After seeing the Titans for the first time, the group wasted no time. They rushed deeper into the canyon as more and more of those monstrous beings descended from the clouds to consume the corpses below.

Nothing attacked them. Nothing even stirred. Everything here was shackled to death, bound in silence and decay. And yet, as they moved further in, the corpses they passed began to change. They no longer resembled beasts or aberrations; their shapes grew disturbingly familiar.

In other words, Human. Fortunately, one looked fresh enough to be one of the candidates.

Soon, they emerged from the gorge. The oppressive darkness seemed to deepen, folding over itself until the world around them became a suffocating void. And there, stretched out endlessly before them, lay a field of nothing but corpses, human corpses.

The group stopped dead in their tracks. Only Yi Shen kept walking, his pace steady, his eyes fixed forward. He followed a narrow trail that cut straight through the endless grave, a path worn by his own passage over the years.

Lena's chest tightened as her gaze swept over the bodies. A cold thought crossed her mind, 'These corpses… they look like they just died. What the fuck is going on?'

The stench of blood was sharp. Here, the feeling of death was not distant, not cold and lifeless. It was raw and heavy. The bodies had not rotted--their wounds gaped open as if freshly struck. The blood still glistened, wet and red, dripping from their armor, refusing to clot.

Her stomach twisted. She wanted to scream a question at Yi Shen, to demand what this place was and why these bodies appeared fresh, but the large man was already too far ahead, his figure swallowed by the endless grave.

Then, while she was processing the scene laid out for her, it came again. That feeling. The same suffocating pull she had felt before. A sense that the ground itself was stirring her memories.

At that moment, Lena's heart churned, her chest ached, and her vision blurred when tears welled in her eyes before she even realized it.

"Why… why do I feel like I've been here before?" she whispered.

Her steps slowed. A detail snared her gaze. The corpses were not all the same. Some wore armors she recognized, patterns etched into steel she had seen once before.

One body in particular called to her. Drawn by instinct, Lena bent down, whispering a prayer beneath her breath. The dead man had a spear going through his back and coming out of his stomach. It was a disgusting sight, one that would bring nightmares because the man looked like he had just died. The frightening look was still there, plastered on his face like pain.

"Forgive me for disturbing your rest."

Her fingers hovered, then reached for the corpse's armor. She tried, out of habit, to freeze the blood clinging to it—but the moment her ice touched, it shattered, dissipating as if the body itself rejected it.

Grinding her teeth, Lena pushed forward. Her hands grew slick with blood as she pressed her palms against the breastplate, tracing its surface. The grooves. The shape. The faint enchantment marks that lingered.

She knew this work because Lena was a swordsman, yes, but also a swordsmith just like her mother. She had honed her craft with obsession after surviving the Crimson Tower and realizing that strength alone was never enough. She had studied weapons, enchantments, and the history etched into the steel of her clan in hopes that she created the perfect weapon one day.

And while she studied the special metal, what she felt beneath her fingertips now was unmistakable. Her palm brushed across the surface of the armor, slow and deliberate, until her hand stopped dead at the center.

A sudden chill clawed its way up her spine. Lena's grey eyes widened, fixed on the markings etched into the blood-stained steel.

"This… this is impossible."

"What is?" Leo stepped forward quickly, drawn by the urgency in her tone.

"This… this armor was marked by someone of House Feng."

Leo froze, confusion flickering across his face.

"Marked by House Feng…?" Sophie pushed past him, her expression hard. "That's impossible. Are you certain? I know you're the strongest among us, Lena, but that would mean that he's from your Clan."

Lena lingered, fingers still pressed against the grooves of the armor. Her voice dropped to a whisper, heavy with disbelief, "This one… he is from my clan. At least, that's what I can tell from this armor. It was made by a House Feng weapons master."

"A Weapons Master from your clan made this?"

Lena nodded.

"Top clan members are connected by blood. The one who made this armor is connected to me by blood. You see, professional weapon masters often mark their finest products with blood. And this…is marked with the blood of Feng."

'But this is too old to be made by a Feng I know.' Suddenly, Lena was afraid of what she was digging into. How could such armor exist before the fall?

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Sophie's gaze flicked to Leo, the two exchanging a heavy silence before Sophie leaned closer to the corpse. She studied it briefly, then let out a sigh. "We need to keep moving. Yi Shen has the answers to this. He must have," she said with uncertainty clinging to her tone. She too couldn't make sense of what was going on.

Lena let her hand fall from the corpse, her stomach still knotted with unease. Without another word, the cohort followed Yi Shen deeper into the graveyard.

Eventually, he led them to a half-collapsed structure, its ruined bones hiding a narrow passage beneath. The group descended into the underground. The air grew colder, heavier, and yet the oppressive darkness did not hinder them because of the threads of energy that clung to the walls and guided them forward.

At first, they thought it was Zenshi. But when Lena reached out, the energy recoiled violently, pulling away as though it despised her touch. It made her more curious about who exactly Yi Shen is and what this place is.

The silence weighed thicker with every step until, at last, they reached the end. Yi Shen halted and turned to face them, his voice low and grave.

"Do not speak if you want to live."

Carefully, he lowered the headless woman's body to the ground. Placing both hands on the wall ahead, he began to murmur in a language none of them understood. Symbols flared across the stone surface, glowing with alien light as it transformed into an entrance to something.

