She awoke again.
The wind screamed like wolves around her, the blinding white of snow and sky indistinguishable as she stood barefoot on the ridged slope of an ancient mountain. Her breath curled like smoke from a dragon's nose, but she didn't shiver.
She had no name—at least not yet. Only fragments, faint as the snowflakes landing on her pale lashes.
Her hair, long and silver, danced in the wind. Her robe clung to her like second skin, made of silk that shimmered like frost under moonlight. No warmth clung to her, but no cold pierced her either.
Below, nestled in the crook of two ridgelines, was a village. Wood and ice, smoke and old stone. Dull. Fragile.
Her eyes narrowed in confusion. "What... time have I returned to?" she whispered, more to herself than to the storm. "How long have I been gone?"
She started walking.
The village was a blur of motion and muffled sound. Frostbitten children ran past laughing. Merchants yelled over one another in an accent far removed from her memory. The language was twisted, guttural, strained through time.
She stepped through the wooden gates. Heads turned. Her presence was like a blade cutting through snow—silent, but unforgettable.
People stopped mid-sentence, eyes wide. Her beauty wasn't soft or mortal—it was the kind that whispered danger with every movement.
A young man gasped at the sight of her, dropping the bundle of sticks in his arms. He mumbled something she couldn't understand.
She approached him anyway.
"You. What village is this?" she asked, voice calm but stern.
The man blinked, wide-eyed. "I—uh... wha...?"
She frowned. The words he spoke were almost alien. Even though she heard vague familiarity in the tone, it was like a song remembered only in fragments.
"The region," she pressed, lifting him off the ground by his tunic with a single hand. "North or South?"
The man flailed, muttering something about "Arkenvale" and "Northern icefields" in a garbled tone.
"Northern path..." she muttered, letting him drop with a thud. "So far... disconnected."
She clenched her fists. Everything was wrong. The land, the clothes, the sounds.
As she moved deeper into the town, she began to notice more of the absurdities—fabrics too crude, boots that looked like rags, hair tied with sticks instead of pins. Even the architecture... wooden roofs where there should have been stone domes.
"This place is backward," she muttered. "Did they forget how to build?"
She found the inn soon after, tucked between two crooked stone buildings. Its lanterns flickered faintly in the frost-heavy air, casting a dull orange hue across the snow-laden road.
Inside, warmth struck her like a wall. Laughter, poorly tuned instruments, mugs slamming on wooden tables. Men and women alike in hideous cloth—exposed chests, patched leggings, grease on their cheeks.
She barely contained her revulsion.
The innkeeper, a stout woman with a bushy braid, looked up at her in astonishment as she stepped forward and dropped five gleaming jade coins onto the counter.
"Two nights," she said flatly.
The woman blinked, then tilted her head.
"Is... that play money?" she asked slowly, voice uncertain.
The woman picked up a coin, turned it over, and squinted. She sniffed it. Tapped it against the counter. Then shook her head and held up a crude piece of parchment that listed prices, pointing at a square glyph beside a strange round bronze coin.
The silver-haired woman blinked.
"This is no longer accepted currency?"
The innkeeper stared in confusion.
Her jaw tensed. "Tch. How will I...?"
As if on cue, a drunken man staggered toward her, swaying like a ship in stormy seas. He grinned with rotted teeth, raising a mug in mock admiration.
"Now that's a face to die for," he slurred, reaching out a hand.
She blinked once. Then flicked her finger at his chest.
The man flew back ten feet, smashing through a table and rolling into an unconscious heap on the floor.
The inn went silent. Every eye turned to her. Stillness.
She stared at the man's fallen coin pouch near her feet.
"Hm."
She leaned down and picked it up. "Fortunate," she murmured.
She tossed the pouch onto the counter, and the innkeeper nodded so quickly her neck nearly snapped. She gestured frantically to one of the maids.
Soon she was in a room upstairs—small, wooden, but warm. She leaned against the thin mattress, breathing slowly.
The silence returned, and with it, memory.
She unfolded the map she'd taken from one of the travelers downstairs. It was crude—no elevation markers, faded ink, distorted symbols—but she deciphered enough to locate the village.
She traced her finger from the icefields in the north, down winding roads, past lakes and forests, through nomadic territories and dynastic borders... until her finger reached the center of the map.
The Central Empire.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Ten months by horse... Two years by foot..." she murmured. "So far... yet it must be done."
