Mist clung to the ground as Lin Wuyin and Bai Yujin stepped beyond the clearing, deeper into the hidden forest path.
They had stayed beneath the banyan another night. Wuyin couldn't say why — perhaps because the weight of the jade shard in her pocket wasn't just a clue, but a quiet mourning. She didn't know the girl whose body she now called her own. But she had heard her voice.
And that voice, even in its dying breath, had trusted her with a final wish.
Yujin walked beside her, silent but watchful.
Ahead, the trees thinned, revealing a trail Wuyin had half-forgotten — one that hadn't existed when she first awoke here, but now pulsed faintly with traces of qi, like the forest itself was remembering.
They followed it, until the path gave way to a cliffside alcove shrouded by old roots and moss. Wuyin paused, sensing something stir beneath the earth.
She knelt.
Her fingers brushed across the stone — a sigil long faded, carved in a spiral of ancient characters.
Silent Monarch Sect – Final Seal
Yujin crouched beside her. "Another part of your inheritance?"
"No." Wuyin's voice was low. "Her inheritance."
She reached for the jade shard. It pulsed faintly in her hand — then glowed, reacting to the sigil.
The seal opened.
Stone cracked, and air long sealed away spilled out like a breath held for decades. Within was a narrow chamber, lined with bones, scrolls, and a pedestal carved from black marble.
Upon it lay a robe — midnight silk, threaded with silver that shimmered like moonlight on still water. The robe of the Silent Monarch's chosen heir.
Wuyin stepped forward, but her hand froze inches from it.
This wasn't hers.
The robe did not respond to her qi.
"It's rejecting me," she murmured.
Yujin frowned. "But you inherited the techniques—"
"I took the body. Not the destiny."
Wuyin's hand closed into a fist. "And now I'm walking a path I was never meant to touch."
Behind them, a sudden gust of cold wind swept through the cavern.
Wuyin turned sharply, drawing her blade — but it was not a threat. It was a whisper.
A voice in the dark.
"If you are not her… then why do you still carry her regrets?"
Wuyin stilled.
Then slowly, she stepped back from the pedestal. She would not steal what wasn't meant to be hers. Not yet.
She turned to Yujin. "There are more chambers. More seals. This wasn't the end."
Yujin nodded. "Then we keep going."
But before they could leave, a talisman fluttered down from above — seared into the rock wall by the force of a high-grade transmission technique.
Wuyin caught it.
Her eyes narrowed.
"He's found us."
—
Far to the south, at the edge of the border between the Central Plains and the demonic territories, a cloaked figure stood atop a broken tower.
Yan Zhaoxing, the former hero turned Demon Cult leader, looked out over the valleys below. His hands trembled slightly, though whether from power or fury, none could say.
"She's entered the Silent Monarch's domain," whispered the elder beside him. "The one you warned us about."
Yan Zhaoxing's face remained unreadable.
"My daughter draws closer to the heart of her fate," he said.
"Shall we send the hounds?"
"No," he replied. "Not yet."
He touched the edge of a black map, where red lines converged around the forest like veins.
"Let her grow stronger. Let the flame burn brighter." His smile was bitter. "It will only make the ritual more perfect when it's time to end her."
—
Back in the chamber, Wuyin burned the talisman.
"Someone used a Soul-Piercing Mark to find us," she muttered.
"Your enemies?"
"No," she said, "yours."
Yujin tensed. "My father."
Wuyin turned to her, voice low. "We have to leave. Not just this forest. But the region."
Yujin's hand found hers. "Where to?"
Wuyin's eyes gleamed beneath her hood. "To the next seal. The rest of the inheritance may be beyond the border."
"And after that?"
Wuyin glanced back at the chamber. "Then I'll decide if I still want to carry a fate that doesn't belong to me."
And they vanished into the mist, two women walking a line between fate and theft, love and vengeance — as behind them, the forest whispered of the one who had died, and the one who now walked in her place.