The wind howled like a wounded beast through the jagged ridges of the Broken Peaks. The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood and the scorched scent of shattered formations. Every breath Mo Lianyin took felt heavy, as though the mountains themselves were pressing down on her lungs.
The fragment of the bone mask weighed cold in her palm. It pulsed faintly, almost alive, as though it still carried the masked man's presence. She could feel a thread of his aura woven into it—a baited hook meant to pull her toward him… or lure her into a trap.
She slipped it into her sleeve.
Snow crunched behind her.
"You're hurt."
The voice was familiar, low, and edged with caution. Zevian Vale emerged from the shadows between two broken pillars, his white-and-gold robes tattered, a streak of blood across his cheek. His usually sharp eyes softened when they landed on her, though his mouth twisted into its habitual smirk.
"You always appear after the fight," Lianyin said, voice flat. "Convenient."
He spread his hands. "Someone has to survive to tell the tale, don't they?"
She ignored him, turning her gaze toward the far horizon. The crimson glow of the Blood Moon was gone, but the faint shimmer of residual array energy still clung to the air. The peaks had gone quiet again—too quiet.
"Who was he?" Zevian asked.
"Someone I should have buried long ago," she replied.
Zevian studied her for a long moment. "Your blade burns black now. You used the Fifth Forbidden Art."
Her grip on the hilt at her waist tightened. "I had no choice."
"There's always a choice," he said softly.
She looked at him then, and there was a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Don't speak to me of choices, Zevian. Not when you've never stood over the ashes of everything you've loved."
The words hung heavy in the frigid air. Zevian's smirk faded, replaced by something almost vulnerable, but he said nothing.
Instead, he stepped closer, his boots crunching over snow and stone. "If you're going to chase him, you'll need more than the Severance. The Fifth Art will keep you alive—for a while—but the price…" He shook his head. "You're already burning your soul like a lamp with too little oil."
Her breath misted between them. "Then I'll burn until the flame takes him."
Zevian's jaw worked as though he wanted to argue, but instead he said, "Then you'll need what's hidden beneath Yingshui Lake."
Her eyes narrowed. "The lake is sealed. No one has entered in a hundred years."
"Not no one," he said quietly. "I have."
That caught her attention. "What's in it?"
He looked away toward the distant peaks, the faintest hesitation crossing his face. "An anchor."
Her heart skipped. She knew exactly what he meant. "A blood anchor."
His gaze snapped back to hers, unreadable. "If you don't bind your Severance soon, it will eat through the rest of you. Yingshui holds what you need."
She didn't answer immediately. The idea of a blood anchor made bile rise in her throat. Willing or not, it was still a chain—an unbreakable link between two souls, forged in blood and desperation.
Zevian's voice cut into her thoughts. "You don't have to take it. You could let the Severance consume you instead. Less messy."
There it was—that dark, sardonic edge to his tone again.
She stepped past him, her boots leaving sharp prints in the snow. "If Yingshui has what I need, I'll take it. But don't mistake me for someone who chains themselves easily."
His smirk returned, faint but genuine this time. "Wouldn't dream of it."
The wind shifted then, carrying a sound neither of them had heard in years—a low, resonant drumbeat. It reverberated through the stone beneath their feet, a pulse from the depths of the earth.
Lianyin froze. "That's impossible."
Zevian's smile died. "It's the Crimson Lotus Court."
"They shouldn't be able to—"
"They've opened the first seal," he said grimly.
The sound grew louder, faster, echoing like a war drum calling armies to march. The very air seemed to thicken with killing intent.
Lianyin turned toward the source, her pulse matching the beat. The bone mask fragment in her sleeve grew warm, as though reacting to the call.
Zevian noticed. "He's summoning you."
Her hand tightened around the fragment until the jagged edge cut her palm, blood welling and dripping onto the snow.
"Then let him call," she said, voice low and sharp. "I'll answer."