The silence after a battle was unlike any other.
It wasn't peace.
It was pressure—coiled like a snake, waiting to strike again.
Ren Zhe stood in the ruined street, the godborn unconscious beneath his boot, the Heavensplitter blade humming softly nearby. The gathered crowd of civilians hadn't dared approach, but they hadn't fled either.
They watched.
Some with awe. Some with terror.
Some with… hope.
Meimei stood at his side, clutching her wrist. The Thornflower sigil burned hot beneath her skin, its black petals still unfurling like a lotus born in shadow.
"We need to leave," she said softly.
"They'll be coming," Ren Zhe agreed.
"Who? The Empress?"
"Not yet," he murmured. "She won't move until she's sure. But others? They'll test the waters."
His gaze drifted to the heavens.
The clouds were wrong.
They shimmered with pale light—not moonlight, but divination silk woven by imperial soothsayers.
They were watching.
The Puppeteer's Approach
Across the sky, a figure drifted down from the clouds like a petal caught in the wind.
She wore no armor, no weapon.
Only a mask—white porcelain with red ink swirls—and dozens of silken threads trailing from her long sleeves, glimmering like the strings of an instrument not yet played.
Ren Zhe narrowed his eyes.
"A Soul Puppeteer," he said.
"What does that mean?" Meimei asked, her voice tight.
"It means she's not here to fight me."
The figure descended slowly, landing with barely a whisper in the dust.
"I'm here," she said, voice like wind chimes, "to reclaim imperial property."
Her gaze shifted to the fallen godborn.
Ren Zhe stepped between them.
"He's not yours anymore."
The Puppeteer tilted her head. "He was born from our soul forge. We shaped him from marrow and myth. He is ours."
"He is broken," Ren Zhe said. "And breakable things are no longer useful to tyrants."
She lifted a hand. The silk threads rippled.
One of them extended forward, brushing the air near Ren Zhe's face.
He didn't move.
"Interesting," she whispered. "You aren't bound by the Great Scripts. Not anymore."
"No," he said. "I write my own."
Strings of Memory
The Puppeteer's threads danced.
Each one hummed with forgotten memories—stolen thoughts from saints, sinners, and slain gods. She flicked her wrist and a hundred threads lanced forward.
Ren Zhe moved.
He did not dodge.
He absorbed them.
The threads sank into his skin and coiled around his Grave Shards.
For a moment, Meimei saw his eyes change.
They became… crowded.
A thousand souls, screaming at once.
He staggered.
The Puppeteer smiled. "Even you cannot bear the burden of my orchestra."
But then Ren Zhe did something she hadn't expected.
He laughed.
"I've held millions in the dark," he said, voice echoing with the weight of ten thousand years. "Do you think your choir can drown me?"
And then he inhaled.
The threads snapped.
Not cut.
Consumed.
The Puppeteer stumbled back.
"You—what did you do?"
Ren Zhe looked at his hand, now wrapped in writhing red-black mist.
"Your strings were tasty."
Pact in the Shadows
In the moments that followed, the Puppeteer retreated—not in fear, but calculation.
"I will return," she said, voice trembling.
Ren Zhe let her go.
Because now he had something else.
The godborn boy stirred, coughing silver blood.
Meimei helped him sit up.
He looked at her, confused.
"Who… am I?"
She looked to Ren Zhe, who answered:
"You were a weapon."
"And now?"
Ren Zhe crouched, placing a hand on the boy's chest.
"Now you get to choose."
"I don't remember anything."
"You will."
"How?"
Ren Zhe drew a line on the boy's forehead—an ancient sigil in blood.
"Because I've buried things deeper than memory. And even they rise."
The sigil burned.
The boy gasped—and for a moment, his pupils became stars.
He collapsed again.
"Will he live?" Meimei asked.
"Yes. But he needs time."
"What's his name?"
Ren Zhe stared into the distance.
"He once had one. But we'll give him a new one. One not tied to a leash."
The Pact
That night, beneath the ruins of the old forge temple, Ren Zhe and Meimei formed a pact.
The Thornflower Pact.
One root. Two blooms.
Bound by vengeance.
Nurtured by shadow.
And watered with imperial blood.
Meimei spoke the words, her voice steady even as her mark bled black thorns.
"I vow to walk the thorned path, no matter how many gods it cuts."
Ren Zhe followed, his hand on her shoulder.
"And I vow to burn the heavens that buried us."
As the pact formed, the world shifted.
Literally.
The grave beneath the city—the one even the nobles feared to speak of—trembled.
And in its depths, something stirred.
The Empress Reacts Again
In the Observation Tower, Empress Xiyan's eyes narrowed.
"He took the strings," she murmured. "That should be impossible."
"It was impossible," Zhuan whispered.
"Then we need to rewrite what's possible."
She turned from the mirror and gestured to the map of the realm.
"Activate the Deep Scour. I want every hidden grave, cursed grove, and sealed ruin uncovered."
"Even the Night Sanctums?"
"Especially them."
"And the boy?"
"He's already lost."
"What about the girl?"
Xiyan smiled.
"She bloomed. That means her bloodline is waking. Which means—" She paused.
"—our time is running out."
The Ghost King Awakens
Far to the north, across the ash plains of Nul'Tai, a gate split open.
From within, a figure stepped out.
Tall. Thin. Wearing robes stitched from funeral chants.
Eyes glowing with voidfire.
He was the Ghost King of the Ninth Sanctum, sealed ten thousand years ago by the first emperor.
He stepped into the world—and immediately turned south.
He felt the Thornflower Pact.
He remembered the name Ren Zhe.
"Finally," he whispered. "The Graveborn stirs again."
Ending Hook
That night, Ren Zhe buried the Heavensplitter blade in the roots of the old temple.
He didn't want it.
Not yet.
Too many memories.
Too much blood.
But before leaving, he whispered something into the earth.
A name.
The blade twitched.
And from the sky, a single black feather fell.