Volume Two: The Mortal Realm Chapter Sixty-Nine: Echoes

The night was shrouded in darkness.

The same pitch-black, icy rain fell over everything.

A figure woven from lightning sat sideways beside Li Guifan, who lay sprawled in the mud. A slender hand traced Li Guifan’s mature, unremarkable face inch by inch, the movement gentle, as if the most devoted wife in the world were sketching her sleeping husband’s features.

Yet, the slender hand still flickered with ghostly blue lightning, spreading along the dense lines of the downpour like the strands of a spider’s web. Wisps of eerie lightning drifted and curled through the rain, sinister and terrifying.

The lightning figure opened its mouth as if to speak, but a chilling, twisted laughter suddenly escaped its lips. It seemed startled by its own laughter, hastily raising a hand to stifle the sound.

“How annoying.”

A soft, lingering chuckle echoed through the air, like a stone cast into the depths of a tranquil lake, the rippling resonance clear and sharp.

Covering its mouth, the figure tilted its head shyly, like a bashful merchant’s daughter, inching closer to Li Guifan’s face, studying him intently before speaking, haltingly and with some awkwardness.

“Li. Gui. Fan.”

Thunder crashed overhead. For a fleeting instant, the flash of lightning swallowed the figure entirely. But only for a moment—when the light faded, the figure, wreathed in ghostly lightning, remained beside Li Guifan, its indistinct features fixed on him.

“Not completely dead, and already such powerful resentment. How pitiful.”

The whisper drifted through the rain-soaked darkness.

“You and I—aren’t we the most wretched souls in this world?”

The spectral figure tilted its head back, sighing softly, its hollow eyes gazing at a sky filled only with drifting mist and cold, silver rain. Yet, as the sigh faded, it bowed its head, and a strange, involuntary laughter slipped from its lips once again.

Once more, it gently covered its mouth. Around them, the lightning threaded through the rain exploded in a blinding flare, for a moment halting the torrent from the heavens.

“I said, how truly annoying.”

Lifting its head, the figure’s hollow eyes stared up at the sky, as if addressing some unseen presence. The feigned gentleness vanished from its voice, replaced by a searing bitterness and malice.

No longer seated by Li Guifan’s side, it stood, drifting forward into the wall of mist. Behind it, Li Guifan, lightning winding around him, suddenly stood up ramrod-straight. His once tightly shut eyes snapped open, glowing with the same ghostly blue sparks.

The specter led Li Guifan, drawing him ever deeper into the fog, drifting further and further.

As they pressed onward, the mist thickened, until it seemed that sea and sky alike were lost to a boundless, impenetrable haze.

Yet the ghost appeared wholly unaffected. What could have blinded any living soul was to it as clear as air. It hummed a wordless tune, gliding resolutely forward.

The mist between sea and sky was restless. Though there was no wind, it heaved and trembled, as if some immense beast moved within.

They did, in fact, encounter such colossal things. The first time the ghost halted was when a rotting, monstrous claw suddenly emerged from the fog ahead. Vast beyond imagining, its decaying flesh bristled with coarse hair like miniature forests, all wreathed in pitch-black flame.

The ghost led Li Guifan in a wide arc to avoid the terrifying claw, drifting on. But not long after, it stopped again and changed direction. From ahead came footsteps that shook the heavens—a procession of one-eyed giants, clad in black, each bearing a coffin as heavy as a mountain upon their backs.

Weaving left and right through the dense mists, the ghost avoided one horror after another. Who could say how much time passed before the fog before them finally thinned, and they found themselves surrounded by countless lightning-wreathed humanoid specters.

Most of these were much like the fiend Li Guifan’s companions had first encountered: muddled, mindless, driven only by instinct to attack the living. But here, no living thing remained, so they drifted aimlessly.

The specter guiding Li Guifan was different—she brushed aside the other fiends with a wave of her hand, as if disgusted by her own kind, and pressed straight ahead.

They traveled on for what felt like ages before their path cleared. No fiends remained—just a massive nest, woven from golden and violet lightning, vast as a phoenix’s roost.

Atop the nest sat a majestic temple, filled with a fearsome, awe-inspiring power.

The mindless fiends drifted in the area but none dared approach the temple.

