A/N: "The red-crowned crane is a powerful symbol of longevity, immortality, and spiritual balance in East Asian culture. Its graceful presence often represents peace and transformation, bridging the mortal world and the divine."
***
Mt. Firmament was unraveling.
Neither with the fury of flame nor the brute assault of siege, but with something far more insidious—dissolution of time.
There was no rhythm left to anchor the world. No fixed axis by which to measure the hours. Time bled along the escarpments in broken spirals, slipping sideways through stone and sky like a shattered mirror spilling light.
Trees stood in unnatural stillness, their leaves caught mid-quiver. Rivers convulsed and froze mid-cascade, arrested before they ever reached the basin below—as though gravity itself had paused, straining to catch some forgotten note.
Life hung between one breath and the next—not lost, not lasting, simply… misplaced.
To step into this place was to wager one's very existence. A heartbeat might stretch into an hour. A blink might never reach completion.
Some returned with eyes unfocused, timelines tangled—out of joint with the moment they left behind. Others drifted in and out of phase, more echo than form—touched, but not broken.
This was the Collapse of Flow.
And still—temporarily—the mountain endured. Not by mercy, not by chance—but by the quiet will of the Threnodian of Impermanence.
Lian had not halted the ruin; he had muted it. Not by resistance, but by his borne authority. While time faltered, he composed silence.
Where entropy reached, he sculpted its passage. He did not deny the unraveling—he conducted it, refining its chaos until even disorder bent to rhythm, until the world mistook his calibration for calm.
And when the earth began to split, he whispered stillness into its fault lines—so deftly the fractures forgot they had ever begun.
But that was before the first seal gave way.
Now the cracks returned—not with fury, but with imbalance. A wind that failed to arrive. A clearing held forever in dusk. Echoes drifting loose, with no source to anchor them. His composition, once seamless, had begun to slip.
The seal broke—not with a roar, but quietly, just enough for the mountain to stir and the sky to flicker off-key.
***
Lian had ventured towards the Loong's Ridge, his bow firmly gripped on his left hand, eyes cloaked in the distant horizon. From a distance, he might have passed for just another solitary sellsword watching the horizon.
But the mountain knew better. He was the one who had unleashed this ruin—after holding it back for so long, until the first seal finally broke, yielding to his will.
'With Hanya gone, my task has gotten a bit simpler,' Lian thought, stretching as a quiet tension unspooled from his limbs.
"Kugh—!!?" He recoiled, a hand rising instinctively to pinch the bridge of his nose. 'What in the world is that stench?'
'Wait, can it be?' Unpinching his nose, he sniffed his armpits and grimaced. 'Oh. It's me.'
The air had soured—stale, muted, like water left to rot in a forgotten puddle. 'Perhaps it's time to bathe.'
His usual scent—the clean trace of petrichor, the promise of rain meeting earth—was gone. No freshness, no storm-washed clarity. Only the dull smell of stagnant water.
'Could this be the effect of the Temporal Collapse?' he wondered, the possibility was high as earlier, the air hadn't smelled so foul.
'Anyways, I'll find a place to wash,' he decided, recalling mention of an abandoned hot spring nearby.
As he ventured around, he soon came upon a still pool, choked with neglect. Around it lay the broken remnants of a settlement—faint traces that life had once stirred here.
Then, something caught his eye: a shattered slab resting between two stone stools. Despite the slab's cracked and destroyed condition, its shape was familiar.
"Weiqi?" he murmured, kneeling to examine the fragments.
He reached out, attempting Fractal Recursion—but interference blocked him. Raising his gaze, he spotted a device nearby.
"A Chronosorter," he whispered, the name stirring old knowledge.
The Chronosorter—an artificial Resonance Object devised by the Court of Savantae to mimic the Sentinel Jué's waning time-control.
It could rewind time in small pockets, restoring objects to earlier states—though only within Jué's fading range or Mt. Firmament's warped field.
Despite tireless effort, the device never matched the Sentinel's vast power. Overuse fractured it quickly.
Researchers dreamed of amplifying it through the Second Resonance Awakening—a collision of frequencies whispered in prophecy—but their attempts ended mostly in ruin.
Only once did a strange visitor command the Sentinel to pour energy into a Chronosorter. Time briefly straightened before the device broke anew—proof that only Jué's presence could truly hold time in place.
Lian approached the Chronosorter, but after a careful inspection, he determined it held enough energy for only a single use.
Though he could have simply walked away, the Weiqi board pulled at him for reasons he didn't fully understand. Perhaps he remembered the game he had once played with Changli—or maybe he just wanted to see how it was played.
Once more, he evoked Fractal Recursion, pouring more energy than before. For a fleeting moment, past, present, and future blurred, severing their bounds.
