ELARIAN

The wind clawed through the Witches' Covenant, whistling a song that hadn't been heard in centuries.

Yueying stood at the base of the sacred steps, staring up at the temple carved into black stone. The mists behind her thickened, as though afraid to follow her in.

Each step she climbed felt like peeling back the layers of her own mind.

When she reached the doors, they opened without touch.

Inside, firelight danced in strange colors. Violets and blues flickered across ancient murals — scenes of witches in battle, creatures with skeletal wings, and a burning gate sealed with chains of gold.

The Witch Queen — Serephina Yevana waited within.

"You feel it too," she said. "The tremble beneath your skin."

Yueying nodded slowly. "Something is awake."

The Queen turned toward the Gate of Origins etched on the wall — no longer glowing, but humming faintly like it was singing a lullaby.

"He's watching us now" she said.

"Who?" Yueying asked.

"The one who slipped through during the sealing. "

A pause.

"Not your mother," the Yevana added. "And not a friend of friendliness." Her eyes were sharp.

Yueying's pendant pulsed. Cold and hollow

LU VILLA

Gu Ni paced in Yueying's room. She frowned, then picked up the letter Yueying had torn and tossed aside.

It wasn't signed.

But at the bottom was a symbol — a crescent wrapped in flame.

"I've seen this," Gu Ni whispered. "In one of Han Liuhua's old journals."

Lu Quing passed a sealed door into a room where no human had stepped for a century. Floating books still in midair, candles that burned with red flame, whispers from corners unseen.

He found what he was looking for, it was a cracked stone tablet, cold to the touch.

The inscription read

"To open the Gate is to undo the tether. When the tether breaks"

"He walks among us. Eyes like silver knives. He seeks the child from the Han bloodline."

Lu Quing traced the last word. It was not written in witch script. It was primordial.

"Elarian".

His jaw clenched.

He turned — and saw Yueying in the doorway.

Their eyes locked.

"You sealed the Gate," she said, softer. "But it wasn't just you."

He nodded.

"Your mother was the mind. I was the hand."

"And the one who slipped through?" she asked.

Lu Quing looked back at the tablet.

"If it's really him," he whispered, "we're not just fighting for a gate this time."

"We're facing a war."

MOUNTAIN EDGE – THE OUTER REALM

A lone figure stood at the edge of a cliff. Silver hair swept by the wind. Silver eyes unblinking.

The air behind him shimmered.

A second figure approached, hidden in hood and shadow.

"She remembers, Yevana" the hooded one said.

"She always would," said the silver-eyed man.

"Do we proceed?" The silver eyed man asked.

He smiled.

"Not yet."

He reached out and caught a firefly in his palm. Its light dimmed instantly.

The firefly turned black in the hooded man's palm.

Its wings crackled to dust.

"She's near the Gate," said the hooded figure.

He didn't blink. Didn't breathe. The wind moved around him like it feared his skin.

"The First Flame isn't hers," the hooded one dared to say.

He turned slowly, that silver gaze searing through the dark.

"No," he said. "It was mine. Long before she was born."

The wind stilled.

"The Gate opened once" he continued. "And my son tried to seal it."

"You mean Lu Quing."

He smiled. Cruel and familiar.

"I mean the traitor."

A long silence passed before he added, "He was forged from me. But he chose her. The woman who sealed me out — Yevana my beloved."

BACK INSIDE

Yueying touched the stone tablet again. The word Elarian burned cold beneath her fingers.

"I saw him," she whispered. "In the dream... He was behind the woman who carried the flame."

Lu Quing didn't move.

Yueying's voice trembled. "He wasn't protecting her. He was trying to use her."

Lu Quing closed his eyes. "He wanted the First Flame not to preserve it — but to feed on it. Her fire could burn through memory. Through time. That's why he wanted her bloodline."

"And you?" she asked.

He looked at her, the darkness in his pupils deeper than before.

"I was born of that hunger," he said. "But raised by Yevana's oath. My mother chose to seal the Gate — and I paid the price. Mom wasn't happy with it anymore."

"Your wings," she said. "Were torn because of her?"

"No," he said. "They were torn because I stayed on the mortal realm."

Yueying swallowed. Her voice low. "You're his son."

Lu Quing nodded once. "My full name... is Lu Elarian Quing."

The tablet behind them pulsed once — like a heartbeat waking up.

Gu Ni was at the Lu Villa at the basement sje lit another candle, staring at the journal. Han Liuhua had scrawled furiously in the margins:

"He made her love him deeply but he's just deceitful, Elarian." A long gap "The Gate only opens when both keys are aligned: Memory... desire and love."

She blinked.

Below the note was a sketch — of Yueying's pendant.

And beneath that, a second symbol. Not just a crescent of flame.

A serpent wrapped in black feathers. That was Yevana's symbol.

---

YUEYING – AT THE ARCHIVES

"I was never meant to be normal," Yueying said, stepping back from the tablet. Her pendant pulsed again — now brighter than before.

Lu Quing stepped toward her.

"No," he said. "You were meant to choose."

"Choose what?"

"The blood that birthed you... the fire that awakened you or power that destroys."

The ground beneath them shook.

Chains rattled in the walls of the ancient archive.

From somewhere beneath — far beneath — a voice whispered in a language older than bones.

"Come home."

Yueying's knees buckled.

Lu Quing caught her.

Her eyes glowed — violet fire threading through her irises.

"He's speaking through me," she said in horror. "He knows my name."

Lu Quing didn't let go.

"Then let him hear mine" he said.

He raised a hand.

The black candles extinguished, then they heard rumbles from the ground like earthquake.

And for a moment — the Devil stood frozen then smirked.