The first of the Divine Artefacts lay in the ruins of Koryuthan, the ancestral home of the Korran Clan that no longer existed.
It was the place Kaolin once called home before the Demon Army laid waste to it under the banners of the Jinlian Sect. Kaolin had not set foot there since that fateful day, not since he decided to pursue the Forbidden Arts and vowed to live until the one who destroyed the Korrans was dragged from the shadows and brought to ruin, too.
The Korrans had not only adopted him and raised him as if he were one of their own, but they also wed him to their only daughter and heir, Yue'er. And now, he returned not as a son, nor as a husband, but as someone neither Mortal nor Immortal.
Not even once did he think he would one day return to this place, that he would have the heart to return despite everything. But now it was too late for regrets. He was indeed returning, not for his own sake or to relive those harrowing moments of his past, but to save the one whom he failed to protect.
They made camp at an abandoned watch post known as Fengyin Tower, a worn lookout of the past that loomed over the edge of a high cliff. Once a proud outpost of the Eastern Garrison, the tower now stood as a crumbling relic of a time long since lost. Its battlements were broken, its banners burned away, and its outer walls swallowed by ivy and moss.
From its cracked heights, the land spilt out below in waves of mist and shadow. Even the valleys stretched like spectres beneath them, their fog-shrouded paths winding towards Koryuthan's notorious riverways, now dried and dormant, as though the earth itself mourned what had been lost to the high winds.
The stones of the tower still bore the blackened scars of the relentless demon fire, where jagged scorch-marks and damaged iron brackets fused into stone as reminders of the siege that had broken the Eastern lines during the fall.
Now broken blades rusted in the courtyard, an overturned cauldron lay split in the corner, and bones, long picked clean, rested beneath shattered armour.
But in the silence, nature had begun its slow return to normalcy; evergreen vines wound through arrow slits, ferns grew from broken slabs of stone, and the trees leaned inwards as if trying to shield the ruins from the sky.
The group lit a fire at the heart of the crumbling tower, using what dry wood they could find from the wilted trees nearby and splinters of broken furniture long abandoned to rot. The flames offered almost no warmth, but they pushed back the chill that crept in with the evening mist and endured it.
And as the fire crackled low and the mist pressed in, Commander Taohua and Xiyan sat close to the flames, their shadows dancing across the walls of the ruined tower as they debated formations, entry points, and where the artefact, known once as the Flame of Koryuthan, might be hidden. Scrolls and old vellum maps were spread out across a half-toppled slab of rock between them, pinned in place with daggers and flat stones.
"This path here," Taohua murmured, tapping a jagged line on the map, "cuts along the old bridges. If they haven't collapsed entirely, we can use them to approach from the north."
"They'll have collapsed," Xiyan said, adding before he could interject. "The Jinlian Sect left nothing behind in the wake of the attack, and something as delicate as those bridges wouldn't have endured the demon fire." She leaned closer, brushing a lock of damp hair from her cheek. "But the cliffside here—" she pointed to a ridge etched into the vellum "—might still hold. It overlooks the ruins directly and the entry point with the protective array still intact, but just weak enough for us to easily breach due to the passage of time."
"Sounds like a plan. Then all we need to do is locate the Flame of Koryuthan. But where would it be hidden?"
Behind them, Guo Lan moved about in the shadows, preparing the morning's supplies: boiling water, setting up the warding talismans, ensuring their path east would be unhindered by lower-ranked evil spirits or Demons and Devils. He did not speak unless spoken to, and when he did, it was brief and respectful.
Kaolin sat apart from the group, half in shadow, his arms crossed, eyes flickering towards Taohua and Xiyan but not joining their conversation. He just watched them, bored out of his mind. Eventually, Wei Lan, who had been listening from the edge of the conversation, rose and made his way over to Kaolin.
"You're not going to help them?" Wei Lan asked, casting a glance towards Commander Taohua and Xiyan.
Kaolin didn't even look at him. "Why should I?"
Wei Lan raised an eyebrow. "Because they're walking into a place you know better than any of us, and because you already know what's waiting there and those two don't."
