The transition didn't come with the celestial hum of the system space or the sterile scent of Muchen's laboratory. It arrived with the heavy, cloying stench of rot.
Mingzhe's first breath was a mistake. The air was thick with the copper tang of baked blood and the bitter, oily smoke of smoldering grain. He didn't open his eyes immediately; he let his senses map the new reality first. The ground beneath him was uneven, a slurry of cold mud and stiffened fabric. Above, the silence was absolute, save for the dry, rhythmic flap-flap of wings and the distant, lonely caw of a crow.
[Host...] Yize's voice was a mere thimble of sound, vibrating nervously near his ear. [I think we are somewhere very un-unsafe...] His voice trembled a little.
Mingzhe opened his eyes. Grey ribbons of smoke drifted across a valley choked with the debris of a massacre. Broken shields jutted from the muck like headstones, and spears stood crookedly against the horizon like bared teeth. He was surrounded by a sea of rust-red silk and bronze plating—soldiers who had died in a formation that had clearly been shattered by a terrifying force.
He sat up slowly, his movements fluid and silent. He wasn't dressed as a student anymore. His new form wore the tattered remains of a scholar's robe, stained with the dust of the road.
"Which side are we on, Yize?" Mingzhe asked, his voice a calm contrast to the carnage.
[Technically? Neither,] Yize whispered, flickering into view. [You're a displaced scholar in a region caught between the Great Yan and the Southern Barbarian. But more importantly... look at the armor.]
Mingzhe crouched beside a fallen soldier, his fingers tracing the lamellar design. The bronze was thick, dented by heavy blunt force trauma rather than clean sword strokes. This wasn't a skirmish; it was a meat grinder.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound of heavy, exhausted footsteps vibrating through the earth cut the silence.
[Host! There are people coming!]
Mingzhe didn't hesitate. He snatched a blood soaked cloak from a nearby corpse, draped it over his shoulders, and collapsed into a pile of the fallen. He stilled his breath, slowing his heart rate with the practiced ease of a soul who had lived a thousand years.
"Damned vultures," a gravelly voice spat, followed by the sound of a boot hitting a shield. "They've already picked the corpses clean of coin."
"Forget the gold, Han," another soldier grunted, the metallic clink of salvage echoing. "Pick up the arrowheads. The quartermaster said if we return with empty bags again, we'll be eating bark for dinner. Iron is running out."
"Again?" the first one scoffed. "The court calls us the strongest army in the south, yet we're picking iron from the dead like beggars."
A shadow fell over Mingzhe. He felt the vibration of a soldier crouching just inches away. A rough hand grabbed the shoulder of the body Mingzhe was leaning against, flipping it over with a wet thud.
"Still warm," the soldier muttered. Mingzhe felt a spray of dirt as the man spat on the ground. "Doesn't matter. The General will attack again at dawn. Dead today, dead tomorrow so what's the difference?"
"....You mean him?"
"Who else?"
"Ten li," his companion called out, sounding impatient. "The scouts say his vanguard is already choking the river crossings. Those bastards move like ghosts. If we don't get back to camp, we'll be ghosts too."
The footsteps receded, dragging the sound of clanking metal with them into the fog.
Mingzhe opened his eyes. He sat up, shaking the dried blood from his sleeve as if it were nothing more than spilled tea. He looked toward the horizon, where the setting sun cast long, bloody shadows across the plain.
Ten li away, a massive dark silhouette dominated the landscape. It wasn't just a camp; it was a sprawling city of iron and canvas. Banners black as a starless night fluttered in the rising wind.
[Host... hnnngg that sounded bad,] Yize murmured, his glow a faint, worried blue.
[Our landing point isn't supposed to be here. If we were a bit early, we're gonna be corpses too.] Yize said aggrievely. He knows the journey will be harder but he didn't expect the level is already this extreme.
Mingzhe studied the enemy encampment. He saw the disciplined rotation of the guard patrols, the strategic placement of the supply wagons, and the way the forge smoke rose in steady, organized pillars.
"Disciplined," Mingzhe noted, a sharp, intrigued glint appearing in his eyes. "And desperate for resources."
[Host... what are you doing?] Yize squeaked as Mingzhe began walking but not away from the camp, directly toward it.
"The battlefield is for scavengers and ghosts, Yize," Mingzhe said, his pace steady as he navigated the sea of corpses. "But a war camp? A camp has routines. It has hierarchies. It has needs."
