The frost had not melted in the mountain passes that morning.
Though the sun climbed steadily, its light brought no warmth. The air around the Scarlet Immortal Sect remained sharp, high-altitude winds brushing through silver pines and whispering against crimson-tiled rooftops.
Shen Yi stood alone at the edge of a quiet training field—not to train, but to think.
The disciples had cleared out earlier, unsettled by his presence. He didn't blame them. Since his return, rumors had grown faster than moss on stone. A boy swallowed by darkness. A traitor who lived. A disciple who died and didn't stay dead.
Shen Yi didn't care about the whispers. What troubled him were the silences—the ones inside him.
His body felt… restless.
As if something was waking again.
A pulse he didn't understand. A hunger he couldn't name.
And a memory he couldn't chase away.
"You may end up hating yourself more than I ever could."
Yan Xue's words returned like a tide. Not loud. But constant.
She had looked at him not like a stranger, not like a victim—but like someone preparing for war with herself.
And he couldn't stop thinking about her.
---
Down the corridor from the elder quarters, Su Yao sat beneath a maple tree whose leaves had turned entirely white in the cold.
She held a brush in one hand, a thin scroll stretched across her lap. Ink ran steady across the paper, forming characters with practiced ease—until her hand hesitated.
A shadow passed near.
She looked up.
Yan Xue.
Clad in simple sect robes, she walked with that familiar, quiet grace—poised, unapproachable. But Su Yao had known her long enough to see it:
Her steps were too controlled.
Her expression too neutral.
"You're late," Su Yao said mildly.
"Not for anything that matters," Yan Xue replied.
Su Yao gestured to the scroll. "I was writing a letter. To the Azure Phoenix Sect. They're asking for an update."
"On him?"
"Yes."
Yan Xue's eyes lowered. "What will you say?"
Su Yao looked up at her, brush pausing mid-air. "That he's… trying."
"That's generous."
"It's true."
Yan Xue folded her arms. "Trying doesn't undo a massacre."
"No," Su Yao said quietly. "But not trying makes it worse."
---
Elsewhere, behind the towering archives of the sect, Elder Han stood in conversation with another elder—a reclusive woman with a face lined like river stone and eyes the color of dusk.
"The Immortal Demon Skill was supposed to be lost," she said.
"It was," Han replied. "But he found it anyway."
"Or it found him."
Han didn't argue.
They stood beside an ancient slab half-buried in ivy. Upon it, faded glyphs still pulsed faintly with demonic script—seals placed long ago to prevent the very thing now stirring.
"It took the Sect Lord years to erase its trace from the inner texts," the woman said.
"Then perhaps it was never fully erased."
She turned toward him. "You think he retained the full technique?"
"I think," Han said, "we're not the only ones who want to know."
---
That same day, Shen Yi was summoned—not by the Sect Lord, but by someone far more mundane.
The record keeper.
He didn't know what he expected. A test, maybe. A lecture. More veiled threats about what might happen if he lost control.
Instead, he found himself seated in a narrow, high-ceilinged chamber full of scrolls and silent disciples, all quietly cataloging artifacts and histories.
The record keeper was an elderly man with a humped back and eyes like fogged glass. He handed Shen Yi a single scroll.
"Read," he said. "Then copy it by hand."
Shen Yi blinked. "Why?"
"Because discipline begins with repetition."
Shen Yi stared at the scroll.
The title read: On the Balance Between Power and Self.
He said nothing.
But he sat. And he wrote.
The words were old. Simple. But as his brush moved across the parchment, a strange calm crept into his limbs.
Maybe that was the point.
Maybe not everything had to be fought.
---
At sunset, Shen Yi left the archives and took the long path around the northern cliffs. The air was colder there, but the view clearer.
He thought he would be alone.
He wasn't.
Yan Xue stood ahead, arms folded, facing the valley.
She didn't turn when he approached.
"You followed me," she said.
"No," he replied. "Just walking."
Silence stretched between them.
Then she said, "You didn't flinch today."
"Flinch?"
"When Elder Han questioned your presence in the records. Most disciples would've been intimidated."
"I'm used to stares."
"And what about whispers?"
He shrugged. "I hear worse from my own thoughts."
Finally, she turned to look at him.
Her gaze wasn't warm. But it wasn't ice, either.
"I thought I'd feel better seeing you here," she said.
"And?"
"I don't."
He nodded slowly. "I understand."
