In the shadow of a ravaged world, as Jian meditated deep within the caverns beneath Myrrwood, Frostveil stood alone upon a cliff shrouded in ghostly snow. The ground here was ancient, once hallowed, now forgotten. The wind screamed like a lamentation of lost time.
She had not spoken for days.
The weight of death—the faces of the 2,000 fallen cultivators who had followed her voice into war—hung heavy on her soul. Their final screams echoed every time she closed her eyes. The spirit inside her, the bloodline of her royal father, whispered truths that felt like blades.
And then he arrived.
The cultivator walked with righteous fury in his eyes, clad in divine-etched armor of the Holy Star Sect. His name was Yuwen Hao, known in the northern continents as the Dawnbreaker. His Dao was that of Radiant Judgment—he was the sword of heavenly law, a fanatic baptized by light.
"Frostveil of the Heretic Sword," Yuwen spoke, his tone imbued with celestial decree, "by order of Heaven's Tribunal, I cast judgment upon your blasphemy. Surrender the legacy of the Spirit King. You are not fit to wield it."
She turned to him slowly.
The girl who once smiled with innocence in her pale eyes was gone. What looked back at him was something ancient and grieving.
"Do you think you speak for Heaven?" she asked, her voice like frost drifting across a battlefield. "You speak for tyrants who fear what they do not control."
"You consort with a demon who dares cut the sky!" Yuwen raised his hand, and behind him, golden scripture ignited in the air, forming radiant circles of divine command. "I am the will of righteousness. Your sins shall be purged."
Then came silence.
And then came her rage.
In a blur, she dashed forward, no longer bound by fear or restraint. Her Ice Dao erupted like an avalanche—freezing not just the ground, but the very spiritual essence in the air. Her Soul Dao followed, a second wave of invisible agony that sliced into Yuwen's mind.
He barely blocked in time.
His radiant blade clashed with her frozen claws—spiritual extensions of her spirit beast heritage—each strike ringing like the scream of angels being slain. His Dao of Radiant Judgment formed shields of scripture that deflected her attacks, but each one cracked under the weight of her fury.
She didn't fight like a human.
She fought like a grieving god.
Each move she made was layered with intention. Her Ice Dao was not mere cold—it was grief, the frozen moment of death itself. Her Soul Dao was torment, guilt incarnate, the lingering scream of the ones she had failed to protect.
Yuwen faltered.
He tried to blind her with divine light, but her soul resisted. Her pain was older than his purity.
"You believe your light makes you righteous?" she hissed, voice trembling with the fury of broken oaths. "Then let me show you what light cannot purify."
She raised her arms, and a surge of soul-ice exploded from her chest—a forbidden technique born of fusion between her twin Daos. The sky darkened. Snow fell in shards like razors. Spirits began to appear—phantoms of the dead—around her, crying, chanting, laughing with hollow voices.
Yuwen roared and burned them with holy flame. But one touched him.
Just one.
And he screamed.
Frostveil's new technique froze the soul before shattering it, and even a fragmentary touch created agony no holy light could cleanse.
"I gave them hope!" she cried, eyes burning blue as the sunless ocean. "And I watched them die. Because we dared to rise. And you think your gods have the right to judge me?!"
She struck again, faster than before, her ice laced with spiritual poison. Her form danced like the wind over a glacier—sharp, elegant, merciless.
Yuwen tried to summon more scripture, but his arm refused to move.
His soul was cracking.
In desperation, he activated his last divine technique: The Seal of Light's Final Dawn. It created a radiant dome, compressing divine law into a binding field meant to erase demonic energy.
Frostveil stepped into it without flinching.
"You are not divine. You are a child holding a god's blade, hoping no one sees you shaking."
Her form blurred, turned to mist, then to wind. She appeared behind him—and whispered into his ear:
"I am the demon you made."
With a final thrust, her hand pierced his back and emerged from his chest, holding the frozen core of his Dao.
It shattered.
Yuwen collapsed, light bleeding from his mouth, his eyes, his soul.
---
She did not revel.
She collapsed next to his body, her breathing ragged, blood staining her lips. Jian arrived moments later, having sensed the eruption of conflicting Daos.
He said nothing at first.
Only watched her.
"He believed in what he did," she whispered.
"Belief doesn't make you right."
She shook her head. "No. But it gives people the strength to do terrible things."
He sat beside her, looking at the distant mountains.
"Are we terrible, Jian?"
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
But as the snow continued to fall—thick and silent and ancient—neither of them moved.
They were warriors of grief, survivors of hope.
And the war had only just begun.
To be continued...