The fortress above would live. The corruption would fade. The Stream would return to normal.
And yet, deep in her chest, Ling Yu felt no victory, only an unsettling stillness, as if the silence that followed wasn't peace, but the calm before another storm.
For even as she turned to leave, the faintest whisper brushed against her ear, soft, distant, but unmistakably real.
"You've only freed me from their chains, little mortal. The next time we meet, it will not be as strangers."
"Before I go, I left a little reward for you. Check it out, who knows, you might come to like it."
Her blood ran cold.
But she didn't look back.
The moment Ling Yu landed on the cracked stone floor, the world erupted into chaos.
