The battlefield fell eerily quiet after the Rift Sovereign dissolved. Violet mist lingered in thin strands, curling around broken spears and cooling corpses like reluctant mourners.
The surviving conscripts stared at the spot where Lin Feng knelt—mud-streaked, breathing hard, silver motes still drifting from his open palms like dying fireflies.
No one cheered.
No one approached.
Even the wind seemed afraid to touch him.
Yue Li remained on her knees beside him, one hand pressed to the side of his face, thumb tracing the faint silver vein that had appeared under his left eye during the absorption. It pulsed once—softly—then faded.
"You're bleeding light," she whispered.
Lin Feng managed a weak, crooked smile.
"Cloudveil's parting gift."
Xiao Qing crept forward from the treeline, healer's satchel clutched tight. She dropped beside them without a word, small hands already glowing with pale green diagnostic qi. She touched his wrist first—gentle, professional—then flinched as though stung.
"Your meridians… they're singing."
Lin Feng exhaled through his nose—almost a laugh.
"They always were. I just couldn't hear it until tonight."
Xiao Qing's eyes filled again.
"Your mother's bloodline… it's beautiful. And terrifying."
Yue Li helped him stand. His legs shook, but held. The stabilizer reward had blunted the emotional overload enough that he could think past the grief, but the Spirit Song fragment refused to quiet completely. It hummed now—low, insistent—like a lullaby stuck between verses.
From the command platform, Lin Hao finally moved.
He descended slowly, blade still drawn, metal qi flickering uncertainly around him. The fear in his eyes had hardened into something uglier: calculation mixed with desperation.
"You're no longer trash," he said when he was close enough to speak without shouting. Voice low. Almost conversational. "So what are you now? A demon? A hidden immortal playing at being weak?"
Lin Feng met his gaze.
"I'm the son of the woman you helped poison. That's all you need to know."
Lin Hao's lip curled.
"Mei Lan was weak. She clung to songs and stories while the world moved on. Father was right to discard her. And you—"
The black mark on Lin Hao's cheek—the thin cut from earlier—suddenly darkened. A single silver note drifted from it, invisible to everyone but Lin Feng.
The Spirit Song had latched onto the mark without him commanding it.
Lin Hao winced, hand flying to his face.
"What the hell—"
Lin Feng stepped forward.
"Every time you speak her name with contempt," he said quietly, "the song remembers. And it will make you remember too."
Lin Hao staggered back a step.
Then he laughed—harsh, forced.
"You think parlor tricks scare me? The Council already knows what's waking in you. Elder Zhu sent word the moment your meridians flared silver. They'll come for you. They'll come for all of us."
The name hit like a thrown knife.
Elder Zhu.
The man from the memory.
The one who had whispered poison into his mother's final hours.
Lin Feng's qi surged—uncontrolled for the first time since regression. Silver notes erupted around him in a loose halo, sharp enough to draw thin lines of blood across the nearest conscripts' arms.
Yue Li grabbed his wrist.
"Lin Feng—control it."
He forced a breath.
The notes dimmed.
But the damage was done.
Lin Hao backed away, eyes wide with genuine terror now.
"You're a monster," he hissed. "Just like they said you'd become."
Then he turned and ran—armor clanking, pride shattered.
The conscripts scattered after him like frightened birds.
Only Yue Li and Xiao Qing remained.
Xiao Qing looked up at Lin Feng with something close to reverence.
"The song… it protected us tonight. Even when you were losing yourself."
Lin Feng looked down at his hands—still trembling, silver veins fading slowly.
"It protected me too," he admitted. "From becoming what Lin Hao just called me."
Yue Li squeezed his wrist once more.
"Then we protect it back. We find Cloudveil Valley. We find the Keepers. We find out why the Council fears a lullaby so much."
Lin Feng nodded slowly.
"But first… we survive the night."
He glanced toward the clan residences—lanterns flickering in the distance, silhouettes moving urgently.
"Elder Zhu knows I'm awake. He'll move fast. We need to reach the library stacks before dawn. Get Xiao Qing hidden deeper. And I need time to… listen."
Xiao Qing tilted her head.
"Listen?"
"To the song," he said softly. "It's trying to tell me something. About the gates. About the system. About why my mother died smiling."
Yue Li's expression hardened with resolve.
"Then we move. Now."
The three of them slipped into the shadows—two women flanking the man who carried an entire lost valley in his blood.
Behind them, the battlefield smoldered.
Above them, the healed gate scar in the sky pulsed once—like a heartbeat remembering pain.
And deep in Lin Feng's chest, the First Note shifted key.
Not a lullaby anymore.
A warning.
The Keepers of Cloudveil were waiting.
But so were the hunters who had silenced them once before.
And the next note would decide whether the world remembered… or forgot forever.