The sect's inner courtyard was unusually quiet that morning. Mist had settled between the high bridges and crimson-tiled roofs, turning the Scarlet Immortal Sect into a silhouette of itself — beautiful, distant, unreadable.
Shen Yi moved through it like a ghost.
He passed fellow disciples. Some stared. Some whispered. A few turned away quickly, pretending not to notice the strange current of power coiled just beneath his skin.
He didn't blame them.
He could feel it too.
Ever since the Bone Hall… something inside him had shifted. His steps felt lighter, but his body heavier. His breath moved cleanly, but his qi was too vast now — like a sea held behind weak glass.
He was afraid to meditate.
Afraid he'd break the seal within himself again.
Afraid of what might come out.
---
From a high pavilion, Yan Xue watched him. She was dressed in training robes, her hair pulled into a tight braid, her expression unreadable.
She wasn't watching with longing.
Nor with hope.
She watched the way one watches a faultline in the earth—measuring the tremors before the mountain shatters.
Below, Shen Yi paused at the edge of the sparring grounds.
Several disciples were training there—two from the outer sect, three from the inner. All stronger than most. All arrogant enough to let their eyes slide over Shen Yi with barely contained disdain.
He ignored them.
Until one of them didn't ignore him back.
---
"You're the one they dragged in from the wilds," a broad-shouldered youth said. His spiritual robe bore the mark of the Seventh Flame Hall.
Shen Yi gave him a glance. "And you are?"
The youth sneered. "Li Jian. Inner disciple. Fifth-level core cultivator."
Shen Yi nodded once. "Should I be impressed?"
That struck a nerve.
Another disciple laughed behind Li Jian. "Maybe not impressed. But careful."
Li Jian's gaze narrowed. "They say you killed your own sect brothers five years ago."
Shen Yi didn't reply.
"They say you devoured a hundred lives and laughed while doing it."
Still no response.
Li Jian stepped closer. "Is that true, Shen Yi?"
Shen Yi looked up slowly, voice calm.
"I don't know."
The simplicity of the answer silenced them.
He walked past without another word.
---
From her perch above, Yan Xue let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
She didn't want him to fight.
Not because she cared for his safety.
But because the moment he fought — truly fought — they would all know.
And there would be no turning back.
---
Elsewhere in the sect, deep in the restricted archives beneath the western sanctum, Elder Han stood with Su Yao before a sealed stone wall etched with runes older than the sect itself.
"What is this place?" Su Yao asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Where we keep the pieces we regret," Han replied.
The runes glowed faintly as he passed a slip of qi across them. The stone groaned and parted, revealing a chamber filled with scrolls, sealed orbs, and a single large basin filled with still water.
Han approached it slowly.
"This," he said, "is the Memory Basin."
Su Yao frowned. "What does it show?"
"Only what has been sealed by the soul."
Su Yao's throat tightened. "You're going to show him his past?"
Han didn't answer at first.
Then, softly: "He needs to remember. Even if it breaks him."
---
Shen Yi arrived at the sanctum before noon.
He had received the summons only an hour before. A black strip of talisman paper, sealed with three droplets of crimson wax.
Memory Rite: Initiate.
He had no idea what to expect.
Only that something in him both feared and longed for it.
Han met him at the threshold of the sanctum. The old elder didn't speak right away. Instead, he studied Shen Yi's face.
"You're calm," Han said.
"I'm trying to be."
"That won't help you. You need to be honest. Even with fear."
Shen Yi nodded once. "I'll try."
Han gestured him inside. "Then come. The past is waiting."
---
The chamber was cold, despite the faint flames floating along the walls. Su Yao stood near the edge of the basin, her expression shadowed.
Shen Yi looked at her.
"Are you here to watch me fall apart?"
"No," she said quietly. "I'm here in case you don't come back."
He tried to smile. Failed.
Then turned to face the basin.
"Place your hand in the water," Han said. "Let it read your soul."
Shen Yi obeyed.
The surface of the basin rippled, then flared with pale violet light.
A voice, not quite human, whispered through the air—
"Memory Unsealed."
"Echoes Revealed."
"Truth Awaits."
---
And then it began.
The water shimmered, forming images.
A boy—himself—standing at the edge of a cliff.
Breathing hard.
Eyes wild.
Blood staining his robes.
He was screaming at someone — no, something — beyond the frame.
Then, without warning, the boy's body convulsed.
Black qi erupted from his skin, swirling around him like a hurricane.
And his voice twisted into something inhuman.
"I… am… eternal…"
Su Yao gasped softly.
Shen Yi staggered, pulling his hand away.
But the image didn't stop.
It shifted again.
Now a girl—Yan Xue—bound to a wooden pillar, blood on her lips, her eyes wide with disbelief.
And across from her—
Him.
Standing tall, blade dripping, eyes devoid of anything human.
Laughing.
Laughing.
---
Shen Yi dropped to his knees.
"I didn't… I couldn't have…"
But it was there.
The truth.
Unquestionable.
And worst of all…
His laughter sounded joyful.
----
The chamber was silent, save for Shen Yi's ragged breath.
