Chapter 28: Li Wan’er’s Sacrifice

The warnings had been there for weeks, etched in trembling letters from scouts and whispered in the nightmares of those attuned to the Veil's thinning threads. The gray-robed cultists were no longer scavengers—they were stormbringers. Villages along the coast vanished overnight, swallowed by fissures that pulsed with the same sickly light Lin Mo had seen in the Black Mountains. Crops withered to ash in fields. Children spoke in tongues not their own. And always, the serpent-and-gate symbol appeared, carved into stone or flesh, a harbinger of rot.

Li Wan'er stood in the Li residence's library, her fingers pressed to a map of the eastern provinces. Red ink circled the latest reports: Fengtai, Lingshan, Xinhai—all gone. The Convergence was no longer a distant threat. It was here.

"The cult isn't just destabilizing the Veil," she murmured to Zhi Kong, who sat nearby, his beads motionless in his hands. "They're puncturing it. Each attack weakens the barriers further. If they create enough ruptures…"

"The Veil will tear," the monk finished, his voice hollow. "And what lies beyond will flood this world."

She nodded, her throat tight. For months, she had scoured the archives, cross-referencing ancient prophecies with Hua Ling's alchemical formulas and Zhi Kong's spiritual calculations. The answer, when it came, was written in a margin note so faint she'd almost missed it: "To mend the Veil, a life must bridge the divide. Heartblood of the guardian, willingly given."

Heartblood. A sacrifice.

She had said nothing to Lin Mo. How could she? He already carried the weight of the world on his shoulders—every decision, every loss etched deeper into the lines of his face. But as the days darkened, the truth coiled around her like a noose.

The attack came at dusk.

Lin Mo was in the courtyard with Bai Yun, drilling recruits, when the first scream pierced the air. A guard staggered through the gates, his armor slick with black ichor. "They're here!" he gasped. "Hundreds of them—the cultists—and things—"

The sky cracked.

A jagged rift split the clouds, oozing a viscous, iridescent haze. From it poured creatures—shapeless, clawed horrors that slithered and screeched, their forms flickering like static. Behind them marched the gray-robed cultists, their chants rising in a dissonant crescendo.

"To the walls!" Lin Mo roared, his sword already in hand. "Archers! Fire at will!"

Chaos erupted. Arrows rained down, but the creatures seemed to absorb them, their bodies rippling like liquid shadow. Bai Yun's disciples met the first wave at the gates, their blades flashing, but for every monstrosity felled, two more took its place.

Li Wan'er raced to the eastern tower, her heart pounding. Zhi Kong waited there, his hands pressed to a ward stone, his chants barely audible over the din. "The rift!" he shouted. "They're using the Convergence to anchor it! If it widens—"

"The Veil will collapse," she finished. Her eyes darted to the horizon, where the rift pulsed like an infected wound. The cultists' chant swelled, their voices merging into a single, guttural command: "Open. Open. OPEN."

She knew what she had to do.

Lin Mo fought like a man possessed. His sword carved through cultists and creatures alike, but the tide seemed endless. At his side, Feng Wu and Mei Ling were faltering, their movements slowed by exhaustion and wounds.

"Fall back!" Bai Yun bellowed, his blade deflecting a clawed strike meant for Lin Mo's throat. "We can't hold the courtyard!"

"No!" Lin Mo snarled. "If they breach the inner walls—"

A deafening roar drowned his words. The rift yawned wider, and something vast began to emerge—a skeletal hand, each finger the size of a tree trunk, its surface crawling with eyes.

The guardian of the gate, Li Wan'er's notes had called it. The Devourer.

"Lin Mo!"

He turned. Li Wan'er stood atop the eastern tower, her hair whipping in the toxic wind. In her hands, she held an ancient dagger—a relic from the archives, its blade inscribed with Veil-mending runes.

"What are you doing?!" he screamed, but his voice was lost in the cacophony.

She smiled. It was a smile he knew—soft, sad, and utterly resolute. Then she plunged the dagger into her chest.

Time stopped.

A golden light erupted from her body, spiraling outward in a wave of pure, searing radiance. It tore through the rift, through the creatures, through the cultists' chants. The Devourer's hand recoiled, its eyes bursting like rotten fruit. The rift shuddered, then collapsed in on itself with a thunderclap that shook the earth.

When the light faded, Li Wan'er was gone.

The battle ended as abruptly as it began. The remaining cultists fled, their gray robes stained with the blackened ash of their masters. The creatures dissolved, leaving only a sulfurous stench.

Lin Mo found the dagger at the base of the tower, its blade clean. No blood. No body. Only a single silk ribbon, embroidered with Li family crests, fluttering in the rubble.

Zhi Kong approached, his face ashen. "She used the ritual," he said hoarsely. "The one from the scrolls. Her life force… it sealed the Veil."

"Why?" The word tore from Lin Mo's throat, raw and broken. "Why didn't she tell me?"

The monk hesitated. "Because you would have stopped her. And because the ritual required a guardian's heartblood—someone tied to the land, to its history. The Li family… they were always stewards of this realm. She was the last true heir."

Lin Mo sank to his knees, the ribbon clutched in his fist. Around him, the survivors tended to the wounded, their voices hushed and shell-shocked. Victory tasted like ash.

That night, he stood in the archives, staring at the margin note she had hidden from him. "Heartblood of the guardian, willingly given." Her handwriting filled the margins now—calculations, diagrams, a frantic roadmap to this moment. At the bottom, a single line, written in haste:

"Tell Lin Mo I'm sorry. And thank you."

He collapsed against the desk, his shoulders shaking. Outside, the first rain in months began to fall, washing the blood from the stones.

The Veil held.

But the cost—

The cost—

In the weeks that followed, the cult's remnants were hunted down. Hua Ling synthesized an antidote from the toxins Li Wan'er had secretly collected. Bai Yun rebuilt the garrison. Zhi Kong reinforced the wards.

And Lin Mo?

He walked the halls of the Li residence, now too vast, too silent. He trained. He planned. He buried himself in the work she had left behind.

But in the darkest hours, when the rain tapped against the windows, he swore he heard her voice—a whisper in the wind, a sigh in the bamboo grove.

"Protect the world," it said.

"For me."