The Bastion trembled behind them as Rael and Yue Qingshi stepped into the chilled silence of the upper cliffs.
Night had descended like a judgment. The stars overhead flickered faintly—distant watchers over a dying empire. The wind blew from the ravine below, carrying with it the scorched scent of death Qi and bone ash.
Rael's grip tightened on the fragment of the cracked mask. Its edges were sharp, nearly drawing blood.
"Ren Yao," he muttered, staring toward the distant sect towers. "Why would someone like him fall this far?"
Yue's cloak shimmered under the moonlight. She remained quiet, watching him.
Rael turned toward her. "You said he was a future patriarch."
She nodded. "He was brilliant. Even my clan feared his talent. But his path was... too ruthless."
Rael snorted. "And the Yue Clan isn't?"
Yue's smile was brief and tired. "We flirt with ambition. He embraced it."
---
They walked along a cliffside path that overlooked the Sect's lower districts. Hundreds of tiny lights glimmered beneath them—disciples meditating, fighting, living.
Unaware of how close death had just come.
"How did he die?" Rael asked finally.
Yue was quiet for a while before replying.
"He didn't."
Rael looked at her sharply.
"They said he failed the trial of Heartfire," Yue said, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But no body was ever found. Only his ceremonial robes. Burned."
Rael stared into the dark.
Heartfire. The trial designed to strip a cultivator of everything false—exposing their raw will, soul, and desire. Only the strongest emerged whole.
"He failed on purpose," Rael said slowly. "He didn't want to ascend through the Yue Clan."
"No," Yue agreed. "He wanted to burn it from the roots."
---
Rael's room was dark when they returned.
The light talisman he'd left behind was shattered, and his window—though locked with a five-seal array—was wide open.
[System Alert: Unauthorized Entry – 00:38:12 ago]
Signs of residual Qi detected: cold-element variant, fragmented signature.
Warning: Your bed has been disturbed.
Rael blinked. "My bed?"
Yue looked around with narrowed eyes. "No killing intent. Just searching."
He bent down and lifted the edge of the blanket.
Tucked beneath the pillow was a slip of folded black paper.
Unmarked. Unsealed.
Inside, written in simple brush strokes:
"He's not the only one. Follow the starlight."
Beneath it, a glyph shaped like a crescent sun.
Rael traced it with his finger. His mind swirled with possibilities.
Someone had helped Ren Yao.
Someone still moved within the sect.
---
Three days passed.
In those days, the Bastion was quietly sealed, and the elders whispered excuses about "ritual instability" and "formation degradation."
But no disciple believed it.
The scent of war hung over the sect like rotting silk.
Rael trained in silence during the day. At night, he studied the glyph, mapping it against known faction signs and stolen forbidden archives.
It didn't belong to the Drowned Shade.
Nor the internal dark factions.
But it matched something older.
A forgotten rebel group from a thousand years ago, thought wiped out by the Eight Great Clans:
The Starlight Breakers.
And the name kept appearing again and again in one place—
The Outer Wilds.
---
It took Rael five more days to arrange a mission approval slip.
He disguised it as a "spirit beast capture expedition" for the outer sect, listing Yue Qingshi as the secondary partner.
She saw through it instantly.
"You're going rogue," she said over a steaming cup of spiritual tea.
"I'm following the starlight," Rael replied. "You coming or not?"
Yue sipped the tea, her silver eyes unreadable.
Then, she stood.
"I'm not letting you die before our second duel."
Rael smirked. "Afraid you'll lose?"
"I already know I will," Yue said, tying her hair back. "That's why I want a fair fight."
---
The road to the Outer Wilds wasn't a road at all.
It was a maze of broken valleys, spiritual fog, and shifting terrain. A borderland between the sect-controlled zones and the true wilderness—where ancient beasts hunted, forgotten ruins whispered, and reality itself thinned.
They rode spirit hawks part of the way.
Then walked for hours.
Rael didn't complain. He never did.
Instead, he spent time studying his surroundings. Counting beast droppings. Watching for spirit marks carved into old trees. Mapping sound changes.
Yue noticed.
"You've grown sharper," she said once, during a rest. "More patient."
Rael merely replied, "I had to be."
---
On the third day, they found it.
A broken watchtower buried under vines, bones, and silent mist. The stone was carved with glyphs long worn away.
Rael stepped inside.
There, etched on the inner wall in faded light essence, was the crescent sun.
And beneath it, freshly carved:
"Truth waits beneath the third flame."
Yue glanced around. "Trap?"
Rael shrugged. "Only one way to know."
He ignited a small flame from his palm, casting it against the wall.
Nothing.
He ignited a second flame, this time using spiritual Qi—darker and colder.
Still nothing.
Then the third: blood flame. The rarest.
He offered a single drop from his fingertip.
The wall shimmered—
—and vanished.
Revealing a spiral staircase descending into the black.
---
Rael looked at Yue.
"Still want that duel?"
She rolled her eyes and followed him in.
Together, they stepped into the hidden vault of the Starlight Breakers.