The path down from the cliffside was long, winding between ancient cedars and moss-covered boulders. Mist clung to Su Xue's robes, heavy with the weight of silence. She moved like a ghost — neither slow nor fast, but unseeable, unreachable.
Each step echoed with a memory.
Each breath pulled ash from a fire she had buried long ago.
"I spared you," he had said.
"You left me alive so I would suffer," she had answered.
Su Xue stopped walking. Her hands trembled slightly — not from cold, but from the storm inside her. She turned to look back at the cliff, though it had vanished into the mists behind her.
He hadn't resisted.
That was what unsettled her the most.
He didn't deny it.
He didn't defend himself.
He remembered.
And still, he stood there, as if his guilt was enough to balance the scales of heaven.
Memories Like Blades
Su Xue closed her eyes.
She was six years old again, standing beneath the moonlit arch of Su Manor's eastern gate. Her father, Su Tianhao, had held her hand, his grip warm, reassuring. Her mother, Lady Minglan, had brushed her hair gently, promising to sing her a lullaby when the storm passed.
But the storm never passed.
It arrived on black winds and flames — roaring, endless. The mountain's wards shattered like glass. The skies turned red.
And then he appeared.
Lu Xuan — or rather, the Demon God Lu Xuan. Clad in obsidian armor, face hidden beneath a silver mask. His sword gleamed with blood, but it was not the blade that haunted her dreams.
It was his eyes.
Burning gold.
Unfeeling.
Ancient.
She had watched from the shadows as he struck her father down. As her mother screamed and unleashed all her cultivation — Peak Nascent Soul, legendary among the clans — only to fall like a candle under the tide of a starless sea.
"Why?" her mother had screamed.
"Because it must be done," he had said, voice like thunder beneath the void.
No hatred. No cruelty. Just duty.
It was that coldness that had scarred Su Xue deeper than any wound. It was the clarity of conviction.
Su Xue opened her eyes. Her breath shook.
He remembers everything now.
And still… he walks among us.
What did fate mean, placing them in the same era again? What cruel celestial pattern dared bind her to him — the very man who slaughtered her bloodline?
And yet, somewhere deep in her chest, she had felt it — something fracture. Not hatred softening, but confusion blooming.
Why didn't he fight back?
Why did his eyes seem like they wanted her to win?
Don't be fooled, her heart screamed. He is the Demon God. The devourer of clans. The one who shattered your childhood and bathed your name in ash.
But his silence… his stillness… they didn't feel like mockery.
They felt like guilt.
Could a demon feel guilt?
Could a god of slaughter remember pain?
"Even if the heavens want us bound, I will stop you," she had said.
But did she mean it?
The moment those words left her lips, something had cracked inside her. A deep, ancient resentment — not just for Lu Xuan, but for the fate that had tied their souls across lifetimes.
The dreams had always been there. Since she was twelve. She'd seen a version of him in every one.
Sometimes he wore different faces. Sometimes he was cruel. Sometimes kind
But always, always... he stood above a mountain of corpses. And she stood alone in the ashes.
She had thought them visions. Warnings.
Now she knew they were memories.
He is the same. I have been dancing with his shadow since birth.
And what did that make her?
Just a loose thread in a woven pattern of reincarnation and vengeance?
Su Xue clenched her fists until her nails drew blood. Her cultivation surged in response, the barrier around her dantian trembling..
Her power was still incomplete. Sealed by time, fate, and something deeper — something she had always sensed but never understood.
What if her true power… was tied to him?
No.
No.
She refused to believe that. Her power was her own. Her hate was hers.
Far below the mountain trail, the Celestial Dawn Sect stirred with unrest. Whispers of the Zhao Emperor's movements had reached even the outer peaks. War was coming. Shadows stirred.
And they — Lu Xuan and Su Xue — stood at the center of it.
The Demon God reborn.
The daughter of the slain.
History, repeating itself like a cursed script.
"I won't let him become what he was," she thought. "Even if I have to become something else to stop him."
But the line between justice and vengeance was growing thinner.
Atop the Pavilion
Later that evening, Su Xue returned to the Moonwater Pavilion. It was quiet, as always. The lanterns glowed pale blue, casting gentle reflections across the smooth tile.
She knelt alone at the center and lit a single incense stick.
Not for prayer.
But for memory.
She placed two stones beside it.
One marked for her mother.
The other for her father.
"I've found him," she whispered.
The flame flickered. As if the wind heard her.
"I'll make him pay. But I need more time."
She closed her eyes, her voice softer.
"Forgive me… for not doing it yet."
And then she rose.
Above her, the moon shone cold and distant.
And beneath it, the fire in her heart refused to die.