“So, we’re not settling this, huh?” Birand shrugged, a careless ripple under a still pond.

“First, get out of my friend’s body. Then you can spit your nonsense.” Li Gongxuan smiled coldly, a knife’s curve under winter light.

“How about a story, friend?” Birand’s voice slid smooth as oil on water.

“Got anything worth saying?” Li’s words dropped like stones into a deep well.

“Your friend—Eli—is me. Everything of his belongs to me. Got it? I’m just taking back what’s mine.” Birand crossed his arms, storm-shadow tightening in his eyes.

The wounds on him knit as vines over old bark.

“Oh? Anything else?” Li stared him down, a spark dancing above black iron.

“...” Birand narrowed his eyes as the energy in him spun again, gears grinding under skin.

“So that’s all your ghost stories? Fine. Now—return my friend’s body.” Li cradled the white blade Jade North Star; from deep within him, a beast’s low growl stirred like thunder in a cave.

Birand’s gaze pricked with wariness. He frowned, then forced patience. “You don’t think this is unfair? He came from me. I’m reclaiming my own. What’s my sin?”

“You expect me to swallow your one-sided tale, let a monster wound my sister, then steal my friend in front of me? Laughable. Would you buy that?” Li’s scoff cut like frost over glass.

“Even if you are Eli’s source—so what. Hurting Liqianyu doesn’t get a free pass.” Li smiled as a strange current gathered behind him, mist coiling into shape like a river finding its bed.

It condensed into an emerald longsword that rested across his back, green as spring over mountain terraces.

“Maybe no one has truly seen her.” Li drew the blade, the sound thin as rain on bamboo.

“She’s my origin-bound beloved blade—Qinglongting. Hey, monster. Want a taste?” He stood with twin swords, daring Birand like a hawk facing a wolf.

Birand sighed. “So, it’s not going to be talk, then.”

Far off, Ascaraun, who’d been hiding like a fox in scrub, leapt onto a high rock like a mountain goat to a crag and shouted, “Hero! Quick—the teleportation array is ready!”

Li’s eyes flared, wildfire behind ice. “Trying to run!”

“Heh.” Birand crooked a smile, crooked as a sickle moon. He raised his right hand, caught the orange crystal Ascaraun tossed, and grinned at Li. “Then, my friend—farewell.”

Clang.

Qinglongting’s edge bit the rock where Birand had stood, sharp as a lightning fork.

Birand back-jumped, a swallow breaking from a branch, and dodged the strike.

Unseen, a razor-edged wash of azure energy slipped into him, soft as wind yet cutting as a hidden blade.

Li lunged with Jade North Star. “Don’t even think about escaping!” His charge was a wave hammering a cliff.

Birand laughed, then crushed the crystal. A round gate bloomed open behind him, black as deep water.

He bent back and fell through, a leaf vanishing past a whirling eddy.

Li yanked his blade to chase—when Liqianyu’s breath hitched. She spat blood, red as pomegranate seeds, and collapsed, a candle guttering in a draft.

Li froze for a heartbeat, torn between pursuit and rescue. That single breath, like a cloud crossing the moon, was enough.

The gate’s time ended. The round passage sealed, iron-lid shutting on a well. Birand’s shadow was gone.

Li frowned, face hard as flint. “Run if you like—your temple won’t outrun the monk. With Qinglong sword-qi on you, I’ll find you sooner or later.”

He tossed the threat like a spear, then turned fast to tend Liqianyu, his steps a storm breaking toward shelter.

“How are you?”

“Dying. What do you think? Why didn’t you chase!” Liqianyu bit her words through blood, gaze burning at her brother like embers in ash.

“Do you know how important he is to me—and to Edlyn!”

“...Sorry.” Li pressed his lips tight, tired of futile argument, rainwearied under cold sky.

He tapped her with a palm, snuffing her consciousness like a candle. Then he scooped her up and left to seek healing, a lone figure crossing night fields.

—

In the central continent, within human lands, stands the super-empire of Holy Paris, bright as a jewel on a river bend.

It’s the most prosperous human region, magic driven to its limits like a stallion at full gallop.

Its stewards are the royal house of Holy Paris—the Ael Lineage, roots deep as ancient cedars.

Behind the curtains, high command in army and government is laced with the Holy Court Church, threads hidden in silk.

This is the Church’s heart and birthplace, where true handlers and regional envoys gather like cranes around a lake.

In the capital, the imperial palace and grand cathedral face each other across stone and sky, two mountains under the same sun.

The cathedral’s grandeur presses on the palace like a storm front, shadow vast as prayer.

In Holy Paris’s armies, more than half are paladins “sent to support” by the Holy Court Church, white cloaks in iron ranks.

Even palace patrols carry many paladins. In truth, Holy Paris is a country ruled by the Holy Sanctuary, a crown under a cross.

Today, inside a royal mage tower near the nation’s heart, a huge floating array trembled like a net in strong tide.

Two figures dropped out of it—Birand and Ascaraun—falling like seeds shaken from a pod.

Birand stretched, bones cracking like cold twigs. “If I were at my peak, I wouldn’t be this ragged.”