The ghost leading Li Guifan seemed tense as they neared the temple, her lightning-formed hand clenched tightly. Yet she drifted forward, without hesitation or pause, radiating determination.

Li Guifan followed in her wake, step by step, toward the majestic hall.

Only upon approaching did they realize the scale and grandeur of the lightning nest temple—and only then did they see how ruined and decayed it had become.

Most of the structure had collapsed, the remaining pillars barely holding the shape together. The two colossal doors at the entrance, each a hundred yards tall, looked battered and twisted, as if some unspeakable force had battered them, leaving them warped and unable to close.

The ghost and Li Guifan passed directly through the gap, both with heads bowed.

“Who are you? If you are not a Guardian of the clan, then you must have awakened your spirit—and trespassing in the Sacred Hall is a grave crime among our kind!”

Many enormous, ghostly blue figures towered within the temple, their voices booming like thunder, reverberating through the empty hall.

“Sacred Hall? Guardian?”

A clear, silvery laugh—like a girl’s—rang out, incongruously bright in the ominous grandeur.

The ghost leading Li Guifan advanced step by step toward the looming figures atop the temple. Her form, at first only a vague distortion in the lightning, grew clearer with each flash—a slender, graceful silhouette wrapped in resplendent robes, intricate patterns woven by lightning itself.

A mane of ghostly blue hair, burning with silent lightning, cascaded from her neck to the ground, lengthening with every stride. Her body became ever more delicate and beautiful, the lightning coalescing into regal garments and ornate boots.

At last, she raised her face. In that instant, a beauty beyond mortal imagining blossomed in the temple—a visage fit for a goddess of legend. Though shrouded in lightning and blue fire, none could deny the loveliness of that face.

“Sacred Hall? What meaning has guarding a hall that is now but a ruin?”

Her face lifted toward the twelve towering specters, her voice ringing clear and imperious through the sacred hall.

“Guardians? Our whole clan has been condemned to drift as mindless fiends, cursed for millennia without release, while you so-called Guardians sit enthroned above us. What is it you guard?”

She—no, she was unmistakably a woman now—lifted her flawless face, her expression cold as frost, and challenged them.

Step by step, she drew ever nearer to the heart of the temple, to those immense, terrifying shadows, never faltering.

After her questioning cry, only echoes and silence remained within the hall.

After a long pause, one of the giant shadows, trembling with fear and uncertainty, finally spoke.

“You… you have returned.”

“Yes. I have returned. I shall lead our kin, break free of a million years of curse, escape this damned ocean, and return to our homeland.”

Her slight yet regal figure advanced against the blaze of lightning behind the specters. The towering shadows parted before her, yielding the path to the great throne—formed by a chain of violet dragon-shaped lightning, each one biting the next’s tail.

She ascended the throne step by step, turned naturally, and sat down, looking down from her seat of power at the twelve immense ghosts now prostrate at her feet.

She spoke, her voice soft but carrying clearly to every specter in the hall and even to the fiends drifting outside.

“We were once gods reigning over the highest heavens of thunder. How can we remain as mere mindless wraiths? The high heavens have fallen, the celestial order is dead—henceforth, we fight only for ourselves!”

“Hail the return of the Holy Maiden! We are powerless, but gladly serve you!”

The first great specter knelt before her, and one after another, the others followed, all hailing her name.

In that moment, only the Holy Maiden remained seated on the throne, while Li Guifan, wreathed in lightning, stood dazed and motionless, several specters now casting curious, puzzled looks in his direction.

“Holy Maiden, is he a cultivator?” one specter could not help but ask.

“No. The moment he came into contact with that… he became a thread of fate.”

The Holy Maiden’s stately posture did not last long. She stretched languidly, resting her exquisite face on her hand, gazing at Li Guifan’s blank expression. Suddenly, she laughed, her voice echoing through the grand hall.

“Of course, he is also my most beloved plaything. You must protect him well. Perhaps, one day, he will become a key sacrifice for our clan to break the curse.”

“Yes, we obey your command, Holy Maiden,” the twelve lightning-wreathed specters replied in unison.

Li Guifan, meanwhile, remained rigid, staring into the unknowable distance.