He found himself just before the Court of Savantae had set the Chronosorter. Stepping back, he began to reconstruct the shattered Weiqi board, piece by piece.
"This is..." Lian's eyes narrowed. To the untrained, Weiqi was a mere game. But beneath its surface, a profound, unfinished symbolism whispered—speaking of something far deeper.
"Xian—Immortality (僊)." The word slipped from Lian's lips like a flowing river. He blinked, caught off guard. 'What did I just…'
His gaze was drawn back to the board once more. He noticed there were forty-five white pieces and forty-four black ones—an imbalance.
And though Lian could have simply placed one more stone, he muttered softly, 'Why try so hard?'
The Weiqi board felt like the work of a true master, a carefully crafted symphony of moves and meaning.
Yet, despite the deep symbolism woven into its design, the game itself seemed to strain too much to express that symbolism—and in doing so, it fell short of achieving it.
Without thinking, Lian's hands moved. The beads scattered softly beneath his fingers, swept aside in a motion as fluid and quiet as wind over still water. The board was cleared—not with haste, but with a kind of reverence.
Then, with calm precision, he began again.
One bead—white—was placed near the top, symbolizing a crown.
***
Back in Hongzhen, a pall hung over the town like a mist that refused to lift—neither weather nor shadow, but a hush that clung to the edges of breath.
Resonators and citizens moved through their routines—trading goods, mending stone paths, patrolling the crumbling outskirts—but their steps had slowed. The air felt thick, as if holding its breath. Something unspoken pressed down on them all.
At the weatherworn arch that crowned the city gates, a young guard squinted toward the approaching figures. For a heartbeat, he hesitated—then recognition struck.
"The Magistrate and Counsellor have arrived!"
The call broke the hush like a pebble into still water. Conversations trailed off. Tools were lowered. One by one, people gathered—not in alarm, but in the quiet gravity of things beginning to shift.
From among them stepped a woman of calm bearing and upright posture, wrapped in the long olive sash of office. The cloth hung straight, untouched by wind, as if it too awaited something.
"Mayor XinYi," said Jinhsi and Changli in unison, palms to fists in the formal Huanglong salute.
XinYi returned it, her bow graceful, practiced. "Greetings, Madame Magistrate. Madame Counsellor."
Once a prominent figure in Jinzhou's bustling civic court, XinYi had withdrawn from public life with little ceremony, retreating to the quiet fringes of Mt. Firmament to tend to an illness time could neither cure nor name.
"Well, if it isn't little Changli," came a voice roughened by years, colored by half-suppressed fondness.
Changli turned. Her expression shifted—not quite a smile, but something close. "Uncle Fu."
The old patrolman stepped forward, his cloak frayed, the insignia nearly worn through. He chuckled, but his mirth stopped short of his eyes. "So the girl does remember this old fogey."
Then, more solemnly, his gaze flicked toward XinYi. The lines on his face deepened. "We should speak… in private."
XinYi gave a terse nod. Her brow had tightened, just slightly. "First—do we have all explorers accounted for?"
The guard beside her fumbled into his pouch, producing a list creased and slightly damp. He scanned it, lips moving silently, then looked up. "One's missing."
"Who?" XinYi asked, eyes narrowing.
The guard cleared his throat. "The mercenary. Lain."
Immediately, Changli stepped forward. "Where is she?"
A silence fell.
Fu's brows rose, and he turned toward her, puzzled. "She?"
Changli gave a slight, confused nod. "Yes. Where is she?"
Fu's gaze sharpened, flicking toward the list again as if hoping to find clarity in ink. "Isn't Lain a man?"
Another silence descended—brief as a held breath.
Changli's lips parted slightly, the beginning of a question caught on the edge of sound—but the sky shattered before she could speak.
Lightning split the heavens in a violent, twisting arc. It came without warning, without rumble or omen. The white snake slithered, sudden and divine, a jagged spear hurled from the unseen.
A beat later, thunder followed—no mere sound, but a breaking. A howl of stone splitting from stone, as though some buried titan had stirred in its sleep.
The impact hit bodily—people staggered and flinched, some cried out, TD shrunk into shelters, children clung to parents, and yaks bolted, dragging carts in a chaotic tumble of overturned wheels.
"Is the sky falling?!" someone screamed, their voice ragged and thin against the noise.
The ground had not cracked—but it felt as if it ought to have. The air was sharp with the copper tang of static, a sting that pressed against skin and breath alike.
Overhead, the clouds twisted, coiling inward toward Mt. Firmament—drawn not by weather, but by will. Something vast and veiled was pulling the sky into itself.
And then, far too close, the mountain groaned. A deep, tectonic sigh—like an ancient heart remembering how to beat.
