The first rays of the sun crawled over the jagged horizon, painting the carnage of the Hidden Dragon Faculty in a deceptive, rosy hue. The light caught the edges of shattered obsidian pillars and glinted off the drying pools of blood that stained the courtyard like spilled ink. It was a cold dawn, the kind that promised a clear day but offered no warmth to those who had survived the night.
Yin Shen sat propped against the charred trunk of the ancient pine, his breath finally stabilizing. Beside him, leaning casually against the same tree as if she were waiting for a carriage rather than guarding a broken boy, was Irithel.
The name echoed in Yin Shen's mind.
'Irithel. Irithel 'Tess' Belial.'
In the Eastern Continent, names followed a rigid, ancestral structure—monosyllabic clan names followed by given names rooted in nature, virtues, or ancient poems—Yin Shen, Yin Xue, Wu Ling. Irithel's name sounded like a foreign melody, discordant and strangely sharp. It didn't belong to the scrolls of the Seven Provinces or the lineages of the Great Families. It felt like a name plucked from a different star, or perhaps a different dimension entirely.
He put the thought aside for a moment, the throbbing pain in his shattered right arm taking priority over his linguistic curiosity. He looked up at her. Even in the harsh morning light, she looked ethereal—a porcelain-skinned predator with eyes the color of a dying nebula.
"Tess." he rasped, his voice sounding like sandpaper on stone.
The demoness tilted her head, her white hair shifting like a silken curtain. "Yes, Master? Already thinking of more things for me to kill? I must say, your enthusiasm is refreshing."
Yin Shen managed a weak, lopsided smirk. "Not yet. I was wondering... do you have any way to heal this? Or do I have to wait for the family doctors to find me and start poking me with needles for three months?"
Irithel straightened up, her violet eyes scanning his broken frame with a clinical, detached interest. A gentle, almost patronizing smile played on her dark lips. "I can mend your flesh and knit your bones, little master. It is a simple matter of restructuring the physical vessel."
She paused, her vertical pupils narrowing as she leaned closer, her face inches from his. "However, I must admit... I am curious. I can see the damage, but I cannot feel anything else from your body. Usually, beings of your standing radiate a certain... resonance. A spiritual pulse. From you? There is only silence. It is as if your inner well has been paved over with lead."
Yin Shen leaned his head back against the bark, closing his eyes. "I used a technique I wasn't supposed to. A system...No,an art...that doesn't care about my limits. It saved my life, but the price was my Dantian. It's sealed. I'm temporarily unable to use even a drop of my Qi."
At the mention of the word 'Qi,' Irithel's expression shifted. It became thoughtful, her gaze drifting toward the horizon. Her lips moved silently as she muttered something under her breath, a low vibration that Yin Shen couldn't quite catch.
"Qi... spiritual energy... fifth realm, then?" she whispered to herself.
In her world, or perhaps in the hierarchy the system had pulled her from, power was measured in tiers that didn't align with the "Core Formation" or "Nascent Soul" labels of this continent. To her, the energy of this world was a specific, localized frequency—one she was currently calibrating herself against.
"What was that?" Yin Shen asked.
"Nothing of consequence," Irithel replied, her voice returning to its smooth, teasing lilt. "A week of silence, then? Very well. I suppose I shall have to be your hands as well as your shield."
She extended her hand, her long fingers hovering over his shattered right arm. Unlike the cultivators of the Yin Family, who would have manifested a glowing aura of green or white life-Qi, Irithel did nothing that the eye could perceive.
Yin Shen braced himself for the usual warmth of healing energy, but it never came. Instead, he felt something...else. It wasn't a feeling of energy flowing into him; it was as if the space around his arm was being rewritten. He couldn't see the presence of her power, nor could his dulled senses detect its frequency. It was a cold, silent influence that bypassed his meridians entirely.
Suddenly, a sensation of intense, frantic itching erupted within his bones. He watched, wide-eyed, as the grotesque purple swelling on his forearm subsided in seconds.
The skin, previously torn and bruised, knit itself back together, leaving behind a smooth, unblemished surface that looked healthier than it had before the fight.
CRACK-POP.
His bones snapped back into their correct alignments with a series of sharp reports. Within ten seconds, his right arm was functional. Within thirty, the internal bleeding in his chest had vanished, and his fractured ribs were solid once more.
He flexed his fingers, marvelling at the efficiency. "That's... not Qi."
"Naturally," Irithel smirked. "Qi is so... combustible. I prefer a more direct approach to reality."
Before Yin Shen could ask her to elaborate on the 'Abyssal' mechanics of her healing, a sudden, violent sound erupted from the direction of the faculty's main gate.
BOOM!
The gates didn't just open; they were blasted off their hinges. A violet blur, moving with the speed of a runaway carriage, tore across the courtyard.
"SHEN-ER! SHEN-ER, IF YOU'RE DEAD I'LL KILL YOU AGAIN!"
Yin Shen barely had time to register the voice before a weight slammed into his chest with the force of a falling meteor.
