy robes.
There were six of them. Their gazes moved greedily across the broken weapons, the soul herbs, and the faintly glowing battlefield fragments around the valley.
The young man leading them carried a jade ruler at his waist and wore a smile that never reached his eyes.
Behind them came another group.
Transcendent Academy.
They moved slower.
More carefully.
At their front was a young woman in pale blue robes. Her hair was tied with a silver ribbon, and her eyes were clear, calm, and observant. Space around her seemed slightly distorted, not from power released outward, but from the way she perceived the world.
She stopped when she saw the ancient gate.
Then she looked at the battlefield scars.
Then at Yao Chen.
"This valley is not opening," she said softly.
The Yu Academy leader glanced at her.
"Luo Qingyin, must you speak like every stone has a soul?"
The young woman did not look at him.
"In this place," she replied, "that may be true."
Yao Chen remembered the name.
Luo Qingyin.
A genius of Transcendent Academy.
Unlike the Yu Academy disciples, she did not immediately stare at treasures.
She studied the mist.
The gate.
The group.
Her gaze passed over Radha and Krishna.
For one instant, her brows drew together.
Her spatial perception had touched something.
Then slipped away.
As if her mind had walked to the edge of a bottomless lake and forgotten why it had come.
She looked confused for only half a breath before returning to calm.
Krishna smiled at her politely.
Luo Qingyin's eyes narrowed slightly.
She did not smile back.
The Yu Academy leader looked toward Yao Chen.
"I heard someone obtained an Ancient Weapon Mark here."
Lin Xiao stood up and rested his saber on his shoulder.
"You heard wrong."
The Yu disciple smiled.
"Did I?"
Huo Yuan stepped forward.
"You want to test it?"
The atmosphere tightened.
But before anyone could move, the earth beneath the valley trembled.
Not violently.
Deeply.
As if something buried very far below had turned over in its sleep.
Everyone looked toward the center of the basin.
Ash and broken weapons began sliding aside.
A stone monument rose from the ground.
It was enormous.
Black.
Ancient.
Not the trial monument controlled by the five academies.
This one belonged to the valley.
Old blood flowed through its carvings, filling words that had not been seen for countless years.
The Yu Academy disciples stepped back.
Even Luo Qingyin's expression changed.
The monument fully emerged.
The mist darkened.
Then words appeared.
Hidden Objective Awakened
The air grew colder.
More words followed.
Soul Burial Valley: Night of Dead Souls
Condition: Survive Until Dawn
Reward: Soul Merit, Ancient Fragments, Valley Recognition
Failure: Soul Burial
A silence heavier than fear descended.
Then the broken weapons across the valley began trembling.
One by one.
Swords.
Spears.
Axes.
Shields.
Even fragments no longer large enough to be called weapons.
From beneath the ash, dim lights opened.
Eyes.
Dead eyes.
Countless dead eyes.
Lin Xiao slowly raised his saber.
"Tell me I am reading that wrong."
Huo Yuan's flames ignited, quiet and steady.
"You are not."
Xue Lian moved beside Yao Chen.
Radha drew Qing Lin and Feng close.
Krishna rose to his feet, spear resting lightly in one hand.
His face was relaxed.
His eyes were not.
Yao Chen looked at the monument.
The old woman's warning echoed in his mind.
Be careful when the night comes.
Above the monument, one final line appeared.
The valley did not roar.
It inhaled.
And in that breath, every dead thing remembered that it had once held a weapon.
Survive the Night of Dead Souls