Why is he here? Kirihito thought anxiously, his consciousness floating in a fractured, dream-like state.
He watched as Lìngxiāo appeared before him, standing beside a young boy. But this wasn't the Lìngxiāo from the battlefield. This figure wore an old-style white and red robe, and his hair was styled differently, evoking a sense of ancient history. Was it really him? Or someone who wore his face like a mask? Kirihito couldn't tell.
Everything was going over his head as he watched the scene unfold.
He focused on the boy. The child was barely ten years old, missing one hand and one eye. He stood frozen, taking a long moment to process what was happening.
"I will not hurt you... all you have to do is trust me..." the figure who looked like Lìngxiāo said, offering that familiar, gentle smile.
"Yes, you can trust us..." another man appeared from behind, dressed in black and red robes. Both radiated the aura of powerful cultivators.
The white-robed man spread his arms, waiting patiently, as if he could hear the boy's thoughts and knew exactly what he needed.
The boy stared at them, his single eye welling with tears. Suddenly, he flinched.
"Where are you??!! Didn't I tell you not to go out without telling me??!!! I am your fucking mother!!" a woman's voice shrieked from behind the veil of memory.
"She is... crueler than Wèi..." Kirihito mumbled, hugging himself. His spectral body stiffened, trembling from the cold residue of his own trauma, recently purged into the darkness.
The boy, however, made his choice. He ran toward the white-robed man, tears streaming down his face—tears of panic, but also of freedom and love. He raised his one good hand and jumped into the man's embrace.
The white-robed man caught him, locking his arms around the small body. He stood up and spun on his heels in a slow, circular motion, as if dancing. His dark brown hair fanned around them gently, a shield against the world.
The man in black smiled and patted the child's head.
"They... they saved the... boy..." Kirihito whispered. For a second, he dropped his usual derogatory term "insect," speaking of the child with a strange reverence, as if he could feel the boy's relief in his own soul.
He felt almost... grateful. A weak smile touched his lips, unaware that his earlier violent vomiting in the darkness had left him drained.
The scene glowed with a tender golden light, warm and comforting, before fading like a dying ember. The figures dissolved.
Silence returned. But in the quiet, he heard the boy's laughter and slow, hesitant words, as if just learning to express needs: "Hug me...!"
He also heard the two gentle men chuckle.
Kirihito was about to let out a relieved sigh, thinking the nightmare was over.
Crack.
The world shattered around him.
The ground beneath his feet dissolved into nothingness. The peaceful memory broke apart like smashed glass. His heart pounded in renewed panic as he began to fall.
"W...Wèi will fall!! Butterfly, where are you??!!! What is happening??!!! Dark Voice, where are you??! Help Wèi!!" he cried, his voice echoing in the void.
He started running on the crumbling path, his dark hair flying behind him. He didn't dare look back. His stomach dropped when a giant, shadow-formed hand crashed down just inches from where he had been standing. It felt deliberate—not an accident, but an attack.
"One hundred days of time... not less... not more..." a cold, commanding voice echoed through the darkness.
"W...what one hundred days??" Kirihito gasped, running blindly. His usual predatory instincts were failing him; he felt small and hunted.
"As you wish, Master... I will not leave anyone alive," the Dark Voice replied from somewhere in the shadows.
Kirihito stopped, trapped. The road ahead and behind had vanished.
"Dark Voice!! Where are you??! Whom are you talking to??" he panted. He felt blind, unable to see more than a few feet ahead.
Then, he saw it.
A figure stood in the distance. It had his body shape, his height, but it was made of thick black fog. Its face was a void, save for two crimson ruby eyes. Its hair floated like dark smoke.
"I told you not to try to reclaim what you gave away, kid..." the figure said coldly.
Kirihito felt it in his bones—it was the Dark Voice, projected outside of his body. He swallowed hard, realizing he had made a grave mistake by trying to pry into his own broken memories.
"W...Wèi is... sorry..." he whispered, his pride shattered.
There was no answer. The cold deepened.
"Wèi Yīlíng!!!"
Another voice cut through the darkness. Alive. Real. Urgent.
It was Xio.
Kirihito's heart skipped a beat. He looked around frantically. The shadowy figure of the Dark Voice disappeared, returning to its place as the heavy, unseen weight inside his soul.
Then, the light broke through.
He saw Xio. The red ribbon glowed faintly around Xio's thumb—a lifeline. The man looked worried and angry all at once. His golden owl mask was gone, lost somewhere in the chaos.