He didn't sob. He didn't scream.
But his fingers curled so tightly against the stone floor that his nails cracked.
Across the basin, the image dissolved into mist.
Only fragments lingered—echoes of memory, smears of color, a ghostly trace of his own broken laughter.
Elder Han finally spoke, voice low.
"You've seen it now."
Shen Yi didn't answer.
Su Yao stepped forward. "He wasn't himself. You can see the corruption—his aura was twisted, his soul—"
"He was himself," Shen Yi said quietly.
Su Yao froze. "What?"
"I felt it. That power—it wasn't controlling me. It was me. I chose it. I let it in."
He stood slowly, but his legs trembled beneath him.
"I thought I'd be horrified… But the worst part is…"
He looked up at them, eyes burning.
"Part of me misses that feeling."
---
Han met his gaze, unflinching.
"The Immortal Demon Skill is not just a cultivation method. It feeds on what's already inside you. Hunger. Ambition. Rage."
Shen Yi's voice cracked. "So I was always like this?"
"No," Han said. "But you were desperate. And that was enough."
The words landed like a sentence.
Shen Yi looked at the basin again.
"Why show me this now?"
"Because your path forks here," Han replied. "Now that you've seen who you were, you must choose who you become."
---
Outside the chamber, Yan Xue stood beneath the shadow of a paper lantern.
She had watched the basin from the viewing mirror in the hall.
Watched him see it all.
He had fallen to his knees.
He had looked shattered.
And still…
It wasn't enough.
Her heart should have been satisfied.
It wasn't.
Instead, it ached. A dull, traitorous ache.
"I wanted you to see it," she whispered to the empty air.
"I wanted you to break."
She clenched her fist.
"So why do I feel like I'm the one cracking apart?"
---
That evening, Shen Yi sat alone beneath a crooked willow tree overlooking the south cliffs.
He hadn't spoken a word since leaving the chamber.
Su Yao had tried, briefly, but he'd given her a look that said not yet.
And so she left him alone.
The wind was sharp. The stars had not yet risen.
He pulled the memory up again—like poking a blade through an open wound.
Yan Xue.
Bound. Bleeding. Betrayed.
And him, standing over her, unmoved.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the dark.
Not for the first time.
And not, he knew, for the last.
---
Yan Xue found him an hour later.
She didn't announce herself.
Didn't sit beside him.
Just stood at a distance, arms crossed, sword at her hip.
"I saw what you saw," she said.
He nodded.
She waited.
He didn't speak.
Finally, she asked, "Do you believe it?"
"Yes."
"And?"
He turned to look at her.
"I want to be better than that."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "That doesn't mean anything."
"I know," he said. "That's why I'll prove it."
"To who?"
"To myself."
A pause.
Then, more quietly:
"And maybe… to you."
---
Yan Xue's heart stuttered.
It was subtle.
A tiny betrayal beneath her ribs.
She wanted to mock him.
She wanted to tear him down again.
But something in his voice—so stripped of pretense, so unguarded—stopped her.
Instead, she asked: "Do you still feel it?"
"…The power?"
She nodded.
"Yes," he said. "All the time."
"Is it calling to you?"
"Yes."
"Do you want it?"
He didn't answer right away.
Then: "I want to control it. Not be controlled by it."
She stepped closer, slowly.
"Good," she said. "Because if you lose control again—"
"I know," he whispered. "You'll kill me."
"No."
He blinked.
"I'll break you," she said. "Piece by piece. The way you broke me."
Then she turned and walked away.
---
That night, Elder Han stood before the Sect Lord's quarters.
"The basin showed everything," he reported. "And more."
The Sect Lord nodded slowly. "How did he respond?"
"He didn't deny it. But he's shaken."
"Will he run?"
"No. I believe he intends to stay."
"Then he is braver than before."
Han hesitated.
"There's something else," he said. "The girl—Yan Xue. She's… different."
"How so?"
"She hates him, yes. But there's something else under it. A connection."
The Sect Lord's gaze sharpened. "Dangerous?"
"Potentially."
"Watch her."
"I already am."
---
Meanwhile, deep within a mountain beyond the sect's borders, a figure clad in rust-colored robes knelt before a cracked stone altar.
The air shimmered with corrupted qi.
A voice, ancient and low, growled from the shadows:
"The Demon Heir awakens."
The kneeling figure bowed deeper.
"And the Blood Princess walks beside him."
A silence.
Then the voice rumbled:
"Good. Let them fall together."
---
The next morning, Shen Yi returned to the training fields.
This time, he didn't avoid the others.
Li Jian spotted him instantly and stepped forward, smirking.
"Back to try again?"
Shen Yi nodded. "Yes. But not to fight you."
"Oh? Why not?"
"Because I'd kill you."
The smirk faltered.
Shen Yi walked past without another word, leaving silence in his wake.
---
Atop a high balcony, Yan Xue watched the exchange.
She didn't smile.
But something in her eyes… softened.
Just for a moment.
Then the wind shifted.
And the next storm began to brew.
----
End of Chapter 15