Renée Chu—stage name long remembered in Cantonese opera circles—had once been radiant star. She married Wantian, the seemingly scholarly village tutor whose gentle face hid a viper's heart.
Greed ruined them. After marriage, Wantian laid eyes on a wealthy merchant's daughter. To climb, he needed his wife disgraced but blamed. So he spun a poison plot: he told Renée Chu he'd run up a gambling debt to a villager named Ankeny. If she would "accompany" Ankeny for one night, the debt would be forgiven.
She agreed—for her husband.
That's when hell began for her.
Wantian's men burst in "catching" her with Ankeny. He paraded her "adultery," listed seven fabricated crimes, and had her beaten to death. Her face was smashed to pulp, her body wrapped in a reed mat, dumped on a hillside.
Only in death did she learn the truth.
Grievance curdled; the soul could not rest.
Thus the legend behind the female ghost at the heart of Mountain Village Old Corpse.
Pitiful. Terrible. And very, very dangerous.
Fenric's mocking composure clearly provoked her.
Fire roared up.
One heartbeat the living room was intact; the next it was a kiln—tongues of flame licking the walls, rafters collapsing, an inferno sealed across the doorway. Heat slammed him like poison gas. His mouth and nose stung with burning air.
Illusion.
Fenric's lips twitched. So this is your opening play?
Renée Chu kills with hallucination—blur reality, drown the mind in terror, let fear stop the heart.
But to him, it wouldn't work.
He shut his eyes. Breathed once. Twice. Centered.
The scorching bite on his skin faded. The flames still looked real when he opened his eyes, but the heat was gone.
Heart of the Brave earned its keep. Without it—even with courage—true calm under full‑sensory illusion would have been nearly impossible. Panic feeds her power. Kill the fear; kill the kill‑route.
A whistle. Something cut air.
Fenric snapped a hand up, Armament Haki surging to his palm. He caught a cleaver mid‑flight.
Not illusion. Real steel. She'd flung it from the kitchen when the fear failed to kill him.
He squeezed his hand.
The blade crumpled like foil, stainless steel wadding into a warped lump. He flicked it aside.
"Come on, Auntie Renée," he said, voice flat. "Show me your real tricks."
Confidence flowed. He'd mapped the mechanic. Fearless, she couldn't touch him.
The scene warped again.
"—ohhh—"
"—raaaah—"
Burned corpses clawed out of the flame—charred adults and children, eyes pools of molten hate. They dragged themselves across the floorboards, greasy flesh hissing, hands reaching for his boots.
Flames spread up his trouser legs. Heat pulsed back—this he felt. Surprised, he glanced down. His sleeves were catching, cloth blackening.
Influencing reality? His brow lifted. Renée Chu's resentment was deep enough to leak power across the border—illusory heat coupling to the physical. That put her at the top tier of hostile spirits.
Childhood nightmare material? Deserved the rank.
But still—not enough.
He layered full‑body Armament Haki. Ghostfire washed, guttered, died on hardened skin.
"As long as I don't panic," he murmured, "you can't do a thing."
A fist‑sized, blackened child ghost crawled up his abdomen, shrieking, pus and blood oozing from cracked features—clearly a jump scare spike meant to crack his calm.
Fenric only reached out with an obsidian‑hardened hand and patted its head.
"Auntie Renée," he said quietly, "if this is all you have, you can't hurt me."
His voice dropped, steady and almost—almost—gentle.
"I know why you hate. Your husband framed you. You died unjustly. But you've killed so many for so long… shouldn't the grievance fade?"
The burning corpses blinked out. Flames guttered and vanished. The room snapped back to the ordinary living room—blood, bodies, rain streaking through the open window.
Yet she hadn't left. Fenric could feel it—the weight in the air, the storm still raging outside, thunder rolling close.
And then she showed herself.
A woman in a blue opera robe, hair hanging in dripping mats, face pale beneath soot streaks, materialized before him.
Renée Chu had arrived.