The forest was howling.
Ming Yue lay collapsed, aura seared, ribs fractured. Her breath came in broken bursts as the corrupted Howlers circled. Shi Feng's blade spun through sigils and smoke, but the beasts kept closing, drawn to bloodline surge and spiritual imbalance.
Then a roar split the air—not of monsters, but dragons.
Young Master Yan descended like silver thunder, blade drawn, dragon ring blazing in unnatural fury. Behind him, Louis moved through the trees, dual blades slicing clean paths through spectral flesh. The Howlers shrieked, spiritual cores bursting into ash.
Yan's aura radiated like storm fire—cold and righteous, ancestral and untethered.
He saw her.
And something broke inside him.
He dropped to his knees beside Ming Yue, pulling her into his arms.
She was limp, burning, shards of aura still flickering along her veins. Her hair clung to her face, damp with sweat and spirit rain. Her pendant pulsed weakly.
Yan's heart stumbled.
Not for the wound. Not for the danger.
For her face.
Something about the way her cheek turned toward him—soft, bruised, defiant. The way her fingers curled unconsciously toward his chest.
Suddenly—
He remembered rain.
…The memory fragment…
A different forest.
A drizzle.
A woman standing beneath a twisted cherry tree, drenched and serene.
She turned to him—smiling not as a girl, but as something older than names.
Her eyes held loneliness. Sadness. Yearning.
"Perhaps," she had said, "there will be a day when I can reach out to you without fear or shame... and stand together, hand in hand."
Her voice trembled like prophecy.
He reached for her.
Then it vanished.
… Back in the Present …
He blinked.
His dragon ring flared—too bright, too ancient.
Louis looked over, startled. "Yan—?"
Yan didn't answer.
He stared at Ming Yue, still in his arms.
This isn't the first time.
The wind stirred through the forest. Shi Feng stood nearby, silent, watching. His fists clenched in bewilderment. To him, fighting against the reawakening chaos is more important and he knows it very well. But somewhere in his heart there was a pain creeping in. The scene in front of him— rather touching and romantic but his heart whispered in disarray.
No, this was necessary.
Under the eyes of the worried, Shi Feng quietly blended into the shadow — leaving the scene as if escaping from his own thoughts.
"Is she stable?" Louis asked.
Yan nodded slowly.
"She will be. She must be."
He looked up—and the moon above shimmered with a subtle silver hue, as if it too remembered something it couldn't name.