He paused, looking back at the valley of the dead one last time before turning toward the black banners.
"A bad landing point is just the world consciousness throwing a tantrum," Mingzhe added, a faint, dangerous smile playing on his lips, "I'll go and find out where my husband is but before that we have to choose a side."
[But Host! You're just a scholar! You're going to sneak into the most guarded fortress in the East?!]
Mingzhe smoothed his tattered robes, his aura shifting from a weary survivor to something cold, sharp, and undeniably regal.
"I didn't cross universes to play it safe, Yize. I came to get my husband." His eyes glint with determination.
[STOP! HOST, STOP!] Yize suddenly zipped in front of Mingzhe's face, his glow turning a frantic, flickering red. He expanded his tiny form, acting like a soft, glowing wall against Mingzhe's chest. [You cannot simply walk into a lion's den without knowing if the lion eats scholars for breakfast or sport! The world consciousness is already watching us like a hawk!]
Mingzhe paused, his brow arching slightly. "Information is indeed a weapon, Yize. But time is a luxury these dead men didn't have. Speak quickly."
[Sit! Sit down!] Yize gestured to a relatively clean boulder near the edge of the corpse-strewn valley. As Mingzhe sat, Yize began to channel a stream of blue light, a scroll of spiritual energy unfurling between them.
[The world is fractured…] Yize began.
Mingzhe's eyes flicked to the horizon. Smoke still rose from a half-collapsed forge. Patrols circled the camp like sharks. Each step he took had to count.
[To the North... Great Yan. To the South... Coalition of Eight Tribes. They've been at war for twenty years.]
The wind carried the stench of burned grain and iron. "Twenty years," Mingzhe murmured. "And yet their banners still fly. They endure."
Mingzhe leaned his weight against the boulder, his eyes narrowing as he watched a distant patrol. Their movements were heavy, lacking the crisp snap of an elite vanguard.
One soldier dragged his pike, the iron tip screeching against stone—a sound that spoke of discipline eroding under the weight of exhaustion.
[Endure? Host, they are barely clinging to life!] Yize's glow flickered a frantic, jagged violet. The blue scroll of light between them trembled as Yize's tiny hands shook. [The Great Yan is a hollow tree, and the Southern Tribes are the termites! And you... you are sitting here like you're at a poetry recital while we are surrounded by fifty thousand hungry men!]
Mingzhe didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on a line of supply wagons entering the camp's rear. They sat high on their axles, bouncing over ruts with a hollow rattle that betrayed their emptiness.
"Twenty years of blood," Mingzhe said softly, his voice like silk over whetstone. "But look at the smoke from those forges, Yize. It is thin and grey, not the thick black of coal-fired heat. They are burning green wood and old furniture. Their steel will be brittle tonight."
[Who cares about the carbon content of their swords?!] Yize screeched, hovering inches from Mingzhe's nose. [I literally brought you here to be the 'beloved' of a soul fragment, not a military auditor! I didn't sign up to throw you into a literal meat grinder! If we die here, I swear I'm haunting your consciousness in every world until you regret it! I'll be the itch you can't reach! I'll be the permanent lag in your system!]
Mingzhe reached out, his finger gently bopping the glowing ball of light. "Hush. If the world is a stage, then the scenery tells the truth that the actors try to hide. Look there."
He pointed toward the picket lines. Several warhorses stood with heads bowed low, their ribs visible beneath dull coats. A groom was trying to patch a saddle with strips of raw, untreated hide—a crude fix that would only gall the animal further.
"The cavalry is crippled," Mingzhe noted, his strategist's mind already spinning threads of gold from the straw of their desperation.
"The infantry is malnourished, and the smiths are recycling rusted scrap. They are not an army of conquest but are an army waiting for a funeral."
Mingzhe's eyes shifted toward the dark heart of the camp, five kilometers away, where the largest black banner stood. Even from this distance, he could feel a faint, thrumming resonance—a cold, sharp energy that felt like a blade held to the throat of the world.
[Host, the system has detected the soul fragment but...] Yize's eyes wandered here and there. It looks like he wanted to trick Mingzhe.
It was Muchen. Mingzhe won't mistake this feeling of faint tugs and pulls in his soul.
The air between them seemed to vibrate with a predatory tension, a silent call across the valley of the dead. Five kilometers of blood-soaked mud and starving men lay between them, yet Mingzhe felt as if he could already hear the General's labored, lonely heartbeat.
