Jiang Xuan's POV – On the Road South
The journey took two days.
They traveled through old merchant trails, half-swallowed by vines, where the trees grew too tall and the wind spoke in tones Jiang Xuan didn't like.
Sang Lian walked beside him now, her glaive slung over her shoulder, armor rattling softly with each step. Emei followed a few paces back, silent as always.
Jiang Xuan gripped the scroll map tightly.
He'd chosen this place for a reason.
Not because it was closest…
But because it was where everything ended.
And something inside him needed to see where it began.
---
Ruins of Vortan's Spine – Former Demon Crown Capital
The first sight of it stole the breath from his lungs.
Gray spires crumbled across the valley, broken like snapped bones. An enormous dome-shaped palace lay half-sunken in the mud. Obsidian statues stood headless along a shattered avenue, weapons clutched in lifeless hands.
Jiang Xuan slowed.
The ruins weren't dead.
They were sleeping.
And the moment he stepped between the broken gates, something stirred beneath the stone.
---
He stopped in the center of what had once been a plaza — now cracked and overgrown.
His mark burned faintly.
"I know this place," he said quietly.
Sang Lian glanced at him.
"This was your capital," she said. "They called it the Spine because it sat on the world's leyline. You ruled from here. Until they came."
"Who?"
"The Nine Heavens. And the sects that followed them."
He closed his eyes.
And saw a flash — fire raining from the sky, screams echoing in stone halls, his own blade shattering as the throne cracked beneath him.
He didn't fall in battle.
He was betrayed.
---
He opened his eyes.
The fire in them had changed.
"Let's find the throne room."
Sang Lian smiled. "That's more like it."
---
They moved through the ruins. Every step sent ripples through the air. Some invisible pressure pushed against them — not hostile, not welcome.
Just watching.
When they reached the palace doors — tall, rusted slabs of blacksteel — Jiang Xuan placed his hand against them.
The metal hummed.
A heartbeat answered.
Then the doors opened on their own.
---
The main hall stretched wide, lined with shadowed pillars and faded murals. Dust danced in the cold light filtering through holes in the dome above.
But the throne?
Still stood.
Cracked. Scarred. But upright.
A seat of jagged obsidian set into a raised platform.
He approached slowly.
Every part of him felt heavy.
The Echo Fang buzzed faintly at his hip.
Not a warning.
A welcome.
---
He stopped at the foot of the stairs.
"Did I die here?" he asked.
"No," Emei said from behind. "You lived. That was the worst part."
He looked back.
"You let them take this from me?"
"We weren't here," Sang Lian said. "We were drawn away. They knew what they were doing."
His jaw clenched.
He climbed the steps.
---
When he stood before the throne, he didn't sit.
He simply rested his hand on one armrest — and the mark on his neck blazed red.
The entire room groaned.
Stone cracked.
Dust fell.
And from somewhere deep beneath the city, a sound rose—
A roar.
Low. Endless. Not human.
Sang Lian drew her glaive.
Emei turned toward the broken hall.
And Jiang Xuan narrowed his eyes.
"Something remembers me."
----
The roar echoed through the stone like thunder through a hollow mountain.
Not rage.
Not sorrow.
Just… presence.
Old and massive.
Sang Lian was already moving, stepping forward with her glaive raised, scanning the cracks in the ground. "It's under the throne," she said.
Emei's eyes glowed faintly. "A vault. Sealed during your final days. I didn't know it was still awake."
Jiang Xuan looked down at the armrest, where the echo of his touch still shimmered. "Then let's open it."
---
With one sharp pull, he drew the Echo Fang.
The blade pulsed — black light bleeding out in silent waves. He turned the point downward and stabbed it into the center of the platform.
The moment the blade struck stone—
Boom.
The entire floor cracked in a ring around the throne. A section of the dais sunk slightly, then slowly began to twist open, stone grinding against stone.
A hidden stairwell emerged.
Stale air wafted up — thick with dust… and qi.
Old. Tangled. Heavy with memory.
Sang Lian tilted her head. "It remembers you too."
---
They descended in silence, each step sinking them deeper into forgotten time. The walls bore carvings: Jiang Xuan's face, stylized in shadows; flames swallowing the heavens; a crown of bone rising above the stars.
He couldn't look away.
"I used to believe in this," he muttered.
"You still do," Emei said.
"Do I?"
"If you didn't," Sang Lian added, "you wouldn't have come back."
---
The stairwell ended in a wide, circular vault.
Everything inside was untouched.
Banners bearing the Demon Crown's sigil hung on the walls, still vibrant despite the dust. A stone altar stood in the center, half-buried under broken armor and cracked weapons.
But before they could take a step inside—
A presence rose.
A shape stood at the far end of the chamber.
Not cloaked in shadow.
But made of it.
---
He took form slowly: humanoid, tall, but covered in shifting darkness that rippled like smoke. Two burning red eyes opened. A jagged halberd rested across his back.
He stepped forward once.
The floor groaned.
His voice followed—
gravel wrapped in steel.
"You are not my master."
Jiang Xuan didn't flinch.
"But I was."
---
The shadow moved faster than it should've — halberd drawn, blade swinging down. Sang Lian intercepted with a clang, sparks flying as steel met darkness.
Jiang Xuan stepped back, hand gripping Echo Fang tight.
"What is that?" he hissed.
Emei's voice came sharp: "One of your throne wraiths. Left behind to guard the vault. It doesn't know time has passed."
Sang Lian shouted mid-clash: "It was designed to obey only you — or destroy everything else."
---
The wraith lashed out again — spinning low, forcing Sang Lian to retreat. It turned toward Jiang Xuan, halberd raised, eyes blazing.
Jiang Xuan didn't wait.
He stepped forward and raised his voice.
"Stand down!"
The wraith hesitated.
Only a beat.
Then it roared and attacked again.
Jiang Xuan met it blade to blade.
---
Echo Fang screamed through the air — fast, elegant, precise. The wraith fought like a storm: wide arcs, brutal swings, no wasted motion. But Jiang Xuan remembered more with each clash.
Every parry was faster.
Every strike cleaner.
Until—
He found the opening.
And drove Echo Fang into its chest.
---
The wraith let out a low sound — not pain.
Relief.
Its body began to dissolve into mist, particles of black smoke scattering through the vault.
Its final words hung in the silence:
"Welcome home… my king."
---
Jiang Xuan stood there, panting slightly, Echo Fang dripping with shadow.
Sang Lian lowered her weapon.
Emei approached the altar. "It protected your last artifacts," she said.
Jiang Xuan turned toward her.
"No," he said quietly. "It protected my memory."
---
He walked slowly to the altar and laid his hand across it.
A second pulse rolled through the vault — not loud, but deep.
Like the breath of a world waking up.
One by one, the banners around the chamber flared red.
Old lights returned to the wall runes.
And the map on his hip sparked faintly.
A line glowed between Vortan's Spine…
And the next city.
---
He looked up.
"One city at a time," he said.
Sang Lian smiled beside him. "Then let's make the world remember."
----
End of Chapter 22