The God-Tomb was no longer silent.
It pulsed—like a tumor growing inside the world.
Jin carried Qilin's trembling form in his arms as he ascended the bone path. The statues of the chained gods had begun to weep blood, their stone eyes watching him with ancient grief.
The Hunger's voice still echoed inside her body.
Every few steps, Qilin would twitch, and something not her would laugh.
"Almost free," it whispered. "Only one more lock. Only one more scream. And you, little heir, will open the gate yourself."
Jin clenched his jaw.
No. He would not lose her.
Not again.
They emerged from the gate just as it sealed behind them, slamming shut with a boom that shook the dead forest surrounding the Gravepath.
Night had fallen.
But this night was wrong.
The stars were missing.
The moon was pale and cracked.
And every shadow watched.
Qilin's body twisted in his arms. Her skin pulsed with strange glyphs—runic spirals crawling like worms under her flesh. Her heartbeat had stopped, replaced by a rhythmic pulse.
He laid her down in the shallow clearing near the grave mound where his own story had begun.
And then he carved a formation around her.
One forbidden. One stolen from the tombs of the Cult of Thorns.
He needed to bind her soul before it was consumed completely.
And to do that… he had to enter it.
He slashed his palm, letting his blood drip into the circle.
Then, he knelt, pressed two fingers to her forehead, and murmured the incantation.
His consciousness blurred.
The world shattered.
And he fell into her mind.
He landed in a garden.
No.
A graveyard pretending to be a garden.
Dead trees bore glass fruit. The air shimmered with whispers. The sky was a cracked mirror.
Qilin stood beneath a bleeding willow, her back to him, hair drifting like ink in water.
But it wasn't her.
The thing wearing her skin turned.
Her eyes were starless voids. Her smile was a child's drawing—too wide, too flat.
"You came," it said in her voice. "I knew you would."
He didn't speak. Words would only feed it.
Instead, Jin summoned his blade.
Not Mourningfang.
Not now.
This was soul-space.
So he summoned the only weapon that mattered here.
His will.
The blade formed in his hand—simple, silver, shaped like a grave marker.
The Hunger cocked its head.
"Oh. So you still remember. Good. That makes it more fun."
They clashed.
The graveyard groaned.
Each strike of his soul-will shattered memories around them—childhood laughter turned to screams, flowers into ash.
The Hunger laughed with every blow, but its form began to flicker.
"You're burning her, too, you know," it whispered.
Jin didn't stop.
Because he knew the truth.
He wasn't burning Qilin.
He was cutting out the infection.
The blade sang as it pierced the false form.
The thing screamed, not in pain—but in delight.
"You'll regret this. When she wakes up—she'll remember me. And when you're gone… I'll still be there. Watching. Waiting."
With one final strike, Jin drove the blade into its chest.
And whispered, "Then I'll leave a piece of myself, too."
Qilin's scream echoed as he was flung out of her soul.
Back to the grave clearing.
Her body jerked once.
Twice.
And then—stillness.
Then a gasp.
A real one.
Her eyes fluttered open.
Silver. Flickering.
But her own.
"…Jin?" she croaked.
He nodded, voice rough. "I'm here."
She burst into tears.
And he held her until dawn.
When the sun rose, it was not golden.
It was blood-orange.
And the sky wept ash.
Qilin sat by the fire, wrapped in his cloak, sipping bitter root tea. Her voice was hoarse.
"I saw it. In the garden. The thing. The Hunger. It… it's been in me for a long time."
Jin said nothing.
She looked up at him.
"It wants you. Not to kill you. To wear you."
"I know."
She set the cup down.
"We need help."
He raised a brow. "Who?"
Qilin hesitated.
"Your sister."
Jin froze.
"…You mean—"
Qilin nodded.
"The Empress of Ash. She's alive. And she's looking for you."
They left that day.
The Gravepath behind them burned, the gate now sealed by something stronger than stone.
They traveled through the Bleeding Hills, where the rain carved memories into the stone. Through the Obsidian Marches, where cultivators hunted ghosts for merit points.
Jin kept his hood low. His power hidden.
But rumors spread.
Whispers.
A pale man in bone robes.
A woman with starfire eyes.
And a blade that wept when drawn.
One tale said he was a ghost who walked from his own grave.
Another claimed he was the last heir of the Hollow Crown.
And another—told in hushed tones around ash-fires—said the Nameless Hunger walked beside him, chained in love.
They arrived at the Ashen Spire—a fortress carved into the side of a volcano, surrounded by floating runes of binding.
Qilin looked up at the storm clouds circling it.
"She's in there."
Jin's gaze hardened.
He hadn't seen his sister in ten thousand years.
Back then, she was a child.
Now, she ruled a continent.
He reached for Mourningfang.
Not to draw it.
But to remind himself that he wasn't the boy they had buried.
He was the thing that crawled out.
And whatever came next—
He was ready to burn the world.