Kaolin's gaze flicked towards him briefly, not in the mood to reply or try explaining himself to the other. But Wei Lan wasn't one to give up so easily.
"Withholding information could get someone killed, Kaolin."
Fed up to the back teeth, Kaolin now stood up, brushing the dust from his robes as he addressed Wei Lan without meeting his eyes.
"People die all the time, don't they? Why should I bother saving every single soul trying to get themselves killed?"
Wei Lan rose too, flustered and stammering. "You're really not going to—"
Just as Kaolin turned his back to Wei Lan to take a well-deserved nap in the corner shrouded in shadows, Taohua's voice cut through the silence and made him break off, albeit reluctantly, and he swore under his breath.
"Master Kaolin," the commander said, rising. "You were raised in Koryuthan, if I remember correctly? You even survived its fall. What's your take?"
Wei Lan smirked, clearly bemused, but his grin vanished the moment Kaolin turned to look at him with a cold and wordless warning, before he turned to face the commander with a forced smile, his hands now folded behind his back.
"You've mapped your approach well enough," he said. "But your plan is missing one crucial piece."
Xiyan narrowed her eyes. "And what's that?"
Kaolin's tone shifted, visibly uncomfortable about the things he was now forced to explain to his clueless companions.
"Before Koryuthan fell, General Orun, my master, ordered me into seclusion to cultivate. He tasked me with crafting a sealing formation to protect the artefact from being taken and getting into the wrong hands. When the formation succeeded, it summoned the dormant phoenix spirit of the Korran bloodline and bound it to the Flame of Koryuthan, turning it into its guardian."
Xiyan exchanged a glance with Taohua, her rising voice giving away her excitement as she now addressed Kaolin.
"So the phoenix spirit guards it … even now?"
"Yes," Kaolin said. "And there's only one way to retrieve it without destroying it. The spirit must be chained using spiritual seals, cast simultaneously by the four of us. A fifth person must climb to the peak where the Flame rests and bring it out of Koryuthan."
Just then, Guo Lan approached, setting down a tray with food and drinks. He had overheard the end of the conversation and set his shoulders firmly.
"My cultivation is the weakest among us," he said. "But I can climb cliffs and run fast enough. Allow me to retrieve the artefact while the rest of you hold the phoenix down."
No one argued. A quiet agreement passed among them.
Kaolin gave one final instruction, one that quickly made Wei Lan react:
"Once Guo Lan takes the Flame, the phoenix spirit will become unstable. You'll need to drop the formation and retreat, one by one. I'll keep it chained as long as I physically can."
Wei Lan, "You'll hold it down? By yourself?"
"Why not? You'd rather do it?"
"'Course not! I was just—"
"Sounds good enough to me," Xiyan chimed in, now turning to the commander. "What do you think, Taohua?"
Taohua took a moment before replying. "If that's what Master Kaolin sees as most fit, then we shall do so. Any objections?"
Again, no one objected, although the look on Wei Lan's disturbed face gave away that he didn't like the idea of fleeing without Kaolin. And that, for good reasons. Even though Kaolin was the one who had brought the phoenix spirit back to life, he wasn't safe from harm any more than they were.
And, even though he didn't want to admit it, he now reminisced about what Guo Lan had once told him about him and Kaolin being good friends, and how he had denied that being the case. Now, he realised, Guo Lan had indeed been right in his judgement. To him, Kaolin was not only a good partner but an even better friend, a friend whom he had taken to over the years despite their constant fallouts and quarrels.
Indeed, what initially started as a partnership to bring down Jinlian had evolved over thousands of years and become a budding friendship he now regretted he had developed without even being aware of it.
But, most of all, perhaps it was the insight that he knew with which feelings that Kaolin risked his own life to save Zhenhai's that ate his heart out this very second. So much so that he wished he could travel back in time and hinder their fated encounter with the Immortal back in Yueluo Gu two hundred years ago.
But the damage was already done, and the past was now their present. Even if he begged Kaolin to reconsider, to take his life more seriously, he knew his words of concern would only fall on deaf ears. And so, all he could do was to assist his good friend and live each moment as if it would be their last.