Then, it dissolved into nothingness, revealing a straight, wide corridor beyond.

"Follow."

Yi Shen seized the woman's body by the leg and dragged her along the stone floor. The sound of flesh scraping echoed through the silence.

None of the others dared to speak. They moved after him in tense quiet, step by step, until the corridor opened into a vast chamber.

At its center stood a simple stone fountain. It was ancient, cracked, yet flowing with a liquid that shimmered unnaturally in the dark.

The chamber was vast—large enough to hold thousands—yet it stood nearly empty. No crowd, no army, only towering shelves of ancient tomes, scattered relics, and the faint echo of dripping water.

Lena shivered. The air here was different. Colder. The temperature plummeted so suddenly that her suit's regulator whirred to life, but it did little. Her breath fogged before her eyes. That was impossible; her body was not supposed to feel cold.

With that deduction, Lena quickly realized something worse.

"The Zenshi in my body…."

"…is gone." Leo finished flatly, stepping forward with a scoff. The air rippled as his star sword burst into being, drawn to his hand in a flash of radiant light. He raised the blade, eyes narrowing. "This stinks of a trap."

Yi Shen, standing beside the altar where he had lain the headless woman's body, finally turned to them. His gaze lingered on Leo before he spoke, voice low and almost weary.

"If I wanted to trap you, Leo Grant, I would have done so long ago." His eyes moved across the group, cold and steady. "Your Zenshi was not taken to harm you—it was stripped away to hide you from the gaze of fate. The Heavenly Order is clever beyond measure. I had to be cautious."

Leo frowned, the grip on his sword tightening. "The Heavenly Order? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Yi Shen lifted a huge hand and pointed toward the fountain at the center of the room.

"Drink from it. Its stream flows from the Lake in the Dreaming. Once it touches your soul, it will sever you from fate as well. But the magic is strong, so you might feel it tear through you. It will not be pleasant."

He turned away as if that ended the matter, but Lena's voice cut across the silence.

"…Why?" Her grey eyes narrowed, her voice sharp. "Why do we need to be split from fate?"

"How should I know?" Yi Shen's voice carried the weight of old iron. "I was cut from fate when I died. But they say…it confuses our enemies."

"Our enemies?" Lena's brows furrowed.

"It won't make sense until you're free," Yi Shen replied, his tone flat yet deliberate. He could only say enough not to trigger the curse."You and this group are vital to my mission, so rest assured - this is for the best. I will have something prepared for you when you wake up."

With that said, Yi Shen lowered himself onto a chair large enough to hold his towering frame, its stone groaning under his weight. From his seat, he watched Lena and her cohort with the patience of one who had seen this all before.

Perhaps he had. He was not guiding them of his own will. He was following a plan set in motion by the woman in white, who had foretold this gathering thousands of years ago. Yi Shen had only agreed to this because he just wanted the Heavenly Order to fall.

And though his memory had frayed like rotting cloth, Yi Shen knew one thing: his master, Storm Rider, had spoken of Lena Feng centuries ago.

Maybe that's why he returned from the dead, to make sure that Lena Feng is guided to the True Path. Perhaps the Nightmare had informed him of her coming because the Dream Lord knew something, too.

'This memory of mine betrays me still,' he thought, silent and grim. 'I don't even remember what I traded for my second chance. What darkness did I summon, what power did I bend, to crawl back into this existence looking like this?'

The questions gnawed at him, but no answer came. Only the cold certainty that he was alive for a reason that connects him to Eden, Lena Feng, and her sister, who was currently training in the Astral Vigil.

"Drink from the fountain and I will tell you of the secrets of our worlds. I'm sure you all have questions?" He snapped his fingers and smiled to reveal the line of rotten black and yellow teeth. "But I cannot tell you anything until

Hearing Yi Shen's words, Regan, the most curious of them all, moved before anyone could stop him. He rushed to the fountain, bent low, and plunged his face into the shimmering surface.

The water rippled with strange light as he swallowed gulps of its magic.

When he emerged a minute later, gasping, his body convulsed violently. He collapsed onto the cold stone floor as his soul gate ignited. Zenshi erupted from him in a torrent, engulfing him in blue flames that licked and roared but did not burn.

The others could only watch. His teeth clenched so hard they threatened to crack, his body writhing as if every nerve was being peeled raw. The smell of scorched essence hung heavy in the air. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the flames died down.

Regan lay still, his skin slick with sweat. His chest heaved, and in the faint light his pale complexion carried a strange, ethereal glow.

And then, while he was still processing the pain, he was struck by a vision that clawed its way out of the abyss of his mind.

He was no longer in the chamber but standing in a cramped office. The room smelled of dust and old parchment, its air thick with the evening quiet. Orange sunlight bled through a crooked window, painting long shadows across the floor.

Beside him stood Diana Artemis, his classmate. Her presence was vivid, grounding, her youthful face caught in the dying light.

However, what actually drew his gaze was the figure across--someone sat casually on the edge of the desk, arms crossed. Her features were blurred at first. Then, slowly, clarity crawled in—the short dark hair, the petite frame, the mischievous smirk tugging at her lips.

Her face remained indistinct, as though forbidden to take shape. And yet, her name rang clear, chiming in his soul like a long-forgotten bell.

"Professor Lunaris."

Just then, the shackles of Fate shook and something in the Balance shifted.

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