"Wake up!! We have to leave!!" Xio shouted, gripping Kirihito's hand. His whole body glowed faintly, a beacon of life.
Beside him, Kirihito saw his tiny white snake friend. But she wasn't tiny anymore. She had transformed into a woman with white hair, grabbing his other hand.
S...Snakie was a female?! Kirihito thought, his mind reeling.
He shut his eyes tight as the blinding light of reality slammed into him.
[In Reality]
"Wake up!! We have to leave!!"
Xio's voice was desperate. He wasn't maskless—the golden owl mask was still firmly in place—but his composure was cracking.
Kirihito was paralyzed, crushed in the grip of Mò Qīn, the giant insect curse.
Xio moved with lethal precision. He drew a silver curse digger—a specialized dagger—and drove it hard into Mò Qīn's thick, chitinous tail, right where it coiled around Kirihito.
SCREEECH!
Mò Qīn screamed in pain, a sound like tearing metal, and reflexively dropped Kirihito.
Xio caught him instantly. Kirihito's body was burning, radiating a fever heat that scorched Xio's hands through his skin.
HISS!
Kirihito's white snake friend hissed loudly. In a flash of spiritual energy, she expanded, transforming into a half-human, half-serpent entity. Her upper body was that of a white-haired woman, her lower half a massive white snake tail.
She lashed out, her tail swiping violently at the cultivators to create distance.
"Move away from him!!" she hissed, her tone venomous and protective.
Lìngxiāo's eyes widened, and his eternal smile darkened as he processed the chaotic scene. He dodged the massive tail effortlessly, leaping back, but his mind raced.
A demonic cultivator risking his life to save a Curse Type Yokai? And now a Vanished Type female Snake Yokai appears to save the very Special Grade whose kind abandoned them?
This was no simple exorcism. This was a tangled web of alliances he didn't understand.
Around them, the chaos was escalating. Several civilians, infected by stray curse energy, had been possessed. They were attacking everyone in sight, creating a bloody distraction that complicated the battlefield.
"Mò Qīn, come back..." Lìngxiāo ordered softly.
Mò Qīn shrank rapidly, returning to his small snake size before tangling back around Lìngxiāo's neck. The spirit hissed softly, watching Kirihito with new, wary eyes.
Wùji and Suji exchanged a look. They realized the situation had spiraled beyond a simple capture mission. Wùji extended his hand, and the shards of his broken sword vibrated on the ground before flying back into his sheath—useless, but reclaimed.
Suji, who had been fendng off the possessed humans, turned to chase the fleeing trio. His blood was up, and he wasn't ready to let them go.
Wùji hesitated. His violet eyes were dark with questions. Should we pursue? Or is there more at play?
But Lìngxiāo wasn't done analyzing.
"Suji Kùmsūn... do not chase them just yet..." Lìngxiāo called out, his voice calm amidst the carnage.
Suji froze mid-step. "What? Why?" He turned, exasperated. "Lìngxiāo Kùmsūn, you saw—"
"He is right, Suji... let them go for now," Wùji cut in, his voice firm. "Let the Yokai leave and heal... he is not alone."
"If they stay here longer, more common people will die," Lìngxiāo added, gesturing to the possessed civilians tearing at the market stalls and each other.
"Can't you catch those curses with your mirror or eat them away, Lìngxiāo Kùmsūn??" Suji asked, not quite ready to stop the hunt.
"Suji..." Wùji whipped out his brother's name like a warning to listen to him.
Lìngxiāo pulled out his spirit mirror—the tool he used to capture temporary curses and ghosts.
It was cracked down the center.
"They have taken my half-tamed curses with them... and they are stronger now," Lìngxiāo said, examining the broken artifact. "Pursuing them with compromised equipment and civilians in danger is unwise."
Suji pressed his lips into a thin line. He looked at his own broken sword, then at the destruction Kirihito and Xio had left in their wake.
"Fine then..." he sighed, dropping his stance.
Wùji sighed as well. He formed a hand seal, summoning a delicate violet butterfly made of spiritual energy. He whispered a message into its wings: "Prepare bodies for postmortem. Secure the perimeter."
The butterfly fluttered away toward the Lan clan estate.
Lìngxiāo turned to look at the piles of unconscious bodies and the blood-stained ground where the clones had vanished.
He watched the empty space where Kirihito, Xio, and the Snake Woman had disappeared into the night.
A mysterious smile played on his lips.
"I am at the right place then..." he whispered to himself, his thoughts already on it's way towards where it belonged.