SEREPHINA YEVANA

The wind howled through the mist-soaked cliffs of the outer lands.

Lu Quing stepped across the threshold of the Witches' Covenant—an invisible veil of magic parting like breath on glass. His boots hit the old stone pathway, now overgrown with grass and luminous moss.

The envelope had burned away in his hand once he opened it. Inside, a single word had been written in blood:

"Return." Even with just looking at it there was sense of authority.

He walked alone in the dark.

Until the air grew colder.

Then— there was a force that changed the atmosphere.

She appeared.

Tall, cloaked in dusk-colored robes, her hair white as snow. Eyes blacker than midnight.

His mother.——

Lady Seraphina Yevana.

"You were never meant to love that girl" she said.

"I never asked your permission," Lu Quing replied.

"You've disrupted the cycle."

He stepped closer. "I'm not the first " Yevana's face changed when she heard this " "You called me back." He continued.

"I called you home," she corrected. "But not for her. For the Gate."

He stopped.

"No one speaks of it," he said coldly. "Because it was sealed. With my blood."

Her eyes gleamed. "And she is unsealing it. With hers."

LU VILLA – DAWN

Yueying packed her things quietly.

She left the pendant box open on the bed, its flame core pulsing like a heartbeat.

Gu Ni leaned against the doorframe.

"You're not coming back, are you?"

"I can't stay here," Yueying said. "Not while he walks into danger without me."

Gu Ni sighed. "You're going after him?"

"I'm going through him," Yueying said likely to correct her. "There are truths buried in that place. In the Covenant. About my mother. About the bloodline."

Gu Ni straightened. "Then I'm coming."

"No," Yueying said gently. "You have your own wounds to heal."

"I'm not leaving you alone, Yueying."

She turned and smiled. "I'm not alone anymore."

As she walked out, her mother's voice echoed faintly in her ears:

"Stay strong my child. The wish of a good parent is to to see their child better than them. Love will direct your path my dear."

THE WITCHES' COVENANT – INNER TEMPLE

Lu Quing stood within the Circle of Names—stones carved with the bloodline of every witch who had ever been there when he sealed the Gate.

A brazier burned in the center. The flame inside was purple.

His mother circled him.

"You carry my blood," she said. "You know what that makes you?"

He didn't answer.

"A key. And keys must choose which door to open: salvation… or obliteration."

He looked up. "Then let me choose."

"No," she said. "Because someone else is choosing already."

She waved a hand.

And the purple flame in the brazier shimmered— and showed Yueying, walking alone toward the mountains.

"She is coming. She will see what lies beneath the Covenant."

Lu Quings eyes narrowed.

---

Yueying saw the mesmerising Gate of Origin . Yueying stepped past the Gate of Origins( she didn't go through it), the crimson fire curling around her hands dimming as the heavy stone doors sealed behind her. The world on the other side was dense with mist and

eerily quiet . Yet, something in her bones hummed — as though this place remembered her better than she did herself.

The Witch Queen stood waiting, beautiful eyes gleaming under the shadow of her crown. Her dress flowed like smoke, stitched from secrets and sins long buried. She turned as Yueying approached.

"You opened the gate," the Queen said, voice like wind scraping over bone. "You carry the First Flame. But beware… others covet what runs in your blood." She said like she was advising a daughter.

Far beyond the mist, across a sea of shadow and sky, Li Anya writhed on the ground, choking on her own breath. Her screams echoed through the ruined temple she had claimed as sanctuary.

She had believed she could become Yueying. The blood transfusion had been forced from Yueying, and Yueying unknowingly had given consent to help a stranger, not knowing who it truly for. And she — Li Anya took it greedily. But that wasn't enough. The silver-eyed man had given her something she couldn't explain: a core, a parasite; an experimental power forged in the dark.

It had not been made for the First Flame. Nor for mortals.

It was a parasite of power — a twisted experiment meant to see if human flesh could hold divine fire.

Li Anya could not.

Her veins turned black. Her skin pulsed. Her mouth opened to scream — but worm-like parasites slithered out, slick with blood and venom. More burst through her arms, her legs, her belly. They fed on her, then burrowed back in to feed.

