The night she descended into the village was a quiet one. The moon shone brightly, and the trees swayed in the wind, undisturbed by her presence.
The villagers, however, would remember this day as the day the darkness came for a soul.
Jin Lianhua was preparing the rice she would use to make her fermented rice steamed buns in the morning for her business.
She hummed a tune softly while her eight-year-old son, Jin Yue, sat by her side.
In their village, he was the cause of envy among the other mothers—black hair, golden eyes, and the cutest smile imaginable.
He would surely be the heartbreaker of his peers while growing up.
She couldn't help but sigh at how blessed she was to have two beautiful children and a loving husband.
"Mommy?" Jin Yue called out, pointing to the open window as an eerie shadow crawled across the sky. "Why is the sky getting darker?"
BANG!
Before she could answer, the doors flew open.
A dark figure stood by the entrance, a straw hat covering half their face.
"Mama, who's that?" Jin Yue asked, trying not-so-subtly to peek under her hat.
Lianhua didn't really know who she was, but she really hoped this stranger hadn't brought trouble with her.
In a split second, she took the hat off her head and Lianhua's face turned white.
Dark robes that resembled the night sky clung to her form, long dark hair flowing behind her like a living shadow, creating the illusion that the darkness itself followed her. Her eyes shone with an otherworldly glow—cold, ancient, merciless. It felt hard to breathe under the pressure she brought with her.
It was her.
The Obsidian Maiden.
A name that struck fear into the heart of everyone who heard it.
Once a prodigy among the Ten Heavenly Principles, now a fallen one with no chance of ascending due to her sins.
Her eyes drifted from Lianhua to the boy who was still clutching his mother's dress, eyes wide with curiosity.
Lianhua quickly hid him behind her, praying desperately that her husband would sense something was wrong and come home already.
"Hand him over."
Her voice was calm, commanding, final.
But Lianhua didn't move. Instead, she pressed him closer, slowly backing away from the monster in front of them.
She never reached the second step.
In a blink, she was sent crashing into the wall behind her, her breath knocked out of her lungs.
"Mama!" Jin Yue cried and tried to run to her, but a cold hand grabbed his arm and spun him back around. Now he was face-to-face with the strange woman.
She held his face between her long, slender fingers, her eyes glowing as if she were searching through his soul.
Lianhua's head was spinning. She struggled to breathe from the blow, it felt like she would collapse in an instant, but she couldn't give up just yet.
She felt a warm liquid trickle down the back of her neck. She had half a mind not to touch it—she was sure she wouldn't like what she found.
Even from the ground, she could see how the Obsidian Maiden held her son's face, squeezing his pink cheeks while her glowing eyes searched for… something. And then she found it. A slow, wide smile pulled at her lips.
"Yes… you'll do perfectly."
She began to pull him away from his mother.
But the wounded woman rushed toward them and still held onto him, head bleeding but determination burning in her eyes.
"Please leave him alone, he's only a child!"
She pressed her son closer to her chest, praying to the heavens that this wretched woman would just leave them alone.
"No! I won't give him to you!" she screamed, hoping her voice would alert her husband or the villagers. "Just leave us alone!"
The Obsidian Maiden didn't even blink. She just sighed.
"What a waste of time."
She snapped her fingers, and in a split second, darkness wrapped around Jin Yue, swallowing him whole.
Lianhua tried to pull him back, tried with everything she had, screaming for her to return her son but the harder she pulled, the more her son faded into the shadows.
And just like that, he was gone.
Lianhua cried out at the floor where her son once stood, tears running down her cheeks as she tried to claw her son out of the remaining darkness that laid on the floor
The obsidian maiden didn't even spare the sobbing woman on the floor another glance.
Just as she had come like a shadow, she disappeared.
---
"Where… am I?"
Jin Yue asked the darkness around him but got no answer
The cave was filled with black crystals, strange runes, and human skeletons scattered like discarded toys.
With a gasp he kicked away the skull that laid by his leg and stumbled to his feet
He tried to run away, tripping on his feet, only to bump into something solid.
It was the strange woman who had taken him away.
She didn't even flinch. She just stared down at him with those glowing, eerie eyes.
"You. What's your name?" she commanded, her voice echoing off the crystals.
"J-Jin Yue… m-my name is Jin Yue."
"Jin Yue…" she repeated slowly, then scowled in disgust, as if his name were something dirty.
"From this moment on, you will forget that life_your name, your family, your village, everything. I will break it from you and make you into something the heavens themselves shall fear."
A feral grin took over her face as dark qi swirled around her body, making the air around them heavy and cold.
"You belong to me now. Do you understand?"
He nodded quickly, terrified to make the wrong move.
She cupped his cheek with a hand so gentle it felt like a feather's touch, too gentle for someone like her.
"Oh, my sweet boy, you will rise higher than I ever could. You will reach the place I was denied. And when you stand at the heavens-"
Her voice dropped into a whisper of pure fury.
Her nails dug into his cheek, drawing blood.
"-then shall you drag down the Heavenly Principles and give me my vengeance."
Jin Yue winced, tears gathering in his eyes as her nails dug deeper. But he didn't dare make a sound. He didn't know what she would do to him if he did.
He just wanted to go home.
He just wanted his mama.
The Obsidian Maiden smiled, patting his cheek with chilling
gentleness.
"Come, child. Your training begins now."
And with that, she threw him off the cliff and darkness swallowed him whole.