She lay back, staring at the wooden ceiling. The last thing she remembered was war—metal, blood, fire raining from the sky. Screams. Names that no longer existed on this map. Dynasties forgotten. Cities wiped away. It wasn't just her memory that failed—history itself had changed.
"Was I sealed? Trapped? Or did time simply forget me?"
She stared at the wall, then clenched her fist.
"I don't know who I am now," she whispered. "But I will find the Martial King. I will find him."
Her voice was soft at first, then hardened into resolve.
"I, Yue Qingshui, last Flame of the Warring Star Sect, will journey until I stand before him again."
Her eyes glowed faintly red.
"I will burn anything that stands in my way."
BACK TO JIN:
The training had become routine.
Every morning, Jin was yanked from sleep by the sharp whistle of the old master, followed by hours of brutal drills beneath the dawn mist. The sky over the training ground was always painted a faded blue, chilled by mountain air and lit only by the pale sun. Jin, ever reluctant, would grumble as he climbed out of his thin bedroll, barely dressed and always half-awake.
But he did it. Because the old man fed him.
Rice. Soup. Sometimes pork buns if he was lucky.
And Jin liked food far more than he hated martial arts.
The old master stood tall at the center of the stone courtyard, robes billowing, voice sharp like a drawn blade. His presence commanded obedience from the half-dozen disciples gathered each day, but Jin wasn't like the rest. He slouched. Complained. Spoke little, unless it was sarcastic. And yet, every time he moved, something about it was too precise. Too effortless.
A kind of practiced laziness that made the old master's brow twitch.
"Young man," the old master said on the morning of the fourteenth day, arms crossed as Jin collapsed on the mat after a round of form drills, "You move like someone who's walked the path of martial arts in another life. Yet you claim ignorance."
"I don't feel like I've walked anything," Jin muttered, panting. "If I did, then why do my bones hurt like I'm eighty?"
The old master sighed.
"Enough forms. It's time you test them against another. Let us see how your body remembers when your mind resists."
Jin blinked. "Wait. What?"
"You'll spar."
"I—I haven't agreed to that. I'm not even—"
"You'll spar against Ruan," the old master told Jin. "She's the best at applying the Tide's Root Style in battle. Use what you've learned. Flow like the sea. Adapt. Respond. Don't kill her."
Jin scoffed, stretching lazily. "I'm not some wild beast."
Then he leaned against a marble pillar. A second later, it cracked under his touch and collapsed.
The students stared in stunned silence.
"…That wasn't me," Jin muttered.
The Duel – Tide vs. Tide:
The sparring ring was simple—just a circle of white sand under the open sky. Ruan stepped in first, barefoot and focused. Her posture was like a wave in stillness—relaxed but ready to crash.
Jin entered second, yawning, arms loose at his sides.
"Begin!" the old master called.
Ruan flowed in, her arms sweeping wide in a motion called "Drifting Reed." Jin recognized the form. It was defensive, redirecting force with soft touches, waiting to counter.
Jin mirrored the motion—poorly at first. His timing was off, and Ruan's first strike clipped his shoulder. She moved like water—graceful, agile, coiling her movements before snapping them forward like crashing waves.
But Jin didn't move with grace. He moved with weight. His "Pulling Undertow" wasn't a gentle sweep—it was a thunderclap. He parried her leg sweep, and with a twist, almost sent her flying. She barely rolled away in time.
The crowd gasped. Ruan stood, shocked.
"That's not how that form is supposed to work!" one student whispered.
Indeed, Jin was using the same style—but not like any of them had ever seen. The Tide's Root Style, as taught, emphasized softness and redirection. But Jin's version was brutal. His fluid movements carried force, his footwork made the ground tremble, and when he blocked, it was like trying to halt the ocean itself.
Ruan came again with "Cresting Palm"—a two-hit combo meant to daze.
Jin matched her step, but instead of matching the softness, he reversed it. His "Receding Current" didn't pull away—it dragged her in and flipped her mid-air. She landed hard, breath knocked out of her.
The crowd was dead silent. The old master stroked his beard, deeply thoughtful.
Jin looked down at Ruan and scratched his head. "Uh… you okay?"
She coughed, then gave a thumbs-up from the sand.
Aftermath
Later, the old master called Jin aside.
"You've mastered the forms faster than anyone I've taught. But you don't follow them. You… rewrite them."
Jin shrugged. "Maybe I'm just a terrible student."
"No. You're something else entirely," the old master murmured. "You move like you've fought wars. Your body remembers things your mind doesn't. Tell me… who are you, Jin?"
Jin just looked up at the sky, sighing. "I'd love to know that myself."