She looked at him harder. "Do you?"
"No. But I'm trying to."
"Then why are you still here?"
"Because the only way out is through."
Yan Xue studied him, lips pressed into a thin line.
Then she said, almost too quietly:
"Good. I hope the fire hurts."
---
That night, in the inner sanctum of the sect's main hall, the Sect Lord stood before a map of the realm etched in glowing silver.
He did not speak to the others gathered—three elders, cloaked and silent.
Instead, he tapped a small, flickering point in the east.
"Activity in the Ashen Grove."
One elder stepped forward. "That grove was cleansed decades ago."
"Not completely. Something stirs."
"Related to the boy?"
"Unclear. But coincidences are rarely accidents."
Another elder leaned in. "Should we send an observer?"
The Sect Lord didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, "No. Let him go."
"You want him to investigate?"
"He must learn what he is. And what hunts him."
---
Far below the sect, in the caves beneath the mountain, a solitary cultivator in white robes knelt before a pool of still black water.
He murmured softly to himself, eyes unfocused, as ripples spread across the surface.
The water shimmered.
And showed a face.
Not his own.
Hers.
The woman who had appeared at the end of the last chapter—hooded, cloaked in moonlight.
Her lips moved without sound, but the cultivator understood.
"The threads converge," he whispered.
"And the weaver returns."
He bowed.
"Then let the old blood flow again."
---
Back above, Shen Yi stood in his assigned quarters, staring at his reflection in the basin of water.
His eyes were clear.
But something behind them wasn't.
When he closed them, he saw frost.
He saw fire.
He saw a hand—her hand—reaching for him on a night filled with screams.
And in that moment, he knew:
This wasn't the end of his story.
It was the beginning.
----
The next morning, Shen Yi woke before the sun.
The room was quiet—too quiet. Even the usual sounds of disciples moving through corridors, sparring in distant courtyards, or chanting in meditation chambers were absent.
He dressed simply and stepped outside.
The air was heavy with mist.
And yet, something else pressed against his senses—an odd weight in the atmosphere, like the world had inhaled and was holding its breath.
He didn't need his memories to recognize it.
Something was changing.
---
In the Elder Hall, Sect Lord stood before an open window, robes unmoving despite the cold breeze. Behind him, Elder Han arrived with a scroll in hand.
"The cultivator we sent to the Ashen Grove three weeks ago…" Han began.
"Hasn't returned," the Sect Lord finished.
Han nodded.
"No trace?"
"Only ash. Burned talismans. Faint traces of demonic qi."
"And the villagers?"
"Gone."
The Sect Lord turned from the window, face unreadable. "Then the source remains."
Han hesitated, then asked, "Should I handle it?"
"No,"Sect Lord said. "Send Shen Yi."
Han blinked. "Alone?"
"Su Yao will go with him. And the girl."
Han didn't need to ask who the girl was.
"Is that wise?"
"Not yet. But necessary."
Han bowed without protest. Orders from Yun were rarely explained twice.
---
Later that day, Shen Yi was summoned.
He expected another round of questioning. Or a lecture.
Instead, he found Su Yao waiting at the garden steps, holding a sealed scroll and two travel tokens carved from green jade.
"You're being sent on your first mission," she said.
He raised a brow. "What kind?"
"Observation. Investigation. Minimal risk."
"That's what they always say before someone disappears."
She smiled faintly. "You're not wrong."
He took the scroll. "Where?"
"A village east of Ashen Grove. Reports of vanishing cultivators. Odd spiritual interference. Elder Han says it might be old corruption lingering from the war era."
"And the real reason?"
She looked at him.
"They want to see what you'll do when the darkness isn't theoretical."
He nodded once.
Fair enough.
---
Yan Xue didn't say anything when Su Yao informed her she was to go with them.
She simply packed.
A single sword. A change of robes. One vial of concentrated spiritual mist.
Then she stood outside the sect gates, waiting as the other two arrived.
"You didn't protest," Su Yao said as they fell into step together.
"There's nothing to protest."
"You could've refused."
"And miss a chance to watch him stumble into danger?" Yan Xue said dryly.
Shen Yi didn't react.
He just kept walking.
But inside, something shifted.
Not pain.
Not warmth.
Just… awareness.
He was growing used to her presence again.
Too used to it.
---
The path to Ashen Grove was long but peaceful—at first.
They took a spirit-run carriage down from the sect mountains, passing glistening rivers and sun-dappled fields. Villagers bowed as they passed, eyes full of reverence and quiet fear.
