Eastern Wastes – Three Days Earlier
The sky bled amber as dusk stretched over a dead plain.
Dust blew across cracked stone. What once was farmland was now a barren expanse—burned, salted, forgotten. And at its center stood a lone shrine: circular, roofless, with eight broken pillars surrounding a single altar.
On that altar…
A spear.
Black shaft. Silver edge. No ornamentation, no name.
It hummed softly, though no wind stirred.
Around the shrine, twelve bodies lay—robes torn, faces bloodied. None bore wounds.
They had died kneeling.
---
A woman stood at the edge of the shrine, eyes fixed on the weapon.
She was young—barely past twenty—dressed in white robes stained with ash. Her long hair had once been tied back with gold threads, but now fell loose across her shoulders.
Her name was Yu Mei.
And her hands were bleeding.
---
She stepped forward.
One pace.
Then another.
The shrine didn't stop her.
The spear didn't resist.
But the air grew colder.
And behind her, a voice rasped, uncertain.
"You shouldn't touch that."
Yu Mei didn't turn.
"I already did."
---
A robed elder stepped into view—thin, shaking, eyes wide with fear.
"That spear belonged to the Demon Crown."
"I know."
"It's cursed. It devours the unworthy."
Yu Mei reached the altar. "Then I must be worthy."
She reached out—slowly—and gripped the shaft.
The air screamed.
---
Elsewhere – Present Day – Ash Banner Camp
Jiang Xuan's hands clenched the message scroll again.
He stared into the fire, unmoving.
Sang Lian finally asked, "Who is she?"
He didn't blink.
"Yu Mei. A priestess once trained to forgive. Raised by temples that believed balance still meant something."
Emei tilted her head. "A Saintess?"
Jiang Xuan spoke low. "A title forced on her. She never wanted it."
Fang Yao added, "She was the only one left alive when the southern temple fell."
Sang Lian frowned. "Did she ever face you?"
Jiang Xuan's voice dipped quieter.
"She stood beside me once… back in the sect."
Emei's brows lifted.
He didn't elaborate.
But his fingers twitched.
---
Back – Eastern Wastes
The spear pulsed in Yu Mei's grip—once, twice—then settled.
It accepted her.
Or tolerated her.
She spun it once, felt its weight shift—and for the first time, something flickered behind her violet eyes.
Not power.
But memory.
---
She collapsed to her knees, panting.
Visions flooded in.
A boy standing in blood-soaked snow.
A tower falling from the sky.
A voice whispering,
"Do not grieve what the world was never worthy of."
She gasped.
Gripped the ground.
And wept.
---
She remembered his eyes from the sect.
Dark. Cold.
But not empty.
She remembered how he'd paused when he saw her.
How he'd said nothing.
How she hadn't drawn her blade.
Not then.
---
Later – the shrine empty, the spear gone
Yu Mei walked barefoot across the wastes, eyes clear now.
The spear rested across her back.
Each step stirred the dirt into coils of mist—quiet, reverent.
In the distance, three sect scouts saw her coming.
They laughed at first.
By the time they drew blades, they were already bleeding.
----
Ash Banner Encampment – Nightfall
The campfire burned low.
The Ash Banner soldiers sat in a wide circle, sharpening blades, checking their armor — but none spoke. Even among killers, the name "Saintess" held weight.
Fang Yao sat cross-legged, balancing a teacup on one finger. "If she's truly awakened the spear, it means she's begun remembering things she shouldn't."
"She's not a reincarnation," Emei said. "That's impossible."
"No," Jiang Xuan replied. "But memory is a funny thing. Some weapons carry it better than people do."
---
Sang Lian eyed him across the fire. "You gave up the spear?"
"I left it," he said.
"When?"
"After I killed the Nine Mountain Elders."
Silence.
Even Fang Yao didn't laugh this time.
"That was when the empire began to fall," Emei whispered.
Jiang Xuan nodded. "I didn't want to carry it anymore."
---
He stood and walked a short distance from the others.
The stars above were dim — veiled by thin clouds. The kind of night where nothing looked clear until it was already too close.
Sang Lian followed him out beneath the clouds.
"Are you afraid of her?"
He didn't answer.
She stepped closer.
"She's not like that other one."
He glanced at her.
"The one who looks at you like the world's already ash," Sang Lian added.
"Yao Xi," Jiang Xuan murmured.
Sang Lian nodded. "She hated you the second she saw you. But Yu Mei… she looked like she pitied you."
He said nothing.
She waited.
Then asked, "And which is worse?"
---
Elsewhere – Eastern Borderlands
Yu Mei entered a ruined monastery. Its stone gates had long crumbled, but the great bell still stood.
She knelt beneath it, planting the spear into the ground beside her.
The air shifted.
From the dark, a figure emerged.
Old robes. A cracked mask.
The last surviving monk of the order.
He didn't speak.
Just bowed.
And laid a scroll at her feet.
She opened it.
The ink was faint, but the name at the top was clear:
"Jiang Xuan."
---
She closed the scroll, her hands trembling.
Then said:
"I saw him. I stood next to him."
The monk remained silent.
"I could've ended it then," she whispered. "He looked at me and said nothing."
She looked down at her hand resting on the spear.
"But I still wanted to know… what broke him?"
---
The monk bowed again, slower this time.
"…I won't kill him," she said.
"But I'll be the one to stop him… if no one else can."
---
Back – Ash Banner Camp
Jiang Xuan returned to the fire.
Emei glanced up. "What now?"
He looked at the flames.
"They want me to seek her."
Sang Lian asked, "Will you?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Jiang Xuan met her gaze.
"Because she already made her choice."
"Then why wait?"
His voice was quiet, steady.
"Because I want to see if she's still making it."
---
Fang Yao sipped from his cup. "You think she'll come?"
Jiang Xuan nodded once.
"She saw who I am now."
"She'll come anyway."
---
Far off in the distance, across forests and mountains…
The spear pulsed in Yu Mei's hands.
And for the first time in days, she whispered:
"I saw the boy beneath the crown."
"And I still don't know whether to save him…"
"…or bury him."
---