"Ten li," Mingzhe whispered, a dangerous, elegant smile finally touching his lips. "Close enough for him to smell the change in the wind."
[Host... please,] Yize whimpered, his glow softening into a pleading blue. [I want you to be a cute Host. Just... stay cute? Don't go in there and do something terrifying.]
Mingzhe stood up, the tattered scholar's robes swirling around his ankles like a king's mantle. He paused, his sharp eyes sweeping the valley. The air was thick with copper and rot, the smell clinging to his skin and hair.
[Host… now what?] Yize's glow flickered anxiously.
Mingzhe sniffed delicately. A faint frown tugged at his lips. "No. I cannot meet him like this."
[What? But..] Yize sputtered, his glow jittering. [You're literally lying in mud and blood! There's no time for...]
"Time is precious," Mingzhe said calmly, brushing a hand through his hair, now matted with sweat and grime. "But a scholar must be presentable. A clean soul hosts a sharp mind."
Before Yize could protest further, Mingzhe's eyes scanned the valley. A thin silver thread wound across the battlefield—smoke rising from a narrow river. A minor tributary, overlooked by patrols.
He started walking, graceful despite the muck, following the stream. Yize zipped after him, glowing violet in frustration.
[Host! Are you seriously going to wash yourself in the middle of a warzone?!]
"I'm not gonna compromising my dignity," Mingzhe said, dipping his sleeve into the river. The water hissed faintly against dried blood, carrying the scent of iron downstream. "A gentleman must meet his husband as himself, not as a corpse among corpses."
Yize groaned, flapping uselessly. [Fine...but can you at least pick up speed? Every second you spend bathing, the enemy camp breathes easier!]
Mingzhe ignored the frantic buzzing of his system, his movements deliberate as he knelt by the water's edge. The tributary was shallow, choked in places by broken cart wheels and discarded reeds, but the current remained persistent a cold, silver blade cutting through the filth of the valley.
He shed the blood soaked outer cloak, letting the heavy, fouled fabric sink into the silt. With a grace that seemed to defy the surrounding rot, he began to cleanse himself. The water was frigid, biting at his skin like needles of ice, but Mingzhe didn't so much as shiver.
"Dignity is the first line of defense, Yize," Mingzhe murmured, his voice cool and melodic against the backdrop of distant, clashing iron. "If I appear before a man who has lost his faith in humanity looking like a bedraggled beggar, I am merely another mouth to feed. But if I appear as a sage amidst the ruins... I am a portent."
[A portent who is going to freeze to death!] Yize hissed, hovering over a patch of dry grass and vibrating to generate heat. [Look at those horses on the ridge, Host! Even the beasts look like they've given up on the Great Yan. And you're over here doing skincare!]
Mingzhe's eyes flicked to the ridge. Three cavalry scouts were silhouetted against the bruised purple of the twilight sky. Their mounts stood with sagging haunches, the animals' breath coming in ragged, labored plumes. Even from this distance, Mingzhe noted the lack of luster in their coats malnutrition had reached the marrow.
"They have no salt," Mingzhe noted, his fingers scrubbing the last of the copper scent from his wrists. "Their hooves are brittle because the soil here is acidic and their feed is nothing but damp chaff. A simple mineral supplement would restore their mobility in a week. Yet, they starve in a land rich with limestone."
[Host... how do you even know the soil pH by looking at a horse's shadow?!] Yize's frustration turned into a weary, begrudging awe. [Is your talent is even more powerful than all the elite cards here?!]
"It is called observation, little light. Everything speaks, if you know how to read it." Mingzhe stood, his inner robes damp but clean, his long hair slicked back from a forehead that glowed pale and regal in the dying light. He looked less like a survivor of a massacre and more like a celestial being who had stepped out of a painting into a nightmare.
Ten li away, a single horn blast echoed through the valley—a low, mournful sound that felt like the earth itself was groaning. It was the signal for the night watch. In that moment, a sudden, sharp prick of cold raced down Mingzhe's spine.
He turned his head toward the Black Tent.
[DING!]
[System Alert: Resonance spike detected. Target Soul Fragment is currently experiencing a mental instability event.]
"He is restless," Mingzhe whispered, his eyes darkening. He didn't wait for Yize to prompt him. He moved, his pace no longer a drift but a swift, silent glide toward the camp's perimeter.
