"If you're in trouble, you can say it out loud. Maybe I can help."
Just as Dan Heng was figuring out how to get Yanqing out safely, a cool, distant female voice suddenly spoke from behind him.
"!"
Dan Heng's heart jolted. He heard the voice clearly. Which meant the owner of that voice was right behind him, here and now.
Ever since inheriting the power of the High Elder, Dan Heng's perception had improved by leaps and bounds. And yet someone had approached him silently without him noticing at all.
He immediately leapt away, retreating from the danger zone.
Only after putting some distance between them did he turn to look.
Standing where he had been moments ago was a white-haired woman wearing a veil of black gauze over her eyes. Her features were striking, her aura cold and aloof. Even with her face half-hidden, her beauty was impossible to conceal.
She looked harmless enough, but Dan Heng knew better. This woman was probably stronger than everyone else present combined.
(Clara is next door fighting Firefly, so she is not here.)
"What? Am I really that scary-looking?" Jingliu asked lightly, having watched his reaction without making a move herself.
Freed from the influence of Mara, Jingliu no longer carried that unhinged madness she once had. She looked like a normal person now, able to calm her mind and speak with old acquaintances.
Even if those acquaintances were no longer the people she once knew.
"Who are you?" Dan Heng asked cautiously. If she had meant him harm just now, he would already be…
(Even before surpassing her limits, Jingliu could defeat Imbibitor Lunae Dan Feng at his peak. After surpassing them, killing an Imbibitor Lunae Dan Heng who might not even be at full strength would not be a problem at all.)
"Jingliu… long time no see."
The moment Jingliu appeared, Blade raised his sword and rushed forward to greet her with violence.
"You still owe me a sword strike."
"…"
Faced with Blade's sudden attack, Jingliu did not move at all.
"Grandmaster, watch out!" Yanqing shouted in alarm.
"You're still as impatient as ever."
Jingliu sidestepped effortlessly, dodging the strike. Then she lifted her knee and slammed it into Blade's abdomen, sending him flying.
"The 'Slave of Destiny' must have told you already. That Mara body of yours is not something that can be dealt with so easily."
"The flesh of a divine emissary cannot be slain by mortal blades."
She looked at Blade calmly as she spoke.
"If you truly want to die, then instead of looking for me, Miss Clara would be a better choice."
"With her abilities, the flesh of a divine emissary is nothing special."
"Cough, cough…" Blade's body regenerated quickly. He coughed a few times, stood up, and walked back toward Jingliu.
"I did look for her. She refused."
After that blow, some clarity returned to Blade's mind.
From the first moment he saw Clara, Blade knew she had the power to erase the flesh of a divine emissary. During the time he knew her, he constantly begged her to kill him.
But she resisted fiercely. She was even angry.
Blade never understood why, and he did not care to understand. So he kept pestering her.
If he annoyed her enough, one slap might be enough to grant his wish.
That period of entanglement lasted until that one incident.
The desire for death turned into a desire to live. Blade never wanted to experience that feeling again.
From then on, he stopped bothering Clara.
"Is that so?" Jingliu nodded, unsurprised.
"You still owe me a sword strike," Blade said again when she showed no intention of acting.
"Hey, show some respect when you talk!"
Yanqing, having recovered a bit of strength, staggered to his feet. Hearing Blade's tone toward Jingliu made his blood boil.
Who do you think you are? And who do you think the Grandmaster is, for you to speak like that?
"Kid, this is none of your business."
Blade shot him a blood-red glare, making Yanqing instinctively shrink back. What he had just experienced clearly left a shadow on him.
"I will repay that strike," Jingliu said, shaking her head. "But not now."
Ignoring Blade's dissatisfied gaze, she turned her attention to Dan Heng.
"Imbibitor Lunae. Long time no see."
"…Perhaps I should call you Dan Heng now."
"I'm not the Imbibitor Lunae you're talking about." Dan Heng clenched his fist slightly.
"I know," Jingliu replied, and her next words caught him off guard.
"You're not him, at least not in the eyes of outsiders."
Her gaze pierced through the black veil and locked onto Dan Heng.
"What do you mean?" Dan Heng asked cautiously, unable to grasp her intent.
"Answer a few questions, and you'll understand what I mean," Jingliu said, lifting her head to look at the sky.
"You have a childhood sweetheart. You grow up together, happy and close, and promise to live your lives side by side."
"But just when you think that life can go on like this forever…"
"Your childhood sweetheart dies."
"Killed by someone else."
"After learning this, what would you do?"
"…."
Hearing this little story, Dan Heng fell silent for a moment. Still, uncertain of her purpose, he answered honestly.
"I would find the murderer and kill them. I would avenge her."
"Mm." Jingliu nodded, saying nothing extra, and continued.
"You find the murderer, only to discover they are already dead. Killed by your childhood sweetheart herself."
"In the final moments of her life, she used everything she had to perish together with her killer."
At this point, Jingliu's tone paused slightly, as if something shifted within her.
The change was fleeting, gone almost instantly.
"Just when you think life can finally return to peace, your childhood sweetheart appears again…"
"But the one who returns is no longer the person you knew. She has become a mindless monster that knows only slaughter."
"And in the entire world, you are the only one who can stop her."
"Do you kill her with your own hands, or do you stand by and let her massacre freely?"
"…Kill her myself," Dan Heng answered without hesitation.
If she was no longer herself but merely a killing machine, he would never stand by.
But…
That was only a story. If he truly faced such a moment, could he really bring himself to do it?
"Mm." Jingliu acknowledged his answer and continued.
"After exhausting everything you have to kill her, you begin to question why she became that way."
"Eventually, your gaze settles on your two companions."
"It turns out those two companions secretly used forbidden techniques to try to revive her. They failed, and instead summoned a monster that knew only slaughter."
Blade: …
"In your fury, you seek out those two companions, demanding an explanation."
"Only to find that one has fallen into the abyss forever, and the other has been reborn through reincarnation."
"You realize there is nothing left to ask. So you exile them for eternity."
"And in the end, because you overused your power, you lose control, slaughter many innocents, and are branded a criminal."
Jingliu spoke as if recounting a story, her tone steady and unchanged.
(This version differs slightly from the original canon. For example, Jingliu dealt with Imbibitor Lunae and Yingxing first before facing the draconic abomination.)
(After defeating the abomination, Jingliu succumbed to Mara.)
(Blade left on his own. After Imbibitor Lunae reincarnated as Dan Heng, he studied for a time before Jing Yuan ordered his exile.)
"Several hundred years later, you encounter those two companions once more."
"One walks the path of seeking death. The other, due to reincarnation, has no memories at all."
"Facing these two familiar figures, would you place the sins that caused a great catastrophe centuries ago upon their shoulders?"
When Jingliu asked this, everyone present turned their eyes to Dan Heng.
"I…"
By now, Dan Heng understood what she was trying to say.
Or perhaps it was not a story at all, but her own lived experience.
"If I were not the one who lived through it, my answer would be no."
"But if I were the one who did… my answer would be yes."
…
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