"OOF!"
Yin Yue had arrived. The youngest sister, still covered in the dried blood of a hundred mercenaries but vibrating with a terrifying amount of manic energy, had launched herself into a bone-crushing hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in his tattered robes and sobbing loudly—though the sobs sounded more like angry honks.
"You idiot! You big, stupid, silver-haired trash! How dare you get ambushed! I was so busy killing people I didn't have time to come save you!"
Yin Shen's face turned a delicate shade of blue. He was physically healed, but his sister's "love" was a different kind of trauma. He looked over Yin Yue's shoulder at Irithel, his expression one of comical, wide-eyed desperation.
'Help,' his eyes pleaded. 'I'm being liquidated by a toddler.'
Irithel watched the scene with a look of pure, unadulterated amusement. She didn't move for several seconds, clearly enjoying the sight of the "Master of the Abyss" being bullied by a girl who barely reached his shoulder. Finally, she let out a short, melodic laugh and stepped forward.
"Now, now," Irithel said. "We can't have the Master's lungs collapsing after I just spent so much effort putting them back together."
With a movement that was so fast it looked like a glitch in reality, Irithel reached down. Her fingers caught the back of Yin Yue's collar. With a single, effortless tug, she separated the sister from the brother.
Yin Yue, who had been mid-rant, suddenly found her feet dangling six inches off the ground. Irithel held her out at arm's length, dangling her like a particularly grumpy, blood-stained kitten.
"Gah! Hah... hah..." Yin Shen gasped, clutching his throat as oxygen finally returned to his system. "Thank... thank you, Tess. My life... was truly in danger."
Irithel ignored him, her violet eyes fixed on the struggling girl in her grip. Yin Yue was kicking her legs, her face turning red with indignation as she tried to reach back and claw at the demoness's hand.
"And who," Irithel asked, her voice dripping with curiosity, "is this little muse? And why does she insist on crashing into people like a poorly aimed cannon?"
Yin Yue stopped kicking for a moment, her eyes going wide as she finally processed the woman holding her. She saw the white hair, the violet eyes, and the oppressive, terrifying aura that made even her 'Mother of Cosmos' form feel like a candle next to a bonfire.
"Who are you calling a muse?!" Yin Yue shrieked, her annoyance overriding her fear. "Put me down! Do you have any idea who I am? I'll turn you into stardust! Shen-er, tell this giant lady to put me down right now!"
Yin Shen sighed, rubbing his neck. "Tess, please. That's my younger sister, Yin Yue. She's... well, as you can see, she's a hyperactive child who can't stay still for a single moment. She's essentially a natural disaster in pigtails."
Yin Yue froze. She looked at Yin Shen with a look of profound, theatrical betrayal. Her eyes welled up with mock tears as she pointed a trembling finger at him.
"A child?! How dare you! After I fought through a hundred men and a traitorous Elder just to see if your head was still attached! I am a beautiful lady! A divine vessel! A... a masterpiece of the Yin Family!"
Irithel raised a silver eyebrow, her gaze traveling from Yin Yue's blood-spattered face to her messy pigtails.
"A masterpiece?" Irithel mused, her smirk widening. "She seems a little self-centered as well. Is this a common trait in your family, Master? Or is it just a byproduct of being 'small'?"
"It's a lifestyle choice for her." Yin Shen muttered.
Just as Yin Yue was about to launch into a second, more violent tirade about her "lady-like charms," a sudden drop in temperature signaled the arrival of the final sibling.
There was no sound of footsteps. Instead, a shadow fell over the courtyard.
CRASH.
But it wasn't the messy, destructive crash of Yin Yue. From the sky, a figure descended like a falling star. Yin Xue hit the ground with enough force to shatter the marble tiles in a ten-foot radius, creating a localized shockwave of frost that turned the morning dew into glittering diamonds.
Yet, as the dust and ice-mist cleared, she wasn't disheveled. She stood in the center of the crater, her white-and-gold sashes fluttering perfectly, her posture straight, and her expression one of serene, icy detachment. Her hair was perfectly in place, and she looked as if she had just stepped off a pedestal rather than out of a wasteland.
She looked at the scene: Yin Shen sitting by a tree, a mysterious, towering woman in black, and Yin Yue dangling in the air like a piece of laundry.
One of Yin Xue's elegant eyebrows rose slightly.
Yin Shen stared blankly at her. His jaw dropped slightly, his mind struggling to process the physics of what he had just witnessed.
"How..." Yin Shen whispered, his voice cracking. "How the heck did she just crash... elegantly? There was a crater! There was a shockwave! And she doesn't even have a hair out of place!"
He looked at his own blood-soaked, tattered robes, then at the graceful Ice Queen standing in the wreckage, and then at the demoness holding his screaming sister.
"I hate this family," he muttered comically. "I really, really hate our genetics."
The sun rose higher, fully illuminating the three siblings and the demon who had joined their ranks, marking the end of the night.