Han sat on the worn wooden steps of the hut, staring at the empty space where she had once been.
The girl was gone.
He had nursed her back to health, staying silently at her side, watching as the miraculous flower sap worked its magic. Day by day, her lifeless eyes had regained clarity, the cloudy film fading into the warmth of recognition.
He had not spoken to her throughout the entire period, he did not know her name nor her origins. He had just been staying quietly by her side.
And then, one day… she was just gone.
No note. No farewell.
Just a lingering emptiness that gnawed at the edges of his thoughts.
Han wasn't a sentimental man, but something about her departure unsettled him.
Had she been taken?
Or had she simply chosen to leave?
His only clue had been her faint footprints in the damp soil, leading away from the hut and disappearing into the thick underbrush.
Her tracks had been faint but not impossible to trace. He followed the subtle impressions of her steps—disturbed grass, broken twigs, and the lightest of prints in the soft earth.
The trail led him through the forest, across a shallow river, and toward Clearwater Village, a quiet settlement nestled in a valley. Smoke from cooking fires curled lazily into the sky, and the sound of merchants haggling in the square carried through the crisp morning air.
Han had entered the village unnoticed.
Clearwater was the kind of place where news traveled swiftly, so he had asked casual questions, never too direct. A young girl? About this tall?
A few villagers had seen her.
They said she had passed through.
No one could say where she had gone.
Han felt a twinge of irritation. He had half a mind to scour the entire village, but he had already learned that some things, some people—did not want to be found.
Still, he didn't leave immediately.
That was when he ran into a most irritating young man who challenged him to a drinking contest.
Han didn't like him immediately.
The young man carried himself with an easy, careless arrogance, his expression always hovering between a smirk and a look of mild amusement.
His laziness, his lack of worry, his irritating self-assurance. Han had spent years training, surviving, enduring—yet here was a man who looked as if he had never known a day of hardship in his life.
And so, before he even realized it, he had accepted the challenge.
One jug. Two jugs. Three jugs.
By the time they reached six, Han barely remembered why he had come to Clearwater in the first place. The last thing he recalled was the fool pounding the table, slurring something about destiny, and then promptly passing out face-first into his own drink.
When Han awoke, the girl's trail had gone cold.
Frustrated, he returned to the hut, hoping—perhaps foolishly—that she would come back.
But days passed.
And she never did.
Han had convinced himself to move on when the pendant flashed again.
A familiar pulse of energy surged from the small, ancient object hanging from his neck.
Then, a whisper—not spoken aloud, but embedded into his thoughts.
Recover the Rings of the Five Elements.
Han frowned. Rings?
The pendant had led him to the Twilight Spirit Bloom before—an item whose purpose he still did not fully understand. And now, it spoke of rings.
Five rings.
Worn by five highly skilled cultivators, the Guardians of the Void Realm.
Each ring represented one of the five elemental forces Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.
Han didn't ask why.
The pendant never explained itself.
It simply gave a direction.
He turned his gaze to the worn-out hut one last time, his fingers tracing over the doorframe as if committing it to memory.
The girl was truly gone, there was nothing left for him here.
He tightened his pack, adjusted his cloak, and took his first step toward the unknown.
The first ring. The first guardian.
Han didn't know why he was collecting these things, nor did he particularly care.
The pendant had led him this far.
And it had never been wrong.
Time to move.
Without hesitation, he stepped into the unknown once more.