"Scarlet robes still carry weight," Su Yao murmured.
"Or reminders," Yan Xue said.
Shen Yi watched them both, silent.
He still wore no sect insignia.
Just plain black robes and a traveler's satchel.
Neither claimed him as their companion. But neither left him behind.
That was enough—for now.
---
By the third day of travel, the signs began to show.
The wind grew colder.
The trees thinned.
Birdsong faded.
And by the time they reached the outskirts of the targeted village, the sun had vanished behind a wall of fog.
It wasn't natural mist.
It clung to the ground like breath from unseen mouths.
Su Yao dismounted first. Her eyes scanned the terrain. "Stay alert. I feel… something here."
Yan Xue nodded. "So do I."
Shen Yi closed his eyes briefly.
The qi around him prickled. Like something old had passed through recently—too old to be flesh, too heavy to be air.
He stepped forward. "Let's go."
---
The village had no name anymore.
The wooden gate was shattered, half hanging from its hinges. Inside, the homes were mostly intact, but abandoned. No corpses. No signs of struggle.
Just quiet.
Too quiet.
Su Yao moved with a healer's eyes—checking wards, looking for signs of disease or poisoning.
Yan Xue's hand hovered near her blade the whole time.
And Shen Yi simply wandered.
Not aimlessly.
But drawn.
Near the well at the center of the village, he paused.
Bent down.
Something was etched into the stone—fresh markings, crude and jagged.
"Su Yao," he called.
She approached quickly, then frowned. "Demon script."
"You can read it?"
"Not fluently," she said. "But this one's common."
She hesitated.
"What does it say?" Yan Xue asked.
Su Yao looked at both of them.
Then whispered:
"He who feeds will remember."
---
They spent the night in one of the less-damaged homes, setting up protective wards.
None of them slept.
Shen Yi sat near the door, back against the wall, blade across his lap.
He wasn't meditating.
He was remembering something strange—not a memory exactly, but a sensation.
That voice again.
Devour. Become. Remember.
It wasn't just whispering anymore.
It was waiting.
Yan Xue sat across from him, legs folded, her sword resting beside her knees.
She wasn't watching him.
But she wasn't relaxed either.
"Do you still hear things?" she asked suddenly.
He met her gaze.
"…Sometimes."
"Like what?"
He hesitated.
"Like someone trying to remind me of what I was."
"And are they right?"
He didn't answer.
She looked away. "I hope they are."
"That I was a monster?"
"No," she said coldly. "That you're not anymore. Because if you are… I'll kill you myself."
He gave a soft breath.
Then nodded.
"Fair."
---
Su Yao sat on the far side of the room, her spirit sense extended across the village. She felt for the smallest ripple, the faintest shift.
At midnight, it came.
A tremor—beneath the ground.
She opened her eyes instantly. "Something's moving."
Yan Xue was already on her feet.
Shen Yi stood, blade sliding free without sound.
They stepped into the fog together.
---
At the well, something had changed.
The markings on the stone glowed faintly, like fireflies trapped beneath the surface.
And from within the well shaft, a voice rose—
Wet.
Echoing.
Hungry.
"You brought him back…"
"Feed…"
"And you will see again…"
Yan Xue raised her sword.
Su Yao lit a flame charm in her palm.
But Shen Yi stepped forward.
"Wait."
The others froze.
He stared into the dark mouth of the well.
Then said softly,
"I know you."
---
He didn't know why.
But the words felt true.
Something down there recognized him.
Not his name.
Not his face.
But the thing inside him.
And the worst part?
It wasn't hostile.
It sounded… eager.
---
Suddenly, the fog coiled tighter around their feet.
A shriek split the air—not from the well, but from the sky above.
A shape burst through the mist—long, spindly, armored in fragments of bone and black silk.
But Shen Yi didn't raise his sword.
He raised his hand.
And the thing stopped mid-air.
Frozen.
Not by power.
By recognition.
Its many eyes blinked in confusion. In fear.
"…You…" it rasped.
And then—
—it fled.
Into the woods.
Without attacking.
---
The three stood in stunned silence.
Su Yao looked at him. "What just happened?"
Yan Xue's eyes narrowed. "Why did it run?"
Shen Yi lowered his hand slowly.
And said, with no pride, no triumph—
"…Because it thinks I'm worse than it is."
---
End of Chapter 18