Ascaraun ignored the excuse, reverent as a novice at dusk. “Hero, what’s our next move?”

Birand frowned, thinking, thoughts turning like millstones. “Ascaraun, how strong is the New Era Sect here in Holy Paris? Big or small?”

Ascaraun scrunched his brow, rummaging through memory like hands through a chest. “Emmmmmmm, Hero. You know most of the Church’s power here was left by you back then.”

“I know.” Birand nodded, the motion as brief as a knife flick.

“Thanks to those supplies, the Holy Court Church flourished, a banyan spreading roots. My New Era Sect is weak here. If we exceed the Sanctuary’s tolerance, they’ll send soldiers to wipe us out, clean as frost over grass. So our strength stays small and careful, underground, little that can stand in the sun.”

“I see.” Birand’s brow furrowed again, a ridge under snow.

“Hero?” Ascaraun asked softly, a reed bending to wind.

“Nothing. Just a mood.” Birand’s voice was a stone dropped into water.

“We can’t return to the Sanctuary for now. They might grow a treacherous heart. Better to seek other forces.” Ascaraun offered the plan like a lantern.

“Makes sense. Ideas?” Birand looked at him, hawk to guide.

“The royal palace... how about it?”

“The royal house?” Birand hesitated, foot hovering over a stream.

“I heard that with the royal secrecy holding and the current emperor basically a puppet of the Sanctuary, one or two Memory Crystals are inside the imperial city.” Ascaraun’s eyes rolled slyly, smile thin as a blade.

Birand studied his face in short silence, the room still as snow.

Then: “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

“Yes, Hero.” Ascaraun bowed, shadow long as twilight.

—

Edlyn hopped up and cheered, bright as a red kite in spring. “Oh yeah! Revenge complete!”

Weimi steadied his tone and warned the two partners, voice a firm drumbeat. “Go easy. Don’t actually kill him.”

The two youths nodded hard, heads like pounding stakes.

Eli blinked, a shadow of a smile on his mouth, calm pond catching starlight.

Back then, he’d only just met that little rascal, a spark fresh on dry straw.

“Surrender!” Weimi roared, thunder rolling off a cliff.

The two boys were ready to pull their punches. Eli’s eyes flew open, and power surged from within, blowing his black hair up like a windstorm in pines.

“Myriad Spirit Lock.”

At his low chant, silver chains burst outward from him like shooting comets. In a blink, several chains coiled each of the three, tight as serpents.

“What?!” x3—their cries cracked like glass in frost.

Then they felt their magic cut off, gone like water from a broken jug, reduced to plain folk under an empty sky.

Sande’s nine clones dispersed, smoke whisked by rain.

The ice-rain overhead lost its harness and plummeted, spears tumbling from clouds. Edlyn startled, reached for a seventh-tier short blink—found her magic bled dry, and knees went soft, dropping her like a petal to earth.

She tried to struggle, but strength fled like tide. She shut her eyes, accepting it, still as a doe under snow.

Eli smiled, drew the bound trio close like fish on a line. He snapped the fading chain toward the sky, sweeping clear the ice-rain above their patch, a broom through falling glass.

He pulled out a hemp rope, trussed the three, rustic as a farmer at dusk. He tore a small square from each shirt, stuffed their mouths, then smirked. “Kids—an edgelord phase is fine. Actual madness isn’t. Uncle’s here to cure you.”

The three glared in silence, eyes hurling stones.

An ice shard smashed near Edlyn. “Ah!” Her cry cracked air—he’d forgotten her, a lantern left in rain.

Eli’s face shifted, clouds knotting. “Damn.”

He shaped a spell, brow tight as bowstring. “No time.”

He flash-stepped to Edlyn, gathered her in his arms like a shield of cedar.

Several ice spears punched through him like cold swords. Eli grunted; blood threaded from his lips, thin as a red silk thread. The array clicked shut just then. “Earth—hold fast.”

A deep, dark wall of stone rose, sheltering them like a cliff against storm.

Eli frowned at it all. “What was I thinking? Why do this?” His voice was rain on slate, soft and baffled.

Edlyn blinked up at him. “You—”

“Kid, don’t fall in love with me. Ow.” He joked with a grimace, and pain bit him, frost through cloth.

Eli rubbed his face, half amused, half helpless. “Was I really that flippant?”

“...” Edlyn went still, then realized she was nestled against him, warmth like a small fire under night.

She frowned but didn’t move. She pressed down her shy—or whatever that ache was—and examined the Hero’s wounds, careful as a sparrow checking its nest.

The scene ended, the screen of water rippling to dark.

Eli paused, then wore a thin, bitter smile, moonlight on a blade. “Let me finish Birand’s memories, then mine.”

He lifted his head to the star-filled sky, a black velvet strewn with salt. “I have no complaints left. Thank you. At least... I existed. Right?”

He thought for a long time, thoughts stepping backward like footprints in drifting snow.

These scenes began closest to now and walked back. Their end meant the end of the time in his memories.

It also meant... the end of himself, a lamp at the last drop of oil.

So he closed his eyes and waited quietly for the coming finish, calm as a lake before dawn.