A moonless night in the depths of a silent forest.
The night wind whispered through the ancient pines, brushing over the lichens that carpeted the cold stones. At the summit of a mountain forgotten for centuries, a faint blue light flickered, illuminating the circle of an ancient formation etched from the remnants of spiritual energy.
Within the formation, Thanh Nhi stood still. The pale light cast a slanted glow across half her face, her robe fluttering gently in the wind, while her long black-purple hair seemed to dissolve into the darkness. Before her, drifting fragments of memories floated, scattered pieces of a sealed reincarnation: a young fox spirit stumbling along a cliff's edge, a man reaching out to embrace her, blood soaking the hem of her robe beneath the crimson sky of dusk.
"Dong Ha, Trach Hien."
Thanh Nhi whispered, her voice choked with emotion. Her eyes reflected the past she had witnessed through the formation, from the moment her sister first felt love to the moment she died in despair.
As the elder sister and former guardian of the fox tribe, Thanh Nhi had once sworn she would never allow such memories to repeat. Yet now, her sister wandered between two lives: a fabricated reality and a memory locked away.
"As long as you remember, even at a cost, I am willing."
But she knew that price was not hers to decide. Behind every cycle of reincarnation, behind each shattered fragment of memory, loomed the watchful eyes of The Celestial General.
The guardian of the endless wheel of destiny.
The Celestial General was neither merciful nor cruel. He was simply the keeper of absolute neutrality. To him, the loves and hates of mortals were mere variables that disturbed the celestial law, and Bach Lan, a fox spirit who had defied fate and cultivated forbidden powers for love, was the greatest variable of all.
So, The Celestial General had sealed Bach Lan's reincarnated memories, binding her feelings, her faith, and the spiritual energy deep within her soul with the strict laws of heaven.
Thanh Nhi understood. She knew that every time she tried to approach those memories, her spiritual energy would fluctuate, and a fluctuation too great would alert The Celestial General to the interference. Not only Bach Lan, but Thanh Nhi herself could become a target to be erased.
"If I use all my power to break the seal, we will both be destroyed. But if I stand still and watch her sink deeper into the trap, am I not aiding the one who cast her into the heartbreak of her previous life?"
She let out a bitter, quiet laugh. A laugh at fate, at the paradoxical rules of reincarnation, and at her own helplessness.
"I am neither a god nor an immortal. I am only a sister."
A determined glint appeared in her eyes. Thanh Nhi drew from her sleeve a small spiritual pearl, a fragment of her own soul, carefully sealed to avoid detection.
"I cannot break the laws of heaven, but I can let her find her way back herself."
She lifted the pearl and whispered an incantation. The night wind stirred, and fine threads of silver spiritual energy slipped from the formation, drifting like smoke into the hazy dreams of Bach Lan.
***
In the stillness of the mountain forest, Bach Lan knelt within a circle of silver runes. Her hair cascaded down her back, her pale face showing the strain of three sleepless days, and her small hands gripped tightly the partially burned talisman.
The forbidden life-altering spell, a lost fox clan incantation, was never meant for the mortal world, and even less for one bound by destiny like Trach Hien. Yet she had sacrificed nearly all her spiritual energy just to cling to a sliver of life for him.
The scene around her blurred and shifted, transforming into another moment.
High above the clouds, The Celestial General descended, his white robes shimmering with divine energy. His face betrayed no emotion, only eyes deep and cold as ancient stone.
"You have forgotten all celestial laws."
"Magic is not to be used in the mortal realm."
"Nor is it to be used to alter fate."
Bach Lan lifted her head, blood trickling from the corner of her lips, her gaze empty yet etched with profound sorrow.
"I do not seek to change destiny. I only... only do not want him to die."
The Celestial General did not reply. A beam of light struck from the heavens like a bolt of thunder. She only had time to scream before her body was slammed to the ground.
His hand rose again, the light condensing into a staff, poised to drag her soul back to the celestial realm to face judgment.
At that moment,
"STOP!!!"
A roar tore through the clouds. A shadow-black figure shot forward like a whirlwind, intercepting Bach Lan just in time, claws shredding the descending staff.
It was Dong Ha.
His form had fully shifted into beast, his fur wild like a wolf's mane, eyes blazing gold, fangs and claws sharp as blades.
Blood stained his body, likely from the chase across the celestial barriers, yet he paid it no mind.
He only looked at her, gripping her frail shoulders, worn thin from drained spiritual energy, and growled.
"I will not let anyone take her!"
The Celestial General's face remained calm:
"Dong Ha. You are a descendant of the ancient divine beasts. To defy the heavenly laws is to become complicit."
"I don't care about any law!" – He bellowed, positioning his massive body to shield Bach Lan. – "If she errs, I will bear the punishment. If they try to take her, I will tear the heavens apart to get her back."
A tense silence passed.
The Celestial General lowered his hand, his voice ringing like an ancient bronze bell:
"You have made your choice."
"Remember, to defy the Celestial Way leaves no path back."
The two forces collided, sending shockwaves through the forest. Waves of energy surged, trees uprooted, rocks shattered. Dong Ha fought in close combat, each swipe of his claws carrying dense, crushing force, pushing the Celestial General off balance.
Even facing a powerful representative of the Celestial Law, he did not falter. Blood streamed from his mouth, yet he stood his ground, never yielding a step-in front of Bach Lan.