[Host! Wait! You're still damp!] Yize zipped around Mingzhe, glowing a frantic swirl of blue and violet. He flapped his tiny wings, sending sparks of light that puffed like miniature fireworks. [Every second you linger here, the patrols sniff you out! You can't just... preen while surrounded by fifty thousand men!]
Mingzhe tilted his head, a faint smile playing at the corner of his lips. "Preen? I call it preparation. Even a scholar in a river of blood deserves dignity."
Yize let out a long, almost theatrical groan and hovered low to the ground. [Fine. Then I shall enforce protocol!] He zipped ahead, creating a faint, warm shimmer in the cool twilight. "Step there! Don't touch that corpse—it's sticky with iron! Move two paces left! Your robe will snag on that root!"
Mingzhe's eyes glimmered with amusement. He obeyed, but slowly, deliberately, testing the river's current as if it were a ceremonial bath. The silt clung stubbornly to his ankles, and he frowned slightly, muttering, "This river is no proper cleansing agent... yet acceptable for survival."
[Acceptable?!] Yize flailed, nearly colliding with Mingzhe's shoulder. [We are not here to critique water quality! You are supposed to sneak, not spa!]
Mingzhe's fingers brushed at a smear of mud, meticulously wiping it away with a corner of his inner robe. "Every detail matters, Yize. Appearance is strategy. You cannot inspire fear or love if the vessel is foul."
The tiny orb huffed, trailing sparks like angry fireflies. [Fear, love, strategy... I literally brought you to recover your husband, not lecture the corpses!]
Finally, Mingzhe straightened. His hair was slicked back, the robe pristine, every fold perfectly aligned. He glanced down at the river as if inspecting it for residual impurities. "Much better. Now... we proceed."
[We proceed?] Yize's glow dimmed to a worried flicker. [Do you even understand what that means? You're still wet. The patrols-]
"I am aware," Mingzhe interrupted softly. His voice was calm, almost hypnotic. "I also know the habits of men, the rotation of guards, and the scent of fear that lingers even in mud." He stepped onto the bank, damp hems sticking lightly to his ankles, yet his presence seemed to part the air around him, drawing an invisible line of command.
Yize blinked, exasperated but helpless. [You—ugh! I give up! Just... please don't inspect every dead horse on the way, okay?!]
Mingzhe inclined his head, eyes already fixed on the dark heart of the camp. "No distractions. Our path is forward." Yet, he added, pausing to flick his sleeve lightly, removing a speck of silt, "we do not run headlong into chaos. A clean approach is a clever approach."
With that, he began his glide across the valley, silent and elegant, Yize buzzing behind him like a panicked halo, occasionally flicking sparks to warn him of unseen obstacles. Every step was measured, every movement deliberate. The enemy camp lay ten li away, but with Mingzhe in pristine robes and Yize begrudgingly guiding him, even this battlefield of corpses, mud, and rot seemed... almost navigable.
..........
Inside the Great Black Tent, the only light came from a dying brazier, its embers a dull, resentful orange. Yan He sat on a low stool, his massive frame hunched over a map that had begun to curl from the damp.
For ten years, this had been his world: cold iron, wet canvas, and the copper scent of blood that no amount of scrubbing could ever truly remove from his skin.
He lifted a hand, staring at the callouses and the faint, permanent tremors in his fingers. He was the Third Prince of the Great Yan, a man whose birth was greeted with a solar eclipse and whose life had been lived in the shadows of that omen. His father, the Emperor, was a man whose heart had rotted long before the empire's borders did, a man who preferred the sweet smoke of incense and the flattery of eunuchs to the harsh truth of a starving vanguard.
"General..."
A voice drifted through the heavy curtain. It was Lieutenant Han, his voice rasping with the dry cough of a man who had been breathing forge smoke and dust for too long.
"Enter," Yan He commanded. His voice was a low rumble, the sound of a landslide held back by a single thread.
Han stepped in, his head bowed. He didn't look at the map. He looked at his commander's boots. "The report for the day, General. We lost another forty men in the skirmish at the river crossing. Not to the Southern spears, but to... to the exhaustion. They simply stopped moving."
Yan He's jaw tightened. "And the salvage?"
"Three hundred arrowheads, mostly notched. Six bronze plates. No grain," Han whispered, his shoulders sagging. "The supply line from the capital... the scouts say the carts were diverted to the Fourth Prince's summer estate. For a 'banquet of spring flowers'."
A cold, bitter laugh escaped Yan He's throat.
