The moment Aurelia's white robes vanished into the forest, the cold she left behind began to bite. It wasn't the chill of her frost techniques—it was the icy dread of a perfectly sprung trap. Irelion stood at the mouth of the grotto, her final words echoing in his mind like a death sentence.
Blackwood Forest. Tomorrow. I am assigning you to my team.
He had been so focused on hiding his past that he'd become blind to the present. He'd seen her as a puzzle, a threat to his secret. He had forgotten that she was also a nineteen-year-old girl—brilliant, proud, and utterly reckless when provoked. He had provoked her. He had insulted her pride, defied her logic, and practically dared her to corner him.
And she had.
A harsh, grating laugh tore from his throat, the sound of utter despair echoing off the stone walls. He had regressed forty-seven years to save her from a death fifteen years in the future, only to personally hand-deliver her to a brand-new one tomorrow morning. The irony was so profound, so cosmically cruel, that it bordered on comedy.
He stumbled back into the darkness of the grotto, his back hitting the cold stone wall. He slid to the ground, the new power of the 7th Stage a useless, mocking presence in his meridians. What good was it? What good was any of his knowledge if every action he took just made things worse?
The memory of the original Blackwood Forest incident surfaced, no longer a forgotten footnote but a screaming, vivid warning. A nascent demon rift. A small, unstable tear in reality, spitting out a tide of desperate, starving lesser demons. The original team had been five outer disciples, their deaths a minor, tragic mystery noted in a report he'd read decades later.
But this new team had a prodigy. Aurelia, with her brilliant, potent Qi, would be a lighthouse in the dark to those demons. A feast. They would swarm her like sharks drawn to blood in the water.
He slammed his fist into the stone floor. The crack of bone against rock sent white-hot pain shooting up his arm. Good. The pain was real. It was an anchor. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford. Grief was a poison that would kill him before any demon could.
He had one night. One night to forge a weapon that could defy the fate he had so carelessly rewritten.
His mind, a weapon honed by decades of war, shifted from despair to cold, hard calculation. He couldn't use his advanced sword forms without revealing the impossible truth to Aurelia. He couldn't rely on his raw power—she was his equal in cultivation, and the other disciples were far weaker. He needed an equalizer. Something that didn't rely on his own strength.
Alchemy.
The thought landed with the grim finality of a thrown knife. He had no master's skill, but he had a soldier's knowledge. More importantly, he had Ravenna's knowledge.
The memory surfaced sharp and clear. The Siege of Crimson Fortress, when they'd been pinned down by a demon horde three times their number. Ravenna—his Fourth Sword, all passion and flame—had turned a desperate defense into a breakthrough with nothing but crude explosive talismans and reckless audacity.
She'd found him after the battle, her face blackened with soot, grinning like a child who'd just discovered a new game.
"Who needs fancy sword techniques when you can just blow a hole in their face?" she'd laughed, holding up one of her cloth-wrapped bundles. "Fire-Ant cores for the blast, Cinder-Bloom as the catalyst, Iron-nettle for shrapnel. Simple. Effective. Beautiful."
He'd dismissed it as crude at the time. Inelegant. Beneath a Saint's dignity.
Now that "inelegant" knowledge was all that stood between four disciples and a mass grave.
He got to his feet, purpose overriding exhaustion. The grotto wasn't just a cultivation site—it was a laboratory. He moved deeper into the cave system, examining it with new eyes.
Sulfur deposits stained the rocks near the entrance, yellow streaks that reeked of volcanic activity. He scraped several handfuls into a cloth pouch, the powder crumbling easily under his knife. Iron-nettle grew in thick patches near the moisture-rich areas. He harvested a bundle, careful not to slice his fingers on the razor-edged leaves.
The Fire-Ant nests were the dangerous part. The colonies nested in the deeper chambers, attracted by the warmth of underground thermal vents. He found two nests and began the delicate, painful work of extracting their cores.
The ants swarmed him immediately, their bites like tiny brands of fire. He ignored the pain, moving with the methodical precision of a man who'd done far worse for far less. Each nest yielded one marble-sized core—compressed energy wrapped in a shell of organic material. Volatile. Unstable. Perfect.
By the time he emerged from the depths, his hands were covered in angry red welts that throbbed with each heartbeat. He had the cores. He had the sulfur. He had the nettle. But he still needed the catalyst—Cinder-Bloom petals weren't something that grew wild in caves.
For that, he'd need to visit the sect's supply depot.