Finally, after a powerful strike that staggered The Celestial General, Dong Ha scooped up the unconscious Bach Lan. His remaining spiritual energy formed a veil of dark mist, concealing their presence as he shot upward into the sky, piercing the clouds and vanishing from sight.
Exhausted, his breath weakening, blood pooling around them, yet in the haze of unconsciousness, she still felt her body cradled in familiar, warm arms.
"Don't sleep!" – A hoarse whisper echoed by her ear – "I'm taking you... back... back to the fox clan... back home."
Under the shrouded night, Dong Ha carried her across jagged mountains and dense forests, his blood staining the fallen leaves red. No one saw, but on his face burned the silent despair of a love so deep that all he could offer in protection were his claws and fangs.
The Celestial General tightened his staff, ready to issue the command to pursue, when the world suddenly fell into stillness.
A calm, deep voice resonated from the void:
"Enough, The Celestial General."
A deity in flowing white robes appeared, holding a jade talisman, radiating authority yet composed. His eyes scanned the distant horizon where Dong Ha had disappeared, and he spoke softly:
"There is no need to expend more force. The fox's spiritual energy is exhausted. Even the wild wolf cannot flee forever. Sooner or later, they will have to step onto the steps of the Celestial Court and bow their heads."
The Celestial General remained silent. His eyes still shone with determination, but he withdrew his spell.
The forest wind stilled, as if the battle had never happened. Yet in the scorched grove, traces remained: wolf's blood, remnants of the fox's cloak, silent evidence of a challenge sent to the Celestial Order itself.
***
Bach Lan woke with a start in the quiet of the night, a cold sweat soaking the back of her shirt. Her heart pounded as if she had just run from a sheer cliff. The familiar room of her small, modern apartment came into view: the soft yellow glow of the bedside lamp, the distant hum of cars from the late-night streets. Yet her breath was ragged, as if part of her soul had not yet returned.
Had she just dreamed, or was it a fragment of memory?
A forest, blazing with fire. A fierce battle. A man.
A tall figure stood before her, fending off the one in celestial robes. Blood splattered across his clothes, the metallic scent thick in the air. And those eyes, wild and fierce yet holding a tenderness that took her breath away.
He had held her, wounded as he was, clutching her tightly as if afraid she would vanish.
She couldn't remember the face clearly, but the feeling remained: a warmth so acute it hurt, as if someone had caught her in mid-fall from the edge of an abyss.
"Don't die!"
The whisper echoed, hoarse like wind slicing through mountains.
Bach Lan pressed her hand to her chest, where her heart still throbbed violently. Something had shifted there. A name whispered through the depths of her mind.
"Dong Ha."
She repeated it almost silently, as if the sound had risen from some buried corner of her subconscious. That name had never appeared in her current life. No one at her company had that name, nor anyone she knew.
Yet it felt unbearably familiar, so familiar that her chest ached when she spoke it.
The man in the dream, the warmth in his eyes, the arms shielding her from the Celestial General. The bloodied wound, the tight embrace, and the hoarse whisper by her ear:
"I'm taking you... back... to the fox clan... back home."
Each scene flickered past like a slow-motion film. She couldn't understand why she had dreamed of such things, why the images were etched so vividly in her mind. But she knew one thing: it could not be mere imagination, not just a fleeting dream.
Her hand tightened over her chest, an odd emptiness filling her in a world that should have felt familiar.
She didn't know that the one named Dong Ha, the man who had once stood between her and the Celestial General, who had held her bloodied under the moonlight, now lived in the modern world under another name: Trach Dong.
And she, unknowingly, was slowly stepping into a whirlwind of reincarnation from which there was no escape.
A moonless night, the forest shrouded in a dense mist where the spirit realm and human world converged. Silence reigned so completely that even the fall of a single leaf sounded loud and clear.
Beneath the ancient canopy of a thousand-year-old tree, a circle of magic silently emerged from the earth. The old runic patterns gradually glowed, their pale light like that of a dead moon, cold, lifeless, and devoid of warmth.
A figure in white descended slowly from above: The Celestial General.
He stood motionless at the center of the formation, holding a silver-tipped staff. His gaze was calm, without anger, without mercy only the detached look of an enforcer who had long carried out the laws, no longer stirred by the love, hatred, life, or death of mortals.
Before him, an invisible cage shimmered, and at its heart... the faint projection of Bach Lan's soul hovered quietly, like a lingering spark from a past life.
"The memories are stirring."
He muttered, reaching out. The staff glimmered, silver inscriptions spiraling around it like chains of reincarnation. Thread by thread, they wrapped around the awakening fragments of memory.
"Name, face, emotion."
He whispered each word. Pieces of her memory were separated and sealed with a seventh-layer reincarnation spell, the highest ban of the Celestial Way.
"You are not allowed to remember."
The threads of light pierced deep into the blurred soul, locking away all feelings and images of those involved. It was not erasure, but a dimming, making the broken shards of memory impossible to reconnect or shape into clarity.
The wind stirred, rustling the trees. A night owl swooped across, letting out a chilling call before vanishing into the darkness.
The Celestial General tightened his grip. There was no satisfaction in his eyes, no hatred, only duty.
The final incantation was cast. Silver threads sank deep into the sleeping soul.
"Seal reinforced. Memory: untouchable."
The formation slowly faded, its light absorbed into the earth as if it had never existed.
The Celestial General withdrew his staff, standing still for a moment. The wind caught his cloak, letting it flutter like a nameless spirit.
The forest returned to its quiet. No one knew that tonight, a seal had been reinforced. One heart had been bound once more.
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