She had thought she would become untouchable.

Instead, she became unspeakable.

From afar, Lu Quing watched.

Yueying stepped up beside him, her face unreadable, her presence calm. But only she knew the turmoil she was facing there watching Lu Anya die.

"She's dying," Yueying said.

"She's already dead," Lu Quing replied.

"You won't stop it?"

He was silent for a moment.

"I once loved her," he said, voice low, eyes distant. "But not anymore. That ended the moment she tried to become something she was never meant to be."

Li Anya reached toward him through the haze, her fingers falling off like wet petals. She tried to call his name, but worms and blood spilled out instead.

"Lu… Q...uing…"

But he didn't move. He didn't look away.

The parasites consumed their vessel, leaving only shredded bone and a stench that clung to memory.

"She did this to herself," Yueying whispered.

"Yes and a no," Lu Quing said, eyes narrowing. "Someone did it to her. But we don't know who."

Behind them, the Gate of Origins rumbled faintly.

In the far north, the silver-eyed man watched a glowing tablet flicker with a single word:

"FAILED."

The night was unusually still.

The clouds didn't drift. The wind didn't breathe. Even the fireflies in the villa garden hovered, frozen mid-air, like the world itself was holding something in.

Yueying knelt in the garden beside an open grave. The soil was still soft, blackened with the scent of recent death. She didn't know why her hands trembled as she placed the last stone over the burial mound. The bones — Li Anya's — had been charred, twisted, brittle.

The witch had burned them herself.

Lady Yevana stood across from her in a cloak stitched with starlight, her hair cascading like white snow down her back. She had watched in silence the entire time.

Not mourning. Not rejoicing.

Just watching.

"She tried to take what was never hers," Yevana finally said. Her voice, usually regal and sharp, now carried something soft — not pity, not sorrow, but understanding. "She was not evil, just… desperate."

Yueying's lips were pale. "She was in love with him."

"No," Yevana answered simply. "She wanted him. She clung to him. That's not love."

The silence between them thickened until Yueying stood, brushing soil from her hands. "Why did you insist on buring her?"

"Because someone had to," the witch said. "Because no one else would. And because even monsters deserve graves." She said calmly.

Yueying didn't know what to say.

But before she could speak again, Lady Yevana raised a hand — not in warning, but revelation.

"You believe Lu Quing sealed the Gate alone." Her eyes glimmered with a hidden grief. "He didn't. He couldn't. Not without your mother."

Yueying froze. She wasn't expecting such truth soon.

"Han Liuhua knew what was coming just like me but she was on a higher level of understanding. She saw the cracks forming in the wall between realms. It was her idea to close the Gate — to lock away the things that crawl in the shadow."

"And Lu Quing?" Yueying whispered.

The witch turned. Her cloak stirred though the air was dead still. "He gave the sacrifices. Not blood, but power. He tore off his wings. He gave up his right to return home. All… to stay near you."

Yueying's heart soared.

She opened her mouth, but Yevana wasn't finished.

"You were just a child then. Your mother begged him to protect you — her unborn daughter. And he agreed."

Yueying stepped back as something inside her cracked.

That was why. He had said that before.

That was why the Gate closed that day — why the sky split with lightning, and ancient wind howled through the mountains. The Gate has been sealed but not only by Lu Quing. By blood, by magic, by sacrifice. Why did she come through easily?

"And now?" Yueying asked, voice low. "The Gate stays closed?"

The witch's smile faded. She glanced at the moon.

"Someone… slipped through during the sealing she said. "Before it shut. A spirit force. It isn't your mother. And it isn't dead."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know," she murmured, "but it watches you, it watches us"

Yueying's hand went to her pendant. It pulsed — not warm like fire, but cold

Later that night Night, Yueying stood alone in her room, staring out the window.

She saw nothing.

But the shadows stretched longer than they should have.

A crow sat on the gatepost, its eyes bright red.

The wind whispered a name she couldn't quite hear

Meanwhile, in a cavern far beyond the human realm, the silver-eyed man knelt beside a broken mirror. His fingers traced the cracks, and he smiled.

"She knows." He smirked.