The walk back through the pre-dawn darkness felt longer than it should. He clutched his gathered materials like a lifeline, Ravenna's ghost walking beside him in the shadows. She'd never know that her "inelegant" techniques would become his salvation.
Or perhaps she did know. Perhaps, somewhere in whatever realm held the souls of the broken and betrayed, she was laughing at the irony. The Saint of Swords, reduced to making crude bombs in a cave.
He hoped she'd forgive him for taking this long to appreciate her genius.
The sect's supply depot was a large, noisy building that smelled of dried herbs, pungent monster parts, and the faint, metallic tang of spirit stones. Even at this early hour, it was open—cultivators kept irregular schedules, and the depot catered to all of them.
The disciple managing the counter was a fleshy boy named Pang, whose greedy eyes were constantly scanning for an opportunity. He looked up as Irelion approached, a sneer already forming on his lips. Outer disciples were usually easy marks—desperate enough to be exploited, weak enough not to fight back.
"I need materials," Irelion said, his voice flat.
Pang's sneer widened. "Points card?"
"Spirit stones," Irelion replied, placing three of the low-grade stones on the counter. They were the sum total of his worldly wealth—everything he'd saved from his meager monthly stipend.
The sneer faltered, replaced by a glint of avarice. An outer disciple paying with spirit stones was unusual and often profitable. "An off-the-books transaction, eh? That carries a premium. What do you need?"
"Cinder-Bloom petals. Two handfuls."
Pang's eyebrows rose slightly. Cinder-Bloom was an alchemical catalyst, common enough but not something most disciples had use for. Still, it wasn't his business to ask questions when spirit stones were involved. He gathered the dried petals from a jar, their acrid sulfuric scent filling the air, and pushed the small pouch across the counter.
"That'll be four spirit stones."
Irelion didn't even blink. He simply looked at Pang, his ancient, weary eyes holding the younger disciple's gaze. There was no anger in that look. No threat. Just a vast, empty stillness that promised consequences. The pressure of a 7th Stage cultivator, subtle but unmistakable, pressed against Pang's senses like a hand on his throat.
"The fair exchange rate for two handfuls of Cinder-Bloom is one and a half stones," Irelion said, his voice carrying the absolute certainty of a man who'd negotiated supply contracts for armies. "I am offering you three—double the fair price. You will take my offer, or you will take nothing. And I will remember this conversation."
Pang felt a shiver of pure, unadulterated fear crawl down his spine. He was looking at a young outer disciple in shabby robes, but the presence before him felt older, heavier, dangerous in a way he couldn't articulate. It was the calm of a dormant volcano, the stillness before an avalanche.
"T-three is fine!" he stammered, snatching the stones from the counter and shoving them into his robes as if they might bite him. "A fair price for a fellow disciple! Very fair!"
Irelion took the pouch of petals and turned to leave without another word. He had what he needed. He had paid more than fair value—Pang would have no reason to report the transaction or remember it as anything other than routine.
Three spirit stones for components Ravenna could have gathered in an hour. The injustice of it barely registered. He wasn't buying materials. He was buying the lives of four disciples who didn't know they were already marked for death.
As he walked out of the depot and back toward the barracks, the weight of tomorrow pressed down on his shoulders. The pre-dawn air was cold and still, the sect quiet in that liminal space between night and morning.
He had the materials. He had the knowledge. He had one night to turn theory into survival, memory into salvation.
The door to his room would be his workshop. Chen's snoring would be his cover. And Ravenna's legacy would be the weapon that might—might—be enough to change fate.
He clutched the pouch of Cinder-Bloom petals, their sharp scent stinging his nostrils through the fabric. In his other hand, the rough cloth bundle of sulfur and cores felt heavier than it should.
Tomorrow, Aurelia Frostbane would walk into the Blackwood Forest expecting a simple patrol and a chance to dissect his secrets. Instead, she would walk into a slaughter that he had just barely—barely—given himself the tools to prevent.
He hoped it would be enough.
He hoped Ravenna's crude, inelegant violence would be sufficient to save the woman whose elegant, beautiful death he still saw every time he closed his eyes.
The barracks loomed ahead, dark and silent. Inside that darkness, he would become something he'd never been in his first life: an alchemist of desperation, a craftsman of controlled destruction.
The Saint of Swords was gone. In his place was a soldier preparing for a battle he'd already lost once.
This time, he wouldn't lose.
He couldn't afford to.
Not again.