The night stretched endlessly as Xu Tianyin trudged forward, his wounds aching with every step. The battle—if it could even be called that—had left him drained, but harching. The trees swayed gently, their bare branches like skeletal hands reaching for the sky. The silence stretched, thick and suffocat
Or at least, it looked human.
A woman, dressed in robes darker than the night, stood a few ll
Xu Tianyin's breath caught in his throat.
His instincts screamed at him that this person was dangerous.
The woman regarded him with an unreadable expression, her pale eyes like silver glass reflecting the moonlight. Her presence held an unsettling weight, as though the very air bent around her existence.
"You should be dead," she said.
Her voice was calm, almost indifferent, but there was something beneath it—a quiet interest, a recognition of something unspoken.
Xu Tianyin swallowed, his throat dry. His mind was still sluggish, his body too weak to fight, too slow to run.
"Who are you?" His voice came out hoarse, barely more than a whisper.
The woman tilted her head slightly, as if considering whether or not to answer. Then, she stepped closer.
Xu Tianyin forced himself not to flinch.
"You are not supposed to exist," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "And yet, here you are."
Her gaze drifted to the corpse behind him, to the melted snow, to the unnatural marks seared into the earth. Something flickered in her expression—curiosity, maybe. Or amusement.
Xu Tianyin clenched his fists. He had nothing left, no strength to fight, no place to run. If this person wanted him dead, there was little he could do to stop her.
But then, she did something unexpected.
She extended a hand.
Xu Tianyin stared at it.
It was a simple gesture, yet it felt heavier than any command, any decree the heavens could issue.
"Come," she said. "You do not belong in the world they have built."
He did not know who she was. He did not know why she had appeared, why she was offering him a path forward when the rest of the world wanted him erased.
But in that moment, as the cold pressed in and his vision blurred at the edges, he knew one thing—
If he took that hand, his fate would no longer be his own.
And yet, perhaps it had never been.
With the last of his strength, Xu Tianyin reached out.
His fingers brushed against hers, and the world shifted.