A banquet of flowers while his men picked iron from the teeth of the dead. His father wasn't just corrupted, he was a cancer. The Great Yan was an ancient, majestic tree, but its roots were being eaten away by the very people it sheltered.
"The world is sick, Han," Yan He murmured, his eyes fixed on the flickering embers. "It is festering with greed and old lies. It needs healing."
And so do I, he thought, though he did not speak the words.
For a decade, he had tried to be the surgeon. He had thought that by bathing his body in the warm blood of his enemies, he could cauterize the wounds of the empire.
He had thought that by becoming a Demon, he could protect the saints. But as he sat in the silence, he realized he had done nothing but add to the mountain of corpses. He was a God of War who had forgotten the taste of peace, a savior who had become a curse.
He felt the "red fog" in his mind begin to swirl. It felt like a physical weight, a pressure behind his eyes that told him the madness was winning.
"General!" Another soldier burst through the flap, his chest heaving. "A report from the outer picket!"
Yan He's hand flew to his sword hilt, his predatory instincts flaring. "The Southern Tribes have moved?"
"No, General. It's... it's a scholar. Ten li out, near the tributary. He bypassed the patrol zones as if they were random lines. He is... he is washing himself in the river, General. In the middle of the carnage."
Yan He froze. The madness in his mind hit a sudden, absolute wall of stillness.
Ten li away.
He shouldn't have been able to feel it, but he did. A resonance, sharp and clear as a temple bell, vibrated through the marrow of his bones. It was a pull so violent it made his breath hitch. In a world of rot and corruption, something clean had just stepped onto the board.
"He is washing?" Yan He asked, his voice sounding strange and breathless.
"Yes, General. He looks... pristine. Like he fell from the heavens and was offended by the dust."
This a very strange scene. This is a warzone. Corpses, dead animals, dusts and muds, dried up bloods and rusted weapons, yet, there is someone currently washing in the river?
Yan He's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, though he knew it would accomplish nothing.
"Report... again?" he asked, his voice unnervingly calm, but the words faltered at the edges.
The soldier nodded, barely daring to breathe. "Yes, General. H-he looks... clean."
Yan He stared into the flickering firelight, feeling the pull again, sharper this time, a resonance threading through the bones of the world and brushing against the pulse of his own. The madness in his mind, the red fog that had been gnawing at him for years, paused—confused, unsure.
Yan He did not believe in miracles. A man who had spent ten years watching the earth swallow his friends and enemies alike knew that the heavens were silent, and the gods were likely dead.
"A new tactic," he muttered, the words like a low snarl. His mind, honed by a decade of survival, immediately began to dismantle the strangeness of the report. "The Eight Tribes have finally grown clever. They send a lamb to the slaughter to lure my wolves into an ambush. Or perhaps a poisoner... someone whose beauty is a veil for a dagger."
"General?" Lieutenant Han whispered, sensing the volatile shift in the air.
Yan He stood, his shadow stretching across the map of the fractured empire like a dark stain. He felt the weight of his black armor, the metal that had become a second skin, heavy with the ghosts of everyone he had slain. He was a man of blood and mud; the idea of "cleanliness" was an insult to his reality.
"If he is an assassin, I will snap his neck myself," Yan He said, his voice dropping into a register that made the soldiers' hair stand on end. "If he is a distraction, I will see through the ruse. But no man washes in a river of blood without a purpose."
He turned to the messenger, his eyes flashing with a predatory, unstable light.
"Bring the Great Shadow unit. We go to the perimeter. I want to see this celestial phantom with my own eyes before he is trampled by the Southern vanguard."
"But General, the night watch—"
"I am the night watch!" Yan He roared, the spiritual instability in his mind surging. The red fog swirled, demanding he strike out, demanding he destroy the anomaly that dared to feel pure in his presence.
He strode out of the tent, the heavy canvas flapping violently in his wake. Outside, the camp was a graveyard of the living. Fires guttered in the wind, and the sound of coughing men echoed through the rows of tattered tents.
He mounted his horse—a black stallion with scarred flanks that mirrored his own. As he spurred the beast toward the northern ridge, toward the silver thread of the river five li away, Yan He felt a cold, sharp anticipation.
He didn't know who was waiting in that water. He didn't know that a soul from another world was meticulously cleaning his sleeves just to meet him. To Yan He, this was a challenge. A final, beautiful trick from a world that had tried to break him for thirty years.
If you are the heavens' way of mocking me, Yan He thought, his grip on the reins white-knuckled, then I shall show you how a Demon greets a guest.