The incident with Lyra, while terrifying, had shifted the dynamic between Jia Wei Xin and Zhang Tian. He remained fiercely protective, possessive, but now with a new, watchful respect. He saw her cunning, her self-reliance. For the first time, he understood his method of "protection" wasn't what she needed. He began to give her more literal space, though his emotional intensity remained undimmed.
During her permitted wanderings, Jia Wei Xin found herself drawn to a seldom-used wing of the Demon Headquarters. It held ancient, dust-laden scrolls and forgotten artifacts—less a library, more an archive of the peculiar and the unclassified.
One afternoon, her hand brushed a peculiar, unadorned stone tablet tucked in a shadowed alcove. It looked unremarkable: a slab of polished black rock. But as her fingers grazed its surface, a faint tremor ran through it. The sigil on her wrist pulsed with a familiar golden light.
A pulse.
Then a whisper, soft and familiar: "Return…"
Her heart skipped.
The stone tablet responded, glowing faintly with ancient runes. These twisted into a sigil resembling none of the martial sects she'd studied, yet stirred something deep inside her. Something older than memory. A spiral of time itself.
And then—images, flashes.
A giant tree with golden leaves. A woman's face—eerily familiar—shrouded in blue light. A realm split in two. A voice—her own voice?—crying out names she didn't know.
And the whisper again:
"Heir of the Celestial Line… Timewalker… The seal has begun to weaken."
Jia Wei Xin gasped, stumbling back, hand clutching her chest. The stone tablet dimmed, returning to silence. The sigil on her wrist—the one she'd assumed was a birthmark—burned faintly with silver fire.
"What… what am I?"
---
The answer didn't come.
But as the tablet dimmed, Jia Wei Xin instinctively pressed her other hand over the pulsing sigil on her wrist. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of light flowed from the tablet, across her fingers, and into the sigil. The tablet then felt inert, its purpose fulfilled. But her sigil now burned with a deeper, internal fire, humming with the newly downloaded knowledge.
She knew, without knowing how, that the Lore Stone's essence, its core message and energy, was now stored within her. Not the physical tablet, but the vital spark. A priceless secret, concealed within herself.
---
Then, a distant rumble shook the very foundations of the Demon HQ. Not a magical tremor, but something more primal, more forceful. Zhang Tian, who had been observing her from a distance, materialized instantly beside her, his expression grim.
"He's here," Zhang Tian said, voice taut, eyes suddenly burning with fierce, possessive resolve. "Liu Mo Fei. He's at the outer gates."
"Already?" Jia Wei Xin breathed, a mix of surprise and strange anticipation surging through her.
Zhang Tian nodded, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Took him longer than I expected. But he always finds his way to what he desires." He turned towards the main entrance, posture squaring, a challenge in every line of his body. "Stay here. This is between us."
Jia Wei Xin started to protest, but Zhang Tian was already gone, a blur of dark energy rushing towards the confrontation.
---
Outside the heavily guarded perimeter of the Demon Sect, two figures stood, their auras clashing even before their blades. Liu Mo Fei, immaculate even after days of relentless travel, his usual calm replaced by a cold, cutting intensity, faced Zhang Tian, who met him with a wild, untamed grin promising chaos.
"Zhang Tian," Liu Mo Fei's voice was low, laced with danger. "Return her. Now."
"And why would I do that, Sect Head Liu?" Zhang Tian scoffed, drawing his demonic saber, its dark blade seeming to drink the light. "She's safer here. Under my protection."
"Protection?" Liu Mo Fei countered, drawing his own gleaming sword, its spiritual light a stark contrast to Zhang Tian's darkness. "You kidnapped her! That's not protection; that's imprisonment."
"How do you know she does not come here willingly?" Zhang Tian roared, lunging forward, his saber a whirlwind of dark energy. "You, with your 'sect rules' and 'righteous path,' you couldn't keep her safe from the Pat Cis of this world. You couldn't protect her from what's truly coming!"
Their blades met with a deafening clang, sending shockwaves through the air. Steel sang against dark energy, each strike fueled by a desperate, fervent claim to Jia Wei Xin.
"She belongs with me!" Liu Mo Fei declared, pushing Zhang Tian back with a surge of pure qi, his handsome face contorted with exertion. "She is my disciple, my responsibility. My… everything!"
"Everything?!" Zhang Tian laughed, a harsh, brittle sound as he parried Liu Mo Fei's attack with impossible speed. "You think your soft words and pretty promises can compare to the ancient bond that ties us? To the destiny that calls her to my side?!"
They fought with a ferocity that shook the very earth, a tempest of clashing powers. Liu Mo Fei's precise, elegant sword forms countered Zhang Tian's wild, unpredictable, yet incredibly powerful demonic attacks. They exchanged blows, neither yielding, driven by a possessive love bordering on obsession, each believing himself the rightful protector, the ultimate destiny, for Jia Wei Xin.
A clash of qi sent both flying backward, landing hard on the obsidian courtyard tiles. They were both panting, bleeding.
For a long moment, neither moved.
"…Five-minute break?" Zhang Tian muttered.
Liu Mo Fei sighed, voice hoarse. "Fine."
And in that pause—Jia Wei Xin appeared between them.
Both men looked up.
She stood tall, hair loose from the wind, eyes blazing with clarity. In her hand—two pills.
She walked to Zhang Tian first. Kneeling beside him, she held out the pill. "For your wound." His hand trembled as he took it.
Just before his eyes closed in exhaustion, she leaned in and whispered, tinged with a familiar, cheeky amusement.
"Now we're equal."
He blinked slowly, realization flashing. He managed a faint, sleepy smirk before his eyes closed.
Jia Wei Xin then turned to Liu Mo Fei, who still struggled to prop himself up, eyes wide with relief and concern. She helped him sit up.
He stared at her like she was made of lightning and miracle dust. "Are you okay? Did he—?"
"I'm fine." She smiled faintly. "Zhang Tian just… protected me in his way. Doesn't mean it was the right way."
Liu Mo Fei didn't speak. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, his entire body trembling with held-back fear.
"I almost tore the realms apart looking for you."
Her cheek pressed against his chest, where his heart beat wild and frantic. "I know." They stood in the ruins of the courtyard, surrounded by scorched stone, cracked sky, and a sleeping demon king.
"I saw something," she whispered into his chest. "In this place. Something about… time. About who I am."
He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. "Then we'll figure it out. Together." She smiled.
And somewhere deep below them, the glowing orb pulsed once more.
Together, they turned their backs on the Demon Sect, heading towards the rising moon, leaving the unconscious Demon King behind.