"I woke up dizzy, my head throbbing, and my breath a bit weak.
The air around me was thin.
I pressed my hand against the ground and tried to draw in the surrounding qi, at least just enough to stabilize my core.
But it was faint and dull. I paused, frowning.
This isn't Yuehua.
The flow of spiritual energy here was weak—barely fit for foundational training.
It must be the Qiandi Realm (浅地界). A Beginner-Tier World. A realm for weak cultivators, low-ranking sects, and forgotten bloodlines.
How did I escape and end up here?
My head throbbed in pain, the seal on my chest was still smoldering with heat. I tried to rise, but my limbs protested. Pain flared across my body.
Not far off, I heard some voices.
It was quite young. It belonged to teenagers.
They were approaching.
I shut my eyes and lay still.
It was best to let them think I was unconscious for now until I figured out what was happening and how I got here.
"B-Brother!" a little girl's voice whispered. "Brother, what's that?"
"I don't know either." the older boy replied warily. "Could be a spirit beast."
They didn't say anything else for a moment. Then another one spoke.
"I think it's wounded. There's blood all over."
I kept my eyes closed and my breathing shallow. I could feel their qi. They seemed weak. They didn't seem so threatening.
"Should we leave him?" the older one asked. "We don't know who he is. He could be dangerous."
"But look!" the girl tugged at his sleeve. "He's hurt. There's blood on his robes. What if wild beasts come and eat him?"
"That's not our business."
"What if he dies?"
Then he paused for a moment.
The brother sighed. "You and your soft heart…"
Another voice entered then. It seemed to belong to an adult this time around.. he was clearly more mature than the first two. "What's going on?"
"Senior Brother Huo, look," the boy said quickly, "we found someone. He's unconscious and severely injured."
"Let me see."
I felt the qi shift. This one was stronger. Late Qi Condensation stage, perhaps. I wasn't sure if I would be able to handle this one and come out unscathed... I needed to test my spiritual strength. I could barely feel my qi stage.
"Hmm." Brother Hou stepped closer. I could feel his shadow fall over me. "His meridians are strained. He looks badly injured.. and I'm feeling a faint presence of some seals on his chest... It seems like a forbidden talisman. But I'm not too sure."
"Senior Brother," Liwei asked nervously, "what do we do then? Do we… Do we have to leave him here like brother said?"
"No," Huo said after a pause. "If he's a criminal, Sect Leader Xuan will judge him. If he's not… then we may have just saved a life."
A warm light brushed against my chest.
Healing qi.
He was checking me out and trying to heal my wounds.
"Let's take him to the sect," Huo said. "But keep your guard up. If he wakes and attacks, you run while I fight."
"Yes, Senior Brother."
Hands slid beneath me. I allowed my body to fall limp in their grasp. Even faking unconsciousness took effort. My dantian felt almost empty.
Still, one thought burned in my mind.
Rong Zhen.
Princess Mei.
Chiyan.
Wei lan.
They would all pay.
One day, the blood debt that I have with them would be accounted for.
And my people would rise again.
As I continued pretending to be unconscious. They carried me to their sect. I tried to connect to my inner spirit by entering the void.
I needed to reach him. The moon fang spirit.
I pushed into the void, searching for the wolf spirit that should've been coiled in my dantian, guarding me, lending me strength. My inheritance. The soul of my bloodline.
But there was nothing. I couldn't feel his presence at all.
Then all of a sudden a faint light sparked in the distance. I turned instinctively toward it, my feet continued moving over invisible ground. The void shifted into a purple mist, then stone, then snow. I walked through with a blurry vision, and slowly, the void started reshaping into a silver forest of bone-pale trees beneath an eternal moon.
A great cracked mirror stood at the center, veined with lines of red and black.
And right in front of it, lay the Moonfang spirit.
Its once-lustrous silver fur was matted with blood and ash. There were chains around him and he was covered in talismanic runes.
He had one eye closed and the other was opened weakly to look at me.
"…Kaien," the wolf's voice was low and hoarse.
I dropped to my knees before it.
It tried to rise, but the chains flared, forcing it down with a pained growl.
"What have they done to you?" I tried to move to unchain him but he stopped me with his words.
"There's no need to bother trying to help me. The seal they placed on you… is no ordinary suppression. It wasn't meant to only cripple you—it was meant to sever me completely."
My fists clenched.
"If that talisman had burned a moment longer," the wolf said, "I would have been erased. You… would have become a useless weakling. Rong zhen knew the secret to disabling a wolf spirit temporarily… I was frozen and when I came back to awareness. Everything that happened, had happened.
I gritted my teeth. "Wei Lan must have told him that too!" I just couldn't understand it, how could someone that was treated so lovingly by my family betray us in such a cruel unforgiving way. Was any of her words and actions ever true?
"I'm barely alive for now," Moonfang murmured, tail twitching faintly. "But my strength is greatly diminished. Your meridians are fractured. Your bloodline is almost fully damaged."
"How did we get here?" I whispered.