Yet, unbeknownst to all, this phenomenon was no accident—it had been carried out. And at the heart of it all... was Lian.
Once the crown was placed, his hands moved downward, anchoring a slender line: black and white, black and white, deliberate, balanced, as if revealing a shape hidden in stillness.
Thirteen white and thirteen black, a descent in perfect balance. His fingers moved with the grace of inevitability—as if trying to express something. At the base, the arcs unfurled in mirrored symmetry, like wings poised to open.
When the final bead clicked into place, a hush passed over the moment, delicate as silk falling. And then the crown bead—quietly seated at the start—began to glow.
Faint, at first. Then steadier, pulsing with a soft red light, as though stirred by the form it now completed.
The image was not exact. But the essence was unmistakable: a red-crowned crane, conjured not through mimicry, but through contrast, balance, and an unspoken will. And this—
This was the trigger Lian had pulled, prompting the sky ruptured. And it wasn't just over Hongzhen; across the breadth of Solaris III, the heavens convulsed.
Lightning snarled downward in lattices of blood-white arcs, raw power cascading in waves across mountains, forests, and oceans. The storm didn't strike—it screamed.
The world didn't merely hear it—it felt it. The clouds howled, the air broke. And at the center of that unraveling, in a half-sunken basin shrouded in mineral steam, something began to take shape.
A red-crowned crane.
Silent, its half-folded wings hung in a breath between arrival and departure—not flying, not landing, only present, like a myth summoned a moment too early… or too late. It hovered before Lian, weightless, solemn—and without a ripple, dissolved into him.
His eyes widened. But before understanding could form, a sharp sting bloomed beneath his feet.
With a startled gasp, Lian dropped his bow, kicked off his shoes, and plunged his bare feet into the seething pool. The mineral-rich water bit at his skin like living flame—but he didn't pull away.
Something was rising. A stem, thin as a breath, coiling up from beneath the murk—like a question the earth had long been waiting to ask.
Lightning cracked again—closer now, threading through the mist above like veins laced through a god's staring eye.
And then, just as suddenly, it was gone—the pain, the tremor. The sky hushed. Silence returned, brittle and thin, as if one breath could break it.
Then came a voice from behind him: "I awaited your arrival, my second disciple."
Lian turned.
An old man stood there—robes damp with mist, presence frayed by time. He was neither here nor fully elsewhere, his figure blurred at the edges like a half-remembered dream. His voice reached Lian not through air, but memory.
"I wanted to see you again… Oh, son of Xia," he said. "Kyorin."
Lian blinked. "Wait—who are you?"
But the man was already unraveling, dissipating like steam into air—an Echo, gone before the name could anchor itself.
Frantic, Lian evoked Fractal Recursion. But his harmonics met only static—like a melody whose notes had never been written.
He exhaled, slow and sharp. "What the hell was that?"
Then, softer, almost an afterthought: "Who is Xia?"
His attention shifted downward, to the sole of his left foot. There, a symbol pulsed briefly before dissolving back into skin: 僊 — transcendent being.
Lian blinked, but the meaning fled before he could hold it—forgotten, erased.
"Well," he muttered with a crooked laugh, rubbing his temples, "guess I should head back and report." Then he thought, 'Maybe I should keep quiet about this incident... for now.'
He plunged briefly into the spring's colder side, letting the shock jolt him back into the present. The vision was gone. The board beside him had returned to its broken, moss-covered state—silent, as though nothing had happened.
He dressed in silence, shook the water from his sleeves, and began the descent down the mountain path.
Just as the outer gates of Hongzhen came into view—"Stop!"
A dozen guards surged forward, weapons bared, closing the road.
Lian blinked, brow rising. "Is something wrong?"
Suddenly, a voice rang out, a familiar one. "Da Lian? Is that really you?"
His eyes snapped to the speaker—Changli. Her fiery yellow gaze met his, and the faint glow of feather-like burns traced her left arm. The elaborate white and black gown with its flame motifs caught the light as she stepped forward.
Internally, he screamed, sweat prickling at his brow, 'Cha-Changli?!'
'Why is she here?' His mind spun, and form his memories Jué's words resurfaced, echoing like a long-forgotten chord: "Only the heroes shall be our salvation."
"Tch." He clicked his tongue. He hadn't expected Changli to be one of them.
And yet here she stood—fire in her eyes, the weight of fate gathering behind her like wings yet to burn.
Lian let out a long breath. 'This is going to be a headache.'
To be continued...
***
A/N: Okay, so it's a harem of two—Rover and Changli—or just a harem of one—Rover? I think the next chapter will decide everything, but unfortunately, I don't think I can add more to the harem afterward. So readers, decide this now.
Also, that Weiqi board is from Changli's companion quest.