The forest around the temple had begun to heal. After weeks of silence and ruin, the earth finally breathed again. Birds sang soft morning hymns, and petals floated like snow across mossy paths. Peace, for once, felt real.
Ying Yue walked slowly through the misty garden near the temple ruins, her fingertips grazing the tall blades of grass. The silver lotus pendant at her throat glowed faintly with a warmth she couldn't quite explain. It had been quiet since the sealing of the demon lord—but too quiet.
She had begun to dream again. Vivid dreams. Strange voices. Faces she didn't recognize, yet felt in her bones. In one dream, she saw herself standing atop a burning mountain, arms outstretched, calling down stars from the heavens. In another, she wept over a broken mirror, while a voice whispered, "You are only half."
Bai Jiu found her there, beneath the blossom trees, silent and distant.
"You've been quiet," he said softly, stepping beside her.
She looked up at him. His dark robes shifted in the wind, and in the morning light, he looked more like the immortal he had once hidden from her—still beautiful, but heavier, older somehow.
"I don't think it's over," she said finally.
He nodded. "It never truly is."
She turned to him, eyes darkened with worry. "There's something else. Something older than the demon we sealed. I feel it... calling me in my dreams."
"Describe it."
Ying Yue hesitated. "It has no form, not really. Just… a voice. It says I'm incomplete."
Bai Jiu's jaw tightened. He took her hand, gently tracing her fingers. "The Seal only works when the balance of light and darkness is stable. But you were born in a world that forgot balance. You're not just the reincarnation of a goddess—you are becoming something more. Something ancient."
"But what if I become something I can't control?"
He looked her in the eyes. "Then I'll stand by you. Even if the world burns around us."
She swallowed hard, and for a long time, neither of them spoke.
---
That night, the dream returned.
She stood in a great hall of obsidian, a sky of blood above her. Chains of starlight fell from the ceiling, binding a single figure in the center. It wore no face. Its voice echoed like wind tearing through ruins.
"You fear what you are. But what you are… is me."
"I don't understand," Ying Yue whispered.
"Before the gods, before the war… you and I were one. They split us. They sealed me. And they made you forget."
She took a step back. "You're a part of me?"
"The part that remembers how to burn."
Suddenly, the room cracked—light flooded in—and she saw her own reflection in the creature's body. Her face. Her eyes. But twisted with power, with pain.
She awoke with a scream.
---
Bai Jiu burst into the room, blade drawn, senses flaring. "Yue!"
She clutched the pendant, breathing hard. "It's real. There's something sealed in me. Something the gods didn't want to survive."
He lowered his weapon, kneeling beside her. "Then we find out what it is. Together."
She met his eyes. "What if I can't stop it?"
He cupped her face. "Then I'll be the one who does."
And in the quiet that followed, a pulse echoed in the ground—faint, distant—but growing stronger.