The wind shifted again — colder, sharper, slicing through the air like a blade.
Li Feng stood alone beneath the dead wisteria, Jin Yue now gone from the balcony. His words still echoed in Li Feng's mind.
"But I already do."
A storm brewed in the distance.
And with it… came memory.
Years ago — in the time of the Voidborne Order
He remembered the feeling of fire in his veins — not the heat of flames, but the devouring burn of ambition.
The hall had been carved from black stone, polished until the walls shone like mirrors. Thousands of candles floated mid-air, suspended in talismanic circles. Their light flickered in time with the heartbeat of the ritual.
Li Feng knelt before the Void Altar, clothed in robes of midnight blue. A blade hovered above the center — not forged from metal, but from the condensed will of forgotten spirits.
"You know what this means," came a voice from the shadows behind him. Deep. Reverent. Cold.
It was the Master, the true leader of the Voidborne Order — face always hidden behind an obsidian veil, his presence heavier than gravity.
"I am ready," Li Feng said. His voice had not yet grown cold back then. There had still been flickers of youth in him. Hope, even.
"You are ready to cast aside your mortal soul. To embrace the power the heavens denied you."
Li Feng looked up at the blade. "Yes."
And he had meant it.
He raised his palm and let the blade pierce it.
In that moment — as black light burst from his veins and pain carved itself into his spirit — something inside him fractured.
He saw it clearly, even now: the faces of those he betrayed, the temples that burned, the fields where blood soaked the earth. All done in the name of power. All justified by the pursuit of transcendence.
And yet… there had been one who tried to stop him.
"You're not beyond saving, Feng. You never were."
A woman's voice. Gentle, strong. Her face blurred in the memory, but her presence still lingered in the corner of his mind — like a candle refusing to go out.
He had not listened.
Not until the day he killed his own master, shattered the altar, and sealed away the power he had bled for.
Not until it was far too late.
Present
Thunder cracked in the distance.
Li Feng opened his eyes, breath steady but heavy.
The scars on his soul hadn't faded. The mark Jin Yue saw in the scroll — it was real. And the shadows that once bowed to him were moving again.
The void was never truly sealed.
And now, fate had brought a boy with light in his eyes — the kind of light Li Feng had once tried to destroy — straight into his orbit.
Was it a second chance?
Or a cruel test from the heavens?
He didn't know.
But he would find out soon.